memory Flashcards
what evidence is there to support capacity for STM?
Jacobs – digit span 9.3 for digits and 7.3 for letters
Miller people remember 7 items +- 2
Cowen – 4 chunks, the lower end of STM capacity
what evidence is there to support duration for the LTM?
Bahrick - 15yrs after graduation, face recognition accuracy was 90%, and free recall was 60%, after 48 years ppt were 70% accurate in face recognition of classmates and 30% for names/free recall
what evidence is there to support duration for STM?
Peterson and Peterson – consonant syllables, prevented verbal rehearsal, STM lasted 18 seconds
found that the longer the interval the less accurate the recall. At 3 seconds, around 80% of the trigrams were correctly recalled, whereas at 18 seconds only 10% were correctly recalled. Peterson & Peterson concluded that short-term memory has a limited duration of approximately 18 seconds
what evidence is there to support coding memory?
Baddeley – difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM, but not in LTM, but semantically similar words were difficult to remember in LTM
what are the components of the MSM?
Sensory register – large capacity, very short duration
Attention transfers information form sensory register to STM
STM – limited capacity 7+-2 so information decays, limited duration unless rehearsed.
Maintenance rehearsal creates LTM
LTM – potentially unlimited capacity and duration, forgetting may be due to the lack of accessibility
Retrieval goes from LTM through STM
what are the strengths of MSM?
supporting evidence -
Lab studies - Baddeley, Bahrick, Miller and Peterson
Brain scans - Beardsley linked STM to prefrontal cortex, Squire linked LTM to hippocampus
case study - HM linked to formation of new LTMs to hippocampus
what are the limitations of MSM?
MSM is too simplistic - reductionist STM and LTM are not unitary stores, WMM and different types of LTM is different areas of the brain
LTM involves elaborative rather than just maintenance rehearsal
who came up with the MSM?
Atkinson and Shriffin
what components are in the WMM?
Central executive acts as attention and allocates tasks to the slave systems, there is no storage
Phonological loop preserves order of auditory information
Visuo-spatial sketchpad, for planning and processing visual and/or spatial tasks
Episodic buffer records events as they happen and links to the LTM
what are the other components in the phonological loop?
the phonological store, which holds words we hear and the articulatory process, which allows us to repeat words in a loop.
what are the other components of the VSS?
visual cache for form and colour, and inner scribe for spatial relations
what are the strengths of WMM?
supporting evidence -
Baddeley and Hitch - dual tasks, ppts slower when doing two verbal or visual task compared to just one of each
KF - damage to PL problems with verbal material, words not sounds Shallice and Warrington
SC - damage to PL unable to learn word pairs presented out loud
LH - damage to spatial system
what are the limitations of WMM?
CE doesn’t explain anything, more complex than currently represented, evidence EVR
Brain damage evidence unreliable because trauma may cause problems
what are the different types of LTM?
Episodic memory – personal memories for event forming a sequence, include details of context and emotion
Semantic memories – knowledge shared by everyone, abstract and concrete, acquired via episodic memories.
Procedural memories – knowing how to do something, becomes an automatic thought through repetition and are disrupted if you think about them too much.
what is the evidence for different LTM memories?
episodic memory associated with temporal and frontal lobe
semantic memory associated with temporal lobe
procedural memory associated with cerebellum and basal ganglia and limbic system
HM - new procedural memory could be formed but not semantic or episodic
evidence from amnesia patients - semantic memories can form independently from episodic
what is proactive interefence?
when old information interferes with new information that is recalled
what is retroactive interference?
when new information interferes with old information that is recalled
what evidence is there to support explanations for forgetting - interference?
Underwood – analysed many studies, the more lists that were learned the lower the percentage of recall
McGeoch and McDonald – learn lists of words, synonyms, only 12% recall, learn list of words and digits, only 37% recall. Showing similarity in word matters and lowers the recall accuracy
Baddeley and Hitch – rugby players who played fewer games had better recall of teams played against, as there was less interference
what are the weaknesses of explanations of forgetting interference?
artificial research - words and nonsense syllables and low motivation, doesn’t represent everyday memory, therefore low external validity and mundane realism
limited to situations of forgetting where stimuli are similar
Ceraso - spontaneous recovery of recognition memory after interference suggests memories are available but not accessible
individual differences - Kane and Eagle - people with greater working memory span are less susceptible to proactive interference as they have access to greater resources.
what is ESP?
encoding specificity principle,
cues have to present when encoding the information, but also present when retrieving the information
what is state-dependent forgetting?
when learning and retrieving the information, better recall is seen when in the same state of mind, when some is sober and learns and retrieves information better when learning when drunk and trying to retrieve that information when sober.
Goodwin, better recall when learning and retrieving sober or drunk, not learning when drunk and retrieving when sober
what is context-dependent forgetting?
being in the same place when learning and retrieving the information
Baddeley and Godden, divers, learning on land, recall on land, same with underwater, worse when learning on land and retrieving underwater
AO3 for explanations for forgetting, retrieval failure?
high validity - wealth of support research evidence that both in lab and natural environment
RWA - to revising and the cognitive interview
cues don’t always work, not useful when learning meaningful material
ESP is circular - it is not causal relationship, no cause and effect, cannot be tested
retrieval failure can explain interference effects and is more important explanation of forgetting.
what were the words that Loftus and Palmer used in their study that they changed?
smashed, collided, bumped, hit and contacted
wanted to see if the changing of the verb would effect the estimate of the speed when the car hit another car.
what is response bias?
no change to memory
the participant adjusted their estimate of the speed based upon the verb used and did not experience an actual distortion in their memory
recalling events in original order led to recovery of recall so memory not altered
what was Loftus and Palmer’s second study about?
asked the group that had the word smashed and contacted if they saw the broken glass.
those who had the smashed word were more likely to say yes than the contacted group.
what is substitute bias?
substitution explanation supported by Loftus and Palmer and report of presence of glass
Loftus and Palmer substituted a memory, distorted the ppt memory to think that they saw broken glass when they didn’t
what evidence support post event discussion?
discussion with other contaminates eyewitnesses’ memories
Gabbert - demonstrated the effect, calling it memory conformity, information and normative social influence involved
what evaluation is there for misleading information?
useful real life implication - could help prevent miscarriages of justice and change police interviewing
tasks are artificial - watching film clips ignores the stress and anxiety associated with real accident or crime
there are individual differences - older people may be less accurate because of own age bias
demand characteristics and consequences of EWT
how does anxiety affect EWT? negative
negative effect - Johnson and Scott more weapon focus, high anxiety condition - knife led to less accurate recall of person recall of identifying
how does anxiety effect EWT? positive
positive - Yuille and Cutshall - high anxiety associated with better recall when witnessing real crime even after 4 months
Christianson and Hubinette – high-anxiety victims remember most accurately
what was the procedure for Johnson and Scotts study?
ppt asked to wait in waiting room
heard an argument
then saw a man leaving the room carrying a pen either covered in grease
or knife covered in blood
ppt were asked to identify the man from a set of photographs
what were the findings of Johnson and Scotts study?
Then ppt asked to recall the identity of the man
High anxiety had worse recall than low anxiety condition
what evaluation points are there for anxiety on EWT?
Pickel – weapon focus is due to surprise rather than anxiety
Deffenbacher – real life studies show even less accuracy than lab studies so lab findings actually underestimate the effects of anxiety
Halford and Milne – kind of crime affects accuracy victims of violent crime more accurate than those of non-violent crimes
There are positive and negative effects of anxiety
RWA - As Yuille and Cutshall – those in an high anxiety situation are able to recall accurate information 4 months after the event
what is cognitive interview?
Mental reinstatement of context – physical and psychological recall
Report everything – even seemingly insignificant details, mat cue recall
Change order – reduces effect of schemas
Change perspective – disrupts schemas
what evaluations point are there for cognitive interview?
Kohnken – review of 53 studies, 34% more information from CI, but lab studies with studies
Milne and Bull – effectiveness may be most due to report everything and mental reinstatement components
Quality may suffer – 81% increase in correct recall but 61% false positives
Police dislike CI – time consuming and inadequate training, may affect the results of CI compared to SI
Individual differences – older adults memories helped more by the CI than younger adults
