Memory Flashcards
Coding, capacity, duration
Coding
Strength: Baddeley: identified 2 memory stores, some exceptions but still, developed multi store model
Limitation: Baddeley: artificial stimuli used, not even like everyday memory task, when processing more meaningful then people use semantic coding even for STM
Capacity
Strength: Jacobs: old study but replicated under controlled conditions
Limitation: Miller: overestimates STM capacity, other research suggests more like 4+-1
Duration
Strength: Bahrick: everyday meaningful memories, reflect more ‘real estimate’
Limitation: Peterson and Peterson: meaningless stimuli, does not reflect everyday memory tasks
The multi-store model of memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin)
Strength: research support for STM and LTM being different, Baddeley,
Counter: this research support does not use everyday information
Limitation: evidence suggests there is more than one STM store, KF had poor recall when he heard them but better when he read them, other studies, auditory, verbal, non-verbal - cannot be just one store for all
Limitation: Craik and Watkins: prolonged rehearsal not needed for STM-LTM transfer, two types of rehearsal, maintenance and elaborative, elaborative needed for long term storage (linking and thinking)
LTM types detail define
Episodic:
- Events
- Complex
- Time stamped
- Conscious effort to recall
Semantic:
- Knowledge/ facts
- Not time stamped
- Less personal
Procedural:
- actions/skills
- automatic
- practice
- no conscious effort
Types of Long Term memory evaluate
Strength: case study evidence, Clive Wearing and HM both difficulty recalling past events but semantic and procedural memories unaffected, supports idea of more than one memory store in LTM
Counter: case studies lack control, we do not know anything about person’s memory before brain damage
Limitation: conflicting findings about types of LTM and brain areas, Tulving says semantic on right of prefrontal cortex, episodic on left, others say opposite, poor neurophysiological support for types of LTM
Strength: Belleville: helping people with memory problems, devised intervention for older people targeting episodic memory, improving memory compared to control group
Working memory model (Baddeley and Hitch) outline
- updated version of STM
- ‘mental space’ active when learning, playing, comprehending
Central Executive: supervisory role, directs attention, monitors incoming data, allocates subsystems to tasks
Capacity: very limited. Coding: flexible.
Phonological Loop (preserves order in which auditory info arrives): phonological store stores words you hear, articulatory process allows maintenance rehearsal (so you can keep sounds in WM while they are needed)
Capacity: 2 seconds. Coding: acoustic
Visuo-Spatial sketchpad (VSS): (stores visual and/or spatial information when required) visual cache stores visual data, inner scribe records arrangement of objects in visual field
Capacity: 3/4 objects. Coding: visual
Episodic Buffer: newest, temporary store for info, integrates visual, spatial and verbal info from other stores, maintains sense of time sequencing, recording events/episodes that are happening, links to LTM.
Capacity: 4 ‘chunks’. Coding: flexible
The working memory model evaluation
Strength: support from clinical evidence, KF motorcycle accident, stm for auditory info poor (damaged phonological loop) but normal visual processing (intact VSS), supporting multiple stm stores
Counter: KF may have had other impairments explaining poor auditory memory performance apart from damage to phonological loop
Strength: dual task studies support, Baddeley, harder for people to carry out two visual tasks at the same time than do a verbal and a visual task together (same for two verbal tasks) because both visual compete for same subsystem (VSS) - supports idea of separate subsystems that process visual and verbal info
Counter: lack external validity, not representative of every day tasks
Limitation: lack of clarity over CE, Baddeley says most important but least understood, must be more than just ‘attention’, unsatisfactory, challenges integrity of model, must be made up of sub components
Explanations for Forgetting (interference - when 2 pieces of info disrupt each other) evaluate
PI - old info makes harder to store new information
RI - new info overwrites previous memories which are similar
Strength: support for interference in real-world situations, Baddeley and Hitch rugby players, recall names of teams they had played against, the more they played the more interference and thus worst recall
Counter: interference probably doesn’t take place often in real life, similarity of memories rare
Limitation: interference effects can be overcome using cues, theory doesn’t predict this, Tulving and Psotka gave participants lists of words organised into categories, with each new list recall fell from 70%, but when given cued recall test recall rose to 70% again
Strength: support from drug studies, material learnt just before taking diazepam recalled better than a placebo group one week later, retrograde facilitation, drug stopped new info reaching brain areas that process memory, no retroactive interference
Extra limitation: lab studies unlike everyday forgetting, we usually recall much later, lab studies thus may overestimate importance of interference as a cause or forgetting
Explanations for forgetting (retrieval failure) evaluate
(When information is available but cannot be recalled due to absence of appropriate cues)
(Context dependant forgetting, external cues eg weather or place, state dependent forgetting, internal cues eg feeling upset or being drunk)
Strength: retrieval cues have real world application, research reminds us of strategies to improve recall, eg when having trouble remembering it is probably worth making the effort to recall the environment in which you learned it first
Strength: lots of support, Godden and Baddeley, Carter and Cassaday, suggests it is main reason for forgetting, occurs in everyday life as well as in lab studies
Counter: Baddeley argues contexts have to be very different for effect to be seen, so many not explain much everyday forgetting eg recalling in different room
Limitation: context effects vary in recall and recognition, Godden and Baddeley replicated their experiment and found no difference when used recognition test rather than recall, so explanation is limited
Extra limitation: cannot establish whether cue has really been encoded so not scientifically testable
Leading questions detail
Post event discussion detail
Leading questions: Loftus and Palmer (40mph smashed vs 30mph contacted)
Response bias: wording of question had no effect on memory but influences answer
Substitution explanation: wording of question affects memory, interferes with original
Post event discussion: Gabbert (71% recalled aspects of event they didn’t actually see but discussed)
Memory contamination: when co-witnesses discuss a crime, they mix (mis)information from other witnesses with own memory
Memory conformity: witnesses go along with each other to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right
Eyewitness Testimony: Misleading information evaluate
Strength: real world application in criminal justice system, psychologists sometimes expert witnesses in trials and explain limits of EWT to juries, psychologists can improve how the legal system works and protect innocent from faulty convictions
Counter: Loftus and Palmer showed film clips and less stressful event and no consequences, so might be more reliable in real life
Limitation: limitation of substitution explanation, evidence challenging it, studies found that memories stayed resistant on central detailed event, better than peripheral ones when asked misleading questions
Limitation: limitation of memory conformity, evidence challenging it, support for memory contamination, p’s reported blend of hair colour, so distorted
Extra limitation: low internal validity, demand characteristics, p’s guess when they don’t know because they want to help
Eyewitness Testimony: Anxiety evaluate
Limitation: anxiety may not be relevant to weapon focus, J + S p’s May have been focused on weapon due to surprise not anxiety, Pickel found accuracy in identifying criminal lowest when item was unexpected eg raw chicken in hairdressers
Strength: supporting evidence for negative effects, measured heart rate (objective measure) to visitors to London dungeon, high anxiety p’ less accurate in recall
Strength: Christianson and Hubinette supporting evidence for positive effects, interviewed actual witnesses to bank robbery, direct victims with high anxiety more accurate than bystanders
Counter: interviewed long after event, no control over post event discussion
Extra: inverted U theory by Yerkes and Dodson only focuses on physical anxiety and ignores other elements including cognitive (how we think about a stressful event affects what we recall) (anxious thoughts do not lead to symptoms of anxiety always but still can block memory)
Eyewitness Testimony (the cognitive interview)
Rapport:
1. Report everything
2. Reinstate the context
3. Reverse the order (prevent dishonesty and wrong expectations)
4. Change perspective (prevents influence of schema)
Strength: research support for CI effectiveness, Kohnken, compared CI and standard, CI 40% more correct info
Counter: also found increase in amount of inaccurate info
Limitation: some elements of CI more useful than others eg found that each individual technique of CI alone produced more info than standard police interview, but combining 1+2 produced better recall than any others combined, thus less credible as some techniques more effective
Limitation: time consuming, police reluctant to use, requires special training, many forces don’t have resources for this training, thus not realistic so May be better to focus on just a few key elements
Extra: taking pick and mix approach makes it harder to compare effectiveness in studies but makes it more flexible and effective as individualised for different police forces
