Memory Flashcards
how is STM coded and what is its capacity?
1.) acoustic
2.) limited
how is LTM coded and what is its capacity?
1.) semantic
2.) potentially unlimited
what is STM’s duration
18-30 seconds.
what is LTM’s duration?
lifetime.
what did Peterson and Peterson (1959) aim to do?
investigate duration of STM by giving students a consonant syllable to remember. They also had to count backwards to prevent rehearsing.
what are the 4 components of the working memory model?
central executive
visuospatial sketchpad
episodic buffer
phonological loop
what does the phonological loop do?
-slave system
-coding = acoustic
-preserves auditory info in the order it arrives in
divides into:
-phonological store = stores what you hear
-Articulatory store = maintenance rehearsal to keep sounds/words in the working memory
what does the central executive do?
- attention process which monitors incoming info
- makes decisions
- allocated slave systems to tasks
- limited capacity
what does the visuo-spatial sketch pad do?
-slave system
- stores visuo-spatial info
divided into:
1.) visual cache - stores visual data
2.) inner scribe - records arrangement of objects in visual field
- limited capacity= 3 or 4 items (Baddeley (2003)).
what does the episodic buffer do?
- slave system
- temporary store of info
interstates visio-spatial and verbal info processed by other stores
-records episodes
-capacity limited to 4 chunks
-links working memory to LTM
evaluate working memory model
support
-patient KF
phonological loop damaged but visuospatial sketch pad intact
-Baddeley et al (1975)
dual task performance studies
limitations
- Lieberman (1980)
Blind people have great spatial awareness
-Little direct evidence for how central executive works
what did Goodwin (1969) prove?
people who drank a lot often forget when they have put things when they are sober. However they could recall the locations when they are drunk again.
what did Miles and Hardman (1998) find?
people who learned a list of words while exercising on an exercise bike remembered them better when exercising rather than at rest.
what are the 2 types of cue dependent forgetting?
1.) context - external environmental cues
2.) state - internal cues
define interference
phenomenon where the recall or retrieval of info is disrupted by the presence of other info.
define proactive interference
old info stored in LTM interferes with the learning of new info
define retroactive interference
Learning of new info affects recall of old info from LTM
what is cognitive interview?
technique for interviewing witnesses which encourages them to recreate the original context in order to increase the possibility of stored info
what are the components of the multistore model of memory?
1.) sensory register
2.) short term memory store
3.) long term memory store
describe sensory register?
- all stimulus from environment pass into sensory register
- coding in each store is modality-specific
ICONIC = visual ECHOIC = sound - DURATION is very brief (less than 1/2 a second)
- capacity is very high
-info only passes to STM if paid attention to
describe short term memory store (MSM)?
- coded acoustically
- lasts 18 seconds (unless rehearsed)
- limited capacity (5-9 items)
- maintenance rehearsal occurs when material is repeated
- info repeated enough passes into LTM
describe long term memory store (MSM)?
- duration = permanent
- coded = semantically
- to recall info it has to be transferred back into STM (rehearsal)
what are the limitations of MSM?
oversimplifies STM = patient KF had poor STM recall for auditory stimuli, but increasingly accurate recall for visual stimuli. This, alongside KF being able to differentiate and recall both verbal and non-verbal sounds, suggests that there may be multiple types of STM.
There are different types of LTM, as proposed by Tuvling et al e.g. procedural, semantic and episodic.
what are the strengths of MSM?
The MSM acknowledges the differences between STM and LTM = represents them as separate stores. STM is encoded acoustically, LTM is encoded semantically and
has a much longer duration. MSM portrays an accurate view of the differences between them.
what are the 3 types of LTM?
1.) episodic memory
2.) semantic memory
3.) procedural memory
what is episodic memory?
recall eps of your life. A single ep will contain several elements e.g. people, places, objects etc. conscious recall required
what is semantic memory?
fact based knowledge (not time stamped + less personal). conscious recall required.
what is procedural memory?
muscle memory = memories of actions or skill. conscious recall ISNT required
what are the types of LTM according to Cohen?
1,) declarative memory
2.) non-declarative memory
what is declarative memory?
requires conscious recall (semantic + episodic)
what is non-declarative memory?
requires no conscious recall (procedural)
describe the case of Clive Wearing?
-suffered from a rare from amnesia (damaged hippocampus and associated areas)
- before infection he was a musician and he can still play piano but cannot remember musical education
- other aspects of memory also affected
- greets wife like its first time he’s seen her in years
what are strengths of types of long term memory?
- supporting evidence from Clive Wearing
- supporting evidence from case of HM
why is the reason we forget because of insufficient cues (Tulving)?
- when a memory is encoded info also stored from around it (cues) e.g place. If we cannot remember its because we arent in a similar situation.
what is the ‘Encoding Specificity Principle’ (Tulving)?
the greater the similarity between the encoding event and the retrieval event, the greater the likelihood of recalling the original memory
what is retrieval failure (Tulving)?
some cues are linked to material in a meaningful way ton help remember it e.g. mnemonics
what are the 2 types of cue dependent forgetting?
1.) context = external environmental cues
2.) state = internal cues
what are limitations of retrieval failure?
lack ecological validity = Baddeley argued that it is difficult to find conditions in real-life which are as polar as water and land,
for example, and thus questioned the existence of context effects in normal life
other explanations = interference
what are strengths of retrieval failure?
supporting evidences Baddeley divers
real life application = cognitive interview
what is an eyewitness testimony?
evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime
describe Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment
- 45 students shown 7 films of traffic accidents
- students given questionnaire
- one question about how fast cares were going with a diff verb:
hit
bumped
collided
contacted
smashed
what were the results from the Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment?
hit - 34mph
bumped - 38.1mph
collided - 39.3mph
contacted - 31.8mph
smashed - 40.8mph
describe broken glass Loftus + Palmer experiment
- 150 students shown film of multi-vehicle accident and then asked questions
- 3 groups of 50
1st group = “how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
2nd group - “how fast were they going when they smashed into each other?”
3rd group - asked nothing about speed - a week later they were all asked “did you see any broken glass?” there was none in the flim
what were the results of the broken glass Loftus + Palmer experiment?
smashed
yes - 16
no - 34
hit
yes - 7
no - 43
control
yes - 6
no - 44
what does being anxious feel like?
- unpleasant emotional state
- fear something bad is about to happen
- increased heart rate shallow breathing (physiological arousal)
what did Deffenbacher et al (2004) find?
meta-analysis found that high levels of stress impacted accuracy of eye witness testimony
what did Christianson + Hubineette find?
found those who had been threatened were more accurate in recall compared to onlookers
continued to be true 15 months later
what is weapon-focus/tunnel effect?
witness focused on the weapon so doesn’t see or remember what else was happening or how attacker looked
how can contrasting finding in EWT and anxiety be explained?
relationship between anxiety and performance = inverted U
there is an optimal level of anxiety needed for accurate recall
what are the limitations of EWT?
- studies use may have demand characteristics
- use of artificial tasks (Loftus + Palmer)
what is cognitive interview?
police technique for interviewing witnesses which encourages them to recreate the original context in order to increase accessibility of stored info
what are the 4 stages of cognitive interview?
1.) report everything
2.) reinstatement of context
3.) change/reverse order
4.) change perspective
what are limitations of cognitive interview?
- diff police forces use diff aspects of the technique so its difficult to fully evaluate its effectiveness
- technique takes too long
- quantity + quality of training is an issue
what are strengths of cognitive interview?
- increase in amount of correct info recalled than standard interview
1 reduces miscarriages of justice
