Memory Flashcards
Whats coding
The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.
What’s 1) capacity and 2) duration
1) the amount of info that can be held in a memory store
2) the length of time information can be held in memory
What’s short term memory and studies
Limited capacity store
Coded - acoustically (sounds) Bradley
Capacity - 5 to 9 items (7+-2 jacobs digit span)
Duration - 18 to 30 seconds Peterson of peterson
What’s long term memory and studies
Permanent memory store
Coding- semantic (meaning) bradley
Capacity - unlimited (wagenaar)
Duration - unlimited (barick)
Coding research
Beddeley gave lists of words to four groups of ps to remember
Group 1 : acoustically similar
Group 2: acoustically different
Group 3: semantically similar
Group 4: semantically different
Short term memory - when asked to recall words straight away, Group 1 had the worst recall. This suggests that information is encoded acoustically in STM. This is because STM gets confused with words acoustically similar and muddles them up, resulting in fewer being remembered
Long term memory - when asked to recall words after 20 minutes, Group 3 had the words recall this suggests info is encoded semantically in LTM, the LTM gets confused by similar meanings the same waythe STM gets confused by similar sounds
Evaluation on coding baddeley
Research often conducted in controlled laboratory conditions. Eg baddeley study. Strength as we can be confident that coding in STM is acoustic and semantic in LTM . High internal validity
Negative - not clear how long we need to wait to test for LTM. Weakness as perhaps we should’ve waited longer than this amount of time to measure long term memory as there are much longer gaps between learning and recall in real life, is coding in ltm really semantic?
Capacity research a01 for short term memory
Short term memory- Joseph Jackson developed a technique to measure digit span.
Procedure- researcher read out 4 digits p tried to recall numbers outloudin order. The number of digits increase until they stop getting it right
Findings - the mean digit span was 9.3 items. This decreased to 7.3 when letters were used instead of numbers
Miller suggested that capacity is about 7+-2 but noted that people expand capacity by chunking.
Information kept in stm is in fragile state, will dissappear if not rehearsed. Maintainance rehearsal occurs when we repea5
Ao1 capacity long term memory
Wagenaar.
Created diary of 2400 events over 6 years and tested himself on recall of events rather than dates. He found he had excellent recall, suggesting the capacity of ltm is extremely large
Evaluation of short term memory’s CAPACITY research a03
The effects of age are acknowledged. Jacob tested individuals of ranging ages and found that digit span increases with age as memory becomes more complex. This is a strength as the estimate of the capacity of Stm accounts for people of all ages.
(Individual differences)
Evaluation of long term memory capacity a03
Results are often based on case studies. For eg, wagenaar used hid own memories to measure his long term memory. Weakness as memories not representative of general population, subjective and hard to app,y to others
Duration research stm A01
Procedure- peterson and peterson
24 participants took part in 8 trials. Student given triagram and 3 digit num to remember, and count backwards from it to prevent rehearsal. Percentage correct decreased as retention interval increased
Conclusion- If rehearsal prevented- stm has limited duration
Duration for ltm research a01
BAHRIK Studied 392 ps from America who were aged between 17 and 74. Recall was tested 2 ways
Photo recognition test - name as may of individuals as you can from 50 yearbook photos
Free recall test- recall all the names from the individuals in the yearbook without any cues,
Found that photo recognition was 90% accurate after 15 years and 70% accurate after 48 years
A03 - long term memory fo DURATION and short term memory
Used meaningful memories as stimuli. Bahrik asked to recall yearbook photos of people they saw and went to school with everyday. This is astrengj as everyday memories where presented, so high external validity and can be generalised to every day memories
Short term memory
One WEAKNESS is that it makes uses of artifical stimuli. For eg, peterson and peterson asked participants to remember nonsense triagrams
Weakness as lacked external validity as it didn’t represent real life memory activities
What’s the multi store model of memory
Atkinson and shiffrins model was the first cognitive explanation of memory. Argues that memory’s made up of 3 seprate unitary stores. Sensory register, stm, and ltm
For info to be retained as memory, the process of attention and rehearsal are required
Who was the working model of memory made by
Baddely and hitch
What’s the visuopatial sketchpad
Stores and manipulates visual information from the eyes or long term memory.
The vss can access ltm and receive visuopatial info
Subdivided by loggie
Can be subdivided into
Visual cache: stores information about shape and colour(how it looks like)
The inner stribe-deals with spatial and movement info (where something is)
Coding - visual
Capacity- 3-4 objects
What’s the phonological loop
Deals with auditory information, spoken or written material and preserves order in which info arrives
Cod8ng - aciustic
Baddely divided phonological loop into 2 parts -
Phonological store (inner ear) holds speech based info eg words we hear for 1-2 secs
Articulatory control process (inner voice) silently repeats the words from the Ps on a loop to prevent them from decaying
What’s the central executive
Main component of the working model of memory. Decides water we pay attention to, makes decisions and allocates tasks to slave systems.
No storage capacity
Can only pay attention to a limited number of stimuli
What’s the episodic buffer
Integrating visual, spatial and verbal, information from the different slave systems into a single unit of information
Capacity- limit3d of about 4 chunks
What happened to KF causing brain damage and what type of memory was affected
Fell from motorbike, he could see but he couldn’t speak. This suggests there’s multiple slave systems. His visual spatial sketchpad was unaffected but his phonological loop was.
Criticism to the msm
Shallice and Warrington studes this
Whas a weakness of the working memory model A03
Central executive is too vague. Eslinger and damasio argue that there are probably several components within the central executive . Eg Evr he performed well on reasoning but showed poor judgement. This implies that central executive is not unitary and its explanations too simplistic
What’s the sensory registor
Receives information from 5 senses
Evaluation of multi store model
Well supported by a range of research evidence
Glazner and cruise provide clear evidence for existence of the stm and ltm as distinct memory stores. Procedure- participants heard list of words and Had to recall them in any order. Findings- participants had good recall forthe first part of the list primary affect and last part, recency affec
This suggests the msm as it suggests the stm and ktm are distinct memory stores
TOO SIMPLISTIX
msm states that stm is a unitary stores however evidence from people suffering from amnesia show that this can’t be true. For eg Warrington and shallice studied a patient with amnesia known as kf. Verbal was poor but visual was unaffected
Suggests that there may be more than one store of stm. Serious limitation
Overemphasises importance of rehearsal. According to msm, the more you rehearse information the more likely you’re to transfer it to the ltm. However this isn’t always the case. Very often we are able to recall information that we haven’t rehearsed such as swimming and yet we are unable to rehearse info such as reading notes
Types of long term memory
Episodic memory, semantic memory, procedural memory
What’s episodic memory?
Personal memories of events. They’re time stamped. They require conscious effort to recall. They’re declarative .
What are semantic memories?
Knowledge of world, eg Facts and is likened to a dictionary or encyclopedia
There not times stamped and require conscious effort to recall
They’re declarative eg cities
What’s procedural memory
Memory of how to perform motor actions
Eg riding bike
Not time stamped but require lots of repetition and practice
No conscious effort to recall- they occur automatically
They’re non declarative
of theory of long term memory typesA03
Comes in clinical case studies.
The case of Clive wearing supports the 3 types of long term memory as his episodic memory was affected as he couldn’t remember that he had siblings. However, his procedural was unaffected as he could play piano and his semantic was unaffected as he could read.
This supports tulvings views that there’s different stores in ltm
Therefore this increases the internal validity
Another strength is the theory of the types of long term memory comes in evidence from neuroimaging techniques. Brain studies provide evidence that different types of memories are stored I different parts of the brain. Tulving got their ps to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a pet scanner. They found that episodic and semantic memories were recalled from the prefrontal cortex in the brain. Additional evidence found that procedural memory is linked in the cerebellum, which is involved in control of motor movement. Increases scientific validity for the explaination of different stores in the ltm
Cohen and squire disagree with tulvings division of ltm
They argue that episodic and semantic memories are stored together in one store they call declarative memory. In contrast, procedural memories are non declarative. This reduces the validity of tulvings theory that there are 3 stores in lgm and suggests there are 2 instead
Reason for why we forget
Availability
Problems of accessibility
What’s interference
2 pieces of info conflict eachother resulting in forgetting one or both of them
Explanation for forgetting in LTM
What’s proactive interference
Older memory affects the recall of a new memory
(Old memory affects recall of new memory
Forget new info)
What’s retroactive interference
This occurs when a newer memory affects the recall of an older memory
(Forget old info
Newer info interferes with ability to remember old info)
What’s retrieval failure
Occurs when we don’t have the necessary cues to access memory
When we initially store a memory, some associated cues are stored with it
What did tulving suggest
That there are 3 ltm stores
Tulving was one of the first cognitive psychology to realise that the msms view of ltm was too simplistic
A03 of working memory model
Supported by clinical evidence. People suffering from amnesia can prove.Shallice and Warrington studied the case of KF, whose brain was damaged in motorbike accident. They found that he could see but couldn’t speak. This can be explained by damage to the phonological loop but the visiopatial sketchpad still intact. Supports stm more than 1 component in real life situations
Central executive is too vague. Eslinger and damasio argue that there are probably several components within the central executive . Eg Evr he performed well on reasoning but showed poor judgement. This implies that central executive is not unitary and its explanations too sim&plistic
Has positive practical applications. Wmm is used to help children who have an impaired working memory. Eg alloway developed several methods to improve the wm of children with adhd. These including breaking instructions down to into individual steps and asking the child to repeat instructions. These applications strengthen wmm in its validity in relation to the real world
What are the theories of forgetting
Proactive and retroactive interference, and retrieval failure
Evaluation of interference A03
Lots of supporting evidence. Interference in memory is one of the most consistently demonstrated findings in psychology. Mcgeoch and McDonald’s research (where ps had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then learnt a new list. There were 10 groups who had to learn different types of lists eg words with sim meanings to originals and opposite to original. Found that when ps recalled original list, performance depended on the nature of the second list. This supports theory that interference is strongest when memories are similar) this is a strength bc lab experiments no extraneous. So valid explanation for forgetting
Weakness is that materials used in research into interference theory are artificial. There’s much greater chance that interference will be demonstrated in the lab than in real life situations, bc they typically involve using lists of words which don’t represent real life memory tasks such as your friends birthday. Additionally, another diasdv is that research conducted in a lab is that the tasks given to ps occur in a short period of time. In real world learning of material is more spaced out. Limitation as such research can’t be generalised to forgetting in real life situations
However, not all studies conducted on interference take place in a lab. Eg baddeley and hitch looked at the effects of interference in an everyday situation. Procedure- rugby players were asked to remember the names of the teams they had played in the season week by week, bc most players had missed games for some the last team they mightve been long ago. Findings- accurate recall didn’t depend on how long the matches took place, more important was the num of games they played. This is a strength as it shows interference can apply to atleast some everyday situations
What’s encoding specificity principle
Tulving reviewed research into retrieval failure and discovered a pattern to findings, this states that if a cue is to help us to recall info, then it must be present after the encoding and retrieval.
If cues available at encoding and retrieval are different there will be some forgetting
What’s context dependent forgetting
The context in which we experience or learn something in is crucial. Provided with right external cues, we can quickly recover memories demonstrated by many experimental studies
What was godden and baddeleys research
Procedure - divers were required to learn a list of words and then recall them either underwater or on land. 4 bonds
1) learn on land recall, on land
2) learn on land recall underwater
3) learn underwater recall on land
4) learn underwater recall underwater
Findings ps recalled the words better in the place they originally learnt the list of words. Demonstrates the usefulness of env cues
What state dependent forgetting
Recall is impaired if we try to remember something when we are in a different physical or mental state.
Have difficulty recalling in diff states. Goodwin found that people who drank a lot forgot where they had put items when they were sober. However, they could recall the locations when they were drunk again. Ppl who learned a list of words while exercising on bike recalled more words when exercising rather than rest
Miles and handman
Retrieval failure A03
A strength of this theory is supporting evidence. An impressive range of research supports the retrieval failure explanation for forgetting, additionally a researcher eysenck argued that retrieval failure is the main reason for forgetting in ltm. This increases the validity of the explanation. Shows it occurs in real life situations
However, limitation of theory is that it may be limited as evidence suggests that context only affects memory when it’s very different at recall. Different contexts mist be very different before effect is seen, eg hard to find environment as diff as land and underwater (godden and baddely) in contrast learning something in one classroom and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting bc contexts not diff enough. Limitation as presence or absence of cue only affects memory when you test it in a certain way
The effect of context on recall may be related to the kind of memory being tested. Godden and baddely replicated their underwater explanation but used a recognition test instead of recall, ps had to say whether they recognised a word read to the, from the list instead of retrieving it themselves . When recognition was tested, context didn’t have any effect on performance. Further limitation of context dependent forgetting bc it means that the presence or absence of cues only affects memory when you test it in a certain way
whats eyewitness testimony
statement given to a court of law by an eyewitness who was at scene of the crime under oath. includes identification of perpetrators details of crime scene and any other relevant details
research into leading questions
loftus and palmer investigated the effect of leading questions on ewt using students
procedure. ps watched film clips of car accidents and were then asked various question about what they had seen
in critical Q- how fast were the cars going when hit. leading q due to hit
5 groups of ps, each given a different verb in the critical question
conclusion- study suggests the wording of the Q calter the recall of memories from the Ps
why do leading questions affect eye witness testimony
response bias- suggests that the wording of the question has no real affect on the ps memories but just influences how they decide to answer. when a p gets a leading question using the word smashed this encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate
memory is altered: the wording of the leading question, eg smashed changes the persons memory of the film clips. therefore those asked the critical question with the verb smashed will remember the incident as more serious than someone asked the same question with the verb hit being used
whatre the several psychological factors that are thought to affect the reliability of ewt
leading questions, post event discussions, anxiety/stress, weapon focus
Whats post event discussion
Form of misleading information that can lower reliability of ewt. Can often occur when several eyewitnesses discuss the crime with eachother. this can cause the eyewitnesses to combine incorrect information from other witnesses with their own memories. research by fiona gabbert has demonstrated how this happens
procedure findings of research into post event discussion
research by fiona gabbert
procedure - ps were paired up and then watched a video of the same crime but from different viewpoints. meant that ps could only see elements in the event that others couldnt
both ps then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall
findings- gabbert found that 71% of the ps mistakenly recalled aspects of the event they didnt see in the video but picked up in the discussion. in comparison none of the ps in control group with no discussion made the same mistake
suggests that ped reduces reliability of the ewt because witnesses often go along with eachother in other to win social approval bc they believe other witnesses are right and theyre wrong. she called this memory conformity
evalutation of misleading information A03
Practical applications- Strength of research into misleading information is that it had hugely practical uses in the real world. Psychologists are sometimes used to act as expert witnesses in court trial and explain the limitated ewt to juries. Possible applications could be adopted by the legal profession from this research for example in the development of the cognitive interview. loftus claimed leading questions can distort memory and therefore police are careful in the phrasing of their questions. research into ewt is one area in which psychologists believe they can make an important positive difference by improving the way the legal system works.
A limitation of research into misleading information is that research used artifical tasks. for eg in loftus and palmers study, their ps watched film clips of car accidents rather than witnessing real accidents. this id a limitation because studies that use such artificial tasks may tell us very little about how leading qs affect ewt in real life accidents or crimes. it has been suggested that many answers ps give in lab studies of ewt are result of demand characteristics and therefore lowers the validity of research into misleading information
A limitation to this explanation is that individual differences are ignored. There is evidence that older people are less accurate than younger people when giving eyewitness reports. Anstasi&rhodes found that people aged 18-45 were more accurate than people aged 55-78. This is a limitation as evidence fails to acknowledge such age differences and also tends to use younger people in their sample. this may mean that resrarch findings shouldnt be generalised to older people thus lowering the validity of the research
anxiety in ewt ao1
anxiety has strong emotional and physical effects but is not clear wether these effects make eyewitness recall better or worse. research to support both possibilities
How does Anxiety have a NEGATIVE Effect on EWT
Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention
to important cue, thus worsening recall. Johnson and Scott (1976) studied the effect
of weapons (which create anxiety) on accuracy of recall of the witness.
Procedure: Participants were led to believe that they were going to take part in a lab
study. While seated in a waiting room, the participants heard a heated argument in
the next room, followed by a man walking through the waiting area.
• In the ‘low-anxiety’ condition, the man who walked through the waiting area was carrying a pen and had grease on his hands
• In the ‘high-anxiety’condition, the man was holding a knife that was covered in blood.
Weapon-Focus
Findings: 49% of Ps who had seen the man carrying the pen were able to identify him compared to only 33% who had seen the man holding the knife.
Conclusion: This study suggests that anxiety can reduce the reliability of EWT. Loftus claimed that the participants who saw
the knife were less accurate because they focused their attention on the weapon (known as weapon focus effect) rather than on the surrounding events.
How does Anxiety have a Positive Effect on EWT
Anxiety is thought to increase the accuracy of an eyewitness because the stress of witnessing a crime or accident triggers the fight-or-flight response. This response increases our alertess, which makes us more aware of what is happening in the situation.
Procedure: Yuille and Cutshall (1986) conducted a study of a real-life shooting in
Canada. The shop owner shot a thief dead. 13 witnesses to the event agreed to take
part in the study. Participants were interveiwed 4-5 months after the incident and these were compared to the original police interviews made at the time of the shooting. The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time of the incident.
Findings: The witnesses proved to be
very accurate in their accounts.
Interestingly those Ps who reported the
highest levels of stress where the most
accurate (88% compared to 75% for the
less-stressed group)
Conclusion: This study suggests anxiety can improve memory for EWT
Evaluate anxiety to ewt
Problems with the inverted U theory-Although the inverted U appears to be a reasonable explanation of the contradictory findings regarding both the positive and negative effects of anxiety on recall it only focuses on physical arousal.This is an issue as it ignores the fact that anxiety presents in many different forms. For example, it can also be cognitive .This matters because by using the inverted U theory we are oversimplifying the relationship between anxiety accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
Weapon Focus Effect is Invalid
The participants who saw the knife in Johnson and Scott’s study may have had poorer recall because they were surprised rather than scared or anxious.In a study by Pickel (1988) participants were shown a video clip of a man walking up to a hairdresser’s receptionist with either a pair of scissors, a handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken. Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (such as the chicken and the gun).This suggests that weapon focus is due to the unusualness of the object in the situation (you would not expect someone to hold up a hairdressers!) rather than anxiety/threat. Therefore this suggests that weapon focus is an invalid explanation of eyewitness recall.
Field Studies lack Control
A weakness of this explanation is the methodology of the supporting research.
Field studies, such as that performed by Yuille & Cutshall, involve interviewing real-life eyewitnesses after an event. All sorts of things could have happened to the participants before the interview that the
researcher has no control over. For example, they may have seen a report of the event on TV.This is a limitation because it is possible that these participant variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall, thus reducing the validity of field research. HOWEVER, one benefit of conducting field research is that it is more ETHICAL than Lab based research, where participants are deliberately made anxious. This suggests that the ethical benefits of field research may outweigh the issues of control that are outlined above.
Whats cognitive interview?
Devised by fisher and gieselman, they thought the standard police interview could be improved if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses. standard interview procedure involves a period of free recall about an event, followed by specific questions
the cognitive interview is a method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. it used 4 main techniques
report everything, reinstate the context, report in reverse order, report in changed perspective
summarise the 4 techniques used in the cognitive interview
- Report Everything
Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it
may seem irrelevant. can trigger external cues - Reinstate the context
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 what they were their feelings). - Reverse the order
Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original
sequence,This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event might have happened rather than the actual events. It also prevents dishonestly as it is harder for people to produce an untruthful account if they have to reverse it. - Change perspective
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 is done to prevent witnesses being affected by their
expectations rather than what they actually saw. For example, if you failed to get a clear view of the purse-snatcher above, you may have presumed they were male, which of course may be incorrect!
Evaluate cognitive interviews AO3
A strength of the cognitive interview is that it is well supported by psychological research.
For example Geiselman (1985) showed participants a film of a violent crime. They were later interviewed using a cognitive or standard police interview. Geiselman found that Cl led to better memory for events, with witnesses able to recall more relevant information compared to the standard interview. This breadth of data suggests that the Cl offers real practical benefits to thepolice, especially when the enhanced version is used. These improvements to the way
police interview witnesses will result in more criminals being caught and charged; benefitting society.
The Cl is time-consuming
A limitation to the Cl is that it is time-consuming.
Police may be reluctant to use the Cl because it takes much longer than a standard police interview More time is needed to establish a relationship with the witness and to allow them to relax. Additionally the Cl requires special training and many police forces do not have the funds to provide the necessary training.This is a problem because the proper version is less likely to be used and the specialist training causes an increased cost to the economy
A final weakness of the Cl is that it doesn’t improve recall in all cases. For example, Geiselman (1999) reviewed many cases and found that in children under 6, recall of events was slightly less accurate possibly due to the
complexity of the instructions provided as part of the Cognitive Interview. This is a weakness because it shows that the cognitive interview is not effective at improving testimony in all situations.
