Memory Flashcards
LTM - capacity, duration and coding
Capacity: potentially infinite
Duration: lifetime (bahrick)
Coding: semantic (baddeley)
Types of LTM
Episodic - memories of events (explicit)
Semantic - facts and knowledge (explicit)
Procedural - how to do things (automatic)
Evidence for types of LTM
Patient HM - only had procedural LTM
Brain scanning - shows different areas of the brain working at different times
- hippocampus for episodic
Evidence against types of LTM
Over reliance on brain damaged patients
May be 4 stores, priming, programmed thoughts through advertising
STM - capacity, duration and coding
Capacity: 5-9 items (miller)
Duration: 18-30 seconds (Peterson and Peterson)
Coding: acoustic (baddeley)
describe sensory memory
capacity - 12-16 items
duration - around 0.5s
coding - 5 senses
echoic - retaining info from sound
iconic - retaining info from visual
Describe MSM
Sensory input
Sensory memory
Attention moves it to STM
(Rehearsal loop)
Rehearsal moves it to LTM
LTM - STM by retrieval
Lost by forgetting
Spontaneous decay from sensory memory
Evidence for MSM
Clive Wearing - had LTM but couldn’t make new STMs
support for separate stores
Patient HM - had LTM but no STM
- BUT had procedural LTM but not explicit, shows separate stores but there are more LTM stores
Recency effect - those at end easier to remember as have not been displaced from STM
Primacy effect - those at beginning rehearsed and put into LTM
Limitations of MSM
Patient KF - had visual but not verbal STM shows evidence for more stores
Reductionist, oversimplified
Rehearsal not always needed to enter LTM
Rehearsal doesn’t always make information stay in LTM
Describe WMM
Central executive
- receives all the information
- sends it to right store to be processed
(vague and untestable)
Phonological loop - stores auditory information based on tone, volume, pitch etc
- inner ear - speech perception
- inner voice - process speech production
Visuo-spatial sketch pad - visual and spatial info
- visual ceche- mental image
- inner scribe - spatial awareness
Episodic buffer - integrates information from other stores, sends to LTM
- added later
LTM
Strengths of WMM
Acknowledges memory is active, unlike MSM
Patient KF - had visual but no verbal STM, evidence there’s separate stores of STM
Limitations of WMM
Patient HM - had procedural but no explicit LTM, evidence for more LTM stores
Reductionist, oversimplifies human memory
Explanations for forgetting for STM
Limited capacity and duration
Decay and displacement (pushed out)
Explanations for forgetting from LTM
Interference theory
Retrieval failure
Proactive interference (IT)
Old info and memories effect recall of new info
Supported by Underwood
Retroactive interference (IT)
New memories or info effects recall of old memories
supported by Muller
Support for Interference Theory
Underwood - earlier lists easier to remember than later ones
- supports proactive interference
Muller - harder to recall lists after distraction task
- supports retroactive interference
Weaknesses of Interference Theory
Research is artificial so can’t be generalise to real how it
Doesn’t explain why or how it happens - incomplete explanation
Outline retrieval failure
Forgetting as we lack the cues needed for recall
Context-dependent
State-dependent
Encoding specificity principle
Supported by Goodwin and Baddeley (context) and Goodwin (state)
Outline Interference Theory
Forgetting as information is confused
Proactive interference
Retroactive interference
Supported by Underwood
Context dependant forgetting (RF)
Where we are can act as a cue
Learning and recall in same place can aim memory
State dependant forgetting
How we feel can act as a cue
Feeling the same at learning and recall can aid memory
Encoding specificity principle
Information present and learning should be present at recall to aim memory
Support for Retrieval Failure
Goodwin and Baddeley (context)
- learning words lists on land and underwater, recall better when in same place
Goodwin (state)
- learning words drunk and sober, recall better when in same state
Weaknesses of Retrieval Failure
Artificial research
Can’t tell which cue is related to which memory
Factors effecting EWT
Misleading information:
Leading questions (Loftus and Palmer)
Post event discussion (Gabbert)
Anxiety (Loftus)
- weapon focus effect
Loftus and Palmer
Shows leading question negatively effect EWT
- showed participants a video of a car crash
- asked them to guess the speed
- changed the verb in the question
- smashed = 41mph
- hit = 32mph
+ changed police interviews
- demand characteristics
- artificial, not generalisable
- Yuille and Cutshall
Yuille and Cutshall (LQs)
Used leading questions on real life shootings
real witnesses to real crime not effected by LQs
not effect on EWT
+ high ecological validity
- lack of control, other variables
Gabbert
Shows post event discussion negatively effects EWT
- participants shown 1 of 2 videos of same event from different perspectives
- allowed them to discuss what they saw
- 71% recalled info they couldn’t have seen (girl stealing from man)
+ lab, controlled
- lacks ecological validity
Loftus
Anxiety negatively effects EWT
- also supports weapon focus effect
- shown either a violent crime and a knife or a argument and a pen
- 49% identified him with a pen
- 33% identified him with a knife
When anxiety is high they only focus on central details eg weapon
+ lab, controlled
- lack ecological validity
However Yuielle and Cutshall
and Christianson and Hubinette
Yuielle and Cutshall (anxiety)
Contradicts weapon focus effect
Shows anxiety improves EWT in real life shooting
those reporting higher stress = more accurate recall
+ high ecological validity
- low control
Christianson and Hubinette
real life bank robbery witnesses more accurate in recall when closer
- despite higher anxiety
+ high ecological validity
- low control
what is the weapon focus effect?
when anxiety is high,
focus on central details eg weapon
miss other information eg criminal and environment
Cognitive interview
Recall everything
Change perspective - from another witnesses view, think harder
Change order - eg backwards, disrupts schema
Context reinstatement - think about how it felt, can act as a cue for recall
- Kohnken
- Geiselman
- time consuming and requires specially trained officiers
Kohnken
Compared cognitive and standard interviews
81% increase in correct info
However a 61% increase in incorrect info
Miller
serial recall test
capacity of STM
5-9 items
Peterson and Peterson
recall trigram after 3 and 18 seconds
after 3 - 90%
after 18 - 2%
duration of STM
Bahrick
asked people to recall people from their yearbook
after 48 years - 70% on photo recall
duration of LTM
(potentially lifetime)
Baddeley
STMs coded acoustically
LTM coded semantically asked to remember lists, similar sounding words harder to remember straight away as more easily comfused
coding of STM and LTM
Underwood
earlier lists easier to remember than later ones
- supports proactive interference
Patient HM
support MSM and evidence for types of LTM
against MSM and WMM
hippocampus removed
had LTM but no STM
had procedural LTM but not explicit
Patient KF
supports WMM
against MSM
motorcycle accident
had visual but no verbal STM
Clive Wearing
had LTM but no STM
supports MSM
Muller
harder to recall nonsense syllables when having done a distraction task before recall
supports retroactive interference
Geiselman
Tested cognitive and standard interviews on students
Found cognitive increases amount of information recalled
But error rates were similar
How does sensory register encode information from environment?
Acoustically via echoic memory
Visually via iconic memory
