Memory

Question 1

Memory is the process of… and a memory is…

Answer 1

Memory is the process of retaining information over time and a memory is a piece of information we retain and remember

Question 2

What is coding?

Answer 2

Coding is the format a memory is stored in the memory stores

Question 3

What is capacity?

Answer 3

Capacity is the amount of information that can be held in the memory stores

Question 4

What is duration?

Answer 4

Duration is the length of time information can be held in the memory stores

Question 5

What is memory encoding?

Answer 5

Memory encoding is the process of transforming information to put into memory

Question 6

What is memory storage?

Answer 6

The process of maintaining information in our minds

Question 7

What is memory retrieval?

Answer 7

The process of taking information out of a memory store

Question 8

Memory recall is when…

Answer 8

Memory recall is, a type of retrieval, when we re-access a memory without being reminded of it first

Question 9

Memory recognition is when…

Answer 9

Memory recognition, is a type of retrieval, when we re-access a memory after being reminded of it

Question 10

What is sensory coding? Give examples.

Answer 10

Sensory coding is information that is stored in the format of one of the five senses, such as acoustic or iconic stores

Question 11

What is semantic coding?

Answer 11

Semantic coding is information that is stored in a format based on its meaning or facts

Question 12

What is the sensory register?

Answer 12

The sensory register stores all sensory information while we process it. It uses a sensory code, duration is 1-2 sec and it’s capacity is very large

Question 13

What is evidence for the existence of the sensory register?

Answer 13

Sperling conducted a laboratory experiment investigating the capacity of the sensory register. He had two conditions; One saw a 4x3 grid flat on a screen for 50 milliseconds and had to recall as many letters as possible, the other saw the same grid but only had to recall one row depending on a sound that played after the grid appeared

Question 14

What did Sperling’s experiment find?

Answer 14

Sperling found evidence that the sensory register has a very large capacity and a very short duration, as his participants could only recall 4-5 letters from the whole grid yet around 3 when asked to just recall one row. This is because condition1 would forget the letters before they finished recalling them, and condition 2 only had to recall 4 letters total

Question 15

What is short-term memory?

Answer 15

Short term memory retains information we need for an ongoing task. The coding is mainly acoustic, it has a limited duration of 18-30 seconds and a limited capacity of 7 (+/- 2) pieces of information

Question 16

What evidence is there on the capacity short-term memory?

Answer 16

Both Jacobs’ and Miller’s studies provide evidence on the capacity of short term memory

Question 17

What did Jacobs find in his study?

Answer 17

Jacobs’ study found that the capacity of short term memory is limited, as his participants were shown strings of letters/numbers, and then asked to repeat them back in order, on average they could only recall 7 (+/- 2)

Question 18

What did Miller find in his study?

Answer 18

Miller’s study found that the capacity of short term memory was in fact around 7 (+/- 2) chunks of information, as if we group certain letters/digits together Into something more meaningful it is easier to recall

Question 19

What is long-term memory?

Answer 19

Long term memory is a permanent memory store. It uses a semantic code, and has as very large capacity and a duration which could potentially last a lifetime.

Question 20

What evidence is there on the duration of long-term memory?

Answer 20

Bahrick studied students once they left school, testing their memory recall by having them list classmates names and recognition by giving them pictures as cues at 15 years and then 48 years later

Question 21

What did Bahrick’s study find?

Answer 21

Bahrick found that memory recall after 15 years was 60% and memory recognition was 90% then after 48 years, recall was at 30% and recognition at 80% From this we can conclude that the duration of long term memory is very long and that are ability to retrieve information is better when we recognise it rather than recall it

Question 22

What are some evaluation of Bahrick’s study?

Answer 22

A strength is that his study has high ecological validity, because the participants were recalling more meaningful information it can generalise to wider society.
A weakness is that Bahrick was unable to control all extraneous variables, such as how often the students saw certain classmates over the years.

Question 23

What study provided evidence for the coding of different memory stores?

Answer 23

Baddeley Had four separate conditions each given a list of words, which tested both long and short term memory.
Condition 1- acoustically similar
Condition 2- acoustically dissimilar
Condition 3- semantically similar
Condition4 semantically dissimilar

Question 24

What did Baddeley’s study find?

Answer 24

STM recall tended to do worse with acoustically similar words, suggesting its coding is mainly acoustic.
LTM recall tended to do worse with semantically similar words, suggesting its coding is semantic.

Question 25

What is the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 25

Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed the MSM as an explanation for memory, they proposed the flow of information is unidirectional passing from the sensory register to short term, by paying attention to it and then with rehearsal, to long term memory

Question 26

Evidence for the multi-store model of memory

Answer 26

Case studies such as HM support Atkinson and Shiffrin’s MSM because his damage to just LTM rather than STM supports the existence of independent stores. Also, brain imaging studies show that the frontal cortex is active when maintaining a STM, yet the hippocampus is active for LTM once again showing these are separate stores as the MSM suggests

Question 27

Limitations of the multi-store model of memory

Answer 27

• The case study of patient KF critiques Atkinson and Shiffrin’s MSM as he had damage to his STM but could still form new LTMs with visual information rather than verbal
• The model is over simplified
• Too much emphasis on rehersal, there are other ways to transfer to LTM

Question 28

What are the three types of long term memory?

Answer 28

Episodic = Memories of experiences and events tied to a specific time
Semantic = Memories of facts, definitions and knowledge
Procedural = Memories of how to preform actions and skills, a muscle memory

Question 29

What does Tulving’s long-term memory model suggest?

Answer 29

Tulving’s model suggests there are 3 types of long term memory stores, as case study patients such as CW and HM had damaged to some long term memory, but not others (procedural)

Question 30

What is a declarative memory?

Answer 30

Memories we can consciously recall out loud

Question 31

What is a non-declarative memory?

Answer 31

Memories we can’t consciously recall

Question 32

Evaluation of Tulving’s model

Answer 32

Both case studies and brain imaging studies support Tulving, HM and CW lost episodic but not procedural memories and imaging studies show different parts of the brain are active for each episodic- hippocampus, semantic- temporal lobe and procedural- cerebellum.
However, Squire and Zola argue episodic and semantic aren’t distinct types of memory as they found patients with damage to their hippocampus experience both types of memory loss

Question 33

Which researchers came up with working memory model, what are the components?

Answer 33

Baddeley and Hitch proposed the idea of the WMM, arguing that STM is much more of an active store and there are multiple components to it:
-The central executive
-The phonological loop
-The visuo-spatial sketchpad
-The episodic buffer

Question 34

What is the phonological loop?

Answer 34

A component of STM according to the WMM which processes all auditory and verbal information and remembers the order of it, which can include, using subvocal rehearsal, words read. Its subcomponents include the articulatory process which stores information for longer (while we need it for an ongoing task) than the primary acoustic store (filters through all sounds and stores info for 1-2 sec before discarding it)

Question 35

What Is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 35

A component of STM according to the WMM which processes all visual and spatial information that doesn’t rely on rehearsal. Its subcomponents include the visual cache that stores all visual information and the inner scribe which stores spatial information

Question 36

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 36

A multi-modal component of STM according to the WMM which processes memories of whole events, which include multiple senses. When transferred into LTM these would become episodic memories

Question 37

What is the central executive?

Answer 37

A component of STM according to the WMM which directs information to the relevant store and allocates our attention across the three stores. It has a limited attention capacity and may become overloaded if multiple tasks require too much of our attention.

Question 38

Evaluate the working memory model

Answer 38

There is support for the WMM from case studies such as patient KF who struggled to hold verbal information in STM but could retain visual information, supporting the idea these are separate stores.
However, case studies are of unique cases with unique people they may not generalise to everyone so, the WMM lacks ecological validity.
Yet, dual task studies also show different parts of the brain to be active for STM with visual info compared to verbal.
Another limitation is that the central executive is not falsifiable, making WMM less scientific

Question 39

Explain the Interference theory of forgetting

Answer 39

Interference throes explains that we forget LTMs because two have interfered with/ blocked each other causing one or both to be distorted or forgotten

Question 40

Proactive interference

Answer 40

When older memories disrupt the recall of new ones, the degree of forgetting is greater when memories are similar

Question 41

Retroactive interference

Answer 41

When newer memories disrupt the recall of older ones, the degree of forgetting is greater when memories are similar

Question 42

What study found both types of interference to be worse with similar memories?

Answer 42

McGeoch and McDonald’s participants had to learn a list of words with 100% accuracy and were then given a new list to recall that was either synonyms, antonyms, not related, nonsense syllables, 3 digit numbers or just the same list. When the second words were synonyms it produced the worst recall, showing interference is strongest when words are similar

Question 43

Explain retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting

Answer 43

A form of forgetting which occurs when we don’t have the necessary internal or external cues to access a memory

Question 44

Definition of a Cue

Answer 44

A trigger which allows us to access a memory, can be either an external or internal cue

Question 45

What study found evidence of context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 45

Godden and Baddeley carried out an experiment with 4 conditions where divers would learn a list of words either on land or underwater and then recall it either on land or under water. They found accurate recall was 40% lower in the non matching conditions

Question 46

What study found evidence for state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 46

Carter and Cassaday carried out an experiment with 4 conditions where participants would learn list of words either on antihistamine or off it and then recall while either on or off it. They found recall when there was a mismatch in internal states to be much worse

Question 47

Factors affecting eye-witness testimony

Answer 47

• Leading questions
• Post-event discusion
• Anxiety

Question 48

Research into leading questions affecting EWT

Answer 48

Loftus and Palmer had participants watch a car collision and asked a leading question “how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” with the verb ‘hit’ changing for each of the 5 groups; hit, contacted, bumped, collided, smashed. The mean speed for ‘contacted’ was 31.8mph, for ‘smashed’ it was 40.5mph

Question 49

Research into post-event discussion affecting EWT

Answer 49

Gabbert et al had participants in pairs each watch the same crime, but from different perspectives, discuss what they had seen and then individually complete a recall test. She found that 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the video they hadn’t seen, yet in a control group with no discussion the correspondence between answers was 0%

Question 50

Research into anxiety affecting EWT

Answer 50

Johnson and Scott found anxiety has a negative affect on recall as participants who heard an argument and saw a man come from it holding a pen were able to identify him with 49% accuracy compared to the group who saw him emerge with a bloody knife (33%) Tunnel theory explains that this is because the knife is a source of anxiety so it is all the witnesses focus on.
Yuille and Cutshall found anxiety has a positive effect on recall as they had real witnesses of a gun shooting recall the event 6 months later, and they compared the answers with the original witness reports, those we reported high feelings of anxiety were more accurate

Question 51

Why is the cognitive interview used? What are the 4 techniques?

Answer 51

The cognitive interview is when specially trained officers conduct an interview to improve the accuracy of EWTs, it involves 4 techniques:
- report everything
- reinstate the context
- reverse the order
- change the perspective

Question 52

What is the enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 52

Fisher suggested changes to the cognitive interview such as reducing anxiety in interviewees, asking open ended questions and encouraging them to say If they are unsure