Memory

Question 1

What does duration mean?

Answer 1

A measure of how long information can be stored in a memory system.

Question 2

Which study supports the STM duration? Outline this study.

Answer 2

-Peterson and Peterson presented a consonant trigram to participants
-The participants were then asked to count backwards in 3s to prevent them rehearsing the consonant trigram
-After intervals of 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds the participants had to stop counting and repeat the trigram
-This process was repeated using different trigrams
-The results showed that 90% of the trigrams were remembered after 3s, 20% of the trigrams were remembered after 9s, and less then 10% of the trigrams were remembered after 18s
-They concluded that information decays very quickly without rehearsal and the max STM duration is about 18 seconds
-However, since Peterson and Peterson’s study there has been more research into the duration of the STM and the conclusion is the duration of the STM is roughly 18-30s

Question 3

Evaluate the study which looks into the duration of the STM.

Answer 3

+ One strength of Peterson and Petersons study is that it is a lab experiment where variables can be tightly controlled. It also means the procedure can be easily replicated to test if results are reliable. The internal validity of the experiment is high.
-However, one weakness of Peterson and Peterson’s study is that the lab experiment increases the artificiality of the task and additionally, trigrams are unrealistic things to remember. It may be difficult to generalise the findings of the experiment to real life scenarios and therefore the study has low ecological validity.

Question 4

Which study looks into the duration of the LTM? Outline this study.

Answer 4

-Bahrick tested multiple American participants from ages 17-74 on their memory of their former classmates by asking them to identify pictures, match names to pictures and recall names with no picture cues.
-Even after 48 years , when participants were asked to link names and classmates faces, accuracy was about 70%. However the accuracy of free recall after 48 years was 30%
-This helps us have an idea about how long term memories last a lifetime as participants could still remember their classmates after so long, the study also showed that individuals cannot immediately access all information stored in LTM and that cues might be needed to help retrieval

Question 5

Evaluate the study which looks into the duration of the LTM.

Answer 5

+One strength of Bahricks study is that it has high external validity, his study looked into meaningful material that people would remember (classmates names). Since the study is relevant to everyday life it has high ecological validity.
-However since Bahrick’s study is a natural experiment, the experiment had less control over the IV and it is likely that some of the names of the classmates had been rehearsed by the participants for example if they had been rehearsed. For example, some classmates may have kept in touch or have been spoken about since school. This would be a confounding variable and therefore the results of the experiment could be invalid.

Question 6

Which study looks into the capacity of the STM? Outline this study.

Answer 6

-The capacity of the STM was measures by Jacobs , who developed the “digital span technique”.
-The researcher read out 4 digits to participant and they had to repeat it back immediately.
-More digits were added until the participant couldn’t repeat back the digital string accurately
-The results of the experiment showed that on average 9 digits and 7 letters were correctly recalled and this capacity
-As people matured, their capacity to recall increased, with older children typically able to retain between 7 to 9 terms in their short-term memory.
-Miller reviewed experiments into the STM and concluded the STM has a capacity of about 7±2 items, and that memory capacity can be increased in a process called chunking.

Question 7

Evaluate the study which looks into the capacity of the STM.

Answer 7

-One problem with Jacob’s research is that it has an artificial task, learning random lists of numbers and repeating them back is not a realistic method to test the capacity of the STM as it is not comething we would do in everyday life, More meaningful information may be recalled better, which could mean the STM has an even greater capacity. This decreases the ecological validity of the study.
-Another weakness of Jacob’s study is we cannot be so sure he had controlled alll the extraneous variables because the study was conducted so long ago( for example distractions and it levels). However the study has been repeated and the same findings have been found suggesting the study does have validity.

Question 8

Which study looks into the coding of the STM? Outline this study.

Answer 8

-Baddley looked into how STM’s were coded.
-He showed participants a sequence of 5 words under 1 of 4 conditions and had them immediately write them down in order after.
-the four conditions were
1) acoustically similar words
2) acoustically dissimilar words
3) semantically similar words
4) semantically dissimilar words
-when tested immediately participants were least accurate with acoustically similar words, when tested 20 minutes later, participants were least accurate with semantically simillar words

Question 9

Evaluate the study which looks into the coding of the STM and LTM

Answer 9

-One weakness of baddleys study is that it has low ecological validity. This means the findings of the study are harder to be applied to real life scenarios since the words given to the participants were a meaningless list, having no personal relevance to the participants. Henceforth, the study does not tell us much about coding memories in everyday life.
+However, one strength of Baddley’s study is that he has identified a clear difference in the coding of the two memory stores.
+ It is also a lab experiment, meaning there is high control of the experiment and it can be repeated. Increasing the internal validity of the study.
- However one weakness is that this study cannot apply to blind and death people, reducing the external validity of the study.

Question 10

Who made the Multi-Store Memory model? Outline the MSM

Answer 10

-the MSM was first described by Atkinson and Shiffrin.
-they argued that memory involved a flow of information through a fixed linear sequence.

-they contain 3 unitary stores which are
1) sensory register: modality specific coding, very large capacity, duration of less than 0.5s
-if information which enters the sensory register (from the environment) is payed attention to it enters the STM
2)STM: acoustic coding, capacity of 7+/- 2 items, duration of 30s
-information can be retained in the STM through maintenance rehearsal , or it can be transferred to the LTM through prolongued rehearsal
3)LTM: semantic coding,unlimited capacity, unlimited duration
Information can be remembered from the LTM through retrieval to the STM and recall from the STM

Question 11

Evaluate the MSM (STRENGTHS)

Answer 11

+one strength of the MSM is that it can help explain primacy and recency effects shown in Murdocks Study. Murdock showed his participants a list of 10-40 words and then asked to free recall these words. Participants were able to recall more words from the start of the list (primacy effect) and at the end of the list (recency effect) compared to words in the middle of the list. The words at the start of the list were remembered better because they have been rehearsed them and therefore they had been transferred to the LTM. Words at the end of the list were still in our short term memory and the words in the middle of the list weren’t in either as they were displaced so therefore they weren’t recalled well or even at all.
+ another strength of the study is that there are many case studies which support the MSM. An example is patient H.M who was studied by Scoville and Milner who had an operation which removed his hippocampus removed to reduce his severe epilepsy reduced. His STM was functioning fine, however he was unable to form new LTM’s. This supports the idea that the STM and the LTM are separate stores

Question 12

Evaluate the MSM (WEAKNESSES)

Answer 12

-One weakness of the MSM is that it has been criticised for its simplicity, the MSM doesn’t take into consideration that there are different types of STM within the STM store . For example, patient KF got brain damage from a motorcycle accident which left him with a severely impaired STM for verbal information whereas his visual STM showed no impairment, This suggests the STM is not a unitary store like the MSM argued. Some psychologists may argue that the working memory model is a better way for explaining how memories can be stored.
-One weakness of the MSM is that it does not explain flashbulb memories. In some cases we don’t need to rehearse information for t to be stored in out LTM. Kulik and Brown found out that highly emotional, significant or shocking events (flashbulb memories) are easily stored in the LTM without any rehearsal. This suggests the oversimplicity of the MSM.
-Another weakness of the MSM is that most of the studies supporting it lack ecological validity. Studies such as Peterson and Petersons Baddleys and Jacob’s study lack ecological validity and support the MSM . This suggests that the MSM lacks external validity because the supporting research may not reflect how memory works in real life

Question 13

complete this flow chart on long term memory

      \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ - \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ LTM<                                                        \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
      \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ - \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ <
                                                             \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Answer 13

Implicit memory (unconscious) - Procedural memory
LTM< Semantic memory
Explicit memory (conscious) - Declaritive memory (facts, events) <
Eposodic memory

Question 14

What is eposodic memory? Give an example of an eposodic memory.

Answer 14

An eposodic memory is memory of events and experiences. An example of an eposodic memory could be a family holiday.

Question 15

What is a semantic memory? Give an example of a semantic memory.

Answer 15

A semantic memory is memory involved with knowledge about the world, facts and concepts. An example of a semantic memory could be knowing what the function of a cell’s cytoskeleton is.

Question 16

What is a procedural memory? Give an example of a procedural memory.

Answer 16

A procedural memory is memory of how do to thing, and skills a person may have. An example of a procedural memory could be how to drive a car.

Question 17

What is the strength of eposodic memories influenced by?

Answer 17

The strength of eposodic memories are influenced by emotions present at the time of coding. (for example, traumatic events are highly memorable because they have strong emotions attached to it.). It is also influenced by the degree of processing???

Question 18

Where are eposodic memories stored?

Answer 18

The prefrontal cortext brain area is associated with the initial coding of eposodic memories . Storage of eposodic memories is associated in the neocortext. Connecting together to create a full memory of the episode is in the hippocampus. (reword this one)

Question 19

What is the strength of semantic memories influenced by?

Answer 19

The strength of semantic memories are influenced by the degree of processing during coding.

Question 20

What brain areas are associated with semantic memories?

Answer 20

There is a debate on which areas in the brain are associated with semantic memories.Some psychologists suggests it’s the hippocampus and surrounding areas, while other psychologists believe it involves multiple brain areas
Coding of semantic memories are mainly associated with the frontol and temporal lobes of the brain.

Question 21

What brain areas are associated with the procedural memory?

Answer 21

Procedural memory is mainly associated with the neocortex brain areas of primary motor cortex, cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. Unlike explicit forms of LTM, procedural memory does not need the hippocampus to function. (chatgpt what its trynna say)

Question 22

TRUE/FALSE ? We usually recall when we learned/ encoded semantic memories just like how eposodic memories are stored with a reference to time and place.

Answer 22

FALSE!!

Question 23

Types of LTM AO3

Answer 23

+One strength is that the types of LTM have been supported by case studies. An example is patient HM had severely impaired eposodic memories but could learn new skills, which suggests that their procedural memories were still intact. HM also had a relatively intact semantic memory . This just proves that the LTM has different stores.
+Another supporting case study is Clive Wearing who has severely impaired eposodic memories but his procedural memories were still intact as he was a great musician and could still play the piano even after his brain damage. This shows that LTM has different stores.
+Another strenght of the different types of LTM is that there is evidence from brain scans to show that the different types of LTM are stored in different parts of the brain. Tulving looked into this and found out tat when participants were recalling semantic memories, there was more activation in the frontal and temporal parts of the brain. When required to recall eposodic memories there was more activation in the prefrontsl cortex of the brain. THis brain scan difference shows that different areas of the brain are used for different types of LTM’s
-However, remember that there was a very small sample used (update this later)
+A final strength of the different types of LTM’s is that they have real world application. Knowing that eposodic memories are a distinct store means it can be targeted in people with specific memory difficulties. This makes it easier to help us treat specific memory impairments.

Question 24

Types of LTM AO3 (WEAKNESSES)

Answer 24

-There is evidence of gender differences in LTMs suggesting that research on the types of LTMs cannot be generalised to all the population and needs to be treated with caution. Herlitz et al found that female participants performed better on tasks requiring eposodic LTM, although there were no differences in semantic LTM ability. While this further supports the idea that semantic and eposodic memories are different. This means that because of the gender differences in LTM’s it may not be appropriate to generalise all research of LTM to everyone.

Question 25

The working memory model (WMM) AO1

Answer 25

-Baddley and Hitch critisized the STM in the MSM by Atkinson and Shiffrin was too simple. In the MSM, the STM is a unitary store which doesn’t do much processing. Baddley and Hitch however, argued that the STM consisted of sub stores and also processes information so tasks can be carried out. They named this the WMM
-The WMM had 4 components:
1)CENTRAL EXECUTIVE: Processes all information in sensory forms and directs attention to important tasks, monitors incoming information and decides which of it’s “slave systems” are needed to complete them .
the slave systems:
2)PHONOLOGICAL LOOP: Temporartily stores and rehearses word based information and is divided into:
-phonological store: the inner ear, holds speech based information
-articulatory process: allows maintenance rehearsal of word based information, the inner voice
3)VISUO-SPATIAL SKETCHPAD (inner eye) : stores a limited amount of visual and spatial information and is divided into
-visual cache: stores visual data
-inner scribe: remembers the arrangement of objects in space
4)EPOSODIC BUFFER: communicates with long term memory and intergrates the visual, spatial and verbal informatio processed by the other stores. Also records the order in which events happen. Sends information to the LTM

Question 26

What is the coding and capacity of the central executive?

Answer 26

Capacity: limited
Coding: modality free

Question 27

What is the coding and capacity of the phonological loop?

Answer 27

Capacity: 2 seconds worth of what you can say
Coding: acoustic

Question 28

What is the coding and capacity of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 28

Capacity: 3-4 items
Coding: Visual

Question 29

What is the coding of the epesodic buffer?

Answer 29

Capacity: about 4 chunks
Coding: stores visual, spatial and verbal information intergrating it together.

Question 30

Baddeley and Hitch’s key study to support the WMM

Answer 30

-Baddeley and Hitch aiimed to investigate if participants can use different parts of the working memory at the same time.
-Their method was conducting an experiment where participants were asked to perform 2 tasks at the same time (this is called a dual task technique) the tasks were:
-a digit span task where they were asked to repeat a list of numbers
-a verbal reasoning task which required them to answer true or false to various questions
-The results of the experiment showed that as the number of digits increased in the digital span task, participants took longer to answer the reasoning questions, but not much longer (only fractions of a second) . They also didn’t make any more errors in the verbal reasoning task as the number of digits increased.
-They concluded that the verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive and the digital span task made use of the phonological loop.

Question 31

The working memory model AO3 (STRENGTHS)

Answer 31

+ One strength of the working memory model is that takes into account dual tasking, that we can carry out 2 tasks at once if one is word based and one is visual. This is because we use the phonological loop to carry out one task and at the same time we use the visuo-spatial sketchpad to do the visual task . However we find it hard to do 2 tasks at once if both are visual and verbal.This is because the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad have limited capacity. Dual task activities provide evidence for the existence of multiple components within out STM and support the idea of a seperate phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad.
+ Another strength of the WMM is that it accounts for case studies such as KF which show that the STM has different stores. Patient KF had a motorcycle accident and suffered brain damage and had some issues with his STM, he was able to remember faces an d other visual images (showing his visuo-spatial sketchpad was not impaired) but he was unable to remember sounds (showing his phonological loop was impaired). This therefore provides support that there is a multi component STM system.
+Another strength of the WMM is that it can explain how we carry out everyday tasks for example reading(phonological loop), problem solving(centeral executive) and navigation(visuo-spatial sketchpad) better than the MSM can. We can therefore say it has greater face validity.

Question 32

The working memory model AO3 (WEAKNESSES)

Answer 32

• One weakness of the WMM is that evidence from few brain damaged patients who lived traumatic experiences may not be appropriate to generalise to the rest of the world. These case studies are unique and therefore it is hard to make a generalisation of “normal” memory processing. Looking at KF , who had a motorbike accident, not all people who have problems with their memory have the same type of brain damage.
• another weakness of the WMM is that it only focuses on the STM and the link between the WMM and the LTM is not fully clear and explained. There is no information on how information is processed and transferred from the LTM to the STM and back again. Therefore it can be argues the WMM is incomplete model of memory and other theories are needed to get a complete picture of this complex cognitive phenomenon.
  -Another weakness of the WMM is that the role of the central executive remains unclear. It’s function is that it processes all information in sensory forms and directs attention to important tasks, monitors incoming information and decides which of it’s “slave systems” are needed to complete them however this may be considered too vaugue. Some evidence even suggests that the centeral executive consists of subcomponents itself. Eslinger and Damasio studied a patient who had a cerebral tumour removed. He performed well on tests requiring reasoning which suggests that his centeral executive is intact but he had poor decision making skills as he would spend hours trying to figure out what to eat which suggests that his central executive is not wholly intact. Therefore an explanation for the central executive in the WMM is vauge and more complex than presented.

Question 33

Descibe interference as an explanation for forgetting AO1

Answer 33

-Intereference theory suggests that forgetting occurs in the LTM because two memories are in conflict. This might result in the forgetting/distortion of one memory or both memories. This is more likely to happen (+ worse) if the memories are simillar. There are two types of interference, proactive and retroactive interference.
-Proactive interference is when an old memory interferes/disrupts the recall of a new memory
This may be bacause previously stored information makes it harder to store new information
-Reteroactive interference is when a new memory disrupts/interferes with an old memory
This may be because new information overwrites previous memories which are simillar

Question 34

Research supporting interference theory: McGeoch and McDonald.

Answer 34

-McGeoch and McDonald aimed to see if interference had an impact on forgetting
-They split participants into 6 groups and had them complete tasks.
Task 1: All 6 groups had to learn a list of words until 100% accurate.
Task 2: The 6 groups were then given either
Group 1) A new list of synonyms to learn compared to the original list
Group 2) A new list of antonyms to learn compared to the original list
Group 3) A new list of unrelated words to learn compared to the original list
Group 4) A new list of nonsense syllables to learn compared to the original list
Group 5) A new list of 3 digit numbers to learn compared to the original list
Group 6) No new list to learn
Task 3: All pqarticipants were then required to recall the first original list in task 1
-The findings of the study found out that those who did not have a new list to learn recalled to original list the best and those who had to learn a new list of sysnonyms in task 2 recalled the least amount of words in the original list.
-This can be explained by the fact that that interference occurred because the original list of words had a simillar meaning to the second list of words for group 1 in task 2 and it has been shown that interference is more likely to happen when two peices of information are simillar, and this study supports this notation.

Question 35

Interference theory AO3 (STRENGTHS)

Answer 35

+ One strenght of the interference theory is that it is supported by many controlled lab studies, which have shown that both types of interference lead to information in the LTM being forgotten. One example is McGeoch and McDonald’s study supporting the interference theory. As it was a lab study it would be highly controlled decreasing the effect of extraneous varibles. This would increase the internal validity of the study. And supports the idea that the interference theory is a valid explanation for forgetting.
+ Another strength of interference theory is that there has also been some realistic studies conducted which support the interference theory. An example is one done by Baddeley and Hitch , who wanted to investigate interference in everyday life. The sample included rugby players who had participated in every match of the season and those who had missed games due to injury. All players were asked to recall the names of the teams they had played against during the season. Players who had played more games tended to forget a higher proportion of the games compared to those who missed some matched due to injury. Players were equally accurate in recalling the last game played regardless of weather it was a few days ago or 3 weeks ago. This phenomenon was attributed to retroactive interference, where the memory of new information (recent team names) interfered with the recall of old information (earlier team names). This study also provides support for Interference theory and it has high external validity as it is a natural study.

Question 36

Interference theory AO3 (WEAKNESSES)

Answer 36

-One limitation of interference theory is that research has showen that Baddley and Hitch’s study and most other studies shown to support interference thoery are lab studies, this increases the artificiality of the tasks as it does not replicate real life environments. Therefore it may be harder to generalise the findings of the study to everyday situations decreasing the external validity of the study.
-Another limitation of interference theory is that interference can be overcome with cues. (add on later)

Question 37

Retrival failure due to an absence of cues. AO1

Answer 37

This theory argues that information is often stored in the LTM but cannot be retrieved due to an absence of cues. The encoding specificity principle by Tulving suggests that cues will help retrival if the same cues are present at coding and retrival. The closer the retrival cue is to the original cue, the more effective the cue is at triggering the memory. There are 2 types of cues which suppport the coding specificity principle:
Cues which are linked meaningfully to the information to the information
Cues which are not linked meaningfully to the information bur are remembered netherless. They can be external-context dependent cues or internal-state dependent cues

Question 38

Research supporting the encoding specificity principle.

Answer 38

Some research to support the encoding specificity recall in improving recall is Tulving and Pearlstone who had his participants recall 48 words that belonged to either 1 of 12 categories. As each word was presented it was preceded by its category. for example Gem: ruby , Gem: diamond . They found out that if the cue was present at recall (gem) then the overall recall of the recall was 60% but if the cue was not present 40%. They concluded that retrieval of information in the LTM is much better when there are cues to help trigger the memory, supporting the idea of the encoding specificity principle.

Question 39

What is context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 39

Context dependent forgetting is when the environment during recall is different from the environment you were in during learning resulting in you forgetting the information you learned.

Question 40

Baddeley and Hitch AO1

Answer 40

-Baddely and Hitch aimed to see if context cues affected recall
-To do this they used a sample of deep sea divers to learn and recall a list of 36 unrelated words in all the following conditions
1) Learning the words on a beach and recalling the words on a beach
2) Learning the words on a beach and recalling the words underwater
3) Learning the words underwater and recalling the words on a beach
4) Learning the words underwater and recalling the words underwater
-The findings showed this
lB lW
rB 13.5 8.5
rW 8.6 11.4
-They concluded that when external cues are available at the time of learning were different to the ones at recall this leads to retrival failure due to the lack of cues . This shows context dependent forgetting because information was forgotten when context at recall did not match context at learning

Question 41

Godden and Baddeley AO3

Answer 41

-One weakness of Godden and Baddeleys study is that word lists were used to test memory, which is not a “natural” way to investigate recall.The task in the experiment was artificial as we dont learn lists of meaningless words in everyday situations which means that the findings of the experiment may not accurately reflect real life situations and therefore it may not be appropriate to generalise the findings of the study to them. This decreases the external validity of the findings
-Another weakness of Godden and Baddeley’s study is that the participants had to recall the words in the words almost immediately, which is a very specific effect. If we wanted to generalise the findings of the study of context effects to longer periods of time between learning and recall it may not be different. Therefore this research only tells us about a very specific set of circumstances, short term recall and decreases the external validity of the study.

Question 42

What is state dependent forgetting?

Answer 42

State dependent forgetting is when your mood/physiological state during recall is different from the mood/ physiological state you were in during learning resulting in you forgetting the information you learned

Question 43

Give research evidence for state-dependent forgetting.

Answer 43

One evidence research for state dependent forgetting is Carter and Casaaday, where they gave their participants anti histamines to make the participants feel drowsy, they then had to learn a list of words and passages of information and then recall. There were 4 groups:
1) learned information on the drug and recalled the information on the drug
2) learned information not on the drug and recalled the information not on the drug
3) learned information on the drug and recalled the information not on the drug
4) learned information not on the drug and recalled the information on the drug
-The results of the study showed that when the internal state of the study matched during recall they were able to recall the information best compared to the groups that had a mismatch on the internal state during learning and recall
-Carter and Cassaday concluded that when internal cues are absent, forgetting is more likely

Question 44

Retrival failure as an explanation for forgetting AO3 (STRENGTHS)

Answer 44

+ One strength of using context dependent forgetting as explanation for forggetting is that it has real world applications, It is suggested by being in the same environment (context) as learning and the same state you were in during learning at recall may improve memory accuracy (shown by Carter and Cassaday and Godden and Baddeley) Both these principles are used in the cognitive interview - witnesses are asked to recall the context of the scene (known as context reinstallment) and to help memory recall. This suggests research into forgetting is successful in real life application.
+ Another strength of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting is that there is a range of research that shows retrievel failure due to an absence of cues is a major explanation for forgetting. For example. Godden and Baddeley show that context dependent cues are important in remembering information and Carter and Cassaday show that state dependent cues are important when remembering information.Therefore such a wide range of supporting evidence shows that retrival failure due to an absence of cues is a valid explanation for forgetting

Question 45

Retrieval failure due to an absence of cues as an explanation for forgetting AO3 (WEAKNESSES)

Answer 45

• One weakness of using an absense of cues as an explanation for forgetting is that cues don’t always work since our learning is related to alot more than just cues. Many of the research just focuses on lists or passages and lacks ecological validity since we are not just learners at school but we are learning throughout out whole lifetime and thus those studies lack realism and do not give an overall picture of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting.
  -Futhermore it is really hard to test the encoding specificity principle as we do not know what cues are meaningful for a person and which ones arent and how they are encoded in a person during learning.

Question 46

What does eyewitness testimony mean?

Answer 46

Eyewitness testimony refers to the ability of people to remember the detail of events such as accidents and crimes, which they themselves have observed.

Question 47

Things that can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Answer 47

-Leading questions
-Post event discussion

Question 48

What are leading questions?

Answer 48

Leading questions are questions that suggest to the witness what answer is desired or leads him/her to give a certain answer because of how the answer is phrased.

Question 49

Which study shows the effect of leading questions?

Answer 49

Loftus and Palmer’s study shows the effect of leading questions on accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
-They showed students a video of a car accident and asked participants questions about the speed of the car on impact. They were asked “how fast were the cars going when they _____________ each other?” the blank was replaced with either the word : crashed, hit, bumped, collided or contacted.
-The results showed that the verb used has a significant effect on the estimated speed. The verb contacted has the lowest estimated speed ans smashed had the highest estimated speed.
-They concluded that some of the verbs used in the experimenters questions were leading, encouraging participants to believe that the cars were going faster than they actually were.
-Loftus and Palmer also conducted a second experiment where participants were shown a video of a car accident and asked if the particpants had seen ‘a’ broken headlight, to which 7% of the participants said yes. 17% of the participants said yes to seeing ‘the’ broken headlight, even though there was no broken headlight.
-They concluded from this second experiment the word “the” was leading as it implied there was a broken headlight. This leading question affected the participants memory.

Question 50

Anxiety and its effect on eyewitness testimony AO1

Answer 50

-Anxiety has strong physical and emotional effects on accuracy of eyewitness testimony, it’s not exactly clear whether these effects makes recall better or worse as research supports both possibilities.
-However, Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that the relationship between arousal and performance looks like an inverted U shape, where performance would increase with stress, but only to a certain point, to where after it decreases drastically.
-Deffenbacher applied Yerkes-Dodson’s law to EWT. And therefore he argued that too much or too less anxiety would affect recall, and thus a medium amount of anxiety would aid the most recall.
-A different study, done by Johnson and Scott showed how anxiety could make recall worse through the weapon focus effect, where if a perpetrator has a weapon, the anxiety levels of the observers would rise as they begin to shift their focus from the crime to the weapon.
-The study by Johnson and Scott (1976) investigated how anxiety affects eyewitness recall.
-Participants heard either a friendly conversation (low anxiety condition)or an argument (high anxiety condition) from inside a laboratory, followed by a man emerging carrying either a greasy pen (low anxiety condition) or a blood-stained paper knife (high anxiety condition ).
-They then had to identify the man from 50 photos. Results showed higher accuracy in identifying the man with the pen (49%) compared to the knife (33%).
-This is indicating that anxiety affects recall by diverting attention away from the person’s face. (Weapon focus effect)
-One study which shows how anxiety can improve recall was done by Christianson and Hubinette (1993) that conducted a study investigating the impact of anxiety on eyewitness recall.
-They interviewed 58 witnesses to a bank robbery in Sweden, including victims and bystanders, 4-15 months after the event. They found that all witnesses had generally good memories of the robbery itself, with 75% or more accurate recall.
-Interestingly, those who were most anxious (the victims) demonstrated the best recall, suggesting that high anxiety may enhance accurate recall.
-This finding supports Christianson’s (1992) conclusion that memory for negative emotional events is better than for neutral events.

Question 51

Anxiety and its effect on eyewitness testimony AO3

Answer 51

-One weakness on anxiety and its effect on eyewitness testimony is that in Johnson and Scott’s study, the weapon focus effect may have not been what had reduced accuracy of identification, rather it would be surprise. Pickle argues this, where she conducted a study exposing participants to high threat/ low threat with high surprise/low surprise scenarios. Experimentally manipulating surprise levels in scenarios showed that participants had a higher recall in higher surprise situations regardless of the threat of the scenario, suggesting that the weapon focus effect may be related more to surprise than anxiety.
-Another weakness of some research into eyewitness testimony is that naturalistic studies like those by Christianson and Hubinette, offer high ecological validity as they involve real crimes. However, they lack control over confounding variables such as proximity to the event and post-event influences like discussions or media exposure, making it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the impact of anxiety on EWT accuracy.
-Another weakness is that deliberately inducing anxiety in participants for lab studies raises ethical concerns about potential psychological harm. In studies like Johnson and Scott’s, participants were exposed to stressful situations without full understanding, which could lead to unnecessary distress. The deception involved in such studies also raises ethical questions about the necessity of conducting research when real-life events already induce anxiety.
-The Yerks -Dodson law simplified the complex nature .Anxiety has cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and physical aspects, making it challenging to accurately define and measure. The Yerkes-Dodson Law simplifies anxiety as physiological arousal, overlooking other dimensions such as worry, which may not always be physiologically measurable.
-One final weakness on research into anxiety and its effect on eyewitness testimony is that there are individual differences. Rather than anxiety directly impacting accuracy in recalling events, individual characteristics play a significant role. Studies like Bothwell et al. (1987) suggest that highly neurotic (highly anxious)individuals may experience decreased accuracy with increased stress levels, while stable individuals may exhibit improved accuracy. This indicates that anxiety affects individuals differently, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all relationship between anxiety and accuracy of recall.

Question 52

The cognitive interview AO1

Answer 52

-The cognitive interview was constructed by Geiselman et al , which aimed to increase the accuracy of witness recall by providing witnesses with cues to help retrival and forming a bond (rapport) between the interviewer and the witness. This was to help overcome the limitations of police interviews such as interruption and leading questions.
-There are 4 principles of the cognitive interview:
1)CONTEXT REINSTALLMENT: witnesses are prompted to mentally recreate the physical and psychological encironment of the event, including details like the scene, weather and emotions experienced, The technique promts context dependent and state dependent recall to make memories more accessible.
2)REPORT EVERYTHING: Witnesses are encouraged to report ever dentail of the event, regardless of percieved significance as this approach helps prevent the omission of potentially important information and allows memories to be interconnected, and could also potentially then cue more memories.
3)RECALL IN CHANGED ORDER: The interviewer may vary the squence in which the events are recalled (eg reversing the order) this technique disrupts the influence of schemas on memory recall, allowing for a more accurate and more comprehensive recall of the event.
4)RECALL FROM A CHANGED PERSPECTIVE: The interviewer asked the interviewee to recall the incident from different perspectives, disrupting the influence of schemas on memory recall. This prompts a more comprehensive and accurate recollection of the event.

Question 53

The enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 53

Fisher developed the enhanced cognitive interview which includes the following principles (lopeaaam)
1)Listen actively
2)Open ended questions
3)Pause after each response
4)Encourange imagery
5)Adapt language
6)Avoid judgement
7)Avoid interrupting
8)Minimise distractions

Question 54

The cognitive interview AO3 (STRENGTHS)

Answer 54

+There is research to support the effectiveness of the cognitive interview. Geiselman et al showed that cognitive interviews elicited more information compared to standard police interviews and interviews under hypnosis, when he made his particpants watch an intruder with a blue rucksack steal a prodjector from a classroom. Additionally, Geiselman found that the cognitive interview generated more accurate details. Participants in the cognitive interview condition were less likely to recall misleading details such as the colour of the intruders backpack compared to standard interviews, as earlier in the interview all participants were asked if the “intruder in the green backpack was nervous” and then later on asked “what was the colour of the intruders backpack”.

Question 55

The cognitive interview AO3 (WEAKNESSES)

Answer 55

-One weakness of the cognitive interview is that it is time consuming. When a crime has just happened and a criminal is on the run, the criminal must be caught as soon as possible before they can cause anymore damage, however time is needed to establish a report between the interviewee and the interviewer, this can comprimise the accuracy of the eye witness testimony.
-Another weakness is that in order to carry out the cognitive interview, the interviewer must have gone through vigourous training as having relatively little training eg 4hrs does not produce any significant increase in the amount of information generated. Training lots of police staff/ detectives to be able to carry out a cognitive interview may take alot more rescources than what some departments may have.
-One final weakness of the cognitive interview is that Geiselman’s study is a lab study and , watching a crime is extremely different to experiencing a crime in real life. This makes the task of the study artifical and findings may not be applicable to real life scenarios meaning it may not be appropriate to generalise the findings of the study to real life. Decreasing the external validity of the study.