Memory 🤪

Question 1

Who created the Multi-Store Model?

Answer 1

Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)

Question 2

What is the Multi-Store Model?

Answer 2

Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) proposed one of the earliest models of memory.
They suggested that memory is made up of three components: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory.
— According to the model, memories are formed sequentially and information passes from one component to the next, in a linear fashion.
— Each of these components has a specific type of coding, capacity and duration.

Question 3

What is coding?

Answer 3

Refers to the way in which information is changed and stored in memory.

Question 4

What is duration?

Answer 4

Refers to the length of time that information is held in the memory store.

Question 5

What is capacity?

Answer 5

Refers to the amount of information that can be stored.

Question 6

What capacity, duration and coding is in the Sensory Register?

Answer 6

Capacity = unlimited
Duration = less than one second
Coding = information enters from all five senses the cording is modality specific.

Question 7

What capacity, duration and coding is in the STM?

Answer 7

Capacity = 7+/-2 ‘chunks’ of information
Duration = 20 seconds
Coding = Acoustic

Question 8

What capacity, duration and coding is in the LTM?

Answer 8

Capacity = unlimited
Duration = lifetime
Coding = semantically (can be retrieved from the LTM to STM when required)

Question 9

Explain the study by Miller (1956) : Capacity of STM

Answer 9

Miller (1956) : ‘The magic number seven, plus or minus two’
AIM: To investigate the capacity of STM

METHOD: Literature review of published investigations into perception and STM, from the 1930s to 1950s

RESULTS: This existing research suggests end that organising stimulus input into a series of chunks enabled STM to cope with about seven ‘chunk’, and this was why more than seven digits, words or even musical notes could be remembered successfully.
— When we try to remember a phone number, which has 11 digits, we chunk the information into groups, so we only need to remember chunks of the information and not 11 individual digits.

CONCLUSION: Organisation (or ‘encoding’) can extend the capacity of the STM and enable more information to be stored there.

Question 10

EVALUATION : Miller (1956)

Answer 10

SUPPORTED BY RESEARCH
P: A strength of Miller’s research into the capacity of the STM is that there is psychological research to support it.
E: Jacobs (1887) conducted an experiment using a digit span test, to examine the capacity of STM for numbers and letters. Jacob’s used a sample of 443 female students (ages 8-19). Participants had to repeat back a string of numbers or letters in the same order and the number of digits/letters was gradually increased, until the participants could no longer recall the sequence.
E: Jacobs found that the students had an average span of 7.3 letters and 9.3 words.
L: This therefore, supports Miller’s notion of 7+/-2.

EXTENUATING VARIABLES
P: A limitation of Miller’s study on capacity of STM is that his research did not take into account other factors that affect capacity.
E: For example, age could also affect STM and Jacobs’ (1887) research acknowledged that STM gradually improved with age.

Question 11

Explain the study by Peterson & Peterson (1959) : Duration of STM

Answer 11

Peterson & Peterson (1959)
AIM: To investigate how different short intervals containing an interference task affect the recall of items. presented verbally, and to infer the duration of STM.

METHOD: Participants were 24 male and female university students. The verbal items tested for recall were 48 three-consonant nonsense syllables (such as IWX or PDX) spelled out better by letter. These have since been named ‘trigrams.’
There were also cards containing three-digit numbers (such as 360 or 294).
1. The researcher spelled the syllable out then immediately said a three-digit number.
2. The participant had to count down backwards either in 3s or 4s (as instructed) from that number.
— This was to prevent repetition often the trigram by the participant.
3. At the end of a pre-set interval of between 3-18 seconds a red light went on and the participant had to recall the trigram.

RESULTS: Peterson & Peterson found that the longer the interval the less accurate the recall. At 3 seconds, around 80% of the trigrams were correctly recalled, whereas at 18 seconds only 10% were correctly recalled.

CONCLUSION: STM has a limited duration of approximately 18 seconds. Furthermore, if we are unable to rehearse information it will not be passed to LTM, providing further support for the MSM and the idea of discrete components.

Question 12

EVALUATION: Peterson & Peterson (1959)

Answer 12

LOW ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
P: A limitation of Peterson and Peterson’s study is that it is argued that it has low ecological validity.
E: In this study participants were asked to recall three-letter trigrams, which is unlikel anything people would want to memorise in their everyday lives.
E: As a result, we are able to apple these results to everyday examples of memory and are unable to conclude if the duration of STM may be longer for more important information, such as vital phone numbers.

HIGHLY CONTROLLED
P: A strength of their study is that it was highly controlled and took place in a laboratory of Indiana University.
E: As a result, Peterson and Peterson had a high degree of control for extraneous variables.
E: This makes their procedure easy to replicate to test reliability.

Question 13

Explain the study by Bahrick (1975) : Duration of LTM

Answer 13

Bahrick (1975) : Duration of LTM
AIM: To investigate the duration of LTM

METHOD: 392 American university graduates were shown photographs from their high school yearbook and for each photograph participants were given a group of names and asked to select the name that matched the photographs.

RESULTS: 90% participants were able to correctly match the names and faces 14 years after graduating and 60% of the participants were able to correctly match the names and faces 47 years after graduation.

CONCLUSION: Bahrick concluded that people could remember certain types of information, such as names and faces, for almost a lifetime. These results support the MSM and the idea that our LTM has a lifetime duration (for at least 47 years) and is semantically encoded.

Question 14

EVALUATION: Bahrick (1975); Duration of LTM

Answer 14

LACKS POPULATION VALIDITY
P: A limitation of Bahrick’s research is that he used a sample of 392 American graduates and therefore lacks population validity.
E: Psychologists are unable to generalise the results of Bahrick’s research to other populations. For example, students from the UK or Europe.
E: As a result, we are unable to conclude whether other populations would demonstrate the same ability to recall names and faced after 47 years.

CANT EXPLAIN CAUSE OF RECALL
P: Bahrick foujnd that the accuracy of LTM was 90% after 14 years and 60% after 47 years.
E: His research is unable to explain whether LTM becomes less accurate over time because of a limited duration, or whether LTM simple gets worse with age.
E: This is important because psychologists are unable to determine whether our LTM has an unlimited duration (like the MSM suggests), which is affected by other factors such as getting older, or whether our LTM has a limited duration.

HIGH ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
P: Strength is that it has high ecological validity since it used real-life memories.
E: In this study participants recalled real-life information by matching pictures to classmates with their names.
E: Therefore, these results reflect our memory for real-life events and can be applied to everyday human memory.

Question 15

EVALUATION : Multi-Store-Model 🫢

Answer 15

STRENGTH - CASE STUDY OF HM
P: HM is a well-known case study in memory. He received an operation, during which his hippocampus was removed, in order to cure his severe epilepsy.
E: However, when he awoke, HM could no longer create any long-term memories, meaning his memory would only last for the duration of STM.
E: This case study shows that STM and LTM are seepage unitary stores, as suggested by the MSM of memory.
E: However, case studies are an idiographic method, meaning they only focus on the individual, and cannot be generalised to the wider population. As HM had his hippocampus removed to address seizures, it is impossible to know whether the same thing would happen to other individuals, as it is unethical to replicate this experiment, meaning there is a lack of reliability.
L: Therefore, a strength of the MSM is that there is case study evidence to support the model.

STRENGTH - SERIAL POSITION EFFECT
P: In an experiment, participants were to read a list of twenty words and were asked to recall them from memory.
E: It was found that people remember words at the beginning of the list - primary effect - this occurs because individuals are able to rehearse these words and transfer them to LTM.
E: People also remember words at the end of the list - recency effect - these words have not yet been lost from the STM.
L: This provides evidence for the MSM as it support how information moved from Sensory Register to STM and to LTM.

LIMITATION - MODEL IS TOO SIMPLE
P: The MSM defines STM and LTM as ‘unitary’ single stores.
E: However, alternative models suggest that both STM and LTM are actually divided into multiple qualitatively different stores.
L: Therefore, the MSM may not be able to fully explain the divisions within both STM and LTM, meaning that it is a limited explanation of memory.

LIMITATION - MAINTENANCE vs ELABORATE REHEARSAL
P: There may be more than one type of rehearsal for LTM.
E: Craig and Watkins found that for information to transfer to LTM, the type of rehearsal is important.
E: Maintenance rehearsal is given in the MSM - this type of rehearsal just keeps information in STM. Elaborative rehearsal is not described in the MSM - this type of rehearsal is needed for long-term storage i.e. to transfer information to LTM.
L: Therefore, the MSM may not explain fully the different rehearsals needed to store information in STM and LTM.

Question 16

What are the three types of LTM?

Answer 16

1. Episodic
2. Semantic
3. Procedural

Question 17

What are all long-term memories categorised as?

Answer 17

> Explicit (declarative)
— Include knowledge for events and facts (knowing what)

> Implicit (non-declarative)
— Skilled behaviours (knowing how); these are largely unconscious

Question 18

What is Episodic Memory?

Answer 18

— A type of explicit memory
— Includes memories of personal experiences (episodes) eg. first day at school
— These memories are more complex than you might consider and have three specific elements including: details of the event, the context and the emotions. The elements are interwoven to provide a single memory.

The strength of episodic memories is determined by the strength of the emotions experienced when the memory is coded, and a conscious effort is required to retrieve them.

Episodic memories are associated with the hippocampus, although other areas of the brain regions are associated with coding (prefrontal cortex).

Question 19

What is Semantic Memory?

Answer 19

— Type of explicit memory
— Includes memory for knowledge, facts, concepts and meaning about the world around us (eg. knowing London is the capital of England)
— Often start as episodic memories, as we acquire knowledge based on our personal experiences, but they are not ‘time-stamped’ in the same way nor do they remain closely associated with a particular event (episode).
— Semantic memories are generally stronger in comparison to episodic and are associated with the temporal lobe

Question 20

What is Procedural Memory?

Answer 20

— Type of implicit memory
— Includes memory of how to perform certain tasks, actions or skills (eg. spinning, reading, writing which have become automatic)
— Because they are implicit they are difficult to explain in words to someone else
— They are acquired through repetition and practice (eg. riding a bike)
— Many are performed in early life
— Associated with the cerebellum and motor cortex

Question 21

EVALUATION: LTM

Answer 21

STRENGTH - BRAIN SCANS
P: A strength of the different types of LTM is that brain scans support for this.
E: Research has shown that different parts of the brain are active when accessing episodic, semantic and procedural memory. Episodic memory has been associated with the hippocampus and temporal lobe, semantic memory is also associated with the temporal lobe and procedural with the cerebellum and motor cortex.
E: Furthermore, Tulving (1994) took PET scans of participants’ brains whilst they performed different memory tasks and found that both episodic and semantic memories were recalled from the prefrontal cortex, which is divided into two parts (one of each hemisphere of the brain). Tulving found that episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex whereas the left prefrontal cortex was involved in recall for semantic memories.
L: Brain scan research suggests that different brain regions are responsible for the different types of LTM, supporting the idea that our LTM is made up of at least three distinct categories.

STRENGTH - CLINICAL EVIDENCE
P: Both HM and Clive Wearing are examples that support the distinction between implicit and explicit memory.
E: Both men had trouble recalling their episodic and semantic memories yet procedural memories were unaffected. HM was able to learn a mirror-tracing task, where you copy an image while looking in a mirror, and retain the skill without forgetting. However, had no knowledge of previously completing the mirror-tracing task.
E: This supports the idea that there are different types of LTM as it shows that whilst one memory store can be damaged completely, the other memory stores are unaffected, HM was able to demonstrate his procedural memory through implicit behaviour, despite being unable to recall his experience explicitly.
L: Therefore, not only is this evidence that the types of memory are different, it is also evidence that they are stored in different parts of the brain.

STRENGTH - REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS
P: If psychologists can identify the different types of LTM, it enables them to target certain kinds of memory to help people’s lives in a positive way.
E: Belleville (2006) showed that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had mild cognitive impairment through training.
E: The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group.
L: Therefore, by understanding that there are different types of LTM, psychologists can also develop treatments to help improve the different types of LTM.

LIMITATION - DECLARATIVE MEMORY
P: Cohen and Squire disagree with the idea of there being three types of LTM.
E: They believe that procedural memories are on type of LTM, but argue that episodic and semantic memories are stored together in one LTM store that they call declarative memory (i.e. memories that can be consciously recalled).
E: In contrast procedural memories are non-declarative.

Question 22

Who proposed the Working-Memory-Model and why?

Answer 22

Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
+ proposed the WMM as a way of explaining some of the research findings that could not be accounted for by the multi-store model (MSM).

Question 23

What are the components of the WMM?

Answer 23

1. Central Executive
2. Phonological loop (articulatory control system + phonological store)
3. Visio-Spatial Sketchpad (inner scribe + visual cache)
4. Episodic buffer

Question 24

What is function of the central executive?

Answer 24

The central executive is the ‘boss’ of the WMM.
— It controls attention and directs information to the two slave systems, the phonological loop and visual-spatial sketchpad.
— It can process information from any sensory modality

Question 25

What is the function of the phonological loop?

Answer 25

The phonological loop is a temporary storage system for verbal information (held in a speech-based form) which has two components: articulatory control process (the ‘inner voice’) and the phonological store (the ‘inner ear’).
— The articulatory control process allows for subvocal repetition of acoustic information
— The phonological store is a temporary storage space for coding acoustic information which has a limited capacity

Question 26

What is the function of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 26

The visio-spatial sketchpad is a temporary storage system for visual and spatial information which also has two components: the inner scribe and the visual cache.
— The inner scribe deals with the manipulation of mental images
— The visual cache has a limited capacity for coding visual and spatial information

Question 27

What is the function of the episodic buffer?

Answer 27

The episodic buffer binds and integrates information from all the components and passes the information to LTM. It therefore codes both visual and acoustic information, but also has a limited capacity.

Question 28

EVALUATION: Working-Memory-Model

Answer 28

STRENGTH - CASE STUDY OF KF
P: Shallice and Warrington (1940) studied KF, a patient that had suffered from brain damage.
E: KF had poor STM ability for verbal information and could process visual information eg. he had difficulty with sounds but could recall letters and digits.
E: This suggests that his phonological loop had been damaged but the rest of his memory was intact.
L: Therefore, this case study provides evidence for separate visual and acoustic stores in memory.
— However, the limitation with case studies is that they cannot be generalised the the wider populations and can only be applied to the individual.

STRENGTH - BRAIN SCANS
P: Braver et al (1997) gave their participants tasks that involved the central executive whilst having a brain scan.
E: Researchers found that there was greater activity in the left prefrontal cortex and this activity increased as the task became harder.
L: Therefore as demands on CE increase, it has to work harder to fulfill its function, which makes sense in terms of the WMM.

LIMITATION - UNCLEAR ABOUT THE ROLE OF CE
P: The role of the central executive does not seem to be very clear.
E: It seems to allocate resources and be the same as attention but its function is not known beyond this point.
E: Some psychologists have suggested that the central executive may even consist of separate components. This supported by the case of EVR, who could complete reasoning tasks but not make decisions, both of which are functions of the central executive, suggesting there may be more than one store.
L: Therefore, the WMM has not been fully explained in depth and complexity that it should be.

LIMTATION - CASE STUDIES + LAB EXPERIMENTS
P: The model replies on research support from case studies (such as KP and EVR). However these individuals have undergone brain damage, meaning findings may be affected by other factors and are also very unique cases, lacking ability to generalise.
P: Furthermore, Lab experiments use artificial stimuli and therefore are unrepresentative of real life. there is a lack of external validity for this research, reducing the overall validity of the theory in real life.

Question 29

What are the different explanations of forgetting that psychologists have suggested?

Answer 29

1. Proactive interference
2. Retroactive interference
3. Retrieval failure - due to the absence of cues

Question 30

What is proactive interference? 🫣

Answer 30

Proactive intereference occurs when old information stored in long term memory (LTM), interferes with the learning of new information. This usually occurs when the new information is similar to the old information.
— An everyday example of proactive interference is when you get a new mobile number; your memory for your old number will disrupt your attempts to remember your new one.

Question 31

Case study for proactive interference : Keppel & Underwood (1962)

Answer 31

Baddeley and Hitch (1977)
AIM: To investigate the effect of proactive interference on LTM

METHOD: In an experiment that is very similar to that conducted by Peterson & Peterson (1959), participants were presented with meaningless three-letter consonant trigrams (eg. THB) at different intervals.
To prevent rehearsal the participants had to count backwards in threes before recalling.

RESULTS: Participants typically remembered the trigrams that were presented first, irrespective of the interval length.

CONCLUSION: The results suggest proactive interference occurred, as memory for earlier consonants (which had transferred to LTM) interfered with the memory of new consonants, due to the similarity of the information presented.

Question 32

What is retroactive interference? 🤥

Answer 32

Retroactive interference occurs when the learning of new information interferes with the recall of old information from the LTM.

Question 33

Case study for proactive interference : Baddeley and Hitch (1977)

Answer 33

Baddeley and Hitch (1977)
+ Natural study of real-life situation

METHOD:
1. Asked rugby players to remember the names of the teams they had played in that season so far, week by week.
— Some players had missed games and had not played for two or three weeks or more.

RESULTS:
They found hat accurate recall did not depend how long ago the matches were but whether a player had played games in the meantime was important - recall for a team from three weeks ago was much better if a player has played no matches since then.

Evidence of retroactive recall - recall was much better when players had not played any matches since then as there was no new memories to interfere with the old ones.

Question 34

EVALUATION : Interference Theories

Answer 34

RESEARCH SUPPORT
P: The results of Baddeley and Hitch are supported by other researchers, for example McGeoh and McDonald (1931).
E: In their experiment, participants were given a list of ten adjectives to learn (list A). Once three of these were learnt, participants were then given one of six other lists (list B) to learn, which varied in terms of similarity to the original.
E: McGeoh and McDonald found recall was worse when lists A and B were closest similarly.
L: This supports the idea of retroactive interference because the more similar the new material is to the previously learnt material, the greater the interference.

LIMITED REAL WORLD APPLICATION
P: Although interference research (proactive and retroactive) provides an insight into one type of forgetting, it only explains a specific type of forgetting - memory for similar information.
E: For example, the results of Baddeley and Hitch demonstrate retroactive interference in rugby union players trying to recall team names from earlier in the season and Keppel and Underwood demonstrate proactive interference when trying to learn three-letter consonant trigrams.
E: Both of these example, highlight interference effects of very similar information
L: Therefore, this research is limited in its real world application and are unable to explain forgetting in other situations.

LACK OF ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
P: Interference research is often criticised for being artificial and lacking ecological validity.
E: Most of the research examining interference is carried out in a laboratory, for example Keppel and Underwood (1962) and McGeoch and McDonald (1931), while using particularly meaningless stimuli, such as three-letter consonant trigrams or simple word lists.
E: As a result these findings do not represent everyday examples of interference and are limited in their application to everyday human memory.

Question 35

What does retrieval failure due to absence of cues mean?

Answer 35

Information that cannot be retrieved because of insufficient cues to trigger memory.

Question 36

What concept did Tulving and Thomson (1973) propose?

Answer 36

Tulving and Thomson (1973)
+ Proposed the encoding specificity principle and argued that memory is most effective when information that was present at the time of coding is also present at the time of retrieval.

They suggested that environmental cues and mental cues aid recall
— Environmental cues include the room in which you learn information and mental cues include your emotional state

There are two types of retrieval failure due to the absence of cues
1) context-dependant failure
2) state-dependant failure

Question 37

What is context-dependant forgetting?

Answer 37

Context-dependant failure occurs when environmental cues are missing.

Question 38

Explain Godden & Baddeley (1975) : Context dependant forgetting

Answer 38

Godden & Baddeley (1975)
AIM: To investigate the effect of contextual cues on recall (i.e. would memory for words learned and recalled in the same environment be better than memory for words learned and recalled in different environments).

METHOD: Their sample comprised of 18 participants (13 males and 5 females) from a university diving club, who were divided into four conditions;
1) learning words on land, recall on land
2) learning words on land, recall underwater
3) learn underwater, recall underwater
4) learn underwater, recall on land

The experiment was a repeated measures design with each participant taking part in all four conditions, over four separate days.
— In all four conditions participants were presented with 38 words, which they heard twice.
— After hearing all 38 words the participants were instructed to write all the words they would remember, in any order.

RESULTS: The words learned underwater were better recalled underwater and words learned on land were better recalled on land.

CONCLUSION: It is therefore, reasonable to conclude that the environmental cues (context) improve recall

Question 39

EVALUATON: Context-dependent forgetting

Answer 39

LITTLE CONTROL OVER EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES
P: Although results suggest that environment cues aid memory recall, Baddeley and Godden didn’t control many other variables.
E: The divers took part in the experiment at different times of the day and at different diving locations. Therefore, each diver would have experienced other contextual cues, which may have affected their memory.
E: As a result, we are unable to conclude whether the results of Godden and Baddeley’s research is due to the on land / underwater contextual cues, or another contextual cue provided by the different time of day or diving location.

DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
P: Godden and Baddeley used a repeated measures design, as each diver took part in all four conditions. It is possible that the divers worked out the aim of the experiment and displayed demand characteristics or order effects.
E: By the fourth trial the participants may have demonstrated practice effects where their recall improved as a result of completing the experiment multiple times, or even fatigue effects where their results declined as a result of boredom.
E: A more suitable experimental design would have been independent measures however, this would have required significantly more participants, which would be difficult to achieve when recruiting trained divers. Furthermore with 18 participants the conclusions drawn should be treated with caution. Additionally context examined in their study is extreme and provides little insight into context-dependant forgetting in everyday life.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES
P: Godden and Baddeley can be criticised for breaking ethical guidelines, in particular protection from harm.
E: In their report, they said ‘one diver was nearly run over during an underwater experimental session by an ex-army, amphibious DUKW’, and therefore more precautions should have been taken to ensure the safety of their participants.

Question 40

What is state-dependant forgetting? 🙀

Answer 40

When the emotional state that an individual is in serves as an aid to memory recall, there is a risk that state-dependant forgetting will occur when the same psychological state is not experienced.
— This is often the case with alcohol intoxication and the absence of accurate memories when sober

Question 41

Explain research by Carter & Cassaday (1998) : State-dependant forgetting

Answer 41

Carter & Cassaday (1998)
AIM: They examined state-dependant forgetting using anti-histamine drugs. These are typically administer as hay fever relief to sufferers but are also known for their sedating effect. This can make the individual feel drowsy, and therefore not as alert as they would normally be, providing a comparison to everyday non-drug-induced behaviour.

METHOD: Participants were tasked with learning a list of words and extracts from a text and then asked to recall everyday non-drug-induced behaviour. There were four conditions in their experiment:
1) learn on anti-histamine and recall on anti-histamine
2) learn on anti-histamine and recall without
3) learn without and recall on anti-histamine
4) learn without and recall without

FINDINGS; In the conditions where the learning and recalling state matched memory was improved. Consequently, when the physiological state of participants was different recall was significantly poorer.

CONCLUSION: When the physiological/emotional cues that are present at the time of encoding are missing at the time of retrieval (recall), state-dependant forgetting is likely to occur.

Question 42

EVALUATION: State-dependant forgetting

Answer 42

SEARCH SUPPORT
P: There is research support for the effect of state-dependant retrieval failure, which occurs when an individual’s emotional state at the time of learning is different to their emotional state at the time of recall.
E: Goodwin et al (1969), asked male participants to remember lists of words when they were either drunk or sober. The participants were then asked to recall the words 24 hours later, in either a drunk or sober state.
E: The results of Goodwin et al. support Godden and Baddeley, as words learned when drunk were better recalled drunk, and words learn sober were better recalled when sober.
L: These results support the idea of state-dependant retrieval failure and demonstrate the power of ‘state’ on recalling information.

CAUSE AND EFFECT?
P: There are issues with determining a cause and effect relationship with retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting.
E: Nairne (2002) criticised research in this area suggesting that there is merely a correlation between cues present at the time of encoding and cues present at the time of later retrieval. he goes on further and suggests that the cues present do not in themselves cause the retrieval failure (or success), but are simply associated with it.
E: This would mean that the cue-dependant (context and state) explanations of forgetting due to retrieval failure, are in fact circular in nature rather than linear and psychologists are unable to conclude whether a lack of cues actually causes retrieval failure.

Question 43

What is an eyewitness testimony?

Answer 43

An eyewitness testimony is the evidence given in court or a police investigation by someone who has witnessed a crime or accident.

Question 44

Which factors do psychologists say have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of eyewitness reports? 🗣️

Answer 44

1. Misleading information (through leading questions or post-event discussion)
2. Anxiety

Question 45

Explain the FIRST research done by Loftus & Palmer (1974) to explore misleading information.

Answer 45

EXPERIMENT NO.1

AIM: To investigate the effect of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

METHOD: The sample was 45 American students, who were divided into five groups of nine. In an independent measures design, all of the participants watched a video of a car crash and were then asked a specific question about the speed of the cars.
— Loftus and Palmer manipulated the verb used in the question, for example: “How fast were the cars going when they smashed/ collided/ bumped/ hit/ contacted with each other?

They found that the estimated speed was affected by the verb used. For example, participants who were given the word ‘smashed’ reported an average speed of 40.5mph, whereas participants who were given the word ‘contacted’ reported an average speed of 32mph.

CONCLUSION: The results show clearly that the accuracy of eyewitness testimony is affected by leading questions and that a single word can significantly affect the accuracy of our judgements.

Question 46

Explain the SECOND research done by Loftus & Palmer (1974) to explore misleading information.

Answer 46

EXPERIMENT NO.2

AIM: To investigate further how leading questions can affect eyewitness testimony

METHOD: Loftus and Palmer used a different sample of 150 American students, who were divided into three evenly-sized groups. All of the students watched a one-minute video depicting a car accident and were then given a questionnaire to complete.
One group was asked “how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”
Another group was asked “how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
The final group (control) was not asked about the speed of the vehicles

One week later the participants returned and were asked a series of questions about the accident. The critical question was “did you see any broken glass?” (there was no broken glass on the clip).

RESULTS: 31% of the participants. who were previously questioned using the verb smashed reported seeing broken glass; 14% of the participants who were previously questioned using the verb hit reported seeing broken glass; and 12% of the control group.

CONCLUSION: The participants who were questioned previously using the verb smashed were significantly more likely to report seeing the broken glass, as a result of the earlier leading question.
The verb smashed has a connotation of faster speeds and breakneck glass and this question left the participants to report seeing something that was actually not present. Their memory for the original event was distorted by the question used on week earlier, demonstrating the power of leading questions.

Question 47

EVALUATION: Loftus and Palmer

Answer 47

LACK OF ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
P: Loftus and Palmer’s research has questionable ecological validity. On one hand, questioning participants about everyday events like a car crash appears to be a genuine measure of eyewitness testimony. However, the participants watched a video of a car crash and witness the events unfold from start to finish.
E: In everyday reports of car accidents, witnesses rarely see the whole event; they are either involved in the event directly, or see a small part of the event happen in their peripheral vision.
L: Therefore, their results do not reflect everyday car accidents and we are unable to conclude if eyewitnesses to real accidents, who would have a stronger connection to the event, would be susceptible to leading questions in the same way.

LACKS POPULATION VALIDITY
P: A second limitation of Loftus & Palmer is that their study lacks ecological validity.
E: Their two experiments consisted of 45 and 150 students from the University of Washington. it is reasonable to argue that the students in their experiment were less experienced divers, who may be less accurate at estimating speeds.
E: Consequently, we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, for example to older and more experienced drivers, who may be more accurate in their judgement of speeds and therefore not as susceptible to leading questions.

HIGHLY CONTROLLED :)
P: A strength of their research is that it took place in a university laboratory and was therefore highly controlled.
E: This high degree of control reduces the change of extraneous variables, increasing the validity of the results.
E: Furthermore, it is easy for psychologists to replicate their research, to see if the same results are achieved with a different population.

Question 48

What is meant by post-event discussion? 🤔

Answer 48

Misleading information in the real world can come from alternative sources than leading questions alone, for example co-witnesses, when they discuss the details of a crime or accident, following an incident.

Question 49

Explain the research carried out by Gabbert et al (2003) : Misleading information (post-event discussion)

Answer 49

Gabbert et al. (2003)
AIM: To investigate the effect of post-event discussion on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

METHOD: The sample comprised of 60 students from the University of Aberdeen and 60 older adults recruited from a local community.
1. Participants watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet.
2. 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 watched the same video however, they have in fact seen different perspectives of the same crime and only one person had actually witnessed the girl stealing.
3. Participants in the co-witness group discussed the crime together.
4. All participants then completed a questionnaire, testing their memory on the event

RESUTS: 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 that they had not seen her commit a crime.

CONCLUSION: These results highlight the issue of post-event discussion and the powerful effect thus can have on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Question 50

EVALUATION: Gabbert et al. (2003)

Answer 50

LACK ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
P: The results of Gabbert et al. have a questionable ecological validity.
E: The participants in the co-witness condition witnessed different perspectives of the same crime, as would typically be the case in real-life crimes. However, as in Loftus and Palmer’s research, these witnesses knew they were taking part in an experiment and were more likely to have paid close attention to the details of the video clip.
E: Therefore, these results do not reflect everyday examples of crime, where witnesses mat be exposed to less information

UNABLE TO KNOW WHY DISTORTION OCCURS
P: Although Gabbert et al’s results provide an insight into the effect of post-event discussion on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, we are unable to conclude why the distortion occurs.
E: The distortion could be the result of poor memory, where people assimilate new information into their own accounts of the event and are unable to distinguish between what they have seen and what they have heard.
E: On the other hand, it could be that the distortion occurs due to conformity and the social pressure from the co-witness.
L: This is why further research is required to answer this question.

GOOD POPULATION VALIDITY
P: Gabbert et al. tested two different populations, university students and older adults, and found little difference between these two conditions.
L: Therefore, her results provide good population validity and allow us to conclude that post-even discussion affects younger and older adults in a similar way.

Question 51

Explain the research carried out by Johnson & Scott (1976) : Anxiety affecting EWT

Answer 51

Loftus (1979) / Johnson & Scott (1976)
AIM: To investigate whether anxiety affects the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

METHOD: Participants were invited to a laboratory where they were told to wait in the reception area. A receptionist who was seated nearby excused herself to run an errand, leaving the participants alone.
— The experiment used an independent groups design, as participants were then exposed to one of two conditions:
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 walked past 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 glass breaking and crashing chairs. This was followed by an individual (the target) running into the reception area, holding a bloodied letter-opening knife.

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.

RESULTS: Those who had witnessed the man holding a pen correctly identified the target 49% of the time, compared to those who had witnessed the man holding a knife, who correctly indemnified the target 33% of the time.

CONCLUSION: Loftus claimed that the participants who were exposed to the knife had higher levels of anxiety and were more likely to focus their attention to 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 52

EVALUATION: Anxiety as a factor affecting EWT

Answer 52

LIMITATION - WEAPON FOCUS EFFECT
P: Johnson & Scott may have been testing surprise rather than anxiety.
E: The reason participants focus on the weapon may have been because they were surprised by what they were seeing rather than because they were scared.
E: Pickel (1998) conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken as the hand-held items in a hairdressing salon video. Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the unusualness conditions (chicken and the handgun).
L: This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat and therefore tells us nothing specifically about the side effects of anxiety on EWT.

LIMITATION - ETHICAL ISSUES
P: Creating anxiety in participants is risk and potentially unethical because it may subject people to psychological harm purely for the purpose of research.
E: This is why real-life studies are beneficial - psychologists are able to interview people who have already witnessed a real-life event, so there is no need to create it.
E: This issues doesn’t challenge findings such as that Johnson and Scott but it does question the need for such research. One reason to compare findings with less controlled field studies, but it is questionable as to whether the benefits of this research may outweigh the ethical issues.

LIMITATION - ALTERNATIVE MODEL
P: Fazey and Hardy (1998) propose an alternative model to explain the relationship between anxiety and performance.
E: Their catastrophe theory predicts that when physiological arousal increases beyond the optimum level, the inverted-U hypothesis predicts a gradual decrease in performance.
E: However, Fazey and Hardy observed that there is sometimes a catastrophic decline, which they suggest is due to increased mental activity (worry) - the inverted U only described in physiological anxiety.

LIMITATION - DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
P: Most lab studies show participants a filmed (and usually staged) crime.
E: Most of these participants will be aware that they are watching a filmed crime for a reason to do with the study.
E: Chances are most of them will work out for themselves what they are going to be asked about and therefore modify their behaviour to fit the demand characteristics the researcher is looking for.

Question 53

How did the cognitive interview come about?

Answer 53

The cognitive interview was developed in 1985, in response to criticisms of the traditional police interview.

Question 54

Who proposed the cognitive interview?

Answer 54

Fisher and Geiselman (1992)

Question 55

What are the four main techniques of the cognitive interview?

Answer 55

R - reinstate the context
O - order
P - perspective
E - everything

Question 56

What does reinstating the context mean in the cognitive interview?

Answer 56

When a personal mentally recalls the context of the event. This includes the environment (such as what the weather was like, what they could see) and their emotions (what their feelings were.
— These details can then act as a trigger, to help the person recall more information.
— There are clear links here between this and context-dependent and state-dependent remembering.

Question 57

What does reversing the order mean for the cognitive interview?

Answer 57

Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence, for example, from the final point back to the beginning, or from middle to beginning.
— This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than the actual events
— It also prevents dishonesty

Question 58

What does changing the perspective mean for the cognitive interview?

Answer 58

Witness should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives. For example, how it would have appeared to other witness or to the perpetrator.
— This is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and schema on recall
— The schema you have for a particular setting generates expectations of what would have happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened

Question 59

What does reporting everything do for the cognitive interview?

Answer 59

Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even those that seem irrelevant or that the witness isn’t confident about.
— Seemingly trivial details may be important and moreover may trigger other important memories.

Question 60

EVALUATION: Cognitive Interview

Answer 60

LIMITATION - TIME CONSUMING
P: Takes much more time than the standard police interview eg. more time is needed to establish rapport with the witness and allow them to relax
E: The cognitive interview also requires special training and many police forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours.
L: This is a problem because it means that it is unlikely that the ‘proper’ version of the cognitive interview is actually used.

STRENGTH - ELEMENTS HAVE DIFFERENT VALUE LEVELS
P: Milne and Bull (2002) found that each individual element was equally valuable - each technique used singly produced more information than the standard police interview.
E: However, a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than many of the other conditions.
E: This confirmed police officers’ suspicions that some aspects of the cognitive interview are more useful than others.
L: But, this can also be beneficial even if the full cognitive interview isn’t used, these two elements can be used to improve police interviewing.

STRENGTH - RESEARCH SUPPORT
P: Kohnken et al (1999) carried out a meta-analysis of 50 studies.
E: The enhanced cognitive interview consistently provided more information than the standard interview used by police.
L: This is a strength as it demonstrates that there are real practical benefits in using the enhanced cognitive interview.

LIMITATION - INACCURATE INFORMATION
P: Techniques of cognitive interview aim to increase the amount of correct information remembered but the recall of incorrect information may also be increase.
E: Kohnkoen et al (1999) found an 81% increase of correct information but also a 61% increase of incorrect information (false positives) when the enhanced cognitive interview was compared to the standard interview.
L: This is a problem because whilst the cognitive interview may improve recall of information, the information may not necessarily be accurate, which means that EWT can still be incorrect or inaccurate regardless of how the individual is being interviewed.