Memory Key Studies Flashcards
1
Q
What is Miller’s magic number?
A
7 +/- 2
2
Q
Which study looked at the duration of Short term memory?
A
Peterson and Peterson (1959)
3
Q
What sequences were participants asked to remember in Peterson and Peterson’s study?
A
3 letter sequences called Trigrams.
4
Q
What different delay lengths did Peterson and Peterson use in their study?
A
3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 second delays
5
Q
What did participants have to do during delays in Peterson and Peterson’s study
A
Count backwards in 3s from 100
6
Q
What percentage of people could remember the letter sequence after 3 seconds? (In Peterson and peterson’s study)
A
80%
7
Q
What percentage of people could remember the letter sequences after 9 seconds? (Peterson and Peterson)
A
30%
8
Q
What type of experimental design was used in Peterson and Peterson’s study?
A
Repeated measures
9
Q
What was the conclusion of Peterson and Peterson’s study?
A
Short term memory has a LIMITED duration
10
Q
Who developed the Multi Store Model of memory?
A
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
11
Q
Which psychologist created the “magic number” capacity of short term memory?
A
George Miller
12
Q
Who looked at encoding of Short Term Memory?
A
Baddeley (1966a)
13
Q
Who looked at encoding of long term memory?
A
Baddeley (1966b)
14
Q
What were the differences between the 4 lists of words Baddeley used in his study?
A
List One - acoustically similar
List Two - acoustically dissimilar
List Three - semantically similar
List Four - semantically similar
15
Q
What does semantically similar mean?
A
The words have similar meanings
16
Q
What does acoustically similar mean?
A
The words sound similar
17
Q
In Baddeley’s study on short term memory, which word list was remembered worst?
A
The acoustically similar words.
18
Q
What was the conclusion of Baddeley’s 1966a study on Short term memory?
A
Short term memory is encoded acoustically
19
Q
What evidence was there in Baddeley’s 1966a study that short term memory is encoded acoustically?
A
The words recalled the worst were the acoustically similar words, suggesting they get muddled up during encoding, suggesting encoding is acoustic
20
Q
What did Baddeley’s 1966b study look at?
A
The encoding of long term memory
21
Q
What was the conclusion of Baddeley’s 1966b study?
A
Long term memory is encoded semantically
22
Q
Which word list was muddled up the most in Baddeley’s 1966b study?
A
The list of semantically similar words
23
Q
What was the delay between learning a list of words and recall in Baddeley’s 1966b study?
A
20 minutes
24
Q
What study looked at the duration of Long term memory?
A
Bahrick (1975)
25
What 4 different methods of recall did participants do in Bahrick's 1975 study?
Free recall
Name recognition
Photo recognition
Name and photo match
26
What was the conclusion of Bahrick's study?
Long term memory has an infinite duration
27
Who looked at the primacy and recency effect?
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)
28
What did glanzer and Cunitz do to investigate the recency effect?
They put a three second delay in after the word list was read out. This meant words in STM were lost.
29
What is the primacy and recency effects in the serial position effect?
If asked to recall information just learnt (eg a list of words) - the best recall will be the words at the start (primacy effect) and the words at the end (recency effect)
30
What happened to the recency effect when Glanzer and Cunitz added a three second delay before recall?
The recency effect was eliminated
31
Which case study looked at a man with damage from brain surgery, who could no longer make long term memories.
H.M
32
Why does H.M's case support the multi store model of memory?
It shows that short term memory and long term memory are separate
33
Why does H.M's case study go against the multi-store model?
Eventually, H.M made new procedural memories (mirror drawing) suggesting there is more than one route to Long term memory, and there is only one path in the multi store model
34
Which case study included a man with brain damage from a motorcycle accident?
K.F
35
What damage was there to K.F's memory?
K.F had impaired short term memory?
36
Why does K.F's case study support the multi store model?
The STM was damaged but LTM was intact, suggesting separate stores of memory
37
Why does K.F support the working memory model?
K.F's capacity of STM for words or numbers was impaired, but his capacity for lists of shapes was still 7+/-2
38
Who created the working memory model?
Baddeley and Hitch
39
Is the working memory model and alternative to the multi store model?
No - it builds on and expands the multi store model
40
Who did the "dual task study"
Baddeley (1975)
41
What were the two conditions in Baddeley's dual task study (1975)?
1. Track a moving laser spot + imagining a letter, stating where the corners are
2. Track a moving laser spot + a verbal task
42
In which condition of Baddeley's dual task study did participants make more mistakes?
Condition A - the two visual tasks
43
What model of memory does Baddeley's dual task experiment support?
The working memory model
44
Which study did Baddeley do in 1975?
The word length effect study
45
What was the aim of Baddeley's word length effect study (1975)?
To investigate whether short term verbal memory uses an articulatory system based on rehearsing words
46
What was the difference between the two word lists participants were given in Baddeley's word length effect study (1975)
One list had short words, the other had long words (multiple syllables)
47
How many words were in each list on Baddeley's word length effect study (1975)?
5 words
48
How soon after reading the word list were participants tested in Baddeley's word length effect study (1975)?
Immediately
49
What were the results of Baddeley's word length effect study (1975)?
More words were recalled of the words were shorter. Participants could recall approximately as many words as they could read in 1.5 to 2 seconds
50
What was the conclusion of Baddeley's word length effect study (1975)?
The word length effect is seen because longer words take more time to rehearse using the inner voice. Therefore when words are longer we remember less.
This shows that STM involves an articulatory system (inner voice)
51
Which study used a PET scan to look at the separation of the inner voice and inner ear?
Paulesu (1993)
52
What was the method of Paulesu's 1993 study?
Participants' brains were scanned whilst they did two tasks.
Task 1. Work out if two letters rhyme (uses inner voice)
Task 2. Store a series of letters (eg KLTG) (inner voice and inner ear)
The pet scan looked at where glucose was being used the most
53
What is a PET scan?
Positron emission tomography
Using radioactive glucose, it is possible to map which part of the brain is most active, as active parts use more glucose to respire.
54
Which area of the brain is associated with the inner voice?
Broca's area
55
Which part of the brain was associated with the inner ear?
Supramarginal gyrus
56
What was the conclusion of Paulesu's study?
Different areas of the brain are involved in the different components of the phonological loop
57
What is an ethical issue with Paulesu's 1993 study?
Physical harm - injecting healthy people with radioactive glucose. BUT they were informed, and it was not a high risk.
58
Which study supports the interference theory of forgetting?
Baddeley and Hitch (1977)
59
What is proactive interference?
Where old information interferes with new information.
60
What is retroactive interference?
Where new information interferes with old information
61
What was the method of Baddeley and Hitch's 1977 study?
Researchers asked rugby union players to recall as many teams they had played games against as possible. They also used records to look at how many games these players had played, and how long ago.
62
What were the results of Baddeley and Hitch's 1977 study?
Players forgot more teams if they had played more games, not if it was longer ago that they played.
63
What was the conclusion of Baddeley and Hitch's study?
Forgetting a more due to similar information interfering with information, rather than the length of time since the information was first learned.
64
What is a problem with the interference theory?
It only accounts for forgetting when there are two similar bits of information. It doesn't account for when information simply can't be remembered, rather than being blocked by another piece of information.
65
Which theory of forgetting does Goddon and Baddeley's 1975 study support?
The retrieval cue failure theory
66
What is the retrieval cue failure theory?
This is where forgetting occurs because information is still in LTM, but there are insufficient cues to retrieve the information. Memories can only be retrieved if there are sufficient cues or prompts to help retrieve them.
67
How many groups of participants were there on Goddon and Baddeley's 1975 study?
4 groups. 16 divers in total.
68
Which groups in Goddon and Baddeley's study learned their words underwater?
Group C and Group D
69
Which groups in Goddon and Baddeley's study learned words on land?
Group A and Group B
70
Which groups in Goddon and Baddeley's study stayed in their original environment to recall their words?
Group A and Group C
71
Which groups remembered their words best in Goddon and Baddeley's study?
Group A and Group C (in the same environment)
72
Why did group A and C remember their words best in Goddon and Baddeley's study?
They were in the same environment, had more environmental cues.
73
What is a problem with Goddon and Baddeley's study?
Highly artificial with poor sample sizes, and unrepresentative sample (all deep sea divers)
74
What real life situation can research on memory be applied to?
Eye Witness Testimony
75
What 3 factors affect the reliability of EWT?
Anxiety
Misleading information
The type of interview (cognitive or std)
76
Which study looked at anxiety and EWT?
Loftus' bloodstained knife study
77
What was the experimental design of Loftus' study?
Independent groups
78
What was the first condition in Loftus' anxiety study (the less anxious condition)
Participants overheard a discussion over broken equipment, and then witnessed a confederate leave with a pen and grease in his hands
79
What was the second condition in Loftus' anxiety study?
Witnesses overheard a heated debate about equipment, smashing glass and a confederate leaving with a knife covered in blood.
80
What were the results of Loftus' anxiety study?
Condition 1 - witnesses recognised confederate from 50 photos 49% of the time
Condition 2 - witnesses recognised confederate from 50 photos 33% of the time
81
What was the conclusion of Loftus' study?
The study showed "weapon focus" - participants who were more anxious focused on the weapon, so missed peripheral details such as the face more.
82
What type of experiment was Loftus' anxiety and EWT study?
A lab study
83
Which study contradicted the findings of Loftus' anxiety and EWT study?
Christianson and Hubinette (1993)
84
What was the experiment type of Christianson and Hubinette's study?
A natural experiment
85
How many witnesses did Christianson and Hubinette interview?
110 witnesses from 22 bank robberies
86
What were the results of Christianson and Hubinette's study?
The directly threatened witnesses (those with higher anxiety) had more accurate recall of robbers' clothing, behaviour and weapon than bystanders. This was the same 15 months later.
87
What was the conclusion of Christianson and Hubinette's study?
In real life situations recall may still be accurate even if anxiety is higher, witnesses that experienced highest anxiety has the best recall
88
What did Loftus and Palmer's 1974 study investigate?
The effect of leading questions on EWT
89
What was the method of Loftus and Palmer's 1974 study?
Participants were shown a Video of two cars colliding. They were then asked how fast the cars were going (using two different leading words)
A week later, participants were asked if they saw any broken glass (there wasn't any)
90
What were the results of Loftus and Palmer's 1974 study?
Those asked how using the word "hit" estimated the car travelled at 34mph (on average)
Those asked using the word "smashed" estimated the car traveled at 41mph on average
Those who heard "smashed" we're most likely to say they had seen broken glass on the video
91
Which study looked at Post Event Discussion?
Gabbert et al (2003)
92
What was the aim of Gabbert et al's 2003 study on post event discussion?
To investigate the effect if post-event discussion on EWT
93
What was the method of Gabbert et al's 2003 study?
Two groups watched two videos from different perspectives. Only 1 group could actually see a girl steal a wallet.
Participants from each group were paired up to discuss what they saw, and whether the girl was guilty of stealing the wallet or not.
94
What were the results of Gabbert et al's 2003 study?
71% claimed to have seen things they physically could not have seen
60% of participants thought the girl was guilty, when only 50% could have seen her steal the wallet
95
What are the four parts of the cognitive interview?
Recreate the CONTEXT
REPORT every detail
recall in different ORDERS
report from different PERSPECTIVES
96
What is the acronym for the cognitive interview?
C . R . O . P
97
Who investigated the effectiveness of the cognitive interview using a video and undergraduate students?
Geiselman (1985)
98
What was the method of Geiselman's 1985 study?
Two groups of undergrad students watched a video of a crime. Half were interviewed using standard procedure, half were interviewed with the cognitive interview.
99
What were the results of Geiselman's 1985 study?
The group interviewed using the standard interview remembered 50% less correct details than the cognitive interview group, but the number of incorrect details was the same.
100
What was the conclusion of Geiselman's 1985 study?
The cognitive interview increases the amount of information recalled by eyewitnesses, but it does not improve accuracy.
101
Which study looked at the effect of the cognitive interview using trained detectives in Florida?
Fisher (1989)
102
What was the method of Fisher's 1989 study?
Fisher trained a group of detectives in cognitive interview techniques, and then compared their performance when interviewing genuine witnesses, to their performance before training.
103
What were the results of Fosher's 1989 study?
In comparison to pre training levels, the information gain of the detectives was as much as 47% (using cognitive interview techniques)
104
If two studies find the same results, what does this mean about the results?
They are more VALID
