Memory Flashcards
Capacity
How much information can be stored
Duration
How long information can be stored for
Encoding
The format in which information is stored
Memory
The input, storage and retrieval of information
Model
A simplification to help us understand
Linear
Progressing from one stage to another in a single series of steps
Validity
The extent to which a test measures what it claims or that researchers are measuring a phenomenon
Reliability
The idea that if an investigation was repeated, the results would be the same because the conditions were controlled
Empirical Evidence
Supporting information obtained through observation and documentation of certain behaviour and patterns or through an experiment
Scientific Credibility
The extent to which science is general and recognised as a source of reliable information around the world
Control
The act of keeping conditions in an investigation the same so the results are valid and reliable
Case Study
A very detailed investigation of an individual or a small group of people usually regarding an unusual phenomenon or biographical event or inteerest to a research field
Semantic LTM
Stores facts, concepts and words
Episodic LTM
Stores events, people, places and events
Procedural LTM
Stores skills a and how to do things
Declarative
Can be taught or explained out loud
Time-stamped
Able to remember the order of events
Quality of life
The standard of health, comfort and happiness experienced by a living individual or group
Real-life Application
Existing evidence of a theory or principle
Central Executive
The supervisory component of the working memory that has overall control
Visuospatial Sketchpad
The inner eye: stores visual and spatial information for when it is required
Episodic Buffer
The general store of the working memory model that reveices and manipulates information
Phonological Loop
Deals with auditory information and the order of information
Phonological Store
The inner ear; stores auditory information
Articulatory Process
The inner voice; repeats information like maintenance rehearsal
Word Length Effect
Over several trials, participants will remember monosyllabic words better than polysyllabic words because the Articulatory Process can store more syllables in its two-second capacity
Articulatory Suppression
Inhibits memory performance (the word length effect) by speaking while being presented with an item to remember
Dual task experiments
An investigation that involves doing two things at the same time
Retroactive interference
When new information blocks old information, making the old information temporarily inaccessible
Proactive Interference
When old information blocks new information making the new information temporarily inaccessible
Accessibility
Whether or not information can be retrieved
Availability
Whether or not information is present
State-dependent cues
Internal cues relating to the emotional or physical state of an individual
Context-dependent cues
External cues relating to the environment the individual is in
Encoding Specificity Principle
If a cue helps recall, it has to be present at retrieval as it was at encoding
Retrieval Failure
Forgetting is more likely if cues present at encoding are present at recall because the absence of cues makes the information temporarily inaccessible
Explanatory Power
The ability of a theory or hypothesis to explain the phenomenon to which it pertains
Eyewitness Testimony
A legal term used to describe using a person who viewed a crime or event as evidence in court
Misleading information
Information giving to an eyewitness after an event that affects eyewitness testimony
Leading Questions
Questions that suggest a desired answer by its form or content
Post-event discussion
When co-witnesses discuss after an event
Response Bias
Several factors that lead to inaccurate or influenced memory
Substitution Bias
Replaced memory due to different factors
Witness Conformity
Distortion of memories or contamination due to influence by other witnesses
Critical Questions
Questions that are used to obtain key, specific information
Anxiety
A state of emotional or physical distress manifested by sweating and increased heart rate
Weapon Focus Effect
When the witnesses of an event focus on a weapon and do not encode other information, such as the face, so the information decays
Fight-or-flight response
An automatic psychological reaction to an event that is perceived stressful or frightening which improved alertness and attention as it prepares the body to either fight or flee
Yerkes-Dodson’s Law
Performance improves as anxiety or arousal up to an optimum level and then declines with further increases
Schema
A mental framework of beliefs anf expectations that influence cognitive processing (thoughts) developed from experience
Cognitive Interview
A police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate thr original context in order to increase the accessibility of stored information
Effectiveness
How well a technique works
Appropriateness
How suitable a technique is
Meta-analysis
A statistic analysis which uses secondary data from multiple studies to make a final conclusion
Three facts about the MSMM
It was published by Atkinson and Shffrin in 1969, it is a representation of how the memory works and it is linear
How does the MSMM work?
Information is input into the sensory register as environmental stimuli and encoded as one of the five senses.
If information is paid attention to, it enters the short term memory. If not, it will decay.
If maintenance rehearsal is carried out, information will stay in the short term memory. If not, the information will decay.
If prolonged rehearsal is carried out, information will enter the long term memory.
Information can be passed from the long term to the short term memory for recall and this is referred to as retrieval.
How is the sensory register encoded?
The five senses: Haptic, echoic, iconic and olfactory
What is the duration and capacity of the sensory register?
A high capacity with low duration of half a second, most of which will decay (Sperling using grid of letters)
Capacity, duration and encoding of STM
Capacity: 7 +/-2 digits (Jacobs in 1887 using digit spain)/ 7 +/- 2 chunks (Miller) / 4 +/-1 chunks (Cowan)
Duration: 18-30 secs (Peterson and Peterson using trigrams and verbal distractions)
Encoding: Acoustically (Baddeley using word lists); Acoustically similar words are harder to remember because they merge
Capacity, duration and encoding of LTM
Capacity and duration: unlimited (Bahrick year book study)
Encoding: Semantically (Baddeley using word list); 15 years, cued = 90%, free = 60%; 48 years, cued = 70%, free = 30%, semantically similar words are harder to remember because they merge
Evaluation points of MSMM
Several issues taken from everyday life events
Information does not alway enter using prolonged rehearsal
Low external val
Artificial stimuli is used
Trigrams and word lists which do not reflect real life.
Low external val
Case study of CW
Damage to hippocampus, D of STM reduced to 7 secs, no new LTMs but could access old ones
STM and LTM are separate
Raising real life situations as it is applied to real life
Evaluation of STM capacity study
Jacobs conducted his study a long time ago.
There was a lack of control over time and location which may have influenced the results, lowering internal validity.
Miller may have overestimated the capacity of the STM
Cowan reviewed this research and concluded that the capacity was about 4 chunks
Evaluation of Bahrick’s study
Higher external validity as he used real-life meaningful memories
Supported by Shephard whose recall rates were much lower with meaningless pictures
Who proposed the different types of LTM and why?
Tulving, because he realised that the MSMM was too simplistic and inflexibile.
Three types of LTM and four facts about each
Semantic: stores objective facts, concepts and facts. It is declarative, requires effort, rote-learnt and not time-stamped.
Episodic: stores events, places, people and emotions. It is declarative, required effort and is also learnt through practice and is time-stamped.
Procedural: stores skills. It is not declarative, does not require effort, learnt through experience and time-stamped.
Evaluate the different types of LTM
CW is clinical evidence; lost his memory due to virus in hippocampus
Episodic greatly impaired, Semantic and Procedural are intact
Explains real life behaviour
Abnormal case
Brains scans support
Tulving asked ppt to perform tasks during PET scans
Left-prefrontal cortex, right prefrontal cortex and cerebellum
Empirical evidence
Activity does not equal function
Used to better people’s lives
Belleville showed that episodic memory can be improved in older people with mild cognitive impairment; trained group performed recall activities while others did not not and the trained group performed better
Used to improve quality of life
What is the WMM and who was it published by?
The Working Memory Model is one that explain how the working memory, the part of the brain that is being used to complete a task that is being worked on and is required to store information repeatedly, works.
It is non-linear as information does not flow in one sequence and non-unitary as it is made of different components.
It was published by Baddeley and Hitch
What are the four main components of the WMM?
The Central Executive: the supervisory component which monitors all incoming information, decides what to pay attention to and allocates tasks to the different components despite its limited processing capacity
The Phonological Loop: Deals with auditory information and preservation of the order of information. Divided into the Phonological store (inner ear) which deals with auditory information and articulatory process (inner voice) which allows maintenance rehearsal and has a capacity of 2 secs (supported by Baddeley’s word length effect)
The Visuospatial Sketchpad (inner eye): Stores visual and spatial information. Limited capacity of three to four items (Baddeley). Divided into visual cache (stores visual data) and inner scribe (arrangement of objects in visual field)
The Episodic Buffer: General store of the working memory. Receive information from the central executive and other slave systems and temporarily stores, manipulates and integrates them. It has a limited capacity of about 4 chunks and is said to be responsible for time stamping
Evaluate the WMM
Lack of evidence for central executive
Inferences but not enough evidence
Shah and Myake question whether it is unitary or if there are separate central executives for the verbal and auditory systems
Lack of clarity over exactct role
Braver et al used FMRI to find activity during single and dual task in prefrontal cortex
KF supports stores of WMM
KF, motorcycle accident which damaged occipital loe, poor acoustic recall but normal visual recall
Separate components
Explains real-life behaviour which increases external val
Experiments support articulatory process and phonlogical loop
Baddeley, Thompson and Bucananshows ppts mono and polysyllabic words over time and recall was better on mono words
words length effect = cap of articulatory process
Empirical support and explains real life events
What are the two explanations for forgetting?
Interference theory and retrieval failure
What is interference theory?
It is an explanation for forgetting that states that it occurs because two pieces of information block or merge with each either which makes the needed information inaccessible
What are the two types of interference?
Proactive interference occurs when an old piece of information merges with a new piece of information which makes it temporarily inaccessible and leads to forgetting.
Retroactive interference occurs when a new piece of information blocks an old piece of information which makes it temporarily inaccessible and leads to forgetting.
What did Underwood and Postman investigate?
They investigated the effect of interference by making the experimental group learn two word pairs out of three lists and making the control group learn one word pair list. They found that the experimental group found it difficult to access the required word list. Hence, it was concluded that this was due to retroactive and proactive interference.
What did McGeoch and McDonald investigate?
They tested the effects of similarity on the interference theory by giving six groups of participants two sets of materials and asking them to recall. They discovered that the more similar the new information, the more difficult to recall the old information which provides evidence for retroactive interference as the group with no new list has the most accurate recall.
Evaluate Interference theory
Evidence from lab studies
INterference: most consistently researched finding
McGeoch and McDonald, controlled environment, only reason are the types of interference
Empirical evidence
Artificial information is used
Meaningless stuff like trigrams and word lists
Does not reflect real life so low ecological validity
Some research considered the effects of interferences in everyday situations
Baddeley and Hitch investigated rugby players and found that recall depended on the number of games they had played not how long ago the match was
It explains everyday life so high ecological validity
What is the Encoding Specifity Principle and who proposed it?
It states that if cues present at encoding are absent at recall, forgetting is more likely because the information is temporarily inaccessible. It was proposed by Tulving while reviewing research into retrieval failure
Types of cues
Context-dependent and State-dependent cues
Other cues may be encoded in a meaningful way, such as mnemonic techniques, to aid retrieval
What are context-dependent cues and who did some research into it?
Context-dependent cues are external cues, regarding the environment such as the temperature. As investigated by Goddeley and Baddeley (1975) who experimented in land and water, recall is 40% lower in non-matching conditions. For example, if the information is encoding in a cold temperature and is recalled in a cold environment, it is most likely going to be forgotten.
What are state-dependent cues and who did some research into them?
State-dependent cues are internal cues, which involves the physiological and emotional state of the body. As investigated by Carter and Cassaday (1998) who tested the effects of recall when the participants were on and off antihistamines, recall was higher in matching conditions because the cues present at encoding were present at recall.
Evaluate retrieval failure
Impressive range of research
Godden and Baddeley, Carter and Cassaday, Michael Eyesenck proves that it is the main reason for forgetting
High scientific credibility and internal validity
The effect of context-dependent cues have been questioned
Baddeley says that in real life context dependent cues are not as prominent
Never as different as water and air, same air in room and exam hall
Cannot be generalised to real life
Context dependent cues may vary depending on the kind of memory being tested
Godden and Baddeley changed their test from recall to recognition and found that performance was the same in all four conditions
Explanation can be applied to even fewer conditions, reducing it explanatory power
Eyewitness testimony
A legal term referring to the use of a person who viewed a crime or event as evidence in court
Misleading Information
Any information given after the crime that can affect the eyewitness testimony which includes leading questions and post event discussion
Leading questions and why they are important
Any question that suggests a desired answer by its form or content. They could lead to retrospective interference and make accurate information unavailable
Who investigated leading questions and what did they find?
Loftus and Palmer found that leading questions have two main effects: response bias and substitution bias
Post-event discussion
When co-witnesses dicuss the crime or event with each other which contained the separate testimonies by reducing their accuracy
Who investigated post event discussion and what did they find?
Gabber found that 71% of his participants included details they mostly heard from another witness and this is referred to as witness conformity
Evaluate misleading information
Practical uses in real world
Loftus shows that questions can have a great impact on witnesses so police officers need to be careful how they phrase quesiton
72% overturned verdicts in innocence project due to ewt
Higher QOL
Artificial tasks
Loftus and Palmer used clips of accident which reduced this stress
Foster found that emotions can have influence on memory as ewt can have significant consequences when used in real life
Lack of ex val
Unethical to harm ppts and impractical to wait for one to happen
Simulated research could lead to demand characteristics
Zaragoza and McCloskey say ppts gave answers because of demand characteristics
Ppts may feel the need to be helpful especially if the university is prestigious or they are getting paid so they answer a leading question
Lacking internal validity
Loftus and Palmer hid the critical question
Anxiety and its effects on EWT
It is a state of emotional or physical arousal which is manifested by sweating or increased heartrate. it may reduce or increase the attention paid which determines whether or not the information will be encoded or whether it will decay
Who investigated the negative effects of anxiety on ewt
Johnson and Scott (1976) explored the negative effect of anxiety through the study of the Weapon Focus Effect. By varying the scene in high anxiety and low anxiety conditions, they discovered more accuracy in the low anxiety conditions and concluded that this was due to the Weapon Focus Effect as the high anxiety participants encountered a paper knife while the low anxiety participants did not. Hence, they concluded that anxiety negatively affected eyewitness testimony as it lowered their accuracy by making them focus on the dangerous weapon and ignore the other finer details because they did not pay attention which led to decay.
Who investigated the positive effect of anxiety on ewt?
However, Yuille and Cutshall (1986) investigated a contradiction—the positive effect of anxiety. They did this by questioning a sample of victims of a real shooting several months after the accident and comparing it to their original sample. They found that the high anxiety participants were more accurate and concluded that this was due to the fight or flight response which improved alertness and attention because it was a life or death situation. Hence, they paid more attention due to adrenaline and encoded more information which was then retrievable.
What explains the contradiction of the effects of anxiety on ewt?
Deffenbacher suggests that this apparent contradiction can be explained through the Yerkes-Dodson law which states that the higher the anxiety, the higher the performance until the optimal point is reached then the performance further decreases.
Evaluate anxiety as a factor affecting ewt
Issues with Weapon focus effect
Johnson and Scott may have been measuring surprise instead of anxiety
Pickel (1998) conducted a similar experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet or raw chicken as the handheld items in a hairdressing video. Because the scissors is the most likely to cause harm, it would be assumed that the scissors would create low anxiety and lead to less accuracy. However, they found that eyewitness testimony was poorer in the high unusualness condition, i.e the handgun and the chicken.
Low internal validity
Issues with field study research
Misleading Information such as TV and post event discussion happen between interview and event, leading to retroactive interference
Lowers internal validity
Impractical and unethical to question the eyewitnesses straight after event
Ethical Issues
Created anxiety, although internally valid, is very risky as it could lead to psychological harm
Which is why real-life studies are very important
The advantages and disadvantages balance each other out
This questions the need for lab studies, but they can be compared to natural studies
Cognitive Interview
A police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime which encouraged them to recreate the original content to increase the accessibility of stored information
Who investigated the cognitive interview
Fisher and Geiselman (1992) reviewed memory literature, i.e different memory studies, and related this to the way that interviews were carried out by the police in real life. One thing that they found is that people remember things better when provided with retrieval cues. They developed this interviewing technique to evoke effective memory recall which can increase the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and increase the likelihood of justice.
What are the first two components of the cognitive interview?
Report everything: where the interviewer encourages the witness to take their time to reiterate every detail from the event, even those seemingly irrelevant, as these details include cues which could later serve as key information)
Reinstatement of context: when the interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally recreate the environment from the original incident by remembering all sensory information, so the cues are accessible and the information is more accurate).
What theory supports the first two components of the cognitive interview
These components are based on the theory of retrieval failure (specifically based on context-dependent cues by Carter and Cassaday) which states that recall is more likely to occur if the cues present at encoding are present at retrieval. A high consistency between the interview and the original event increases the likelihood of the presence of cues which triggers accurate recall.
What are the last two components of the cognitive interview?
Change of order: when the interviewer encourages the interviewee to report the order of the events in reverse)
Change perspective: when the interviewee is encouraged to recall the event from multiple perspectives, such as from that of the witnesses
What theory supports the last two components of the cognitive interview?
These components aim to increase accuracy of information retrieval reduced by schema (a mental framework based on expectation which hinders cognitive processing developed from experience) on testimony. Hence, witnesses are forced to focus on the actual events as opposed to their expectations.
Who proposed the enhanced cognitive interview?
Fisher (1987) developed some additional elements to the CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction, such as adequately establishing and relinquishing eye contact. This builds a rapport between the interviewer and interviewee which reduces eyewitness anxiety, minimizing distractions and increasing accurate disclosure.
Evaluate the cognitive interview
Research suppports
Kohnken meta analysis of 53 studies found a 34% increase in accurate information compared to use of traditional interview
Positive effect in lab environment shows that only CI caused the change in accuracy
Large scale emp evidence which could lead to safety for the pubic, a higher QOL and acc investigations
College students not representative so lower pop val
Some components may be more valuable
Milne and Bull examined the relative effectiveness of each component by interviewing undergraduates and children using one component each and comparing them to a control group (who were simply instructed to try again). Recall across all the components produced marginally more information than the control group, i.e a small improvement compared to the control group.
First two components were significantly higher so they are more useful
Emp EV for effectiveness but not all parts are effective
Practical disadvantages
Kebbel and Wagstaff only received only a brief 4-hour training so not know how to use to get most accurate results
Time consuming, witness make lots of info, not practical to analyse in addition to heavy workload
Not appropriate and might not be as effective
