Memory Flashcards
Who is Clive Wearing?
A man who became severely amnesic after a viral infection, with only a few seconds of memory, and lacking the ability to form new memories. He only remembers his second wife, yet he can play the piano and conduct a choir despite having no recollection of having received a musical education.
Who was Phineas Gage?
An iron road was driven completely through his head, and he lived for 12 years afterwards, although his personality was claimed to be significantly damaged. “The man with the whole in his head.”
What is cognitive psychology?
The study of how people learn, structure, store and use knowledge- essentially how people think about the world around them.
What do cognitive psychologists believe?
That human behaviour can best be explained if we first understand the mental processes that underline behaiour.
What is memory?
Human memory can most broadly be defined as the process by which we retain information about events that have happened in the past.
What stores does the multistore memory model contain?
- Sensory memory - Short Term Memory - Long term Memory
What is sensory memory according to the multistore memory model?
Initial contact for stimuli. It is only capable of retaining information for a very short time.
What is short term memory according to the multistore memory model?
- The information we are currently aware of or thinking about. The information found in short term memory comes from paying attention to sensory memories.
What is long term memory according to the multistore memory model?
Continual storage of information which is largely outside of our awareness, but can be called into working memory to be used when needed.
What is semantic memory?
Concerns facts taken independent of context. Such as dates and trivia.
What is episodic memory?
More personal memories, such as associations of a particular place or time.
What is procedural memory?
Concerned with learning motor skills.
What did Cowan say about short term memory?
(2001) he reviewed a variety of studies on the capacity of short term memory and argued that it is more limited (to 4 chunks)
What did Vogel et al say about visual information?
(2001) He looked at capacity for visual information and found a limit of 4 items.
What are the strengths of the multi-store memory model?
- Distinguishes between different memory stores, which is supported by case studies and experiments.
What are the weaknesses of the multi-store memory model?
- Doesn’t explain why we remember things we haven’t elaborately rehearsed. - Some disagree with the idea of a unitary store, without separate stores for acoustic, semantic etc. - Doesn’t explain the apparent interlink between short term memory and long term memory.
What did Baddeley & Hitch believe about memory?
They believed that memory is not just one store but a number of different stores. They didn’t believe STM was a unitary store, and saw LTM as a more passive store that holds previously learned material for use by the STM when needed.
What is the word-length effect?
The phonological loop explains why the word-length effect occurs. It is the fact that people cope between with short words than long words in working memory.
What experiment did Baddeley do on the word-length effect?
He did an experiment to see whether one sylable (short words) or long words are remembered better. It is harder to remember a list of long words as opposed to short words, as the phonological loop holds the amount of information you can say in 1.5-2 seconds (Baddeley et al 1975), and therefore inhibits rehearsal of longer words.
What can cause the word length effect to disappear?
If a person is given an articulatory suppression task (the, the, the, while reading the words), as this repetitive task ties up the articulatory process and means you can’t rehearse shorter words quicker than longer words. This provided evidence for the working memory model.
What study for Baddeley et al (1975) do to investigate the visio-spatial sketchpad?
Participants were given a visual tracing task (they had to track a moving light with a pointer). At the same time they were given one of two other tasks; 1. Describe the angels on the letter F 2. Perform a verbal task
What was the results of Baddeley et al (1975) investigation on the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
Task 1 was very difficult, but not task 2, presumably because the second task involved different components (or store systems). This is also evidence related to the effects of doing two tasks using the same or different components which suffers the working memory model.
What is short term memory?
Memory that lasts for approximately 18 seconds. It can hold up to 7+/- 2 items, and stores information acoustically.
What is long term memory?
Memory that is thought to be unlimited in how long it can hold information and how much it can hold. It stores information semantically (by meaning.)
What is duration?
How long memory lasts.
What was Peterson and Peterson’s experiment on STM & duration?
Aim: To discover the duration of STM Participants: 24 students. Experimenter said a nonsense trigram (three letters randomly put together), followed by a three digit number. Participants counter back in three’s from this number until told to stop. This was called the retention interval (time between hearing information and having to recall it). After the retention interval they were asked to recall the nonsense trigram.
What were Peterson’s and Peterson’s findings on their experiment about STM & duration?
Findings: After a 3 second interval, 90% of trigrams were recalled, after an 18 second interval, 2% was recalled. Conclusion: STM has a duration of 18 seconds.
What is the hawthorne effect?
When participants act differently because of the added attention of being in a study.
What was Bahrick et al’s study on LTM & duration?
Aims: To identify the duration of LTM Participants: 400 people aged 17-74 Procedure: Participants asked to recall their graduating class: - Free recall- recall any names they remember off the top of their heads - Photo recognition- use pictures of graduating class to jog memory of names - Name recognition- select names of people from graduating class from a list of lots of names.
What was the findings of Bahrick et al’s study on LTM & duration?
After 15 years: Free recall (60%), Picture (90%), Name (90%) After 48 years: Free recall (30%), Picture (70%), Name (80%) Therefore we have unlimited duration, and if that is the case we must also have unlimited capacity.
How can we evaluate Bahrick et al’s study on LTM & duration?
- Labortory experiment so less likely to be extraneous variables which increases validity. - Done in an artificial environment so has low ecological validity, and there is more likely to be demand characteristics, the hawthorne effect, which could act as extraneous variables lowering its validity. - Large sample size, which is good. - But, there is a culture bias (only one culture is studied) so we can’t generalize the results.
What is capacity?
How much information can be held in memory?
What is Jacobs’ experiment on STM and capacity?
Aims: To see what the capacity of STM is Procedure: The serial digit span technique (repeating back a string of increasing items in the correct order). E.g. 4, 4, 6, 4, 6, 2, 5, etc. Findings: On average, participants recall 9.3 digits and 7.3 letters. Conclusion: The capacity of STM is between 5 and 9 items
What does Miller say about STM and capacity?
That we can recall 7+/- items. If we chunk information we can remember more.
What is encoding?
How information is stored in memory.
What was the study that Baddeley do on STM & LTM memory?
Aims: To find how information is stored in STM & LTM Participants: 147 servicemen Procedure: Four different groups= each group read a different word list: 1. Acoustically similar (bat, hat, cat etc.) 2. Acoustically dissimilar (pit, cow, pen etc.) 3. Semantically similar (large, huge, big etc.) 4. Semantically dissimilar (e.g good, hot, safe) 50% participants had a 20 minute retention interval (LTM), other 50% performed next stage straight away (STM): Participants given words and how to sort them into the correct order that they had just heard.
What was the findings of Baddeley’s study on LTM and STM?
In STM test, participants recalled words in correct order least on list 1. In LTM test, participants recalled words in correct order least on list 3.
What was the conclusion of Baddeley’s study on LTM and STM?
In STM we encode acoustically (by sound), which is why it is difficult to recall words that sound the same in the correct order as they interfere with each other. In LTM we encode semantically (by meaning), which is why it is difficult to recall words that mean the same in the correct order as they interfere with each other.
Who developed the multistore memory model?
Atkinson and Shiffrin
What is the multistore memory model?
Sensory memore - (attention)—Short term memory (rehersal underneath) (transfer arrow away; retrieval arrow too)—- Long term Memory
Explain the multistore memory model?
Sensory Memory is everything going on around us- if we pay attention to something it moves to our STM. To keep it in STM we have to rehearse it, if we did this enough, it will transfer to LTM. When we want to recall something from LTM later, we need to retrieve it back into STM.
(later developments): ‘Rehearsal was changed to maintance rehearsal, and transfer was changed to ‘elaborative rehearsal’
What did Glanzer and Cunitz discover about the primary and recency effect?
When asked to recall a list, we remember it from the start of the list and the end of the list. It seems tos show that items from the start of the list have already been transferred to LTM, and those from the end are still being rehearsed. The rest have been lost. THis supports the multistore memory model.
What is the support for the multistore memory model?
The Primary and recency effect (Glanzer and Cunitz)
Peterson & Peterson, Jacobs, Bahrick, Baddeley as all these studies highlight the difference between STM and LTM.
Scaville and Milner- Studied a damaged patient who could not transfer new memories from STM to LTM
Sperling- FOund participants only recall sections of a grid they have been shown for miliseconds- they could only recall what they attended to
Cherry- The cocktail party effect- we only recall what we attend to, if our attention is diverted, we will fail to recall what the original person was saying.
What are the evaluation of the Multistore memory model?
- Reliable as supported by lots of research
- Assumes we are all the same so is culture and gender biased
- Ignores individual differences so low validity and cannot be generalised
- TOo simplistic (Clive Wearing supports the case for different stores for visual and acoustic memory) so is therefore reductionist
- It is not very scientific, so difficult to to prove
- Most support for it were conducted in laborties, so it lacks ecological validity.
Who proposed the working memory model?
Baddeley and Hitch
Explain the working memory model?
The central executive is ‘the boss’ which sends incoming information to the other areas. The visuo-spatial sketchpad deals with any information that is seen or any navigation tasks and awareness of what is around us. The phonological loop deals with information that is heart- the phonological store holds it momerarily (inner ear) and the articulatory process repeats it (innter voice). Later, an episoder buffer was added beteween the central executive and the other stores, and starts processing the information before the central executive sends it to one of the slave systems.
How did Baddely et al support the working memory model?
He showed that if we conduct two tasks simultaneously using visual store (tracking light and explaining angles on the little F) we can’t do it but we can do two tasks simultaneously that use seperate stores (e.g. auditory and visual). THis supports the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
How does the case study of Clive Wearing support the working memory model?
He had differences in visual and auditory memory so this supports the idea that there are separate stores.
How did Bunge support the working memory model?
He supports the central executive as he used MRI scanning to show that the brain is more active when dealing with two tasks at once as the central executive has more information to process.
How does Baddely et all support the phonological loop?
The word length effect (we can recall more short words than long words) supports the idea that we rehearse on a loop- more short words can fit on the loop but the long words fill it up quicker so we cannot recall as many of them.
How does Baddeley at al support the episodic buffer?
When participants were shown words for milliseconds, they could recall more if the words were related (sentences) which supports that some very quick intiial processing must have started.
What are leading questions?
Questions that can influence people’s memory of an event.
How did Loftus and Palmer investigate leading questions and memory?
Aims: To see if leading questions can influence memory
Procedurer: Participants were shown 7 films of care crashes. After each one, given questionnarie about the film. THere was one critical question and give groups of participants who each got a different version of this question. ‘About how fast were the cars going when they… each other?”. Each group had a different verb- ‘smahsed’, ‘hit’, ‘bumped’, ‘collided’, ‘contacted.’
What were the findings of Loftus and Palmer’s study on leading questions and memory?
Findings: Mean speed estimates were influenced by the verb:
Smashed= 40. 8 mph Collided= 39.3 mph Bumped= 38.1 mph Hit= 34.0 mph Contacted= 31.8 mph
Conclusion: Leading questions will influence memory- they are an example of post-event information
What was Loftus and Palmer’s follow up study to whether leading questions influence memory?
Some participants returned and were asked ‘did you see any broken glass?’ (there hadn’t been any in the video)/ If they had previously had the ‘smashed’ question in the first study they were ore likely to say ‘yes’ and incorrectly recall the presence of broken glass.
What are the factors that might influence the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?
Anxiety and age
What is the weapon focus effect?
When faced with a weapon we concentrate on this and don’t recall as much about the perpetrator.
How did Loftus investigate the weapon focus effect?
He conducted an experiment to prove the effect existed:
Participants heard an argument in the next room- in condition 1 a man entered holding a greasy pen, in condition 2 the man entered holding a bloody letter opener. In condition 2 participants were only 33% accurate in identifying the man compared to 49% accurate in condition 1.
How did Loftus and Burns investigate anxiety and eye witness testimony?
Showed participants a clip of a boy being shot in the face. Recall of details were inhibted by the anxiety of seeing the event.
How did Christianson and Hubinette invesitage anxiety and eye-witness testimony?
They interviwed witnesses to a real life bank reobbery. The ones who had been the most threatened recallled more due to their heightened levels of arousal.
How did Yuille and Cutshall invesitage anxiety and eyewitness testimony?
They interviewed 13 people who had witnessed a real armed robbery in Canada. The interview took place more than 3 months after the event. Those closest to the event provided the most detail. Those who had been most distressed at the time of the shooting proved the most accurate five months later.
What did Memon discover about age and eyewitness testimony?
When recall is delayed, old witnesses are less accurate, but this effect disappears if recall is immediate.
How did Lindsay and Poole investigate age and eyewitness testimony?
They showed children aged 3-8 a science demonstration. The parents then read the children a story with some of the elements of the science demonstration but also with some novel information. They found that when they were questioned about the science demonstration they incorporated some of the new information.
How did Filn et al investigate age and eyewitness testimony?
Questioned children and adults one day after an incident and then again 5 months later. No difference in the accuracy of the recall one day after, however, after 5 months there was a significant reduction in the accuracy of the children.
How did Gordon et al investigate age and eye witness testimony?
Young children can provide detailed and accurate witness statements but they are particularly open to suggestion.
What does Davies believe about age and eyewitness testimony?
He believes that the difference between adults and children is overstated and children can provide valuable evidence, but care must be taken with the interview process.
How did Yarmey investigate age and eyewitness testimony?
When questioned about a staged event, 80% of elderly participants compared to 20% of younger adults failed to mention that the attacker had a knife.
What was Barlett’s study on memory?
Aims: To investigate how memory is constructed
Procedure: Repeated reproductions- participants were read a story (‘war of the ghosts’) and then asked to reproduce it after 15 minutes, then repeatedly over weeks, months and days.
What were the results of Bartlett’s study on memory?
Findings: Particopants:
Shortened the story- mainly by omissions
Changed the terminology to that of their own culture (e.g. canoe for boat)
New version of the story became quite fixed after a while.
Conclusion: We remember fragments and use our knowlede of social situations to reconstruct memory.
Who developed the cognitive interview?
Fisher and Geiselman
What parts does the cognitive interview consist of?
- Report everything
- Mental reinstatement of original context
- Changing the order
- Changing the perspective
What did Milne and Bull show about the cognitive interview?
That interviews were only effective compared to standard interview techniques if all four parts are used.
What did Kohnken show about the cognitive interview?
He did a meta-analysis of 53 studies and found that the cognitive interview produced recall that is 34% more accurate than the standard interview.
What did Stein and Memon show about cognitive interview?
They did a real world study in Brazil and found that the cognitive interview was far superior to standard interview techniques.
What three separate sensory stores (sensory memory) did Atkinson and Shiffrin propse to accomdate the different kinds of input (multistore memory model)?
Iconic store for visual input (things we see)
Echoic store for auditory input (things we hear)
haptic store for tactile input (things we feel/touch)
What does Baddeley (1988) say is the purpose of the visual (iconic) sensory store?
To allow us to intergrate visual information so that, at a conscious level, we experience a smooth, continuous visual experience instead of a jumbed set of jerky, disconnected images. We have to hold in our sensory memory the information from one image during the few milliseconds it takes before the next image is presoned. This way we make sense of the visual presentation and our conscious mind is not aware of the infinitesimally brief moments of darkness between successive images.
What else could be a possible function of the sensory memory?
To sift through huge amounts of incoming sensory information in order to avoid overloading the system. The sensory memory holds an image of the stimuli for a few milliseconds while they are scanned to decide which ones should be given attention and passed on through the system for further processing.
What was Sperling’s (1960) study on sensory memory? (whole report technique)
He used a chart containing three rows of ltters, which he displayed for very brief exposures (50 milliseconds) to his participants. Participants were immediately asked to recall as many of the letters as possible and could usually recall about four of five. However, they frequently reported having been aware of more letters even thoguh they could no longer recall them.
How to Sperling then change his procedure for his study of sensory memory? (partial report technique)
He trained participants to distinguish between three tones. He then exposed the chart for the same amount of time (50 milliseconds) but, this time, played one of the tones as soon as the chart had disappeared. Participants were instructed to recall the top row of letters in response to a high tone, the middle row in respond to a medium tone, and the bottom row in respond to a low tone. Particiapnts could then on average recall three (out of four) items from whichver row had been cued. The participants did not know which row they would be asked to recall, until after the display disappeared.
What did Sperling’s second procedure (partial report technique) suggest about sensory memory?
They recalled 3 from the row, which suggests they would have been able to recall 3 from any of the three rows, because an image of the whole array of letters was available in their iconic memory. Therefore, Sperling estimated that participants had actually seen 9 to 10 items of a possible 12 on the chart. The reaosn why they could only recall 4-5 items in the whole report technique is because the image of the whole array faded during the time it takes to report back these four items.
What were the strengths of Sperling’s study on sensory memory?
It was a laboratory experiment so there is a high level of control, and it can be replicated, so it is reliable. He also listened to what his participansts had to say at the end of his first study, i.e. that they had actually seen more letters than they could recall. This led him to generate a new hypothesis and devise a new method (the partial report technique) to test it.
What are the weaknesses of Sperling’s study on sensory memory?
The stimuli used was artificial and therefore might not reflect how we use memory in everyday circumstances, so it might lack validity.
What conclusions did later studies of sensory memory allow to be concluded?
- Items remain in sensory memory for a very brief period of time- (probably less than two seconds (or even less than that in the iconic store)
- Information in sensory memory is in a relatively unprocessed form
- Information is passively registered in sensory memory- we then actively select certain items for transmission to short term memory by paying attention to them. Only a tiny fraction of the items are passed on, the rest are lost.
- There are separate sensory stores for the different senses
What is displacement?
A type of forgetting where the items currently in the limited capacity STM are pushed out before being transferred to LTM to make room for incoming items.
What is interference?
A type of forgetting where information stored in LTM is confused with similar information.
What is the central feature of Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multistore memory model?
The distinction between short term memory and long term memory.
What are the main differences between LTM and STM?
Capacity Duration Encoding Forgetting
STM very limited Very Mainly Mainly
(7 +/- 2) limited acoustic displacement
LTM Unlimited Unlimited Mainly Mainly
(up to a semantic interference
lifetime)
What is free recall?
A way of testing memory where participants can recall items from a list in any order.
Explain the serial position curve of the recency effect?
They reasoned that people can remember the last few words int he list (recency effect) because the words are sill circulating in the STM and can be easily retrieved. Words at the beginning of the list have been rehearsed and have passed into LTM and can be retrieved at the time of recall (the primary effect). Words in the middle (asymptote) are poorly recalled because they have had little time for rehearsal and have been displaced by later items in the list.
What was Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) investigation on serial position curve in relation to STM & LTM?
They gave participants lists of words presented one at a time and then tested their free recall. They were given two conditions in their experiment;
- Participants were asked to recall the words immediately after they had been presented
- Participants were given distractor task after the words had been presented and had to count backwards in threes for 30 seconds before they were asked to recall the words.
What was the results of the Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) experiment on the serial position curve and STM & LTM?
In condition 1, they found the expected serial position curve (words at the start and end were remebered better). However, in condition 2, they found that the distractor task had disrupted the recency effect and words from the last part of the list were not well recalled. They suggested that the task counting backwards in threes had displaced the law few words in the list from the fragile STM but the task had not affected the earlier words because they had already been rehearsed and passed into the robust LTM.
What were the strengths and weaknesses of Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) study on STM and LTM?
- Highly controlled labortory experiment, so it can be replicated and is reliable.
- May lack ecological validity due to the artificiality of the task
- Participants undertook several trials and their average score was recorded to avoid unrepresentative results. However, this could have lead to order effects.
What factors did Glanzer (1972) later found affected the primary effect but not the recency effect?
- Rate of presentation (The slower the presentation, the better the performance
- Age of participant (elder people rememnber fewer items than younger people)
- Familiarity of the words (more familiar words are better remembered)
