Memory

Question 1

What is duration?

Answer 1

The measure of how long a memory can last before it is no longer available.
For short-term memory it is very limited whereas as long-term memory has a potentially unlimited duration.

Question 2

Peterson and Peterson study (1959)

Answer 2

A opportunity sample of 24 university students. Experimenter said a consonant trigram followed by a three digit number. Participant had to count backwards to prevent rehearsal. Participants recall nonsense syllable. Each participant given 2 practice trials followed by eight trials. On each trial the retention interval was different.

Question 3

Results and conclusion of Peterson and Peterson study

Answer 3

P’s remembered 90% when there was a 3 second interval and about 2% when there was a 18 second interval.
Suggests that when rehearsal is prevented STM lasts about 20 seconds at most.

Question 4

Bahrick et al. (1975)

Answer 4

(Three tasks)

1. Free recall test, 392 people were asked to list the names of their ex-classmates
2. Photo recognition, p’s shown photo of ex-classmate and asked to recall their name
3. Name recognition, p’s given five names and asked to find matching photos

Question 5

Results and conclusion for Bahrick et al. study

Answer 5

Within 15years of leaving school, participants could recognise 90% of the faces and names.
Within 48 years, p’s could recognise 75% of the faces and names.
Free recall memory had declined more than photo and name recognition.

Question 6

What is capacity?

Answer 6

A measure of how much can be held in memory. STM has a very limited capacity of about 7 items plus or minus 2. LTM has a potentially unlimited capacity. It is measured in terms of bits of information.

Question 7

Miller (1956)

Answer 7

Reviewed psychological research and concluded that the span of immediate memory is 7. Found that people can recall 5 words as well as they can recall 5 letters and that we chunk things together and can remember them more.

Question 8

What is chunking?

Answer 8

When we group sets of digits or letters into meaningful units to enhance the capacity of STM. For example phone numbers.

Question 9

Evaluation point for study by Miller

Answer 9

The capacity of STM may be more limited than Miller suggested. Cowan reviewed a variety of studies more recently and concluded that STM is more likely to be limited to 4 chunks. This suggests STM is not as limited as psychologists first thought.

Question 10

Evaluation point for capacity of STM

Answer 10

Individual differences may affect the capacity of STM. Jacobs found that recall increases as age increases. He found that a sample of 8 year old girls could remember a mean of 6.8 digits whereas a sample of 19 year old girls could remember a mean number of 8.6 digits. Due to gradual increase of brain capacity as you get older or that as people age they develop strategies to improve their recall.

Question 11

Evaluation of capacity

Real life application

Answer 11

Used for postcode system in the UK. Baddeley discovered if the initial letters of the postcode stood for something meaningful it was easier to remember. The numbers are placed between the city name and random letters because they found this is how postcodes are remembered easiest.

Question 12

What is encoding?

Answer 12

The way information is changed so that it can be stored in memory. STM is encoded acoustically while LTM information is encoded semantically.

Question 13

Baddeley (1966) Encoding

Answer 13

A lab experiment with 4 groups of participants each with a different list of words. One group had acoustically similar, one had acoustically dissimilar, another semantically similar, and finally semantically dissimilar.
Each group had 12 sets of 5 words drawn from the list read out a one per second. After each set if five words the participants were asked to recall the five words in the correct order. The participants had a card with all the ten words from the list; it was the order that mattered. A score was calculated for each participant on the condition that they took part in. Their score was the number of sets they had remembered in the correct order, so the maximum score would be 12 for each participant.

Question 14

Results and conclusion for Baddeley’s study

Answer 14

If the participants recalled words from the STM they didn’t confuse words which had the same semantic meaning but they did confuse words that sounded similar.
Acoustic coding is used in STM but semantic coding is used in LTM.

Question 15

Evaluation for encoding (stores)

Answer 15

LTM and STM may sometimes use other codes. Brandimote et al. found participants used visual coding in STM if they were given a visual task and prevented from rehearsal. Baddeley only tested for semantic and acoustic coding; other types of coding could have impacted the results.

Question 16

Evaluation for Baddeley

Answer 16

May not be able to be generalised.Used short words as stimulus. In real life people have to remember more than short words, a persons memory is very busy in everyday life.

Question 17

(MSM) STM

Answer 17

Information is in the ‘fragile state’. It will decay relatively quickly if it is not rehearsed.
Information can be displaced by new information.

Question 18

How does information move from the STM to the LTM in the MSM?

Answer 18

Maintenance rehearsal. Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed a direct relationship between the strength of the long term memory and rehearsal -the more the information is rehearsed the better it is remembered.

Question 19

(MSM) Sensory store

Answer 19

Made of many stores, for example the eyes, nose, fingers and tongue. It is constantly receiving information, but most of it receives no attention and remains in the sensory stores for a very brief period. If a person’s attention is focused on one of the sensory stores then the data is transferred to the STM. Attention is the first step in remembering something.

Question 20

Evidence for the MSM

Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)

Answer 20

P’s given list of 20 words, presented one at a time, and then asked to recall any words they could remember. They remember words from the beginning (primacy effect) and words from the end (recency effect)of the list. Primacy effect occurs because the first words are rehearsed best and transferred to LTM. The recency effect occurs because these words are in STM when you start recalling the list.

Question 21

Evidence for MSM

Case Study

Answer 21

Scoville and Milne, The case of HM. His brain damage was caused by a operation to remove his hippocampus from both sides of his brain to reduce the severe epilepsy he suffered. HM’s personality and intellect remained intact but he could not form new long-term memories though he could remember things from before the surgery. This suggests that the hippocampus may function as a memory ‘gateway’ through which new memories must pass before entering permanent storage in the brain for anything that happened since.

Question 22

Strength of MSM

Answer 22

Strong evidence of three qualitatively different stores suggesting basis of MSM is sound.
Provides an accurate account of memory in terms of both structure (stores) and process (attention and rehearsal). It has been criticised for focusing too much on structure and too little on processing.
It has clear predictions about memory which means psychologists can conduct studies to test it. Pushes psychologists into conducting research in order to find out about human behaviour.

Question 23

Weakness of MSM

Case study

Answer 23

The case of KF by Shallice and Warrington. KF suffered brain damage which resulted in difficulty dealing with verbal information in STM but a normal ability to process visual information. This suggests STM is not a single store like the MSM suggests.

Question 24

Weakness of MSM

Rehearsal versus processing

Answer 24

Craik and Lockhart proposed a different kind of model to explain lasting memories. They suggested that enduring memories are created by the processing that you do, rather than through maintenance rehearsal; things that are processed more deeply are more memorable just because of the way they are processed.

Question 25

Validity of MSM

Answer 25

Usually relates to semantic memory, so relevant to some aspects of memory but not all.
Studies largely involve psychology students making them more than averagely intelligent and may try to guess what experiment is about.
Laboratory experiments -demand characteristics and experimenter bias although does mean extraneous variables controlled proving cause and effect.

Question 26

(WMM) Central executive

Answer 26

Function is to direct attention to particular tasks, determining at anytime how ‘resources’ are allocated to tasks. The ‘resources’ are the three other slave systems. Data arrives from the LTM or the senses. It has a very limited capacity.

Question 27

(WMM) Phonological loop

Answer 27

Deals with auditory information and preserves the order of information. Can be subdivided into the phonological store and an articulatory process. Phonological store holds the words you hear like an inner ear. Articulatory process is used for words that are heard or seen; these words are silently repeated like an inner voice.

Question 28

(WMM) Visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 28

Used when you have to plan a spatial task. For example counting the number of windows in your house. Visual/spatial information is temporarily stored here. Visual information is what things look like, whereas spatial is the relationship between things.

Question 29

(WMM) Episodic buffer

Answer 29

This is a general store that can store information that relates to both visual and acoustic information. Extra storage unit which has a limited capacity. It integrates information from the central executive, phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad and also LTM.

Question 30

Evidence supporting WMM

Case study

Answer 30

Shallice and Warrington, The case of KF. Shows STM and LTM work independently as he no problem with long-term learning but some aspects of his immediate memory were impaired. His short-term forgetting of auditory information was much greater than that of visual stimuli. Also his auditory problems were limited in respect of verbal material (letters and numbers) but not meaningful sounds such as a phone ringing. Thus his brain damage seemed to be restricted to the phonological loop.

Question 31

Evidence for episodic buffer

Answer 31

Evidence for the episodic buffer
Baddeley et al. found that when participants were shown words and then asked for immediate recall, their performance was much better for sentences (related words) than for unrelated words. This supports the idea of an immediate memory store for items that are neither visual nor phonological and draw on long-term memory (to link the related words)

Question 32

What is the word-length effect?

Answer 32

The observation that people remember lists of short words better than lists of long words. (Evidence for phonological and articulatory process)

Question 33

Strength of the WMM

Answer 33

Better than the MSM as it includes verbal (maintenance) rehearsal as an optional process rather than the only means by which information is kept in immediate memory. It emphasises process more than MSM. Portrays STM as memory that holds the most recently activated portion of LTM, rather than STM as a on the way to and from LTM station. WM moves the activated elements in and out of brief, temporary elements.

Question 34

Weakness of WMM

Central executive

Answer 34

There is some concern about the central executive and what it exactly is. Some psychologists feel the definition of the central executive is too vague and doesn’t really explain anything. They think there are probably several different components, therefore is more complex than currently represented.

Question 35

Weakness of WMM

Case Study

Answer 35

Lots of evidence from brain damaged patients.
A problem as you cannot make before and after comparisons so it is not clear whether the changes in behaviour are caused by the damage.
The process of brain damage itself is traumatic which may in itself change behaviour.

Question 36

Hitch and Baddeley

Answer 36

Two simultaneous tasks:
1.Used central executive
2. Task two had three conditions a) Used articulatory loop. b) Used central executive and articulatory loop. c) No task was given
They found task 1 was slower when task 2 also involved the central executive but it was the same as task 2 when just the articulatory loop or no task at all was completed.
This shows that when two tasks use the same sensory modality it causes difficulty to the participant.
It also suggests that when different components are use performance is not affected therefore proves short-term memory clearly has several different components, supporting the working memory model.

Question 37

Evaluating WMM

Method (Lab)

Answer 37

There are problems with the use of laboratory experiments in supporting evidence. This is because laboratory experiments are artificial, and therefore the participants may not behave how they do in everyday life. Participant and investigator effects can be high due to the lack of realism which would lower the internal validity.

Question 38

What is eyewitness testimony?

Answer 38

The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view of identifying the perpetrator of the crime. It has three stages:

1. Witness encodes information into LTM.
2. Witness retains information for a period of time.
3. Witness retrieves information from storage.

Question 39

Loftus and Palmer

Experiment 1

Answer 39

Effect of leading questions on eyewitness accounts.
45 student participants viewed a short film of a car accident. The p’s were divided into five groups of nine students. After watching the video, each group was given a questionnaire that included the leading question “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”. However, a slightly different version of the critical question was given to each group, in that the verb varied
between “smashed”, “collided”, “bumped”, “hit” and “contacted”. The leading question affected the perception of speed.

Question 40

Loftus and Palmer

Experiment 2

Answer 40

Effects of leading questions on later memory.
150 student participant (three groups of 50) viewed a short video of a car accident. Afterwards they were given a questionnaire. The critical question was based on “How fast were the cars going when the smashed into each other?”
Group 1 was asked the question containing the word “hit”, group 2 “smashed, and group 3 was not asked a leading question (control group)
A week later the p’s were asked to return and answer more questions including “did you see the broken glass?” (There was no broken glass in the clip)
Those participants who thought the car was travelling faster (1) were more likely to report seeing broken glass. Suggests that their memory of the car travelling faster led them to invent a memory in line with this expectation.

Question 41

Conclusion from Loftus and Palmer study

Answer 41

EWT is not always accurate and that misleading questions can have an effect on what eyewitnesses think they had seen.

Question 42

Yuille and Cutshall

Answer 42

13 eye witnesses aged 15-32.
Case study of gun shooting. Police interviews made available to researchers to clarify aspects of event. Research interviews conducted 4-5 months, 45-90 minutes long, and had the same procedures as the police interview. The questions included two misleading ones. The p’s were scored by reconstructed event from police evidence and reports from others at event. Each detail recalled was awarded 1 point.
Research interview elicited considerable more detail than the police and misleading questions had no effect.

Question 43

Christianson and Hubinette

Anxiety enhances recall

Answer 43

Emotional involvement does increase the accuracy of memory. Interviewed 58 people who had witnessed a bank robbery. Witnesses who had been personally threatened during the crime (more emotionally involved) had more accurate memories and remembered more details than the witnesses who said they were not very involved. This continued to be true 15 months later.

Question 44

Deffenbacher et al.

Anxiety has a Negative effect

Answer 44

A meta-analysis of 18 studies looking at the effects of heightened anxiety on accuracy of eyewitness recall. It was clear there was considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impacted on the accuracy of eyewitness memory.

Question 45

Yerkes-Dodson law

Answer 45

States that performance improves with increases in arousal up to some optimum point and then declines with further increases (effects of anxiety curvilinear).

Question 46

The Weapon-Focus Effect

Johnson and Scott

Answer 46

Two conditions:
1. A man emerged holding a pen with grease on his hands.
2.The discussion was more heated and a man emerged holding a paperknife covered in blood.
P’s were asked to identify the man from 50 photos. Condition 1 49% accurate, condition 2 33% accurate. Suggests weapon may have distracted attention from the person holding it and therefore may explain why eyewitnesses sometimes have poor recall for certain details of violent crimes.

Question 47

Yarmey (1993)

Age differences in EWT accuracy

Answer 47

Stopped 651 adults in public places and asked them to recall the physical characteristics of a young woman whom they had spoken to for 2 minutes and 15 seconds earlier. Young and middle aged adults were more confident and superior in terms of accuracy to the older adults.

Question 48

Memon et al.

Age differences in EWT accuracy

Answer 48

Young and old eyewitnesses. When the delay between an incident and its identification was short there was no difference in the accuracy of the two age groups. However, when the identification task was delayed by one week the older witnesses were significantly less accurate.

Question 49

What is the own-age bias?

Answer 49

Anastasi and Rhodes used individuals from three different age groups who were shown 24 photographs (representing the different age groups), which they had to rate for attractiveness. After a short ‘filler’ activity , they were then presented with 48 photographs, 24 of which had been seen previously and 24 that were distractors. Corrected recognition rates (hits minus false alarms) showed that young and middle aged participants were significantly more accurate than older people, but also that all age groups were more accurate at identifying photographs from their own age group.

Question 50

What is the ‘differential experience hypothesis’?

Answer 50

Suggests that the more contact we have with members of a particular age group or ethic group, the better our memory would be for such individuals. The less we experience with a particular age group the greater our own-age bias.

Question 51

What is the ‘perceptual learning hypothesis’?

Answer 51

Because individuals usually encounter members of their own age group more regularly, they become more expert at processing those faces and would show better memory for them.

Question 52

Evaluation of Loftus and Palmer

Answer 52

Used independent groups- one set of stimulus, order effects reduced, no control over participant variables/more participants needed.
Real world applications - EWT heavily relied on by the justice system for prosecuting perpetrators, psychology shown problems with EWT. Many people have been exonerated on basis of DNA evidence.
Individual differences - Schater et al. elderly people have difficulty remembering the source of their information even though the memory for the information itself is unimpaired. More likely to be affected by misleading information.

Question 53

Name the stages of the cognitive interview

Answer 53

1. Report everything - report every single detail no matter how insignificant it may seem.
2. Mental reinstatement of the original context - mentally recreate the environment and contacts from the original incident.
3. Recall in reverse order - try alternative ways through the timeline of the incident, for example reversing the order in which events occurred.
4. Recall from changed perspective - recall incident from multiple perspectives, for example imaging how it would have appeared to other witnesses present at the time.

Question 54

Strengths of the CI

Answer 54

Useful when interviewing older witnesses. Negative stereotypes can make witness overly cautious about reporting information but the CI stresses that all detail should be reported. This may overcome any difficulties.

Question 55

Strength of the CI

Answer 55

Kohnken et al. conducted a meta-analysis of 53 studies and found that on average there was an increase of 34% in the amount of correct information generated in the CI compared with a standard interview.

Question 56

Limitation of the CI

Answer 56

No longer just one ‘procedure’, but a collection of related techniques. Different police forces use different adaptations of the CI so it is difficult to test the reliability of the method.

Question 57

Limitation of the CI

Answer 57

Officers may not receive sufficient training to effectively conduct the interview.
Could cause harm if memory traumatic.
Requires more time than is usually available, so prefer to use strategies aimed to limit the eyewitnesses report to the minimum amount of information the officer feel is necessary.

Question 58

Name some of the differences between a CI and a standard interview.

Answer 58

CI - Recall context, open questions, based on idea that there are different retrieval paths to each memory, interviewee should relax speak slowly, witness given time.
Standard interview - Recall event only, closed questions, quick answers expected, frequently interrupted, answers short, doesn’t maximise recall.

Question 59

Name and outline four verbal mnemonics.

Answer 59

1. Acronym - a word or sentence is formed from the initial letters of other words. ROYGBIV
2. Acrostic - a poem or sentence used where the first letter of each line or word forms the item to be remembered.
3. Rhymes - groups of words with an identity or rhythm.
4. Chunking - dividing a long string of information into memorable chunks, for example phone numbers.

Question 60

Name and outline three visual imagery mnemonics.

Answer 60

1. The method of loci - the learner associates parts of the material to be recalled with different places.
2. Keyword method - Associating two pieces of information. A visual image should trigger recall the recall of the word.
3. Mind mapping - involve making notes in information in the form of drawing, usually a branching pattern, with the main topic in the centre and other components/ideas radiating outwards. (distinctive visual appearance)

Question 61

State the role of organisation.

Answer 61

Establish links/associations that help recall. Mnemonic techniques actively link new information with ‘memory hooks’.
Also putting things in order through a clear hierarchy. If memory is organised you can find information much more quickly.
(Verbal Mnemonics/The method of loci)

Question 62

State the role of elaborative rehearsal.

Answer 62

Mnemonic techniques makes us elaborate the information to be remembered. The amount of rehearsal is important (maintenance rehearsal) but the nature of rehearsal (elaboration) is more important.
(Mind maps)

Question 63

What is the Dual Coding Hypothesis?

Answer 63

Paivio proposed words and images are processed separately due to studies with patients with brain damage. Concrete words which can be made into images are double encoded in memory. Once as image-based symbols and once as in verbal symbols. This double coding increases the likelihood that they will be remembered. (Mind maps/The method of loci)

Question 64

What is a strength and a weakness of mind maps?

Answer 64

Easily constructed and branching pattern reflects the structure of your brain.
They don’t work for everyone, can be time consuming and you need to be creative.

Question 65

What is a strength and weakness of verbal mnemonics?

Answer 65

It was found 30% of students who used verbal mnemonics in their revision and ‘first letter’ mnemonics, such as acronyms or acrostics, were most popular from a survey by psychology students studying for exams.
Lack of proof of mnemonics being truly effective in real life situations in the classroom, and most studies that have tested mnemonics have been in lab conditions therefore lack ecological validity and show bias towards mnemonic having a positive effect.

Question 66

A weakness for the method of loci.

Answer 66

Can be time consuming and not always efficient.