Memory

Question 1

What is the multi-store model?

Answer 1

A representation of how memory works in terms of three stores called sensory register, short-term memory and long term memory.

It also describes how information is transferred from one store to another, how it is remembered and how it is forgotten.

Question 2

What are the stages of the multi-store memory model?

Answer 2

Environmental input
Sensory Memory
Encoding
Short Term Memory
Encoding
Long Term Memory
Retrieval 
Short Term Memory
Rehearsing 
Short Term Memory

Question 3

What is the sensory register?

Answer 3

Environmental stimuli from the senses is received by the sensory memory, where it remains for split seconds unless attention is paid to any of the information.

Question 4

What is the sensory memory?

Answer 4

The sensory memory receives and stores information from the environment through our senses.

Question 5

Information from sight is stored in what memory?

Answer 5

Iconic Memory

Question 6

Information from hearing is stored in what memory?

Answer 6

Echoic Memory

Question 7

How long does information last in the sensory register?

Answer 7

It lasts a few seconds before it decays but it lasts long enough to be encoded.

Question 8

What selects what information we encode?

Answer 8

The attention mechanism.

Question 9

What is Short term memory?

Answer 9

Holds all the information the individual is thinking about consciously at one time, it is a limited capacity store.

Question 10

If memory is encoded from sensory memory it reaches where?

Answer 10

Short term memory

Question 11

If memory is encoded from the short term memory it reaches where?

Answer 11

Long term memory

Question 12

What is Encoding?

Answer 12

The process of changing information to a form the memory can deal with.

Question 13

How do we encode to the short term memory?

Answer 13

Acoustically (Echoic)

Question 14

What is the capacity of the short term memory?

Answer 14

7 (+ or -) 2

Question 15

What is the capacity of the short term memory?

Answer 15

7 (+ or -) 2

Question 16

What did Miller in 1956 do that supported the multi store model?

Answer 16

Miller in 1956 suggested when seeing how many numbers people could remember and on a sort of screen flashing by when they’re told to write them down they only write down a maximum of nine and a minimum of 5 on average.

This supports the capacity of of the short term memory of 7 (+ or -) 2

Question 17

What is Rehearsal?

Answer 17

To maintain the duration of items in the short term memory it must be rehearsed, this re-enters the information into the STM.

Question 18

What are the two types of rehearsal?

Answer 18

Maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal

Question 19

What is Maintenance rehearsal?

Answer 19

Maintenance rehearsal keeps information in the short term memory.

Question 20

What is elaborative rehearsal?

Answer 20

Elaborative rehearsal is the process that keeps information in the long term memory.

Question 21

What is Long term memory?

Answer 21

Long term memory is a potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time.

Question 22

What is the capacity of the long term memory

Answer 22

It has unlimited capacity.

Question 23

What is retrieval?

Answer 23

Retrieval is the process of recalling information from the long term memory to be transferred back to the short term memory.

Question 24

What is retrieval?

Answer 24

Retrieval is the process of recalling information from the long term memory to be transferred back to the short term memory.

Question 25

How is short term memory encoded?

Answer 25

Acoustically

Question 26

What is acoustic encoding?

Answer 26

Acoustic encoding is when the information we encode is through sounds.

Question 27

What is semantic encoding?

Answer 27

This means that memory is encoded through meaning, if we remember something in a lot of detail if we elaborate upon it we give it meaning.

Question 28

What is the duration of the short term memory?

Answer 28

A few seconds

Question 29

What is the duration of long term memory?

Answer 29

Potentially a lifetime.

Question 30

What are the weaknesses of the multi-store memory model?

Answer 30

Shallice and Warrington showed that STM doesn’t have to come between Sensory Memory and LTM. They looked at Brain damaged patients who lost their STM but could still have past LTM. This suggests that there isn’t two separate memory systems and it should all be one big system.

The fact that there is only one LTM memory stored is challenged by how there are different types of memory; semantic (general information), procedural (how we do things) and episodic (past experiences). LTM doesn’t distinguish between these three types of memory, that fact that it just says LTM is pretty vague.

Shallice and Warrington also conducted a KF study, who’s STM was restricted to verbal material. However, acoustically encoded sounds that weren’t words were also stored well. This shows that there isn’t just one store for all STM and that the multi-store model is vague.

Question 31

What are the strengths of the multi-store memory model?

Answer 31

The distinction between STM and LTM has been supported. People with amnesia have difficulty with STM tasks but can recall LTM easily. This proves there are two separate memory systems, LTM and STM.

The model is supported by the Serial Position Effect. When remembering a list, people will mostly remember the first few (primary effect) and the last few (recency effect) This is because the first few have been rehearsed and the last few have not decayed. This shows that the rehearsal mechanism does work and because the first numbers that we remember are the ones that have been rehearsed and the last ones are the ones that haven’t decayed yet and middle numbers we haven’t remembered at all because they haven’t decayed and they haven’t been rehearsed. This proves that the rehearsal mechanism must exist.

Question 32

Who did made the multi-store model?

Answer 32

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin

Question 33

What Endel Tulving say about the multi-store models view on LTM?

Answer 33

It was too simplistic and inflexible. Tulving proposed that there are in fact three LTM stores, containing quite different types of information. He called them episodic memory, semantic memory and procedural memory.

Question 34

What is a episodic memory?

Answer 34

A long term memory store for personal events. It includes memories of when the events occurred and of the people, objects, places and behaviours involved. Memories from this store have to be retrieved consciously and with effort.

Question 35

What is Semantic memory?

Answer 35

A long term memory store for our knowledge of the world. This includes facts and our knowledge of what words and concepts mean. Semantic knowledge is less personal and more about facts we share. It contains an immense collection of material which, given its nature is constantly being added to. These memories usually also need to be recalled deliberately.

Question 36

What is Procedural memory?

Answer 36

A long term memory store for our knowledge of how to do things. This includes our memories for learned skills. We usually recall these memories without making a conscious or deliberate effort.

Question 37

What was the case study of Henry Molaison and Clive Wearing, and how does it support that there are different memory stores in LTM?

Answer 37

Both men had impaired Episodic memory due to amnesia. They had great difficulty recalling events that had happened to them in their pasts. But their semantic memories were relatively unaffected. For example, they still understood the meaning of words. So HM would not be able to recall stroking a dog half an hour earlier and could not remember having owned a dog in the past, but he would not need to have the concept of ‘dog’ explained to him. Their procedural memories were also intact, they both knew how to tie their shoelaces e.g.

This evidence supports Tulvings View that there are different memory stores in LTM. One store can be damaged but other stores are unaffected. This is clear evidence that not only are these memories different, but they are stored in different parts of the brain.

Question 38

What was Tulving et al 1994 and how does it support that there is a physical reality to different types of LTM within the brain?

Answer 38

Tulving et al 1994 got their participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner. They found episodic and semantic memories were both recalled from an area of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex. This area is divided in two, one on each side of the brain. The left prefrontal cortex was involved in recalling semantic memories. Episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex.

The strength of this finding is that it supports the view that there is a physical reality to the different types of LTM, within the brain. It has also been confirmed many times in later research studies, further supporting the validity of this finding.

Question 39

What are the problems with Clive Wearning and Henry Molaison case study?

Answer 39

Such clinical studies are not perfect. For instance there is a serous lack of control of all different variables in clinical studies.

Question 40

What studies are there that don’t support Tulving’s idea that there is three types of LTM?

Answer 40

Cohen and Squire 1980 disagree with Tulving’s decision of LTM into three types. They accept that procedural memories represent one type of LTM. But they argue that episodic and semantic memories are stored together in one LTM store that they call declarative memory i.e. memories that can be consciously recalled. In contrast procedural memories are non-declarative.

Question 41

Explain one difference between episodic and semantic memory?

Answer 41

One difference between them is the extent to which we are taught them - no one teaches you your episodic memories but many semantic ones are taught.

Question 42

What is the working memory model?

Answer 42

A representation of short term memory. It suggests that STM is a dynamic processor of different types of information using sub-units co-ordinated by a central decision making system..

Question 43

What are the 4 main components of the working memory model?

Answer 43

Central Executive

Phonological loop

The Visio Spatial Sketchpad

Episodic buffer

Question 44

What is the central executive in the working memory model?

Answer 44

It is the component of the working memory model that co-ordinates the activities of the three subsystems in memory. It also allocates processing resources to those activities.

Question 45

What are the three slave systems in the working memory model?

Answer 45

Phonological loop

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

Episodic buffer.

Question 46

What is the phonological loop?

Answer 46

Is a slave system of the working memory model that processes information in terms of sound. This includes both written and spoken material. It’s divided into the phonological store and the articulatory process.

Question 47

What is the phonological store?

Answer 47

The phonological store is a place which stores the words you hear.

Question 48

What is the Articulatory process?

Answer 48

A process which allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating sounds) or words in a ‘loop’ to keep them in working memory while they are needed. The capacity of this ‘loop’ is believed to be two seconds worth of what you can say.

Question 49

What is the Visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 49

The component of the working memory model that processes visual and spatial information in a mental space often called our ‘inner eye’.

Logie 1995 subdivided the visuo-spatial sketchpad into the visual cache and the inner scribe.

Question 50

What is the capacity of the Visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 50

It also has a limited capacity which according to Baddeley 2003 is about three or four objects.

Question 51

What is the visual cache?

Answer 51

A cache which stores visual data

Question 52

What is the inner scribe?

Answer 52

A scribe which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.

Question 53

What is the Episodic buffer?

Answer 53

A slave system that was added to the model by Baddeley in 2000. It is a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial, and verbal information processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time-sequencing basically recording events that are happening.

It can be seen as the storage component of the central executive and has a limited capacity of about four Chunks (Baddeley 2012. It also links working memory to LTM and wider cognitive processed such as perception.

Question 54

What is the Episodic buffer (Simply definiton)?

Answer 54

The component of the working memory model that brings together material from the other subsystems into a single memory rather than separate strands. It also provides a bridge between working memory and long-term memory.

Question 55

What was Shallice and Warrington’s 1970 case study of patient KF who suffered brain damage and how does it support the working memory model?

Answer 55

After this damage happened KF had poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information normally presented visually, i.e. he had difficulty with sounds but could recall letters and digits.

This suggests that just his phonological loop had been damaged leaving other areas of memory intact.

Thie supports the existence of a separate visual and acoustic store. However, evidence from brain-damaged patients may not be reliable because it concerns unique cases with patients who have had traumatic experiences.

Question 56

What is there supporting the existence of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 56

Baddeley et al 1975 showed that 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 competition.

This means there must be a separate slave system that processes visual input.

Question 57

What evidence is there supporting a lack of clarity over the central executive?

Answer 57

Cognitive psychologists suggest that the central executive is unsatisfactory and doesn’t really explain anything.

Alan Baddeley himself recognised this when he said “The central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory” (Baddeley, 2003).

The central executive needs to be more clearly specified than just being simply ‘attention’. For example, some psychologists believe it may consist of separate components. This means that the WMM hasn’t been fully explained.

Question 58

What is interference?

Answer 58

An explanation for forgetting because are memory blocks another causing one or both memories to become distorted or forgotten.

Question 59

What are proactive interference’s?

Answer 59

This occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one.

Question 60

What is an example of a proactive interference?

Answer 60

Your teacher has learned so many names in the past that she has difficulty remembering the names of her current class.

Question 61

What is a Retroactive interference?

Answer 61

This happens when a newer memory interferes with an older one.

Question 62

What is an example of a retroactive interference?

Answer 62

Your teacher has learned so many new names this year that she has difficulty remembering the names of the students last year.

Question 63

When is the interference worse?

Answer 63

In both cases the interference is worse when the memories are similar, as discovered by John McGeoch and William McDonald 1931

Question 64

Who discovered that interference is worse when the memories are similar?

Answer 64

John McGeoch and William McDonald 1931

Question 65

What was the procedure for McGeoch and McDonald study that found that interference is worse when the memories are similar?

Answer 65

McGeoch and McDonald studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials.

Participants had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then learned a new list.

There were six groups of participants who had to learn different types of lists:
G1-Synonyms
G2-Autonyms
G3-Words unrelated to the original ones
G4-Consonant syllables
G5-Three digit numbers
G6-No new list- these participants just rested.

Question 66

What was the findings of the study by McGeoch and McDonald 1931?

Answer 66

When the participants then recalled the original list of words, their performance depended on the nature of the second list. The most similar material synonyms produced the worst recall. This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar.

Question 67

What evidence is there supporting Interference McDonald and Mcgeoch findings that interference effects memory?

Answer 67

Thousands of lab experiments have been carried out into this explanation for getting. Most of these studies show interference affecting LTM. This is a strength as labs control the effects of irrelevant influences and thus give confidence that interference is valid explanation for at least some forgetting.

Baddeley and Hitch 1977 study asked Rugby players to try and remember the names of the teams they had played so far in the season week by week. The results showed that accurate recall depended on the number games they had played in the meantime. So a players recall of a team from three weeks ago was much better if they had played no matches since then. If they had played a lot - this would interfere with their recall. This study shows that interference explanations can apply to at least some everyday situations

Question 68

What evidence is there against McDonald and McGoech findings about interference affecting forgetting?

Answer 68

The materials used to test interference affecting memory are generally artificial materials such as consonant syllables. But this is quite some distance from the things we learn and try to remember in everyday life. This is a limitation because the use of artificial tasks makes interference much more likely in the lab.

There is an over emphasis on the affect of interference, the two memories need to be quite similar. It is for this reason that interference is considered to be a relatively unimportant explanation for everyday forgetting.

Question 69

What is Retrieval Failure?

Answer 69

A form of forgetting. It occurs when we don’t have the necessary cues to access the memory.
The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided.

Question 70

What is a Cue?

Answer 70

A ‘trigger’ of information that allows us to access a memory. Such cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning.

For example, cues may be external (environmental context) or internal (mood or degree of drunkenness)

Question 71

Who discovered the Encoding specificity principle?

Answer 71

Endel Tulving 1983

Question 72

What is Encoding specificity principle?

Answer 72

This states that if a cue is to help us recall information, it has to be present at encoding (when we learn the material) and retrieval (when we are recalling it). If the cues available at encoding and retrieval are different or if cues are entirely absent at retrieval there will be some forgetting.

Question 73

What is context-dependent memory/forgetting?

Answer 73

If information is encoded in one context or environment, you are more likely to recall it in the same environment.

Question 74

What is State-dependent memory/forgetting?

Answer 74

If you encode information in one frame/state of mind you are more likely to recall it in the same frame/state of mind.

Question 75

What study was conducted that supports Context-dependent forgetting?

Answer 75

Godden and Baddeley sea divers unwater study, where divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land. This created four conditions. Learn on land-recall on land
Learn on land-recall underwatear
Learn underwater-recall on land
Learn underwater - recall underwater.

Question 76

What was the findings of Godden and Baddeley sea divers unwater study?

Answer 76

Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions. The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and this led to retrieval failure.

Question 77

Was the study conducted that supports State-dependent forgetting?

Answer 77

Sara Carter and Helen Cassaday 1998

Question 78

What was the procedure of the study conducted by Sara Carter and Helen Cassaday 1998?

Answer 78

Carter and Cassady gave anti-histamine drugs to their participants. The anti-histamines had a mild sedative effect making the participants slightly drowsy.

This creates an internal physiological state different from the 'normal' state of being awake and alert. The participants had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the information. 
This created four conditions-
Learn on drug-recall when on it
Learn on drug-Recall when not on it
Learn not on drug-Recall when on it
Learn not on it- recall when not on it.

Question 79

What was the findings of Carter and Cassaday 1998 study on state-dependent forgetting?

Answer 79

In the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse. So when the cues are absent then there is more forgetting.

Question 80

What evidence is there supporting Retrieval failure theory?

Answer 80

Impressive range of research supports retrieval failure explanation for forgetting. Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassday both support Retrieal failure theory. Micheal Eysenck 2010 goes so far as to argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM.

This is a strength because the supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation. This is especially true when the evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real life situations as well in highly controlled conditions of the lab.

Question 81

What evidence is there against Retrieval failure theory?

Answer 81

Baddeley argues that context effects are not very strong in real life. Different contexts have to be very different indeed before an effect is seen. It would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater. This is a limitation because it means that the real-life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don’t actual explain much forgetting.

Question 82

What is a limitation of the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 82

The ESP is not testable and leads to a form of circular reasoning. In experiments where a cue produces the successful recall of a word we assumed that the cue must have been encoded at the time of learning.

If a cue does not result in successful recall of a word, then we assumed that the cue was not encoded at the time of learning. But these are just assumptions - there is no way to independently establish whether or not the cue has really been encoded.

Question 83

What is a Eyewitness Testimony?

Answer 83

The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator.

Question 84

What is misleading information?

Answer 84

Incorrect information given to the eyewitness usually after the event. It can take many forms, such as leading questions and post event discussion between co-witnesses and or other people

Question 85

What are Leading questions?

Answer 85

A question that either by form or context, suggests a desired answer or leads a witness to believe there is a desired answer.

Leading questions contain misleading pieces of information or words and are usually closed questions.

Question 86

What is an example of closed question?

Answer 86

Did you see the broken glass?

Question 87

Who conducted the study to test the effect of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?

Answer 87

Loftus and Palmer 1974

Question 88

What was the aim of Loftus and Palmer 1974 investigation?

Answer 88

To investigate the effects of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Question 89

What was the procedure of Loftus and Palmer 1974 study?

Answer 89

They showed 45 students 7 films of a different traffic accident.

After each film the participants were given a questionnaire which asked them to describe the accident then answer a series of specific questions about it.

There was one critical question. This question was ‘About how fast the cards were going when they hit each other?

One group was given this question. The other groups were given the verb smashed, collided, bumped or contacted in place of the word hit.

Question 90

What was the findings of Loftus and Palmer’s 1974 study on investigating the effects of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?

Answer 90

The group given the word smashed estimated a higher speed than the other groups above (41mph). The results revealed that the group given the word contacted estimated the lowest speed (about 30mph)

Question 91

What was the conclusions from Loftus and Palmer’s 1974 study on investigating the effects of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?

Answer 91

They concluded that misleading and leading questions do affect the accuracy of the recall of an eyewitness.

Question 92

Evaluate the strengths of Loftus and Palmer 1974 study on investigating the effects of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Answer 92

Real life applications- Loftus 1975 believes that leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses.

High internal validity of study as it was a lab experiment that can control extraneous variable that could confound the result.

Question 93

Evaluate the weaknesses of Loftus and Palmer 1974 study on investigating the effects of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Answer 93

Studies lack mundane realism, the tasks completed are artifical e.g. Loftus and Palmer 1974. Watching a film of a crime or incident is very different to witnessing a real accident because the clips lack the stress of a real incident.

Loftus and Palmer study lacked population validity, study was only conducted on students.s There is evidence that older people are less accurate when giving eyewitness testimony.

Demand characteristics, participants may have worked out that the leading questions is what Palmer and Loftus was intending to look at and helpful participants could have skewed the results.

Question 94

What are the factors affecting eye witness testimony?

Answer 94

Misleading information

Question 95

What are the two types of misleading information that affect eye witness testimony?

Answer 95

Leading questions and post event discussion

Question 96

What is post-event discussion?

Answer 96

Post-event discussion occurs when there is more than one witness to an event. Witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or with other people. They may influence the accuracy of each witness’s recall of the event.

Question 97

Who conducted a study to test if post-event discussion affected eye witness testimony?

Answer 97

Gabbert 2003

Question 98

What was the procedure of Gabbert 2003 study to see if post-event discussion affected eye witness testimony?

Answer 98

Studied participants in pairs.

Each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points of view.

This meant each participant could see elements in the event that the other could not.

Both participants discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall.

Question 99

What was the findings of Gabbert 2003 study to see if post-event discussion affected eye witness testimony?

Answer 99

71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in discussion.

In the control group (watched film, but didn’t have the discussion) 0% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event.

Question 100

What was the conclusions of Gabbert 2003 study to see if post event discussion affected eye witness testimony?

Answer 100

Post even discussion reduces the accuracy of recall in eyewitness testimony.

Question 101

Evaluate the strengths of Gabbert 2003 study to see if post event discussion affected eye witness testimony?

Answer 101

Real life applications- police can use the findings during investigations to try and prevent witnesses from discussing a crime before interview.

Good population validity - two different populations, university students and older adults found little difference between these two conditions strengths the validity of the study.

Question 102

Evaluate the weaknesses of Gabbert 2003 study to see if post event discussion affected eye witness testimony?

Answer 102

Lacks ecological validity- watching a video of a crime is different to observing a crime in real life.

Witnesses knew they were taking part in an experiment and were more likely to have paid close attention to the details of the video clip.

Question 103

What is Anxiety?

Answer 103

A state of emotional and physical arousal. The emotions include having worried thoughts and feelings of tension. Physical changes include an increased heart rate and sweatiness. Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations, but can affect the accuracy and detail of eyewitness testimony.

Question 104

What is Weapon focus in relation to anxiety?

Answer 104

In violent crimes, arousal may focus the witness on more central details of the attack e.g. weapon than the more peripheral details e.g. what else was going on and what the perpetrator looked like.

Question 105

Who did a study on the effect of weapons (which create anxiety) on accuracy of recall of the witness?

Answer 105

Johnson and Scott 1976

Question 106

What was the aim of Johnson and Scott 1975 study?

Answer 106

To find out if anxiety during a witnessed incident affects the accuracy of later identification.

Question 107

What was the procedure of Johnson and Scott 1975 study to see if anxiety affected during a witnessed incident affect accuracy of later identification?

Answer 107

Participants were exposed to one of two situations. In both conditions participants heard a discussion in an adjoining room.

Condition 1= A man emerged holding a pen wit grease on his hands (low anxiety)

Condition 2= A man emerged holding a paper-knife covered in blood (High anxiety)

They are then asked to identify the man from 50 photos.

Question 108

What was the findings of the Johnson and Scott 1975 study to see if anxiety during a witnessed incident affect the accuracy of later identification?

Answer 108

Condition 1 = 49% correctly chose the man from the
photo

Condition 2= 33% correctly chose the man from the photo.

Question 109

What was the conclusion Johnson and Scott came to from their study to see if anxiety during a witnessed incident affects the accuracy of later identification?

Answer 109

Anxiety reduced the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Question 110

Evaluate the strengths of Johnson and Scott 1976 study to see if anxiety during a witnessed incident affects the accuracy of later identification?

Answer 110

High ecological validity- participants weren’t aware that the study was staged, therefore it can be applied to everyday crimes.

Lab based- therefore they have high internal validity this is because all variables can be controlled including any extraneous variables e.g. lighting

Question 111

Evaluate the weaknesses of Johnson and Scott 1976 study to see if anxiety during a witnessed incident affects the accuracy of later identification?

Answer 111

Ethical issues- such studies could produce potentially high levels of psychological harm to participants by inducing anxiety into them.

Demand characteristics in lab experiments- participants might have been aware that they are taking part.

Weapon focus might not be caused by anxiety. Fickel 1998 states that the reduced accuracy of identification due to the weapon was down to surprise rather than anxiety. He conducted an experiment using scissors, handgun, wallet or a raw chicken as the hand held items in a hairdressing salon video. Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the most unusual conditions (chicken and handgun.

Question 112

Who conducted a study to test if Anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 112

Yuille and Cutshall 1986

Question 113

What was the Procedure of Yuille and Cutshall 1986 study to see if Anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 113

They conducted a study of a real life shooting in a gun shop in Canada.

The shop owner shot a thief dead. There was 21 witnesses- 13 agreed to take part in the study.

The interviews were 4-5 months after the incident and these were compared with the original police interviews made at the time of the shooting.

Accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account. The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident, using a 7 point scale and asked if they had any emotional problems since the event such as sleeplessness

Question 114

What was the findings of Yuille and Cuthshall 1986 study to see if Anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 114

Those participants who reported highest levels of stress were more accurate about 88% compared to 75% for less stressed group.

Question 115

Evaluate the strengths of Yuille and Cuthshall 1986 study to see if Anxiety has a positive effect on recall.

Answer 115

Yuille and Cutshall natural experiment was using a real crime which has a high ecological validity.

Question 116

Evaluate the weaknesses of Yuille and Cutshall 1986 study to see if Anxiety has a positive effect on recall?

Answer 116

Only done in Canada - many variables are different in different countries.

Could be seen as unethical to get participants to remember a distressing crime, Could be seen as failing to protect them from harm.

Question 117

What is a Cognitive interview?

Answer 117

A method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It uses four main techniques all bases on well-established psychological knowledge of human memory- report everything, reinstate the context, reverse the order and change perspective.

Question 118

What are the Four main techniques in a cognitive interview?

Answer 118

Report everything
Reinstate the context
Reverse the order
Change persepective

Question 119

What is the acronym used to remember the four main techniques in cognitive interview?

Answer 119

COPE
Context
Order
Perspective
Everything

Question 120

What does Reinstate the context mean as technique of cognitive interviewing?

Answer 120

The interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally -recreate the environment and contacts from the original incident.

Question 121

What does reverse the order mean as a technique of cognitive interviewing?

Answer 121

The interviewer may try alternative ways through the timeline of the incident. This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the vent must have happened rather than the actual events.

Question 122

What does Change the perspective mean as a technique of cognitive interviewing?

Answer 122

The interviewee is asked to recall the incident from multiple perspectives. For example by imaging how it would have appeared to other witnesses.

Question 123

What does report everything mean as a technique of cognitive interviewing?

Answer 123

The interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail of the event even though it may seem irrelevant.

Question 124

Evaluate the strengths of using cognitive interviewing on eyewitness testimonies?

Answer 124

Wright and Holliday 2007 used cognitive interview technique on older participants whom recalled significantly greater detail without giving any false information, compared to the standard interview.

Cognitive interviewing produces an increase in the amount of correct information recalled compared to a standard interview.

Question 125

Evaluate the weaknesses of using cognitive interviewing on eyewitness testimonies?

Answer 125

Kebbel and Wagstaff 1996 raised points about how the technique required for cognitive interview takes more time than is often available to police officers

Different police forces use different aspects of the CI technique so it is difficult to evaluate its effectiveness fully.