Memory Flashcards
Theoretical model
A model is a representation which helps us to understand how something works.
Memory
The ability to store and retain information. The process of short storing and retrieving information.
Encoding / Coding
The way information is tired in memory. It can be memorised by senses.
In the SR = Visual= iconic; sound= echoic; touch=haptic
“ “ STM= Acoustic Format (sound)
“ “ LTM= Semantic (Meaning)
Capacity
How much information is stored in memory.
In the SR = Very large
In the STM= Limited 7 +/- 2 chunks
In the LTM = Unlimited
Duration
How long information is stored in memory.
In the SR = Limited (milliseconds)
In the STM = Very limited (18-30 seconds)
In the LTM = years to a lifetime
Types of memory:
- sensory register (SR)
- short term memory (STM)
- long term memory (LTM)
Sensory Memory
Holds info taken from our senses.
Short Term Memory
The information we are currently aware of or thinking about. It comes from paying attention to sensory input.
Long Term Memory
Process by which we retain information about events that have happened in the past. It remains here permanently.
Multi-store model of memory (MSM)
———>SR ——>Attention——>STM———>Transfer——>LTM
Info. | 🔃
Sensory Register- Sperling A.P.F.C. Study
Capacity
Aim: To investigate the capacity of the sensory register.
Procedure: Presented a grid of letters for less than a second and asked ppts to recall on average 4 letters.
Findings: People recall on average 4 items.
Conclusion: Sensory register has a large capacity of 4 items and a duration of about 2 seconds or less.
Short Term Memory - Conrad Study
Coding
Aim: To investigate the coding of STM.
Procedure: Visually presented ppts with 2 lists of letters. List 1 = acoustically; List 2= acoustically different
Findings: Ppts recalled more of list 2
Conclusions: STM codes on sound/ acoustically
STM - Digital span technique - White Miller/ Jacobs
Aim: To investigate the capacity of STM.
Procedure: Ppts listened to several lists/ digital spans and mads them recall the numbers by writing them.
Findings: Most ppts recall worst after 7 times.
Conclusion: To conclude that the capacity of STM is around 7+/-2 items.
MSM - Evaluation - Murdock (1962)/ Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) The serial position affect
1) one group recalled straight away.
2) Another group counted back to distract and prevent rehearsal which prevents the recency effect.
Primacy effect -MSM Evaluation part of the study
The tendency to recall the words first presented. The words have been rehearsed so we can recall them from our LTM.
Recency effect - MSM Evaluation part of the study
The tendency to recall the words last presented in the list. The words are most recently heard so we can recall them as they are still in our STM.
Brain scanning Research - MSM Evaluation
Brain scan such as fMRI.
- Hippocampus -> LTM
- Prefrontal lobes are active -> STM
Evaluation of MSM - strength/ weakness
Strength: Research evidence to support (Murdocks Study)
Strength: Practical applications (Brain Scanning)
Weakness: Subjective- HM Study ( damage to hippocampus which made him lose LTM )
Types of LTM
Tulving suggested that the MSM’s views on LTM was too simplistic and inflexible. He purposed that there were 3 types of LTM.
- Episodic
- Semantic
- Procedural
Episodic Memory
When a personal episode/ event happened (it’s from past). You may remember emotions, people, time and place.
E.g: going to a wedding in year 10.
Recalls from the right prefrontal cortex.
Semantic Memory
When it’s factual. Memories and knowledge shared by everyone. Concrete such as social norms or abstract such as maths. Starts as episodic being a personal experience and turns to semantic when it becomes general knowledge.
Eg: capital of England
Recalls from the left prefrontal cortex
Procedural Memory
When there’s a learning process (skills). Usually automatic and acquired through repeat practice. These memories are implicit and not available for conscious inspection - we’re less aware of these memories as they became automatic to us.
Eg: Riding a bike
Recalls from cerebellum and basal ganglia
HM and Clive Wearing - Evaluation of LTM
Both of these men were severely impaired on Episodic memory as a consequence of amnesia. They had great difficult to recall memories from the past.
However, Semantic Memory was relatively unaffected.
They both knew the meaning of words.
*HM would not recall stroking a dog half an hour ago or that he even owned one in the past but he would knew the concept of ‘dog’.
There Procedural Memory was intact, they knew how to tie their shoelaces, how to walk/speak.
*Clive Wearing was a professional musician, he still knew how to play piano, read music, sing.
Neuroimaging Evidence -LTM Evaluation
Aim: to investigate the 3 types of LTM.
Procedure: Tulving got ppts to perform various tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner.
Findings: They found that episodic and semantic memory both recalled from the prefrontal cortex.
Conclusion: the prefrontal cortex is divided in 2, the episodic memory recalled from the right prefrontal cortex and the semantic memory recalled from the left prefrontal cortex. Procedural memory recalled from the cerebellum and basal ganglia.
Belleville Study - Evaluation LTM
Aim: Being able to identify different aspects of LTM
Procedure: The trained ppts performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group.
Findings: Shows that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment.
Conclusion: Episodic memory is the type of memory most often affected by mild cognitive impairment, which highlights the benefit to behbg able to distinguish between types of LTM.
Evaluation LTM- Strength/ Weakness
Strength: Research support (Clive Wearing/ HM)
Strength: Neuroimaging evidence ( locations of memories)
Strength: Real life application (Belleville 2006)
The Working Memory Model
Baddeley and Hitch refer to that it of info you are using whilst working on a complex task which requires you to store information as you go along.
Baddeley and Hitch (1974) WWM
Central Executive (boss)
/ | \
/ | \
Visual Sketch Episodic Phonological Loop
Pad (eyes) Buffer (Ear)
•Inner scribe •Articulating control
• Visual cache system (mouth)
(Down) | (Up) |
• Phonological
store (ear)
Active processing
2 modalities (acoustic and visual) that have work together rather than one single store that simply rehearses info.
Slave systems
The Phonological Loop
The Visuo- Spatial Sketchpad
Central Executive
- it’s sometimes Lenore as the “boss” of the WWM.
- it’s a key component for the model.
- it controls attention an directs the info to the 2 slave symptoms.
- it has a very limited capacity and is modality-fee.
Episodic Buffer
- Baddeley added it in 2000 because he realised, it was not explanatory enough & it needed a general store.
- slave system deal with specific types of info
- central executive has no storage capacity.
- buffer has extra storage system but with limited capacity.
- integrates info from all other areas.
- it codes modality free (sound& image).
The Phonological Loop
•Deals with auditory info and has 2 sub-components:
-> Articulary control process (inner voice): allows for sub-vocal repetition of items in the phonological store, otherwise known as maintenance rehearsal.
-> Phonological store (inner ear): stores acoustic items (speech based sounds) for a short period of time.
•it codes acoustically. Capacity 1.5-2 sec
The Visuo- Spatial Sketchpad
• visual and/or spatial info stored here. -> Visual = what things look like -> spatial = relationship between things •Limited capacity: 4 objects • Loggie suggested things. • it codes through visually/images
Bunge (2000) -MRI scanner
An experiment in which MRI scanner was used to be which parts of the brain were more active when ppts were performing a single task and also 2 task at once. There was significantly more activity in the brain when 2 tasks were being performed indicating that there was an increases demand for attention when performing 2 tasks simultaneously. It supports that there are different components and there mus be a component which allocates attention between slave systems. However, it has been criticised as it states that the C.E. Is the main component but there is a lack of research into the capacity of the C.E.
Baddeley, Thompson and Bucannan (1975) - Word Length
Ppts were split into 2 groups.
1. Group 1 was given a list of monosyllabic words;
2. Group 2 was given a list of polysyllabic words;
Capacity depended on the length of the words, not the amount of them. This demonstrates what Baddeley et al. To as the word-length effect.
It tells us about the phonological loop that it explains why the word length effect occurs- the fact that people cope better with short words than long words in Working memory (STM).
Dual- task Performance
Procedure: ppts completed 2 tasks at the same time, for example: in condition 1, ppts complete 2 acoustic based tasks. In condition 2, ppts completed one acoustic and one visual tasks.
Findings: when both tasks require t he ppts to use their phonological poop, the pho oficial loop and the other uses the Visuo-spatial Sketchpad, the ppts perform and is significantly later.
The results support the WMM because it conveys that eventual executive is using the slave systems in better ways when they’re separate.
KF Study
KF was in a motorcycle accident, resulting in brain damage to his left occipital lobe.
STM was damaged but LTM wasn’t.
He remembered words better if presented visually as opposed to auditorally.
Evaluating WMM -Strengths/Weaknesses
Strengths: • word length effect • bungee -central executive research • dual tasks performance • case studies - evidence from brain damaged eg:. KF
Weakness:
• KF case study - deficits in 1 component of WWM but not the other
• central executive - mains component yet no research into its capacity
• evidence form Brian damaged patients: traumatic brain damage
Types of Forgetting
Interference theory Proactive interference Retroactive interference Retrieval failure Context- dependent State-dependent
Interference theory theory
It’s when one memory disturbs your ability to recall another, interference means we can’t access our memory.
Proactive interference
Old memory interferes with new memory. Eg: calling your partner by your ex partner’s name.
Retroactive interference
A newer memory interferes with an old memory. Eg: keep typing your old password instead of new one.
Retrieval failure
Occurs when we don’t have the necessary cues to access memory. Memory is available but isn’t accessible unless a cue is provided. Cue -> trigger of info that allows to remember
Context- Dependent
The environment; a setting or situation eg: a particularly room, place. Can also be the way that info is presented eg: printed, spoken. When external environment is different at recall compared to how it is was when learnt, forgetting may occur.
State-Dependent
Internal; inside of us, physical, emotional, mood, drunk etc. Forgetting occurs when an individual’s internal state is different at recall to when info was learnt.
Underwood & Postman (1960) - Types of forgetting
A: to investigate the interference of new memory with old memory.
P: A group of ppts was split into group A/B independent groups.
Group A had to learn a list of paired words and recall eg: cat-tree
Group B had to learn a list of word pairs, then they had to recall the first of words.
F: B wouldn’t remember as accurate as A due that the second list given would interfere with the first list.
C: B was prevented from recalling the first list due to the new learning, therefore it means that it’s retroactive.
Interference theory Evaluation - Strength/Weakness
Strengths:
• Lab studies -Underwood and Postman
• Ecological Validity - Baddeley and Hitch - rugby players and games remembered
Weakness:
•Lab studies - Underwood and Postman - Ecological Validity, Demand characteristics
• Artificial Materials - ppsts recalling the word lists isn’t the way that we use memory on a daily basis.
Godden and Baddeley study- Retrieval Failure -Context Dependent
AIM: to investigate context-dependent forgetting
Procedure: 4 conditions (water,land/ water, water/ land, land/ land, water) scuba divers had to learn and recall words.
Findings: the scuba diver who learnt and recalled words on land recalled the most followed by learnt and recalled in water due to being in the same environment.
Conclusions: Context- dependent forgetting occurs due to the change of environment.
Goodwin et al - Retrieval failure - state dependent
Aim: to investigate state dependent forgetting
Procedure: asked make volunteers to remember a list of words when they were drunk (3x the drunk driving limit) or sober. Were asked to recall the list after 24 hours when some were sober but some had to get drunk again.
Findings: the recall scores suggested that info learned when drunk is more available when in the same state ppts who were sober recalled more later.
Conclusions: being in the same state can help to remember information.
Smith study/ Cognitive interview- Retrieval Failure -Supporting Evidence
Where we are finding it difficult to remember something it’s worth making the effort to try to recall the environment in which you learnt the info first. This is the principle of cognitive interview. It’s a valuable tool for accurate recall form eyewitness. Therefore, explanations of forgetting such as state-dependent forgetting can be applied to real life.
Questioning the Context Effects - Retrieval to Failure
The info you’re learning is related to a lot more than just the cues. In most experiments, ppts are learning word lists but when students are learning about the multi-storey model for example, you’re learning about complex associations (not simple word lists)- which are less easier to trigger by a single cue.
However, there’s a wealth of research evidence high documents the importance of retrieval cues in memory.
Retrieval Failure-Evaluation- Strength/ Weakness
Strength:
•Research support- Godden and Baddeley
• Real life applications - Cognitive interview
Weakness:
•Criticism
•Cues don’t always work - Smith and Vela cues are eliminated when learning meaningful material
Meta- analysis
Types of secondary data. The researcher doesn’t carry out a new research but primary data from another researcher. Produces quantities data.
Strength: time + cheap; Validity with larger sample
Weakness: publication bias- file drawer problem
Factors affecting testimony
Eyewitness testimony Misleading info Leading questions Post-event discussion Anxiety
Eyewitness testimony (EWT)
The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator of the crime.
Misleading information in EWT
Supplying info that may lead a witness’ memory for a crime to be altered.
Leading questions in EWT
A question that either by it’s form or consent, suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads him/her to the desired answer.
Post-event discussion in EWT
A conversation between go-witnesses or an interviewer and an eyewitness after a crime has took place which may contaminate a witness’ memory for the event.
Anxiety in EWT
An unpleasant emotional state that is accompanied by increased heart rate breathing eg: physiological arousal
Loftus & Palmer experiment 1- Misleading Information
Aim: To Investigate the effects of misleading information on EWT.
Procedure: 45 U.S students watched videos of car crash. Then asked questions about speed of the cars. Ppts were separated into 5 groups, with each verb used to describe the crash changed for each group. (Independent group design)
Findings: It was found that groups with harsher verbs used eg: smashed desportes high speed estimates eg: 40.8 mph
Conclusion: Therefore, this study demonstrates the impact misleading info had no EWT.
Loftus & Palmer experiment 2 - leading questions
Aim: to investigate the effects of misleading / leading questions have in EWT.
Procedure: 150 U.S students watched a car crash. Then asked questions relating to the video. Ppts were separated into 3 groups smashed and hit verbs used for group 1 and 2 and group 3 left to their own opinion. A week later ppts returned and was asked the leading question ‘did you see any broken glass?’ Ppts presented with harsh verbs like smashed 16 ppts said Yes and 34 ppts said No.
Findings: found that the groups with harsh verbs said that they had seen broken glass.
Conclusion: Therefore, it conveys the impact of leading question on EWT.
Loftus & Palmer Evaluation - Strengths/ Weakness
Strength:
* Practical Application - criminal justice
Weakness:
- Lack mundane realism
- Lack ecological validity
- Demand characteristics
- Cultural bias - 45 Americans
- Lacks population validity
Gabbert et al study ->Post- event discussion
Aim: to investigate post- event discussion in EWT
Procedure: Gabber and her colleagues studied ppts in pairs. Each ppt watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points of view. This meant that each ppt could see elements in the event that the other could not. Eg: Only 1 of the ppts could see the title of a book being carried by a young woman. Both ppts then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall.
Findings: Results showed that 71% of the witnesses in the post-event discussion group recalled information that they had not seen. Eg: Many said that they saw the girl steal money form the wallet when they had not.
Gabbert et al study - Evaluation - Strength/ Weakness
Strength:
- Real life applications - helps police solving crimes= useful; more funding
- Ppts of different ages = representative; higher population validity
Weakness:
- Ethnocentric
- Lacks ecological validity - video, Demand characteristics
Anxiety has NEGATIVE Effects - Johnson & Scott - The weapon Focus Effect
Aim: to investigate the negative effects of anxiety in EWT.
Procedure: In lab. experiment, Ppts were asked to wait outside the lab. and ‘over heard’ what they thought was a genuine exchange.
CONDITION 1- Heard an ambiance discussion about equipment failure and then a man came out holding with greasy hands holding a pen.
CONDITION 2- Heard a hostile exchange and the sound of braking furniture and then a man came out holding a knife covered in blood.
They were asked to identify from 50 photos. Peaceful scene had a better recall (cond.1) - more accurate (49%) in identifying than those who witnessed the hostile scene (33%) (cond.2).
Findings: The results suggest that the anxiety caused by the weapon (blood stains knife) narrowed the focus of the ppts and took some attention from the man’s face.
Conclusion: WFE and anxiety reduces accuracy in recall of eyewitnesses.
Anxiety has POSITIVE effects - Christiansen & Hubinette
Aim: to investigate the positive effects of anxiety in EWT.
Procedure: In the natural experiment, they found evidence of enhanced recall on 58 real witness to a bank robbery (staff & costumers - High and low anxiety) in Sweden. They found that those who had actually been threatened were moe accurate in their recall, compared to onlookers.
Therefore, anxiety does not reduce accuracy of recall. In real life incidents involving high levels of anxiety and stress - recall can be more accurate and long lasting.
Anxiety - contradictory findings
Deffenbacher was 1 of the first to investigate links between anxiety and EWT. He received 21 studies in a meta-analysis and found that as we become moderate anxious, performance we feel fatigued. He suggested the Yerkes- Dodson effect accounts for this apparent inconsistency.
- Secondary data;
- Researcher doesn’t carry out new research;
- Quantitive meta data;
Pickel’s Research - Anxiety- meta analysis
Procedure: ppts watched a thief enter a salon with either:
- Scissors-high threat, low surprise;
- Handgun- high threat, high surprise;
- Wallet- low threat, low surprise;
- Raw chicken- low threat, high surprise;
Findings: Identification was least accurate in the high surprise conditions rather than high threat.
Conclusion: This contrasts the view that the weapon focus effect is related to anxiety & suggests it may be due to surprise, rather than anxiety.
Anxiety - Evaluation - Strength/ Weakness
Strength:
* Natural Experiment- Christianson & Hubinette -> robbery
Weakness:
* Lab. Experiment- Johnson & Scott -> The weapon focus effect
Cognitive Interview
A police technique for interviewing witnesses in a crime. It encourages them to recreate the original context of the crime to increase the accessibility to the stored information. Our memory is made up of a network of associations and not discrete events, so memories are accessed using multiple stages of retrieval.
Fischer et al study- Cognitive Interview
In the standard interview what it was wrong was that the interviewer bombarded them with questions, Interview was interrupted and close- ended questions.
The 4 stages in Cognitive Interview
- Context reinstatement
- Report everything
- Recall from changed perspective
- Recall in reverse order
Cognitive Interview Evaluation - Strength/ Weakness
Strength:
- Case study - meta analysis
- Some additional elements to focus on the social dynamics - Fisher experiment
Weakness:
*Time consuming
