Memory Flashcards
Coding, Capacity And Duration
Baddeley (1966) – acoustically and semantically similar and dissimilar words, recall in STM worse with acoustically similar words, recall in LTM worse with semantically similar words
Jacobs (1887) – read digits and letters and participants had to recall them out loud, average letter span 7.3, average digit span 9.3
Miller (1956) – things grouped in 7s, capacity 7 +/- 2, chunking helps
Peterson & Peterson (1959) – 24 students to remember and recall trigrams with consonant syllables, count down from 3 digit number to prevent maintenance rehearsal for varying times (3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds), 80% average accuracy after 3 seconds, 3% average accuracy after 18 seconds
Bahrick et al. (1975) – 392 American participants, 17-74, high school yearbooks, photo recognition vs free recall, Photo Recognition: 90% accuracy within 15 years and 70% accuracy after 48 years, Free Recall: 60% after 15 years and 30% after 48 years
Bopp and Verhaeghen (2005) – support Baddeley’s findings but better controlled
Cowan (2001) – argued that capacity of STM is only 4 +/- 1 chunks
Shepard (1967) – meaningless pictures lowered recall rates
Multi-Store Model Of Memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin – Multi-Store Memory Model
Shallice And Warrington (1970) – studied KF who suffered from amnesia, STM very poor when digits read aloud to them, STM significantly improved when digits were read, STM may not be one unitary store
Craik and Watkins (1973) – type of rehearsal is more important than amount, elaborative rehearsal may be more helpful, attach meaning from existing knowledge to information learned
Types Of Long Term Memory
HM and Clive Wearing – episodic memory impaired in both men due to operations and infection respectively, semantic memories relatively unaffected (HM could not recall stroking a dog but understood what a dog was), procedural memory unaffected, Clive Wearing could still read music, sing and play piano
No prior knowledge of individuals memory before damage, lack of control over variables
Buckner and Petersen (1996) vs Tulving et al. 1994) – research regarding location of semantic and episodic memory, semantic in left prefrontal cortex and episodic in right prefrontal cortex vs semantic in right prefrontal cortex and episodic in left prefrontal cortex
Belleville et al. (2006) – devised intervention to improve episodic memories in older people, trained participants showed better performance on an episodic memory test than an untrained control group
Working Memory Model
Shallice and Warrington (1970) – KF poor STM ability with auditory functions (phonological loop) but could process visual information better (visuospatial sketchpad)
Unclear whether other cognitive impairments affected performance in memory tasks, injury caused by motorcycle crash, trauma may have damaged other parts of the brain and affected memory
Baddeley – dual task performance, participants struggled more on carrying out 2 visual tasks at the same time vs carrying out visual and auditory tasks, competition for the same slave subsystem
Baddeley – acknowledged that while the central executive was the most important aspect of the model, it was also the least understood and explained, undermines validity of the whole model
Explanations For Forgetting: Interference
McGeoch and McDonald (1931) – learn list of 10 words until they remembered with 100% accuracy, 6 groups: synonyms, antonyms, unrelated words, consonant syllables, 3 digit numbers, no new list, recall was worst in group that learned synonyms
Baddeley and Hitch (1977) – rugby players to recall names of teams played during season, some players missed matches due to injury, players who played the most games had poorest recall
Tulving and Psotka (1971) – lists of words organised into categories given to participants, recall averaged 70% for first list, recall became worse with each additional list, cued recall test increased average recall to 70%
Coenan and van Luijtelaar (1997) – participants given word lists and later asked to recall them, words learned under the influence of diazepam and recall a week later was poor, compared to placebo, words learned before drug was taken had better recall later than placebo, Wixted (2004) – suggests drug had prevented new information from reaching parts of the brain that processed memories, stopped retroactive interference
Explanations For Forgetting: Retrieval Failure
Godden and Baddeley (1975) – deep-sea divers, 4 conditions, learn on either land or water and recall on either land or water, accurate recall was 40% lower in non-matching conditions
Carter and Cassaday (1998) – learn list of words and passages of a prose, antihistamine drugs, 4 conditions: learn either on drug or no drug, recall either on drug or no drug, memory test performance significantly worse with mismatching conditions
Eysenck and Keane (2010) – argue that retrieval failure is main reason for forgetting in LTM
Godden and Baddeley (1980) – replicated underwater study, recognition test, no context-dependent effect
Eyewitness Testimony: Misleading Information
Loftus and Palmer (1974) – 45 participants clips of car accidents, questioned about the accident, “About how fast were the cars going when they contacted/bumped/hit/collided/smashed?”, mean estimate of speed for verb “contacted” was 31.8mph and mean estimate for “smashed” was 40.5mph
Gabbert et al. (2003) – watch video of crime in pairs, different angles, discussed what they saw before completing a recall test, 71% of participants mistakenly recalled an event that did not occur, 0% mistaken recall in control group with no discussion
Foster et al. (1994) – what eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world, participants in research do not matter in the same way, less motivated to be accurate
Sutherland and Hayne (2001) – participants shown a video clip, recall more accurate in central details than peripheral details after misleading questions, central information relatively resistant to misleading information
Skagerberg and Wright (2008) – participants shown film clips, two different versions e.g. one with light brown hair and one with dark brown hair, discussed in pairs, reported a blend of what had been discussed
Zaragoza and McCloskey (1989) – argue that many answers given in lab studies are due to demand characteristics, participants do not want to let down researchers
Eyewitness Testimony: Anxiety
Johnson and Scott (1976) – waiting in a room of other participants, low anxiety: casual conversation in the next room then walks past with a pen and greasy hands, high anxiety: heated argument and sounds of broken glass then man walks out with bloodied knife, asked to pick out man from 50 photos, 49% in low anxiety condition, 33% in high anxiety condition, tunnel theory, weapon focus
Yuille and Cutshall (1986) – actual shooting in gun shop in Vancouver, shop owner shot thief dead, 13/21 witnesses interviewed 4-5 months after incident, witnesses were very accurate with little change in accounts, those reported with highest levels of stress were the most accurate (88% vs 75%)
Yerkes and Dodson (1908) – inverted U theory, supported by Deffenbacher (1983) – 21 EWT studies
Pickel (1998) – experiment in hairdressing salon video using scissors, handgun and raw chicken, recall in unusual conditions were the poorest, unusualness vs anxiety
Valentine and Mesout (2009) – London Dungeon’s Labyrinth, measured heart rate and separated groups into high and low anxiety, poorer recall in high anxiety group
Christianson and Hubinette (1993) – interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden, 75% accurate across all witnesses, direct victims more accurate
Christianson and Hubinette (1993) – interviewed 4-15 months after, no control over confounding variables, post-event discussion
Improving Eyewitness Testimony: Cognitive Interview
Geiselman (1992) – Cognitive interview
Fisher et al. (1987) – Enhanced Cognitive Interview
Kohken et al. (1999) – meta-analysis of 55 studies comparing CI and standard police interview, average 41% increase in accurate information
Kohnken et al. (1999) – increase in amount of inaccurate information
Milne and Bull (2002) – combination of report everything and reinstate context produced better recall than any other combination, casts doubt on credibility of the overall interview
Kebbell and Wagstaff (1997) – many forces do not have the resources to provide special training or may only be able to provide a few hours
