MEMORY

Question 1

define CODING

Answer 1

the format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.

Question 2

RESEARCH ON CODING

Baddeley gave different lists of words to 4 groups of participants to remember:

Answer 2

Group 1: acoustically similar words e.g. cat, can, cab
Group 2: acoustically dissimilar words e.g. bad, pit, cow
Group 3: semantically similar words e.g. great, big, large
Group 4: semantically dissimilar words e.g. good, hot, huge

Question 3

RESEARCH ON CODING

BADDELEY - PROCEDURE
Participants were shown the words and asked to recall them in the correct order. When they did this task immediately (recall from STM), they tended to do worse with

Answer 3

acoustically similar words

Question 4

RESEARCH ON CODING

AO3: limitation of coding research

artificial stimuli

Answer 4

Baddeley’s study used artificial material rather than meaningful stimuli.
The word lists had no personal meaning to the participants, so Baddeley’s findings may not tell us much about coding in different kinds of memory tasks, especially in everyday life. When processing more meaningful information, people may use semantic coding for STM tasks.
This suggests that these findings from this study have limited real life application.

Question 4

RESEARCH ON CODING

When they recalled the word list after a time interval of 20 minutes (recalling from LTM), they did worse with

These findings suggest

Answer 4

semantically similar words.

that information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically in LTM.

Question 5

RESEARCH ON CODING

AO3: strength of coding research

identified 2 separate stores, led to MSM

Answer 5

Baddeley’s study identified a clear difference between two memory stores.
Later research showed there is some exceptions to Baddeley’s findings, but the idea that STM uses mostly acoustic coding and LTM uses mostly semantic coding has stood the test of time.
This is a strength because this was an important step in our understanding of the memory system, which led to the multi store model.

Question 6

define CAPACITY

Answer 6

the amount of information that can be held in a memory store.

Question 7

CAPACITY STUDIES - STM ONLY

Jacobs measured participants digit span by

Answer 7

reading out digits and asked them to recall out loud. If they recalled correctly, one more digit would be out until failure. This determines the individual’s digit span.

Question 8

CAPACITY STUDIES - STM ONLY

Jacobs found:

mean span for digits and letters

Answer 8

that the mean span for digits was 9.3 and letters was 7.3.

Question 9

CAPACITY STUDIES - STM ONLY

Miller noticed that things come in 7s, e.g. 7 days of the week, 7 deadly sins.
Miller thought that the capacity of STM is

Answer 9

about 7 items plus or minus 2.

Question 10

CAPACITY STUDIES - STM ONLY

Miller also noted that people can easily recall 5 words as well as letters - this is done by

(define chunking)

Answer 10

chunking, grouping sets of letters or digits into units or chunks.

Question 11

CAPACITY STUDIES - STM ONLY

AO3: strength of coding research

Jacobs - replication

Answer 11

Jacobs’ study has been replicated.
This is a very old study and early research in psychology often lacked adequate control, e.g. some participants digit spans might have been underestimated due to confounding variables such as noise that provided distraction. Despite this, Jacobs’ findings have been confirmed by other controlled studies since.
This means that Jacobs’ study is a valid test of digit span in STM.

Question 12

CAPACITY STUDIES - STM ONLY

AO3: limitation of coding research

Miller - less chunks? (Cowan)

Answer 12

Miller may have overestimated the capacity of STM.
Cowan reviewed other research and concluded that. The capacity of STM is 4 plus or minus 1 chunk.
This suggests that the lower end of Miller’s estimate (five items) is more appropriate than seven items.

Question 13

DURATION STUDIES - STM

Peterson & Peterson
Procedure

Answer 13

tested 24 students in 8 trials each. Students were given a consonant trigram (e.g. YGZ) to remember and a 3-digit number to count backwards from to prevent any mental rehearsal of the trigram.
They were told to stop at varying periods of time e.g. 3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds.

Question 14

DURATION STUDIES - STM

Peterson & Peterson
findings & conclusion

Answer 14

⭐️ 3 seconds: 80% correct / 6 seconds: 50% correct / 18 seconds: less than 3% correct.
⭐️ Duration of STM = 18 seconds unless information is repeated over and over.

Question 15

DURATION STUDIES - LTM

Bahrick et al.
Procedure

Answer 15

studied 392 American participants aged 17-74. high school yearbooks were obtained, and they were tested on their memory of the names of their friends through:
photo recognition
free recall

Question 16

DURATION STUDIES - LTM

Bahrick et al.
findings and conclusion

Answer 16

PHOTO RECOGNITION:
15 YEARS - 90% ACCURATE
48 YEARS - 70% ACCURATE

FREE RECALL: 15 YEARS - 60% ACCURATE
48 YEARS - 30% ACCURATE

⭐️ LTM LASTS UP TO A LIFETIME.

Question 17

DURATION STUDIES - STM

AO3: limitation of DURATION research

artificial stimulus

Answer 17

Peterson and Peterson’s study used artificial stimulus material.
The study is not completely irrelevant as we do remember meaningless things like phone numbers. Even so, recalling consonant syllables does not reflect most everyday memory activities where what we try to remember is meaningful.
This means their study lacked external validity.

Question 18

DURATION STUDIES - LTM

AO3: strength of DURATION research

meaningful memories

Answer 18

Bahrick’s study has high external validity.
This is because the researchers investigated meaningful memories. When studies of LTM were conducted with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rated were lower.
This suggests that Bahrick’s findings reflect a more real estimate of the duration of LTM.

Question 19

THE MULTI-STORE MODEL

SENSORY REGISTER
All stimuli from the environment pass into the sensory register. This part of memory comprises several registers, one for each of our five senses.

describe its coding, capacity and duration

Answer 19

· Coding in each store is modality specific - it depends on the sense e.g. visual information = iconic memory
· Duration is very brief - less than half a second.
· Capacity is very high.

Question 20

THE MULTI-STORE MODEL

Information passes further only

Answer 20

if you pay attention to it.

Question 21

THE MULTI-STORE MODEL

SHORT TERM MEMORY

coding, capacity, duration

Answer 21

· Information is coded mainly acoustically and lasts about 30 seconds unless it is rehearsed.
· Capacity is limited to 7 plus or minus 2 items as it is a temporary store.

Question 22

THE MULTI-STORE MODEL

Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we

Answer 22

rehearse material repeatedly. We keep the information in our STM if we rehearse it.

Question 23

THE MULTI-STORE MODEL

If we rehearse material long enough, it passes onto

Answer 23

long term memory

Question 24

THE MULTI-STORE MODEL

LONG TERM MEMORY
Is the potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time.

coding, capacity, duration

Answer 24

· Coding is mostly semantic.
· The capacity is thought to be unlimited and memories potentially last up to a lifetime

Question 25

THE MULTI-STORE MODEL

When we want to recall information from the LTM, it must

Answer 25

be transferred back to the STM by a process called retrieval.

Question 26

AO3: strength of the MSM

research support - Baddeley, Jacobs, Bahrick

Answer 26

Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs, whereas we mix up words with similar meanings when using our LTM. Further support comes from Bahrick, Jacobs and Peterson & Peterson who showed STM and LTM have different duration and capacity.
This clearly shows that STM and LTM are separate and independent memory stores, as claimed by the MSM.

Question 27

AO3: limitation of the MSM

artificial stimuli used by supporting studies

Answer 27

In everyday life, we form memories related to people’s names, faces, facts, places etc. but many studies supporting the MSM used digits, letters (Jacobs) and even consonant syllables of no meaning (Peterson & Peterson).
This means that the MSM may not be a valid model of how memory works in our everyday lives where we remember much more meaningful information.

Question 27

AO3: limitation of the MSM

Shallice & Warrington - KF (more than 1 type of STM)

Answer 27

There is more than one STM store.
Shallice and Warrington studied KF, who had amnesia. KF’s STM for digits was very poor when they were read out loud to him, but his recall was much better when he read the digits out to himself.
This evidence suggests that the MSM was wrong in claiming that there is just one STM store processing different types of information.

Question 28

AO3: limitation of the MSM

bygone model - more than 1 type of LTM

Answer 28

Atkinson and Shiffrin based the MSM on the research evidence available at the time that showed STM and LTM to be single memory stores, separate and independent of each other.
However, there is a lot of evidence that shows LTM, like STM is not a single memory store. For example, there is a long-term store for our memories for the facts of the world, and there is a separate one for memories of actions and skills, like how to ride a bicycle.
This means that the MSM is an oversimplified model of memory and may not be useful.

Question 29

describe EPISODIC MEMORY

Answer 29

The ability to call events from our lives personal experiences e.g. a birthday.
Time stamped - you remember when it happened.
Conscious - must make a conscious effort to recall these memories.

Question 30

describe semantic memory

Answer 30

Is the shared knowledge of the world e.g. colour of a strawberry.
Not time stamped.
Less personal facts
Requires conscious recall.
Less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic memory.

Question 31

describe PROCEDURAL MEMORY

Answer 31

Memory for actions and skills how we do things.
Does not require conscious recall - ability becomes automatic through practice.
e.g. driving a car.

Question 32

AO3: strength of TYPES OF LTM

case studies - HM, CW

Answer 32

Case studies of HM and Clive Wearing provide evidence for the existence of separate LTM stores.
Episodic memory in both men was severely impaired due to brain damage, but their semantic memories remained largely unaffected. They still understood the meanings of words, for example Clive Wearing knew how to read music, sing, and play the piano.
This supports Tulving’s view that there are different memory stores in LTM, as one store can be damaged, but the other ones may remain unaffected.

Question 33

AO3: limitation of TYPES OF LTM

case studies lack control

Answer 33

There are issues with using case studies to produce general laws of memory.
Case studies lack control over variables. The brain injuries experienced by participants were usually unexpected, and the researchers had no way of controlling what happened to the participant before or during the injury. Furthermore, the researcher has no knowledge of the individual’s memory before damage. Without these, it is difficult to judge exactly how much worse it is afterwards.
This lack of control limits what clinical studies can tell us about different types of LTM.

Question 34

AO3: strength of TYPES OF LTM

real life application - Belleville

Answer 34

Another strength is that understanding types of LTM allows psychologists to help people with memory problems.
For example, as people age, they experience memory loss. But research has shown this seems to be specific to episodic memory - it becomes harder to recall memories of personal events/experiences that occurred relatively recently though past episodic memories remain intact. Belleville et al. devised an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people. The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group.
This shows that distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed.

Question 35

AO3: limitation of TYPES OF LTM

conflicting research findings - Buckner, Petersen

Answer 35

One limitation is that there are conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to areas of the brain.
For example, Buckner and Petersen reviewed evidence regarding the location of semantic and episodic memory. They concluded that semantic memory is located in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic memory on the right. However, other research links the left prefrontal cortex with encoding of episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval.
This challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located.

Question 36

the working memory model is

Answer 36

Baddeley and Hitch’s model - an explanation of how STM is organised and functions.

Question 37

CENTRAL EXECUTIVE

what it does, capacity, coding

Answer 37

Monitors incoming data, focuses, and divides our attention and allocates tasks to the slave systems.
It has a very limited capacity and does not store information.
coding is modality specific.

Question 38

PHONOLOGICAL LOOP

what it does, capacity, divided into…

Answer 38

Deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrives. It is subdivided into:
· The phonological store - stores the words you hear.
· The articulatory process - allows maintenance rehearsal to keep sounds or words in memory.
The capacity is what can be said in 2 seconds.

Question 39

Some forgetting takes place because of interference. This occurs when

Answer 39

two pieces of information disrupt each other, resulting in forgetting of one or both, or in some distortion of memory.
Interference has been proposed mainly as an explanation for forgetting in long-term memory (LTM).

Question 39

VISUO-SPATIAL SKETCHPAD

what it does, capacity, divided into…

Answer 39

Stores visual and spatial information.
· Limited capacity of 3 or 4 items.
Logie subdivided the VSS into:
· The visual cache - stores visual data.
· The inner scribe - records the arrangements of objects in the visual field.

Question 40

EPISODIC BUFFER

what it does, capacity

Answer 40

This was added in 2000 to the model as Baddeley thought the model lacked a temporary store for information.
It is a temporary store that integrates the visual, spatial, and verbal information processed by the other stores.
It is the storage component of the WMM.
· Capacity is limited 4 chunks.
It links working memory to long term memory and wider cognitive processes

Question 41

AO3: strength of WMM

research support - dual task performance (Baddeley)

Answer 41

Another strength is that studies of dual-task performance support the separate existence of the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
When Baddeley et al.’s participants carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time (dual task), their performance on each was similar to when they carried out the tasks separately. But when both tasks were visual (or both were verbal), performance on both declined substantially. This is because both visual tasks compete for the same subsystem (VSS), whereas there is no competition when performing a verbal and visual task together.
This shows there must be a separate subsystem (the VSS) that processes visual input (and one for verbal processing, the PL)

Question 41

AO3: strength of WMM

research support - KF

Answer 41

One strength is support from Shallice and
Warrington’s case study of patient KF.
After his brain injury, KF had poor STM ability for auditory (sound) information but could process visual information normally.
For instance, his immediate recall of letters and digits was better when he read them (visual) than when they were read to him (acoustic). KF’s phonological loop was damaged but his visuo-spatial sketchpad was intact.
This finding strongly supports the existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores.

Question 42

AO3: limitation of WMM

lack of clarity over the CE

Answer 42

One limitation is that there is a lack of clarity over the nature of the central executive.
Baddeley himself recognised this when he said, ‘The central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory’. The CE needs to be more clearly specified than just being simply ‘attention’. For example, some psychologists believe the CE may consist of separate subcomponents.
This means that the CE is an unsatisfactory component and this challenges the integrity of the WMM.

Question 43

INTERFERENCE

Any forgetting of LTMs is most likely because

Answer 43

we can’t get access to them even though they are available. Interference between memories makes it harder for us to locate them, and this is experienced as forgetting.

Question 43

It is very likely that the two (or more) memories that are interfering with each other were stored at different times. So, psychologists recognise that there are two types of interference:

Answer 43

· Proactive interference occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one.
· Retroactive interference happens when a newer memory interferes with an older one.

Question 44

INTERFERENCE - RESEARCH ON EFFECTS OF SIMILARITY

In both PI and RI, the interference is worse when the memories (or learning) are similar, as discovered by McGeoch and McDonald.
PROCEDURE:

Answer 44

they studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials.
Participants had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then learned a new list.
There were six groups of participants who had to learn different types of new lists:
Group 1: synonyms - words with the same meanings as the originals.
Group 2: antonyms - words with the opposite meanings to the originals.
Group 3: words unrelated to the original ones.
Group 4: consonant syllables.
Group 5: three- digit numbers.
Group 6: no new list - these participants just rested (control condition).

Question 45

INTERFERENCE - RESEARCH ON EFFECTS OF SIMILARITY

McGeoch and McDonald
Findings

conclusion

Answer 45

When the participants were asked to recall the original list of words, the most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall.

This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar.

Question 46

EXPLANATION OF THE EFFECTS OF SIMILARITY
The reason similarity affects recall may be for one of two reasons:

Answer 46

It could be due to PI-previously stored information makes new similar information more difficult to store. Or it could be due to RI - new information overwrites previous similar memories because of the similarity.

Question 47

AO3: strength of INTERFERENCE

research support - Baddeley & Hitch rugby players

Answer 47

One strength is that there is evidence of interference effects in more everyday situations.
Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against during a rugby season. The players all played for the same time interval (over one season) but the number of intervening games varied because some players missed matches due to injury. Players who played the most games (most interference for memory) had the poorest recall.
This study shows that interference can operate in at least some real-world situations, increasing the validity of the theory.

Question 48

AO3: strength of INTERFERENCE

research support - Coenen (

Answer 48

Another strength comes from evidence of retrograde facilitation.
Coenen gave participants a list of words and later asked them to recall the list, assuming the intervening experiences would act as interference. They found that when a list of words was learned under the influence of the drug diazepam, recall one week later was poor (compared with a placebo control group). But when a list was learned before the drug was taken, later recall was better than placebo. So, the drug actually improved recall of material learned beforehand. Wixted suggests that the drug prevents new information reaching parts of the brain involved in processing memories, so it cannot interfere retroactively with information already stored.
This finding shows that forgetting can be due to interference - reduce the interference and you reduce the forgetting.

Question 49

AO3: limitation of INTERFERENCE

unusual - there are better explanations

Answer 49

Interference may cause some forgetting in everyday situations, but it is unusual.
This is because the conditions necessary for interference to occur are relatively rare. This is very unlike lab studies, where the high degree of control means a researcher can create ideal conditions for interference. For instance, two memories (or sets of learning) have to be fairly similar in order to interfere with each other. This may happen occasionally in everyday life (e.g. if you were to revise similar subjects close in time), but not often.
This suggests that most forgetting may be better explained by other theories such as retrieval failure due to a lack of cues.

Question 50

RETRIEVAL FAILURE DUE TO THE ABSENCE OF CUES
The reason people forget information may be because of insufficient cues.
When information is initially placed in memory, associated cues are stored at the same time.
If these cues are not available at the time of recall, it may appear as if you have forgotten the information but, in fact, this is due to

Answer 50

retrieval failure not being able to access memories that are there.

Question 51

ENCODING SPECIFICITY PRINCIPLE
Tulving reviewed research into retrieval failure and discovered a consistent pattern to the findings.
He summarised this pattern in what he called the encoding specificity principle (ESP).
This states that

Answer 51

a cue (if it is going to be helpful) has to be both present at encoding (when we learn the material) and present at retrieval (when we are recalling it).
It follows from this that if the cues available at encoding and retrieval are different (or if cues are entirely absent at retrieval) there will be some forgetting.

Question 52

Some cues are encoded at the time of learning in a meaningful way.
Other cues are also encoded at the time of learning but not in a meaningful way.
Two examples of non-meaningful cues:

Answer 52

· Context-dependent forgetting - recall depends on external cue (e.g. weather or a place).
· State-dependent forgetting - recall depends on internal cue (e.g. feeling upset, being drunk).

Question 53

RESEARCH ON CONTEXT-DEPENDENT FORGETTING

PROCEDURE: Godden and Baddeley studied deep-sea divers who work underwater to see if training on land helped or hindered their work underwater.
The divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land.
This created four conditions:

Answer 53

• Learn on land - recall on land
• Learn underwater - recall on land.
• Learn on land - recall underwater.
• Learn underwater - recall underwater.

Question 54

RESEARCH ON CONTEXT-DEPENDENT FORGETTING

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS:
In two of these conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas in the other two they did not.
Accurate recall was

Answer 54

40% lower in the non-matching conditions.
They concluded that the external cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure.

Question 55

RESEARCH ON STATE-DEPENDENT FORGETTING

PROCEDURE: Carter gave antihistamine drugs to their participants.
The antihistamines had a mild sedative effect making the participants slightly drowsy creates an internal physiological state different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert.

4 conditions

Answer 55

The participants had to learn lists of words and then recall the information, again creating four conditions:
* Learn on drug - recall when on drug.
* Learn not on drug - recall when on drug.
* Learn on drug - recall when not on drug.
* Learn not on drug - recall when not on drug.

Question 56

RESEARCH ON STATE-DEPENDENT FORGETTING

Carter
Findings

Answer 56

In the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse.
when cues are absent there is more forgetting.

Question 57

AO3: strength of RETRIEVAL FAILURE

real life application

Answer 57

One strength is that retrieval cues can help to overcome some forgetting in everyday situations.
Although cues may not have a very strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley suggests they are still worth paying attention to. For instance, we have probably all had the experience of being in one room and thinking 1 must go and get such-and-such item from another room. You go to the other room only to forget what it was you wanted. But the moment you go back to the first room, you remember again. When we have trouble remembering something, it is probably worth making the effort to recall the environment in which you learned it first.
This shows how research can remind us of strategies we use in the real world to improve our recall.

Question 58

AO3: limitation of RETRIEVAL FAILURE

context effects not strong

Answer 58

Baddeley argues that context effects are actually not very strong, especially in everyday life.
Different contexts have to be very different indeed before an effect is seen. For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater (Godden and Baddeley). In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough.
This means that retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting.

Question 59

AO3: limitation of RETRIEVAL FAILURE

problems with the ESC

Answer 59

problems with the ECS

Question 60

MISLEADING INFORMATION RESEARCH

RESEARCH ON LEADING QUESTIONS
When you are asked a question, the wording of the question may lead you to give a certain answer.
This is a particular issue for eyewitness testimony (EWT) because police questions may ‘direct’ a witness to give a particular answer.

PROCEDURE:

Answer 60

Loftus and Palmer arranged for 45 participants to watch film clips of car accidents and then asked them questions about the accident.
In the critical question (a leading question) participants were asked to describe how fast the cars were travelling:
About how fast were the cars going when they hit/ bumped/ smashed / contacted / collided each other?’
There were five groups of participants, and each group was given a different verb in the critical question.

Question 61

MISLEADING INFORMATION RESEARCH

FINDINGS:
the mean estimated speed was calculated for each group.

Answer 61

· The verb contacted resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph.
· For the verb smashed, the mean was 40.5 mph.
The leading question biased the eyewitness’s recall of an event.

Question 62

MISLEADING INFORMATION RESEARCH

The RESPONSE-BIAS EXPLANATION:
suggests that the wording of the question has

Answer 62

no real effect on the participants’ memories, but just influences how they decide to answer.
When a participant gets a leading question using the word smashed, this encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate.

Question 63

MISLEADING INFORMATION RESEARCH

Loftus and Palmer (1974) conducted a second experiment that supported the SUBSTITUTION EXPLANATION, which proposes that

Answer 63

the wording of a leading question changes the participant’s memory of the film clip.
This was shown because participants who originally heard smashed were later more likely to report seeing broken glass (there was none) than those who heard hit.
The critical verb altered their memory of the incident.

Question 64

MISLEADING INFORMATION RESEARCH

RESEARCH ON POST-EVENT DISCUSSION
Eyewitnesses to a crime may sometimes discuss their experiences and memories with each other.
PROCEDURE:

Answer 64

Gabbert et al. studied participants in pairs.
Each participant watched a video of the same crime but filmed from different points of view.
This meant that each participant could see elements in the event that the other could not.
Both participants then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall.

Question 65

MISLEADING INFORMATION RESEARCH

Gabbert FINDINGS:

Answer 65

The researchers found that 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.
The corresponding figure in a control group, where there was no discussion, was 0%.
This was evidence of memory conformity.

Question 66

MISLEADING INFORMATION RESEARCH

One explanation is MEMORY CONTAMINATION

Answer 66

when co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other, their eyewitness testimonies may become altered or distorted.
This is because they combine misinformation from other witnesses with their own memories.

Question 67

MISLEADING INFORMATION RESEARCH

Another explanation is MEMORY CONFORMITY

Answer 67

Gabbert et al. concluded that witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. Unlike with memory contamination, the actual memory is unchanged.

Question 68

AO3: strength of MISLEADING INFORMATION

practical application - justice system

Answer 68

One strength of research into misleading information is that it has important practical uses in the criminal justice system.
The consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious. Loftus believes that leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be very careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses. Psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court trials and explain the limits of EWT to juries.
This shows that psychologists can help to improve the way the legal system works, especially by protecting innocent people from faulty convictions based on unreliable EWT.

Question 69

AO3: limitation of MISLEADING INFORMATION

counterpoint - lab studies (Foster)

Answer 69

However, the practical applications of EWT may be affected by issues with research.
For instance, Loftus and Palmer’s participants watched film clips in a lab, a very different experience from witnessing a real event (e.g. less stressful). Also, Foster et al. point out that what eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world, but participants’ responses in research do not matter in the same way (so research participants are less motivated to be accurate).
This suggests that researchers such as Loftus are too pessimistic about the effects of misleading information - EWT may be more dependable than many studies suggest.

Question 70

AO3: limitation of MISLEADING INFORMATION

contradicting evidence for memory conformity - Wright

Answer 70

Another limitation of the memory conformity explanation is evidence that post-event discussion actually alters EWT.
Wright showed participants film clips. There were two versions, e.g. a mugger’s hair was dark brown in one but light brown in the other. Participants discussed the clips in pairs, each having seen different versions. They often did not report what they had seen in the clips or what they had heard from the co-witness, but a ‘blend’ of the two (e.g. a common answer to the hair question was not light brown’ or ‘dark brown’ but ‘medium brown’).
This suggests that the memory itself is distorted through contamination by misleading post-event discussion, rather than the result of memory conformity.

Question 71

ANXIETY HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON RECALL

JOHNSON AND SCOTT
Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse.
PROCEDURE:

Answer 71

Their participants believed they were taking part in a lab study. While seated in a waiting room, participants in the low anxiety condition heard casual conversation in the next room and then saw a man walk past them caring a pen and with grease on his hands.
Other participants overheard a heated argument, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. A man walked out of the room, holding a knife covered in blood.
This was the high-anxiety condition.

Question 72

ANXIETY HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON RECALL

JOHNSON AND SCOTT
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION:

explain weapon focus

Answer 72

The participants later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos, 49% who had seen the man carrying the pen were able to identify him. The corresponding figure for the participants who had seen the man holding the blood-covered knife was 33%. The tunnel theory of memory argues that people have enhanced memory for central events. Weapon focus as a result of anxiety can have this effect the effect of the presence of a weapon creates anxiety, this leads to a focus on the weapon, reducing a witness’s recall for other details of the event.

Question 73

ANXIETY HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON RECALL

AO3: strength of ANXIETY HAVING A NEGATIVE EFFECT

researc support - Valentine and mesout (london dungeon)

Answer 73

One strength is evidence supporting the view that anxiety has a negative effect on the accuracy of recall.
Valentine and Mesut used an objective measure (heart rate) to divide participants into high- and low-anxiety groups. In this study anxiety clearly disrupted the participants’ ability to recall details about the actor they were meant to identify in the London Dungeon’s Labyrinth. This supports the research on weapon focus, finding negative effects on recall.
This suggests that a high level of anxiety does have a negative effect on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event.

Question 74

ANXIETY HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON RECALL

AO3: limitation of ANXIETY HAVING A NEGATIVE EFFECT

contradicting evidence - Pickel (unusualness)

Answer 74

One limitation of the study by Johnson and Scott is that it may not have tested anxiety.
The reason participants focused on the weapon may be because they were surprised at what they saw rather than scared. Pickel conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet, or a raw chicken as the hand-held items in a hairdressing salon video. Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (chicken and handgun).
This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat and therefore tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT.

Question 75

ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON RECALL

YUILLE AND CUTSHALL
Anxiety may improve memory for the event as we become more aware of cues in the situation.
PROCEDURE:

Answer 75

a study of an actual shooting in a gun shop in Canada where shop owner shot a thief dead. There were 21 witnesses - 13 took part in the study. They were interviewed four to five months after the incident and these interviews were compared with the original police interviews at the time of the shooting. Accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account. The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident (on a 7-point scale) and whether they had any emotional problems since the event.

Question 76

ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON RECALL

YUILLE AND CUTSHALL
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

Answer 76

The witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount recalled or accuracy after five months - though some details were less accurate, such as recollection of the colour of items and age/height/weight estimates.
Those participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate (about 88% compared to 75% for the less-stressed group). This suggests that anxiety does not have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of eyewitness memory in a real-world context and may even enhance it.

Question 77

ANXIETY

EXPLAINING THE CONTRADICTORY FINDINGS
According to Yerkes and Dodson the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an ‘ inverted U’.
Deffenbacher reviewed 21 studies of EWT and noted contradictory findings on the effects of anxiety.
He used the Yerkes-Dodson Law to explain the findings.

Answer 77

When we witness a crime/accident we become emotionally and physiologically aroused we experience anxiety (emotional) as well as physiological changes in our body (the fight or flight response).
Lower levels of anxiety/arousal produce lower levels of recall accuracy, and then memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety/arousal increases.
However, there is an optimal level of anxiety, which is the point of maximum accuracy.
If a person (or eyewitness) experience any more arousal, then their recall suffers a drastic decline.

Question 78

ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON RECALL

AO3: strength of ANXIETY HAVING A POSITIVE EFFECT

research support - Christiansen

Answer 78

A strength is evidence showing that anxiety can have positive effects on the accuracy of recall.
Christiansen interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden. Some of the witnesses were directly involved (e.g. bank workers) and some were indirectly involved (e.g. bystanders). The researchers assumed that those directly involved would experience the most anxiety. It was found that recall was more than 75% accurate across all witnesses. The direct victims (most anxious) were even more accurate.
These findings from actual crimes confirm that anxiety does not reduce the accuracy of recall for eyewitnesses and may even enhance it.

Question 79

ANXIETY HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON RECALL

AO3: limitation of ANXIETY HAVING A POSITIVE EFFECT

counterpoint - Christiansen lacks control

Answer 79

Christiansen interviewed the participants several months after the event.
The researchers therefore had no control over what happened to their participants in the intervening time (e.g. post-event discussions). The effects of anxiety may have been overwhelmed by these other factors and impossible to assess by the time the participants were interviewed.
Therefore, it is possible that a lack of control over confounding variables may be responsible for these findings, invalidating their support.

Question 80

THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW

Fisher and Geiselman argued that eyewitness testimony could be improved if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses.
Fisher and Geiselman recommended that such techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works and called these techniques collectively the cognitive interview (CI) to indicate its foundation in cognitive psychology.
There are four main techniques that are used:

Answer 80

1. report everything
2. reinstate the context
3. reverse the order
4. change perspective

Question 81

1 . REPORT EVERYTHING

description, why its done

Answer 81

Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant, or the witness doesn’t feel confident about it. Seemingly trivial details may be important and, moreover, they may trigger other important memories.

Question 82

2 . REINSTATE THE CONTEXT

description, why its done

Answer 82

The witness should return to the original crime scene ‘in their mind’ and imagine the environment (such as what the weather was like, what they could see) and their emotions (such as whether they were happy or bored).

Question 83

3 . REVERSE THE ORDER

description, why its done

Answer 83

Events should be recalled in a different order from the original sequence, for example, from the final point back to the beginning, or from the middle to the beginning.
This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than reporting the actual events. It also prevents dishonesty (it’s harder for people to produce an untruthful account if they have to reverse it).

Question 84

4 . CHANGE PERSPECTIVE

description, why its done

Answer 84

Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives. For example, how it would have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator. This again is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and also the effect of schema on recall. The schema you have for a particular setting (such as going into a shop) generate expectations of what would have happened, and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened.

Question 85

THE ENHANCED COGNITIVE INTERVIEW (ECI)
Fisher et al. developed some additional elements of the CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction. For example,

Answer 85

the interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it. The enhanced Cl also includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly, and asking open-ended questions,

Question 86

AO3: strength of THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW

research support - Kohnken (meta analysis)

Answer 86

One strength of the cognitive interview is evidence that it works.
For example, a meta-analysis by Kohnken et al.
combined data from 55 studies comparing the CI with the standard police interview. The Cl gave an average 41% increase in accurate information compared with the standard interview. Only four studies in the analysis showed no difference between the types of interviews.
This shows that the Cl is an effective technique in helping witnesses to recall information that is stored in memory (available) but not immediately accessible

Question 87

AO3: limitation of THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW

not all elements useful - Milne and Bull

Answer 87

One limitation of the original CI is that not all of its elements are equally effective or useful.
Milne and Bull found that each of the four techniques used alone produced more information than the standard police interview. But they also found that using a combination of report everything and reinstate the context produced better recall than any of the other elements or combination of them. This confirmed police officers’ suspicions that some aspects of the Cl are more useful than others.
This casts some doubt on the credibility of the overall cognitive interview.

Question 88

AO3: limitation of THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW

time consuming and expensive

Answer 88

Another limitation is that police officers may be reluctant to use the Cl because it takes more time and training than the standard police interview.
For example, more time is needed to establish rapport with a witness and allow them to relax. The Cl also requires special training and many forces do not have the resources to provide more than a few hours.
This suggests that the complete Cl as it exists is not a realistic method for police officers to use and (as in the point above) it might be better to focus on just a few key elements