Memory- JK Flashcards
1
Q
What is memory?
A
The process of encoding, storing and retrieving information after the original material is no longer present
2
Q
What are the three types of long term memory?
A
Episodic (autobiographical)
Semantic (knowledge & concepts)
Procedural (skills & actions)
3
Q
What is encoding and what are the three types of encoding?
A
Creating a chemical trace when presented with a stimulus to a form that can be stored
1)Visual 2)Acoustic 3)Semantic
4
Q
What does the multi store model look like?
A
SENSORY REGISTER—- decay
attention
SHORT TERM STORE—- decay or displacement
rehearsal
LONG TERM STORE—- interference or retrieval failure
info passes in a a linear way
5
Q
What is the short term store’s capacity?
A
7 ± 2 items
6
Q
What is the preferred encoding of the short term store?
A
Acoustic
7
Q
What is the short term store’s duration?
A
18 seconds
8
Q
What is the long term store’s capacity?
A
Unlimited
9
Q
What is the preferred encoding of the long term store?
A
Semantic
10
Q
What is the long term store’s duration?
A
Unlimited
11
Q
What is the duration of the sensory memory?
A
250 milliseconds (0.25 seconds)
12
Q
What are the three sensory registers?
A
1) Ionic register (visual)
2) Echoic register (sound/auditory)
3) Haptic register (touch)
13
Q
What are two facts about the sensory memory store?
A
1) It isn’t unitary
2) The stores are passive (no consciously controlled)
14
Q
What is chunking?
A
Organising items into familiar/manageable units
15
Q
What is episodic memory?
A
LTM- explicit/declarative , autobiographical memories of events including contextual details
16
Q
What is procedural memory?
A
LTM of how to perform skills & actions (implicit)
17
Q
What is semantic memory?
A
LTM- shared memories of facts and knowledge (concrete or abstract), explicit
18
Q
What is the capacity of the sensory memory?
A
Very large
19
Q
What encoding does the sensory register have?
A
Modality specific
20
Q
What evidence supports the MSM?
A
Physiological evidence- brain scans (PET scans) show the prefrontal cortex is active when using the STM & the hippocampus when using LTM
21
Q
What 2 effects support the MSM & how?
A
1) Primary effect
2) Recency effect as they show separate stores
22
Q
What is the primary effect?
A
Superior recall of earlier items
23
Q
What is the recency effect?
A
Superior recall of items at the end
24
Q
What are 2 case studies that can evaluate the MSM & how?
A
HM & KF- show linear, separate stores but are unethical & non-unitary LTM
25
What is HM's case study?
Brain surgery- could form STM but not LTM, except for procedural memories
26
What is KF's case study?
Brain damage motorbike crash- LTM unimpaired, 1-2 capacity in STM- worse with auditory stimuli
27
What is the working memory model?
An accurate representation of what you are thinking about now- concerned with active processing & ST storage of info
28
What are the components of the WMM?
1) Central executive
2) Phonological loop
3) Visuo-spatial sketchpad
4) Episodic buffer
5) LTM
29
What is the function of the central executive?
Monitors & coordintes mental functions in the WM- plans & makes decisions
30
What is the capacity and storage of the central executive?
1) Limited attention capacity
2) No storage of information
31
What is the coding of the phonological loop?
Acoustic information
32
What is the PL's 1) capacity & 2) duration?
1) Limited
2) 1.5 to 2 seconds
33
What are the 2 subcomponents of the PL?
1) Articulatory control process (inner voice)
2) Phonological store (inner ear)
34
What is the articulatory control process (inner voice)?
Sub comp of PL- used for words that are heard or seen & silently repeats them
35
What is the phonological store (inner ear)?
Sub comp of PL- holds information that you hear
36
What is the coding of the VSS?
Visual and spatial information
37
What is the capacity of the VSS?
3-4 items
38
What are the 2 subcomponents of the VSS?
1) Visual cache (inner eye)
2) Inner scribe
39
What is the visual cache (inner eye)?
Sub comp of VSS- holds visual item's properties
40
What is the inner scribe?
Sub comp of VSS- deals with spatial relations
41
What is the episodic buffer?
Enables information in the VSS & PL to be combined with information in the LTM & maintains time sequencing
42
What is the storage of the episodic buffer?
Limited
43
What are 2 facts about the WMM?
1) It is non-unitary
2) The components can operate independently
44
What are 4 supporting evidence for the WMM?
1) Brain damaged patients (KF)
2) PET scans
3) Dual task evidence
4)Difference in WM component performance
45
What is are 2 opposing evidence of the WMM?
1) The central executive- vague
2) Brain scan evidence- trauma
46
What are 2 strengths of the WMM?
1) More plausible, complex & accurate
2) Supported by research evidence
47
What are 2 criticisms of the MSM?
1) Use of rehearsal to create LTM
2) The existence of unitary stores
48
What are 3 criticisms of the WMM?
1) Central executive- capacity, single component?
2) Doesn't explain changes in processing ability
3) Difficult to falsify the model- can be used to explain any results
49
What are two explanations for forgetting?
1) Interference
2) Retrieval failure- absence of cues
50
What are the 2 types of interference?
1) Proactive interference
2) Retroactive interference
51
What is proactive interference?
When previous memories interfere with new ones
52
What is retroactive interference?
When new memories interfere with the ability to recall older memories
53
What is forgetting?
The inability to recall previously learnt material
54
Why does interfere occur and how does it worsen?
Because there is competition between the correct and incorrect responses- comp increases as more similar memories are present
55
When are memories vulnerable to interference & retrieval failure?
During consolidation
56
What type of memory is more resistant to interference?
Semantic memory
57
What is a strength of interference theory?
There are some everyday examples e.g. passwords, names
58
What are 2 limitations of interference theory?
1) Supporting evidence is often laboratory based & artificial- mundane realism? ecological validity?
2) Only explains some forgetting
59
What is mundane realism to do with memory?
Does it relate to how we use our memory in our everyday lives
60
What is the encoding specificity principle (Tulving & Thomson)?
An argument that forgetting occurs due to a poor match of fit between info contained in the memory trace & the cues available at attempted retrieval time- as we encode them with links to other information (context)
61
What are the 2 types of cues?
1) Internal cues
2) External cues
62
What are the 2 types of external cues?
1) Explicit cues linked to learning material
2) Environmental context (where you were)
63
What is a type of internal cue?
Emotional/ psychological or physiological state
64
What is context dependent forgetting?
Where individuals fail to recall something as they're not in the same context at retrieval e.g. different room
65
What is state dependent forgetting?
Where individuals fail to recall something as they have a different internal environment (mood/ physiological state)
66
What researchers support state dependent forgetting?
1) Godden & Baddeley 1975
2) Tulving & Pearlstone
67
What did Godden & Baddeley do, find & when?
1975, scuba divers learned unrelated words on land and under water & were tested in the other context- found higher recall when in the same context
68
What did Tulving & Pearlstone do & find?
Participants leant 48 words in 12 categories- participants completed a recall test- Free recall had 40%, Cued recall had 60%
69
What are 3 strengths of retrieval failure theory?
1) A lot of research support
2) Real world application
3) Retrieval failure explains interference effects
70
What are 2 limitations of retrieval failure?
1) Retrieval cues don't always work- outshining hypothesis
2) The danger of circularity-correlation, not cause- Don't cause retrieval just associated with it
71
What is the outshining hypothesis?
Cues effectiveness is reduced when in the presence of better cues
72
What is eyewitness testimony (EWT)?
Evidence given by a witness to a significant event (e.g. crime)
73
What 2 factors can influence EWT?
1) Misleading information & Post event discussion
2) Anxiety
74
What is misleading information?
Usually takes the form of a question or statement to an eyewitness that wrongly implies that something happened when it didn't
75
What type of study was Loftus & Burns'?
A lab experiment
76
What did Loftus & Burns' findings suggest?
Misleading information can be absorbed into the original memory after an event
77
What can be concluded from Loftus & burns' research?
Misleading info is more affective on insignificant/ peripheral details
78
Why is it important to word questions carefully when obtaining EWT?
Words with different levels of severity may affect individuals responses and their memories of the event (e.g. Loftus & Palmer)
79
What are 3 limitations of research studying EWT & misleading info?
1) Lacks ecological validity
2) Artificial, controlled- low anxiety
3) Demand characteristics
80
What are 2 strengths of research studying EWT & misleading info?
1) Control over variables- C&E between misleading info & EWT accuracy
2) Replicability is possible
81
What is a leading question?
A question that is worded in such a way that it may bias how a respondent answers
82
What and when was Loftus & Palmer's experiment?
Smashed, hit & bumped etc experiment (1974)
83
What was Loftus & Palmer's procedure?
Showed participants 7 films of different traffic accidents, and asked a series of questions about the films, and alternated the verb hit, bumped, smashed etc.
84
What did Loftus & Palmer find?
When using "smashed"- estimated speed was 40.3
When using "contacted"- estimated speed was 31.8
85
What is post event discussion?
A conversation between co-witnesses or an interviewer and an eyewitness after a crime has taken place which may contaminate a witness's memory for an event
86
What did Gabbert et al research and when?
Influence of co-witnesses on eyewitness memory (2003)
87
What was Gabbert et al (2003) procedure?
Young and older adults watched a short film individually or in pairs
In pairs, they watched different films but thought it was the same- only 1 saw the crime
They discussed the event and then individually completed a questionnaire on their memory of the event
88
What did Gabbert et al (2003) find?
A majority (71%) of eyewitnesses who discussed the event mistakenly recalled info they hadn't witnessed
60% of the participants who hadn't witnessed the crime claimed she was guilty
Similar findings for young and old adults
89
What can be concluded from Gabbert et al's research?
Post event discussion can contaminate an individuals memory of an event- as they may incorporate others recollections into their own- innaccurate recall
90
What is a limitation of Gabbert et al's research?
Not clear whether the distortions obtained reflect problems with memory or are from social pressure
91
What idea did Bartlett (1932) propose lead to innaccurate EWT?
Reconstructive memory
92
What is reconstructive memory?
A memory that is distorted by the individual's prior knowledge and expectations
93
How did Bartlett (1932) change how psychologists viewed memory?
Changed how they saw it as a passive process to an active process
94
What did Bartlett (1932) argue happened when recalling a memory?
The elements of the experience are combined with our schema and reconstructed into a meaningful whole
95
What is a schema?
A package of knowledge about something which is built up through our experience of the world e.g. stereotypes
96
What is the core of Bartlett's theory?
Our prior knowledge and beliefs (schema) generate expectations and these expectations reconstruct memory
97
What does Bartlett's theory of reconstructive memory suggest?
Our memory is quite inaccurate
98
What 3 ways does schema lead to reconstructive memory?
1) Ignore aspects that don't fit current schema
2) Distort memories to fit with prior expectation
3) Schema allows us to make sense of what we have seen by filling in gaps
99
What conclusions can be made from research into anxiety's effect on EWT?
In lab studies, higher anxiety= less accuracy
In real life, higher anxiety= higher accuracy
100
What was Johnson & Scott's (1976) procedure?
Participants were in a waiting room and were exposed to 2 situations:
1) An argument, saw a man run through carrying a pen covered in grease- low anxiety
2) Same as 1) but a paper knife covered in blood- high anxiety
101
What did Johnson & Scott (1976) find?
Those who experienced the pen with grease identified the person 49% of the time
Those who experienced the knife with blood identified the person 33% of the time
102
What was Johnson & Scott (1976) finding known as?
The weapon focus phenomenon- where witnesses focus their attention on the weapon and are distracted from the appearance of the perpetrator
103
What correlation do anxiety and accuracy in EWT have?
Curvilinear
104
What did Loftus & Burns (1982) do to do with EWT & anxiety research?
Participants watched a violent or non-violent film of a crime
105
What did Loftus & Burns (1982) find from their EWT research?
Participants were less accurate in recalling information about the more violent version
106
What did Yuille & Cutshall do & when?
Researched real-life crime, 13 witnesses of a real-life shooting were interviewed several months later after researchers introduced misleading information into the interview- 1986
107
What were Yuille & Cutshall's findings?
Accuracy was- 90% for objects, 83% for actions, 76% for people
Closest people provided the most detail
Misleading information had no effect on accuracy
People who were most distressed at the time were most accurate 5 months later
108
What did Christiansen & Hubinette (1993) do?
Obtained testimonies from 58 out of 110 witnesses who witnessed 22 real bank robberies, some winesses some threatened
109
What did Christiansen & Hubinette (1993) find?
Victims were more accurate in their recall & recalled more accurate information than bystanders
This superior recall is evident after 15 months too
110
What did Christiansen & Hubinette (1993) conclude?
People (especially victims) are good at remembering highly stressful events if they occur in real life rather than in artificial surroundings of the laboratory
111
What are 2 overall limitations of research into EWT?
1) Lab experiments- lack eco. validity, artificial
2) Contradictory evidence on the extent to which misleading info affects us
112
What is a cognitive interview?
A police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime that attempts to increase the accessibility of stored info by using multiple retrieval strategies
113
What are 4 strategies of a cognitive interview?
1) Reinstating context
2) Reporting every detail
3) Changing order
4) Changing perspective
114
In what 2 ways does a cognitive interview differ from a standard interview?
1) Avoids direct questioning
2) Encourages individuals to recreate original context to increase recall
115
What 4 ways is a cognitive interview thought to work?
1) Observed info can be retrieved through a number of details
2) Increases recall- varied routes
3) Encoding specificity principle explains effectiveness of reinstating context
4) Reduce pre-existing schemas
115
What is mental reinstatement?
Interviewer encourages the interviewee to mentally recreate physical & psychological environment of the incident- cues
116
What is report everything?
Encourage reporting every detail of event without editing, even if it seems irrelevant- recollection of one item may cue more info & forms clearer picture of event
117
What is change order?
Alternate timeline of incident when reporting- hinders schema's influence of recollection of event
118
What is change perspective?
Interviewee asked to recall incident from multiple perspectives e.g. other witnesses- disrupts schema influence
119
What did Kohnken et al (1999) research & find with CI's?
A meta analysis of 53 studies- found an increase by 34% in correct info generated from CI's compared to standard interviews
120
What 2 CI components are most impactful as suggested by who?
Report everything & mental reinstatement- Milne & Bull
121
What were Kohnken et al's (1999) findings?
61% ↑ in incorrect info, 81% ↑ in accurate info when using enhanced CI
122
What age group are CI's particularly useful for?
Older people- mean age 72
123
What are 2 strengths of using CI's?
1) Increases amount of correct info recalled
2) Particularly effective with older adults
124
What are 4 limitations of using CI's?
1) Problems in practice- time consuming & training needed
2) Doesn't guarantee accuracy
3) Difficult to assess effectiveness
4) Effectiveness may be due to some elements, not all
