Memory

Question 1

McGeoch and McDonald studied retroactive interference. How?

Answer 1

Participants were put into six groups and had to learn a list of 10 words until they were 100% accurate. They then had to learn a new list:

Group 1: synonyms

Group 2: antonyms

Group 3: unrelated words

Group 4: nonsense syllables

Group 5: 3 digit numbers

Group 6: No new list

Question 2

What does neuroimaging evidence tell us about LTM?

Answer 2

Tulving et al got participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were PET scanned. They found episodic and emantic memories were in the prefrontal cortex. Left prefrontal cortex for semantic memories episodic memories from right prefrontal cortex.

Question 3

What is a strength and weakness of Harry Bahrick’s research looking at LTM using yearbook photos?

Answer 3

Strength: Higher external vaildity. Real life meaningful memories.

Weakness: Confounding variables not controlled, such as the fact that Bahrick’s participants may have looked at their yearbook photos and rehearsed their memory over the years.

Question 4

What are the evaluative points for interference theory?

Answer 4

Consistently supported by thousands of lab experiments which are highly controlled and therefore have a strong validity.

But artificial materials consisting of lists of words which is a limitation because this is an artifical task and therefore may have low external validity.

However, Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to remember teams they had played in that season. Most players had missed games so some had to remember back two or three weeks ago. Results showed that accurate recall depended a lot more of number of games played in the meantime than how long ago the match was. This has high external validity. Burke and Skrull also showed high external validity in their magazine advert experiment. (bottom left page 54 of text book).

Question 5

What is the retrieval failure theory?

Answer 5

That people forget information because of insufficient cues. The information is not forgotten but not able to be accessed.

Question 6

What is the main strength of the Multi Store Model?

Answer 6

Supporting research evidence (Baddeley, Joseph Jacobs, Peterson and Peterson, Bahrick).

Case Study: HM. Brain surgery to relieve epilepsy. Hippocampus removed from both sides. LTM tested over and over but never improved (couldn’t recall what he’d eaten that day, read same magazine repeatedly). However, for STM tests, (immediate memory span), he performed well.

Question 7

What is the capacity and duration of short term memory?

Answer 7

5-9 items

18-30 seconds

Question 8

Name one experiment to show context dependent forgetting and one to show state dependent forgetting.

Answer 8

Context dependent: Godden and Baddeley - deep sea divers recalling on land and underwater. Accurate recall was 40% lower in non-matching conditions. (Because external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall leading to retrieval failure) Baker et al - gum gum/no gum gum etc. Participants learned 15 words in two minutes. After 24 hours more words rememberd when the context was the same (gumgum/nogumnogum).

State dependent: Carter and Cassidy gave anti histamine to their participants. In the conditins where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on memory test was worse.

Question 9

What is the dual task performance experiment that Baddeley did to support the separate existence of the visuo-spatial sketchpad in the Working Memory Model?

Answer 9

Participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks (tracking a light and describing the letter F) than doing both a visual and verbal task at the same time. This increased difficulty is because both visual tasks compete for the same slave system whereas, when doing a verbal and visual task simultaneously, there is no cmopetition. This means there must be a separate slavee system (the VSS), that processes visual input.

Question 10

What research was done on the duration of STM?

What were the limitations of this research?

Answer 10

Peterson and Peterson tested 24 students. Each student took part in 8 trials. On each tiral the student was given a trigram (e.g. YCG) and a 3 digit number to count backwards from until told to stop. This counting was to prevent any rehearsal of the trigram. On each trial they were told to stop after a different amount of time 2, 6, 9., 12, 15, 18 seconds (the retention interval).

Criticism: Artificial stimulus material (low external validity). The number counting may have displaced the trigram in the STM.

Question 11

What are the real life applications of different aspects of LTM?

Answer 11

Belleville et al. demonstrated that episodic memories could be improved in older people with mild cognitive impairment. The trained participants performed better on an episodic memory test that untrained (control gorup. Episodic memory is the type of memory most often affected by mild cognitive impairment.

Question 12

Evaluate retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting.

Answer 12

Lots of supporting evidence by Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassaday. This supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation, especially when there are real life aspects e.g. smell in a museum, chewing gum. However the learning stimulus (list of words) was artificial.

When Godden and Baddeley did a follow up exp. where the divers had to recognise words from a list instead of retrieving it by recall, there was no context-dependent effect which is a limitation of the idea of context dependent effect - recall has to be in a certain way.

Although context dependent effects are not strong in real life (being in a different room is a lot weaker context than being underwater), it has had real life applications e.g. cognitive interview where you are taken to the original scene/context.

Question 13

What is chunking?

Answer 13

Grouping sets of digits or letters into units or “chunks”. George Miller made observations of everyday practice e.g. 7 notes in a musical scale, 7 days in a week. He noticed that people can recall 5 words as well as 5 letters and suggested this was by “chunking”.

Question 14

What are declarative and non-declarative memories?

Answer 14

Cohen and Squire accept that procedural memories are one type of LTM but argue that episodic and semantic are stored together in one store (declarative memory) i.e. memories that can be consciously recalled. In contrast procedural memories are non-declarative.

Question 15

What are the criticisms of the Multi Store Model?

Answer 15

Shallice and Warrington studied KF whose STM was poor when digits read out but much better when reading to himself. Further studies shows there could be even an STM for non-verbal sounds.

Craik and Watkins discovered two types of rehearsal. Maintenance rehearsal which stays in STM and Elaborative rehearsal needed for long-term storage when you link the information to your existing knowledge or think about what it means.

Question 16

What are the four main components of the Working Memory Model?

Answer 16

Central executive - monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave systems.

Phonological loop - slave system dealing with auidtory information. This is divided to phonological store, storing what is heard and articulatory process which allows maintenance rehearsal.

Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS) - slave system storing visual and spatial information. Divided into visual cache which stores visual data and inner scribe which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.

Episodic buffer - Added later (2000), this is a temporary store for information integrating visual, spatial and verbal information and maintaining a sense of time sequencing. Links working memory to LTM and wider cognitive processes.

Question 17

What is Tulving’s Encoding Specifity Principle?

Answer 17

If a cue is to help us to recall information it has to be present at encoding (when we learn the material) AND at retrieval (when we are recalling it).

Some cues are linked in a meaningful way like mnemonic techniques. Others are not coded in a meaningful way e.g. context-dependent forgetting (external cues) and state-dependent forgetting (internal cues).

Question 18

What did Peterson and Peterson’s research on the duration of STM involve?

(Think of a rabbit and a clock to help (Peter Rabbit))

Answer 18

24 undergraduates took part in 8 trials. ON each trial the student was given a trigram such as YCG to remember and a 3 digit number.

Student had to count backwards from 3 digit number until told to stop. This was to prevent any rehearsal of the trigram (which would be a confounding variable)

On each trial they were told to stop after either 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds. This is the retention interval.

Over 75% correct responses after 3 seconds. Less than 10% after 18 seconds. Therefore STM very short unless verbal rehearsal.

Question 19

In the MSM, what is the duration and capacity of the sensory register?

What are the two main stores?

Answer 19

capacity = high e.g. over 100,000,000 cells in the eye recording data.

duration = less than half a second

Iconic = visual information coded visually

Echoic = Auditory information coded acoustically

Question 20

What was Fiona Gabbert’s EWT experiment?

Answer 20

Participants studied in pairs. Each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points of view. Both participants then discussed what they had seen before completing an individual test of recall. 71% mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video. In a control group with no discussion the rate was 0%. Gabbert concluded that memory conformity was taking place (both NSI and ISI).

Question 21

What are a-f in the following image/which memory model is this/what are the red arrows?

Answer 21

a = Sensory register

b = STM

c = LTM

d = maintenance rehearsal

e = retrieval

f = prolonged rehearsal

red arrows = response (remembering)

MULTI STORE MODEL

Question 22

What research did Baddeley do on Coding of Memory?

Answer 22

Group 1: acoustically similar
Group 2: acoustically dissimilar
Group 3: semantically similar
Group 4: semantically dissimilar

Participants tended to do worse with acoustically similar words immediately after hearing it and semantically worse if asked after 20 minutes.

(STM is stored acoustically so more likely to get muddled with acoustically similar after short time, LTM is stored semantically so more likely to get muddled with semantically similary after longer)

Question 23

What did Clive Wearing tell us about Long Term Memory?

Answer 23

Despite not remembering recent conversations and events, he could still read music and play the piano. This supports Tulving’s view that there are different memory stores in LTM. One can be damaged but others are unaffeted.

Question 24

There are two explanations for misleading information affecting EWT. The response-bias explanation and the substitution explanation. What are they?

Answer 24

Response bias suggests the wording of the question has no real effect on the memories but influences the way they decide to answer. (e.g. smashed increasing estimates of speed).

The substitution explanation suggests that the leading question actually changes the participants’ memory. (e.g. recalling broken glass when there was none).

Question 25

Interference occurs when two pieces of information conflict with each other resulting in forgetting or distortion.

What is the difference between proactive interference and retroactive interference?

Answer 25

Proactive is when an older memory interferes with a newer one.

Retroactive is when a newer one interferes with an older one.

Question 26

Evaluate misleading information as a factor affecting eyewitness testimony.

Answer 26

Hugely important real life applications in police interviews and phrasing their questions. Also improved the legal system.

However, tasks artificial as the accidents were on film clips in Loftus and Palmer, therefore the stress of the real event not experienced.

Evidence that older people are less accurate than younger people (Anastasi and Rhodes). Therefore some age groups appear less accurate when this is not true - individual differences.

Zaragosa and McCloskey argue that answers given in lab study are result of demand characteristics.

Question 27

What are the stages of the Cognitive Interview (Fisher and Geiselman)?

Answer 27

1. Report everything (details may be cues to trigger other important aspects)
2. Reinstate the context (context dependent forgetting)
3. Reverse the order (prevent expectations of how it played out)
4. Change perspective (disrupt the expectations and schema on recall)

The enhanced cognitive interview also includes when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it. It also includes reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open-ended questions.

Question 28

Evaluate the cognitive interview.

Answer 28

Time consuming, longer than standard police interview.

Requires special training which is not always possible due to time and money.

Milne and Bull found that report everything and context reinstatement are the strongest aspects of the interview confirming police officers’ suspicions that some aspects of the CI are more useful than others. However, this can be used to reduce time of interview and has credibility amongst police.

Meta analysis by Kohnken of 50 studies showed the enhanced CI consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview. This shows that it gives police a greater chance of being effective - beneficial to society as a whole.

However, Kohnken found that although there was an increase of 81% of correct information using enhanced CI, also increased 61% of incorrect information.

Question 29

Anxiety has strong emotional and physical effects on recall but not clear whether it makes EWT better or worse. What experiment shows it has a negative effect?

Answer 29

Johnson and Scott’s waiting room experiment where they heard an argument in the next room. Low anxiety - man walked out with grease and pen. High anxiety - heated argument, breaking glass and man walked out with knife and blood. 49% low anxiety condition recalled the man from set of photos, 33% high anxiety condition.

Valentine and Mesout carried out a study in the Horror Labyrinth in the London Dungeon. Visitors were offered reduced entrance fee if they completed a questionnaire at the end of the visit to assess their level of self-reported anxiety and wore wireless heart monitors to confirm. They then had to describe the actor encountered in the dungeon. 17% high anxiety identified the actor in a line-up compared to 75% correct identification by lower anxiety group.

Tunnel theory argues that the attention narrows to focus on the source of anxiety i.e. the weapon, thus missing the face of the person.

Question 30

Anxiety has strong emotional and physical effects on recall but not clear whether it makes EWT better or worse. What experiment shows it has a positive effect?

Answer 30

Yuille and Cutshall studied a real-life shooting in a gun shop where the shop owner shot the thief dead. 21 witnesses, 13 agreed to take part in the study 4-5 months after the incident and their reports were compared with the original police interviews. The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed on a 7 point scale they were during the incident and asked if they had any emotional problems such as sleeplessness since.

The witnesses still all had high accuracy. The particupants who reported highest levels of stress were most accurate (88% compared to 75% for less stressed).

Question 31

What is the Yerkes Dodson Law (in reference to anxiety in EWT)?

Answer 31

Yerkes and Dodson in 1908 postulated that the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U. Deffenbacher in 1983 applied the Yerkes Dodson Law to EWT. Lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy but memory becomes more accurate as anxiety increases. However, there comes a point where optimal anxiety is reached and more stress than this causes recall of the event a drastic decline.

Question 32

What are the evaluation points for anxiety as an effect on EWT?

Answer 32

Weapon focus may not be relevant (Pickel and the handgun, wallet, scissors and chicken in a hairdressing salon). EW accuracy was much poorer in handgun and chicken (unusualness).

Field studies sometimes lack control. There may be post event discussion/contamination from media reports in the meantime. These extraneous variables are a limitation.

Ethical issues of causing psychological harm via anxiety in the lab situations, however the benefits may outweigh the issues.

Demand characteristics in lab studies.