memory

Question 1

who made the multistore model of memory

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin

Question 2

what is the multistore model

Answer 2

proposed that memory consisted of three stores: sensory register, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM). Information passes from store to store in a linear way. Both STM and LTM are unitary stores.

Question 3

what is sensory memory

Answer 3

the information you get from your sense, your eyes, and ears. When attention is paid to something in the environment, it is then converted to short-term memory.

Question 4

how is info from STM transferred to LTM

Answer 4

by rehearsel

Question 5

what happens if rehearsel doesn’t happen

Answer 5

If maintenance rehearsal (repetition) does not occur, then information is forgotten and lost from short-term memory through the processes of displacement or decay.

Question 6

what is encoding

Answer 6

the way information is changed so that it can be stored in memory. There are three main ways in which information can be encoded (changed): 1. visual (picture), 2. acoustic (sound), and 3. semantic (meaning).

Question 7

what is capacity

Answer 7

how much information can be stored.

Question 8

what is duration

Answer 8

refers to the period of time information can last in-memory stores.

Question 9

what is the duration of the sensory register

Answer 9

1/4 to 1/2 second

Question 10

what is the capacity of the sensory register

Answer 10

large

Question 11

what is the encoding of the sensory register

Answer 11

sense specific

Question 12

what is the duration of the STM

Answer 12

18 secs

Question 13

what is the capacity of the STM

Answer 13

7 =/- 2

Question 14

what is the encoding of the STM

Answer 14

mainly acoustic

Question 15

what is the duration of the LTM

Answer 15

unlimited

Question 16

what is the capacity of the LTM

Answer 16

unlimited

Question 17

what is the encoding of the LTM

Answer 17

mostly semantic but can be visual and acoustic

Question 18

strength of multistore model

structure

Answer 18

gives us a good understanding of the structure and process of the STM. This is good because this allows researchers to expand on this model. This means researchers can do experiments to improve on this model and make it more valid, and they can prove what the stores actually do.

Question 19

supporting evidence for multistore model

Answer 19

H.M case study- He has remembered little of personal (death of mother and father) or public events (Watergate, Vietnam War) that have occurred over the last 45 years. However, his short-term memory remains intact.

Question 20

weakness of multistore model

WMM

Answer 20

now become apparent that both short-term and long-term memory is more complicated than previously thought. For example, the Working Model of Memory proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) showed that short-term memory is more than just one simple unitary store and comprises different components (e.g., central executive, Visuospatial, etc.).

Question 21

supporting evidence for multistore model

list - position

Answer 21

Glanzer and Cunitz- when participants are presented with a list of words, they tend to remember the first few and last few words and are more likely to forget those in the middle of the list, i.e., the serial position effect.
* supports the existence of separate LTM and STM stores because they observed a primacy and recency effect.

Question 22

supporting evidence for multistore model

shallice and Warrington

Answer 22

support the distinction between STM and LTM is the case of KF (Shallice & Warrington, 1970), who had been in a motorcycle crash where he had sustained brain damage. His LTM seemed to be unaffected, but he was only able to recall the last bit of information he had heard in his STM.

Question 23

whta is procedural memory

Answer 23

part of the implicit long-term memory responsible for knowing how to do things, i.e., a memory of motor skills. A part of long-term memory is responsible for knowing how to do things, i.e., the memory of motor skills. It does not involve conscious (i.e., it’s unconscious-automatic) thought and is not declarative.

Question 24

what is semantic memory

Answer 24

part of the long-term memory responsible for storing information about the world. This includes knowledge about the meaning of words, as well as general knowledge.
For example, London is the capital of England. It involves conscious thought and is declarative.

Question 25

whta is episodic memory

Answer 25

part of the long-term memory responsible for storing information about events (i.e., episodes) that we have experienced in our lives.
involves conscious thought and is declarative. An example would be a memory of our 1st day at school.

Question 26

who created the working mmeory model

Answer 26

baddeley and hitch in 1974

Question 27

whta is the WMM

Answer 27

replaced the idea of a unitary STM. It suggests a system involving active processing and short-term storage of information. Key features include the central executive, the phonological loop, and the visuospatial sketchpad

Question 28

what does the central executive do

Answer 28

has a supervisory function and acts as a filter, determining which information is attended to.
It can process information in all sensory forms, direct information to other slave systems, and collects responses. It has limited capacity and deals with only one piece of information at a time.

Question 29

what is the phonological loop

Answer 29

a temporary storage system for holding auditory information in a speech-based form.

Question 30

what are the two parts of the phonological loop ans what do they do

Answer 30

(1) the phonological store (inner ear), which stores words you hear; and (2) the articulatory process (inner voice), which allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating sounds or words to keep them in working memory while they are needed). The phonological loop plays a key role in the development of reading.

Question 31

whta does the visuospatial sketchpad do

Answer 31

the VSS is a temporary memory system for holding visual and spatial information. It has two parts: (1) the visual cache (which stores visual data about form and color) and (2) the inner scribe (which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field and rehearses and transfers information in the visual cache to the central executive).

Question 32

whta does the episodic buffer do

Answer 32

cts as a “backup” (temporary) store for information that communicates with both long-term memory and the slave system components of working memory. One of its important functions is to recall material from LTM and integrate it into STM when working memory requires it.

Question 33

Bryan has been driving for five years. Whilst driving, Bryan can hold conversations or listen to music with little difficulty.
Bob has had four driving lessons. Driving requires so much of Bob’s concentration that, during lessons, he often misses what his driving instructor is telling him. With reference to features of the working memory model, explain the different experiences of Bryan and Bob. (4 marks)

Answer 33

Because Bryan has been driving for five years it is an ‘automated’ task for him; it makes fewer attentional demands on his central executive, so he is free to perform other tasks (such as talking or listening to music) and thus is able to divide resources between his visuospatial sketch pad (driving) and phonological loop (talking and listening to music).
As Bob is inexperienced at driving, this is not the case for him – his central executive requires all of his attentional capacity for driving and thus cannot divide resources effectively between components of working memory

Question 34

supporting evidnece for diff slave systems

WMM

Answer 34

supported by dual-task studies. It is easier to do two tasks at the same time if they use different processing systems (verbal and visual) than if they use the same slave system.
For example, participants would find it hard to do two visual tasks at the same time because they would be competing for the same limited resources of the visuospatial sketchpad. However, a visual task and a verbal task would use different components and so could be performed with minimum errors.

Question 35

supporting evidence for WMM

case study

Answer 35

The KF Case Study supports the Working Memory Model. KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his short-term memory. KF’s impairment was mainly for verbal information – his memory for visual information was largely unaffected.
This shows that there are separate STM components for visual information (VSS) and verbal information (phonological loop). However,** evidence from brain-damaged patients may not be reliable because it concerns unique cases **with patients who have had traumatic experiences

Question 36

limittaion of WMM

CE

Answer 36

little is known about how the central executive works. It is an important part of the model, but its exact role is unclear.

Question 37

what was Baddeley and Hitch’s experiment

Answer 37

participants were asked to perform two tasks at the same time (dual task technique). A digit span task required them to repeat a list of numbers, and a verbal reasoning task which required them to answer true or false to various questions (e.g., B is followed by A?).

Question 38

findings of Baddeley and Hitch’s experiment

digit

Answer 38

As the number of digits increased in the digit span tasks, participants took longer to answer the reasoning questions, but not much longer – only fractions of a second. And they didn’t make any more errors in the verbal reasoning tasks as the number of digits increased.

Question 39

conclusion of Baddeley and Hitch’s experiment

CE and PL

Answer 39

The verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive, and the digit span task made use of the phonological loop.

Question 40

what is proactive interfernce

Answer 40

where old learning prevents the recall of more recent information. When what we already know interferes with what we are currently learning – where old memories disrupt new memories.

Question 41

what is retroactive intereference

Answer 41

where new learning prevents the recall of previously learned information. In other words, later learning interferes with earlier learning – where new memories disrupt old memories.

Question 42

when does interference occur

Answer 42

thought to be more likely to occur where the memories are similar, for example: confusing old and new telephone numbers. Chandler (1989) stated that students who study similar subjects at the same time often experience interference. French and Spanish are similar types of material which makes interference more likely.

Question 43

supporting evidence to support the interference theory of forgetting.

postman 1960

Answer 43

• A lab experiment was used, and participants were split into two groups. Both groups had to remember a list of paired words – e.g., cat – tree, jelly – moss, book – tractor.
• The experimental group also had to learn another list of words where the second paired word is different – e.g., cat – glass, jelly- time, book – revolver. The control group was not given the second list.
• All participants were asked to recall the words on the first list. The recall of the control group was more accurate than that of the experimental group. This suggests that learning items in the second list interfered with participants’ ability to recall the list. This is an example of retroactive interference.

Question 44

weakness of interfernce theory

cognitive

Answer 44

tells us little about the cognitive processes involved in forgetting

Question 45

weakness of intereference theory

supporting studies

Answer 45

the majority of research into the role of interference in forgetting has been carried out in a laboratory using lists of words, a situation that is likely to occur fairly infrequently in everyday life (i.e., low ecological validity). As a result, it may not be possible to generalize from the findings.

Question 46

what is retrieval failure

Answer 46

Retrieval failure is where information is available in long-term memory but cannot be recalled because of the absence of appropriate cues.

Question 47

what are context cues

Answer 47

external cues in the environment, e.g., smell, place, etc. Evidence indicates that retrieval is more likely when the context at encoding matches the context at retrieval.

Question 48

what are state cues

Answer 48

bodily cues inside of us, e.g., physical, emotional, mood, drunk, etc. The basic idea behind state-dependent retrieval is that memory will be best when a person’s physical or psychological state is similar to encoding and retrieval.

Question 49

when does retrivel failiure occur

Answer 49

forgetting occurs when information is available in LTM but is not accessible. Accessibility depends in large part on retrieval cues.

Forgetting is greatest when context and state are very different at encoding and retrieval. In this situation, retrieval cues are absent, and the likely result is cue-dependent forgetting

Question 50

Baddeley’s experiment on retrieval failure

list

Answer 50

Baddeley (1975) asked deep-sea divers to memorize a list of words. One group did this on the beach, and the other group underwater. When they were asked to remember the words, half of the beach learners remained on the beach, and the rest had to recall underwater.

Half of the underwater group remained there, and the others had to recall on the beach. The results show that those who had recalled in the same environment as they had learned recalled 40% more words than those recalling in a different environment. This suggests that the retrieval of information is improved if it occurs in the context in which it was learned.

Question 51

what is EWT

Answer 51

how people remeber and report the detials of events such as accidents and crimes they have obsereved

Question 52

what is anxiety

Answer 52

a state of emotional and physicsl arousal

Question 53

what is the yerkes-dodson law

Answer 53

that the relationship between physiological arousal (anxiety) and cognitive performance (memory) is an inverted U shape. So we perform best when we are at a medium level of arousal but if arousal is very low or very high then performance is poor.

Question 54

research to support the neg effects of anxiety on recall

procedure

Answer 54

Johnson and Scott
1) In the ‘no-weapon’ condition, participants overheard a conversation in the laboratory about equipment failure. Thereafter an individual (the target) left the laboratory and walk passed the participant holding a pen, with his hands covered in grease.

2) In the ‘weapon’ condition, participants overheard a heated exchange and the sound of breaking glass and crashing chairs. This was followed by an individual (the target) running into the reception area, holding a bloodied letter opener.

Both groups were then shown 50 photographs and ask to identify the person who had left the laboratory. The participants were informed that the suspect may, or may not be present in the photographs.

Question 55

research to support the neg effects of anxiety on recall

results

Answer 55

Johnson and Scott
Those who had witness the man holding a pen correctly identified the target **49% **of the time, compared to those who had witness the man **holding a knife, who correctly identified the target 33% of the time.
Loftus claimed that the participants who were exposed to the knife had higher levels of anxiety and were more likely to focus their attention on the weapon and not the face of the target, a phenomenon known as the weapon focus effect**. Therefore, the anxiety associated with seeing a knife reduces the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Question 56

research to support the positive effects of anxiety on recall

procedure

Answer 56

Yuille and Cutshall investigated the effect of anxiety in a real life shooting in canada, in which one person was killed and another person seriously wounded. **21 witnesses **were originally interviewed by investigating police and 13 witnesses, aged between 15 and 32, agreed to take part in Yuille and Cutshall’s follow-up research interview, 4-5 months later.

Question 57

research to support the positive effects of anxiety on recall

results

Answer 57

the 13 witnesses who took part in the follow-up interview were** accurate in their eyewitness accounts 5 month later** and little change found in their testimonies. All of the major details of their reports remained the same and only minor details, including estimates of age, height and weight changed. Furthermore, the witnesses avoided leading questions and the anxiety experienced at the time of the event had little or no effect on their subsequent memory for the event.

Question 58

Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting EWT

weapon focus - study

Answer 58

• The weapon focus affect may be* due to surprise rather than anxiety*.
  Pickel (1998) conducted an experiment using a gun, scissors, a wallet or a chicken as hand-held items in a video set in a hairdressers’. Participants’ memory of the video was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (gun and chicken). This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety or threat.

Question 59

Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting EWT

ethics

Answer 59

• It is very difficult to investigate the effect of anxiety on EWT in a meaningful way due to ethical constraints. Creating anxiety in participants is unethical because it subjects them to psychological harm. This is why natural experiments such as Yuille and Cutshall’s are beneficial – they interview people who have already witnessed a real event so there is no need to create anxiety.

Question 60

Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting EWT

lab research

Answer 60

• Furthermore, the laboratory research can be criticised its lack of ecological validity due to the artificiality of the environments and the tasks, in which the crime scenes may not necessarily reflect the real life emotions of a real life crime scene. Participants may be paying more attention in real life because it is more meaningful or they could be paying less attention in real life because there are other distractions or they might not have a good view. Either way, this is a weakness because it may be that anxiety and its effect on EWT differs in real life situations.

Question 61

Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting EWT

real eyewitnesses [reliability]

Answer 61

• However studies involving real eyewitnesses lack reliability due to extraneous variables the researchers have no control over, for example discussions with other witnesses, information they may have seen or read in the media, the effects of being interviewed. So it is difficult to be to what extent anxiety alone is affecting their recall as many factors affect the accuracy of EWT.

Question 62

what is misleadinf info

Answer 62

incorect info given to eyewitnesses usually after the event; can take many forms including leading questiosn and post event discussion

Question 63

what are leading questions

Answer 63

a question which implies a certain answer because of the way it is phrased. For example “Did you see the man running away” implies there definitely was a man involved.

Question 64

RESEARCH SUPPORTING THE EFFECTS OF LEADING QUESTIONS

Answer 64

LOFTUS AND PALMER
Participants were shown a video of a car crash and then questioned, the critical question being about the speed of the car. Each of the five groups of participants, had watched the same clip, but had a different verb in the critical question:** ‘smashed’ ‘collided’ ‘bumped’ ‘hit’ or ‘contacted’. Results showed that the verb ‘smashed’ had the highest speed estimate and ‘contacted’ had the lowest**. This demonstrates that memory can be influenced and altered by the way a question is asked.

In a second experiment the possible verbs in the critical question were** either ‘smashed’ or ‘hit’** and a week later participants were asked if they saw broken glass when in fact there wasn’t any. Results showed that the people who had been given the word ‘smashed’ were more likely to reported seeing broken than those in the ‘hit’ condition. This shows leading questions can even create false memories

Question 65

How do leading questions affect EWT?

explanations - listed

Answer 65

1. Response-bias explanation
2. substitution explanation

Question 66

what is Response-bias explanation

Answer 66

The wording of the question has no real effect on the participants’ memories but just influences how they answer. Hearing the word ‘smashed’ encourages them to give a higher speed estimate.

Question 67

what is substitution bias

Answer 67

the wording of a leading question actually changes the participants’ memory of the event. This is based on the idea that our memory is reconstructive (not a perfect record of what happened) and we use past experience to help us fill in the gaps. The word ‘smashed’ implies a serious accident, leading to participants ‘remembering’ a high speed collision.

Question 68

second condition/experiment of loftus and palmer’s experiment

Answer 68

Students watched a film of a multiple car accident. Some were asked “about how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” Others were asked “about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” One week later they were asked more questions about the crash, including the question “did you see any broken glass?” There was no broken glass on the video. 32% of the participants who heard the word “smashed” reported seeing broken glass, compared to 14% of those who heard “hit”.

Question 69

what is post-event discussion

Answer 69

Post-event discussion is a potential source of misleading information where witnesses discuss what they saw after an event.

Question 70

research to support effect of post event discussion

procedure

Answer 70

GABBERT ET AL
Her sample consisted of 60 students from the University of Aberdeen and 60 older adults recruited from a local community.

Participants watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet. The participants were either tested individually (control group) or in pairs (co-witness group). The participants in the co-witness group were told that they had watched the same video, however** they had in fact seen different perspectives of the same crime and only one person had actually witnessed the girl stealing**. Participants in the co-witness group discussed the crime together. All of the participants then completed a questionnaire, testing their memory of the event.

Question 71

research to support effect of post event discussion

results

Answer 71

71% of the witnesses in the co-witness group recalled information they had not actually seen and

60% said that the girl was guilty, despite the fact they had not seen her commit a crime. These results highlight the issue of post-even discussion and the powerful effect this can have on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Question 72

Evaluation of misleading information as a factor affecting EWT

practical application

Answer 72

, the research conducted by Loftus demonstrated that leading questions can have an effect on an individual’s memory for an event and this has key applications for the legal system by emphasising that police should avoid leading questions during interviews. This is a strength because the consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious and is one way in which Psychologists have contributed to improving the legal system.

Question 73

Evaluation of misleading information as a factor affecting EWT

research - validity

Answer 73

research into this area lacks ecological validity. The stimulus material and tasks are often artificial so the results can’t tell us much about the effect of misleading information on EWT in real life.

Question 74

Evaluation of misleading information as a factor affecting EWT

individual differences

Answer 74

are individual differences to what extent people are influenced by misleading information. For example, **Anastasi and Rhodes **(2006) found that people aged 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than people aged 55-78.
However all age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own age group (own age bias).

Question 75

what is the cognitive interview

Answer 75

= a method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It uses four main techniques

Question 76

four main techniques of cognitive interviews

Answer 76

1. report everything
2. reinstate the context
3. reverse the order
4. change perspective

Question 77

report everything

Answer 77

Witnesses are asked to report every detail, even if they think that detail is irrelevant or unimportant.

Why? In this way, apparently unimportant detail might act as a trigger for key information about the event.

Question 78

reinstate the context

Answer 78

The witness should return to the original crime scene ‘in their mind’ and imagine the environment.

Why? This is related to retrieval cues, in particular context dependent forgetting. Encouraging witnesses to imagine things such as the weather, sounds, what they could see could act as retrieval cues and prompt their memory.

Question 79

reverse the order

Answer 79

The interviewer may ask the witness to work backwards from the end of the incident to the start.

Why? This may prevent the witness from making assumptions about what happened based on knowledge and schemas of the usual order of events.

Question 80

chnage perspective

Answer 80

Try to describe the event from the viewpoint of others who were there at the time e.g., describing what they think other witnesses (or even the criminals themselves) might have seen.

Why? Trying to adopt the viewpoint of a different person can encourage recall of events that may otherwise be missed.

Question 81

research to support the effectivess of the cog interview

procedure

Answer 81

**Geiselman et al **
students were show videos of violent crimes. 48hrs later they were interviewed by police officers. half of them were interviewed using standard police interview techniques. the other half were interviewed using cognitive interviews
Accuracy of EWT was analysed as:
1. the number of correct items recalled
2. the number of errors, including mistakes and confubulations

Question 82

research to support the effectivess of the cog interview

results

Answer 82

NUMBER OF CORRECT DETAILS RECALLED:
1. standard - 29.4
2. cog interview - 41.5
NUMBER OF INCORRECT DETAILS RECALLED:
1. stnd - 6.3
2. cog - 7.1

Question 83

Evaluation of the cognitive interview as a way of improving EWT

time

Answer 83

it is a time consuming technique. This is because police officers must be trained to use this method of interview, with limited time and resources in which to provide this within the forces. Also, it takes longer than a standard interview as time is needed to develop a good rapport with the witness. This is a weakness as it means the** police may be reluctant to use this method and even when it is done, it may not be done properly**. This may make the cognitive interview procedure unpopular and unused in police interviews and may reduce the accuracy of EWT.

Question 84

Evaluation of the cognitive interview as a way of improving EWT

elements - valuable

Answer 84

• Some elements of the cognitive interview may be more valuable than others. Research has found that when used singly each technique produced more correct information than a standard police interview. However, using ‘report everything’ and ‘reinstate the context’ together produced better recall than any other combinations.

Question 85

Evaluation of the cognitive interview as a way of improving EWT

more enhanced

Answer 85

• An enhanced cognitive interview has now been developed. This** focuses more on the social dynamics of the interaction between the witness and the interviewer**. For example, interviewers are trained to use eye contact appropriately. It also aims to reduce eyewitness anxiety, minimise distractions, get the witness to speak slowly and asks open-ended questions. A meta-analysis found that the enhanced cognitive interview consistently resulted in more correct information than the standard interview.