Memory

Question 1

What is a model?

Answer 1

A way of representing a psychological process.

Question 2

What are the two models of memory?

Answer 2

The Multi-store Model of Memory by Atkinson and Shiffrin.

The Working Memory Model by Baddeley and Hitch.

Question 3

Who founded the Multi-store Model of Memory?

Answer 3

Atkinson and Shiffrin.

Question 4

What are three different types of memory stores?

Answer 4

Sensory Memory.
Short-term memory (STM).
Long p-term memory (LTM).

Question 5

Why is the Multi-store Model called the Multi-store model?

Answer 5

Because is contains 3 separate memory stores Sensory Register, Short-term memory and Long-term memory.

Question 6

What are the three features psychologists believe are involved in each of the memory stores?

Answer 6

Coding
Capacity
Duration

Question 7

What is coding?

Answer 7

The way information is changed so that it can be stored in memory. 
Either acoustic (what is sounds like) or visual (what is looks like) or semantic (the meaning).

Question 8

What is capacity?

Answer 8

The amount of information that can be held in memory.

Question 9

What is duration?

Answer 9

The length of time that a memory lasts.

Question 10

What’s the coding (the way in which information is stored) like each of the memory stores?

Answer 10

Sensory Register - codes according to the sensory source e.g. info from the eyes in coded visually.
STM - thought to be mainly acoustic.
LTM - thought to be mainly semantic.

Question 11

What’s the capacity (how much information can be stored) like in each of the memory stores?

Answer 11

Sensory Register - very large storage of information from each of the senses.
STM - very limited capacity (about 7+- 2 chunks of information).
LTM - potentially unlimited capacity.

Question 12

What’s the duration (how long information can be stored for) like in each of the memory stores?

Answer 12

Sensory Register - extremely brief milliseconds.
STM - very short about 18 seconds.
LTM - potentially lasting a whole lifetime.

Question 13

Who studied into the capacity of STM?

Answer 13

Simon (1974).

Question 14

What was the aim of Simon’s (1974) experiment into the capacity of STM?

Answer 14

To investigate the capacity of STM and to test out Miller’s chunking theory which suggests that we can hold 7 +- 2 chunks of information in STM.

Question 15

What was done in Simon’s (1974) experiment into the capacity of STM?

Answer 15

Participants were presented with list of either one, two or eight work chunks. They were then asked to recall as many of these as possible.

Question 16

What was found in Simon’s (1974) experiment into the capacity of STM?

Answer 16

When participants were asked to recall the larger the chunks the less could be remembered.
On average they would hold 7 of the one world chunks, 4 of the two word chunks and 3 of the eight work chunks. Supporting the idea of a limited capacity.

Question 17

What are the positives and negatives of Simon’s (1974) experiment into the capacity of STM?

Answer 17

-This lab experiment is artificial and under controlled conditions and the tasks were unlikely to be encountered in everyday life. Meaning that it lacks external validity.
+A well controlled experiment meaning the cause and effect relationship can be established.

Question 18

Who studied into the duration of STM?

Answer 18

Peterson and Peterson (1959).

Question 19

What was the aim of Peterson and Peterson (1959) experiment into the duration of STM?

Answer 19

To investigate the duration of STM using the Brown-Peterson technique, by investigating whether trigrams can be recalled following an interference task of varying length.

Question 20

What was done in Peterson and Peterson (1959) experiment into the duration of STM?

Answer 20

Participants were briefly shown a trigram (e.g. VBM) and asked to recall it after a period of time (3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds). They were given an interference task of counting backwards in 3’s to prevent rehearsal.

Question 21

What are the positives and negatives of Peterson and Peterson (1959) experiment into the duration of STM?

Answer 21

-lacks external validity - trigrams are not meaningful.

+Lab experiment so highly controlled there are no extraneous or confounding variables.

Question 22

Who studied into the coding in STM?

Answer 22

Conrad (1964).

Question 23

What are the aim of Conrad (1964) experiment into coding in STM?

Answer 23

To investigate the main form of coding in STM by identifying errors in the recall of similar sounding letters and similar looking letters.

Question 24

What was done in Conrad (1964) experiment into coding in STM?

Answer 24

Participants were shown lists of 6 printing letters of 0.75 seconds and write down as many as they could remember as they appeared.

Question 28

What are the conclusions that can be drawn from Conrad (1964) experiment into coding in STM?

Answer 28

Presentation was too fast for participants to keep up and hold their STM. So they made mistakes such as making errors with acoustically similar letters because they said then to themselves, rather than just looking at them. When letters are sounded out, similar sounding ones are likely to get confused. This implies that the main form of coding in STM is acoustic not visual.

Question 29

Why is there not research into the capacity of LTM?

Answer 29

It is very difficult to research the capacity of long-term memory since it is thought to be unlimited.

Question 30

Why is duration of long-term memory difficult to investigate?

Answer 30

It is difficult to investigate the duration of LTM because even if we are not able to recall something, it is hard to prove that it is not stored somewhere. It could be that wee are unable to retrieve it, although the memory trace is there. Also, we may confabulate or make up memories for other cues and more recent memories.

Question 31

Who studied into the duration of LTM?

Answer 31

Bahrick (1975).

Question 32

What was the aim of Bahrick’s (1975) experiment into the duration of LTM?

Answer 32

To investigate the duration of long-term memory by identifying whether or not people can still remember the names and faces of their class mates many years after they have left school.

Question 33

How was Bahrick’s (1975) experiment into the duration of LTM carried out?

Answer 33

This was a cross-sectional study using 392 ex-high school students of various ages. They could have graduated from 2 weeks ago to 57 years ago. They were asked to free recall the names of their classmates. Also shown photographs and they had to match names with faces.

Question 34

What the findings of Bahrick’s (1975) experiment into the duration of LTM?

Answer 34

90% of faces were successfully recognised up to 35 years after leaving high-school. When recognising names 90% were successful up to 15 years. When matching names to faces, there was a 90% success rate until about 48 years later and then there was a decline in memory.

Question 35

What are the conclusions that can be drown from Bahrick’s (1975) experiment into the duration of LTM?

Answer 35

This suggests memories can be held in LTM without distortion for a very long period of time. However, after a period of time, there may be some degeneration, possibly as a result of old age rather than the age of the memory itself.

Question 36

What are the positives and negatives of Bahrick’s (1975) experiment into the duration of LTM?

Answer 36

-Only one type of LTM was being tested i.e. recognition of classmates' faces. So the findings cannot be generalised to other types of into - the study tells us nothing about the duration of semantic memories.  
\+High external validity as asking participants to recall their class mates tests real life memory. 
-They tried to control how much contact the participants had with the yearbook (e.g. taking it away from some of them) but they couldn't properly control the amount of contact.

Question 37

How is our LTM thought to be coded acoustically or semantically?

Answer 37

Semantically - meaning of the words.

Question 38

What was the aim of Baddelely’s (1966) experiment into coding in LTM?

Answer 38

To investigate the main form of coding in long-term memory by identifying errors in the recall of semantically similar and dissimilar words and errors in the recall of acoustically similar and dissimilar words.

Question 39

How was Baddelely’s (1966) experiment into coding in LTM carried out?

Answer 39

Participants were presented with 4 sets of words and then asked to recall them

1. Acoustically similar words e.g. man, mad, cap, can, cat, map.
2. Acoustically dissimilar words e.g. pit, few, cow, pen, bar, day.
3. Semantically similar words e.g. great, large, big, huge, wide.
4. Semantically dissimilar words e.g. good, huge, hot, safe, thin.

Question 40

What were the findings and conclusions of Baddelely’s (1966) experiment into coding in LTM?

Answer 40

When participants were asked to recall the word lists after a time interval (so that recall would be from long-term memory) the performance was the same in list 1 and 2. Participants were more likely to make errors in list 3. This points to the importance of meaning and suggests the information in long-term memory is coded semantically. Words with similar meanings cause confusion as opposed to words with distinct meanings. The fact that there was no difference in the recall of acoustically similar and dissimilar words from long-term memory implies that they were not coded acoustically but rather semantically.

Question 41

What are the positives and negatives Baddelely’s (1966) experiment into coding in LTM?

Answer 41

-This experiment lacks external validity as it doesn’t resemble the way that memory is used in every day life.
+There is good control over the independent variable - words that are similar or dissimilar in sound or meaning. This study provides good evidence that coding in long-term memory is semantic.

Question 42

What are the basic strengths of the Multi-store model of memory?

Answer 42

The serial position effects - Murdoch (1962).
Brain damaged patients.
Studies that suggests a difference in capacity and duration.

Question 43

How doe serial position effect - Murdoch (1962) support the idea of different memory stores and the role of rehearsal?

Answer 43

When participants are given a long list of words, those at the beginning will be remembered as rehearsed and passed to the LTM (primacy effect). Words at the end are still in the STM (recency effect). This suggests memory is linear and it supports unitary stores.

Question 44

How does support from brain damaged patients support the idea of the Multi-store Model of memory?
Give an example.

Answer 44

Clive Wearing suffered brain damage as a result of a virus. He is unable to lay down new LTM memories but can hold a conversation and has a working STM. This support the Multi-store Model as it suggests that there are separate short-term and long-term memory stores.

Question 45

What do studies suggest that can support the Multi-store Model of memory?
Give examples.

Answer 45

Studies that suggests a difference in capacity and duration between short and long term memory can be used to support the Multi-store Model of memory.
E.g. Simon, Peterson and Peterson and Peterson, Bahrick.

Question 46

What does the Multi–store Model put too much emphasis on?

Answer 46

The Multi-store Model puts too much emphasis on rehearsal and ignores the role of incidental learning - things that we have learnt without rehearsal e.g. gossip.
The case of Clive Wearing suggests that the LTM store is more complicated than just a unitary store. As he still had some LTM’s. This suggests a distinction in LTM between procedural memories (how to do things) and declarative memories (memories pf things and events).
The Multi-store Model assumes that information must flow though the STM to reach the LTM. The case study of KF does not support this model. KF’s STM was severely impaired but his LTM was unaffected (able to lay down new long-term memories), suggesting that information can pass directly to the LTM. Also, some parts of KF’s STM still functioned suggesting that STM is not a unitary store.

Question 47

Who founded the Working Memory Model of memory?

Answer 47

Baddeley and Hitch.

Question 48

What does the Working Memory Model of memory look like?

Answer 48

Starts with Central Executive.
Visuospatical Sketch Pad, Episodic Buffer and Phonological Loop come off of the Central Executive.
The Phnological Store and Articulatory Control System both come off of the Phonological Loop.

Question 49

What is the Central Executive?

Answer 49

~Directs attention particular tasks.
~Very limited capacity.
~Attend to a limited number of things at a time.
~Can code information from any type of source.

Question 50

What is the Photological Loop?

Answer 50

~Very limited capacity.
~Stores a limited number of speech based sounds (acoustic coding) for brief periods (2 seconds).
~Divided into Photological Store (words you hear) and the ArtIculatory Process (silently repeats words you hear).

Question 51

What is the Visuo-spatical Sketch Pad?

Answer 51

~Used when have to plan a spatical task.
~Involves holding visual and spatical information.
~Capacity is limited to about 4 objects.
~It can be thought of as the inner eye.

Question 52

What is the Episodic Buffer?

Answer 52

~Enables the central executive to access information in the LTM it integrate it with information in the other system.
~It helps create a mental episode of what is experienced and maintains a sense of time sequencing.
~Capacity is limited to about 4 chunks.
~Coding is modality free.

Question 53

What are the basic strengths of the Working Memory Model?

Answer 53

+Dual task experiments - Baddeley.

+Brain scans - Cohen.

Question 54

How does support come from the Working Memory Model come from dual task experiments?

Answer 54

The model predicts that it will be harder to do 2 things at the same time if they are both visual tasks or both verbal tasks as same store at the same time and vice versa.

Question 55

Where does support for dual task experiments come from?

Answer 55

Support came from an experiment by Baddeley. All participants were given a visual task (tracking a moving light with a pointer). They were then given another task to do at the same time:
i) Imagining a hollow letter F and going round it saying whether each of the angles was inside or outside of the shape.
ii) Repeating words.
Task:
i) Impaired performance on the pointer task, but
ii) did not.

Question 56

How does support for the Working Memory Model come from brain?

Answer 56

Cohen (1997) put participants in a brain scanner and asked them to carry out different tasks. When the central executive was working, there was activity in the frontal lobe (prefrontal cortex) ofnthe brains. The occipital lobe of the brain was active when a task was visual. This suggests tasks using different parts of the Working Memory use different parts of the brain.

Question 57

What are the weaknesses of the Working Memory Model?

Answer 57

1. The central executive is a very important part of the model, but the model doesn’t give enough information on how it allocates resources. Some psychologists feel it is too vague to suggest it is ‘attention’, and don’t think this actually explains its role adequately.
2. The model suggests there is a single central executive but there is evidence for several components. EVR had a cerebral tumour removed. He performed well on tests requiring reasoning, which suggested that his central executive was intact, but he had poor decision-making skills e.g. deciding where to eat) which suggests that his central executive was not wholly intact.

Question 58

What are the types of long term memory?

Answer 58

Episodic memory
Semantic memory
Procedural memory

Question 59

What are Episodic memories?

Answer 59

Memories of events that have happened. 
These memories are:
~time stamped.
~made up of several elements interwoven in a single memory.
~recalled using conscious effect.
~not taught

Question 60

What are Semantic memories?

Answer 60

Knowledge of facts about the world and meaning of words and concepts, rather like a encyclopaedia and dictionary.
These memories are:
~not time stamped.
~does require effect to recall.
~may be taught to us.

Question 61

What are Procedural memories?

Answer 61

Memories of actions or skills; how to do things e.g. driving a car.
These memories are:
~usually recalled without conscious effort.
~not time stamped.
~may be taught to us.

Question 62

What is the evidence for different types of long term memory?

Answer 62

+Case studies - Clive Wearing and HM show that although Episodic memory was severely impaired, both men retained their procedural and semantic memory. They both knew how to use language, walk, talk, etc. HM was able to improve his ability to trace a star using a mirror despite having no memory of doing it before.
+Brain scans - show that Episodic memories involve activity on the right side of the prefrontal cortex, whereas semantic memories involve the left side of the prefrontal cortex. This supports the idea that the different stores are physically separate, and is a finding that has been replicated many times, giving it high validity.

Question 63

What are the criticism of the types of long term memory?

Answer 63

-Some researchers do not agree that Episodic and semantic memories are stored separately. They suggest these are both part of a single store named declarative memory (memories that can be consciously recalled). They do accept however that procedural memory is a separate store.

Question 64

How do we forget things due to interference?

Answer 64

One memory blocks or interferes with another, causing one or both memories to become distorted.
This usually occurs with memories that are similar in some way.
Both memories are effectively stored in the LTM but we cannot access them due to this interference.

Question 65

What is interference?

Answer 65

Memory can be disrupted not only by previous learning but also by what is learnt in the future.

Question 66

What is proactive interference?

Answer 66

When old memories interfere with newer ones. This may be because the original memory interferes with the formation or retrieval of new memories which are similar to it.

Question 67

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 67

When a new memories interferes with an older one. This may be because the new learning disrupt the retrieval of the older memory associated with it.

Question 68

Who studied into interference for an explanation for forgetting?

Answer 68

McGeoch and McDonald.

Question 69

What is the evidence for interference? What was the study?

Answer 69

McGeoch and McDonald studied the effect of similarity on retroactive interference. They asked participants to learn a list of 10 adjectives until they were recalled with 100% accuracy.
They then had to learn another list of 10 words. (There were several different lists.)
They were then tested again on the original list.
Those whose second list of words were synonyms to the first list (meant the same) did worst.
Those whose second list of words were numbers did best.
This shows that retroactive interference is greatest with more similar memories.

Question 70

What are the evaluating points of McGeoch and McDonald?

Answer 70

This type of evidence has been replicated many times, giving us greater confidence in this explanation of forgetting. This is possible due to the use of the highly controlled method used (laboratory experiment).
Using lists of words to investigate memory is more relevant to everyday life (greater ecological validity) than using nonsense syllables or lists of letters, but is not as realistic as using memory for names and faces, for example. This artificiality is a limitation and means that we cannot be sure that interference is as likely an explanation for forgetting in everyday life, as it is in the laboratory.

Question 71

Who studied into interference in real life?

Answer 71

Baddelely and Hitch.

Question 72

How was the interference in real life study conducted?

Answer 72

Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall the teams they had played against that season. They found that recall for games played a few weeks ago was better if players had missed one or more games since then. This suggests that interference is the reason that the more regular players performed worse on recall. This demonstrates that interference can explain forgetting in real life situations, as well as in the more artificial laboratory environment.

Question 73

How do we forget things due to retrieval failure?

Answer 73

Sometimes we forget things because we do not have sufficient cues to enable us to retrieve the information we require from LTM, even though information is stored and therefore available.
Cues are triggers that allow us to access information, and they are often coded at the time of learning.

Question 74

What is retrieval failure?

Answer 74

Difficulties in recall that are due to the absence of the correct retrieval cues

Question 75

What does the encoding specificity principle suggest?

Answer 75

Cues must be present at time of coding (learning) and also at time of retrieval (recall) if they are to help us recall information. So we are more likely to forget information if the same cues are not present when we try to recall as were present when we first learned something.

Question 76

What is context dependent forgetting?

Answer 76

Forgetting which occurs because the external cues at recall are different to those at the time of learning.

Question 77

When does the context dependent forgetting occur?

Answer 77

Context dependent forgetting occurs when we try (and fail) to recall information in a very different environment (context) to that in which it was learnt.

Question 78

Who conducted a study into context dependent forgetting and what was it?

Answer 78

Godden and Baddeley asked divers to learn lists of words either on the beach or whilst they were underwater.
Half of each group were then tested on land, and half underwater.
Divers who learnt and were tested in the same environment recalled 40% more words than those tested in a different environment that the one in which they learned the words. This is because the external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and this led to retrial failure.

Question 79

What is state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 79

Forgetting which occurs because the emotional or physical state at recall is different to that at the time of learning.

Question 80

When does state-dependent forgetting occur?

Answer 80

State-dependent forgetting occurs when we try to recall information in a different internal state to the one we were in when we learned it.

Question 81

Who conducted a study into state-dependent forgetting and what was it?

Answer 81

Carter and Cassaday used a design similar to that described above, when participants were asked to learn words either with or without taking a mild sedative (anti-histamine) beforehand. Those who learned and were tested in different states (drowsy and not drowsy) did significantly worse on recall than those who learned and were tested in the same state (both drowsy or both not drowsy). So when internal cues that were there on learning are absent on recall we are more likely to forget.

Question 82

What is the evidence for retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting?

Answer 82

The two studies by Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassaday give good evidence that forgetting can be due to retrieval failure, and it has been argued that this could be the main reason for forgetting in LTM.
However, it may be that the difference in context or state between learning and recall must be very great to lead to forgetting, (e.g. underwater/on land) and in real life such great differences may be rare. This is a limitation because it means that in real life, retrieval failure due to absence of cues does not actually explain much forgetting.
However, a basic principle of the cognitive interview is that recall can be improved by recreating the context of a crime, giving support for the importance of retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting.
Research which helps us understand memory and forgetting has implications for the economy. It can help us learn more successfully, gain better qualifications and get better paid work, and so contribute more to the economy.

Question 83

What are eyewtness testimonies?

Answer 83

Eyewitness testimony refers to the description given by people of an event they have experienced, including that given in a criminal trial by individuals present at the time of the crime. It includes the identification of people as well as details such as speed of vehicles, weather conditions etc. Psychologists have investigated how reliable this information is.

Question 84

What are the factors that affect eyewitness testimonies?

Answer 84

Anxiety
Misleading information
-Leading questions
-Post event discussion

Question 85

What is anxiety?

Answer 85

A state of emotional and physical arousal in response to stress, involving worry, tension, increased heart rate, etc.

Question 86

What was the study that was carried out in order to investigate leading questions?

Answer 86

Loftus and Palmer (1974) investigated the effects of participants hearing different words when asked about their memory of a car crash. Participants were shown a 30 second videotape of 2 cars colliding. They were then asked a question about the speed that the cars were travelling. All participants were asked the same question, but with a different verb ending the sentence.
The question was ‘about how fast were the cars going when they………………?
The conditions were hit, smashed, collided, bumped and contacted. In addition, a week later participants were asked if they had seen any broken glass on the road. In fact there was no broken glass.
The average estimated speed was found to increase as the strength of the verb increased. For smashed it was 41mph, and for contacted only 32mph.
As a separate finding Loftus found that when asked a week later about the broken glass 32% said yes if they were in the ‘smashed’ condition compared to 14% in the ‘hit’ condition.

Question 87

What is post event discussions?

Answer 87

When witnesses discuss what they have seen with others who may also have witnessed the event, possibly leading to contamination of their eyewitness testimonies.

Question 88

What was the study that was carried out in order to investigate post event discussion?

Answer 88

Gabert et al (2003) asked pairs of participants to watch videos of the same crime, but filmed from different view points, showing slightly different details of the crime. They then discussed together what they had seen, before individually completing recall tests. The researchers found that 71% of participants recalled events they had not seen in the video but had picked up from the discussion. In the control group (who had no chance to discuss what they had seen), none recalled events that were not in the video they had watched. This gives support for the idea that post event discussion can affect the accuracy of eye witness testimony; because witnesses may agree with each other about things they have not actually seen. This memory conformity may be due to the desire for social approval or because they trust that others are more likely to be right than they are.

Question 89

What are the criticisms of research into eyewitness testimony?

Answer 89

• Loftus and Palmer’s experiment focused on memories of peripheral details. Fruzetti (1992) suggested it is much harder to distort eyewitness testimony by misleading post-event information for key details (e.g. the murder weapon) than it is for minor details such as the presence of broken glass.
  -The research has several ethical issues: watching a crime/murder could be distressed for the participants. Many of the participants were deceived, so a full debrief would need to be given.
• Laboratory experiments have the advantage that they allow us to draw conclusions about cause and effect, but they lack external validity. E.g. Loftus and Palmer’s experiment involve watching a video of a car crash which participants make decisions about. It lacks the emotional elements that occur when present at the scene of a crime/accident and the participants’ judgments have no consequences. Yuille and Cutshall found real life witnesses were less affected by misleading information. So this means that laboratory research may not be very useful in understanding how eye witnesses testimony works in real life situations, and it may in fact be more reliable than many laboratory studies suggest.
• Some experiments raise ethical issues about the welfare of the participants who were deceived and who may have also been upset by witnessing e.g. a blood-stained paper knife or a violent film.
  + This research has clear practical implications for real life situations such as police interviews and court cases. This is an area where psychologists can make an extremely important contribution to improving the lives of real people, by changing the way the legal system works.
  -The cognitive approach mainly uses experiments which are scientific and use objective methods. They also give quantitative data which allows for easy comparison.
  -This approach focuses on internal mental processes, so it can be accused of being reductionist: it doesn’t take into account how the environment that we grow up in can affect us and how our genes affect our ability to interact with the world.
  -The cognitive approach is founded on soft determinism. It recognises that our cognitive system can only operate within the limits of what we know, but that we are free to think before responding to a stimulus. This is a reasonable position compared with hard determinism as suggested by other approaches. It also therefore adopts a more ‘interactionist’ position. Siding with neither the nature or nurture side of the debate, the cognitive approach recognises that certain mental process are innate, but are further shaped and developed by environmental experiences e.g. schemas that develop over time.
  -There may be some beta bias as none of the studies looked at the differences in memory between genders. They also didn’t examine the differences in how men and women respond to stress differently, when it has been suggested that they do.

Question 90

What is the cognitive interview?

Answer 90

Interview technique devised to improve the accuracy of witness recall.
Research has looked at ways in which the accuracy of EWT can be improved. Traditional interviews tended to ask witnesses what had happened. The Cognitive Interview was developed in response to results of psychological research which had shown EWT can be inaccurate. It is a way to interview eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories.

Question 91

What are the four distinct components to Fisher and Geiselman’s cognitive interview?

Answer 91

1. Report everything – the interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail even those details which may seem irrelevant e.g. uninvolved on-lookers.
2. Mental reinstatement of the original context – the interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally recreate the environment. This could include sounds, smells, weather conditions etc.
3. Changing the order when recalling – the interviewer may try alternative ways through the timeline of the incident e.g. reversing the order by recalling the end of the incident first then working backwards.
4. Changing the perspective – the interviewee is asked to recall the incident from different perspectives, e.g. imagining how it would have appeared to other witnesses present at the time.

Question 92

What are the evaluating points of cognitive interviews?

Answer 92

A meta-analysis of 53 studies found, on average, an increase of 34% in the amount of correct information generated in the CI compared with standard interviewing techniques. However, most of these studies tested volunteer witnesses (usually college students) in the laboratory.
A similar study was done by Stein and Memon (2006) in Brazil. They recruited women from the cleaning staff of a large university and asked them to watch a video of an abduction. The P’s who had a CI provided far superior data which was rich in detail, compared to the P’s who had the standard interview procedure.
- One of the problems with evaluating the effectiveness of the CI is that it is no longer just one procedure but a collection of related techniques. Different police constabularies use different parts of the CI and therefore it is difficult to draw comparisons between those constabularies. In practice, many officers feel that the CI takes too long, and they deliberately use techniques that limit an eyewitness’s account to save time. The effectiveness of CI depends on officers getting the right quantity and quality of training in using the techniques involved in the CI.
The cognitive interview is an example of psychological research with has implications for the economy. It takes much longer than a standard interview which could mean that there is need for greater funding for the police, requiring increased public spending. However, as it is a more successful method of getting information it could increase police efficiency.