Memory Flashcards
Who created the working memory model?
Atkinson and shiffrin (1968)
What are the 3 stores in the working memory model?
Sensory resistor
Short term memory
Long term memory
What are the characteristics of the sensory registor?
Coding = modality specific
Capacity = very large, all sense impressions in each moment
Duration = very short, 250ms
How does the short term memory receive information?
Received information from the sensory registor by paying attention or from the LTM by retrieval. Keeps information in STM by repeating (maintenance rehearsal) or passing information onto the LTM by linking it to the info in LTM (elaborating rehearsal).
What are the characteristics of the short term memory?
Coding: acoustic
Duration: 18 seconds
Capacity: 7+/-2 items (Miller)
How is info in the STM lost?
Displacement (new info enters the STM) or decay (lost over time)
What are the Characteristics of the LTM
Duration: very long/permanent
Capacity: unlimited (forgotten information is send to just be inaccessible)
Coding: Semantic (in the form of meaning)
To use the information it must be passed back to the STM (retrieval)
What study found the STM and LTM to be separate?
Glanzer and Cunitz: found words at the start and end of word lists were more easily recalled (primary and recency effect). Suggests first words in LTM and last in STM; however, the middle words were displaced
What is a study for capacity and duration of the Sensory Registor?
Spearing: found recall of random row of a 12 letter grid flashed for 1/20th of a second was 75%
Suggests all rows were stored in SR (large capacity)
All 12 could not be written as items forgotten too quickly = short duration
What is a study for coding in the STM and LTM?
Baddeley: four 10 word lists were given to 4 participant groups. Word groups were acoustically similar or dissimilar and semantically similar or dissimilar. Found immediate recall was worst for acoustically similar words, and recall after 20mins were worst with semantically similar. Suggests STM is coded acoustically and LTM is coded semantically with similar sounds/meanings causing confusion when recalled.
What is a study for capacity in the STM
Jacobs: found the recall lists of letters averaged 7 times for letters and 9 for numbers. Suggests the STM store has a limited capacity of 7+/-2. However, this can be improved by chunking (making small sets/groups of items)
What is a study for duration of the STM?
Peterson and Peterson: found the recall of three letter trigrams (e.g. HFR, TKD) was less than 10% after 18 seconds if performing an interference task (counting backwards). Suggests STM duration is very short.
What is the study for capacity in the LTM?
Wagenaar: created a diary (2400 events over six years). He tested himself on events using cues and found 75% recall for critical details after 1 year and 45% after 5 years. Suggests LTM has a very large capacity, potentially limitless.
What is the study for duration in LTM?
Bahrick: found recall of schoolfriends names from photographs was 90% after 15 years, and still 80% for names after 48 years in participants ranging from 17-74. Suggests the duration of LTM is very long, potentially limitless.
What are the negatives of the Multi store model of memory
Cognitive tests of models of memory are often highly artificial (low mundane realism) and are conducted in lab environments (low ecological validity). It may be the findings do not generalise to how memory is used in day to day life.
There are different types of LTM and WMM explains STM as a much more active system with multiple stores
The capacity of the STM can be altered significantly (e.g. age and practice). Suggests the view of a fixed STM capacity is incorrect
What is LTM?
storage of memories over a lengthy period of time
What is declarative/explicit memory?
You can access them consciously and express the memory in words
What is non-declarative/implicit memory?
Not consciously recalled and are difficult to explain in words
What are the three types of LTM?
Episodic
Semantic
Procedural
What is episodic memory?
Experiences and events. Time stamped (a reference to time and place). Declarative, recalled consciously. Auto-biographical. The strength of memory is influenced by emotion. Associated with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.
What is semantic memory?
Facts, meanings and knowledge. Declarative and recalled consciously. Strength from processing depth. Lasts longer than episodic. Not time stamped. Episodic becomes semantic over time. Associated with the perirhinal cortex.
What is procedural memory?
Unconscious memories of skills (riding a bike). Often learnt in childhood. Non declarative/ not recalled consciously. More resistant to forgetting than episodic or semantic. Associated with motor cortex and cerebellum.
What was Vargha- Khadems study?
Found three children with damage to the hippocampus, not parahippocampal cortices, had episodic amnesia. But attended school, spoke and learnt facts (semantic info). This suggests semantic and episodic memory use different brain regions.
What was the Clive Wearing case study?
Clive wearing has retrograde amnesia, so he can’t remember his musical education or wedding (episodic) however he remembers facts about his life (semantic) i.e he knows he’s a musician and married. He can play the piano (procedural). Due to anterograde amnesia, he can’t encode new episodic or semantic memories but he can gain new procedural memories in experiments via repetition. This suggests semantic, episodic and procedural memory are separate, using different brain areas.
What are the negatives of a case study on memory?
Generalising the findings of ideographic clinical case studies to explain how memory works in the wider population is problematic. Other unknown issues could be unique to that individual that can explain behaviour.
What was tulvings study?
tulvings fMRI studies identified which types of LTM memory are associated with particular brain areas in healthy brain. This has allowed ideas gained by ideographic case studies to be studied via nomothetic methods
What is negative about types of long term memory?
Types of long term memory may not be truly distinct. Episodic and semantic memories are both declarative; episodic become semantic over time, and we can produce automatic language (combining semantic and procedural)
Who created the working memory model?
Baddely and hitch (1974)
Summary of WMM’s purpose
Created to replace the STM store in the multi store model of memory. The WMM is an active processor made of multiple stores whereas the STM is a passive and unitary store
What are the 4 parts of the WMM
Central executive
Phonological loop
Visuo-spatial sketchpad
Episodic buffer
What is the central executive?
Head of the model, receives sense information, controls attention and filters info before passing on to the sub systems. Limited in capacity (four items) and capable of dealing with only strand of information at a time.
What is the phonological loop?
Processes sound information (acoustic coding). Contains: primary acoustic store (inner ear, storing words recently heard) and articulary process (inner voice, storing via sub-vocal repetition). Capacity of 2 seconds
What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
Processes (codes) visual and spatial information. Contains: visual cache (a passive store of form and colour) and the inner scribe “inner eye” (active store of relationships in 3D space)
What is the episodic buffer?
Added to the WMM in 2000, as the model needed a general store to hold and combine information from VSS, PL, CE and long- term memory
What was Baddeley’s study (VSS, PL)?
When asked to do two visual tasks (tracking and moving lights and describing the angles of the letter F). Or a visual and verbal task. It was found that performance was much better when the tasks were not using the same processing. This suggests that the VSS and PL are separate systems, and the capacity of the VSS can be overwhelmed the visual information.
What is Shallice and Warrington’s study?
After a brain injury, KF has a selective impairment to his verbal STM, but visual functioning was not affected. This suggests the PL and VSS subsystems are separate processes located in separate brain regions.
What was Prabhakaran’s study?
Participants in fMRI’s completed tasks with integrated or separate spatial and verbal information. More activation was found in the prefrontal cortex with information is integrated and in posterior brain regions when not integrated. This suggests the EB exists and is in the prefrontal cortex.
What was Baddeley’s study (Word length effect)
Found participants could recall more monosyllabic words (short) than polysyllabic words (long). This suggests the capacity PL is the time it takes to stay the words, approximately 2 seconds. Known as the word length effect.
What is a positive of the WMM?
The WMM seems more accurate than the STM component of the MSM in describing how memory is used as an active processor. Psychologists often now refer to working memory instead of short-term memory.
What are some negatives of the WMM
in most studies on memory tasks, there are issues with external validity, they lack mundane realism as the tasks are unrealistic/artificial, therefore, may not be generalised to how we use memory in day to day life
Other psychologists have criticised the central executive as a concept that dose not have a full explanation of its function. Baddeley admits the concept needs development, and including the episodic buffer as part of this.
It’s impossible to directly observe the processing of memory described in models like the WMM. This means inferences must be made, which are assumptions about cognitive processes; these assumptions could be incorrect.
What is interference theory?
We forget because our long term memory becomes confused (disrupted) by other information while it is coded.
What is proactive interference?
Old information disrupts the new. Interference works forward in time when old information already stored interferes with recalling something new
What is retroactive interference?
New information disrupts the old. Interference works backwards in time; new information being stored interferes with recall of old info
What is similarity?
Interference is more likely to occur when two pieces of information are similar due to response competition.
What is time sensitivity?
Interference is less likely to occur when there is a large gap between learning.
What is cue dependent forgetting?
Information is in LTM but forgetting happens due to the absence of appropriate cues/prompts encoded at the same time (encoding specificity principle)
What are context dependent cues?
Aspects of our external environment work as cues to memory (sights, sounds, smells). Being in a different place inhibits memory as we lack environmental cues.
Category / organisational dependent cues?
Providing cues that relate to the organisation/category of memory aids recall. The most effective cues gave fewer things associated with them. The lack of organisation/ category cues inhibits memory.
What is a study for retroactive interference?
Schmidt: sent a questionnaire to 211 11-79 year olds. Included a map of the area around their old school without street names. Found the more times an individual moved home, the fewer street names could be recalled. Suggesting adding new street names to memory makes recalling old street names harder
What is a study for proactive interference?
Greenberg and underwood: participants were given a list of 10 word pairs to learn. Every 48 hours, given a new list. It was found the number of correctly recalled word pairs decreased the more word pairs had been learnt previously. This suggests the previously learn word combinations caused confusion in the coding of later word lists.
What is a negative for interference?
Only explains forgetting when two sets of information are similar and when learnt close together in time (time-sensitivity). This means the theory struggles to explain many day-today examples of forgetting.
What is a study for context dependent cues?
Godden and Baddeley: material learnt underwater or on land. Found recall was best with divers if they learn in the same context/environment as tested. Suggesting environmental cues promote recall.
What is a study for state dependent cues?
Overton: material learn drunk or sober. Found recall was best when in the same internal state. Suggests internal cues promote recall.
What is a study for category dependent cues:
Tulving and pearlstone: participants either used free recall (answering in any order) to recall 48 words or were asked to recall to match twelve 4 word categories. It was found participants recalled significantly more in the category condition. This suggests the categories acted as cues and aided recall.
What is a negative for cue theory?
As interference and cue theory may only explain a temporary loss of information, not a permanent loss, they may not be a valid explanation for forgetting
What is a positive for explanations into forgetting?
Research into forgetting has practical applications; students can develop effective revision strategies and theories like “context cues improve recall” have been used in the development of an effective police training technique called the cognitive interview.
What did Bartlett (1932) say about memory and EWT?
Memory is not an accurate recording of events: it is reconstructed in recalling (reconstructive memory) and may produce errors (confabulations) that the schemas influence
Negative of leading questions?
Leading questions imply an answer. This can influence how memory is recalled, either due to an actual change to the memory (substitution bias) or due to emotional pressure to give a response (response bias)
What is post event contamination/ discussion?
The recall of events by one witness alters the accuracy of another witnesses recollection. This could be memory conformity; the witnesses go along with others accounts for social approval.
What is anxiety?
A mental state of arousal that includes feelings of extreme concern and tension and physiological changes such as increased heart rate. High anxiety levels may decrease recall due to weapon effect/focus, with witnesses focusing their attention on the weapon rather than the criminal face. High anxiety levels may increase recall as it improves alertness and awareness of the situation and surroundings; additionally, the intense emotions felt could improve memory coding.
What is Yerks-Dodson law of arousal?
EWT accuracy increases as anxiety rises as the witness becomes alert. However, at a point, anxiety becomes too high and more stress/distraction results in lower accuracy.
What was lofter and palmers study?
After watching a clip of a car crash participants were asked how fast the cars where going when they ___ into eachother, with the verb either smashed, collided, bumped, hit or contacted. It was found the more extreme the verb the faster the estimation of MPH. Contacted = 31.8 and smashed = 40.8. This suggests leading questions influence recall.
What was gabberts study?
Pairs of participants watched different videos on the same crime. It was found when pairs were able to discuss what they had seen, 71% included information that was not in their video in their EWT. This suggests that witnesses will change their accounts of crimes to match other witness testimony
What was Bodners study?
Found when participants were warned about the danger of post event discussion, witnesses changed their EWT less
What is a negative of EWT?
Violent crimes cause high anxiety in eyewitnesses. Lab based research in EWT that has no emotional impact on the participants can be argued to have low validity when applied to real EWT.
What is was Johnson and Scott’s study?
Naive participants overhead 1) normal conversation, a man walks out with greasy hands and a pen, or 2) hostile, breaking glass, furniture knocked over. A man walks out with a bloody knife. Found 49% identified a man from 50 photos with a pen 33% with a knife. This suggests participants were weapon focused due to anxiety caused by the knife.
What was yuille and cutshall?
Found when interviewed four months after witnessing a real-life deadly shooting, 13 witnesses resisted misleading information, and those with the most stress (closest to the shooter) produced the most accurate EWT.
What is a positive of anxiety research (EWT)?
Research on EWT has led to real- life applications. One example is the development of the cognitive interview. This technique is designed to reduce the influence of schemas on the accuracy of recall.
Negatives of EWT research?
Lab based EWT/leading question research may suffer from demand characteristics. Participants pick up on the language used and feel social pressure to give an answer they think will help the researcher (response bias explanation)
Research that deceives participants and causes anxiety breaks ethical guidelines. (Protection from harm/informed consent)
Why is EWT inaccurate?
Numerous studies have indicated that EWT lacks accuracy due to factors such as anxiety, leading questions and post-event contamination
What did fisher (1987) define?
Defined the standard interview from observations of police interviews in Florida. Police asked quick, direct and closed questions. Police led the recall; witnesses couldn’t talk freely and interrupted
What did fisher and geiselman suggest in 1985?
The cognitive interview as an improvement
What is context reinstatement?
Mentally returning to the crime scene. Triggers environmental/emotional contextual cues
Report everything?
All details even if they seem irrelevant should be mentioned
What is recall from a changed perspective?
Consider the perspective from another witness/ the perpetrators to disrupt the schema
recall in reverse order?
Switch to different chronology/timelines. To check the accuracy of recall and challenge expectations
What did fisher study (CI)
Seven detectives trained in the cognitive interview were compared with nine detectives using the standard interview. Found CI detectives produced 47% more information in real interviews after training and 63% more information than the SI detectives. This suggests the CI effectively enhances the memory if witnesses in the real world.
What did konhken study?
A meta analysis of 42 CI studies, including over 2500 interviews, found a significant increase in the amount of correct information recalled. However a significant increase in the amount of incorrect information recalled resulted in a similarity accuracy rate of 85% CI and 82% SI. This suggests the CI may be of limited practical use due to increased errors.
What did Milne and bull study?
Found each aspect of CI produced a similar level of recall; however the CR + RE conditions produced significantly more correct recall. This suggests no one aspect is more important in the CI, but the effect of the CI is cumulative
What is a negative of the CI
Time-consuming, requiring more time than officers have available. The CI also require significant training and investment, diverting officers from their normal work. The CI may not be adopted due to limited financial resources
A positive of the CI
cost benefit analysis may argue the CI is worth the additional resources invested in training to make a more effective police force, with CI ultimately reducing crime and its cost to broader society
What is a negative and neutral of CI
CI is not effective in improving the recognition of suspects in identity parades and from photographs. This means the CI has limited usefulness in several everyday police activities involving EWT
The CI is not effective with very young children as they are egocentric (can only see the world from their own perspective). Holliday created a modified cognitive interview adapted to the children developmental level.
