Memory Flashcards
What is the capacity of STM?
7 +/- 2
What is the capacity of LTM?
Unlimited
What is the capacity of sensory register?
Very large - all sensory experience
What is the duration of STM?
18 seconds
What is the duration of LTM?
Potentially a lifetime
What is the duration of sensory register?
1/4 to 1/2 a second
How is STM coded?
Acoustically
How is LTM coded?
Semantically
How is the sensory register coded?
It is sense specific
Who researched the capacity of STM?
Miller (1956)
Who researched duration of STM?
Peterson & Peterson (1959)
Who researched duration of LTM?
Bahrick et al (1975)
Who research coding of STM and LTM?
Baddeley (1966)
Which components make up the Multi-store model?
Sensory store, short term memory and long term memory
Which case study can be used to criticise the MSM?
KF
Which case study can be used to support the MSM?
HM
What are flashbulb memories and do they support or limit the MSM?
Limit - A flashbulb memory is an accurate and exceptionally vivid long-lasting memory for the circumstances surrounding learning about a dramatic event.
How can the MSM oversimplify memory?
More than one type of LTM and more than one type of rehearsal
Who provides supporting evidence for the MSM?
Baddeley / Glanzer & Cunitz - STM and LTM are distinct separate stores
How can the studies into coding, capacity and duration be criticised?
Lack ecological validity, artificial stimuli, lack of control for confounding variables
What are semantic memories?
Knowledge of the world (facts)
What are episodic memories?
Events or episodes from our lives or that we’ve heard from another source
What are procedural memories?
Actions or skills
Which types of LTM are declarative?
Semantic and Episodic
Which types of LTM are non-declarative?
Procedural
What did Tulving do to investigate types of LTM?
Tulving injected himself with particles of radioactive gold that he could use to track brain blood flow in a scanner. He scanned his brain whilst he thought about historical facts or his childhood experiences. He found that when he was thinking about historical facts blood flow increased at the back of his brain, whereas when he thought about childhood experiences blood flow increased at the front of his brain.
How does Clive Wearing support the idea that there are different types of LTM?
Because he can still remember how to play the piano, the procedural part of memory, but not much from his episodic or semantic memory (e.g. he knows he has children but does not know their names). He also can’t make new memories. Therefore, this shows there are different parts to our LTM
How can Clive Wearings case be criticised?
Can’t be generalised as it is a unique case study
How can understanding different types of LTM have practical applications?
It allows psychologists to help people with memory problems as distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed.
What did Buckner & Peterson find in relation to types of LTM?
They 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 is on the right. However, other research links the left prefrontal cortex with episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with semantic memories (Tulving et al, 1994).
Who developed the working memory model?
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
What are the 4 main components of the WMM?
Central executive, episodic buffer, visuospatial sketchpad & phonological loop
What does the visuospatial sketch pad deal with?
The visuo-spatial sketch pad (INNER EYE) deals with visual and spatial information.
What is the phonological loop broken down into?
Phonological store (inner ear) and Articulatory loop (inner voice)
What is the role of the episodic buffer?
To provide a general storage facility, holding and combining information not only from the visuo-spatial sketch pad, phonological loop and central executive (STM), but also from LTM
What is the role of the central executive?
It controls and coordinates the operations of the OTHER components. It decides which information is attended to and which parts of the working memory to send that information to.
Why was the WMM developed?
In an attempt to consider the possibility of there being more than one part to STM.
Who provided research support for the visuospatial sketchpad?
Logie et al (1989)
Who provided research support for the phonological loop?
Paulesu et al (1993)
What do the supporting pieces of evidence suggest about these stores?
If you carry out two verbal or two visual tasks at the same time you do them less well than if you did them alone, however if you carry out one verbal and one visual task you do them as well as when you do them alone. This suggests that STM contains separate stores for verbal and visual information
How does the case of KF support the WMM?
After his brain injury, KF had poor STM ability for auditory (sound) information but could process visual information normally.
What is the main issue with the central executive?
The central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory
What are the 2 ways we can explain forgetting?
Interference and retrieval failure
Proactive interference is when…
Old information affects new information
Retroactive interference is when…
New information affects old information
Which researchers support interference theory?
McGeogh & McDonald (1931)
Underwood (1957)
Baddeley & Hitch (1977)
How can we criticise interference theory?
Conditions for interference are rare in everyday situations
Interference can be overcome by cues
Lab-based studies - artificial
What does interference theory mean?
When one memory disrupts the ability to remember another.
When is interference more likely to occur?
If memories are similar
Retrieval failure is defined as a lack of…
Cues
The encoding specificity principle states…
If a cue is to help us to recall information, it needs to have been present at the time of encoding and at retrieval.
Context dependent forgetting relates to…
External cues such as the environment
State dependent forgetting relates to…
Internal cues such as your mood
Support for context dependent forgetting comes from?
Golden & Baddeley (1975)
Milne & Bull (2002)
Support for state dependent forgetting comes from?
Goodwin et al (1969)
Carter & Cassaday (1998)
How can we criticise retrieval failure?
Context effects are not very strong in everyday life
Context effects may depend on the type of memory being tested
Problems with the ESP
What are the 2 factors that can affect eyewitness testimony?
Misleading information & anxiety
What are the 2 types of misleading information that could affect eyewitness testimony?
Leading questions & post-event discussion
What are leading questions?
Any question in which, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer
Which key study supports leading questions?
Loftus & Palmer (1974)
What verbs did Loftus & Palmer use in their leading question?
smashed, contact, hit, bumped, collided
What did Lotus & Palmer find?
They found that the estimated speed was affected by the verb used so the accuracy of eyewitness testimony is affected by leading questions.
What explanations did Loftus & Palmer offer for why leading questions affect EWT?
Response-bias factors or the memory representation is actually altered
What was different about Loftus & Palmers 2nd study?
Only used 2 verbs: Smashed or Hit
Asked them if they had seen broken glass (there was no broken glass)
What is post event discussion?
When witnesses discuss the details of a crime of accident, following an incident
Who’s research supports post-event discussion?
Gabbert et al (2003)
Wha did Gabbert et al (2003) find about post-event discussion?
That 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in the discussion. In the control group where there was no discussion – this was 0%.
What are the strengths of misleading information?
Practical real-world use - e.g., police interviews
What are the limitations of misleading information?
Artificial tasks lacking mundane realism
Individual differences may have been confounding
Demand characteristics reduce validity
Participants may act differently if situation was real
What sort of effects can anxiety have on recall?
Positive and negative
How can anxiety have a negative effect?
Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse
Which research supports anxiety having a negative effect?
Johnson & Scott (1976)
What did Johnson & Scott (1976) find?
In the low anxiety condition: 49% were able to correctly identify the man carrying the pen with the grease on his hands.
In the high anxiety condition: 33% were able to correctly identify the man carrying the bloody knife
What is the weapon focus effect?
The tunnel theory of memory argues that a witness’ attention narrows to focus on a weapon, because it is a source of anxiety
How can anxiety have a positive effect?
The stress of witnessing a crime or accident creates anxiety through physiological arousal within the body. The fight- or-flight response is triggered which increases our alertness and improves our memory for the event because we become more aware of cues in the situation.
Which research supports anxiety having a positive effect?
Yuille & Cutshall (1986)
What did Yuille & Cutshall (1986) find?
Those participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate i.e. 88% compared to 75% for the less stressed group
How can we explain the contradictory findings that anxiety can have both a positive and negative effect?
Yerkes-dodson law
What limitations are there for anxiety’s effect on eye-witness testimony?
Weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat (Pickel, 1998)
Field studies (Yuille & Cutshall) lack control
Potential ethical issues
Inverted U is too simplistic
Demand characteristics
How can we improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?
Use the cognitive interview
What are the 4 techniques used in the cognitive interview?
Report everything
Reinstate the context
Reverse the order
Change perspective
What happens during report everything
Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event.
What happens during reinstate the context
The witness should return the original crime scene ‘in their mind’- this means imagining details about the environment
What happens during reverse the order
Events should be recalled in different chronological order to the original sequence
What happens during change perspective
Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspective
Who developed the enhanced cognitive interview?
Fisher et al (1987)
What else is included in the enhanced cognitive interview?
Reducing eyewitness anxiety
Minimising distractions
Getting the witness to speak slowly
Asking open-ended questions.
Who offers support for the enhanced cognitive interview?
Kohnken et al (1999)
Which 2 elements of the cognitive interview were found to produce better recall when combined than any of the others?
Report everything & Reinstate the context
How can the cognitive interview be criticised?
Lack of standardisation
Can create inaccurate recall
