Memory

Question 1

Short and long term memory - Capacity

Answer 1

• Capacity of STM - assessed using a digit span - average span for digits = 9.3 and letters = 7.3
• Magic number - 7 plus or minus 2 - span of immediate memory is about 7 sometimes more and sometimes less

AO3:
- Capacity may be more limited - researcher reviewed studies and concluded STM to be limited to 4 chunks - research for visual capacity is also 4 chunks so therefore the bottom half of the magic number is more appropriate

• Size of the chunk matters - The size of the chunk affects how many chunks you can remember - researcher found people had a shorter span for larger chunks like 8 word phrases
• Individual diffs - capacity is not the same for everyone - - recall increased steadily with age - 8 year olds could remember 6.6 digits whereas 19 year olds were 8.6 digits - may be due to strategies like chunking

Question 2

Short and long term memory - Duration

Answer 2

• STM - very short duration (18s) - study done - 24 ppts, 8 trials, given a consonant syllable and a 3 digit number, asked to recall syllable after a certain number of secs -only 2% correct after 18s
• LTM - study done - 400 people varying in age on memory of classmates - photos to see if they could remember names - 15 years (90%) after 48 years (70%)

AO3;
- Testing STM was artificial - memorising consonant syllables is not reflective of everyday memory - however it has some relevance due to sometimes memorising phone numbers

• STM results may be due to displacement - in the study ppts were counting the numbers which may displace the syllables to be remembered - researcher then used auditory tones instead of numbers so displacement didn’t occur - found duration was then longer - results in previous study was due to displacement not decay

Question 3

Short and long term memory - Coding

Answer 3

• Acoustically similar words - cat, cab, can
• Semantically similar words - large, great, big
• Baddeley - tested effects of the similarities in the STM and LTM - difficulty with acoustic words in STM not LTM and semantic in the LTM not STM

AO3:
- LTM may not have been tested - LTM was tested after 20 mins and its questionable whether this is acc testing LTM

• STM may not be solely acoustic - some experiments have shown visual codes also stored in STM - study done - when given a visual task and prevented from doing any verbal rehearsal - ppts used visual codes + this shows sometimes visual codes are used in STM
• LTM may not be solely semantic - research findings - showed long term recall was related to visual as well as semantic categories - therefore coding is not simply acoustic or semantic but can vary accordingly

Question 4

The MSM - AO1 points

Answer 4

• Sensory register - where info is held at senses - capacity very large but not duration
• Attention - first step in remembering something - data transferred to STM
• STM - info held here for immediate tasks - limited duration and will go if not rehearsed
• Maitainence rehearsal - repetition keeps info in STM and eventually will create a LTM
• LTM - potentially unlimited capacity and duration
• Retrieval - process of getting info from LTM involves it coming through the STM

Question 5

The WMM - AO1 points

Answer 5

• The CE - directs attention to particular tasks - limited capacity
• Phonological loop - deals with auditory info and preservation of info - limited capacity - 2 stores - phonological store (holds words you hear) and articulatory process (words seen or heard repeated silently)
• Visuo spatial sketchpad - when planning a task - getting from one place to another - 2 stores - visual cache (stores info about things like colour) and inner scribe (stores arrangement of objects)
• Episodic buffer - intergrates info from CE, PL and VSS - maintains a sense of time sequencing - recording events

Question 6

Types of LTM - AO1 points

Answer 6

• Episodic memory - recollection of events - eg - first day of school - 3 elements - details, context, emotions
• Semantic memory - knowing THAT - knowing that the capital of UK is London
• Procedural memory - knowing HOW - how to ride a bike or tie shoelaces - acquired through repetition

Question 7

Explanations for forgetting: Interference - AO1

Answer 7

• Retroactive interference - current attempts to learn something new interferes with past learning
• Proactive interference - past learning interfering with current attempts to learn something new
• Retroactive example - giving participants lists of nonsense syllables to learn for 6 minutes, then after a retention interval, asking the participants to recall the list - found Performance was less good when participants were given an intervening task between initial learning and recall. Therefore the intervening task produced RI because the later task interfered with the previously learned material
• Proactive example - analysed the findings from a number of studies and found that participants were less able to learn a list of words later in a sequence, in comparison to those presented earlier on suggest that PI occurs when learning multiple word lists

Question 8

Explanations for forgetting: Retrieval failure - AO1

Answer 8

• Retrieval failure occurs due to absence of cues
• Encoding specificity principle - the idea that memory is most effective if information that was present at the time of encoding is also available at the time of retrieval - ppts recalled 40% words in a free recall task in comparison to 60% of words in a cued recall task
• Context dependent forgetting - scuba-divers and arranged for them to learn a list of words on land or underwater - the divers were then tested on land or underwater - results revealed the highest recall when the initial context matched the recall environment
• State dependent forgetting - male volunteers to remember a list of words when they were drunk or sober.

Question 9

Accuracy of EWT - Misleading info - AO1

Answer 9

• Study done - Examined the effect of misleading information by showing 45 students 7 films of different traffic accidents - ‘smashed’ ‘hit’ ‘collided’ - ppts given the word ‘smashed’ reported an average speed of 40.8mph in comparison to participants given the verb ‘contacted’
• Post event discussion - memory may be altered through diff convos with diff people
• Conformity affect - pairs of ppts shown video of same event - Pairs in one condition were encouraged to discuss the event before individually recalling what they had witnessed - ppts who had discussed then mistakenly recalled items
• Repeat interviewing - Each time an eyewitness is interviewed, there is a possibility that the comments from the interviewer will become incorporated into their own recollection of the events

Question 10

Accuracy of EWT - Anxiety - AO1

Answer 10

• Research on weapon effect - ppts in a waiting room - heard an argument in adjoining room - saw a man run through the room carrying either a pen covered in grease (low anxiety condition) or a knife covered in blood (high anxiety) - ppts later asked to identify man from photos - 49% in the pen condition and 33% in the knife condition, supporting idea of a weapon focus effect
• Argument anxiety creates more enduring memories - evidence of enhanced recall when they questioned 58 real witnesses to bank robberies in Sweden - most anxious had better recall

Question 11

Improving accuracy of EWT - cognitive interview - AO1

Answer 11

• Four components
• Mental reinstatement of context - person encouraged to mentally recreate the physical and psychological environment of the original incident
• Report everything - encouraged to report every single detail of the event, without editing anything out
• Change order - asked to consider an alternative timeline of the incident, for example by reversing the order
• Change perspective - asked to recall the incident from another perspective