Memory (general)

Question 1

What technique did Miller discover in relation to the capacity of the STM?

Answer 1

Chunking - he realised that people can recall 5 words as easily as 5 letters, so by grouping the letters into chunks, they are more easily recalled.

Question 2

Outline the procedure of Peterson and Peterson’s study.

Answer 2

The participant was given a trigram to remember (e.g. BRK). They were then told to count backwards from a 3-digit number for 3/6/9/12/15/18 seconds. At the end of the time, they were asked to recall the trigram.

Question 3

What were the findings of Peterson and Peterson’s study? What does this show?

Answer 3

The longer the participant had to count for, the lower their chance of recalling the trigram. This shows that the STM may have a very short duration unless we do verbal rehearsal.

Question 4

Outline the procedure of Jacob’s study.

Answer 4

The researcher gives the participant a 4 digit figure to recall. If they get it right, they are given a 5 digit figure, and so on until they get the figure wrong. Jacob did the same for letters.

Question 5

What were the findings of Jacob’s study? What does this show?

Answer 5

Jacob found that the average person recalled 9.3 numbers and 7.3 letters. This shows that the capacity of the STM is 7 (plus or minus 2).

Question 6

Outline the procedure of Bahrick’s study.

Answer 6

Bahrick took 392 participants aged 17-74 and obtained their yearbooks. The participants were tested by doing 1) a photo-recognition test of students in their yearbook and 2) free recall of the names of the students in their yearbook.

Question 7

What were the findings of Bahrick’s study? What does this show?

Answer 7

He found that in photo recognition, after 15 years of graduation there was 90% accuracy, and after 48 years there was 70% accuracy. In free recall after 15 years there was 60% accuracy, and after 48 years there was 30% accuracy. This shows that the duration of the LTM can be very long/unlimited.

Question 8

Outline the procedure of Baddeley’s acoustic/semantic words study.

Answer 8

He gave different lists of words to four different groups of participants to remember. Group 1: acoustically similar words, group 2: acoustically dissimilar words, group 3: semantically similar words, and group 4: semantically dissimilar words. They were then asked to recall them in the correct order.

Question 9

What were the findings of Baddeley’s acoustic/semantic words study? What does this show?

Answer 9

When they recalled the words immediately after hearing them (STM) they did worse with acoustically similar words. When they recalled the words 20 minutes after hearing them (LTM) they did worse with semantically similar words. This shows that information is coded acoustically in the STM, and coded semantically in the LTM.

Question 10

Describe the case study of HM.

Answer 10

HM underwent brain surgery to relieve his epilepsy, and unfortunately his hippocampus (a section of the brain central to memory function) was removed. After the surgery he did not know what year it was or his age, he had very little memory of the operation, and he would read the same magazine over and over without remembering it. However, he performed well on tests of immediate memory span.

Question 11

What does the case study of HM tell us about memory?

Answer 11

The case study of HM provides supporting evidence for the MSM as his LTM was corrupted by the operation but his STM was not

Question 12

Describe the case study of Clive Wearing.

Answer 12

Clive Wearing suffers from a severe form of amnesia after a viral infection in his brain which damaged his hippocampus. He is a world-class musician and can still play the piano and conduct a choir. He can remember aspects of his life pre-infection but not others, for example he knows he has children, but he doesn’t know their names. He recognises his wife, but each time he sees her he believes he hasn’t seen her in years, even if she has just left the room for a moment.

Question 13

What does the case study of Clive Wearing tell us about memory?

Answer 13

The case study of Clive Wearing provides evidence for separate LTM stores because his episodic store was impaired, but his procedural and semantic stores weren’t.

Question 14

Describe the case study of KF.

Answer 14

KF suffered from brain damage after a motorcycle accident. The brain damage affected his STM for verbal information, but not for visual information.

Question 15

What does the case study of KF tell us about memory and the WMM?

Answer 15

The case study of KF provides evidence for the WMM, in particular suggesting that there are separate visual and acoustic components of the STM

Question 16

Outline the procedure of Baddeley’s dual task study.

Answer 16

One group of participants were made to do two tasks at the same time which involved the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The other group were made to do two tasks at the same time, one involving the VSS and one involving the phonological loop.

Question 17

What were the findings of Baddeley’s dual task study? What does this show?

Answer 17

Baddeley found that the group doing the two VSS tasks did worse than the group doing one VSS and one PL task. This supports the WMM because it shows that multiple separate processing systems can work at the same time.

Question 18

Describe McGeoch and McDonald’s research into interference (including findings)

Answer 18

All participants had to memorise a set of words until they could recall them with 100% accuracy. Then the participants were split into 6 groups and given a new set of things to memorise (synonyms, antonyms, unrelated words, nonsense syllables, 3-digit numbers, or no new list). The participants then had to recall the original set of words. The more similar the second set was to the first set, the worse the recall. This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar.

Question 19

Describe Baddeley and Hitch’s research into interference (including findings)

Answer 19

Rugby players were asked to recall the names of the teams that they had played against so far that season. Some players had missed matches so their last game might have been two weeks ago. The results showed that accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches took place, but the number of matches they had played in the meantime. This suggests that interference affects memory more than time does.

Question 20

Describe Burke and Skrull’s research into interference (including findings)

Answer 20

The participants were presented with a series of magazine adverts, which they then had to recall the details of. In some cases, the participants had trouble remembering the earlier adverts (retroactive interference) and some had trouble remembering the later adverts (proactive interference). This shows the presence of both types of interference.

Question 21

Describe Baddeley and Godden’s research into context-dependent forgetting (including findings)

Answer 21

A group of deep-sea divers learned a list of words either on land or underwater, and then were asked to recall the list of words on land or underwater. This created 4 conditions (land-land, land-water, water-land, water-water). Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non matching conditions; the external cues available at learning were not present at retrieval, leading to retrieval failure.

Question 22

Describe Carter and Cassaday’s research into state-dependent forgetting (including findings)

Answer 22

The participants learned a list of words either on an anti-histamine drug (which made them slightly drowsy) or not. They were then asked to recall the words either on the drug or not. This created 4 conditions (drug-drug, drug-no drug, no drug-drug, no drug-no drug). Accurate recall was significantly lower with the non matching conditions; the internal cues available at learning were not available at retrieval, leading to retrieval failure.

Question 23

Describe Baker et al’s research into forgetting (including findings)

Answer 23

The participants had to learn a list of words either while chewing gum or not, and after 24 hours they had to recall the words either chewing gum or not. Recall was best when the participant chewed gum in both stages, and worst when the participant has mixed conditions in the stages.

Question 24

Describe Aggleton and Waskett’s research into forgetting (including findings)

Answer 24

The study was carried out in an underground museum in York. In the museum, smells similar to those present in the town 1000 years ago are replicated. Research found that recreating these smells helped visitors to remember their trip to the museum more accurately. This is an example of context-dependent forgetting.

Question 25

Outline the procedure of Johnson and Scott’s research into anxiety and recall

Answer 25

They invited a group of people to take part in a study, and while they were in the waiting room, a loud argument went on in the next room. Then a man walked past the waiting room with 1) a pen (low-anxiety) or 2) a paper knife covered in blood (high-anxiety). They were then asked as eye witnesses to pick out the man from a selection of 50 photos.

Question 26

What were the findings of Johnson and Scott’s study into anxiety and recall

Answer 26

They found that the participants who experienced the low anxiety condition (pen) had 49% accurate identification of the man, whereas the high anxiety condition (paper knife) only had 33% accurate identification. This suggests than anxiety negatively affects recall.

Question 27

What is the name for the effect found in Johnson and Scott’s research? What is a suggested alternative explanation for it?

Answer 27

Tunnel theory. It suggests that seeing the knife raises anxiety levels and stops you from seeing anything else. However, it is arguable that it is not a result of anxiety, but rather unusualness.

Question 28

Outline the procedure of Yuille and Cutshall’s research into anxiety and recall

Answer 28

They took 13 witnesses of a real life shooting 4 months after the event took place, and asked them details about the crime. The details were compared to their accounts 4 months previously, and accuracy was taken from this. They also were asked to assess how much anxiety they felt at the time of the crime using a 7-point scale.

Question 29

What were the findings of Yuille and Cutshall’s research into anxiety and recall?

Answer 29

The participants who reported the highest levels of anxiety had 88% accurate recall, whereas the people who reported the lowest anxiety only had 75% accurate recall. This suggests that anxiety positively affects recall.

Question 30

Describe the Yerkes-Dodson inverted U theory.

Answer 30

The theory suggests that recall is best with medium level of anxiety. As a graph, with anxiety on the x axis, and recall on the y axis, the line is like a sad face - low anxiety = low recall, medium anxiety = high recall, high anxiety = low recall.

Question 31

Describe Loftus and Palmer’s study into leading questions (including findings)

Answer 31

Participants watched a clip of a car crash, and then were asked ‘About how fast were the cars going when they x each other?’, where x was substituted for hit/contacted/bumped/collided/smashed. When the participants heard ‘contacted’, they estimated 31.8 mph, and when they heard ‘smashed’, they estimated 40.5 mph. Then, when asked if they saw glass at the scene, those who heard ‘smashed’ were more likely to say yes. This shows that leading questions can directly affect memory.

Question 32

Describe Gabbert et al.’s study into PEDs (including findings)

Answer 32

Participants were put into pairs. They then watched a clip of the same crime, each from a different perspective, so each participant could see things the other could not. They then discussed what they had seen in the clip. The findings showed that 71% of participants recalled false information they had picked up in conversation. This shows the effect that PEDs can have on memory.

Question 33

Describe the structure of the MSM

Answer 33

Stimulus, sensory register (iconic, echoic), STM store, LTM store

Question 34

Describe the structure of the WMM

Answer 34

Stimulus, central executive, slave system - phonological loop (phonological store, articulatory process)/ visuo-spatial sketchpad (visual cashe, inner scribe)/ episodic buffer

Question 35

Give one evaluative point on research done into the coding, capacity and duration of memory

Answer 35

Lots of research in this field (Baddeley, Jacobs, Peterson and Peterson) involves artificial stimuli which does not reflect real life memory activities

Question 36

Explain why the MSM is an oversimplified model of memory

Answer 36

There is more than one type of STM (as demonstrated by KF and Clive Wearing) and LTM (episodic, semantic, procedural)

Question 37

Outline Tulving’s research into the LTM

Answer 37

Tulving got participants to do memory tasks while having their brains scanned, and found that episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex, and semantic memories from the left.

Question 38

What is one problem with drawing conclusions from the cases of HM, KF, and Clive Wearing?

Answer 38

They are all individual case studies involving severe brain damage, which means that the findings drawn may not be generalisable

Question 39

What is one weakness of the WMM?

Answer 39

Very little is known about the most important part of the model - the central executive

Question 40

What is one limitation of the way in which research into interference is conducted?

Answer 40

The fact that it is conducted in a lab limits it’s external validity; the tasks are artificial and the time between learning and recalling is often a lot shorter than it would be in real life

Question 41

What is one problem with the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 41

It is untestable - when a cue produces the successful recall of memory, we assume it was present at encoding, and when it doesn’t, we assume it wasn’t. This is a form of circular reasoning.

Question 42

What comment does Baddeley make on the effect of context on forgetting?

Answer 42

In real life contexts are often non varied enough to have a strong effect - at least not as varied as those in studies e.g. above/under water.

Question 43

What are two limitations of studies into factors affecting EWT?

Answer 43

1. Tasks involving watching clips of crimes are artificial and quite different from witnessing a crime in real life, 2. What you report in a real life EWT is much more important and has much greater consequences than in studies, which may affect what you recall

Question 44

What is one weakness of Yuille and Cutshall’s research?

Answer 44

It lacks control - the participants would have been influenced by many things (discussions, the media, interviews etc) in between the event and the study which the researchers could not control for

Question 45

What issue arises from Johnson and Scott’s research?

Answer 45

There are ethical issues involved in creating anxiety in participants, particularly those who have not given consent to this

Question 46

Outline the findings from Köhnken’s meta-analysis of the effectiveness of the CI

Answer 46

They found that the CI was consistently more effective than the standard interview. They found an 81% increase of correct information, BUT also a 61% increase of incorrect information.

Question 47

What is one weakness of the CI?

Answer 47

It is time consuming to conduct and requires specialist training