Memory Flashcards
What model explains memory?
The multi-store model (MSM)
What are the 3 elements of memory?
Sensory register
Short term memory
Long term memory
Describe the coding of the sensory register?
Information is stored in its raw, unprocessed form with separate sensory stores for different sensory inputs
The echoic store for auditory information
The iconic store for visual information
The haptic store for tactile information
The gustatory store for taste information
The olfactory store for smell
Describe the capacity of the sensory register
Large/unlimited
Describe the duration of the sensory register
All sensory stores have limited duration – less than half a second
The actual duration of each store is not constant
Different types of information within each store decays at different rates
Different sensory stores appear to have different capacities
There is some evidence that duration decreases with age
Describe the coding of short term memory.
Information arrives from the SR in its original raw form e.g. sound or vision
It is then encoded (entered into STM) in a form STM can more easily deal with
For example, if the input into the SR was the word ‘platypus’, this could be coded into STM in several ways:
Visually – by thinking of the image of a platypus
Acoustically – by repeatedly saying ‘platypus’
Semantically – (through meaning) by using knowledge of platypuses, such as their being venomous egg-laying aquatic marsupials that hunt prey through electrolocation
Research suggests that the main form of coding in STM is acoustic (by sound)
Describe the capacity of short term memory.
Between 5 and 9 items can be held
describe the duration of short term memory
The amount of time information remains within STM without being lost is limited to about 18-30 seconds maximum
This can be extended by rehearsal (repetition) of the information
If this is done for long enough will result in transfer of information into LTM where it will become a more long-lasting feature
Describe the coding of long term memory
Coding of information will be stronger (and the memory more retrievable) the deeper the level of processing while the stimuli is being experienced
With verbal material, coding in LTM is mainly semantic (based on meaning)
Describe the capacity of the long term memory
The potential capacity of LTM is unlimited
Information may be lost due to decay and interference, but such losses don’t occur due to limitation of capacity
Describe the duration of the long term memory
Duration of LTM depends on an individual’s life span
As memories can last for a lifetime, many elderly people have detailed childhood memories
Items in LTM have a longer duration if originally well coded
what are 2 strengths of the multi-store model?
Supported by case studies
The case of Scott Bolzan supports the multi-store model
Scott’s case highlights how STM and LTM involve different storage systems as theorised by the MSM
His short term memory was still intact, as was his ability to create new long term memories but he didn’t recognise friends and family or remember past events.
Cases like these support the idea that there are different STM and LTM stores as they either lose their STM abilities or LTM but not both
Consider able research evidence
Jacobs (1887)
Developed a technique to measure digit span
The researcher gives 4 digits and asks the participant to recall these in the correct order
If correct, the researcher then gives 5 digits and so on until the participant can not recall the order correctly
Jacobs found that the mean span for digits was 9.3
The mean span for letters was 7.3
What are 2 weaknesses of the multi-store model?
Artificial materials
In everyday life, we form memories related to all sorts of useful thing –people’s faces, their names, facts, places etc
Much of the research studies providing support for the MSM used digits, letters and sometimes consonant syllables that have no meaning (e.g. ZLG)
This is not representative of memory in everyday life
According to MSM, what matters in rehearsal is the amount that you do
The more you rehearse, the more likely you are to transfer the nformation into LTM and remember it for a long time
Craig and Watkins (1973) found that this prediction is wrong
What matters is the type of rehearsal
There are two types of rehearsal:
Maintenance rehearsal – this just maintains information in the STM rather than Transferring to the LTM
Elaborative rehearsal is needed for long term storage
This occurs when you link the information to your existing knowledge or you thinks out what it means
what is the primacy effect?
Words at the beginning of the list (primacy effect) are recalled because they’ve been rehearsed and transferred to LTM
What is the recency effect?
Words from the end of the list (recency effect) are recalled as they are still in STM
Describe the serial position effect - Murdock 1962
Words at the beginning and end of the list are recalled better than those in the middle.
Words at the beginning of the list (primacy effect) are recalled because they’ve been rehearsed and transferred to LTM
Words from the end of the list (recency effect) are recalled as they are still in STM
What are the 3 types of long term memory?
Episodic
Semantic
Procedural
Which types of LTM are explicit (conscious)?
Episodic
Semantic
Which type of LTM is implicit (unconscious)?
Procedural
Episodic memory is Our ability to ________ events (episodes) from out lives.
Recall
What is the strength of an episodic memory influenced by?
The strength of episodic memories is influenced by emotions present at the time a memory is encoded e.g. traumatic events are often well recalled due to their high emotional content
What aids the retrieval of episodic memories?
Context
Where in the brain is associated with initial coding of episodic memories?
Prefrontal cortex
Where in the brain is associated with storage and consolidation of episodic memories?
Neocortex
What is the role of the hippocampus in episodic memories?
Memories of the different parts of an event are located in the different visual, auditory etc. areas of the brain
They are connected together in the hippocampus to create a memory of an episode rather than a collection of separate memories
What does it mean by episodic memories are time stamped?
You remember when a memory happened
Your memory of a single episode will include several_________ – e.g. people and places, objects and behaviours
All of these elements are interwoven to produce a _______ memory
Elements
Single
What does the semantic memory store?
Our knowledge of the world e.g facts, concepts, rules and meanings
Semantic memory is detached from any__________ link.
Temporal
How can a semantic memory be formed in a fragmented way?
Memories are associated with other facts that links concepts together. We can piece factual information together that has been learned at different points in time.
How are semantic LTM’s associated with episodic LTM’s?
New knowledge tends to be learned from experience
Where is the semantic memory associated in the brain?
Some evidence suggests involvement of the hippocampus and related areas
Others believe there is usage of several brain areas
Coding is mainly associated with the frontal and temporal lobes
How can you recall a procedural memory?
Without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort
When are procedural memory’s often formed?
In early life e.g learning important motor skills
Why can procedural and semantic memories work together?
As procedural Memory doesn’t require conscious thought, it allows other cognitive tasks to be performed simultaneously.
Where is procedural LTM associated in the brain?
Procedural LTM is associated mainly with the neocortex brain areas – primary motor cortex, cerebellum and prefrontal cortex
What does procedural LTM not need to function?
Hippocampus
What are two weaknesses of the types of long-term memory?
Lack of research for procedural memory
One problem in deciding which brain areas are involved in procedural memory is the lack of research
Case studies are needed of people with damage to procedural memory but not semantic and episodic
Such cases are rare
Problems with clinical evidence
Psychologists are very interested in studying people with brain injuries
People like Clive Wearing and HM have provided a lot of useful information about what happens when memory is damaged
It has also helped researchers understand how memory is supposed to work normally
However, there is a serious lack of control of all sorts of variables
Generalising from case studies is also problematic due to the unique sample
What are 2 strengths of types of long-term memory?
Clinical evidence
Famous case studies of HM and Clive Wearing support the view that there are different types of LTM stores
Episodic memories in both men was severely impaired as a consequence of amnesia
They had great difficulty recalling past events
Their semantic memories however, were relatively unaffected – e.g. they still understood the meaning of words
Their procedural memories were also intact
They both knew how to speak, walk and read music/play the piano in Clive’s case
This supports the idea that there are different LTM stores
One store can be damaged but others are unaffected
Also evident that these types of memories are stored in different areas of the brain
Neuroimaging evidence
Evidence from brain scan studies
Different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain
Tulving (1994)
Got participants to perform various memory tasks whilst having a PET scan
Found episodic and semantic were both recalled from the prefrontal cortex
The left prefrontal cortex was involved in recalling semantic memories
Episodic memories were recalled from the right pre-frontal cortex
Supports the idea that there is a physical reality to the different types of LTM within the brain
This has been confirmed many times with later studies which further increases validity
Which memory store does the working memory model show?
Short term memory
Who questioned the existence of a single LTM store?
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
What did Baddeley and Hitch (1974) argue about STM?
Argued STM was more complex than just being a temporary store for transferring information to LTM
They saw STM as an active store, holding several pieces of information while they were being worked on
What is the WMM susceptible to?
Distractions (someone talking to you while you try to remember a number)
Overload (a long list of items)
Overwork (complicated calculations)
When was the episodic buffer added to the WMM?
2000
What two predictions does the working memory model make?
If two tasks make use of the same component, they cannot be performed successfully together.
If two tasks make use of different components, it should be possible to perform them as well together as separately.
E.g. 2 visual tasks = poorer performance but 1 visual and 1 verbal means no interruption
Describe the central executive in the WMM
Has a supervisory role, makes decisions and directs attention to the slave systems and decides what working memory pays attention to.
Has the capacity to focus, divide and switch attention
Balances tasks when attention needs to be divided e.g. talking whilst driving
What are the two slave systems of the WMM?
Phonological loop
Visuo-spatial sketch pad
Describe the phonological loop.
One of the slave systems
Deals with auditory information (coding is acoustic) so confusion occurs with similar sounding words
Preserves the order in which information arrives
What is the phonological loop subdivided into?
Phonological store – passive store which holds the words you hear for few seconds unless refreshed using articulatory loop
The articulatory process – allows maintenance rehearsal (repetition of sounds/words in a loop to keep them in working memory while they are needed). The capacity of this ‘loop’ is believed to be two seconds’ worth of what you can say
What is the word length effect?
Short monosyllabic words are recalled more successfully than longer polysyllabic words.
Essentially, the longer words fill up the limited capacity of the articulatory process resulting in the decay of words positioned earlier in the list.
Forgetting is more likely with longer words.
It seems that the phonological loop holds the amount of information that you can say in 1.5 - 2 seconds (Baddeley et al, 1975).
what is articulatory suppression?
Prevention from rehearsal by repeating an irrelevant sound fills up the space and displaces the actual information to be remembered.
If participants are asked to perform two tasks which both require the phonological loop (e.g. learn a list of words whilst saying something out loud) this will be difficult
They will already be using the phonological loop so it cannot be used to refresh the words to be learnt.
What is the phonological similarity effect?
Letters or words that sound alike are not usually recalled as well as letters or words that sound different
The ‘sound alike’ words would affect the use of the phonological loop more than those that did not sound alike.
This demonstrates that the phonological store relies on acoustic encoding for storage
Describe the viso-spatial sketch pad.
Another slave system
Limited capacity
According to Baddeley (2003) is about 3 or 4 objects
Visual and spatial information held and manipulated here
Visual = what things look like
Spatial = relationships between things
Can deal directly with visuospatial information through observing images, or retrieving info from LTM
What is the Visio-spatial sketch pad subdivided into?
The visual cache (Passive store dealing with visual data)
The inner scribe (Active store, for spatial relations - records the arrangement of objects in the visual field)
Describe the episodic buffer.
The third slave system
This was added to the model by Baddeley in 2000
It’s a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal information processes by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing
Basically recording events (episodes) that are happening
what are two strengths of the working memory model?
Support for separate phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad
Pet scans show that different brain areas are activated when doing verbal and visual tasks
This suggests that the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad are separate systems reflected in the biology of the brain
Dual task performance
Studies of dual task performance supports the separate existence of the visuo-spatial sketchpad
Baddeley (1975)
Showed that participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks (tracking a light and describing the letter F) than doing a visual and verbal task at the same time
The increased difficulty is because both visual tasks compete for the same slave system
When doing a verbal and visual task simultaneously, there is no competition
This means there must be a separate slave systems (visuo-spatial sketch pad) that processes visual input
What are 2 weaknesses of the working memory model?
Artificial tasks
Studies of the Visuo-spatial sketch pad and the phonological loop often feature a dual task technique where participants have to perform two simultaneous activities
However, the actual tasks performed are often not ones encountered much in everyday life.
Such studies can be accused of being artificial and lacking in mundane realism
Lack of clarity over the central executive
Cognitive psychologists suggest that this component of the WMM is unsatisfactory and doesn’t really explain anything
Baddeley said ‘the central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory’
Central executive is vague and untestable (despite being the component in overall charge)
It needs to be more clearly specified than just simply being ‘attention’
Some psychologists believe it may consist of separate sub-components, this would mean the WMM hasn’t been fully explained.
The central executive is probably better understood as a component controlling the focus of attention rather than being a memory store (unlike the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad) which are specialised memory stores)
What is interference theory?
an explanation when similar material is confused in recall from the LTM
What are the 2 types of interference?
Proactive interference
Retroactive interference
What is proactive interference?
Older memory interferes with a newer one
Pro in this context means working forwards – from old to new
E.g. Your teacher has learned so many names in the past that she has difficulty remembering the names of her current class
What is retroactive interference?
Newer memory interferes with an older one
Retro meaning working backwards – from new to old
E.g. Your teacher has learned so many new names this year that she has difficulty remembering the names of the students last year
the interference is worse when the memories (or information ) are ________.
Similar
Interference is more likely when there is __ ____ between the two instances of learning
No gap
Outline the McGeogh and McDonald study.
Studied retroactive interference
Changed the amount of similarity between two sets of materials
Participants had to learn a list of words until they had 100% accuracy
Then learned a new list
There were 6 groups of participants who learned different types of lists:
When the participants then recalled the original list of words, their performance depended on the nature of the second list
The most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall.
This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar.
What are 2 strengths of interference theory?
Evidence from lab studies
e.g. McGeogh and McDonald
Most studies show both types of interference are common reasons for forgetting in LTM
Lab experiments control for the effects irrelevant influences
Confidence that interference is a valid explanation for forgetting
Real life studies
Baddeley and Hitch (1977)
Asked rugby players to remember the names of the teams they’d played so far in the season, week by week
Results showed that accurate recall didn’t depend on how long ago the matches took place
More importantly was the number of games they played in the meantime
A player’s recall of a team from three weeks ago was better if they’d played no matches since then
Shows how interference can apply to some everyday situation
What are 2 weaknesses of the interference theory?
Artificial materials
More chance interference will be shown in the lab than in real-life situations
Stimulus materials are lists of words/syllables to learn
Not how we use memory in everyday life (people’s faces, birthdays, ingredients for recipes)
This is a limitation because the use of artificial tasks makes interference much more likely in the lab therefore not be as likely an explanation for forgetting in everyday life
Time between learning
In lab studies time between learning lists of words can be very short for practical reasons
The whole experience of learning and recalling may be over within an hour
This maximizes the chance of interference
This may mean results lack external validity and can’t be generalised outside of the lab situation
Outline the encoding specificity principle.
If a cue is to help us recall information it has to be present at encoding (when we learn the material) and at retrieval (when we recall it)
Forgetting will occur if the cues are different at encoding and recall or if absent all together
What are the two types of cues?
External cues (Context-dependent forgetting)
Internal cues (State-dependent forgetting)
What is a cue?
A ‘trigger’ of information that allows us to access a memory
What is an external cue?
An a environmental/contextual cue
Which study investigates external cues?
Godden and Baddeley (1975)
Describe the Godden and Baddeley (1975) study into external cues.
Studied deep sea divers working underwater - In this situation it is crucial (life or death) for divers to remember instructions given before diving about their work underwater
Divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land
Recall was either underwater or on land
4 conditions:
Learn on land – recall on land
Learn on Land – recall underwater
Learn underwater – recall on land
Learn underwater – recall underwater
Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions
The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall
Lack of external cues meant retrieval failure
Which study investigates internal cues?
Carter and Cassaday (1998)
Describe the study into internal cues by Carter and Cassaday (1998).
Gave anti-histamine drugs to their patients (made them slightly drowsy)
Created an internal physiological state different to ‘normal’ – alert
Participants learned lists of words and passages of prose
Recalled the information
Learn on drug – recall on drug
Learn on drug - recall when not on drug
Learn when not on drug – recall when not on drug
Learn when not on drug – recall when on drug
Recall was significantly worse when there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall
Performance on the memory test was significantly worse
More forgetting when cues are absent
What are two strengths of retrieval failure due to absence of cues?
Supporting evidence
Impressive range of supporting evidence
Godden and Baddeley (diver’s study)
Carter and Cassaday (learning/recalling whilst taking anti-histamine)
Supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation
Evidence also shows retrieval failure occurs in real-life situations as well as highly controlled conditions in the lab.
Real life applications
Cognitive Interview uses this principle – thinking back to the environment where the encoding took place
This is a method of getting eyewitnesses to crimes to recall more information
What are two weaknesses of retrieval failure due to absence of cues?
Problems with the encoding specificity principle
The encoding specificity principle is not scientifically testable
We just assume presence of a cue has aided successful recall or absence of cue has led to forgetting
These are just assumptions – there is no way to independently establish whether or not the cue has really been encoded
Recall versus recognition
Context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested
Godden and Baddeley repeated their underwater experiment with a recognition test of words instead of recall
Participants had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from the list instead of them retrieving it
No context-dependent effect was found
Performance similar in all four condition
What did Bartlett (1932) say about memory?
Memory is not like a tape recorder.
Memory is not perfectly formed, perfectly encoded and then perfectly retrieved.
A memory that is retrieved is unlikely to be exactly the same as the original
Memories are reconstructions of events, influenced by active schemas, ready-made expectations based on previous experiences, moods, existing knowledge, contexts, attitudes and stereotypes.
Schemas are used to make sense of the world by filling in the gaps in our knowledge
Eyewitnesses aren’t just recalling facts as they happened, they’re reconstructing memories biased by schemas acting at the time
What are the two types of misleading information?
Leading questions
Post-event discussion
What are leading questions?
A question which, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer.
For example: ‘Was the knife in the accused’s left hand?
This suggests the answer is ‘left hand’
How did lofts and palmer (1974) demonstrate the effect of leading questions?
Participants (students) watched film clips of car accidents and then answered questions about them
In the critical question (a leading question) participants were asked to estimate how fast the cars were travelling.
‘About how fast were the cars travelling when they smashes into each other?’
This is a leading question because the verb ‘smashed’ suggests the speed the car was going.
There were 5 groups of participants. Each was given a different verb in the critical question (contacted, bumped, hit, collided, smashed)
The verb ‘contacted’ resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph
The verb ‘smashed’ resulted in a mean estimated speed of 40.5 mph
Conclusion
Leading questions bias the eyewitness recall of an event
Why do leading questions affect eye witness testimony?
Response-bias explanation
Substitution explanation
What is response-bias explanation?
Response-bias explanation
Suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants’ memories
The wording just influences how they decide to answer
When a participant gets a leading question using the word ‘smashed’ it encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate
What is substitution explanation?
The wording of the leading question actually changes the participants’ memory of the film clip
Loftus and Palmer conducted a second experiment to support this
Participants who were given the word ‘smashed’ in the critical question were more likely to report seeing broken glass that those who heard the word ‘hit’
There was actually no broken glass
The critical verb altered their memory of the accident
What is post event discussion?
This occurs when there is more than one witness to an event
Witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or with other people
This may influence the accuracy of each witness’s recall of the event
Through discussion, their eyewitness testimonies may become contaminated
This is because they combine (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memories
How did Gabbert et al (2003) demonstrate the effects of post event discussion?
Participants in pairs watched a video of the same crime but filmed from different points of view
Participants could therefore see elements in the event that the other could not
E.g. only one participant could see the title of the book being carried by the young woman
Both participants then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall
71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in the discussion
In the control group where there was no discussion 0% mistakenly recalled aspects of events they didn’t see
It was concluded that witnesses often go along with each other to either win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they’re wrong
This is called ‘memory conformity’
What are two strengths of misleading information? (EWT)
Supported by research studies
Loftus and Palmer’s (1974) research supports the idea that leading questions can affect the reliability of eyewitness testimonies when participant’s speed estimates were affected by the critical verb used
Gabbert et al (2003) highlighted the impact post-event discussion can have on eyewitness’s memory of an event when they mistakenly recalled aspects of the event they did not see
Useful real-life application
Loftus (1975) believes that leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be very careful about how they phrase questions when interviewing eyewitnesses
Research into EWT is one area that psychologists feel they can make an important positive difference to the lives of real people
They are improving the way the legal system works and appear in court trials as expert witnesses.
What are two weaknesses of misleading information? (EWT)
Artificial tasks
A real limitation of the Loftus and Palmer study is that participants watched film clips of car accidents - a very different experience from witnessing a real accident
Such clips lack the stress of a real accident
Evidence suggests emotions can have an influence on memory
In the real world, what you remember as an eyewitness can have important consequences, the same is not true in research studies
This is a limitation because studies using such artificial tasks may tell us little about how leading questions affect EWT in real accidents or crimes
Demand characteristics
Participants usually do not want to let the researcher down, and want to appear helpful and attentive
When they are asked a question they don’t know the answer to, they guess – especially a yes/no question
E.g you are shown a clip of a street robbery. You are asked the
question ‘did you see the blue car?’ There was no blue car but you answer yes because it seems more helpful.
This would lower the validity of the results
What factors affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?
Anxiety
Misleading information
How can an anxiety have a negative affect on recall in EWT?
- anxiety might divert attention away from the important aspects of an event bring witnesses
What is the weapons effect?
Loftus et al (1987)
Found that if a person is carrying a weapon, witnesses focus on the weapon rather than the persons face.
This negatively affects their ability to recall facial details of armed criminals.
This supports the idea that anxiety can divert attention from important features of a situation.
Who argues for the ‘weapons effect’?
Loftus et al (1987)
What study did Johnson and Scott (1976) conduct to prove that anxiety has a negative effect on EWT?
- lead participants to believe they were going to take part in a lab study.
- whilst seated in the waiting room, participants heard an argument in the next room:
- low anxiety condition: a man then walked through the waiting area carrying a pen
- high anxiety condition: the participants overheard the same heated argument accompanied by the sound of glass breaking. A main then walked out of a room holding a knife covered in blood
Participants later picked the man from a set of 50 participants.
49% of participants in the low anxiety condition were able to identify him.
33% of participants in the high anxiety condition were able to identify him.
This shows the weapons effect - the witness attention narrows to focus on the weapon as it is a cause of anxiety
How can anxiety have a positive effects on recall?
The stress of witnessing a crime or accident creates anxiety through physiological arousal within the body.
The fight it flight response is triggered which increases out alertness and improves our memory for the event
We become more aware of cues in the situation.
How did Yuillie and Cutshall investigate the affect of anxiety on recall?
- real life shooting in a gun shop in Canada
- shop owner shot a thief dead
- 13 witnesses agreed to takahe part in the study
- police interviews conducted straight after the shooting
- interviews also held 4-5 months after the accident
- participants rated the stress they felt during the shooting on a 7 point scale
- their accounts were compared with the original police interviews
Found that witnesses were very accurate with their accounts and there was little change in accuracy after 5 months
- those participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate (88%) compared to75% for less stressed participants
- shows that stress has lead to greater accuracy in recall
Describe the Yerkes-Dodson inverted-U hypothesis/
- the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U
- this was applied to EWT
- Lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy
- memory becomes more accurate as anxiety increases
- however, there comes a point where the optimum level of anxiety is reached. This is the point of maximum accuracy
- if ann eyewitness experiences any more stress than this their recall of an event declines
So, moderate amounts of anxiety improves the detail and accuracy of memory recall up to an optimal point.
What is a strength of anxiety improving recall in EWT?
- research support
What are 2 weaknesses of anxiety improving recall in EWT?
Field studies sometimes lack control
- researchers often interview real-life eyewitnesses after the event. Things e,g post event discussion, accounts they’ve seen in the media, researchers have no control over. Thus extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall.
- the effects of anxiety may be overwhelmed by those other factors and may be impossible to Asses by the time the participants are interviewed
Problems with lab studies
- most show participants a filmed (usually staged) crime.
- most of the participants will be aware they are watching a filmed crime for a reason to do with the study.
- most of them will work out for themselves that they are going to be asked questions about what they have seen
- demand characteristics therefore may affect the way participants respond
- it is questionable wether findings generalise to real life scenarios
Who was the cognitive interview developed by?
Fisher and Geiselman (1992)
What are the 4 elements of the cognitive interview?
- Report everything
- Reinstate the context
- Reverse the order
- Change perspective
What is meant by report everything in the CI?
- witnesses are encouraged to include very single detail of the event even if it seems irreverent
- seemingly trivial details may be important and may trigger other important memories
What is meant by reinstate the context in the CI?
- suggests that to enhance recall, retrieval cues should be used that were present at the time of encoding
- the witness should return to the original crime scene in their mind
What is meant by reverse the order in the CI?
- events should be recalled in a different order to the original sequence
- it is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than the actual events
- prevents dishonesty
What is meant by change perspective in the CI?
- recall the incident from other peoples perspective e.g how it would have appeared to another witness or the perpetrator
- this disrupts the effect of expectation and schema on recal
What are some elements of the enhanced cognitive interview?
- the witness controls the flow of information. This is achieved by asking open ended questions.
- the interviewer knowing when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it
- the interviewer asks about the information recalled using focused memory techniques which helps guides recall and reduces anxiety in witnesses
What are 2 weaknesses of the CI?
It is time consuming
- police may be reluctant to use the CI because it takes much more time than the standard police interview e.g more time is needed to establish rapport with the witnesses and allow them to relax
- the CI also requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours. This means that it is unlikely that the ‘proper’ version of the C is actually used. This may explain why police have not been that impressed by it
- comparisons of CIs with standard police interviews isn’t easy
- police interview techniques other than the CI are not standardised
- lots of different techniques are used e.g. by just asking what do you recall? Or asking specific questions
What are 2 strengths of the CI?
Support for the effectiveness of the cognitive interview
- Geiselman et al (1985) found that the CI procedure produced more accurate, detailed memories than the standard police interview technique
- suggests the CI is relatively effective
- it shows that it gives police a greater change of catching and charging criminals, which benefits society as a whole
Support for the effectiveness of the enhanced cognitive interview
- Coker (2013) found that the ECI technique that stressed the use of focused mental imagery produced increased accurate detail in comparison to the CI technique
- this effect was greater if the ECI took place one week after an event rather than immediately afterwards
- this suggests the ECI is an improvement on the CI but that the timing of the interview is vital to its success
