Memory Flashcards
Outline and evaluate research related to the features of short-term memory
A01
Research on coding:
Baddeley ->semantically similar words, semantically dissimilar words, acoustically similar words and acoustically dissimilar words
Shows that STM codes acoustically and LTM codes semantically (participants learnt these lists of words)
Research on duration
Duration of STM -> Peterson and Peterson
24 undergraduate students with consonant syllables
3 digit numbers to count down from to prevent mental rehearsal
3,6,9,12,15 - retention intervals
The longer the interval the worse the recall - STM has a short duration time
A02
Artificial stimuli:
The word lists are meaningless
We can’t generalise findings to real-life situations
For example, when processing more meaningful information we may use semantic coding even with STM
Findings have limited applications
This is a limitation for Peterson and Peterson’s study as well as it may also lack external validity
However, we do sometimes try and remember meaningless information
Meaningless stimuli in STM study:
Trying to memorise consonant syllables doesn’t reflect real-life situations.
Study lacks external validity.
We do sometimes try to remember phone numbers or licence plates which are quite meaningless.
Discuss the Multi-store model of memory
A01
Sensory register:
Passes information from the senses Several parts Duration is less than half a second has a very high capacity Very little of what goes in the sensory register passes further into the memory system only if you pay attention
Short term memory:
Limited capacity.
7+/-2
Maintenance rehearsal - repeating material to ourselves over and over. It will stay in our STM as long as we keep rehearsing it and once rehearsed enough it passes into our LTM.
LTM:
capacity is unlimited
Duration is unlimited
coded semantically
To get memories from LTM we use the process retrieval and so no memories are not recalled directly from LTM
A02
Supporting research evidence:
Coding, capacity and duration
Baddeley, Peterson and Peterson Miller, Jacobs
There is more than one type of STM:
Shallice and Warrington - KF
Poor memory when digits were read to him
Better memory when he could read them himself
Shows that there must be an STM store for visual and one for acoustic information
More than one type of rehearsal:
Craik and Watkins found that the prediction of rehearsing something for longer increases its likelihood of sticking to our LTM is wrong.
What matters is the type.
Maintenance rehearsal is one type but this does not pass info into LTM.
Elaborative rehearsal is needed for long term storage.
Linking info to existing info.
This is a limitation of the model and this type of rehearsal isn’t accounted for and it is another piece of research that cannot be explained by the model.
Describe and evaluate different types of LTM.
A01
Episodic memory:
Ability to recall events
Complex memories that are ‘time-stamped’
A single episode will include several elements strung into 1
You have to make a conscious effort to recall episodic memory
Semantic memory:
Knowledge of the world Facts and concepts Less personal not Time-stamped You don't remember when you learnt them Constantly being added to
Procedural memory:
Memory for actions and skills
No need for conscious awareness
Our ability to do these tasks eventually depends on semantic memory
Hard to describe to other people
A02
Clinical evidence:
-> HM and Clive Wearing
Episodic memories were impaired
Semantic memories were unaffected
They still understood the meaning of words
Procedural memories were intact - How to tie shoe laces and Clive Wearing could still play piano
This supports the theory that there are separate stores in LTM but also that they are stored in different parts of the brain
Problems with clinical evidence:
There is a serious lack of control in these studies
Patients are brain damaged and so they are a unique case and are not generalisable to the public.
Case studies like these may vary with different people due to individual differences.
Real-life applications:
Psychologists can target certain types of memory to help better people’s lives
Bellevile et al -> Episodic memory could be improved in older people who had mild cognitive impairments
The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than the control group
Episodic memory is usually the type of memory affected by cognitive impairments
This enables specific treatments to be developed
(Problems with clinical evidence - there is a serious lack of control of all sorts of different variables and may just be a one off)
Describe and evaluate the Working memory model.
A01
How STM works and functions :
Central executive:
Makes decisions and allocates slave systems to tasks
Has a limited processing capacity
Phonological loop:
Deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which information arrives
Phonological store - stores the words you hear
Articulatory process - Allows maintenance rehearsal
Visuo-spatial sketchpad:
stores visual and/or spatial information
Limited capacity of 3/4 objects
Visual cache - stores visual data
Inner scribe - records the arrangement of the objects in the visual field
Episodic buffer:
Temporary store for information
Brings everything together and and maintains time-sequencing
Storage component of CE
Links WM to LTM and wider cognitive processes (perception)
A02
Clinical evidence:
Shallice and Warrington - KF
Poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information normally
Phonological loop had been damaged
Supports existence of separate visual and auditory stores
Dual task performance:
Baddelely et al
Participants had more difficulty in performing two visual tasks than doing a visual and verbal task
Two visual tasks compete for the same slave system
There must be a separate slave system that processes visual info (VSS) - independent from the phonological loop able to work simultaneous
Brain scanning studies support the WMM:
Braver et al - gave ppts tasks that involved their CE while having a brain scan.
Researchers found greater activity in prefrontal cortex.
Activity increased as task difficulty increased.
Supports the positioning of the components of the WMM.
Describe and evaluate interference as an explanation for forgetting
A01
Mainly and explanation for forgetting in LTM
Any forgetting of LTMs is most likely because we can’t access them even though they are available
Proactive interference - older memory interferes with a newer one
Retroactive interference - newer memories interfere with older ones
McGeoch and McDonald -> changed amount of similarity between two sets of words
Participants had to learn a list of words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy and then learn a new list of words
When they recalled the original list, participants with the second list as synonyms had worst recall.
Interference is strongest when the memories are similar
A02
Artificial materials:
The lists are artificial and do not represent real life
Interference is much more likely to happen in lab setting than in real-life
Limitation: use of artificial stimuli makes interference much more likely in the lab and so may not be as likely an explanation for forgetting in real life.
Real-life studies:
Baddeley and Hitch ->is interference a better explanation than the passage of time
Asked rugby players to try and remember the names of the teams they had played so far in that season.
Accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches were but the number of games they had played in the meantime
Interference explanations can apply to at least some real-life situations.
Time between learning:
The majority of lab exp are made so that interference does happen.
Ppts are given a very short time frame to learn 2 lists of words and then recall one of them (1 hour).
This means that interference isn’t actually being tested rather than STM.
Describe and evaluate retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting.
A01
Encoding specificity principle:
If a cue is to help us to recall information it has to be present at encoding and at retrieval.
If a cue is different or absent at retrieval this may lead to some forgetting
Context-dependent forgetting:
Godden and Baddeley -> deep sea divers
In the matching conditions recall was better
40% lower in non-matching conditions
State-dependent forgetting:
Carter and Cassaday -> Anit-histamine experiment
in mis-matching conditions the recall is worse as the cues for encoding are absent
A02
Questioning context effects:
Baddeley -> argues that contexts have to be very different indeed for an effect to be seen.
Learning something in one room and recalling it in another is not likely to affect retrieval.
Limitation: real-life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don’t actually explain much forgetting
Recall VS recognition:
Context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested
Godden and Baddeley replicated their test but with recognition instead of recall.
There was no context-dependent forgetting
Limitation: absence of cues only affect memory when you test it in a certain way
Supporting evidence:
Studies by Godden and Badeley and Carter and Cassaday.
Eyesenk - argues that retrieval failure is the main reason for forgetting from LTM
Strength - supporting studies increase the validity of an explanation.
This is especially true when research shows that retrieval failure occurs in real life situations as well.
Describe and evaluate research into the influence of misleading information on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
A01
Leading questions:
Loftus and Palmer -> showed a clip of a car crash to ppts
Gave them questions using leading questions on the car crash (using different verbs like hit, smash, bumped, etc)
These suggest the speeds the cars were travelling at
Contacted = 31.8 mph
Smashed = 40.5 mph
Leading question biased the recall of the event
Response-bias explanation - wording of the question doesn’t effect ppts memory but influences them to answer in a certain way
They repeated their experiment and concluded that ppts who had heard smashed were more likely to report broken glass
This shows that the critical verb altered their memories - substitution explanation.
Post-event discussion:
People can combine (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memories.
Gabbert
Participants watched videos of a crime but from different points of view.
Both participants then discussed what they had seen
Then individually completed a test of recall
71% recalled aspects that they had not seen in the video
0% in control group
Witnesses go along with others for social approval or because they think they are right
A02
Useful-real life applications:
Consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious
Can help in the legal justice system as it will influence the way in which police officers ask questions
Psychologists can appear as expert witnesses
Individual differences:
Evidence that older people are less accurate than younger people
Anastasi and Rhodes -
18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than 55-78 year old
Own age bias - all groups were accurate in recalling people of their own age
Research studies often use younger people as the target to identify and so older people seem less accurate
Demand characteristics:
Zaragosa and McCloskey
Participants don’t want to let the researcher down so when they are asked a question they don’t know the answer to they guess.
Limitation: you don’t get accurate results and so it reduces the reliability of these studies
Describe and evaluate research that has investigated the influence of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT
A01
Anxiety has a negative effect on recall:
Creates physiological changes in our bodies which prevents us from paying attention to certain cues
Johnson and Scott
low anxiety condition - hear argument in the next room and a confederate walks out with a pen and grease in his hands
High anxiety condition - Argument in the next room, confederate walks out with a paper knife and blood in his hands
49% in low anxiety condition managed to identify the man from 50 photos
33% in the high anxiety condition identified the man
Tunnel theory - focusing on the weapon
There has been contradictory evidence that anxiety has a positive effect on recall
Yerkes and Dodson explain these contradictory findings with the Yerkes Dodson law
Inverted U theory
A02
Weapon focus effect may not be relevant:
may test surprise rather than anxiety
Pickel -> conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet or raw chicken in a hairdressing salon video
EW recall was worse on high unusualness condition
Shows that weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than fear/anxiety
Doesn’t explain anything about the effects of anxiety on EWT
Field studies lack control:
Researchers usually interview eyewitnesses sometime after the event and a lot could have happened to them in that time.
Discussion with other people, accounts they have read or seen in the media.
This is a limitation for field research because it is possible that these extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall.
Effects of anxiety may be impossible to assess by the time ppts are interviewed.
Describe and evaluate the cognitive interview as a way of improving the accuracy of EWT
A01
The cognitive interview:
Report everything- seemingly trivial details may help them remember other things
Reinstate the context - Return to the crime scene in their minds - related to context-dependent forgetting
Reverse the order - reverse the order of the event, prevents people form reporting their expectations, also helps to see if someone is being dishonest
Change perspective - disrupt the effect of expectations and schema, helps people to report what they actually saw
Enhanced cognitive interview:
Fisher et al
focus on the dynamics of the interaction
Reduce EW anxiety, minimise distractions, speak slowly and openly.
A02
Some elements may be more valuable:
Milne and Bull
each technique used singly produced more information than the standard police interview
Combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better results than any of the other conditions
Strength: suggests that at least these 2 elements should be used in police interviewing if the full CI isn’t used
Increases credibility of the CI amongst those who use it
Support for the effectiveness of the CI:
ECI may offer special benefits
Kohnken - meta-analysis of 50 studies where the ECI constantly provided more correct information than the standard police interview
Strength: indicate there are real practical benefits to the police of using the ECI
Gives the police a greater chance of catching and charging criminals - beneficial to society
Variations of the CI are used:
studies of the effectiveness of the CI inevitably use slightly different CI techniques.
The same is true in real-life - police forces evolve their own techniques.
This is a problem because we are not assessing the same technique and so there is a lack of reliability.
