Memory

Question 1

Research on coding

Answer 1

-Information stored in memory in different forms depending on memory store
-Process of converting information between different codes is Coding
-Baddleey have different lists of words to four groups of participants to remember
-Group 1; Acoustically similar
Group 2; Acoustically dissimilar
Group 3 ; Semantically similar
Group 4; Semantically dissimilar
-Participants were shown the original words and asked to recall them in the correct order
-When they did this task immediately, recalling from STM, they did words with acoustically similar words
-When they recalled the word list after a time interval of 20 minutes , LTM, they did worse with the semantically similar words
-Suggests that information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically LTM because of confusion

Question 2

Research on capacity first

Answer 2

-Jacobs found out the capacity of STM by measuring Digit span
-e.g researched reads out 4 digits and the participant recalls out loud in the correct order
-If this is correct the researcher adds more digits until the participant cannot recall order correctly
-This indicates the individuals digit span
-Jacobs found the mean spam for digits was 9.3 items
-Mean spam for letter was 7.3

Question 3

Research on capacity : second

Answer 3

-Miller made observations of everyday practice
-Things often come in 7s : eg Notes on musical scale, days if the weak , 7 deadly sins
-Miller thought that the span (I.e capacity ) is 7 plus or minus 2
-Miller also noted that people can recall five words as easily as 5 letters
-We do this by chunking - grouping sets of digits or letters into chunks

Question 4

Research of duration of STM

Answer 4

-Peterson and Peterson tested 24 students in eight trials each
-Per trial student was given a consonant syllable (e.g YCG) to remember
-Then given a 3 digit number to four backwards until told to stop to prevent mental rehearsal of the consonant syllable which would increase the duration of STM memory for syllable
-On each trial they were told to stop after : 3.6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds
-After 3 seconds, recall was about 80%
- After 18 seconds , was 3%
Peterson and and Peterson suggested that STM duration is about 18 seconds unless we do verbal rehearsal

Question 5

Research of duration of LTM

Answer 5

-Bahrick studied 392 American participants aged 17-74
-High school year groups obtained from participants or schools
-Recall tested in various ways including: 1) Photo recognition tests consisting of 50 photos , some from the participants high school year books
2) Free recall test where participants recalled the names of their graduating class
-Participants tested within 15 years of graduation were about 90% accurate in photo recognition
-After 48 years, recall declined to about 70% for photo recognition
-Free recall was less accurate than recognition: 60% after 15 years and 30% after 48 years
-Shows LTM May last up to a lifetime for material

Question 6

The multi store model diagram

Answer 6

Question 7

Sensory register in MSM

Answer 7

-All stimuli from environment passes into sensory register
-SR compromises several registers, one for each of our 5 senses
-Coding in each store is modality specific (depends on sense) e.g store coding for visual information is Iconic memory and store coding for sound is Echoic memory
-Duration in SR is less than half a second
-High capacity in SR e.g over one hundred million cells in one eye
-If there is attention , information passes into the memory system (stm)

Question 8

STM in MSM

Answer 8

-Information here is mainly coded acoustically and lasts about 18 seconds unless it is rehearsed
-Temporary store
-Stm is limited capacity store due to only being able a certain number of things before forgetting
-Capacity is 5-9 items (7+-2) , though Cowan suggests it is more five than nine
-Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat material to ourselves
-Can retain information into STM as long as there is rehearsal
-If rehearsed long enough it goes into LTM

Question 9

LTM In MSM

Answer 9

-Permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for prolonged times
-Coded mostly semantically
-When we want to recall information from LTM it has to be transferred back into STM by retrieval

Question 10

The case of HM (msm)

Answer 10

-Henry Molaison underwent brain surgery to relieve epilepsy
-Procedure used in its infancy and not fully understood
-Both sides of his hippocampus was removed , known to be central to memory function
-When his memory was assessed in 1955 he thought it to be 1953 and that he was 27 (he was 31)
-Could not form new long term memories
-Would reread the same magazine without remembering it or couldn’t recall what he had eaten earlier
-However he performed well on tests of immediate memory span (Stm)

Question 11

Duration of the sensory register evidence

Answer 11

-Sperling tested the iconic sensory register
-Participants saw a grid of digits and letters for 50 milliseconds
-Told either to write down all 12 items or told they would hear a tone after exposure and should write down the row indicated
-When asked to report everything the recall was poorer: 5 items recalled, about 42%
-When asked to give one row only, 3 items recalled,75%

Question 12

Types of long term memory

Answer 12

Episodic, semantic and procedural

Question 13

Episodic memory

Answer 13

-Time stamped events
-When and what happened
-Store information about how events relate to each other in time
-A single episode will include elements such as people,places, objects and behaviours
-Conscious effort to recall episodic memories

Question 14

Semantic memory

Answer 14

-Knowledge of the world
-How to do things and what words mean
-Not time stamped
-Tulvong says it’s less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic memory

Question 15

Procedural memory

Answer 15

-Memory if actions or skills
-Recalled without conscious awareness or effort eventually
-e.g driving
-Task may be more difficult if you try to explain it verbally

Question 16

Clive Wearing

Answer 16

-Amensia from viral infection that damaged his hippocampus and associated areas
-Before he was a musician and he can still play the piano and conduct a Choir but without memory of his music education
-He can remember some aspects of his life before the infection but not others
-e.g knows he has children but cannot remember their names and recognises his wife Deborah but believes he has not seen her in years after she leaves the room

Question 17

The Working memory model

Answer 17

-By Baddeley and Hitch to explain how STM is organised and how it functions
-It is concerned with the mental space that is active when were temporarily storing and manipulation information e.g playing chess or comprehending language
-Model consists of 4 main components which are different especially in terms of coding and capacity

Question 18

Draw the working memory model

Answer 18

Google it

Question 19

Central executive in WMM

Answer 19

-Supervisory Role
-Monitors incoming data
-Focuses and divides our limited attention
-Allocates subsystems to tasks
-Has a very limited processing capacity and does not store information
-Coordinates activities of the 3 subsystems in memory
-Allocates processing resources to those actives

Question 20

Phonological loop in WMM

Answer 20

-One if the subsystems
-Deals with auditory information so coding is acoustic
-Preserves the order in which the information arrives
-PL divided into the :
-Phonological store : Words we hear
-The articulatory process : Allows Maintenance rehearsal . Capacity of this loop is believed to be two seconds worth of what you can say
-Contributes to learning of sounds of language
-Can access LTM to store and retrieve information about language sounds
-Allows us to develop our vocabulary as children’s and, in a foreign language as adults

Question 21

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 21

-Second subsystem
-Stores visual and or spatial information when required
-e.g when asked to work out how many windows in a house when visualised
-Baddeley said it has limited capacity of about 3-4 objects
-Logie divided the VSS into:
-Visual cache : visual data
-Inner scribe : Records the arrangement of objects in the visual field
-Contributes to understanding of ‘visual semantics’: the meanings of objects in our visual environment
-It can access LTM to store and retrieve visuo spatial information

Question 22

Episodic buffer in WMM

Answer 22

-Added to the model by Baddeley in 2000
-Temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing
-Recording episodes that are happening
-Can be seen as the storage component of the Central executive and has a limited capacity of about 4 chunks (Baddeley )
-Episodic buffed links working memory to long term memory and wider cognitive processes such as perception
-Provides a bridge between working memory and long term memory

Question 23

Explanations for forgetting

Answer 23

Interference & retrieval failure

Question 24

Interference

Answer 24

2 or more pieces of information that disrupt eachother resulting in forgetting both ,or distortion
-Mainly an explanation for LTM
LTM mainly permanent, so forgetting is most likely beause we cant get access to them even though they are available
-Similarity in memory makes it worse

Question 25

Types of interference

Answer 25

-Proactive interference
-Retroactive interference

Question 26

Proactive interferance

Answer 26

Older memory interfering with new memory

Question 27

Retroactive interference

Answer 27

Newer memory interfering with older memory

Question 28

Research on effects of similarity for interference

Answer 28

-McGeouh and Mcdonald found that interference is worse when memories or learning are similar
-They studied by changing similarity between 2 sets of material
-Participants a list of 10 words to remember with 100% accuracy
-They then learned a new list
-Group1: Synonyms
Group 2:Antonyms
Group 3: Unrelated words
Group 4: Consonant sylables
Group 5: 3 digit numbers
Group 6: No new list Control condition
Findings: When participants asked to recall synonyms, produced the worst recall
-Shows interference is strongest when memories are similar
-Results are in order from least to most

Question 29

Retrieval failure

Answer 29

-Forgetting due to lack of cues
-Memories are associated with cues
-Causes retrieval failure, not being able to access memories that are available
-Tulving discovered the Encoding Specifity Principle
-That a cue has to be: Present at encoding (when we learn the material) and Present at retrieval (when we are recalling it)
-If cues available at encoding and retrieval are different (or entirely absent at retrieval there will be some forgetting
-Cues are used in many mnemonic techniques

Question 30

2 types of non meaningful cues for forgetting

Answer 30

-Context dependent forgetting (external, e.g weather or place)
-State dependent forgetting (internal e.g feeling upset or drunk)

Question 31

Research on context dependent forgetting

Answer 31

-Godden and Baddeley studied sea divers who worked underwater to see if training on land helped or hindered their work water
-Divers learned a list of words either under water or on land and then asked to recall words under water or land
4 conditions:
-Learn on land - recall on land
-Learn on land -recall underwater
-Learn underwater -recall on land
-Learn underwater - recall underwater
-Findings and conclusions :
-2 of these conditions meant the environmental context and recall matched , but other two did not
-Accurate recall was 40% lower than in non matching conditions
-Concluded retrieval failure was due to the external cues available at learning were different to retrieval

Question 32

Research on state dependent forgetting

Answer 32

-Carter and Cassaday have antihistamine drugs for their participants
-Antihistamines had a mild sedative effect making participants slightly drowsy
-Creates an internal physiological state different from the “normal” state of being awake and alert
-Had to learn different lists of words and passages of prose and recall the information creating four conditions:
-Learn on drug , recall on drug
-Learn on drug , recall not on drug
-Learn not in drug, recall not on drug
-Findings : When conditions were mismatched between internal state at learning and recall , performance in memory test was significant worse
-So when cues are absent, there is more forgetting (e.g when you are drowsy when recalling information then alert when learning it )

Question 33

Misleading information : Reseach on leading questions

Answer 33

-Wording of the question may lead or mislead to give a certain answer
-Problem for Eyewitness Testimony because police questions may direct a witness to give a particular answer
-Loftus and Palmer arranged 45 stuent participants to watch film lips of car accidents then asked a critical question (a leading or miseading information), partiicpants were asked ‘About how fast were the cars going when they ‘Hit’ eachother’
-Each of the 5 groups either had: ‘Hit’, ‘Contacted’, ‘bumped’ , ‘collided’ and ‘smashed’
-Findings: The mean estimated was calculated for each group
-‘Contacted : 31.8mph
‘Hit: 34mph
‘Bumped’ 38.1 mph
‘Collided: 39.3 mph
Smashed : 40.5mph
-Leading questions biased the eyewithness’ recll of an event

Question 34

Leading questions effect of EWT explanations

Answer 34

-RESPONSE BIAS EXPLANATION: suggets the question has no real effect on their memory just influences how they decide to answer
-When they got smashed it encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate
-Loftus and Palmer conudcted a second experiment that supported the SUBSTITUTION EXPLANATION which propses the wording of a question changes the participants memory of the film clip
-This was shows because participants who originally heard smashd were later more likely to report seeing broken glass (there ws none ) , than those who heard hit. The critical verb altered their memory of the incident

Question 35

Research on post event discussion

Answer 35

-Eyewitneses to a crime may dicuss their experiences and memories with eachother.
-Gabbert studied participants in pairs
-Each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points of view
-This meant that each participant could see elements in the event that the other could not
-eg Only one participant could see the name of a book carried by a woman
-Both participants dicussed what they had seen before individualy completing a test of recall
-Found that 71% mistakenly recalled aspect of the event that they did not see but picked up in the dicussion
-A control group which had no dicussion had 0% of memory conformity

Question 36

Post event dicussion affecting EWT explanation

Answer 36

MEMORY CONTAMINATION
-When cowitnesses to a crime discuss it with eachother, their eyewitnesss testimonies become altered or distorted
-This is because they combine (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memories
-Or MEMORY CONFORMITY
-Gabbert condluded that witnesses often go along with eachother either to win social approval or because they belive that other witnesses are right and they are wrong
-Unlike memory contamination, the actual memory is unchanged

Question 37

Reducing effects of post event discussion research

Answer 37

-Bodner found that the effects of post event discussion can be reduced if participants a re warned of their imact
-Recall was more accurate for those participants were warned that anything they hear from a cowitness is second hand information and they should forget it and recall only their own memory of the event

Question 38

Anxiety’s negative effects on recall

Answer 38

-Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse
-One approach to study anxiet and EWT is to look at the effect of the precense of a weapon which creates anxiety
-This leads to focus on a weaon, reducing a witness’ recall for other details of thevent
-Johnson and Scott had participants believe they were taking part in a lab study
-While seated in the waiting room, they heard a casual conversation in the other room and they saw a man carrying pen with grease on his hands
-Other participants overheard a heated argument and breaking glass. Then saw a man walk out the room holding a knfe covered in blood. This was the high anxiety condition
-Participants later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos. 49% who saw man with pen could identify him
-The corresponding figure for bllod and knife man was 33%
-Tunnel theory suggests people have enhanced memory for central events
-Weapon focus as a result of anxiety can have this effect

Question 39

Anxiety’s postitive effects of recall

Answer 39

-When a stressful event creates anxiety, flight or fight response is riggered, increasing alertnss
-This may imrove memory for the event as we become more aware of cues in the situation
-Yuille and Cutshall conducted a study of an actual shooting in a gunshop
-Shop pwoner shot thief dead
-21 witnesses and 13 took part in the study
-They were interviewd 4-5 months after and these interviews were compared to the original police interviews at the time of shppting
-Accuracy was determined by amount of details reported
-Witnesses also asked how stressed they felt at time of the incident with a 7 point scale and whether they had any emotional problems since the event e.g sleeplessness
-Witnesses were very accurate and was little change in amount of accuracy, though some details were less accurate e.g color of items, age,height,weight estimates
-Those who were more stress were more acurate : 88%
-Less stressed : 75%
-Suggets anxiety may not have a ngeative effect on Eyewitness memory and may even enhance it

Question 40

Explaining contradictoy findings of anxiety’s effect on EWT

Answer 40

-Yerkes and Dodson said the relationship between emotional arousal and perfromance looks like an ‘inverted U’
-Deffenvacher interviewed 21 studies of EWT and noted contradicted findings on the effects on anxiety
-He used the Yerkes’Dodson law to explain the findings
-Lower levels of anxiety/arousal produces lower levels of recall accuracy and then memory becomes more accurate as level of anxiety/arousal increases
-However, there is an optimal level of anxiety
-If a person experiences more anxiety, their recall declines drastically

Question 41

The cognitive interview

Answer 41

-By Fisher and Geiselman because they recommended that such tecnhiques to interview witnesses should be based on psychological insights into how memory works
1. Report everything
-Even trivial ones
2.Reinstate context
e.g weather and what they could see. Related to Context dependent forgetting
3.Reverse order
-e.g start to end or middle to meggining
-Prevents expectations of how event must have happened
-Prevents dishonesty
4.Change perspective
-Disrupts effects of expectations and schema

Question 42

Enhanced cognitive interview

Answer 42

-Additional elements to focus on the social dynamics of the interview
-Interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it
-Also included ideas such as reducing eyewitnesss anxiety, minimising distractions, getting witness to speak slowly and asking open ended questions

Question 43

Factors of misleading information

Answer 43

Leading Questions and Post event discussions

Question 44

Coding evaluation

Answer 44

-Clear differnce, led to multistore model and stm acoustic and ltm semantic stood test of time
-Artificial, semantic can be used for stm sometimes , limited application

Question 45

Capacity evaluation

Answer 45

-Jacobs replicated , old and lacked adequate controls, digit spans understimated because of confounding variables (distracted) however findings confirmed by other controlled studies so its valid
-Miller overstimated , Cowan reviewed other research and found STM capacity is 4+- 1 chunks so 5 more appropriate

Question 46

Duration evaluation (STM)

Answer 46

-Artificial , though phonenumbers but consonant syllables not everyday tasks lacks external validity

Question 47

Duration evaluation (LTM)

Answer 47

-High external validity coz of meaning
-other LTM studies with meaningless recall rates lower thus its more real estimate of duration of LTM

Question 48

Multi store model Evaluation

Answer 48

-Research support from Baddeley and capacity and duration
-CP: artifical so not valid for memory in everyday life and more meaningful info
-KF amnesia, his stm for digits poor when read out loud to him but better when he read himself, more STM stores for non verbal sounds, not just one prcoessing different information
-Type more imporant e.g Elaborative rehearsal
-Oversimplified

Question 49

Types of LTM evaluation

Answer 49

-Henry Molaison and Clive Wearing, only episodic memory affected
CP: Clinical studies lack control variables
-Conflicting neuroimaging evidence
-Real life treatments
-same or different

Question 50

Working memory model Evaluation

Answer 50

-KF
CP:Motorcycle
-Dual tasks
CP: Artificial
-CE not clarified

Question 51

Interference evaluation

Answer 51

-Rugby
CP- Artificially precise so cues better expl
-Cues 70%, temporary
-Retrograde facilitation diazepam

Question 52

Retrieval failure acroynym reason

Answer 52

Encoding speciffity principle

Question 53

Retrieval failure Evaluation

Answer 53

-Real world, room
-Alot of research support, and main reason
-Land vs water
-Recall vs recognition

Question 54

Misleading information evaluation

Answer 54

-EWT
CP: pessimistic
-Subsitution weakness , central accuracy
-Memory contamination not confrmity , brown hair
-Demand characteristics

Question 55

Anxiety evaluation

Answer 55

-Unusualness not anxiety
-London Dungons Labyrinth
-Swedish bank robbery, 58, 75%,
CP- 4-15 months no control over intervening time ,confounding variables
-Ignores cognitive, behavioural, emotional and phsyical elemts of anxiety

Question 56

Cognitive interview Evaluation

Answer 56

-Meta analysis, 55 studies, 41% increase, 4=0
CP: : ECI inaccuracy quantity over quality
-Report eveything and reinstate context
-Time consuming , rapport
-Pick and mix