Memory Evaluation Flashcards
Coding evaluation
strength- coding research is often conducted in controlled lab settings e.g. Baddeley’s study allows manipulation of types of words presented and so extraneous variables so there is high internal validity
limitation- it is not clear how long we need to wait to test LTM and perhaps Baddeley should have waited longer than 20 minutes as there is longer gaps in learning and recall in real life
Capacity evaluation
strength- the effects of age are acknowledged as Jacobs tested individuals of ranging ages and found that digit span increases with age so capacity of the STM accounts for people of all ages
limitation- results are often based on case studies so it is not representative of the general population and it is also subjective so difficult to apply to others
Duration evaluation
strength- some studies use meaningful memories as stimuli e.g. Bahrick asked pts to recall yearbook photos of people they saw and went to school with so everyday memories were represented increasing the internal validity and allowing the findings to be generalised
limitation- some studies use artificial stimuli e.g. Peterson and Peterson who asked pts to remember nonsense trigrams so the study lacks external validity and does not reflect real-life memory
Multi-store model evaluation
strength- supporting evidence from Glazner and Cunitz which proves that the STM and LTM are separate stores. They had pts listen to and recall a list of words immediately and found that pts had good recall for the first part of the list (primacy effect) and the last part of the list (recency effect) and words in the middle had the worst recall.
limitation- the STM is too simplistic as Shallice and Warrington studied a patient called KF who had poor verbal material but unaffected visual information which shows there must be more than one store for the STM
limitation- the importance of rehearsal is overemphasised as we can often recall information which we did not rehearse e.g. knowing how to swim
Types of long-term memory evaluation
strength- case studies of HM and Clive Wearing support the view that LTM is made of 3 different stores as both their episodic memories were severely impaired but semantic and procedural were unaffected
strength- brain scan studies provide evidence that memory is stored in different parts of the brain e.g. Tulving had pts do memory tasks while they were scanned with a PET scanner and they found that episodic and semantic memory was recall from the prefrontal cortex and procedural memory was linked to the cerebellum
limitation- Cohen and Squire argue that episodic and semantic memories are stored in declarative memory and procedural memories are non-declarative so there are only two stores not three
Working memory model evaluation
strength- Baddeley conducted an experiment in which pts had to do two visual tasks at the same time or a verbal and visual task at the same time. Pts found it more difficult to do two visual tasks at the same time as they were competing for the same WMM component which supports the idea that STM has more than one component
strength- Shallice and Warrington studied KF who’s verbal material was poor and visual information was unaffected so only one STM store was damaged
limitation- the central executive is too vague considering it is the most important. Eslinger and Damasio argue there are several components to the central executive as EVR performed well on reasoning tests but showed poor judgement
Theories of forgetting evaluation
limitation- the materials used in research into interference are artificial so greater interference will be demonstrated in the lab than in real-life as they typically involve using lists of words.
strength- real-life research from Baddeley and Hitch who asked rugby players to remember the teams of players they had played that season. They found that accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches took place but on how many games they played in the mean time e.g. a players recall of a team from 3 weeks ago was better if they had played no matches since then
limitation- the theory may not be the most important one e.g. Tulving and Psotka gave pts 5 lists of words and found that recall decreased with each list but went back up when there were environmental cues therefore it must have been retrieval failure not interference
Retrieval failure evaluation
limitation- context only affects memory when it is very different at recall so it would be hard to find an environment as different as land and water therefore the presence or absence of a cue only affects memory when you test it in a certain way
limitation- Godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment but used recognition instead of recall and found that the context did not have an affect on performance therefore cues only affect recall not recognition
limitation- the ESP is untestable as it relies on the assumption that when someone successfully recalls a word it is due to a cue but we cannot actually establish if the cue was ever encoded
Misleading information evaluation
strength- practical applications as the research could be used by legal professions to ensure there is no misleading info in interview
limitation- research uses artificial tasks e.g. in Loftus’ and Palmer’s study pts watched film clips of accidents instead of witnessing real accidents so their answers could be due to demand characteristics so validity is lowered
limitation- individual differences are ignored as most studies use young people and Anastasi and Rhodes found that people 18-45 were more accurate than 55-78 year olds therefore research findings cannot be generalised to older people
Anxiety evaluation
limitation- the inverted U theory ignores the fact that anxiety presents itself in many different forms e.g. it can also be cognitive therefore the theory oversimplifies the relationship between anxiety and accuracy
limitation- the weapon focus effect is invalid as pts may just be shocked not scared e.g. Pickel showed pts a video clip of a man walking with a pair of scissors, a handgun, a wallet and a raw chicken. Eyewitness accuracy was worse in the weird situations.
limitation- field studies lack control e.g. Yuille and Cutshall interviewed real life witnesses but anything could have happened to them before interview like seeing reports of the event on TV so pt variables could affect accuracy
Cognitive interview evaluation
strength- practical applications e.g. Geiselman showed pts a clip of a violent crime and found that CI led to better memory for events + Kohnken found from 50 studies that enhanced CI consistently provided more correct info
limitation- it is time consuming and requires police officers to be specially trained which they do not have the funds to do
limitation- CI does not improve recall in all cases e.g. Geiselman found that in children under 6 recall was slightly less accurate due to the complexity of the instructions provided from CI
