memory Flashcards
what is memory?
the process in which information is encoded,stored and then retrieved.
what are the types of memory?
sensory
all immediate information from sensors, only held onto shortly
long term
Permanent store where limitless amounts of information can be stored for long periods of time.
short term
Temporary memory store where small amounts of information can be kept for a brief period. Information can be easily lost
what is the capacity of the short term memory
7+-2
what study found the capacity of the short term memory
Jacobs 1887
what was the procedure for Jacob’s study
Participants were presented with strings of letters or digits. Then they were asked to repeat them back in the same order. The length gradually increased consecutively. Until the participants couldn’t repeat the sequence accurately. When they failed on 50% of the trials they’ve reached their digit span capacity.
what were the findings of Jacob’s study
On average participants recalled nine digits and seven letters. The average recall increase with age.
what were the conclusion of Jacob’s study
STM has a limited storage capacity of between five and nine items, but learned memory techniques may increase capacity as they get older.
what was the criticism of Jacob’s study
Since there are 26 letters in the alphabet but only ten digits, letters may be harder to recall.
what is the duration of the short term memory
18-30 seconds
what was the study which found the duration of the STM
Peterson and peterson
what was the aim of Peterson and peterson’s study
Aim to see if rehearsal was necessary to hold information in the STM
what was the procedure of Peterson and peterson’s
Method
PPTS given sets of 3 letters, but were immediately asked to count backwards in 3’s out loud for up to 18 seconds in intervals of 3. This was done to prevent rehearsal. PPTs then asked to recall the letters in the correct order.
what was the findings of Peterson and peterson’s study
results : participants had forgotten virtually all information after 18 seconds
what was the conclusion of Peterson and peterson’s study
We cannot hold information in the STM store without rehearsal.
what is the evaluation for Peterson and peterson’s study
Lacks mundane realism(con)
Lacks ecological validity (con)
May show demand characteristics(con)
Well controlled so can be easily replicated(pro)
what is the capacity and the duration of the LTM?
duration can last all life
unlimited
what was the study of the duration of the long term memory?
Bahrick et al
what was the procedure and findings of Bahrick et al’s study
392 us high school graduates.remembered classmates names w/out pictures and with pictures
Up to 34 years of very strong results. Better with visual prompts
Dip in recall after 47 years could be duration or ageing.
what was the evaluation for Bahrick et al’s study
Evaluation
Has ecological validity easily relevant to real life
May have not remembered as much as laboratory studies have lower retention ]
May lack temporal validity
Some things not controlled such as
If they saw their ex classmates regularly
They might look at yearbooks a lot in first few years but less as time goes by
what is displacement
the first piece of information stored in the STM is the first to be replaced when maximum capacity is reached. If we don’t fill up our STM and we rehearse the information then it is moved into our LTM.
what are the types of encoding
Acoustic coding: the sound of a stimulus
Visual coding: the psychical appearance of a stimulus
Semantic coding: the meaning of a stimulus.
what is the study into encoding in the short term memory?
Baddeley 1966
what was the procedure of Baddeley’s study into encoding in the short term memory?
PPTs shown random sequences of five words from one of four categories
Acoustically similar words
Acoustically dissimilar words
Semantically similar words(have similar meaning)
Semantically dissimilar words(have different meanings)
PPTs then asked to write down straight away.
what were the findings of Baddeley’s study into encoding in the short term memory
Found that most had problems with acoustically similar words.
what was the conclusion of Baddeley’s study into encoding in the short term memory?
Concluded STM encodes information acoustically.
what was the procedure of Baddeley’s study into encodng in the long term memory and what did it find?
Modified experiment
Made the list ten words long,stopped rehearsal.each list four times and tested 20 minutes later .
Acoustic similarity wasn’t significantly different but semantic was
Concluded that LTM is mainly semantically encoded.
who made the multistore memory model?
Atkinson and Shiffrin
what are the stores in the multi store memory model?
sensory store/register
short term memory
long term memory
what is the sensory register/store
Consists of the eyes, ears,nose,fingers,tongue and the corresponding areas of the brain. Two main stores of information: the Iconic memory which deals with visual information and the echoic store which deals with auditory information
what are the processes in the multi store memory model?
Attention: on the information you pay attention to will pass from the SR to the STM. anything else will decay.
Maintenance rehearsal. STM occurs when we repeat information until it passes into our LTM. if not it decays.
Elaborate rehearsal: STM-LTM giving information meaning and deeper processing.
Retrieval: getting information back from LTM to STM, so it can be used.
what are the strength’s of the multi store memory model?
Supported by research such as Baddeley’s experiment shows us that the information is coded acoustically in the short term memory but semantically in the Long term memory. So there are different stores.
what are the limitation of the multi store memory model?
KF, an amnesia patient (Shallice and Warrington 1970) struggled with verbal memory but not visual memory. Which suggests that there is more than one store in STM.
According to the multi store model the amount of rehearsal is important, but Craik and Watkins 1973 found that this prediction is wrong because they found that elaborative rehearsal is more necessary than maintenance rehearsal.
Multi store model focuses too much on maintenance.
All the studies used to create the model store memory as they all used artificial materials and environment.
Also evidence to suggest that the LTM is not one store and that there are multiple aspects of the LTM. for example Clive Wearing.
what are the types of long term memory?
Episodic memory
Semantic memory
Procedural memory
what did Tulving 1985 realise about atkinson and Schiffrin’s multi store model?
Was one of the first cognitive psychologists to realise that the multi-store model’s view of the LTM was too simplistic and inflexible.
what is the episodic memory
Refers to the ability to recall events from our own lives. Personally links to you.
They are time stamped (you remember when they happen)
Will include several elements in the format of the memory
Consciously recalled. May recalled quickly but still needs to have a conscious effort to be recalled
what is the semantic memory
Refers to memories that relate to knowledge of the world.
Likened to a combination of an encyclopaedia and a dictionary.
Not time stamped
Less personal and more facts we all share
what is the procedural memory
Refers to our memory for actions skills
Can recall without conscious awareness
Good example is driving a car- this skill depends on procedural memory
These are the sorts of skills we might find difficult to explain to someone else
Has to be specific eg experienced drivers
who was the working memory model proposed by?
Baddeley and Hitch 1974
what is the working memory model
The working memory model(WMM is a model that explains how the STM works.
It suggests that STM is a dynamic processor of different types of information using sub-units coordinated by a central decision making system (a computer which can place information into lots of separate areas to deal with)
The WMM is concerned with the part of the mind is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulation inform for the environment
what is the central executive and what is it’s role
The central executives role is to organise where memories go to and where they are stored. It is the main control.
Is an attentional process that monitors incoming data. It will allocate the correct slave system to take that memory.
Has a limited processing capacity. Cannot hold data for long from the senses.
what is the phonological loop and it’s role?
One of the slave systems (limited capacity)
Main role is to process auditory information and it preserves the order in which the information arrives.
Articulatory control system:
Allows for maintenance rehearsal. The capacity of this loop is believed to be 2 seconds. (inner voice.
Phonological store:
Is a subdivision of the phonological loop which stores the words you hear.(inner ear)
what is the visiuospatial sketchpad and it’s role?
Another slave system and It processes visual or spatial information when required. The capacity is limited to about 3-4 objects.
Visual cache
Stores visual data
Inner scribe
Records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.
what is the episodic buffer and what is it’s role
storage component of the central executive.
It is a temporary store for information, it integrates the visual,spatial and verbal information processes by the other stores. Takes excess information from the central executive and allows us to switch from visuo-spatial to auditory and it links working memory to long term memory. Limited capacity of approximately 4 chunks.
what are the strengths of the working memory
Shallice and Warrington 1970
KF case study. After the damage KF had poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information.
Baddeley participants found it more difficult doing two visual tasks and then a verbal and a visual task. Supports the idea that there are two separate stores
Baddeley demonstrated that it is more difficult to remember a list of long words compared to a list of short words. There is finite space for rehearsal for about 2 seconds. research support for a key component.
Brain scanning studies support the WMM
Braver et al 1997 gave their participants tasks that involved the central executive when they were having a brain scan. Greater activity in the left prefrontal cortex.the activity increased as the difficulty of the task did . Scientific evidence supports a key aspect of the working memory model.
what are the limitations of the working memory model
Cognitive psychologists suggest that this component is unsatisfactory and doesn’t really explain any of the mechanisms. Baddeley himself recognised that “the central executive is the most important but least understood component of the working memory”. This is limited as it hasn’t been fully explained which undermines the validity of the model as a whole.
what are the explanations of forgetting
Interference theory
The theory states that forgetting occurs because memories interfere with one another and ends up disrupting each other which leads to forgetting Baddeley 1999
Retrieval failure Tulving
The theory that forgetting is due to retrieval failure where there isn’t enough cues to access the memory.
what are the different types of interference
Retroactive memory interference
Recent information hinders the recall of older information
Proactive interference
Past information hinders the recall of new information
what are the studies into interference
Underwood and postman 1960
Mcgeoch and Mcdonald 1931
Baddeley and Hitch 1977
what was the aim of underwood and postman?
Aim does new learning interferes with previous
what was the procedure of Underwood and Postman?
PTTS were divided into two groups. Group a were asked to learn a list of word pairs. They were then asked to learn a second list of word pairs where the second word pair was different. Group B only were asked to recall the first list.
what was the findings and conclusion of Underwood and Postman’s study?
Result
Group B recall was better than the recall of group A
Conclusion
This suggests that learning the items in the second lsit interfered with the PPTS ability to recall the first list. This is an example of Retroactive interference.
what was Macgeoch and Mcdonald’s study?
Studied retroactive interference by varying the amount of similarity between sets of word lists presented to participants
what was the procedure of Macgeoch and Mcdonald’s study?
Procedure
All PPTS had a learn a word list of 10 words to 100% accuracy.
Then split into six groups and each group was required to learn a new list.
Each group had to learn one of the six word lists below:
Synonyms
Antonyms
Unrelated words go list 1
Nonsense syllables
Three digit numbers
No new list
what was the findings and conclusion of Macgeoch and Macdonald’s study?
The most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall. Showing that interference is strong when memories are similar
Those who had learned synonyms in the secondly list were significantly impaired down to 12%
Conclusion
Similar information is more likely to be interfered with.
what was Baddeley and Hitch’s study?
Asked rugby players to recall the names of teams they recently played. However, not all players had played every match
what was the findings of Baddeley and Hitch’s study
therefore their recall would be better than those who had played every match. This provides evidence of retroactive interference of forgetting
what was the strengths of interference theory on memory
All lab experiments for interference can be seen as research support and they all found the same thing suggests that the theory has a high level of validity. SUPPORT
There are real life studies for example Baddeley and Hitch 1977. In this study they asked rugby players whether they knew team names. Found out that their recall was better if they played less matches. Has high ecological validity
what was the weaknesses of interference theory on memory
The stimulus materials used in most studies are word lists. Artificial material will be lacking ecological validity and it will make interference more likely. LIMITATION.
Time periods are relatively short. Thai means that a participant may have to learn one list of words and learn a second list 20 minutes later and then recall one of them a few minutes later. Doesn’t reflect how things are learnt and questions the validity of experiments investigating interference. LIMITATIon
Interference effects may be overcome by learning using cues. Comes from Tulving and Psotka 1971 gave partici[pants lists of 24 words into six categories. Categories were not explicit but it was presumed that they would be obvious. Recall was about 70% for the first word but this fell as they were given each list. When they were given a cued recall test recall came up to 70%. LIMITATION
what are the types of cue dependent forgetting?
Two types of cue dependent forgetting
Context
The situation (external environment)
State
Your physical state (internal cues)
what is the encoding specificity principle
states that memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval
what is the main study into context depdnent forgetting?
Godden Baddeley
what was the procedure of Godden and Baddeley’s study?
asked divers to learn a list of words either underwater or on land. They were then asked to recall the words either in the same place they had learnt the list or in the opposite place
The four conditions
Learn on land recall on land
Learn on land recall underwater
Learn underwater recall underwater
Learn underwater recall on land
what was the findings of Godden and Baddeley’s study?
Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non matching conditions because the external cues were different from the ones art recall and this led to retrieval failure
what was the study into state dependent forgetting?
Carter and Cassaday 1998
what is the procedure of Carter and Cassaday’s study?
Gave participants an antihistamine tablet which has a mild sedative effect making the participant slightly drowsy( done to create a different physiological state from normal).
Had to learn a list of words and passages. Then had to recall the information either in the same state or not
2 conditions the state was the same on learning and recall
2 conditions the state was different on learning and recall
what was the findings of Carter and Cassaday’s study?
Where the state of learning and recall was the same the recall rate was higher and when the state was different the recall rate was worse.
what is the strengths of retrieval failure as a theory of forgetting?
Huge amount of evidence to support retrieval failure. Eysenck 2010 has even argued that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting. This shows that retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting has concurrent validity as findings have been replicated.
Although context related cues appear not to have a very strong effect on forgetting,Baddeley still suggests they are worth paying attention to. For example when trying to remember something, it is probably worth making the effort to try and recall the environment where you first learned it. This principle is used in the cognitive interview, a method of getting eyewitness testimony. Support does have other applications to real life to other aspects of memory than forgetting.
what are the weaknesses of retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting?
Questioning of context effects
Baddeley 1997 argues that context effects are usually not very strong,especially in real life .
For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different as water is to land in real life. The real life application of retrieval failure due to contextual cues may not actually explain much forgetting. Limitation
Recall versus recognition
The context effect may be related gto the kind of memory being tested
Godden and Baddeley 1980
Replicated the same experiment which they did with divers but using a recognition test not a recall test. When recognition was tested. There was not context dependent effect; performance was the same in all four conditions. Presence or absence of cues only affects memory when you test it in a certain way. Limitation
Problems with the ESP
Not testable and leads to a form of circular reasoning. In experiments where a cue produces a successful recall or word, we assume that the cue must have been encoded at the time of learning. If it doesn’t result in a successful recall, we assume that the cue was not encoded. There are just assumptions. We cannot know for sure if the memory had been taken in by the person. Limitation
what is eyewitness testimony?
Is the legal term that refers to an account given by people of an event they have witnessed. It will include identification of perpetrators, details of the crime scene.
what was the study into eyewitnesses?
Loftus and Palmer
what is the procedure Loftus and Palmer’s study
Consisted of 45 american students, who were divided into five groups of nine
All PPTs were asked to watch a video of a car crash and the asked a specific question about the speed of the cars
They manipulated the verb used in the question
Five different questions used
How fast were the cars going when they hit each other
How fast were the cars going when they bumped each other
How fast were the cars going when they collided with each other
How fast were the cars going when they contacted each other
How fast were the cars going when they smashed
what were the findings of Loftus and Palmer’s study?
Average speed estimate for smashed was 40.5 mph and the average speed estimate for contacted was 31.8
what is explanations of misleading eyewitness tesimony?
Response bias factors
The misleading information provided may have simply influenced the answer a person gave but didn’t change the question or lead to a false memory.
The memory representation is actually altered
The critical verb changes a person’s perception of the accident. Some critical words would lead someone to have a perception of the accident being more serious. This perception is then stored in a person’s memory of the event.
Post event discussion theory
One source of misleading information comes from leading questions. However, misleading information in the real world can come from other sources, for example co witnesses, when they discuss the details of a crime or accident following an incident. This is known as a post event discussion
what is the study into post event discussion?
Gabbert et al 2003
what was the procedure of Gabbert’s study into post event discussion?
Studied participant in pairs
Each participant watched a video of the same crime, but from different perspectives-this meant each participant could see different elements in the event that others could not, for example,only one person could see the title of a book being carried by a young woman.
The paired participants then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a recall test.
what were the findings of Gabbert’s study?
71% of PPT’s mistakenly recalled events that they did not see but picked up in the discussion
In the control group 0% of the participants recalled information they didn’t pick up
what is the strengths of theories into eyewitness tesimony?
Research into misleading information has important practical uses in the real world where the consequences of EWT can be serious. Loftus has argued that leading questions have such a distorting effect that police officers have to be wary of. Strength as research into this area has important uses.
what are the weaknesses of theories into eyewitness tesimony?
Artificial tasks were used in loftus and palmers study where they watched video clips. This is very different to real life. In real life the effect on memory is very different because stress may be involved. Will limit how much we understand with leading questions due to the difference in the situation. LIMITATION
LIMITATION
Anastasi and Rhodes 2006 found that people in age groups 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than those ages 55-78. However all age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own. Individual differences affect memory and they may affect the results.
Demand characteristics
Zaragosa and McCloskey 1989. Many answers that participants give are a result of demand characteristics. Participants don’t want to let the researchers down and be seen as attentive. Therefore not give the correct answers.
Foster et al 1994
Point out that what you remember as an eyewitness can have some very important consequences in the real world, but the same isn’t true in research studies
Thus, participants may not give the same answers than if they would have if the situation was real. This decreases the validity of the research. Must be wary of conclusions
what are the effects of anxiety on eye witness tesimony
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall
who found that anxiety has a negative effect on recall?
Johnson and Scott 1976
what were the procedure of Johnson and Scott’s study
Led participants to believe they were going to take part in a lab study. While they were in a waiting room for the study they overheard a heated argument in the next room.
In the low anxiety condition
A man then walked through the waiting area with a pen and grease on his hands.
In the high anxiety condition
Heard the sounds of glass breaking and a man walked out holding a paper knife covered in blood.
After this participants were asked to select the man they saw from a set of 50 different photos
what were the findings of Johnson and Scott’s study?
In the low anxiety condition 49% of participants were able to select the right person
In the high only 33% could accurately recall the right person
what is the weapon’s focus effect?
In a stressful situation,our attention narrows to focus on one aspect of a situation which is the most stressful.
what study looked into the weapon focus effect?
Yuille and cutshall
what was the procedure of Yullie and Cutshall
interviewed witnesses after an attack in a canadian gun shop
what were the findings of Yullie and Cutshall’s study?
Witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount of accuracy after 5 months.
Some details were less accurate however such as recollection of colour of items and the age/height/weight estimates.
Those participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate 88% compared to 75% for the less stressed group
what is the Yerkes Dodson law 1908
it is a law that states that recall is the best at moderate anxiety
what are the advantages of research into the effect of anxiety on recall?
There is research support by Johnson and scott 1976: suggesting that anxiety does reduce retrieval
what are the disadvantages of research into the effect of anxiety on recall
The weapon focus effect may not be relevant
Johnson and scot’s may test surprise rather than anxiety. They may have been focusing on the knife because they were surprised rather than anxious
Pickel 1998
Conducted an experiment using scissors,a handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken. eyewitness accuracy was poorer in the “high unusualness” situation (chicken or handgun).Suggests that the weapon focus is due to unusualness rather than anxiety.
LIMITATION
Research usually comes from field studies. This means that there is a lack of control .This means that there are possible extraneous variables(such as post event discussion and interviews) that may be responsible for the accuracy of the recall found.
LIMITATION
To create a high anxiety environment to see the results may be unethical as it may cause psychological harm which can be harming. Doesn’t challenge the results by it does question the need for such research
LIMITATION
The inverted U theory is too simplistic
Very difficult to define and measure accurately. One reason for this is that it has many elements
The inverted U explanation assumed only one of these, physiological arousal.
LIMITATION
Demand characteristics may have affected results. As lab studies filmed a usually staged crime most participants would be aware they are watching a filmed crime. This will lower the mundane realism as participants would pay attention to the videos more than they would.
LIMITATION
what do Fisher and Gieselmen argue?
that EWT could be improved if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses
Everything should be based on psychological insights into how memory works and called these techniques collectively the cognitive interview
what are the stages of the cognitive interview?
Report everything
Reinstate the context
Reverse the order
Change perspective
what does the report everything stage of the cognitive interview involve
Witnesses are encouraged to include every detail of the event. This is because seemingly trivial details may be important and,moreover, they may trigger other important memories.
what does the reinstate the context stage of the cognitive interview involve
The witness should return to the original crime scene “in their mind”, this means imagining the original environment .this is all relevant to context dependent forgetting
what does the reverse the order stage of the cognitive interview involve
Events should be recalled in different chronological order from the original events. This is done to prevent people from reporting their expectations of what happened and create false memories. It prevents dishonesty because it is harder for someone to produce a false account if they have to reverse it.
what does the change the perspective stage of the cognitive interview involve?
Should recall the incident from other people’s perspective. Is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and schema on recall.
what did the enhanced cognitive interview do?
developed some additional elements on the social aspects of the cognitive interview. It is important for the interviewer to know when to engage in eye contact. Includes ideas such as reducing witness anxiety,minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open ended questions.
what are the strengths of the cogntiive interview?
Milne and Bull 2002
Found that each technique by itself recalled more information than traditional methods, however, they also found that reinstate the context and report everything were the most effective combination of techniques. This shows that two of the four techniques can be sued effectively which improves credibility with the police.
Meta-analysis from Kohnken et al 1999 from 50 studies found that ECI delivered consistently better than standard interviews. This suggests that the ECI can benefit police investigation and society
what are the weaknesses of the cognitive interview?
It is time consuming so the police may be reluctant and may not get better results than a standard test. Especially if there are many witnesses. This is because a rapport needs to be established and for witnesses to relax. Requires specialist training.
There is a lack of standardisation. This is because studies into the CI all use slightly different enhanced CI techniques. This is also true to real life. This means that we cannot evaluate the effectiveness of the CI and police cannot waste the time and money on something which hasn’t been correctly evaluated
Kohnken found that even though there was a 81% increase in accurate information there was a 61% increase in inaccurate information when using enhanced CI techniques. Can have huge implications in the real world.
