Memory

Question 1

what is the capacity, duration and coding for the sensory register memory store and state the psychologists who completed a study on it

Answer 1

capacity: unlimited (Sperling)
duration: less than half a second (Sperling and Baddeley)
coding: modality specific (Chowder)

Question 2

Who did the research for sensory memory capacity and explain it

Answer 2

Sperling (1960)
- found that participants could recall letters from a 3x4 grid when it was flashed up for one 20th of a second. Suggesting a large capacity

Question 3

Who did the research for sensory memory duration and explain it

Answer 3

Sperling (1960)
- research showed that iconic (visual) memories are stored for a fraction of a second.

Question 4

Who did the research for sensory memory coding and explain it

Answer 4

Chowder (1993)
- found that echoic and iconic stores have different durations (information is coded into different sensory stores)

Question 5

what is the capacity, duration and coding for the short term memory store and state the psychologists who completed a study on it

Answer 5

capacity: 5-9 items (jacobs)
duration: 18-30 seconds (Peterson and Peterson)
coding: Acoustic (Baddeley)

Question 6

Who did the research for short term memory capacity and explain it

Answer 6

Jacobs (1887)
- used the digit span technique where participants are given 4 digits and have to recall these in order. they are then given 5 digits, with the number increasing if they get the previous string correct

Question 7

Who did the research for short term memory duration and explain it

Answer 7

Peterson and Peterson (1959)
- participants given a trigram to remember (three consonants)
- given a three digit number and asked to count backwards to prevent rehearsal)
- length of time spent counting increased each time and it was found that recall was 80% after 3 seconds and 3% after 18 seconds

Question 8

Who did the research for short term memory coding and explain it

Answer 8

Baddeley (1966)
- gave different lists of words to four groups of participants
- were either acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar or semantically dissimilar
- participants were asked to recall the words in the correct order immediately and did worse on acoustically similar words

Question 9

what is the capacity, duration and coding for the long term memory store and state the psychologists who completed a study on it

Answer 9

capacity: unlimited (wagenaar)
duration: few minutes to a lifetime (bahrick et al)
coding: semantic (baddeley

Question 10

who designed the multi stage memory model

Answer 10

Atkinson and Shiffrin

Question 11

What is the sensory register

Answer 11

picks ups information from the 5 senses and has a store for each sense

Question 12

explain the multi-store memory model

Answer 12

1) info comes into the sensory register from the environment
2) if this information is not attended to it does not register
3) if attended to it will move to the Short term memory store
4) in the short term memory store info can be lost via decay or displacement
5) through rehearsal the info from the STM can move into the LTM
6) once in the LTM it can come back into the STM via retrieval
7) however it can be lost due to interference or decay

Question 13

Who designed the working memory model

Answer 13

Baddeley and Hitch

Question 14

explain the working memory model

Answer 14

• the working memory is the use of our STM that is used when we are working on a task and we are both processing and storing information simultaneously
• it consists of the central executive that controls the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad which are referred to as slave systems, and to decide what we pay attention to and what to ignore
• The phonological loop is responsible for processing sound based information and consists of two components (articulatory process and the phonological store)
  ^the articulatory process is also known as the inner voice as it rehearses verbal sounds (helps to prep speech
  ^the phonological store also known as the inner ear and is responsible for receiving and storing sounds (speech perception)
• The visuospatial sketchpad is responsible for visual and spatial information
  ^consists of the inner scribe (spatial and movement information) and visual cache (visual info like colour)
• episodic buffer integrates information from all the components in the model as well as info from the LTM
  ^can store both visual and verbal based info

Question 15

name 3 types of long term memory

Answer 15

-episodic
-semantic
-procedural

Question 16

Describe episodic memory

Answer 16

refers to a personal experience
- time and a place
- conscious effort is needed to recall the memory
- Example: family holiday, first day at school

Question 17

Describe semantic memory

Answer 17

information that is known to everyone
- requires conscious recall
- starts off as episodic
- Example: capital of England is London

Question 18

Describe Procedural memory

Answer 18

• skills and knowing how to do it
• muscle memory
• no conscious recollection
• developed through repetition
• Example: tying shoe laces

Question 19

What are the two explanations for forgetting

Answer 19

• interference theory
• retrieval failure

Question 20

Describe the interference theory

Answer 20

• suggests that forgetting occurs due to two memories competing
• the greater the level of similarity the more likely we are to get confused

two ways it can happen :

Proactive - already stored information interferes with the attempt to store new info (Peterson and Peterson)

Retroactive - new info interferes with old info that is already stored (postman)

Question 21

Describe the retrieval failure theory

Answer 21

• states that we forget because we lack the correct prompts or cues to recall the information
• two types of cues and prompts (contextual - environment, state - how we feel)
• to help us recall info, cues that are present at the time of learning also need to be present at the time of retrieval
• context: we forget if we do not have the same environmental cues during retrieval
• state: we forget if we do not have the same internal (feeling) cues during retrieval
  ^more likely to remember if we are in the same emotional state as we learnt it in

Question 22

What is a leading question

Answer 22

• a question that either by its form or content suggest to the witness what answer is desired or leads him or her to the desired answer

Question 23

What is the key study on leading questions and explain it

Answer 23

• Loftus and palmer
• carried out two experiments

1) Experiment (speed of car)
- 45 students shown traffic accidents
- each accident had a Questionaire and a critical question
- the critical question asked at what speed where the cars going when they smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted with each other?

^results: smashed had the highest speed

2) Experiment (broken glass)
- shown accidents
- asked to come back one week later and answer questions
- one was a critical question
- “did you see any broken glass” yes or no

^findings: the critical question (leading question, did change the memory of some of the participants)

Question 24

describe the post event discussion using the two components

Answer 24

• conforming effect: recollection influenced by discussion with others
• Repeat interviewing: comments from interviewer will affect recollection

Question 25

Describe anxiety and the affect it has on accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Answer 25

• stress reduces performance in complexed tasks (negatively affects accuracy or memory)

Question 26

Describe yerkes and dodson inverted u theory

Answer 26

• inverted u theory suggest that

Question 27

What study can be used to explain the affect of anxiety on an eye witness testimony and explain it

Answer 27

• Johnson and scott
• Weapon faces effect reduces accuracy of face identification
• 2 scenarios: people in a waiting room and man runs through
  *man with a knife and blood (high anxiety)
  *man with a greasy pen (low anxiety)
• participants were later asked to identify the man based on a set of photos

findings: mean accuracy for the pen was 49% where as the mean accuracy for the knife was 33%

Question 28

what evidence is there that anxiety could have a positive affect on accuracy

Answer 28

• Christianson and Hubinette
  *swedish bank robbery
• those who were most anxious had the best recall

Question 29

what did Deffenbacher suggest when he reviewed 21 studies of the effects of anxiety on eyewitness memory

Answer 29

• moderate anxiety = high accuracy
• extreme High/Low anxiety = low accuracy

Question 30

Describe the process of a Cognitive interview

Answer 30

• developed by Geiselman
  1) mental reinstatement of original context (environment)
  2) report everything (every detail)
  3) change order (reduces effect of schemas)
  4) change perspective

Question 31

Strengths of multi-store memory model

Answer 31

• Squire et al
  carried out brain scans and found that the hippocampus was more active when using LTM whereas areas in the prefrontal cortex are more active for STM tasks. Supports it as it suggests that the LTM and STM are two separate memory models and can work independently

Question 32

Weakness of multi-store memory model

Answer 32

• Conflicting research : Brown and Kulik (flashbulb memory)
  the role of rehearsal isn’t always necessary in transferring material from the STM to LTM. Some memories which are highly emotional, significant and shocking can go straight into LTM and by pass the rehearsal needed for STM

Question 33

Strengths of the working memory model

Answer 33

• Supporting research : Baddeley and hitch
  ‘dual task techniques’ - participants asked to perform a sentence-checking task whilst saying aloud a list of six digits. it was found that participants performance was not affected because the tasks required the use of two different systems. Suggests the existence of different components with different functions within the STM.

Question 34

Limitations of the Working memory model

Answer 34

• Methodological limitations
  the research tends to come from case studies and lab experiments
  case studies are idiographic, unique cases of individuals who have damage to their brain.Difficult to generalise the results
  Lab experiments tend to lack ecological validity as they test recall of digits