memory

Question 1

capacity def.

Answer 1

a measure of how much can be stored in our memory in digits

Question 2

encoding def.

Answer 2

the way information is changed so that it’s stored in our STM/LTM

Question 3

duration def.

Answer 3

a measure of how long info is stored

Question 5

what was Miller’s theory on capacity of stm?
- include date

Answer 5

Miller (1956) concluded that people can remember 5-9 items so came up with 7+/-2 rule.

Question 6

miller’s theory on chunking?

Answer 6

that the STM capacity may be enlarged by grouping items together by associations/links they have with each other eg odd and even numbers in a sequence

Question 7

what is the span of our immediate memory?

Answer 7

7 items

Question 8

describe peterson’s and peterson’s study on STM duration

Answer 8

• ppts given a nonsense triagram and a three digit number.
• ppts had to count down in threes from their three digit number and had a retention period of 3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds, after they had to recall the nonsense triagram
• only 2% correct after 18 seconds suggested STM has a short duration less than 18 secs

Question 9

what counteracts petersons and petersons study (1959) on STM duration?

Answer 9

Reitman (1974) suggested the use of numbers ppts were counting may have displaced the syllables they had to remember instead of the limited duration
- instead he used auditory tones so that displacement wouldn’t occur and interfere with verbal rehearsal
- found duration of STM was longer

Question 10

describe baddeleys study on coding in ltm and stm

Answer 10

baddeley (1966) gave ppts words list to learn
- semantically similar
- acoustically different
- semantically different
- acoustically similar
ppts struggled with AD in terms of their stm memory and struggled with SS with their ltm
- so came to the conclusion that STM is coded acoustically and LTM is coded semantically

Question 11

evaluate Baddeley’s research: LTM

Answer 11

• ltm was tested after waiting 20 mins, but some question if it was really ltm
• ltm may not be exclusively semantic: (frost 1972) showed long term recall was related to visual as well as semantic categories, and Nelson and Rothbart (1972) found evidence of acoustic coding in the ltm

Question 12

evaluate Baddeley’s research: STM

Answer 12

• stm may not be exclusively acoustic eg Brandimote et al (1992) found ppts used visual coding in STM if they were given a visual task and were prevented from doing any verbal rehearsal in the retention period (by repeating la la la) before a visual recall task
• other research shows that stm sometimes uses semantic code (Wickens et al. 1976)

Question 13

evaluate capacity of stm

Answer 13

• capacity of the stm is not the same for everyone, eg Jacobs found that digit span increase with age eg 8 year olds could remember an avg of 6.6 digits whereas the mean for 19 year olds was 8.6 digits.
  age increase may be due to changes in the brain capacity or development

Question 14

evaluate testing of the stm

Answer 14

• research investigating stm is artificial eg trying to memorise consonant syllables does not truly reflect most everyday memory activities - so lacks ecological validity

Question 15

describe harry bahrick’s study on duration of the LTM

Answer 15

• harry bahrick 1975 tested 400 people of various (17-74) on their memory of classmates
• he conducted a photo recognition test of 50 photos, some from the ppts high school yearbook
• free recall ppts were asked to list names they could remember of those in their graduating class - free recall was 60% accurate after 15 years and 30% after 48 years
• other ppts who were tested within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate in identifying faces
• after 48 years this declined to 70%
• shows duration of ltm can last years

Question 16

who was the WMM conducted by and why?

Answer 16

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) as felt that STM was more than one store

Question 17

who was the MSM conducted by?

Answer 17

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1968)

Question 18

evaluation of msm - weaknesses

Answer 18

• ltm involves more than maintenance rehearsal e.g flashbulb memories or craik and lockhart (1972) suggested enduring memories are created by processing what you do eg deep processing - shown when craik and tulving 1975 conducted experiment asking ppts to memories nouns then asked deep/shallow processing questions and ppts remembered more words when asked deep processing
• stm may rely on ltm as well (logie 1999) eg in order to chunk you need to recall meaningful groups of letters that are stored in the ltm
• msm is too simple eg doesn’t talk about different kids of memory stored in each store eg maintenance rehearsal can explain long-term storage but doesnt explain episodic (experience) memory

Question 19

evaluation of msm - strengths

Answer 19

• supporting evidence eg beardsley (1997) found prefrontal cortex is active during stm but not ltm tasks which shows separation
• case studies eg hm (scoville and milner 1957) after brain damage, personality and intellect remained intact but could not form new ltms but only remembering things before surgery, again supporting msms notion of separate stores

Question 20

describe working memory model

Answer 20

• central executive - monitors and coordinates all other mental functions in working memory
• episodic buffer - receives input from many sources, temporarily stores this info and then integrates it and records episodes of what is being experienced then sends info to ltm
• phonological loop - deals with auditory info and preserves order of information - phonological store (baddeley 1986) holds words you hear - inner ear - articulatory loop words heard or seen - inner voice
• visuo-spatial sketchpad codes visual information and the relationship between things - logie (1995) subdivided it into a visual cache in terms of visual items eg form and colourand an inner scribe of arrangement of objects

Question 21

ao3 - wmm - weaknesses

Answer 21

• central executive is too vague eg could be same as ‘attention’ is msm as it only allocates resources and could be more components eg eslinger et al (1985) studied evr who had a cerebral tumour removed - performed well on tests that required reasoning but had poor decision skills suggesting CE was not wholly intact
• using case studies may not prove completely accurate as brain injury is traumatic so may alter behaviour of persons performance and individuals may have difficulties paying attention - also case studies unique to person so cannot be generalised - pop.validity

Question 22

ao3 - wmm - strengths

Answer 22

• evidence eg shallice and warrington (1970) studied kf whos stm of auditory info was greater than visual stimuli and auditory info limited to verbal material and not meaningful sounds so brain damage restricted to phonological loop -
• farah et al (1988) studied lh who performed better on spatial tasks than visual imagery due to car accident
• so supports separate visual and spatial systems
• PL holds amount of info said in two seconds (baddeley et al 1975) so harder to remember list of long words than list of shorter words as long words don’t fit so rehearsal isn’t possible - word length effect disappears if given an articulatory suppression task eg saying ‘the, the, ‘the’ while recalling short words
• evidence for articulatory process, supporting WMM

Question 23

what are the types of long-term memory?

Answer 23

episodic memory - personal memories for events details of context and emotion.
semantic memories - knowledge shared by everyone.
procedural memories - knowing how to do something. become automatic through repetition and disrupted if you think about them.

Question 24

evaluate types of LTM: supporting evidence

Answer 24

• supporting evidence of patients with alzheimers that could not form semantic memories but episodic ones (hodges and patterson - 2007)
• case study of hm whos ability to form new ltms affected by destruction of hippocampus but could still form new procedural memories but not episodic and or semantic memories eg could draw but no memory of learning it (corkin 2002) so supports distinction between procedural and declarative memories
• episodic memory associated with hippocampus and frontal lobe, semantic memory relies on temporal lobe, procedural memory activited in cerebellum so control of fine motor skills so brain scans indicate that there are three types of memory found in different brain areas and therefore separate

Question 25

evaluate types of LTM: refuting

Answer 25

• difficult to reach a firm conclusion when studying brain damaged patients as damage to a certain area doesn’t always mean it’s responsible for a particular behaviour as behaviours could be due to a relay station instead therefore we can’t rely on these studies completely, making them low in validity as can’t ensure you’re actually measuring brain damage that causes behaviours and faulty memory
• may be too simplistic and there may be a 4th kind of LTM related to priming (spiers et al 2001) how ones perception of something may be influenced due to implicit memories due to association with something eg someone asked to name a fruit and they say ‘banana’ after reading a list of words that contain the word ‘yellow’

Question 26

proactive interference def.

Answer 26

when past learning interferes with attempts to learn something new

Question 27

retroactive interference def.

Answer 27

refers to when current attempts at learning interfere with the recollection of past learning

Question 28

describe benton underwood’s study with proactive interference

Answer 28

• benton underwood (1957) showed that PI could be equally significant when he analysed the findings from a no. of studies and concluded that when ppts learn word lists they do not learn the lists of words encountered later / earlier on in the sequence
• as old memory interfered with current lists
• found that if ppts memorised 10+ lists then after 24 hours, they remembered 20% of what they had learnt but if they learnt one list then recall was over 70%

Question 29

retroactive interference (RI) study

Answer 29

Georg Muller and Pilzecker (1900) gave ppts a list of nonsense syllables to learn for 6 mins
- were given an intervening task such as describing 3 landscapes they were shown
- after retention interval, performance was worse
- this was due to retroactive interference as new learning of landscapes interfered with previous learning of syllables

Question 30

limitation of george muller and underwood’s studies:

Answer 30

both studies are experimental and therefore lack ecological validity as nonsense syllables and word lists don’t apply to daily life

Question 31

what counteracts mulller and underwood’s studies?

Answer 31

baddeley and hitch (1977) investigated interference in everyday life of rugby players when they recalled the names of teams they had played against over the rugby season

Question 32

describe baddeley and hitch’s experiment: interference and forgetting

Answer 32

• some players played in all games, some missed but the time interval from the start to the end of the season was the same for all players
• no. of intervening games was different for each player
• but players who played most forgot the names of other teams showing effect of interference in every day life

Question 33

evaluate proactive and retroactive experience: AO3

Answer 33

• kane and engle (2000) found that some people are less affected by (PI) than others eg people with greater working memory span - gave ppts 3 word lists, and people with low working memory span showed greater PI when recalling 2nd and 3rd word lists than people with greater working memory span - as the greater wm span means more resources to control processing and counteract proactive interference

Question 34

define retrieval failure:

Answer 34

occurs when cues are not present during recall of memory, as don’t have cues to help access the memory

Question 35

what are insufficient cues?

Answer 35

information stored around a certain memory e.g a place during that memory

Question 36

what is the encoding specificity principle and who conducted it?

Answer 36

Tulving and Thomson (1973) said that the greater the similarity between the encoding event (environment) and the retrieval event (actual memory), the greater the likelihood of recalling the original memory

Question 37

what did tulving conclude about cues?

Answer 37

that cues that are linked together meaningfully are easier to remember eg memories such as songs, rhyme, acronyms can help remember a list of facts in a certain order

Question 38

what are two types of cue dependant forgetting?

Answer 38

• external cues - context dependent forgetting
• internal cues - state dependent forgetting

Question 39

research for context dependent forgetting?

Answer 39

• godden and baddeley (1975) carried out a study of deep sea divers working underwater
• learned a list of words
  group 1 - learn on land, recall there
  group 2 - learn on land, recall underwater
  group 3 - learn underwater, recall on land
  group 4 - learn underwater, recall underwater
• found accurate recall was 40% lower in non-matching conditions

Question 40

ao3 on godden and baddeleys study (1975)

Answer 40

• field study so high in ecological validity
• cannot control extraneous variables
• controlled so demand characteristics interfere with recall
• supports encoding specificity principle

Question 41

research for state dependent forgetting?

Answer 41

carter and cassaday (1998) gave a mild sedative effect of anti-histimines to their ppts making ppts slightly drowsy creating an internal physiological state different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert. ppts had to learn a word lists in different conditions:

• group 1 - learn on drug, recall on it
• group 2 - learn on drug, recall off it
• group 3 - learn off drug, recall on it
  group 4 - learn off drug, recall off it

found that recall was worse when learning and recall was in different states

Question 42

ao3 on godden and baddeleys study (1975)

Answer 42

no ecological validity as lab study, but it’s replicable and reliable
- ignores roles of context and cues

Question 43

define EWT

Answer 43

the legal system uses ewt which relies on the accuracy of the human memory to ascertain whether someone is guilty or innocent

Question 44

define a leading question

Answer 44

a question by its form a context, suggesting to a witness what answer is desired, leading them to that desired answer

Question 45

define a post - event discussion

Answer 45

info added to a memory after the event has occured

Question 46

define the conformity effect

Answer 46

multiple witnesses discuss and reach an unanimous agreement on what actually happened

Question 47

define repeat interviewing:

Answer 47

when an eyewitnesses is interviewed there’s a possibility the comments from the interviewer will become incorporated into the eyewitnesses’ recollection of events along with leading questions

Question 48

describe loftus and palmer’s experiment on misleading questions

Answer 48

1974 - 45 uni students shown 7 video clips of car crashes
- asked to recall videos as well as being asked specific questions and critical question of ‘how fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed/bumped/collided with each other? (5 conditions/1 control group)
- estimation of speed significantly higher when question with verb ‘smashed’ when asked
- second time, 50 uni students, asked abt videos but recall was after one week. as well as dif verb condition also critical question of ‘did you see any broken glass’ for some control groups making speed estimate higher - broken glass not even contained in experiment

Question 49

evaluate loftus’ and palmer’s experiment: weaknesses

Answer 49

• low ecological validity as reaction to actual car crash could be massively different than simply watching a video of one and ppts less likely to pay attention and therefore be less accurate in their judgements. suggests that misleading info. may have less influence on real-life EWT
• individual differences. schacter et al 1991, found that elderly people have more difficulty remembering the source of their information even though their memory for the information itself is unimpaired. so they’re more prone to misleading info when giving testimony

Question 50

evaluate loftus’ and palmer’s experiment: strength

Answer 50

supporting evidence. (braun et al 2002). college students who had visited disneyland as children were asked to evaluate advertising material about visiting disneyland, including misleading info about bugs bunny, a fake disney character, and ariel, who was not part of the disney franchise during their childhood. results indicated that ppts who were assigned to the bugs or ariel groups were more likely to report having shaken hands with these characters than the control group. demonstrates the power of misleading information and how this can create a false memory

Question 51

what is the “yerks-dodson effect”?

Answer 51

the observation that arousal has a negative effect on performance such as memory recall when it is very low or very high, but moderate levels are actually beneficial. described as an inverted U-shaped curve

Question 52

describe johnson and scotts study (1976)

Answer 52

aim - to see if anxiety reduces EWT with the weapon focus effect.

ppts asked to sit in a waiting room where they heard arguments in adjoining rooms. they saw a man run through the room carrying either a grease covered pen or a knife covered in blood.

ppts later asked to recall the man carrying the weapon.
49% of the ppts identified the man in the pen condition and 33% accurate in the knife condition.

shows that ppts exposed to knife had high levels of anxiety and were more likely to focus on their attention on the weapon and not the face of the target - weapon focus effect

proving anxiety associated with seeing the knife reduces accuracy of EWT

Question 53

evaluate johnson and scotts study (1976) - weakenesses

Answer 53

• ethical guidelines broken. ppts deceived about nature of experiment and not protected from harm. also, exposed to knife could’ve caused extreme feelings of anxiety, especially if had prev. experience in knife crime
• pickel 1998 proposed that the reduced accuracy of EWT could be due to surprise rather than anxiety. she arranged for ppts to watch a thief enter a hairdressing salon carrying scissors (high threat, low surprise), handgun, (high threat, high surprise), wallet, (low threat, low surprise) and a raw chicken (low threat, high surprise). identification of the thief was least accurate in the high surprise conditions rather than high threat. so weapon focus affect related to surprise rather than anxiety

Question 54

what is the cognitive interview:
Geiselman et al (1984)

Answer 54

encourages witnesses to recreate the original context of the crime in order to increase the accessibility of stored information. because our memory is made of a network of associations rather than of discrete events, memories are accessed using multiple retrieval strategies

Question 55

describe CI. interview

Answer 55

1. mental reinstatement - interviewee asked to mentally recreate both the physical and psychological environment of the original incident to make memories accessible through emotional and contextual cues
2. report everything - interviewer encourages reporting of every single detail of the event without editing anything out - a recollection of one item may cue a lot of other memories or pieced together from many different witnesses
3. change order - interviewee asked to reverse order of events occurred as it prevents our pre-existing schemas influencing what you recall (our recollections are influenced by schemas)
4. change perspective - interviewee asked to recall incident from multiple perspectives eg imagining how it would have appeared to other witnesses that were present - to disrupt effect that schemas have on recall

Question 56

supporting research for CI:

Answer 56

milne and bull (2002) - found that when ppts were interviewed using a combination of CI techniques, their recall was significantly higher than just using one CI technique. suggests that the CI is an overall technique for increasing EWT.

Question 57

limitation of CI.

Answer 57

a limitation is the amount of time and practice is needed to implement the CI. effectively. kebell and wagstaff (1996) found that police officers have suggested that this technique requires more time than is often available and so prefer to use deliberate (less effective) strategies that obtain required information