memory Flashcards

1
Q

coding definition

A

format in which information is processed and stored

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

capacity definition

A

amount of information that can be help in a memory store

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

duration definition

A

length of time information can be held in memory

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

coding baddeley

A
  • lists of words to four groups of participants
  • group 1 – acoustically similar (sound similar)
  • group 2 – acoustically dissimilar
  • group 3 – semantically similar (similar meaning)
  • group 4 - semantically dissimilar
  • participants asked to recall words in the same order
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

coding Baddeley findings

A
  • immediate recall – recalling from short term memory tended to do worse in acoustically similar words
  • recall after 20 minutes – recalling from long term memory did worse with semantically similar words
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

coding baddeley advantage

A
  • separate memory store - identified a clear difference between 2 memory stores, led to multi store memory model
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

coding baddeley disadvantage

A
  • artificial stimuli - word list had no personal meaning to participants, processing more meaningful information may use semantic coding even for STM tasks.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

capacity jacobs

A
  • participants asked to recall the list the correct order until they make an error
  • mean score = 9.3
  • letter = 7.3
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

capacity miller

A
  • magic number = 7
  • believed that STM capacity is 7 +/- 2
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

capacity advantage

A
  • valid study - has been replicated (Bobb and Verhaegen)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

capacity disadvantage

A

not so many chunks
- may have overestimated STM capacity
- cowan reviewed research and found capacity of STM is only about 4
- suggests lower end of miller estimate is more appropriate than 7 items

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

duration Peterson and Peterson

A
  • 24 student participants in 8 trials/tests
  • students had to remember a consonant syllable (trigram) and count 3 digit number to count back from
  • prevent any mental rehearsal of consonant syllable
  • asked to stop for different periods of time from 3-18 seconds
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

duration Peterson and Peterson findings

A
  • After 3 seconds the average recall was 80%
  • After 18 seconds the average recall was 3%
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

duration Baharick

A
  • 392 american participants aged 17-74
  • tested photo recognition and free recall from highschool yearbook
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

duration Baharick findings

A
  • <15 year graduation 90% photo, 60% free
  • 48 years, 70% photo, 30% recall
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

duration positives

A

high external validity
- research investigated meaningful memories
- when studies on LTM were conducted with meaningless pictures recall rates lower
- suggests findings reflect a more real estimate of duration of crime

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

duration negatives

A

artificial stimuli
- rather than meaning full material
- word list had no personal meaning
- findings may not tell us much ab coding in different kinds of memory tasks
- processing more meaningful information people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: misleading information

A

Loftus and Palmer

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Loftus and Palmer

A
  • 45 participants to watch clips of car accidents
  • asked to describe how fast the cars were going, 5 groups given different verb
  • mean for ‘contacted’ was 31.8mph
  • mean for ‘smashed’ was 40.5mph
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

why do leading questions affect EWT

A

response bias
- wording of questions influence how we answer
- Loftus and palmer - participants who heard ‘smash’ recalled broken glass (there was none)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

research on post-event discussion

A

Gabbert
- each participant watched video of same crime but filmed from different angle
- then discussed what they saw before completing recall test
- 71% recalled aspects that they heard in discussion not in video
- control group where no discussion was 0%

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

why does post-event discussion affect EWT

A
  • memory contamination - co-witnesses to crime discuss it eyewitness testimony become altered, they combine info with other witnesses with their own
  • memory conformity - Gabbert witnesses go along with each other to win social approval
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

misleading information evaluation

A
  • real world application
  • evidence against the substitution
  • evidence challenging memory conformity
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

misleading information real life application

A

real world application
- in criminal justice system
- Loftus - leading questions have distorting effect on memory so police are careful with how they phrase their questions
- psychologists askd to act as eyewitnesses in court to explain the limits of EWT to juries

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
Q

real world application counterpoint

A
  • Participants watched film clips in a lab different from experiencing it in real life
  • Foster said what eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world but participant responses in research don’t matter in the same way
  • Suggests that Loftus is too pessimistic about the effects of misleading information
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
26
Q

misleading information.
evidence against the substitution

A
  • EWT is more accurate for some aspects of an event than others
  • Sutherland and Hayne - asked leading questions their recall was more accurate for central details
  • original memories for central details survived and were not distorted an outcome that is not predicted by the substitution explanation
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
27
Q

misleading information.
evidence challenging memory conformity

A
  • Evidence that post – event discussion actually alters EWT
  • Skagerberg and Wright (2008) showed participants 2 versions film clips.
  • Participants discussed the clips in pairs each having seen different
  • Often didn’t report what they had seen but what they had heard
  • Suggests that memory itself is distorted through misleading post-event discussion rather than result of memory conformity.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
28
Q

improving the accuracy of EWT: cognitive interview
Fisher and Geiselman

A
  • EWT could improve if police used cognitive interviews
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
29
Q

cognitive interview

A

method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories
- 4 main techinques used

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
30
Q

cognitive interview
4 main techniques used

A
  • report everything
  • reinstate the context
  • reverse the order
  • change perspective
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
31
Q

the enhanced cognitive interview

A
  • Fisher - focus on dynamics of the interaction
  • includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, mimimising distractions
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
32
Q

cognitive interview positive
support for the effectiveness

A
  • Meta- analyse by kohnken, combined data from 55 studies comparing the CI with the standard police interview
  • CI gave an average 41% increase in accurate information
  • Shows CI is an effective technique in helping witnesses recall information that is stored in the memory but not immediately accessible
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
33
Q

cognitive interview negative
some elements may be more useful

A
  • not all elements are useful
  • Milne and Bull- found combining ‘report everything’ and ‘reinstate the context’ produced the best recall
  • some aspects of CI are more useful than others
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
34
Q

cognitive interview negative
time consuming

A
  • police may reluctant to use CI because it takes more time and training
  • better to focus on just a few elements
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
35
Q
A
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
36
Q

the multi store memory model

A
  • representation of how memory works in terms of 3 stores
  • Describes how information is passed from 1 store to another
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
37
Q

sensory register

A
  • All stimuli from the environment is passed into the sensory register
  • Memory store for each of our 5 senses
  • Coding in each store is specific
  • Duration less than half a second
  • high capacity
  • Information passes further into the memory system only if you pay attention to it
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
38
Q

STM

A
  • Coded mainly acoustically and lasts around 18 seconds unless its rehearsed
  • Temporary memory store
  • Capacity is between 7 +/-2
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
39
Q

LTM

A
  • Potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time
  • Coded mostly semantically
  • when we want to recall information from LTM it has to be transferred back into STM by retrieval
  • Bahrick el al found many participants were able to recognise the names and faces of old school classmates almost 50 years after graduating
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
40
Q

multi store memory model evaluation

A
  • research support
  • more than 1 STM store
    -elaborative rehearsal
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
41
Q

research support

A
  • MSM shows that STM and LTM are different
  • Baddeley found we tend to mix words that sound similar when using our STM
  • mix words that have similar meaning when we use our LTM
  • Shows LTM and STM are separate independent memory stores, claimed by the MSM
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
42
Q

research support counterpoint

A
  • In everyday life we form memories related to all sorts of useful things – names, faces
  • many studies that support MSM used none of these materials
  • Used digits, letters (Jacob) and sometimes words (Baddeley)
  • Used consonant syllables – have no meaning
  • Means that MSM may not be valid model of how memory works in our everyday life where we have to remember meaningful information
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
43
Q

more than 1 STM store

A
  • Shallice and Warrington studied a client with amnesia
  • STM for digits was poor when read aloud to him but good when he read them himself
  • Shows MSM is wrong in claiming that there is just 1 STM store processing different types of information.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
44
Q

elaborative rehearsal

A
  • Prolonged rehearsal isn’t needed to transfer to LTM
  • according to MSM what matters about rehearsal is the amount of it (the more you rehearse something the more likely it goes to your LTM) – prolonged rehearsal
  • Craik and Watkins found the type of rehearsal is more important than the amount
  • elaborative rehearsal is needed for long-term storage
  • occurs when you link information of existing knowledge
  • suggests MSM doesn’t fully explain how LT storage is achieved
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
45
Q

types of LTM

A
  • Tulving proposed the idea that there are 3 LTM stores
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
46
Q

episodic memory

A
  • Recall person events from life
  • Memories are time stamped
  • Memories of single episode will include several elements (people, places, objects)
  • Memories have to be retrieved consciously and with effort
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
47
Q

semantic memory

A
  • Shared knowledge of the world
  • These memories aren’t time stamped
  • Need to be recalled deliberately
48
Q

procedural memory

A
  • Knowledge of how to do things
  • Recall without consciousness
  • Eg riding a bike
49
Q

types of LTM evaluation

A
  • clinical evidence
  • conflicting neuroimaging evidence
  • real world application
50
Q

clinical evidence

A
  • Study of Molaison and Wearing
  • Episodic memory in both men were severely impaired due to brain damage
  • But semantic memories were relatively unaffected- knew the concept of a dog but couldn’t remember stoking him 30 minutes before
  • Procedural memories were also intact – knew how to walk and speak
  • Shows that there are different memory stores in LTM – one can be damaged but others could be unaffected
51
Q

clinical evidence counterpoint

A
  • Clinical studies of brain are not always perfect
  • lack control of variables
  • Researcher has no control over what happened before or during the injury
  • No knowledge of individuals memory before incident, without its hard to see how much it has changed
52
Q

conflicting neuroimaging evidence

A
  • Buckner and Peterson (1996) reviewed evidence regarding the location of semantic and episodic memory.
  • semantic memory is the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic memory on the right
  • other research links the left prefrontal cortex with the episodic retrieval
  • Challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located.
53
Q

real world application

A
  • Understanding types of LTM allows psychologist to help people with memory problems
  • As people age they experience memory loss but research shows it seems to be specific to episodic memory
  • Belleville devised an intervention to improve episodic memory in older people.
  • Trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group
  • shows that distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed
54
Q

the working memory model

A
  • Explanation of how STM is organised and how it functions
  • Consists of 4 main components
55
Q

central executive

A
  • Monitors the incoming data, focuses and divides our limited attention and allocates subsystems to tasks
  • Very limited processing capacity and doesn’t store information
56
Q

phonological loop

A
  • Deals with auditory information
  • Preserve the order the information arrives
  • Subdivided into
    o Phonological store – stores words you hear
    o Articulatory process – allows maintenance rehearsal, capacity is 2 seconds worth of what you can say
57
Q

visuo-spatial sketchpad

A
  • Stores visual and/or spatial information when required
  • Limited capacity – Baddeley around 3-4 objects
  • Subdivided into
    o Visual cache
    o Inner scribe
58
Q

episodic buffer

A
  • Added by Baddeley
  • Temporary store for information, visual, spatial and verbal information
  • limited capacity- about 4 chunks
  • Links working memory to long-term memory
59
Q

the working memory model evaluation

A
  • clinical evidence
  • dual task performance
  • nature of the central executive
60
Q

clinical evidence

A
  • Shallice and Warrington case study of patient KF
  • After brain injury KF had poor STM ability for auditory information but could process visual information normally
  • Immediate recall of digits were better when he read them(visual) than being read out to him (acoustic)
  • phonological loop was damaged but his visuospatial sketchpad was intact
  • Findings support the existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores
61
Q

clinical evidence counterpoint

A
  • Unclear whether KF had other cognitive impairments which might have effected performance on memory
  • Challenges evidence that comes from clinical studies of people with brain injuries that may have affected many different systems
62
Q

studies of dual task performance

A
  • Baddeley – participants carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time, their performance on each was similar to when they did it separately
  • When both task were the same – performance declined
  • Because both visual tasks compete for the same subsystem whereas there is no competition when doing both
  • Shows there must be a separate subsystem that processes visual input
63
Q

nature of the central executive

A
  • Lack of clarity over nature of central executive
  • Baddeley – the central executive is most important but least understood
  • The CE needs to be more clearly specified than just for attention
  • Some psychologists believe the CE may consist of separate subcomponents
  • Means the CE is an unsatisfactory component and this challenges the integrity of the WMM
64
Q

explanations for forgetting

A
  • interference
  • retrieval failure due to absence of cues
65
Q

interference

A

forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both to be distorted or forgotten

66
Q

types of interference

A
  • proactive
  • retroactive
67
Q

proactive interference

A
  • older memory interfers with a newer one
  • struggle learning new names
68
Q

retroactive interference

A
  • happens when a newer memory interferes with an older one
  • learnt too many new names, cant remember old
69
Q

research on effects of similarity

A
  • PI and RI are worse when memories are similar
  • Mcgeoch and Mcdonald changed the similarity between two sets of materials
  • Participants had to learn list of 10 words until they could remember with 100% accuracy, then learnt new list
  • Group 1 – synonyms
  • Group 2 – antonyms
  • Group 3- words unrelated to the original ones
  • Group 4- consonant syllables
  • Group 5- three-digit numbers
  • Group 6- no new list
  • When asked to recall synonyms had worst recall
  • Shows interference is strongest when memories are similar
70
Q

interference evaluation

A
  • real world interference
  • interference and cues
  • support from drug studies
71
Q

real world interference

A
  • Evidence of interference effects in more everyday situations
  • Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby player to recall names of teams they had played in the season
  • Players who played the most games had poorest recall
  • Shows interference happens in real world- increasing validity
72
Q

counterpoint

A
  • May cause forgetting but is unusual
  • Conditions needed for interference are rare
  • Unlike lab studies where there is a high degree of control, can create ideal conditions for interference
  • Suggests forgetting may be better explained by other theories such as retrieval failure due to lack of cues
73
Q

interference and cues

A
  • Interference is temporary and can be overdone by using cues
  • Tulving and Psotka gave participants lists of words organised into categories 1 list at a time
  • Recall was 70% for first list, but worse as list went on
  • End of procedure participants were given cued recall test – they were told names of categories recall rose to 70%
  • Shows interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in LTM – finding not predicted by theory
74
Q

support from drug studies

A
  • Retrograde facilitation – gave participants lists of words later asked to recall, assuming the intervening experiences would act as interference
  • Found when list of words was learnt under influence of the drug diazepam recall 1 week later was worse than placebo group
  • But when learnt before drug was taken recall was better than placebo
  • Findings show that forgetting can be due to interference – reduce interference and you reduce forgetting
75
Q

retrieval failure due to the absence of cues

A
  • not being able to access memories that are available
  • main reason people forget is because of insufficient cues
  • When information is stored in memory associated cues are stored at the same time
  • If cues aren’t available at time of recall retrieval failure occurs
76
Q

encoding specificity principle

A
  • Tulving, ESP stating that a cue has to be both present at encoding and present at retrieval
  • Context dependent forgetting – recall depends on external cue (eg weather)
  • State dependent forgetting- recall depends on internal cue (eg feeling upset)
77
Q

research on context dependent forgetting
procedure

A
  • Godden and Baddeley studied deep -sea divers to see if training on land helped or hindered their work underwater
  • Divers learnt lists of words either on land or underwater and then asked to recall on either land or water, creating 4 conditions
78
Q

research on context dependent forgetting
findings

A
  • recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions
  • The external cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure
79
Q

research on state dependent forgetting
procedure

A
  • Carter and Cassaday gave antihistamine drugs to their participants
  • Making participants slightly drowsy
  • Creates an internal physiological state different from the normal state of being awake and alert
  • Participants had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall information again creating 4 conditions
  • learning on and off drug and recall when on and off drug
80
Q

research on state dependent forgetting
findings

A
  • Conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state of learning and recall was worse
  • When cues are absent there is more forgetting
81
Q

retrieval failure due to the absence of cues evaluation

A
  • real-world application
  • research support
  • recall vs recognition
82
Q

real world application

A
  • Retrieval cue can help to overcome some forgetting in everyday situations
  • Although cues may not have very strong effect on forgetting – Baddeley thinks they are still worth paying attention to
  • Eg when you into another room to collect an item but when you get to said room you forgot what you wanted so go back to the original room to try to remember
  • If you have trouble remembering it is worth making effort to recall the environment in which you learnt it first
  • Shows us how research can remind us of strategies we use in the real world to improve our recall
83
Q

research support

A
  • Godden and Baddeley
  • Show that lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context dependent and state dependent forgetting in everyday life
  • Eysenck – argue retrieval failure is the main reason for forgetting from LTM
  • Evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real world situations as well as in highly controlled conditions of the lab
84
Q

counterpoint

A
  • Baddeley argues context effects aren’t very strong especially in everyday life
  • Different contexts have to be very different before an effect is seen
  • Would be hard to find environmental as land different from water
  • Means that retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting
85
Q

recall vs recognition

A
  • Context effects may depend substantially on the type of memory being tested
  • Godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall
  • there was no context-dependent effect, performance was same in all conditions
  • Suggests that retrieval failure is limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it
86
Q

factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

A
  • misleading information
  • anxiety
87
Q

misleading information

A
  • wording of question may lead you to give certain answer
88
Q

loftus and palmer

A
  • 45 participants watch clips of car accidents then asked questions about them.
  • asked to describe how fast the cars were going, 5 groups given different verb
  • mean speed for ‘contacted’ was 31.8mph
  • Mean for ‘smashed’ was 40.5mph
89
Q

why does leading questions affect EWT

A
  • Response- bias
  • Wording of questions has no influence on memory but does influence how we answer
  • Loftus and Palmer, conducted a second experiment that supports the substitution explanation which shows that wording of a leading question changes the participants memory of the clip.
  • Participants who heard ‘smash’ were more likely to recall seeing broken glass (there was none)
90
Q

research on post event discussion

A
  • Eyewitnesses to crime discuss their experiences and memories with each other
  • Gabbert (2003) studied participants in pairs
  • Each participant watched a video of the same crime but filmed from different points of view
  • Both participants then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall
  • 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they didn’t see in video but heard in the discussion
  • control group where there was no discussion was 0%
  • Evidence of memory
91
Q

why does post event discussion effect EWT

A
  • memory contamination
  • memory conformity
92
Q

memory contamination

A
  • eyewitnesses testimonies may become altered or distorted
  • Because they combine information from other witnesses with their own memories
93
Q

memory conformity

A
  • Gabbert found witnesses often go along with each other either to win social approval or because they believe witnesses are correct
94
Q

misleading information evaluation

A
  • real world app
  • evidence against the substitution
  • evidence challenging memory conformity
95
Q

real world app

A
  • practical uses in the criminal justice system
  • Loftus (1975) research on leading questions, police now careful with how they phrase their questions
  • Psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert eyewitness in court trials to explain the limits of EWT to juries
  • Shows that psychologists can help to improve the way the legal system works
96
Q

counterpoint

A
  • Participants watched film clips in a lab, which is different from experiencing it in real life
  • Foster said what eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world but participant responses in research don’t matter in the same way
  • Suggests that Loftus is too pessimistic about the effects of misleading information
97
Q

evidence against the substitution

A
  • EWT is more accurate for some aspects of an event than others
  • Sutherland and Hayne (2001) showed participant video clip when they were asked leading questions their recall was more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones
  • Suggests that the original memories for central details survived and were not distorted an outcome that is not predicted by the substitution explanation
98
Q

evidence challenging memory conformity

A
  • Evidence that post – event discussion actually alters EWT
  • Skagerberg and Wright (2008) showed participants film clips. There were 2 versions
  • Participants discussed the clips in pairs each having seen different
  • Often didn’t report what they had seen but what they had heard
  • Suggests that memory itself is distorted through misleading post-event discussion rather than result of memory conformity.
99
Q

anxiety

A
  • Mental state of arousal that includes feeling concern and tension
100
Q

anxiety and negative effect on recall

A
  • Prevents us paying attention to important cues so recall is worse
  • Johnson and Scott (weapon focus) participants seated in waiting room
  • Low anxiety condition – heard casual convo in next room then man with pen walking out – 49% able to identify him
  • High anxiety condition- heard heated argument and man walk out with knife - 33% able to identify him
  • Tunnel theory – enhanced memory for central events
101
Q

anxiety and positive effect on recall

A
  • Fight or flight response – increased alertness
  • Yuille and Cutshall - real shooting in a gun shop
  • witnesses interviewed 5 months after shooting compared to police interview, also asked to rate how stressed they were 1-7
  • witness more stressed had better recall
  • 88% high stress, 75% low stress (5 months after)
102
Q

explaining contradictory findings

A
  • Yerkes and Dodson – relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U
  • Deffenbacher – reviewed 21 studies of EWT and noted contradictory findings on the effects of anxiety
  • Used the Yerkes-Dodson law to explain findings
  • When we witness accident we become emotionally and physiologically aroused
  • Higher levels of anxiety = memory more accurate
  • optimal level of anxiety, if exceed recall drastic decline
103
Q

anxiety evaluation

A
  • unusualness not anxiety
  • support for negative effect
  • support for positive effect
104
Q

unusualness not anxiety

A
  • Johnson and Scott may not have tested anxiety
  • Participant may have focused on object because its unusual not scared
  • Pickel – experiment with scissors, handgun, wallet or chicken as hand held items in salon
  • Eyewitness accuracy was poorer in high unusualness conditions
  • Suggests weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety and tells us nothing about effects of anxiety on EWT
105
Q

support for negative effects

A
  • Valentine and Mesout supports research on weapon focus and negative effects on recall
  • Used objective measure (HR) to divide participants into high and low anxiety groups
  • Anxiety clearly disrupted the participants ability to recall details about actor
  • Suggest high level of anxiety does have negative effect on immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event
106
Q

support for positive effects

A
  • Christianson and Hubinette interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden
  • Some directly and indirectly involved
  • Those directly involved had higher anxiety
  • Found recall more than 75% accurate across all witnesses
  • Direct witness more accurate
  • Findings from actual crimes confirm that anxiety doesn’t reduce accuracy or recall and may even enhance it
107
Q

counterpoint

A
  • They interviewed participants 4-15 months after the event
  • Researchers had no control over what happened during this time – post-event discussion
  • Effects of anxiety may have been overwhelmed by these factors
  • Lack of control over confounding variables may be responsible for these findings – invalidating their results
108
Q

improving the accuracy of EWT

A

cognitive interview

109
Q

fisher and Geiselman

A
  • EWT could be improve if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses
  • Recommended that techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works and called these the cognitive interview
110
Q

cognitive interview

A

help them to retrieve more accurate memories.

111
Q

4 methods of cognitive technique

A
  • report everything
  • reinstate the context
  • reverse the order (prevent them reporting from their expectations of what happened and prevents dishonesty)
  • change perspective
112
Q

the enhanced cognitive interview

A
  • Fisher developed addition elements of cognitive interview to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction
  • The enhanced cognitive interview also includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open- ended questions
113
Q

cognitive interview evaluation

A
  • support for the effectiveness
  • some elements may be more useful
  • time consuming
114
Q

support for the effectiveness

A
  • Meta – analysis by Kohnken (1999) combined data from 55 studies comparing the CI and ECI with the standard police interview
  • CI gave an average 41% increase in accurate information compared with the standard interview
  • Shows CI is an effective technique in helping witnesses recall information that is stored in the memory but not immediately accessible
115
Q

counterpoint

A
  • Particular issue in the ECI which produced more incorrect details than the CI cognitive interviews may sacrifice quality if EWT in favour of quantity
  • This means that police officers should treat eyewitnesses evidence from CI/ECIs with caution
116
Q

some elements may be more useful

A
  • Milne and Bull (2002) found that each of the four techniques used alone produced more information than the standard police interview
  • Found that using a combination of ‘report everything’ and ‘reinstate the context’ produced better recall than any of the other elements of combination of them
  • Confirmed that some aspects of CI are more useful than others
117
Q

time consuming

A
  • Police officers may be reluctant to use CI because it takes more time and training than the standard interview
  • Suggests that the complete CI as it exists is not realistic method for officers to use and it might be better to focus on just a few elements