Memory Flashcards
Key study for coding in STM and LTM
Baddeley
Procedure of Baddeleys study
Four groups given different lists to remember (acoustically similar/dissimilar and semantically similar/dissimilar).
Participants asked to recall the words in the correct order. Some were required to recall immediately (STM) others 20 minutes later (LTM)
What does acoustically mean
Refers to sounds or the sense of hearing
What does semantically mean
The meaning of something
Findings is Baddeleys study
Acoustically similar words remembered worst for STM, semantic remembered worst for LTM
Conclusions from Baddeleys study
Suggests that information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically in LTM
Limitation of Baddeleys study
Used artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material. The words used had no personal meaning to the participants. Means we should be cautious about generalising the findings to different kinds of memory tasks. For example when processing more meaningful information people may use semantic encoding even for STM tasks
Study for the capacity of STM
Jacobs
Procedures of Jacobs study
Developed the digit span technique (refers to digits/ letters being read one at a time).
Researcher gives an amount of digits and the participants has to recall these in the correct order. If this is correct the research reads out more digits until the participant can’t recall the order correctly. This determine digit span
Findings in Jacobs study
Mean span for digits was 9.3 and mean span for letters was 7.3
Limitation of Jacobs study
It was conducted a long time ago and lacked adequate control of extraneous variables. Some participants may have been distracted so didn’t perform as well making the result not valid because there were confounding variables that were not controlled. However the results of this study have been confirmed in other research supporting the validity
Key study for the capacity of LTM
Miller
Procedure of Millers study
Miller reviewed several studies on memory which tested the amount of info we receive, process and remember in our immediate memory.
He made observations of everyday practice and realised things come in sevens : 7 days of the week, 7 deadly sins etc
Findings of Millers study
Suggests the span (or capacity) of STM is about 7 plus or minus two.
Chunking is also used to increase capacity. He realised people can recall 5 words as well as 5 letters.
What is chunking
Grouping sets of digits or letters into meaningful units or chunks
What is capacity
The amount of information that can be held in a memory store
Limitation of Millers study
Miller may have overestimated the capacity of STM. Cowan rconckuded that the capacity of STM was only about four chunks suggesting the lower end of Millers estimate is more appropriate than 7.
What is a digit span
Way of measuring the capacity of short term memory in terms of the maximum number of digits that can be recalled in the correct order
Key study for the duration of STM
Peterson and a Peterson
Procedure of the Peterson study
24 undergraduate students were given a consonant syllable to remember and a three digit number. Students then asked to count backwards from three digit number until told to stop. This was to prevent any rehearsal of the syllable. On each trial they are told to stop after a different amount of time (3,6,9,12 seconds etc) this is called retention interval
What is a consonant syllable
Three letter chunks with no vowels, also called a trigram
Findings of the Peterson study
After three seconds recall was about 80%. Recall after 18 seconds was about 3%.
Conclusions of the Peterson study
STM may have a very short duration (of less than 18 seconds) if maintenance rehearsal is prevented
Limitation of the Peterson study
Stimulus material was artificial. Does not reflect real life memory activity where what we are trying to remember is meaningful. I he study lacked ecological validity. However we do sometimes try to remember fairly meaningless things like phone numbers so the study isn’t totally irrelevant
What is an extraneous variable
Any variable other than the independent one that may affect the dependant variable if it’s not controlled
What is a confounding variable
Any variable that may have affected the DV so we cannot be sure if the true source of changes to the DV
Key study for the duration of LTM
Bahrick
Procedure of Bahricks study
Nearly 400 participants aged 17-74 from America.
Years books used from the participants and the participants had to recognise faces and provide their names or do free recall of names without visual aid.
Findings of Bahricks study
Face recognition after 48 years = 90%
Free recall after 48 years = 30%.
Conclusions from Bahricks study
Long term entities can last a very long time but may need cues in order to be accessed
Limitation of Bahricks study
Rehearsal may explain the results. Some participants may look st heir yearbooks regularly and that’s why their recognition and recall was so good. In this case, rehearsal is an extraneous variable. This means that some results may not be due to LTm
Strength of Bahricks study
High external validity. Real life memories were studies. When lab studies were done with meaningless pictures to be remembered recall rates were lower. The downside of real life research is that confounding variables are not controlled such as the fact the participants may have looked at the year book photos over the years.
Who devised the multi-store model of memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin
What does the MSM describe
How information moves through the memory system. The model suggest that memory is made of three stores linked by processing.
Sensory register, STM and LTM.
Describes how info is transferred from one store to another, how it is remembered and how it is forgotten
Simplified version of how the MSM works
Environmental stimuli -> sensory memory (attention) -> short term memory (rehearsal) -> long term memory (retrieval) -> short term memory again
How many stores in the sensory registers
Several, ind for each of our senses
Duration, capacity and coding of material in the sensory register
Less than half a second
Has high capacity
Coding is related to each sense
Duration, capacity and coding of the STM in the MSM
Limited capacity - between 5 and 9 items
Coded acoustically
Duration is about 30 seconds unless rehearsed
When does maintenance rehearsal occur
When we repeat material to ourselves over and over we can keep this information in STM as long as we rehearse it and if rehearsed enough it passes to the LTM
Capacity, duration and coding for LTM in the MSM
Unlimited capacity
Unlimited duration
Coding is semantic usually
What is retrieval
Recall of information previously stored in memory
Strength of the MSM
Supported by research that shows STM and LTM are different. Baddeleys study shows that coding in STM is mainly acoustic and in the LTM it is mainly semantic. Supports the MSMs view that these two memory stores are separate and independent
Limitation of the MSM (more than one store for STM)
Case studies show that STM isn’t a unitary store like MSM claims. Patient KF had amnesia and it was found KFs short term memory for digits was very poor when they were read out to him but when he read them himself it was much better. Suggests there’s more than one short term store to process visual information and one to process auditory. Working memory model is better able to account for the case of KFs
Limitation for MSM (oversimplifies LTM)
Oversimplifies the LTM. Lots of research evidence that LTM is not unitary. We have one long term memory store for our memories of fact and we have different one for memories of riding a bike. The MSM does not reflect these different types of LTM which is a problem.
What is episodic memory
Stores events from our lives. Like the visits to the dentist, psychology class, the breakfast you ate and so on
Elements of episodic memory
- time stamped (you remember when they happened)
- involve several elements (people, places, objects)
- you make a conscious effect to recall them
What is semantic memory
Knowledge of the world. The meaning of words and the taste of an orange.
Elements of semantic memory
- not time stamped. We don’t remember when we first learned about some facts.
- it’s less personal and more about shared knowledge
What is procedural memory
Memory for actions and skills. Like driving a car.
Elements of procedural memories
- recall without much effort
- can recall without conscious awareness
Strength of the episodic memory store
Supported by case study evidence. Case of HM and Clive Wearing both men had great difficulty recalling events that had happened to them as a consequence of amnesia. Yet their semantic memories were relatively unaffected as they still understood the meaning of words. Evidence supports the view that there are different memory stores in LTM because one store can be damanged but the other store unaffected
Strength of their being different LTM stores
Brain scan studies. Tulving got their participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner. Found episodic and semantic memories were recalled in different parts of the prefrontal cortex. Supports the view that there is a physical reality to the different types of LTM within the brain.
Strength of different LTM stores (real life application)
Real life applications. Episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment. Episodic memory is the type of memory most affected by mild cognitive impairment. Highlights the benefits of being able to distinguish between different types of LTM because it ends less specific treatments to be developed.
Limitation of there being more than one store of LTM
There may only be two types of LTM rather than three. Squire argues that episodic and semantic memories are stored together in oneLTM store called declarative memory and procedural are in the non-declarative store. It is important to get the distinction between stores right because it will determine the way in which memory studies are conducted and memory is investigated.
Who worked on the working memory model
Baddeley and Hitch
What is the working memory model
Is an explanation of how one aspect of memory (STM) is organised and how t functions
Simplified version of the working memory model
Central executive can pass information to the visuospatial sketch pad, the episodic buffer, the phonological loop and these three then pass the stimuli to the long term memory
What does the WMM describe
How we temporarily store and manipulate information. E.g it is concerned with the part of the mind that is active wen working on a math problem, or playing chess or comprehending language etc
What is the central executive
The component of the WMM that Co-ordinates the activities of the three subsystems in memory. It also allocated processing resources to those activities.
Has limited or possibly no storage capacity.
What does the phonological loop consist of
Phonological store (stores the words you hear) Articulatory process (allows maintenance rehearsal)
What does the slave system of the phonological loop do
Deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrives
What does the Visio-spatial sketch pad do
Stores visual and spatial information when required in w mental space often called our ‘inner eye’
What did logie subdivided the VSS into
The visual cache (stores visual data) Inner scribe (records the arrangement of objects in the visual field)
What is the episodic buffer
Temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores and maintains a sense of time sequencing - basically recording events that are happening
When was the episodic buffer added to the WMM
2000
What illustrates the main feature of the WMM
Dual task performance - doing two tasks at the same time. If toe tasks are visual this is done much slower than if one was auditory.
What is the main feature of the WMM
There is no interference when performing two different tasks
Strength of the WMM (case study)
Research support for separate visual and acoustic store from KF. He suffered brain damage and had poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information easily. He had problems with sounds but could recall digits and letters. Suggest that just his phonological loop has been damaged leaving other areas of mentors intact. Supports the existence of a separate visual and acoustic store. However evidence from brain damage may be unreliable because it concerns unique cases.
Limitation of the WMM (lacks clarity)
Lack of clarity for the central executive. Cognitive psychologists suggests that this component is unsatisfactory and doesn’t explain anything. It need to be more clearly specified than just ‘attention’. Some psychologists believe it may have separate components. This means WMM hasn’t been fully explained
What is the word-length effect
People remember lists of short words better than lists of long ones, governed by the capacity of the phonological loop
Strength of the WMM (brain scanning)
Brain scanning studies have supported WMM. Braver gave participants tasks that involved the central executive while there were having a brain scan and found activity in the prefrontal cortex. The activity increased as the tasks got harder. Makes a lot of sense in terms of the WMM: as demand on theCE increases, it has to work harder to fulfill its function. This provides evidence that the central executive has a physical reality in the brain
What are the two explanations for forgetting
Interference
Retrieval failure
What is interference
Two oieces of information conflicting with each other. Interference between memories makes it harder to locate stored information
What is forgetting in the LTM most likely because of
We can’t get access to information even though it is available
What is Proactive interference
Old memory interferes with a newer one.
E.g a teacher has learned so many names over the years that she has difficulty remember the current ones
Easy way to remember proactive interference means old interferes with new
Proactive
L
D interferes with new
What is retroactive interference
Newer memories interfer with older ones.
Teacher remembered so many names this year she can’t remember last years names
Easy way to remember retroactive interference mean new interfereing with old
N
Retroactive
W
Interfere with old
When is interference worse
When memories are similar.
In proactive interference it could be because previously stored information makes new information more difficult to store.
In retroactive it could be that new information overwrites previous memories which are similar.
Key study into the effects of similarity on forgetting
McDonald
Procedure of McDonald’s study
Participants given a list of ten words to learn off by heart. Following this the participants were given a new list with the new material similar to the old.
There were six conditions with the similarity of new lists to old being varied
What were the six conditions in McDonald’s study
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
- Unrelated words
- Nonesense syllables
- Three digit numbers
- No new list
Findings of McDonald’s study
Performance depended on the second list. The most similar list produced the worst recall (the synonyms list).
Conclusions of McDonald’s study
Interference is strongest when the memories are similar. In group one it is likely the words with the same meanings as the original list blocked access or that the new material became confused with the old material
Strength of the interference as an explanation for forgetting
Evidence from lab studies consistently demonstrate interference in memory. mcdonalds study into the effects of similarity. Most of these studies show that both types of interference are likely to cause forgetting. Strength because lab experiments control the effect of and thus give us confierence that interference is a valid explanation
Limitation of research into interference as an explanation for forgetting
Research uses artificial methods. Stimulus material used in most studies are lists of words. This is quite different from things we remember in everyday life like faces, birthdays etc. Limitation because the use of artificial tasks makes interference much more likely in the lab. It may not be as likely as an explanation for foregetting outside of the lab.
Limitation of the research into interference (time allowed)
For practical reasons, the time periods between learning lists of words and recalling them are relatively short. E.g w participant may have to learn one list of words and then a second list 20 minutes after. Problem with this is the research reduces the whole experience of learning into a very short time period and is unlikely to reflect everyday life
Study that supports the interference explanations n
Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to remember the names of the teams they had played so far in the season. The results showed it didn’t matter how long ago the match was it mattered how many games had been played after. So a players recall of a match three weeks ago was much better if no matches had been played since then.
What can cause retrieval failure
An absesne of cues
Why are cues important in retrieving information
When info is initially placed in memory associated cues are stored at the same time. If these cues are not available st the time of recall you might not be able to access memories that are actually there
What is ESP
The encoding specificity principle. Tulving concludes that a cue can Help us recall information if the cue was present at encoding and at retrieval. The closer the retrieval cue is to the original cue, the better the cue works
What do some cues have
Meaning linked to the memory. Or no meaningful link st all
What are the two types of forgetting to do with cues
Context dependent forgetting
State-dependant forgetting
What is context dependent foregetting
When memory retrieval is dependent on an external/ environmental cue like the weather that was present at the time of learning
What is state dependent foregetting
When memory retrieval is dependent on an internal cue - state of mind like feeling upset that was present at the time of learning
What is the key study into context dependent forgetting
Godden and Baddeley
Procedure of Godden and Baddeleys study
Looked at how external cues present st the time of encoding affected memory recall. Deep sea divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and were then asked to recall the words either underwater or on land. There were four conditions.
What were the four conditions used in Godden and Baddeleys study
Learn on land recall on land
Learn on land recall underwater
Learn underwater recall underwater
Learn underwater recall on land
Findings of Godden and Baddeleys study
Recall 40% lower in non-matching conditions than matching conditions.
Conclusions of Godden and Baddeleys study
When the external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall this led to retrieval failure due to lack of cues
Strength of retrieval failure due to lack of cues
Lots of supporting evidence. Godden and Baddeleys research supports the retrieval explanations. The amount of supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation. Especially true when the evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real life situations as well as in highly controlled conditions of the lab.
Limitation of Tulvings encoding specificity principle
Can’t be tested and leads to a form of circular reaosning. In experiments where a cue produces the successful recall of a word we assume that a cue must have been present at the time of learning. But this is just an assumption there is no way to independently establish whether or not the cue had really been encoded
Limitation of the context effect as an explanation for forgetting
Baddeley argues that context effects are actually not strong in real life. Different contexts have to be very different before an effect is seen. For example in real life learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because the environments aren’t different enough. Limitation because t means that the real life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don’t actually explain much forgetting
Strength of context related cues as an explanation for foregetting
Useful real/life applications. People often go upstairs and went downstairs to get something but they foreget what it was but when they go upstairs again they will remember. So in this case it shows that when you have trouble remembering something it is worth making the effort to revisit the environment in which you first learned it. The basic principle of the cognitive interview, a method of getting eyewitnesses to a crime scene to recall more information by using a technique called ‘context reinstallment’
What are the factors effecting eyewhitnesss testimony
Misleading information
Anxiety
What is a leading question
Questions which because of the way they are phrased suggest a certain answer. E.g was the knife in the criminals LEFT hand?
What does the response bias explanation suggest
That the wording of the question has no real effect on the eyewitness memories of an event, but it does influence how they decide to answer
What is substitution explanation
Suggests the wording of the question does affect eyewitnesses actual memory of the event. The wording may interfere with the original memory in some way which distorts the accuracy of that memory
What is the key study for leading questions
Loftus and Palmer
Procedure of the Loftus and Palmer study
45 american students watched film clips of car accidents and then gave them questions about the accident. The critical question was ‘about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’.
Five groups of participants each given a different verb in the critical question.
Hit/contacted/bumped/collided/smashed
Findings of the Loftus and Palmer study
Smashed produced the highest estimate (40.5) while contacted was the lowest. (31.8 mph)
Conclusions of the Loftus and Palmer study
Leading question biased the eyewitness recall of an event. The participants altered their responses according to the verb.
When does post-event discussion occur
When there is more than one witness to an event. They may talk about what they have seen with other people or simply hear what others have experienced
Why do post event discussions contaminate memories
Witnesses memories get changed by what others recall because they combine (mis)information from other whitnesses with their own memories.
What is memory conformity
When witnesses often go along with each other either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnessses are right or wrong. It’s an example of compliance
What is the key study for post event discussion
Gabbert et al
Procedure of Gabberts study
In pairs they watched different versions of the same crime video (different points of view) this meant that each participant could see elements in the events that others could not. They then discussed what they had seen before completing a test of recall.
Findings of Gabberts study
71% made recall errors of events they didn’t see in the video but had picked up in the post event discussion.
0% made errors in a control group.
Strong the of research into misleading information
Real-life applications. Important practical use for police officers and investigators. This is important because the consequent of inaccurate EWT can be serious. This can improve the way the legal system works and psychologists can make an important difference by appearing in court trials as experts
Limitation of Loftus and Palmer study
Used artificial materials. Videos of car accidents are very different to whitnessing the real thing because of the lack of stress. Emotions can have an infleunce in memory. Limitation because studies that use artificial tasks may tell us very little about how leading questions affect EWT in cases of real crimes or accidents. It could be researchers are too pessimistic about the accuracy of EWT.
Limitation of eyewitness testimonies
Individual differences. Older people are less accurate than younger people when giving eyewhitness reports. Rhodes found that people in age groups 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than those in 55-78 years. However all age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own age group. Research studies often use younger people as the target to identify and this may mean that testimony appears less accurate that it really is.
What is own-age bias
The tendency to recognise or remember things more easily if they relate to your own age group
Key study into anxiety having a negative effect
Johnson and Scott
Procedure of Johnson and Scott’s study
Studying accuracy of recall of the witness due to weapon focus.
Participants were made to believe there were to take part in a label study and left in a waiting room.
They heard an argument in the next room.
In low anxiety condition a man walked through the waiting room holding a greasy pen.
In high anxiety condition breaking glass was heart and a man ran out holding a bloody knife.
Participants later picked out the man fr m a set of 50 photos.
Findings of Johnson and Scott study
49% of participants seeing the man carrying the pen were able to identify him.
Only 33% of those in high anxiety conditions could identify the man with the knife
Conclusions of the Johnson and Scott study
The tunnel theory of memory applies
What is the tunnel theory of memory
Argues a witnesses attention narrows to focus on a weapon because it is a source of danger and anxiety supporting the weapon focus explanation
What is weapon focus
Witnesses attention is drawn to the weapon held by a criminal and therefore other details about a scenario are missed and not committed to memory
Key study of anxiety having a positive effect
Yuille and Cutshall
Procedures of Yuille and Cutshall study
Interviewed 13 witnesses to a shooting 4-5 months after the event. Shop owner shot a their dead with 21 witnesses, 13 agreed to take part.
Interviews compared to the original police interviews made at the one of the shooting.
Witnesses also asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time of the incident.
Findings of the Yuille and Cutshall study
The accuracy was high after 5 months though some details were less accurate such as colour of items and age etc.
What is the colocusion of the Yuille and Cutshall study
Those participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate about 88% compared to 75% in the less stressed group
What do Yerkes and Dodson say about the contradictory findings of Johnson and Scott and Yuille and Cutshall
The relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an ‘inverted U’. States that performance increases with stress but only to a certain point where it decrease dramatically. Called the Yerkes-Dodson Law
Who applied the Yerkes-Dodson Law to EWT
Deffenbacher
How did defrenbacher apply the Yerkes-Dodson law to EWT
Found lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy.
Accuracy increases with anxiety up to an optimal point.
A drastic decline in accuracy is seen when an eyewitness experienced more stress than the optimal point.
Limitation of Johnson and Scott’s study
May test surprise rather than anxiety. Reason participants focus on the weapon may be because they are surprised at what they see rather than because they are scared. Pickrells experiment. Suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusaualness rather than anxiety and therefore tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT.
What was Pickrells experiment
Used scissors handgun wallet and raw chicken as hand held items in a hairdressing salon. Eyewitness accuracy was significant poorer in high surprise levels (chicken and handgun)
What is a limitation of field studies like Yuille and Cutshall
They lack control. Researchers usually internee real life eyewitnesses after the event. All sorts of thing will have happened to the participants in the mean time that the researchers have no control over. For example post event discussion may have taken place. Limitation of field research because it is possible extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall rather than anxiety and it is difficult to isolate these variables
Limitations of research into anxiety
Ethical issues. Creating anxiety in participants is very risky. Potentially unethical because it may subject people to psychological harm purely for the purpose of research. This is why real life studies are so beneficial. This issue doesn’t challenge the findings from studies like Johnson and Scott but it does question the need for research
Limitation of the inverted U explanation
Too simplistic. Anxiety is very difficult to define and measure accurately. This is because it has many elements: cognitive, behavioural, emotional and physical. The inverted U explanation assumes that the phsycial arousal is linked to poor performance but says nothing about other factors like emotional experience.
What is the cognitive interview based on
Psychological understanding of memory to maximise accuracy and
Who created the cognitive interview
Fisher and Gieselman
What did Fisher and Geiselman argue
That eyewitness testimony could be improved if police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses. Recommended that such techniques should be based on psychological insights into memory and called it the cognitive interview
At the beginning of the cognitive interview was does the interviewer aim to establish
Rapport with the interviewee, so they feel the interviewer is not against them but will try to understand their feelings
What are the four characteristics of the cognitive interview
Report everything
Context reinstatement
Reverse the order
Change perspective
What does report everything in the CI consist of
Including absolutely everything the witness can remember even though it may seem irrevalsnt or the witness doesn’t fee confident about it. Seemingly trivial detail may be important and may trigger other memories
How does context reinstatement in the CI work
Witness returns to the original crime scene in their mind and imagine the environment e.g the weather and their emotions e.g their feelings. Based on context dependent forgetting
How does the reverse the order element in the CI work
Events recalled in a different chronological order e.g from the final point back to the beginning. This prevents people using their expectations of the event must have happened rather than the actual event. Also prevents dishonesty
How does the change perspective element in the CI work
Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives e.g how it would have appeared to other witnesses or the perpetrator. Done to prevent the infleunce of expectations and schema on recall
Who developed the enhanced cognitive interview
Fisher
What is included in the enhanced cognitive interview
Focus on the social dynamics of the interactions like knowing when to have eye contact.
Reducing the eyewitnesses anxiety, minimising distractions getting witnesses to speak slowly and ask open questions
Limitation of the cognitive interview (time)
Time consuming. Police are reluctant to use the method because it takes more time than a standard interviews e.g more time is needed to establish rapport and allow the interviewee to relax. CI also requires special training so it is unlikely that a proper version of the CI is actually used. This could explain why police have not been that impressed by it.
Strength of the cognitive interview
Considerable support for the enhanced CI effectiness. Kohnken conducted a meta-analysis of data from 50 studies and he found the enhanced CI provided more correct information than a standard police interview. Strength because studies such as this one unification that there are real practical benefits to the police of using the CI.
Limitation of the cognitive interview (valubility)
Some elements may be more valuable than others. Milne and Bull found that each individual element was valuable however when using two together it produces better recall that using them separately. This suggests that at least two elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eyewitnesses even if the full CI isn’t to be used.
Limitation of the cognitive interview (false positives)
CI aims to increase the amount of correct information recalled but the recall of incorrect information may also be increased. Kohnken found an 81% increase of correct information but also a 61% increase of incorrect informstion (false positives) when the enhanced CI was compared to a standard interview. Suggests police need to treat all information collected with caution.
