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Memory Flashcards

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1
Q

What is coding?

A

The form information is stored in.

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2
Q

What is duration?

A

The duration that information will stay in your memory.

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3
Q

What is capacity?

A

How much information can be stored.

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4
Q

What is STM?

A

Items that you’re using now/immediate events

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5
Q

What is LTM?

A

Stored items that you can access again.

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6
Q

What is retrieval?

A

Accessing info from LTM

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7
Q

What is attention?

A

Mental focus on subject

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8
Q

What is acoustic memory?

A

Memory based on sounds/words/rythmns

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9
Q

What is STM based off of?

A

Rehearsal(attending to information so you remember it)

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10
Q

What does the STM contain?

A

Small amounts of information which we’re aware of currently.

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11
Q

What is the type of coding in STM?

A

Acoustic

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12
Q

What is the capacity like in STM?

A

Limited; 5-9 items

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13
Q

What is the duration like in STM?

A

limited; 18-30 seconds

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14
Q

What is the capacity of LTM?

A

Unlimited

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15
Q

What is the duration of LTM?

A

Potentially lifetime- not limited

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16
Q

What is the coding like in LTM?

A

Semantic coding

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17
Q

What did Miller conclude?

A

Conducted experiments and found that the span of immediate memory is about 7 items (2 more or less).
Also that people can recall five words as well as they can with five numbers- if we chunk together it becomes easier.

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18
Q

What individual differences can have an affect on STM?

A

Age for example- the older you are the longer your digit span so typically have better short term memory, shows the capacity is not fixed

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19
Q

What did Jacobs conclude?

A

The capacity of STM; the span for digits was 9.3 items and the span for letters was 7.3

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20
Q

How is the capacity of STM more limited than previously thought?

A

Because Miller’s findings have not been replicated. When the capacity of STM was reviewed by studies they found that it was limited to about 4 chunks (but the size of the chunks matter). Thus the lower end of millers 7+-2 (5) is more accurate.

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21
Q

What is a study that demonstrates the duration of STM?

A

Peterson and Peterson; their participants were given a consonant syllable and a three digit number. They were asked to recall the consonant syllable after an interval of 3.6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds (during the interval they had to count backwards from their three digit number). 90% were correct over 3 seconds but only 2% correct after 18 seconds. Duration = 18-30 seconds

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22
Q

What is a study that demonstrates the duration of LTM?

A

Bahrick’s yearbook study; people aged 17-74 were tested on their memory of their classmates. They were asked to identify the photos of their classmates names.
People who were tested within 15 years of graduation were about 90% accurate, within 48 years it declined to around 70%

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23
Q

How do we know that STM is encoded acoustically and LTM is coded semantically?

A

Baddeley used word lists:
cat, cab, can, cap are acoustically similar and semantically different
great, large, big, huge are semantically similar and acoustically different
ppts had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM but not in LTM
semantically similar words were easy to remember in STM but not in LTM

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24
Q

What is the multi-store model of memory?

A

An explanation of memory that is based on three separate stores, and explains the process of how memory is transferred between these stores.

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25
Q

Who proposed the MSM?

A

Atkinson and Shiffrin

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26
Q

What is the sensory register?

A

The place where information is held at the senses, so for example fingers or nose, and the corresponding areas in the brain. There is unlimited capacity but you have to pay attention to the information for it to transfer to STM

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27
Q

What is attention in MSM?

A

Focusing attention on to a sensory store lets information go into our short term memory

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28
Q

What is STM in relation to the MSM?

A

Info is held here for immediate tasks. The middle store. It has limited duration and capacity. MAINTENANCE REHERSAL keeps it here and helps it to transfer to a LTM store

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29
Q

What process is needed for info to stay in STM/ transfer to LTM?

A

Maintence rehersal; repeating the information over and over like recall (tends to be verbal). The more it is done, the stronger the memory is

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30
Q

What is LTM in relation to the MSM?

A

Potentially unlimited in duration and capacity. The last store in the model.

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31
Q

What is retrieval in MSM?

A

The process of getting information from the LTM means you have to retrieve it and pass it back through to the STM

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32
Q

What is some supporting evidence for the MSM?

A
  • controlled lab brain scans support the separate stores of STM and LTM and the model in general. The prefrontal cortex is active during STM but not LTM, whereas the hippocampus is active during LTM engagement
  • case studies; HM suffered from epilepsy so had his hippocampus removed, which meant he could no longer form new LTMs but could remember stuff from before his surgery. This supports the role of the hippocampus and also the separate stores as he could no longer transfer from his STM to LTM. IDIOGRAPHIC
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33
Q

Who proposed the WMM?

A

Baddeley and Hitch

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34
Q

What is the working memory model?

A

An explanation of the memory used when we are working on a task; the different types of STM and how different information is processed

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35
Q

What are the three slave systems?

A

Episodic buffer, phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad

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36
Q

What is the role of the central executive?

A

It directs attention to particular tasks and controls how the brains resources are allocated to particular tasks. It has a very limited capacity and cannot store a lot of info at once

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37
Q

Why was the working memory model proposed?

A

Because there is one store for visual processing and another for auditory processing in short term memory

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38
Q

What is the phonological loop?

A

It deals with auditory information and preserves the order of information. It has a limited capacity. Relies on maintenance rehersal.

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39
Q

What are the two subdivisions of the phonological loop?

A

The phonological store- holds the words you hear like an inner ear
An articulary process which is used for words that are seen or heard, in which they are silently repeated like an inner voice

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40
Q

What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

A

This codes visual information in relation to separate objects and the arrangement of these objects in the visual field. Responsible for spatial awareness and information

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41
Q

What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad subdivided into?

A

A visual cache- stores information about objects, such as their colour and form
Inner scribe- stores the arrangement of objects in the visual field

42
Q

What is the episodic buffer?

A

This recieves input from many sources, both visual and acoustic, and temporarily stores this information as it also has limited capacity. It intergrates the information to reconstruct a mental episode of what happens. It can transfer to and from the LTM.

43
Q

What do all slave systems have in common?

A

They are limited in capacity

44
Q

How do dual task performance studies support the WMM?

A

Baddeley and Hitch did a study in which task 1 occupied the central executive (they were told B was followed by A and then shown ‘AB’ and were asked if it was true or false). Task 2 occupied the articulatory loop (e.g. asked to repeat a word over and over) or involved both the CE and the articulatory loop (saying random digits). Task 1 was slower when task 2 involved both stores. This shows dual task performance. It is easier to do two tasks at the same time if they use different processing systems (verbal and visual) than if they use the same slave system.

45
Q

How is there evidence from case studies for WMM?

A

A man named KF suffered a motorbike accident which damaged his STM for verbal information but not visual information. His brain damage was restricted to the PL. This supports the idea of seperate stores for different types of STM. Idiographic- unique.

46
Q

What are the two types of declarative memory?

A

Episodic and semantic. This is knowing THAT instead of knowing how

47
Q

What is episodic memory?

A

Memory with a narrative- personal memories of events, such as what you did yesterday or a family holiday. It also includes information about the context of the memory and the emotions you may have felt at the time.

48
Q

What is semantic memory?

A

Shared memories for universal facts or knowledge, such as knowing ice is made out of water.
They can start as episodic memories because knowledge is aquired based on personal experience however it transitions to become semantic as it loses its personal association.

49
Q

What is procedural memory?

A

Memory for how to do things, for example how to ride a bike. Often it can be automatic based on how much you practice. Implicit memory- we are less aware of it.

50
Q

How do brain scans support the 3 separate types of LTM?

A

Episodic memory is associated with the hippocampus/related parts of the temporal lobe and activity in the frontal lobe
Semantic memory relies on the temporal lobe
Procedural memory is associated with the cerebellum
As the three different types are found in different parts of the brain they must be seperate

51
Q

What evidence is there for the different types of LTM with patients with amnesia?

A

Patients with amnesia have a lot of difficultly creating declarative memories (semantic and episodic). However, their procedural memory is not impaired; their old procedural memories and new ones are unaffected. This is supported with HM too; the use of case studies and also wide scale patients is nomothetic.

52
Q

What is interference theory?

A

An explanation for forgetting in terms of one memory disrupting the ability to recall another.

53
Q

What makes interference more likely to happen?

A

If the two memories have more similarity.

54
Q

What is proactive interference?

A

This is when past learning/memories prevent or disrupt recall of recent information.

55
Q

What is retroactive intereference?

A

This is where new learning prevents recall of old memories/previously learnt information.

56
Q

What is a study that supports retroactive interference?

A

Muller’s study:
His participants were given a list of nonsense syllables to learn for 6 minutes and then were told to recall the lists after a short interval. If during the interval they were given an intervening task such as being asked to describe what they see in paintings, then recall was worse, because new information disrupted the recall of old information.

57
Q

What is a study that supports proactive interference?

A

Underwood-
He analysed findings of studies of forgetting over a 24 hour period. He found that if participants had previously learnt 15 or more word lists during the same experiment, the recall of the last word list, the day after, was around 20%. However, if they hadn’t learnt any other word lists, recall, the day after, was around 80%.

58
Q

What was Baddeley and Hitch’s rugby study and what did it show?

A

Real world study; some rugby players in the team had played in all the games in the season, whereas others missed matches due to injury. The time interval was the same for all players because it was for a season, but some players had more interfering information than others because of intervening games. They found that the players who had played all the games remembered less team names than the players who missed matches. If decay theory is correct then all players would remember a similar amount of teams but interference theory suggests that people who played more would forget more.

59
Q

What is evidence for the effect of similarity of information in interference theory?

A

McGeoch and McDonald:
Ppts were given a list of 10 adjectives (list A) to learn. They were given an interval of 10 minutes, in which they learned list B, followed by recall.
If list B was synonyms of list A then recall was poor, at 12%, but If list B was numbers then recall was better, 37% recall. This shows the closer the information is than the stronger interference is.

60
Q

What is a weakness of the research into interference theory?

A

The research is quite artificial. There is a lack of ecological validity because we don’t often have to remember things like word lists. Controlled lab studies have good internal validity but it is somewhat reductionist to generalize them because they do not represent real life. However, Baddley and Hitch’s rugby team study is a great real life study displaying every day activities.

61
Q

What is a good application of interference theory?

A

Real world application in advertisement. When people are exposed to adverts multiple times in a day rather than spread out over a longer period of time like in a week, then recall and recognition of the brand will improve. This helps advertisers grow their brand in contrast to competing brands, and maximise their effectiveness.

62
Q

What is retrieval failure?

A

This is an explanation for forgetting which is based on the idea that the issue relates to being able to retrieve a memory that is available but not accessible. This is dependent on cues- a lack of cues means a lack of retrieval.

63
Q

What are cues?

A

These are things that serve as a reminder. They may have meaningful link to a memory, or a non-meaningful link such as environmental cues or being related to your mental state.

64
Q

What is the encoding specificity principle?

A

The idea that memory is most effective if information that was present during encoding is also available at the time of retrieval. The closer the cue is to the original item, the more useful it will be. This is because the information is coded together.

65
Q

What is context dependent forgetting?

A

Environmental context- when memories are formed we also remember where we were

66
Q

What is state dependent forgetting?

A

Emotional state at the time- how we felt. This could be really happy, or drunk.

67
Q

What is a study that supports context dependent forgetting?

A

Godden and Baddeley- scuba divers
Scuba divers as ppts had to learn a set of words either on land or in water. They were tested both on land or in water (4 experimental conditions). The results showed that the highest recall occurred when the initial context matched the recall environment- those who learnt the word list in water remembered best in water.

68
Q

What is a study that supports state dependent forgetting?

A

Goodwin- drunk males
Male volunteers had to remember a list of words when they were either drunk or sober (drunk ppts were about 3 times over the UK drink drive limit). The ppts were asked to recall the list of words 24 hours after they learnt them- some were sober and some had to get drunk again. Information was better recalled when participants were in the same state as when they learnt the information- drunk males remembered better when they were tested drunk.

69
Q

What is a real world application of retrieval failure theory?

A

Great real world applications, for example when students are taking an exam they may wish to study in the same area as where they will take the test as this will improve recall. Smith even showed that simply imagining being in the room where you previously learnt the info was effective- this is mental reinstatement. MR is also used in the cognitive interview so it improves eye witness testimonies which can help catch criminals. Improving recall in the real world- shows just how impactful psychological research can be

70
Q

What is a weakness of the retrieval failure theory?

A

One weakness is that it is slightly reductionist because there hasn’t been a solid causal relationship. The encoding specificity principle relies on the fact that if a stimulus doesn’t lead to retrieval of a memory that it can’t have been encoded in our memory, but this is not always true- we cannot test for an item that hasn’t been encoded in our memory and decay may have simply happened. Thus, cues do not cause retrieval but they are just associated with retrieval.

71
Q

What is an eyewitness testimony?

A

The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed the crime who can help identify the perpetrator.

72
Q

What is misleading information?

A

Supplying information that may lead a witness’ memory of a crime to be altered

73
Q

What are leading questions?

A

A question that, either by its form or content, suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads them to the desired answer

74
Q

What study investigates leading questions?

A

Loftus and Palmer

75
Q

What was the procedure of Loftus and Palmer’s study?

A

Participants (students) were shown seven films of different traffic accidents, and after each film participants were given a questionnaire which asked them to describe the accident and had a series of questions. The researchers asked the critical question of ‘how fast were the cars going when they … each other?’ and manipulated the verb, from simply ‘contacted’ to ‘hit’ to ‘collided’ to ‘smashed’. This was a leading question as the verb suggests a different speed

76
Q

What were the findings of Loftus and Palmer’s study?

A

When participants were asked how fast they contacted, they answered around 30 speed whereas when they were asked how fast they smashed it was around 40. This demonstrates that leading questions affect the response

77
Q

What further research did Loftus and Palmer do after their leading question study?

A

They wanted to explore whether the leading q may bias the answer or whether the leading q actually causes info to be altered before it is stored.
A new set of ppts were divided into 3 and shown a film of a car accident and asked about the speed. They returned after a week to answer more questions, including ‘did you see any broken glass?’- those who thought the car was travelling faster answered that there was glass

78
Q

What is post event discussion?

A

If the eyewitness talks with others or an interviewer after the crime it may alter the witness’ memory of the event

79
Q

What is the conformity effect in post event discussion?

A

Co-witnesses may reach a consensus view of what really happened and may doubt their own memory so conform

80
Q

What is repeat interviewing in post event discussion?

A

Each time an eyewitness is interviewed, it is possible that the comments from the interviewer may alter the witness’ recollection

81
Q

What are two things that have an effect in post event discussion?

A

The conformity effect and repeated interviews

82
Q

What is a good real world application of research into misleading information?

A

The application to the criminal justice system, which relies on eyewitness testimony to prosecute and identify criminals. Research into this has helped the court ensure that innocent people are not convicted of crimes that they didn’t commit because of faulty or manipulated EWT so the witnesses can keep their memories as unaltered as possible. This is morally right and thus has great applications.

83
Q

What is a cricitism of research into misleading information EWT?

A

Individual differences amongst the population; age for example. An eyewitness acquires information from the event itself and from external factors like misleading information. Research has found that elderly people have more difficulty remembering the source of their information despite the actual memory being unaffected so they are more prone to being affected by misleading information. Population validity issues as this is not considered in Loftus and Palmer study- in fact they used ppts of students (young)

84
Q

What is anxiety?

A

An unpleasant emotional state that is often accompanied by increased heart rate and quick breathing (physiological arousal)

85
Q

What did Johnson and Scott investigate?

A

They investigated the effects of anxiety on eyewitness testimony, specifically with the weapon focus effect

86
Q

What is the weapon focus effect?

A

The view that the weapon in a criminals hand distracts attention from other factors because of the anxiety the witness feels, and therefore the accuracy of the EWT may be reduced

87
Q

What was the procedure of Johnson and Scott’s anxiety/greasy pen or bloody knife study?

A

Their ppts had to sit in a waiting room where they overheard an argument and witnessed a man run out with either a greasy pen or a bloody knife.
Greasy pen- low anxiety condition, bloody knife- high anxiety condition. Ppts were asked to identify the man from a set of pictures

88
Q

What were the findings of Johnson and Scott’s study?

A

The mean accuracy in identifying the man with the greasy pen was 49% whereas the bloody knife was 33%.
The presence of a weapon causes attention to be physically drawn to the weapon itself and not to the persons face

89
Q

How may anxiety have a positive effect on accuracy of EWT?

A

High anxiety or arousal can create accurate memories because there is an evolutionary argument that we remember events that are emotionally important to us so we can identify/recall in future how to respond.

90
Q

What is a study that shows the benefits of anxiety on EWT?

A

Real witnesses of bank roberies in sweden were interviewed and the witnesses were either victims (bank tellers) or bystanders, e.g. high vs lower anxiety. The witnesses who had high to moderate anxiety had the best recall, showing anxiety doesn’t always have a negative effect.

91
Q

What is the Yerkes-Dodson curve?

A

The observation that arousal/anxiety has a negative effect on recall when it is either very low or very high, but moderate levels of anxiety have good impacts on recall. It is an inverted U shape curve.

92
Q

What is a real world application of the yerkes-dodson curve?

A

We can apply this to crimes as witnesses who will have experienced extremely high levels of anxiety will have relatively inaccurate memories as their levels will be above the optimum, so over-reliance on EWT that will be overly effected can be avoided. However, this is slightly reductionist because some people cope better under stress than others, so individual differences are slightly ignored.

93
Q

What is the cognitive interview?

A

This a interview technique that was developed based on psychological principles including cues and mental reinstatement

94
Q

What are the four techniques of the cognitive interview?

A

Mental reinstatment
Report everything
Change the order
Change perspective

95
Q

What is mental reinstatement in the CI?

A

This is when the interviewer encourages the witness to mentally recreate and immerse themself in the physical and psychological environment of the original incident- this is based on contextual and emotional cues to retrieve memories.
‘What was the weather like’, ‘How did you feel at the time?’

96
Q

What is report everything in the CI?

A

The interviewer encourages the witness to report every single detail of the event, no matter how insignificant. This is based on the idea that memories are all interconnected with each-other so recalling one memory may lead to the recall of another that seemed lost before

97
Q

What is change the order in the CI?

A

The interviewer may ask the witness to report their experience backwards. This is because our schema gives us ideas of how events may go whereas reporting backwards eliminates this

98
Q

What is changing the perspective in the CI?

A

The witness will be asked to recall the incident from multiple other perspectives, for example how it may have appeared to someone who was on the other side of the road. This is to disrupt the effect of schema

99
Q

What are the practical issues with the cognitive interview?

A

It requires more time than is often available and uses up police’s resources. This is also time consuming for the witness and by the end they may start to feel stressed and tired. It also requires special training of police officers which is expensive. However, considering a cost-benefit analysis in the long term implies that its probably worth it

100
Q

How is the cognitive interview effective?

A

It has been studied and found to produce around 35% more correct information than the standard police interview
However, it focuses on the QUANTITY of information and not the quality- it provides a lot of unnessecary and irrelevant info

Psychology A level (11 decks)

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