Memory

Question 1

Define the Multi store model of memory.. Include who proposed it.

Answer 1

• an explanation of memory that sees information flowing through a series of storage systems
• by Atkinson & Shiffrin was the 1st cognitive explanation of memory
• it is a theoretical model which explains how the memory system processes information.

Question 2

Define coding, capacity and duration.

Answer 2

Coding - the means by which information is formatted in memory
Capacity - the amount of information that can be stored at a given time
Duration - the length of time information remains within storage

Question 3

Draw and give the components of the multi store model of memory

Answer 3

• sensory register
• short term memory
• long term memory

Question 4

describe the features of the sensory register:
include:
coding
duration
capacity

Answer 4

Sensory register (SR) - a short-duration store holding impressions of information received by the senses
- coding: raw, unprocessed info which is modality specific
- duration: limited duration which decreases in age
- capacity: very large, includes all sense impressions in each moment
duration: very short and decreases with age

Question 5

bleh

Answer 5

bleh

Question 6

Give research investigating the capacity of the sensory register. Provide an evaluation point.

Answer 6

research:
- Sperling - flashed a grid of 3 x 4 letters + sounded a tone to indicate which row he wanted participants to recall. Recall was good - up to 75%.
Eval:
- Calculating capacity of SR stores only provides estimates of capacity and are highly artificial in nature and thus lacking in mundane realism.

Question 7

Give research investigating the duration of the sensory register. Provide an evaluation point.

Answer 7

research: Walsh & Thompson (1978) found that the iconic sensory store has an average duration of 500 milliseconds, which decreases as individuals get older. This suggests duration is limited and dependent on age.
Evaluation = brief duration can be understood from an evolutionary perspective, as people only need to focus on perceptual info with an immediate survival value. Retaining non-useful info diminishes the ability to do this.

Question 8

What is the short term memory store? Give its coding , capacity and duration.

Answer 8

STM - a temporary store holding small amounts of information for brief periods
coding= mainly acoustic
capacity: limited : 7+/-2
duration: max. 30s but can be extend through rehearsal + transferring into LTM

Question 9

Give research investigating the coding of the STM. Provide an evaluation point.

Answer 9

• Baddeley gave four 10 word lists to 4 groups. Word lists were acoustically or semantically similar/dissimilar. Found that immediate recall was worse for acoustically similar words. (10%) other lists were around 60-80%
• Shows coding is acoustic due to confusion caused by similar sounding words.
  Evaluation
• lab study so shows causality , but may lack ecological validity but it can be replicated to check results

Question 10

Give research investigating the capacity of the STM. Provide an evaluation point.

Answer 10

• Jacobs (1887) : found that recall for lists of letters was on average 7, and 9 for numbers, using serial digit span method.
• Miller found capacity is 7+/-2 using immediate digit span method which can be increased using chunking (pieces of info grouped together into meaningful sections).
  Evaluation:
  other factors like age and practice, also influence STM capacity and nowadays STM limitations are mostly due to processing limitations associated with attention

Question 11

Give research investigating the duration of the STM. Provide an evaluation point.

Answer 11

• Peterson + Peterson wanted to test retention of STM by giving trigrams.
• Asked to recall after every 3,6,9,12,15 seconds.
• Found retention of STM declined without benefit of rehearsal.
• 5% recalled correctly after 18s
  evaluation: results may be due to flawed methodology; different trigrams were used so may have led to interference between items . leading to decreased recall.
• lacks mundane realism

Question 12

What is the long term memory store? Give its coding , capacity and duration.

Answer 12

LTM - a permanent store holding limitless amounts of information for long periods
coding: mainly semantic
capacity: unlimited , may be lost due to decay / interference
duration: depends on individuals lifespan as memories can last a lifetime; many elderly people have detailed childhood memories.

Question 13

Give research investigating the coding of the LTM. Provide an evaluation point.

Answer 13

Frost gave participants 16 drawings in 4 categories (e.g. animals), differing in visual orientation. The order of recall of items suggested participants used visual and semantic coding, implying evidence for a visual as well as semantic code in LTM
evaluation:
- Evaluation = difficult to see how smells + tastes could be coded semantically + reason
- suggests songs are encoded acoustically, supporting the idea of several forms of encoding in LTM.

Question 14

Give research investigating the capacity of the LTM. Provide an evaluation point.

Answer 14

Wagenaar (1986) created a diary of 2400 events over 6 years and tested his recall of events. He found he had excellent recall, suggesting LTM capacity is really large.
Evaluation:
- not representative of the general population and element of bias as he tested himself.
- research has yet to determine a finite capacity to the LTM suggesting it is limitless.

Question 15

Give research investigating the duration of the LTM. Provide an evaluation point.

Answer 15

• Bahrick et al. showed 400 participants aged between 17 + 74 years a set of photos of students in their skl.
• Those who’d left high school in the last 15 years identified 90% of faces + names, while those who’d left 48 years previously, identified 80% of names + 70% of faces,
• suggests memory for faces is long lasting.
• type of testing techniques used may affect findings from studies of duration of LTM. Recall is often better when asking participants to recognise stimuli rather than recall

Question 16

Henry Molaison (1953)
- Describe what happened to him
- Outline the findings
- Give evaluations

Answer 16

• patient MM (referred to this way for confidentiality) suffered from seizures after a motor bicycle accident as a child
• removal of hippocampus causing the seizures to disappear ( impaired STM )
• Q/personality in tact (hippocampus not responsible for IQ and personality)
  -anterograde amnesia (unable to code new LTM)
  findings:
• memory originally thought to be distributed throughout the whole brain ; this told us that there is localisation of function
• memory formation involves multiple steps in a linear fashion as he could not code any more LTM cos STM was impaired
• he could still improve upon skills (procedural memory)
• provides evidence (of unitary stores, MSM exists as linear model) of the separate stores (STM & LTM) as old LTM were still available.

Question 17

Evaluate the Henry Molaison case study.

Answer 17

• case studies are often too specific, so generalisations cannot be made
• psychologists argue that ethical guidelines are blurred when patients not prioritised over research procedures
• HM taken advantage of medically in procedures due to the fact that he could not proved informed consent (no memory) and cannot complain with no memory (irreversible damage so cannot debrief)
• lacks historical validity as in 2024 there are technological advancements (e.g. brain scans, hospital, testing- operate differently), so research is more advanced= no trial and error needed = more ETHICAL)

Question 18

Give the strengths of the Multi Store Model

/3

Answer 18

strengths:
- first cognitive explanation of memory thus was influential, inspiring interest and research.
- considerable research evidence for the existence of the separate memory stores; SR , STM and LTM.
- Supported by amnesia cases (loss of memory). Patients either lose their LTM or their STM abilities, but not both, supporting the idea that STM and LTM are separate memory stores

Question 19

Give the weaknesses of the MSM.

Answer 19

• over simplified as it assumes there are single STM + LTM stores., research indicates several types of STM , whereas MSM focuses only on one.
• Cohen (1990) believes memory capacity cannot be measured purely on amount of info but by nature of info recalled.
• Info only transferred by rehearsal when could be due to emotional content

Question 20

Who proposed the Working model of Memory and what is it?

Answer 20

• An explanation that sees short-term memory as an active store holding several pieces of information simultaneously
• proposed by Baddeley + Hitch

Question 21

Draw and give the components of the WMM.

Answer 21

• At the head of the model is the central executive (CE), which oversees the 2 ‘slave’ systems.
• Them being the visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS) + the phonological loop (PL). These are temporary stores that process specific types of information. - A 4th component, the episodic buffer (EB) was added in 2000 to address shortcomings of the model.

Question 22

What is the Central Executive?

Answer 22

• processes info in all sensory forms. It directs information to the model’s slave systems and collects responses.
• limited capacity + can only effectively cope with 1 strand of info at a time

Question 23

Give research which illustrates the Central Executive’s role in memory. Give one evaluation point

Answer 23

research:
- Baddeley discovered participants found it difficult to generate lists of random numbers
- while simultaneously switching between pressing numbers + letters on a keyboard,
- suggesting the 2 tasks were competing for CE resources.

Question 24

What is the Phonological Loop?

WHAT DOES IT CONTAIN AND GIVE ITS FUNCTION.

Answer 24

• deals with auditory information + order of the information.
• Baddeley (1986) divided the PL into two sub-parts: the primary acoustic store (PAS) and the articulatory process (AP).
• the PAS ( inner ear) - stores heard words
• the AP (inner voice) allows for sub-vocal repetition + linked to speech production

Question 25

PHONOLOGICAL LOOP RESEARCH

Answer 25

BLEH EDIT FOR Y13

Question 26

What is the Visio Spatial Sketchpad?

Answer 26

• component of the WMM that deals with visual information and the physical relationship of items
  Limited capacity
  Logie 1995 suggested dividing into :
• Visual cache = stores info about form + colour
• Inner scribe = stores info about spatial relationship of items

Question 27

Give research which illustrates the Visio Spatial Sketchpad’s role in memory. Give one evaluation point.

Answer 27

Klaeur & Zhao (2004) reported more interference between two visual tasks than between a visual and spatial task, implying the existence of a separate visual cache + inner scribe
eval:
PET scans also show brain activation in the left hemisphere of the brain with visual tasks and activation in the right hemisphere with spatial information, which further supports the idea of dividing the VSS into the VC + IS.

Question 28

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 28

• serves as a temporary store of integrated information from CE, PL, VSS + LTM.

Question 29

List the three types of LTM.

Answer 29

• Episodic
• Semantic
• Procedural

Question 30

Give the difference between explicit LLTM and implicit LTM. Give examples.

Answer 30

Divided between:
- explicit → declarative (can be explained verbally) + conscious thought involved e.g. semantic + episodic memory
implicit → non-declarative + unconscious e.g. procedural

Question 31

Define episodic LTM

Answer 31

• memory that stores info that allows for autobiographical record of personal experiences
• first proposed by Endel Tulving

Question 32

Outline Tulving’s aim and procedure on LTM

Answer 32

see textbook

Question 33

Outline the Findings and Conclusion of Tulving’s research on LTM

Answer 33

see textbook

Question 34

Evaluate Tulving’s research on LTM.

Answer 34

see textbook

Question 35

Define semantic LTM

Answer 35

• memory containing all info/knowledge learnt (facts)
• no emotional tie, not autobiographical, not time stamped

Question 36

Outline Kroenig ( 2007)’s research on semantic LTM

Answer 36

• Created 64 imaginary, but believable animal drawings, including some labeled as “crutters.”
• Participants: Alzheimer’s sufferers and non-sufferers.
• Task: Identify “crutters” using either direct comparison or a stated rule.
  Results:
• Alzheimer’s sufferers performed as well as non-sufferers using direct comparison.
• Alzheimer’s sufferers performed worse using the stated rule.

Using a stated rule involves higher-level processing, indicating that semantic memory engages different processes and brain areas.

Question 37

Define procedural LTM

Answer 37

• non-declarative, implicit memory that allows us to perform learned tasks
• Occurs early in life as it is Important in learning motor skills
• Once learnt, it is automatic so more resistant to forgetting

Question 38

Outline and evaluate research on procedural memory.

Answer 38

• Finke et al (2012) reported the case study of PM , a 68-year-old professional cellist who suffered damage to various brain areas after contracting encephalitis , resulting in severe amnesia
• His episodic and semantic LTM were very affected but his ability to read and play music was unaffected
  eval:
• Generally there are problems , in deciding which brain areas are involved in procedural
  memory due to the relative lack of research.

Question 39

Define forgetting

and retrieval failure…

Answer 39

• Forgetting is a failure to retrieve memories ( retrieval failure)
• retrieval failure ( an explanation for forgetting when material is stored in the LTM but cannot be consciously recalled as a result of a lack of retrieval cues to ‘jog the memory’.

Question 40

Outline Interference theory

Answer 40

• forgetting due to information in LTM becoming confused with or disrupted by other information during coding, leading to inaccurate recall.
• there are two types of proactive and retroactive

Question 41

Define proactive and retroactive interference

Answer 41

• proactive = previous info disrupts attempts to recall new info, for example the memory of an old phone number disrupts attempts to recall a new phone number.
• retroactive = newly coded info disrupts attempts to recall old info, for example the memory of a new car registration number prevents recall of a previous one.

Question 42

Outline research on retroactive interferene

Answer 42

-Schmidt et al. (2000) assessed the influence of retroactive interference upon the memory of street names learned during childhood.
- 211 participants responded to a questionnaire, ranging in age from 11-79 years , and were given a map of the Molenberg neighbourhood with all 48 street names replaced with numbers, and were asked to remember as many of them as possible.
- the amount of retroactive interference experienced was assessed by the number of times individuals had moved,.

Question 43

Evaluate Schmidt et al - remembering the street name of one’s childhood neighbourhood,

Answer 43

• there was a positive association between the number of times participants , had moved house outside the Molenburg neighbourhood and the number of street names forgotten
• the findings suggest that learning new patterns of street names when moving house makes recalling an older pattern of street names harder to do..
• extraneous variables may confounded results (e.g. those who played a lot in neighbourhood, walked to school remember more than those driven to school)
• methodology shows its possible to conduct research on retroactive interference in real life settings- can be easily adapted to test proactive interference

Question 44

Outline Baddeley & Hitch’s (1977) on interference theory.

Answer 44

• Baddeley & Hitch got participants who had played a varying number of rugby games to remember as many of the teams they had played against as possible.
• It was tested by assessing how recall was affected by the number of games played, while trace decay theory was tested by assessing the amount of time that had passed between each game played.
• It was found that forgetting was due more to the number of games played rather than time passed between games, supporting IT rather than decay theory.
  Evaluation:
• IT only explains forgetting when 2 sets of info are similar which does not happen very often + so interference cannot explain forgetting in the majority of real-life settings.
• Research into interference tends to use lab experiments based around artificial tasks + so lacks mundane realism.

Question 45

Describe cue-dependent forgetting

Answer 45

• a type of forgetting based upon a failure to retrieve the prompts that trigger recall.
• two main forms include context-dependent failure and state-dependent failure.

Question 46

Define context-dependent failure and research relating to it

Answer 46

• occurs with external retrieval cues, with forgetting occurring when the external environment is different at recall from how it was at coding.
• Abernethy (1940): found that participants after learning some material recalled it less well when tested by an unfamiliar teacher in an unfamiliar room than participants who were tested in a familiar setting . Thus supports CDF.
• Godden & Baddeley got divers to learn material either on dry land or while underwater. Recall was best when learning + recalling conditions matched.

Question 47

Define state-dependent failure and research relating to it.

Answer 47

• occurs with internal retrieval cues, with forgetting occurring when an individual’s internal environment is dissimilar at recall to when information was coded.
• Overton got participants to learn material when either drunk or sober and found that recall was worse when participants were in a different internal state at recall than their internal state at coding.

Question 48

Evaluate CDF as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 48

• Many studies supporting CDF are lab-based + not like everyday memory tasks, lack mundane realism, not reliable or generalisable
• Many psychologists see CDF as the main reason for forgetting in LTM. due to the amount of research evidence supporting the importance of cues + how they trigger memory.
• GODDON AND BADDELEY: only occurred when drivers had to free recall items, not when given recognition test (context-based effect not seen) - suggest cue-dependency cant explain all forms of forgetting

Question 49

Define repression and outline research relating to it.

Answer 49

• a type of motivated forgetting where emotionally threatening events are thought to be banished into the unconscious mind, to prevent the feelings of anxiety they might cause,
• Karon & Widener found that many WWII veterans who suffered battlefield trauma, repressed the memories, and the resulting mental disturbance was only relieved by these memories being recovered in therapy, giving further support to the validity of repression as an explanation of forgetting.

Question 50

Define Eye Witness Testimony

Answer 50

• evidence provided by those recalling an event who were present when the event took place

Question 51

Define schema and how it affects EWT.

Answer 51

• a readiness too interpret sensory information in a pre-set manner
• Schemas are used to make sense of the world, by ‘filling in the gaps’ in our knowledge and by simplifying the processing of information. This affects the reliability of EWT, because witnesses aren’t merely recalling facts as they happened, instead they’re reconstructing memories that are biased by schemas active at the time of recall, which can lead to false memories.

Question 52

Give research on investigating schema

Answer 52

BARLETT - 1932
-found that when Western cultural participants were told a Navajo Indian story, ‘the war of the ghosts’, that didn’t make sense from their cultural viewpoint, their memory of the story became distorted, with details of the story being changed to fit a western cultural viewpoint.
- This illustrates how memory can
be affected by cultural schemas, perceptions of what happened from a particular cultural viewpoint

Question 53

Give and define the two factors affecting the accuracy of EWT.

Answer 53

misleading information: information that suggests a desired response, most often through leading questions + post event discussion - which increases likelihood of schema influencing a desired response.
Anxiety: an unpleasant state of emotional arousal
Affects ability to recall + intake info

Question 54

Outline and evaluate Loftus + Palmer’s research on effect of misleading questions on EWT

Answer 54

• After watching a car crash video 45 participants were asked ‘ how fast the cars were going when they smashed /collided/bumped /hit/contacted each other.
• As the intensity of the verb increased, so did the estimate of the speed of the cars. (~40.8 mph for smashed / 31.8 for contacted)
• ALSO ASKED IF THERE WAS ANY BROKEN GLASS. Smashed conditions were 2x as likely to say yes.
  Evaluation:
• artificial task (watching videos) + lacks relevance to real-life scenarios.
• The results may be due to demand characteristics; participants may have just given the answer they thought the researchers wanted, as suggested by which verb they heard in the key question.

Question 55

Define post-event discussion

Answer 55

• information added to a memory after the event has occurred, with research indicating that false memories can be stimulated by misleading post-event experiences.

Question 56

Outline and evaluate Loftus + Pickrell’s research on effect of post-event discussion

Answer 56

• 120 students who had visited Disneyland in childhood were divided into 4 groups and instructed to evaluate an advertising copy, fill out questionnaires + answer questions about a trip to Disneyland.
• G1: fake ad - no cartoon characters
• G2: fake ad - no cartoon - saw cardboard Bugs Bunny
• G3: fake Disney advert featuring Bugs Bunny.
• G4: fake advert with Bugs Bunny + cardboard him
  Evaluation:
• Superior to Loftus’ study of car crashes, as it uses memory of a real-life event rather than something watched on video.
• Advertisers may abuse this to create false positive memories to increase sales.

Question 57

Evaluate Misleading information as an impact of EWT accuracy

Answer 57

• Consequences of inaccurate memories are minimal in research settings compared to real-life incidents. Foster et al. showed EWT was more accurate for real-life crimes as opposed to simulations.
• Misleading info affects only unimportant aspects of memory. Memory for important events isn’t as easily distorted when the info is obviously misleading. Subtle + plausible misleading information is much more influential.
• Studies of EWT that involve deceit + use potentially distressing stimuli bring ethical concerns of psychological harm.

Question 58

Outline the Yerkes & Dodson Law. Include research

Answer 58

• Moderate amounts of anxiety = most accurate recall up to an optimal point, after which further increases in anxiety lead to a decline in the detail and accuracy of recall.
• Deffenbacher used the IUH to explain how anxiety levels affect the accuracy of recall of events experienced. Moderate amounts of anxiety = most accurate recall up to an optimal (best) point, after which further increases in anxiety lead to a decline in the detail and accuracy of recall.

Question 59

Outline and evaluate research into the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT

Answer 59

• In Loftus’s (1979) weapon focus experiment more participants correctly identified a person when they were holding a pen (49%) than when they were holding a knife covered in blood (33%). High levels of anxiety diverted attention from the knife-holder due to the weapon focus effect. However, in a real life study Yuille and Cutshall (1986) found witnesses who had been most distressed at the time of a shooting gave the most accurate account five months later.
• Yuille & Cutshall:
  Have a higher ecological validity as it is based on a real life event and so anxiety levels were genuine. No risk of demand characteristics
  Lacks control of extraneous variables contrary to lab experiments
  General:
• ( LOFTUS) - Lab research lacks generalisability as it doesn’t elicit the same levels of anxiety as real life.
• Contradictory nature of research
• Personality factors also play a role.

Question 60

Define the cognitive interview.

Answer 60

• a procedure for police questioning of witnesses that promotes accurate, detailed recall of events
• Developed by Fisher & Geiselman + is a series of memory retrieval + communication techniques desired to improve recall in police interviews.

Question 61

Outline techniques used in the cognitive interview (4)

Answer 61

• reinstating the context - interviewee mentally reinstates the environmental and personal context of the incident, e.g. sights, sounds, weather etc; (based on the principle of retrieval failure / cue-dependent forgetting that cues may trigger recall)
• report everything - interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant; (such detail may trigger other memories)
• changing order - interviewer tries alternative ways through the timeline of the incident; (reduces possibility that recall may be influenced by schema /
  expectations)
• changing perspective - interviewee recalls from different perspectives, e.g. how it would have appeared to other witnesses; (reduces influence of schema)
• features of enhanced cognitive interview to facilitate recall - focus on social interaction, reducing anxiety / distractions, slow speech, use of open-ended questions.

Question 62

Discuss the effectiveness of CI techniques on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony (8)

Answer 62

• Geiselman et al. found that the CI procedure produced more accurate, detailed memories than the SPI technique and interviews conducted under hypnosis, suggesting the technique is relatively effective.
• Geiselman & Fisher found that the CI works best when used within a short time following a crime rather than a long time afterwards, suggesting recall is enhanced best when CIs are conducted immediately after an incident has occurred.
• less useful with children when used after a long period of time ( link to ECI + MCI)

Question 63

What is the ECI and its purpose?

Answer 63

• an advanced method of questioning witnesses that overcomes problems caused by inappropriate sequencing of questions
• Intended to build a trusting relationship between interviewer + witness , improving the quality of communication between the two, reducing anxiety

Question 64

Outline the process of ECI.

Answer 64

1) the witness controls the flow of information by asking open-ended questions → no misleading info
2) context reinstatement + free recall of events → stress importance of report everything
3) getting the witness to speak slowly → so can report everything
4) the interviewer not distracting the witness with unnecessary interruptions/ questions

Question 65

Evaluate the types of cognitive interview.

Answer 65

• Fisher et al. (1989) assessed the performance of police officers in gathering facts when using the ECI compared to a SPI, finding the ECI to be superior.
  Evaluation:
• ECI prone to producing confabulations, where incorrect items are recalled.
• CI time consuming, often requiring more time than officers have operational time for. Memon et al. report that officers believe the ‘change of perspective’ component misleads witnesses into speculating about the event witnessed + due to this concern its less frequently used.
• CI not generally effective as a form of memory-enhancement with regards to the recognition of suspects in identity parades and photographs.