memory EQ Flashcards
Two groups of participants took part in a memory experiment. The researcher read
20 words to the participants.
* Participants in Group A had to write down the words immediately after they had
heard them.
* Participants in Group B had to write down the words after they had read a book for
one minute.
The researcher noticed that:
* participants in Group A generally recalled words from the beginning and the end of
the list
* participants in Group B generally recalled words from the beginning of the list only.
0 4 Outline what is meant by standardisation and suggest one way standardisation could
have been used in this experiment.
[2 marks]
ways in which procedures/materials/instructions within an
investigation are kept the same for all participants.
* the same word list for both groups/conditions
Two groups of participants took part in a memory experiment. The researcher read
20 words to the participants.
* Participants in Group A had to write down the words immediately after they had
heard them.
* Participants in Group B had to write down the words after they had read a book for
one minute.
The researcher noticed that:
* participants in Group A generally recalled words from the beginning and the end of
the list
* participants in Group B generally recalled words from the beginning of the list only.
Outline what is meant by randomisation and suggest one way randomisation could
have been used in this experiment.
[2 marks]
– the use of ‘chance’ in setting up the investigation
* the allocation of participants to each condition/group should have been decided randomly.
Two groups of participants took part in a memory experiment. The researcher read
20 words to the participants.
* Participants in Group A had to write down the words immediately after they had
heard them.
* Participants in Group B had to write down the words after they had read a book for
one minute.
The researcher noticed that:
* participants in Group A generally recalled words from the beginning and the end of
the list
* participants in Group B generally recalled words from the beginning of the list only.
Two groups of participants took part in a memory experiment. The researcher read
20 words to the participants.
* Participants in Group A had to write down the words immediately after they had
heard them.
* Participants in Group B had to write down the words after they had read a book for
one minute.
The researcher noticed that:
* participants in Group A generally recalled words from the beginning and the end of
the list
* participants in Group B generally recalled words from the beginning of the list only.
Explain the results of this experiment with reference to the multi-store model of memory.
[4 marks]
in Group B, the disruption of the reading task prevented maintenance rehearsal
* in Group B, the reason the last few words are not available (recency effect) is because the duration of
STM (18–30 secs) has been exceeded.
* in Groups A and B, poor recall of words in the middle of the list is due to the limited capacity of STM
(7+/-2)
* in Group A, due to immediate recall the last few words are still available in short-term memory
(recency effect).
Discuss research into the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
[16 marks]
ao1
johson and scott studied weapon focus affect - looked at how anxeity can cause you to hone in one one aspect and limit recall of everything else
ppts in a waiting room for an interview
they heard an argument whilst waiting
ppts in either low or high anxiety condition
in low anxiety condition sm1 walked out off room holding a pen dripping ink
in high anxiety condition sm1 walked out w knife dripping blood
49% for low anxiety
33% recall for high - recllall of face
low percentsge recall in high anxiety condition was due to weapon focus effect where they paid attention to weapon then face of person holding the weapon
yuille and cutshall looked at positive impact of weapon focus effect - ppts were allw itnesses to shooting in a shop
there were 21 witnesses
13 agreed to partake in stufy
4-5 months after incident they were asked to give ewt of what they saw
this was recorded and compared to their origniak
ppts also asked to judge how stressed theyd been on a 7 point scale
recall accuracy and stress levels at the time of the event were recordedrecall was better when stress levels were high
88% accuracy when stress levels were high vs 75% when stress levels were low
contradictory findings can be explained by yerkes and dodson inverted u theory -
lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall
increase in anxiety can increase accuracy of recall - up to a certain point - known as optimun
past this high anxiety decreases accuracy of recall
Discuss research into the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
[16 marks]
ao3 - list out evaluations
- contradictory ev
- weapon focus effect irrelevant
- ethical issue
limitation of reserach into investigating anxiety effect into ewt - contradictory evidnece
P: one limitation into investigating anxiety effects on accuracy of eyewitness testimony is contradictory evidence.
E: for example whilst Johsonn and Scott’s 1976 research suggests anxiety has a negative effect on recall, Yuille and Cutshall 1986 conducted a study of an actual shooting whereby 13 of 21 witnesses participated. They were interviewed 4-5 months after the incident and this was compared to their original interview. They were also asked to rate their stress in a 7 point scale. They found that accuracy was very good with those pts reporting high levels of stress having more accuracy compared to lower levels - 88% vs 75%.
E; this therefore suggests that in some cases anxiety doesn’t have a detrimental effect on accuracy of ewt in a real world context and may even enhance it.
L; therefore the contradictory evidence weakens the conclusions reached from research into investigating the effects of anxiety on eyewitness testimony.
limiation of res into anx ewt - weapon focus effect may be irrelevant
p; research into weapon focus effect has shown that it may in fact not be relevant as initally thought
e; pickel 1981 suggested that the reason ehy ppl focus on the weapon is bc they are suprised at what they see rather than being scared
e- in a study pickel used scissors a handgun a wallet or raw chicken as hand held items in a hairdressers video. ew acc was significantly poorer in the high unusalness conditions (chicken and handgun)
L; this suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusalness rather than anxiety/threat and thus tells us notning abiut effects of anxiety on ewt
Ethical issues - weakness
P: A final criticism of research into the impact of anxiety, is that numerous ethical guidelines are often broken.
E:For example in Johnson and Scotts study the participants were deceived about the nature of the experiment, as they thought they were being invited to have an interview and they were not protected from harm.
E: Johnson & Scott also exposed some of the participants to a man holding a bloodied knife, which could have caused extreme feelings of anxiety.
L:This is an issue, as these participants may have left the experiment feeling exceptionally stressed and anxious, especially if they, or someone they knew, had been involved in a knife crime.
Explain two differences between procedural memory and episodic memory.
[4 marks]
procedural memories are memories of motor skills/actions/muscle memories; episodic
memories are memories of life events
* procedural memories are unavailable for conscious inspection/difficult to explain verbally
(non-declarative); episodic memories can be expressed verbally (declarative)
In an investigation into memory, participants were presented with two different lists of
words.
List A List B
Flip
Flit
Flop
Flap
Flab
Flan
Flat
Huge
Large
Great
Giant
Vast
Mighty
Epic
After seeing the lists, participants were tested on their ability to recall the words.
When tested immediately, participants found it more difficult to recall the words from
List A in the correct order.
When tested after 30 minutes, participants found it more difficult to recall the words from
List B in the correct order.
Using your knowledge of coding in memory, explain these findings.
[4 marks]
list a Flip
Flit
Flop
Flap
Flab
Flan
Flat
list b
Huge
Large
Great
Giant
Vast
Mighty
Epic
- list A is made up of words that are acoustically similar/sound similar
- this will cause confusion/difficulty/problems (when tested immediately) as short-term
memory (STM) uses acoustic/phonetic/sound-based coding
list B is made up of words that are semantically similar/have similar meaning - this will cause confusion/difficulty/problems (when tested after 30 minutes) as long-term
memory (LTM) uses semantic/meaning-based coding.
Outline and evaluate research (theories and/or studies) into the effects of misleading
information on eyewitness testimony.
[16 marks]
ao1
- leading questions
- questions phrased in a way that they lead us or imply us to a specific answer
loftus and palmer 1963
45 ppts to watch film clips of car accidnet
then asked ppts a critical question how fast were the cars going when they ______ eachother?
bumped
knocked
hit
contacted
smashed
mean estimate speed for groups who heard word contacted was 38.8
mean estimate speed for groups who heard word smashed was 40.5
loftus and palmer 2nd ex
ppl who heard the critical verb smashed more likely to report broken glass although there wasnt any then ppts who heard the word hit
PED
gabbert et al
ppts paired up
each ppt watched video of same crime at different angles
and so saw differernt things eg one of pptsv able to see title of a book carried by a woman
then ppts pairednback and allowed to discuss what they saw
there was also a control grouo where there was no post event discussion
71 % of ppts mistakenly recalled info they couldnt of seen but picked up on during post event discussion
vs in the control grouo where 0% of ppts picked up on things they couldnt have seen
memory contamination
during ped memory gets distorted through combining memory of others with your own
memory conformity
witnesses go along with eachother to win social approval or because they think others are right
strength of research into misleading info - real world application
P; a strength of research into misleading infomatio is its practical applications in the real world
E: consequences of inaccurate ewt due to misleading info can be devasting eg wrongful convictions
E: loftus believes that leading questions can have distorting affect on memory that research on this has led to police officers changing their questioning technique in order to avoid the distorting affect of misleading info
L; research into this area can make an important positive differennce to lives of real people by improving the way legal system works and increasing the chance of witnesses giving sound evidence and decreasing likelyhood of wrongful convictions
counterpoint to pracitcal applications of ewt
P- practical app of ewt may be affected by issues w research
E- eg loftus and palmer ppts watched film clips in a lab which cannot reprodice the stress of associated w witnessing a real event
E; also foster et al 1994 points out thta what ppts remeber has important condequences in the real world but not in research which could mean pprts are less motivated to be accurate
L; this suggests that researchers such as loftus may be too pessimistic about the effects of misleading info and that ewt may be more relaibale than many studies suggest
weakness of memory conformity in ped - evidence agiant mem con
p: a limitation of the memory conformity explanation is evidence that ped actually alters eyewitness testiomony
E- skagerberg and wright 2008 showed ppts film clips. there were 2 versions for example in one mangers hair dark brown, light brown in the other
ppts discussed clips in pairs each having seen different versions
E- results showed taht they did not report what they has seen in clips or what they had heard from the co witnesses but a blend of the 2 eg a common answer to the hair question wasnt light or dark brown but medium brown
L; this suggests taht memory itself is distorted through cintamination by post event discussion rather than as a resukt of memory conformity
Limitation of substitution explanation - evidence against
One limitation of the substitution explanation is that eyewitness testimony is more accurate for some aspects of an event than for others.
For example Sutherland and Hayne (2001) showed participants a video clip. When participants were later asked misleading questions, they recall was more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones.
Presumably the participants attention was focused on the,central features of the event and these memories were relatively resistant to misleading information.
This suggests that the original memories for central details survived and were not distorted, and this outcome is not predicted by the substitution exclamation
ANn imitation of the substution explanation is that evewitn
A researcher investigated the working memory model using a laboratory experiment.
Forty students from a local college volunteered to take part.
In Condition A, 20 students performed the following two tasks at the same time:
* mentally counting backwards from 100
* tracking coloured shapes on a computer screen.
In Condition B, 20 different students performed the following two tasks at the same
time:
* mentally counting backwards from 100
* reading a poem out loud.
The researcher predicted that the performance of students in Condition A would be
better than the performance of students in Condition B
Name the two components of working memory that would be involved in the performance
of the tasks in Condition A.
mentally counting backwards - phonological loop
Tracking coloured shapes on a computer screen – Visuo-spatial sketchpad
A researcher investigated the working memory model using a laboratory experiment.
Forty students from a local college volunteered to take part.
In Condition A, 20 students performed the following two tasks at the same time:
* mentally counting backwards from 100
* tracking coloured shapes on a computer screen.
In Condition B, 20 different students performed the following two tasks at the same
time:
* mentally counting backwards from 100
* reading a poem out loud.
Briefly explain two ways in which the working memory experiment described above
could be improved.
[4 marks]
changing the nature of the tasks – suggestions for tasks that are more reflective of real-life
behaviour, eg reading e-mails whilst talking on the phone, etc
participants should be randomly allocated to each experimental condition; brief explanation of
how this would be done
Discuss one strength of the working memory model.
[4 marks]
P: further support is shown by baddley and hitch dual task performance studies 1976
E: ppts carried out both visual and verbal task simultaneously.
if one vis and one verb task done at same time to perf when tasks performed sep
but if 2 visual or 2 verbal tasks were performed at once then perf declined
E: this is because doing both visual tasks req same vss component when visual and verbal tasks occur at once diff components are used so dual task performance cannot occur if same component used
L: thus supports wmm and compoents of stm - vs - visual info processijf and pl - auditory info and verbal processing
Describe the cognitive interview.
[6 marks]
came abour using 4 techniques that imporves accuracy of ewt
report everything - witnesses include every single detial no matter how small - such detial may trigger memories
reinstate context - interviewee mentally reinstates the environmental and personal context
of the incident, eg sights, sounds, weather etc; (based on the principle of retrieval failure/cuedependent forgetting that cues may trigger recall)#hanging order – interviewer tries alternative ways through the timeline of the incident; (reduces
possibility that recall may be influenced by schema/expectations)
changing perspective – interviewee recalls from different perspectives, eg how it would have
appeared to other witnesses; (reduces influence of schema
features of enhanced cognitive interview to facilitate recall – focus on social interaction, reducing
anxiety/distractions, slow speech, use of open-ended questions
Aaron was upset as he left the Spanish exam. In the unfamiliar room and full of nerves,
his mind had gone completely blank. He was regretting studying both French and Spanish
because he was sure he had mixed up lots of the words.
0 8 Outline one explanation of forgetting. How might this explanation account for Aaron’s poor
performance in the Spanish exam?
[4 marks]
Retrieval failure (focus here must be on forgetting)
Forgetting is due to the absence of cues
Lack of external contextual cues – where environment for learning and recall is different (eg
different room)
Lack of internal contextual cues – where physical state for learning and recall is different (eg
mood)
Possible applications:
Aaron is not in the same context as when he learnt the material for his Spanish exam – ‘an
unfamiliar room’
Aaron is not in the same physical, emotional state as when he learnt the material – ‘full of nerves’
Briefly evaluate the explanation of forgetting you have outlined in your answer to
Question 08.
[4 marks]
P: There are a lot of research studies providing evidence for retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting.
E: research by carter and cassady was a lab study that tested partipants recall of word lists either recalling on or off drug and learning on and off drug. they found that when there was a mismatch between internal state for learning and recall performance was significantly worse. so thus via retrival failure absense of sufficient cues leads to forgetting
futrther research by godden sand baddely found ppts who learnt word lists whilst under water were more likely to remember those words when asked to recall them in same context. this is compared to groups who were aksed to learn their words on water nd recall on land or vice versa
L; This is a strength because more supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation.Evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs both in real life situations and in controlled conditions
