Memory

Question 1

(AO1) coding of memory

Answer 1

*Baddeley (1966) STM = coded mainly acoustic and LTM = coded semantic. Tested recall for:
a) acoustically similar
b)acoustically dissimilar
c)semantically similar
d)semantically dissimilar
Found that when recall was tested straight away, ppts did worse on the acoustically similar group and then when they were tested 30 minutes later, ppts did worse on semantically similar

Question 2

(AO3) coding of memory

Answer 2

*Strength. Identified 2 clear memory stores which later helped the development of the working memory model in 1971.
*Limitation. Artificial study. Recalling list of words is not usually an everyday task and therefore hard to generalise the results to real life scenarios

Question 3

(AO1) capacity of memory

Answer 3

*Jacobs (1887) digit span. Mean span for numbers was 9.3. Mean span for letters was 7.2. Therefore he came up with the capacity of 7+-2.
*The 7+-2 was supported by Miller (1956) but was expanded through the idea of chunking.

Question 4

(AO3) capacity of memory

Answer 4

*Limitation of Miller. Cowan (2001) reviewed the idea of chunking and argued that the capacity could only hold 4+-1 and that Miller had overestimated and only the lower part of 7+-2 was valid.

Question 5

(AO1) duration of memory

Answer 5

*Peterson and Peterson (1959) tested 24 students through the use of trigrams. They found that after 3secs, 80% was recalled however after 18secs, 3% was recalled. Came to conclusion that STM duration= 18secs
*Bahrick (1975) found that LTM had a duration of up to forever. Tested high school yearbooks between ppts aged 17-74. After 15 years, photo recognition was 90%. After 48 years, photo recognition was 70%. After 15 years, free recall was 60% and after 48 years, free recall was 30%.

Question 6

(AO3) duration of memory

Answer 6

*Limitation of Peterson and Peterson. Meaningless stimuli. remembering 3 letter syllables is unusual in every day life and the setting of a lab may have altered ability of STM. Lowers internal validity
*Limitation of Bahrick. Could be major confounding variables. Many of the ex students may still be in contact/ have been over the years and therefore it is not exactly recall for that many years. This is a major confounding variable.

Question 7

(AO1) MSM

Answer 7

*Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971)
*stimulus-sensory register-stm-ltm
*needs attention, rehearsal, transfer and retrieve

Question 8

(AO3) MSM

Answer 8

*Strength. Baddeley’s research on capacity. Found 2 clear stores. STM and LTM due to the difference in coding.
*Limitation. Evidence from Tulving that there is more than 1 LTM and that MSM is too simplistic. Episodic, semantic and procedural LTM.
*Limitation. More than 1 STM. Shallice and Warrington(1970) studied KF who had amnesia. His recall was poor when words read aloud to him but his recall was significantly better when he read the words himself. Leads onto the WMM

Question 9

(AO1) types of LTM *****

Answer 9

*Tulving (1985):
-episodic (specific event, time stamped, birthday)
-semantic (general knowledge, not time stamped, capital city)
-procedural (natural to do it, not time stamped, ride a bike)

Question 10

(AO3) types of LTM *****

Answer 10

*Strength. Clive Wearing and HM. Episodic memory severely impaired due to brain damage but still had semantic and procedural memory. HM could not remember stroking a dog but didn’t need the term dog told to him. Clive Wearing couuld also still read music and play. Both could walk and speak. Supports Tulving that there are separate LTM stores
*Counterpoint. Researcher had no evidence of memories before brain damage therefore hard to compare before and after
*Limitation. Conflicting neuroimaging evidence. Buckner and Peterson (1996) located semantic memory in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic on the right. However, Tulving (1994) found episodic memories in left prefrontal cortex and right prefrontal cortex with semantic memories. Challenges ideas.

Question 11

(AO1) WMM

Answer 11

*Baddeley and Hitch (1974). Model focused on STM. Central executive, episodic buffer, phonological loop (auditory), phonological store (hearing), articulatory process (repeating), visuo spatial sketchpad, inner scribe (arrangement), visual cache (visual)

Question 12

(AO3) WMM

Answer 12

*Strength. Duel task performance. Baddeley (1975) found ppts could easily do conditions involving phonological store and visuo spatial sketchpad. However, he found that when ppts did a task involving 2 stores from the same slave system, ppts couldn’t do it. Demonstrates that there are certainly different components.
*Baddeley (2003) limitation. Role of CE is too vague. Most complex yet least understood. Imcomplete model.
*Strength. Shallice and Warrington (1970) study on KF. Found poor recall when words read aloud to him (PS) but good recall when he read them himself (VC). Shows 2 separate stores.

Question 13

(AO1) Forgetting: interference

Answer 13

*Proactive - old info interfering with new
*retroactive - new info interfering with old
*MCGeoch and McDonald (1931) studied retroactive interference by changing similarity of lists and concluded worst recall when lists are similar

Question 14

(AO3) Forgetting: interference

Answer 14

*Strength. Real world interference. Baddeley and Hitch (1977) asked a rugby team to recall their games of the season. Those who were injured throughout the season could recall more as they had played less meaning less interference.
*Limitation of interference is the lack of cues. Tulving and Psotka (1971) found ppts recalled about 70% on their first attempt with a list of categories. This percentage declined the more they had to do the recalling but when they were given cues, the percentage increased again meaning that maybe the information hadn’t been forgotten, it was just inaccessible.

Question 15

(AO1) Forgetting: retrieval failure

Answer 15

*Tulving (1983) encoding specificity principle - for a cue to be helped it would have to be present at encoding and also present at retrieval
*State dependent forgetting - Carter and Cassaday (1998) gave antihistamine drugs .
*Context dependent forgetting - Golden and Baddeley (1975) deep sea-divers. Findings 40% lower in non matching conditions

Question 16

(AO3) Forgetting: retrieval failure

Answer 16

*Limitation. depends on what type of memory being studied. Godden and Baddeley (1980) replicated underwater test but used recognition test instead of recall and found that no conditions were any different

Question 17

(AO1) factors affecting accuracy of EWT : misleading information *****

Answer 17

*leading questions. Loftus and Palmer (1974) studied 45 ppts. Watched a film of a car collision. How fast were they going when they (smashed, collided,contacted,bumped,hit). smashed condition = 40.5 mph. contracted condition = 31.8 mph. Also conducted follow up study a week later. asked groups in ‘smashed’ and ‘hit’ condition if they saw glass (there was none) and smashed condition more likely to say they did see glass
*post event discussion. Gabbert (2003) paired up participants that watched the same crime but in different povs. both ppts discussed before recall. 71% ppts mistakenly recalled aspects that their clip did not show compared to a control group of 0%. Post event discussion affects EWT through memory contamination and conformity thinking the other person is correct.

Question 18

(AO3) factors affecting accuracy of EWT : misleading information *****

Answer 18

*Strength. Practical use in justice system. consequences of inaccurate EWT can be massive. Loftus (1975) believed that leading questions can distort memory and police should be extremely careful about this matter. shows that this research can help the legal system.
*Limitation/counterpoint of leading questions is that they do not distort key information of EWT. Sutherland and Hayne (2001) showed ppts video clip and when later asked leading questions, their recall was accurate for central details and not peripheral. shows that leading questions don’t distort main central memory of EWT and may not be as bad as originally believed.

Question 19

(AO1) factors affecting accuracy of EWT : anxiety

Answer 19

*anxiety has negative effect on recall (weapon focus). Johnson and Scott (1976) tested ppts on recall of a man in 2 conditions. condition one, man walks out room with pen and grease everywhere after screaming. condition two, man walks out with blood and knife after screaming. ppts were then asked to recall the man out of 50 photos. 49% recall of the man in pen and grease but 33% recall in blood and knife. suggests weapon causes anxiety and arousal making EWT worse.
*anxiety has a positive effect on recall. Yuille and Cutshall (1986) conducted study based from an actual shooting in Canada. 13/21(of a thief being shot dead in a shop) witnesses took part in the study. ppts were asked how stressed they felt at the time and then recalled the events 5 months after the shooting. 88% accurate recall for more anxious compared to 75% for less stressed. suggests anxiety might enhance EWT.

Question 20

(AO3) factors affecting accuracy of EWT : anxiety

Answer 20

*Limitation of Johnson and Scott. Might not have tested anxiety and maybe the participants were surprised. Pickel (1998) barbers, gun, wallet, raw chicken, scissors. EWT was poor in the high unusualness of items rather than weapon suggesting it is more due to unusualness than being dangerous.
*strength. Christianson and Hubinette (1993) interviewed 58 witnesses to bank robbery in Sweden. Some directly involved and some indirectly involved. found that recall of events was 75% across all people and those directly involved sometimes had greater recall of events. actual crime and therefore helps to confirm that anxiety does not reduce EWT.

Question 21

(AO1) the cognitive interview *****

Answer 21

*recall everything, even if irrelevant it might increase chance of cues
*reinstate the context, return to crime scene in their mind and this can reduce context dependent forgetting
*reverse the order, prevents dishonesty and the chance for schemas
*change perspective, also to disrupt the effect of a schema

Question 22

(AO3) the cognitive interview *****

Answer 22

*Strength. Kohnken (1999) meta analysis of 55 studies combining results and compare the effects of the cognitive interview to standard police interview. Found that the cognitive interview gave more accuracy on events 41% of the time. Only 4/55 studies showed there was no difference between cognitive interview and standard police interview.
*Limitation. Milne and Bull (2002) found that combination of report everything and reinstate the context was most effective. However, this means that not all of the cognitive interview is being used and therefore it is hard to judge the interview on the whole and police officers take a ‘pick and mix’ approach to using it.
*Limitation. Cog interview is time consuming and police officers may be reluctant as it requires more training than standard police interview. Kebbel and Wagstaff (1997) found that the cognitive interview also found that the cognitive interview takes more than a few hours which police departments might not have.
*Limitation of cognitive interview. Incomplete. Fischer et al (1987) developed additional elements like the researcher knowing when to make eye contact etc. developed enhanced cognitive interview where emphasis was put on minimising distractions, getting witness to speak slowly and asking open ended questions