Paper 1: Topic 2: Memory

Question 1

Duration of memory define

Answer 1

Length of time info stays stored in memory

Question 2

Definition of capacity of memory

Answer 2

Maximum amount of info that memory can store

Question 3

Definition of coding of memory

Answer 3

The way different memory systems store info, by converting it into suitable format for our brains

process by which the sensory info is modified and stored

Most common forms: visual acoustic and semantic

Question 4

3 types of memory store

Answer 4

Short term memory
Long term memory
Sensory memory/store - initial contact for stimuli

Question 5

Capacity of Sensory memory / register

Answer 5

Very large
because you have to be able to take in a lot of info about all the 5 senses that all go on at once

Question 6

Capacity of STM

Answer 6

Limited (between 7+/-2 items)

Question 7

Capacity of LTM

Answer 7

Potentially unlimited capacity

Question 8

How is STM capacity assessed and who studied it

Answer 8

Measured by the digit span task
Jacob’s (1887) was the first to use digit span task
found the average span for numbers to be 9.3 items
For letters the average decreased to 7.3 items

George miller (1956) reviewed psychological research and concluded that ‘the magic number’ is 7+/-2
He found: We’re good at remembering between 5-9 items and people could recall around 7 dots, letters, musical notes
Argued that our capacity can be increased if we chunk items together

Question 9

Limitations of Millers research into capacity of STM

Answer 9

-he may have overestimated the capacity
more resent research: Cowan (2001) concluded capacity is closer to 4 chunks rather than 7+/-2
So millers results lack temporal validity (so can’t be generalised)

-he didn’t specify the size of the chunk
Eg: Simon (1974) concluded people have smaller STM capacity with larger chunks
Although both researchers conclude that STM capacity is limited

Question 10

Limitations into the research of STM capacity

Answer 10

-capacity is not the same for everyone, individual differences affect results
Eg: Jacob’s found digit span increased with age
8 year olds remembered 6.6 digits
19 year olds remembered 8.6 digits
So capacity increases with age so capacity can’t be generalised

-findings lack ecological validity as research is carried out in artificial setting
Eg: Jacob and Miller used artificial tasks using meaningless numbers (digit span task) to rest recall. Lacks mundane realism so can’t be generalised to real life situations

Question 11

Duration of memory in sensory store

Answer 11

Less than one second
Less than 100th of the info that touches the human senses reaches the STM store

Question 12

Duration of STM

Answer 12

Approx 18-30 seconds (without rehearsal)

Question 13

Duration of LTM

Answer 13

Potentially lasts infinitely

Question 14

Peterson and Petersons 1959 procedure and findings to investigate duration of STM

Answer 14

8 trials
P’s (24 uni students) were given a consonant trigram and 3 digit number
Asked to recall consonant syllable after intervals of 3,6,9,12,18 seconds
P’s were asked to count backwards from their 3 digit number to prevent rehearsal

Findings:

3 seconds – 80% successful recall
9 secs – 20%
18 secs – less than 10%

Conclusion: duration of STM is less than 18 seconds

Question 15

Bahricks procedure and findings on investigating the duration of LTM

Answer 15

P’s: 392, US, aged 17-74
Procedure: test photo recognition (recall names of students from 50 photos) and free name recall (asked to list the names they could remember from their graduating class) from p’s high school yearbook

Photo recognition: p’s tested within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate, after 48 years recall declined to 70%
Free recall: sfter 15 years 60% accurate, after 48 years 30% accurate
Conclusion: suggests that duration of LTM can last a very long time

Question 16

Limitations of Peterson and Petersons research into STM duration

Answer 16

P: May have not been measuring trace decay but instead displacement so low construct validity
Eg: ppts were asked to count backwards for, their 3 digit number to prevent rehearsal which may have overwritten the trigrams.
Eg: Reitman used auditory tones instead of numbers and found duration of STM was much longer
L: methodological issues decrease the validity of results

P: results L ack ecological validity
Eg: ppts were asked to memorise and recall trigrams. Artificial task so doesn’t reflect use of stm in everyday situations like birthdays and events which are more significant than nonsense syllables
Cou: however in everyday settings we do need to remember meaningless things like phone numbers and postcodes so here the trigram task may be very representative of real life
L: caution when generalising the findings as results only have limited application to specific real-life tasks

Question 17

Strenth of Bahricks research into duration of LTM

Answer 17

• they have higher ecological validity than Petersons and Petersons research into duration
  Procedure doesn’t lack mundane realism as it’s less artificial task then memorising trigrams
  It tested p’s memory on thier past memories of high school classmates
  Although there’s more confounding variables eg: some ppts may have frequently looked at their year books and others did not, meaning the internal validity of the results are compromised as the researchers may not be accurately be measuring the impact of time on LTM recall.
  High external and low internal validity

Question 18

How is info encoded in the Sensory store

Answer 18

Modality specific
(Encoded the same way its recieved)

Question 19

How’s info encoded in the STM

Answer 19

Acoustically (sound and hearing)

Question 20

Hows info encoded in the LTM

Answer 20

Semantically (relating different meanings of words or other signs and symbols)

Question 21

How did Baddeley (1966) test encoding of STM and LTM and findings

Answer 21

P’s were shown a list of words and asked to recall them in the correct order
Tested STM, p’s recalled words immediately after hearing them, but 20 mins after for LTM recall

STM – p’s have difficulty remembering semantically similar words when tested immediately
LTM – no difficulty remembering semantically similar words after 20 mins

Conclusion: suggests info is coded acoustically for STM and semantically for LTM

Question 22

Strengths and limitations of Baddeleys research and findings into coding of memory

Answer 22

strength:
-showed there’s separate memory stores
-results showed STM is encoded acoustically and LTM semantically
Allowed further research like MMS
Has temporal validity

Limitation:
There’s contradictory research evidence
Eg: Brandimote (1992) concluded p’s using visual coding in STM from a visual task
Suggests encoding isn’t always acoustic in the STM
So Baddeleys results can’t be generalised to all types of learning

Limitation:
Results lack ecological validity
Lab setting
tested the p’s recall with meaningless words. This lacks ecological validity because this isn’t a good representation of how memory is used in the real world because the words didn’t lack significance unlike people’s birthdays - artificial task

Question 23

Who proposed the Multi-store memory of the mind and why was it significant

Answer 23

Atkinson and Shriffin (1968)

First model of memory ever. Influential to other researchers
Suggests memory is made up of 3 distinct stores
Linear and sequential model - info passes through the stores in order if certain conditions are met but info can be lost in each memory and predicts how memories are transferred to each memory store eg: rehearsal and attention.

Question 24

Word for if a memory is forgotten

Answer 24

Decay

Question 25

Definition of displacement

Answer 25

New info pushes out old info due to STM’s limited capacity

A limitation of Petersons and Petersons resea4ch

Question 26

In the MMS, how does info enter and recalled the LTM store

Answer 26

Enters from STM via maintained rehearsal
Recalled by being retieved back to STM

Question 27

Case study of HM

Answer 27

Investigated the impact of damage to the hippocampus on memory
Had epilepsy so hippocampus was removed
Had his procedural memory but not episodic and semantic

Question 28

Strengths and limitations of the MSM

Answer 28

• there’s supportive research from the case study of HM
  He had a severely damaged LTM (couldn’t remember what he’d eaten earlier the same day) but had a functioning STM. He perforated well of digit span tasks
  Supports the idea they’re 2 distinct stores
  Therefore increases the models validity

Strength: supportive evidence from brain scans that STM and LTM are distinct sorts
Eg: Beardsley found prefrontal cortex is active during STM and Squide found the hippocampus is active when LTM is engaged (links to HM)
Differnt parts of memory is active when differnt types of memory is used
Evidence is scientific and objective so increases validity

Limitation:
Other researchers argue they’ve overemphasised the role of maintained rehersal suggesting elaborate rehearsal is more important
Eg: Craik and Lockhart gave p’s a list of words and asked questions involving deep and shallow processing. Found p’s remembered more words when they’re processed deeply.
So LTM explainatiom was developed into the levels of processing theory as it questions fundamental concept of rehersal
Questions validity

Limitation:
Too simplistic
Eg: HM case study
It claims LTM is one unitary store
He had procedural LTM but not semantic LTM

Question 29

What’s the level of processing theory

Answer 29

Shallow: words in capitals (synaptic level)
Deep: whether words fitted in with sentence - modality
The more deeply you process info the more likely it’ll go into LTM

Question 30

What’s the working memory model

Answer 30

Limited capacity store for retaining info for a short period of time whilst doing mental operations on that info
Replaced the short term memory MSM – suggests memory is active not passive as it doesn’t have the central exclusive and unitarily ordered.

Question 31

Who created the Workimg memory model
And how does it differ to the MSM

Answer 31

Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
Believed STM was not a unitary store like MSM suggests
Also believed it was ‘active processed’ of info
As MSM suggests it’s passive as it’s a linear and sequential store

Question 32

Role and capcity of Central exclusive in the WMM

Answer 32

Supervisory

Functions:
-directs attention to tasks and makes decisions
-allocates tasks to the either of the 2 slave systems (subcomponents) (visuo sketchpad and phonological loop)
-data arrives from the senses or from LTM

Capacity: very limited processing capacity

Question 33

Role and capcity of phonological loop in the WMM

Answer 33

-processes auditory/acoustic info by coding it acoustically

Baddeley subdived further the PL into
Phonological store (holds words heard) and articulatory store process (maintenance rehersal - inner voice)

Capacity - limited - 2 seconds worth of info

Question 34

What’s the word length effect.

Answer 34

Made by Baddeley about phonological loop of WMM

Immediate memory span is better with short words than with long words. Short words can be articulated faster so more words can be silently articulated before they decay

Question 35

Role and capcity of Visuo-spatial sketchpad in the WMM

Answer 35

Process visual and spatial (relationships between things) info by coding it visually

Logie suggested subdivision of :
-visual-cache - stores info about visual items
-inner scribe - stores the arrangement of objects from spatial relations

Capacity: limited - 3-4 items

Question 36

Describe Baddeley and Hitch experiment on dual task technique for WMM

Answer 36

Aim: investigate if p’s can use different parts of working memory at the same time
Method: p’s were asked to do 2 tasks at the same time (dual task technique)
1) A digit span task – p’s repeated a list of numbers
2) Verbal reasoning task which required them to answer true or false to various questions
Results: as number of digits increased during digit span tasks, p’s took longer to answer the reasoning questions, but not much longer (fractions of a second)
P’s didn’t make any more errors in verbal reasoning tasks as number of digits increased
Conculusion: verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive and the digit span task made use of the phonological loop

Performance is measured as p’s perform 2 tasks simultaneously

Baddeleys et al’s (1975) model found that if one store is used for both tasks then task performance is poorer due to stores limited capacity

If tasks are using the same parts of the same component processing will slow down because they’re conflicting

Eg: visual and phonological works better than visual and visual

Question 37

Role and capcity of episodic buffer in the WMM

Answer 37

Shows how STM is moved into LTM
Temporary store which intergrates info from slavery systems

Limited capacity of approx 4 chunks

-Maintains a sense of time sequencing - recording events that are happening
-sends info to the LTM store

Question 38

2 strengths and a limitation on the WMM

Answer 38

Strengths:
-Supported evidence of case studies of patients suffering from brain damage
Eg: KF motorcycle accident, issues with STM, couldn’t recall acoustic info but could process visual faces so had his Phonological loop damaged but still had his VSS intact
Case studies are unique so can’t extrapolate
Low ecological validity
Shows STM isn’t a unitary store

-empirical evidence from dual task performance studies
Lab study evidence
Shows PL and VSS are independent from each other and can process information at the same time without competing (but only if you’re coding them in different sensory modalities eg: acoustically and visually)

Baddeley and Hitch (1976)

Limitation:
Baddeley suggested the central exclusive is too vague and doesn’t explain anything and he proposed it as a place holder in the model
It’s the least understood component needs more evidence
Lack of clarity questions the validity of this model
But brain scan evidence (Braver 1997) supports the existence of the CE which is needed to explain the WMM as it’s a cognitive model

Question 39

Who and when proposed there’s 3 different types of LTM

Answer 39

Endel Tulving 1967

Question 40

What are the 3 types of LTM proposed by Tulving

Answer 40

Episodic memory: knowledge of personal events eg: birthdays
Semantic memory: general knowledge eg: facts and dates
Procedural memory: knowledge of how to do things

Question 41

Describe the episodic memory of LTM

Answer 41

Responsible for storing personal info about specific events and experiences

It’s explicit and declarative

Eg: your wedding

3 elements involved: the event, the details of it and the emotion

Time stamped

Assossiated with the hippocampus and right prefrontal cortex (Turving 1994)

Easiest memory to forget and level of emotion at the time influences the strength

Question 42

Describe semantic memory of LTM

Answer 42

Repsoible for storing info of the world, general knowledge and word meanings, facts

Eg: London is capital of England

Explicit and declarative memory

Not Time stamped

Asoossiated with left prefrontal cortex (Turving 19l4)

How deeply processed influences strength

Question 43

Define time stamped memories in LTM

Answer 43

When you remember when it was in time / how long ago it was

Question 44

Define Declarative memories and explicit memories in LTM

Answer 44

Declarative - can be put into words

Explicit - must be recalled consciously (episodic and semantic not procedural)

Question 45

Describe procedural memory as a type of LTM

Answer 45

Responsible for knowing how to do things and carrying out complex motor tasks - unconscious memory of skills

Implicit and non-declairitve so frees up our working memory

Eg: how to ride a bike and how to tie your shoe laces

Not time stamped - often learnt in childhood

Assossiated with motor cortex, cerebellum and basil ganglia

How many times practised influences strength

Question 46

How did Tulving in 1994 find which types of LTM are assosicated with which parts of the brain

Answer 46

Asked p’s to do memory tasks in a PET scanner

Findings:
episodic and semantic memories activated areas in the prefrontal cortex
Semantic: left prefrontal
Episodic: right prefrontal
Whilst procedural activated the cerebellum

Question 47

3 strengths and 1 limitation of the theory of three distinct LTM stores

Answer 47

Strengths:

-empirical evidence from brain scans
Differnt areas of brain are actived by differnt types of LTM
Tulving PET scanner memory task
Although this evidence is only correlational
Contradicting eg: Buckner and Peterson (1996) found semantic memory residing in the right prefrontal cortex and episodic in the left so weakens Tulvings validity

-case studies of brain damaged patients
HM’s hippocampus removed - lost episodic and semantic but still had procedural (still had non-declarative memory)
But lacks external validity as it’s a case study and HM took epilepsy medication so his brain functioned differently

• good real life application allows psychologists to target specific memories to improve people’s lives
  Eg: Belleville (2006) found episodic could be improved in older people who have a mild cognitive impairment

Limit:
some researchers believe there are only two stores of LTM and not three suggesting Tulving’s theory is not parsimonious, contravening the laws of science.
Eg: Cohen and Squire (1980) argue semantic and episodic are stored together thus being 1 store called the declarative memory
crucial to be able to distinguish between the number and types of LTM memory
as it can affect how memory studies are carried out and psychologists need accurate knowledge to help people who suffer with amnesia.

Question 48

What do psychologists believe about LTM
To do with interference

Answer 48

IOnce info has reached the LTM store it’s permanent but problems occur with accessing the info

Question 49

What is interference in the context of memory and what are the 2 types of interference

Answer 49

When 2 pieces of info conflict with each other.
This can result in forgetting one or both pieces of info or distortion

2 types:
Retroactive interference
Proactive interference

Question 50

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 50

When a new memory interferes with an older one

Eg: teacher forgetting names of students from last year becuase they’ve learnt so many this year

Question 51

What’s proactive interference

Answer 51

When an older memory interferes with a newer one

Eg: teachers learnt so many names in the past they struggle to remember their students names from this year

Question 52

2 explainations of forgetting

Answer 52

• interference theory -> proactive and retroactive forgetting
• retrieval failure

Question 53

Who studied retroactive interference

Answer 53

McGeoch and McDonald 1931
Baddeley and Hitch rugby players

Question 54

Procedure or McGeoch and McDonald in studying retrospective interference and effect of similarity

Answer 54

Aim: investigate retrospective interference

Conclusion: The more similar the words are the more likely interference will occur

P’s had to learn a list of words until they could remember it with 100% accuracy

Then learnt a new list of
-synonyms
-antonyms
-unrelated words
-consonant syllables
-3 digit numbers
-no list

Findings
Synonyms = 12% accurate recall of original list
Consonant Syllables = 26% recall
3 digit Numbers =37% recall

Question 55

What’s the effect of similarity

Answer 55

Study shows that interference is strongest when the more similar the words are.

Effect of smiliarity can be of proactive interference as previously stored info makes it harder to store new similar info or because retrospective interference in that new info writes over old

Question 56

Procedure of Keppel & Underwoods key study of interference

Answer 56

Aim: investigate effect of proactive interference on LTM

Primary task: learning three-letter consonant trigram. With a 3-9 second delay between each one
Secondary task: count backwards in 3 secs (prevents subvocal rehearsal)

Proactive interference: p’s remembered trigrams that were presented first (the primary effect), irrespective of the interval length, because these caused proactive interference of the trigrams that were presented subsequently

Question 57

Procedure of Baddeley and Hitch’s key study of interference

Answer 57

Aim: Investogate effect of retroactive interference on everyday memory

Task: rugby players asked to recall the names of the teams they’d played against earlier in the season.

Findings:
Players who’d played the most games forgot proportionaltely more games than those who had played fewer games due to injury. Accurate recall was not effected by how long ago the match was but the number of games they’d played in the meantime.

Conclusion: B&H said this was the result of retroactive interference as the learning of new info (new team names) interfered with the old info memory (earlier team names)

Question 58

Strength and limitations of interference theory as an explanation of forgetting

Answer 58

+ reliable findings
- low eco validity
-individual differences - Kane and Engle

Strength:
P: findings are very reliable. But criticism about low ecological validity of lab study results, research has been carried out in real life settings and still find the same results.
Eg: Baddeley and Hitchs rugby player experiment. Accurate recall was not affected by how long ago the match was but the number of games they’d played in the meantime . This is the opposite on what decay theory would predict so’s better explained by Interference theory. Players who played more games would forget proportionately more because of more interference.
Link: shows that interference explainatioms can apply to at least some everyday situations.

Limitation:
Most of the research for proactive and retroactive interference is conducted in a lab and the results lack ecological validity
Eg: Using a list of meaningless words in the procedure like McGeoch and McDonald
Learn and recall them in a short time frame
So a greater chance of interference will be demonstated as it’s far from real life accounts
Ex: learning lists of words lacks mundane realism as it’s an artificial task
Link: results of lab studies should be generalised with caution

Limit: doesn’t consider individual differences
Kane and Engle demonstrates individuals with greater WM span were less susceptible to interference.
P’s were given 3 word lists to learn and those with lower working memory spans had greater proactive interference when recalling 2nd and 3rd lists than those with higher WM spans
Ex: suggests people are not equally affected by proactive interference and it’s effect is dependant upon the individual
When generalising the theory of inference in forgetting, it needs to be done with context of the individual

Question 59

Describe retrieval failure as an explaination of forgetting

Answer 59

The lack of accessibility to info rather than availability. This can be due to insufficient cues.

Question 60

What principle proposes 2 conditions for whether a cue will help recollection in retrieval failure
What were the 2 considerations

Answer 60

Tulvings Encoding Specificity Principle

A cue supports memory is most effective when the cue is
-present at time of encoding
-present at time of retrieval

Forgetting occurs if cues at encoding and retrieval differ or are absent at one stage

Question 61

Retrieval failure:
What is a meaningful cue
Give example

Answer 61

Info that’s encoded at the time of learning and stored in a meaningful way
Eg: like a mnemonic for remembering facts or large amount of info the planets

Question 62

Retrieval failure:
What is a non meaningful cue
Give example

Answer 62

Info available at the time of learning, which is not directly related to encoded material eg: weather

Question 63

Retrieval failure:
What’s the 2 types of forgetting that can result from a failure to encode non-meaningful cues?

Answer 63

Context dependent:
Recall is influenced by an external cue eg: weather or a place

State dependent:
Recall is influenced by an internal cue eg: feelings or drunk, your emotional state

Recall is better for both types of forgetting (state and context dependant) when conditions are congruent (matching) due to Tulvings encoding specificity principle

Question 64

Retrieval failure:
Describe Godden & Baddeley’s experiment on context dependant forgetting

Answer 64

Study of deep-sea divers working underwater. For divers to remember instructions given before diving about their work underwater.

Procedure:
Had to learn and recall words on in 4 different conditions:
-learn on land – recall on land (congruent condition)
-learn underwater – recall on land
-learn on land – recall under water
-learn underwater – recall underwater (congruent condition)

Findings: accurate Recall was 40% lower in non- matching conditions
The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and this led to retrieval failure

Question 65

Retrieval failure:
Describe Carter & Cassaday’s (1998) experiment on state-dependant forgetting

Answer 65

Procedure:
They gave anti-histamine drugs (for hayfever) to p’s.
The drugs has a mild sedative effect making the p’s slightly drowsy, creating an internal physiological state different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert.
P’s learnt a list of words and passages of prose and then recall, again creating 4 conditions:
-learn on drug – recall when on it (congruent condition of retrieval))
-learn on drug – recall when off it
-learn not on drug – recall when on it
-learn not on drug – recall when not on it (congruent condition of retrieval)

Findings: in conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall. Performance was a lot worse. So when cues are absent then there’s more forgetting

Question 66

Strengths and limitations of Context dependant forgetting as part of Tulvings encoding specificity principle

Answer 66

• good real life application (grant)
  -context needs to be very differnt (Godden and Baddeley)
  -extraneous variables (Godden and Baddeley)

Strength:
P: good real-life application for contexts where recall of memory is needed
E: students could use the theory to help them prepare for exams and tests. carry out revision in the same room that their exam will be held they are more likely to have success at recall of info
Ex: supported by Grant (1998) who showed context-dependent learning based on whether students studied listening to music or in silence. Students recalled more info under congruent encoding/retrieval conditions, and since exams must be conducted in silence, this informs efficient study practice.
Link: shows that the theory of cue dependent forgetting has useful practical applications in the real world in scenarios with great importance that can affect people’s lives.

Limit:
P: for there to be an effect on forgetting the context needs to be very different.
Eg: Godden and Baddeley demonstrated the effect but on land and in the sea as their condition. This major difference is not a representative example from everyday life and therefore the results may lack ecological validity.
Ex: Baddeley (1997) himself argues that context affects are actually not very strong in real life. This suggesting that learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to be significant enough for there to be an effect.
Link: it might mean that context effects are not really significant in real world application which limits its usefulness as an explanation.

Limit:
P: a number of extraneous variables were not controlled for.
• in Godden and Baddeley, The divers took part in the experiment at different times of the day and at different diving locations.
• each diver would have experienced other contextual cues, which may have affected their memory.
• we are unable to conclude whether Godden & Baddeley’s results is due to the on land/underwater contextual cues, or another contextual cue provided by the different time of day or diving location

Question 67

Strengths of state dependant forgetting as part of Tulvings encoding specificity principle

Answer 67

Strength: reliable finding
P: a wealth of empirical evidence suggesting that it is a
reliable finding
Eg: Carter & Cassaday, Godden & Baddeley show that the same effect of cue dependent forgetting. These studies are also in a range of setting, both land in natural environments and they all find the same consistent results.
Ex: The concept is also a phenomena that is reported widely in real life, when people go to a room to collect an item and forget what it was they went to collect so return to the previous room to trigger their memory.
• despite the results of lab studies lacking in ecological validity, the effect does seem to be present in a real life situations too.

Strength: reliable findings
P: Overton asked ppts to learn material either drunk or sober. Then tested them on this information when they were drunk or sober.
• E: recall was worse if in different internal state and best if internal states were congruent. Eg info was learnt drunk it was recalled best drunk.
• E: This is supported by similar findings reported by Carter and Cassidy
• L: This suggests being in the same state for both learning and recall aids recall by providing state dependant cues.

Question 68

One limitation of encoding specificity principle by Tulving

Answer 68

Issues of circularity

it cannot be tested because
it leads to circular reasoning in experiments.
• Nairne (2002) has criticised what he calls the ‘myth of the encoding-retrieval’ match. Where a cue produces the successful recall of a word, we assume that the cue must have been encoded at the time of learning. If a cue does not result in a successful recall then we assume that cue was not encoded.
• These are only assumptions and cannot be tested as there is no way to know if they have been encoded or not. These results are therefore only correlational and not causational.
• This is a weakness as the principle cannot be tested using rigorous, empirical, scientific principles which is fundamental to Psychology today.

Question 69

Factors that affect accuracy of eye witness testimony

Answer 69

Misleading infomation - leading questions and post-event discussion
Anxiety

Question 70

Define eyewitness and eyewitness testimony

Answer 70

Eyewitness: someone, usually a bystander or victim, who has seen or witnessed a crime, usually present at the time of the incident.

They use their memory of the crime to give their testimony or a reconstruction of what happened.

Eyewitness Testimony is the evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime (bystander or victim), detailing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation, with a view to identifying the perpetrator.

Question 71

Define misleading information as a factor affecting EWT accuracy

Answer 71

Misleading information is incorrect information given to an eyewitness following an event/ crime.
This can be during post-event discussion or take the form of leading questions.

Question 72

Describe Loftus and Palmer first study into leading questions as a type of misleading infomation

Answer 72

Aim:
to investigate the effect of leading questions on the accuracy of EWT.

Method:
sample: 45 American students, who were divided into five groups of nine.
Videos of staged car crashes (5-30secs)

Questionnaires
• Completed after each video clip
• Questions included:
• Leading question - suggests a desired answer
• Critical question - Used to measure the DV
• Distracter questions - masks the focus on the critical question, to conceal ‘demand characteristics’

Order of 7 films counter-balanced across groups to prevent order effects

• Independent measure: Changing the verb in the critical question About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?
• Hit replaced by smashed, collided, bumped and contacted in other groups
• Dependent measure: Mean speed estimate in mph

Results:
Ppts in the “smashed” condition reported the highest speed estimate (40.5 mph),
Lowest estimate was “contacted” (31.8 mph).

Conclusion:
The results show that the verb conveyed an impression of the speed the car was traveling and this altered the participants perceptions.

Possible explanations:
• Response bias: Wording of a question has no enduring effect on an eyewitness’ memory of an event, but influences the kind of answer given
• Substitution: Wording of a question does affect eyewitness memory: it interferes with the original memory, distorting its accuracy

Question 73

Describe Loftus and Palmer second study into leading questions as a type of misleading infomation

Answer 73

Aim: To determine whether the effect of leading questions was to influence subjects’ response bias (influences the kind of answers given) or creates memory substitution (interferes with the original memory, distorting its accuracy)

Hypothesis:
If the memory substitution explaination is correct, it may be predicted that subjects will recall other details which did not occur, but would fit with the false memory

Video clips of car accidents, lasting 1 min
• Collision lasted <4 seconds

Questionnaire 1:
• Describe video in your own words
• Questions including the critical question about
estimation of speed of the vehicles
• Questionnaire 2:
• 10 questions, including critical question:
• “Did you see any broken glass?” no broken glass was visible in the video, so endorsing this would represent a false memory

Subjects asked critical question:
• “About how fast were the cars going when they ______ into eachother”
• Blank included smashed or hit
• Control group not asked about speed
• 50 subjects asked ‘smashed’, ‘hit’ or not asked

• Questionnaire 1 asked immediately after seeing video
• Quetionnaire 2 asked 1 week later

Results: 32% of participants in the ‘smashed’ condition endorsed having seen broken glass,
14% of those who saw the verb ‘hit’
12% of the control group

Conclusion: data supports the substitution explanation: memory for the original event was distorted by the leading question, 1 week earlier.

Question 74

Strengths and weaknesses of Loftus and Palmer study of leading questions and the explanation of substitution

Answer 74

High internal validity
Lowecological validity
Limit: evidence against substitution

Strength: internal validity
P: lab setting so high level of control of over the IV, DV, control and extraneous variables.
E: Videos of car crashes were staged, and so events that subjects witnessed could be highly controlled, including duration and speed of the collision, as well as extraneous events, which would not have been possible with a field or naturalistic study. Videos were presented in a counterbalanced order across groups to avoid order effects.
• E: high degree of control reduces the chance of EV’s confounding the manipulation of the independent variable, increasing the internal validity of the results. Furthermore, the standardisation of procedures and operationalisation of outcomes facilitates replication of the research, eg: in with a different population.
• L: increases internal validity of the findings, allowing inference regarding causality of the IV over the DV.

Limit: Ecological validity
P: lack of ecological validity of the study may not support generalisation from the sample to the target population.
• E: Although questioning ppts about everyday events eg: a car crash, appears to be a genuine measure of EWT, the ppts watched a video of a car crash and witnessed the the events unfold from start to finish.
• E: In everyday reports of car accidents, witnesses rarely see the whole event; they are either involved in the event directly, or see a small part of the event happen in their peripheral vision, to the lab study lacks mundane realism
• L: their results don’t reflect everyday car accidents. unable to conclude if eyewitnesses to real accidents, who would have a stronger emotional connection to the event, would be susceptible to leading questions in the same way.

Limit: evidence against substitution
P: suggests that EWT may be distorted such that false memories substitute actual memories of the event, is that there is evidence challenging it.
• E: Sutherland & Hayne (2001) found that ppts recalled central details of an event better than peripheral ones, even when asked misleading questions.
• E: presumably because their attention was focussed on the central features and these memories were relatively resistant to misleading information.
• L: the original memory of the event survived and was not distorted, which is not predicted by the substitution explanation.

Question 75

Describe post-event discussion as an example of misleading information

Answer 75

When Misleading information comes from other witnesses (co-witnesses), when they discuss the details of a crime of accident, following an incident.

Question 76

Describe Gabberts study on post event discussion

Answer 76

Aim: To investigate the effect of post‐event discussion on the accuracy of eyewitness
testimony.

Method:
• The sample: 60 students from the University of Aberdeen and 60 older adults recruited from a local community.
• Ppts watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet.
• ppts were either tested individually (control group) or in pairs (co‐witness group).
• The ppts in the co‐witness group were told that they had watched the same video; however, they had in fact seen different perspectives of the same crime and only one person had actually witnessed the girl stealing.
• Ppts in the co‐witness group discussed the crime together.
• All of the ppts completed a questionnaire, testing their memory of the event.

Results:
• 71% of the witnesses in the co‐witness group recalled information they had not actually seen
• 60% said that the girl was guilty, despite the fact that they had not seen her commit a crime.

Conclusion:
• These results highlight the issue of post‐event discussion and the powerful effect this can have on the accuracy of EWT.

Question 77

Describe the interpretations of Gabberts study on post event discussion

Answer 77

Interpretation:
• Memory contamination: when co-witnesses discuss a crime, they mix (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memories
• Memory conformity: Witnesses go along with each other to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right.

Question 78

Strengths and limitations of Gabberts research into Post-event discussion

Answer 78

High populational validity
Low ecological validity
Low internal validity

Strength: population validity

P: study reported by Gabbert et al. has good population validity
• E: Gabbert et al. tested 2 different groups in his sample: university students and older adults
• E: The results were similar between groups, suggesting findings are independent of age.
• L: Therefore, the results suggest good population validity and allow us to conclude that post‐event discussion affects younger and older adults in a similar way.

Limit: ecological validity
P: The results of Gabbert et al. have questionable ecological validity.
• E: The ppts in the co‐witness condition witnessed different perspectives of the same crime, as would typically be the case in real‐life crimes.
• E: However, as in Loftus and Palmer’s research, these witnesses knew they were taking part in an experiment and were more likely to have paid close attention to the details of the video clip.
• L: Therefore, these results do not reflect everyday examples of crime, where witnesses may be exposed to less information.

Limit: internal validity
P: Although Gabbert et al.’s results provide an insight into the effect of post‐event discussion on the accuracy of EWT, we are unable to conclude why the distortion occurs.
• E: The distortion could be the result of poor memory, where people assimilate new information into their own accounts of the event and are unable to distinguish between what they have seen and what they have heard.
• E: but it could be that the distortion occurs due to conformity and the social pressure from the co‐witness.
• L: since the research does not disambiguate between two competing explanations, further research is required to more effectively establish internal validity.

Question 79

Limitation of the memory conformity explaination
On post event discussion - misleading information

Answer 79

P: suggests that co-witnesses mix misinformation from other witnesses with their own memories, is that there is evidence challenging it.
• E: Skagerberg & Wright (2008) had ppts discuss film clips they had seen (in one version, the mugger had dark brown hair, and the other light brown).
• E: ppts recalled a blend of what they had seen and heard from their co-witness, rather than one or the other (eg ’the hair was medium brown’)
• L: suggests that the memory itself is distorted through contamination by post-event discussion and is not the result of memory conformity.

Question 80

Define memory substitution

Answer 80

Wording of a question affects eyewitness memory by interfering with the original memory, distorting its accuracy

Question 81

Define leading question

Answer 81

Question that suggests a particular answer or contains the information the questioner is looking to have confirmed in its phrasing.
Type of misleading infomation as an effect of EWT

Question 82

Define post event discussion

Answer 82

involves witnesses discussing an event with others after the event has taken place, which can lead to alterations or inaccuracies in their recollections. Due to either memory conformity or memory contamination

Question 83

Define conformity effect / memory conformity as shown as an interpretation of Gabberts study

Answer 83

The conformity effect in eyewitness testimony occurs when a witness’s recollection of an event is altered or influenced by interacting with others who have their own versions of the events.

Witnesses go along with each other to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses version of events are right.

Question 84

What are the 2 key studies of misleading infomation

Answer 84

• Loftus & Palmer (1974) - leading questions
• Gabbert et al. (2003) - post event discussion

Question 85

Define anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT

Answer 85

an unpleasant emotional state where we fear that something bad is about to happen. People often become anxious when they are in stressful situations. This anxiety tends to be accompanied with physiological arousal (increased heart rate, shallow breathing). Due to this, much of the research in EWT is now focused on the effects of arousal.

Question 86

What are 2 aspects of anxiety?

Answer 86

Positive effect and Negative effect
State of emotional and physical arousal

Question 87

Why might anxiety have a negative effect on recall?

Why might anxiety have a positive effect on recall?

Answer 87

It creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues so recall is worse

Anxiety can create a physiological arousal in the body (high anxiety) which triggers fight or flight response and increases alertness so improves accuracy of EWT

Question 88

What does ‘weapon focus’ mean?

Answer 88

An approach to studying anxiety and EWT has been to look at the effect of weapons which creates anxiety on accuracy of recall of the witness

Question 89

Describe Johnson’s and Scott study on the negative effect of anxiety on EWT

Answer 89

Procedure:
ppts were led to believe they were waiting to take part in a study. Whilst seated in a waiting room ppts heard an argument in the next room

In the low anxiety condition: a man walked through the waiting area carrying a pen with grease on his hands
In the high anxiety condition: the argument had breaking glass sounds, a man walked out of the room with a paper knife covered in blood.

Findings: ppts then had to pick out the man from a set of 50 photos.
49% of the low anxiety condition correctly identified him
33% of the high anxiety condition correctly identified him

Conclusion: the tunnel theory of memory argues that a witness’ attention focuses on a weapon because it’s a source of anxiety

Question 90

Describe Yuille and Cutshalls study on the positive effect of anxiety on EWT

Answer 90

Procedure:
a real-life situation in a gun shop in Canada where the shop owner shot a thief dead.
13/21 of the witnesses took part in the study. (Natural experiment)
Interviews took place 4-5 months after the incident and were compared with the original police interviews made at the time of the shootings.

Accuracy was determined by the no. of correct details reported in each interview. Ppts were also asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time on a 7-point scale to access their levels of anxiety

Findings:
Ppts were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the EWT. Even after 5 months. Ppts who reported highest levels of stress had the most accurate recall.
This was 88% accuracy compared to 75% for the less-stressed group.

Conclusion: suggests anxiety doesn’t have a detrimental effect on accuracy of EWT in real world context and may even enhance it

Question 91

Explain the Yerkes-Dodson law, and how it applies to anxiety?

Answer 91

Anxiety can have both a positive and negative effect on someone’s ability to accurately recall EWT: performance will increase with stress but only to a certain point, where it decreases rapidly

Inverted U relationship
Dependant variable: Performance
Independent variable: stimulation level

Question 92

What evidence is there to support the application of the Yerkes-Dodson law to the role of anxiety on memory recall?

Answer 92

Deffenbacher et al. (1983)
Reviewed 21 EWT studies and noted contradictory findings on effects of anxiety but which fit with the Yerke-Dodson principle:
-when we witness crime, we become emotionally and physiologically aroused
-this manifests as both anxiety and fight or flight response
-recall is optimal when the level of anxiety/arousal is optimal
-outside of this (lower or higher) recall is reduced

Question 93

What was the original research conducted by Yerkes-Dodson?

Answer 93

Based on rats in mazes: there was one right way through the maze and wrong routes gave electric shots.
looking for the optimum punishment where the rats learnt quickest

As voltage increased, learning increased also.
But beyond a certain voltage, performance went down as rats started to slow down, freeze and retreat rather than risk more nasty jolts.
They even started forgetting where was safe and where was dangerous.
This showed how increasing stress only motivates until the point at which the stress, rather than the task, becomes the increasing focus of attention.
Without motivating tension, there’s no reason to act so stress can be seen as a good thing. We’re built to be motivated by stress so this often happens
Too much stress results can cause performance to decline again, sometimes sharply if cognitive or nervous breakdown is triggered but can be caused by excessive attention to task

Question 94

Strengths and limitations of anxiety

Answer 94

Supportive Evidence for negative effects
• Valentine & Mesout (2009): Labyrinth of Horror, Subjects were split into high- and low-anxiety based on heart rate and post- event questionnaires. High anxiety subjects recalled the fewest details and only 17% identified the actor in a line-up, compared to 75% of low anxiety. objective (heart rate) and subjective (questionnaire) measures. high level of anxiety does have a negative effect on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event, and the data fit with the Yerkes- Dodson principle

• Supportive Evidence for positive effects
• Christianson & Hubinette (1993): bank robberies
supportive evidence which replicate the Yerkes-Dodson principle
• E:Christianson&Hubinette(1993) interviewed 58 witnesses from real bank robberies in Sweden. Recall accuracy was >75% across all witnesses

recall of bank workers (assumed to be at a higher level of anxiety, being directly involved) was higher than that of bystanders (indirectly involved, assumed lower level of anxiety), and recall was highest among victims (the most directly involved)
anxiety does not reduce accuracy of recall for eyewitnesses,

• low Construct Validity - Johnson and Scott
-Pickel (1998): chicken & a gun
researchers may have been measuring the effect of surprise on EWT rather than the intended anxiety.

creating contrasting conditions in a hairdressing salon. She had a confederate carry scissors, a handgun, a wallet, and a raw chicken into a salon. The DV was the accuracy of the eyewitness recall. EWT accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions - the chicken and gun.
E: This research could suggest that the weapon focus effect is due to surprise/unusualness rather than anxiety as the chicken created the same results as the gun.
L: Therefore, Johnson and Scott’s findings may not tell us anything

• Individual Differences
- influence of neuroticism - Bothwell(1987)testedpptsforneuroticismand labelled as emotionally stable or neurotic (less emotionally stable). For the stable ppts as anxiety increased, so did levels of EWT accuracy. However, for neurotic ppts when anxiety levels increased EWT accuracy fell.
• : effects of averaging. E: suggeststhatthe modest effect sizes seen in studies of anxiety may be due to the averaging out of sensitive and non- sensitive ppts and it may be that there cannot be one universal explanation of the effect of anxiety due to these individual differences.
• L : This presents a limitation of taking a nomothetic approach of studying the effects of anxiety on EWT.

Question 95

What is the method of improving the accuracy of eye witness testimony

Answer 95

Cognitive interview

Question 96

What is the cognitive interview?

Answer 96

technique used to improve EWT which is designed to help the eyewitness to recreate the original context of the event in order to increase the accessibility of stored information.

Question 97

Who proposed the 4 techniques in improving EWT in the cognitive interview

Answer 97

Fisher & Geiselman (1992)

Question 98

What are the 4 techniques of improving EWT in the cognitive interview

Answer 98

-report everything
-reinstate the context
-reverse the order
-change perspective

Question 99

Describe ‘report everything’ as one of the 4 techniques in cognitive interview

Answer 99

Witnesses are encouraged to report every single detail of event even if they think it’s insignificant
Why it works:
Details act as cues which may trigger important memories – cues relates to encoding specificity principle

Question 100

Describe ‘reinstate the context’ as one of the 4 techniques in cognitive interview

Answer 100

Witnesses return to crime scene in their mind & image the environment
Why it works:
Helps overcome the encoding specificity Principle (context dependant forgetting) as the (non meaningful or meaningful) cues at the time of encoding are present at time of retrieval

Question 101

Describe ‘reverse the order’ as one of the 4 techniques in cognitive interview

Answer 101

The events are recalled in a different chronological order eg: end to start
Why it works:
Prevents schemas (specifically scripts) from filling in gaps in memory, based on people’s expectations of how the event must have happened, rather than actual events
Can also prevent dishonesty (its hard for suspects/witnesses to produce an untruthful account if they have to reverse it)

Question 102

Describe ‘changing perspective’ as one of the 4 techniques in cognitive interview

Answer 102

Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives who were present at the time of the incident
Why it works: it also disrupts the effect of expectations and schemas on recall

Question 103

What is a schema in the cognitive interview

Answer 103

Introduced by Bartlett (1932): our memory is grouped into categories called schemas to organise things
We have schemas for all sorts of things: for what a ‘criminal’ is like, for what counts as ‘food’
. When we recall an event, our schemas tells us what is supposed to happen
The schemas might fill in the gaps in our memory (confabulation) and even put pressure on our mind to remember things in a way that fits in with the schema, removing or changing details.

Question 104

What is the enhanced cognitive interview?

Answer 104

Fisher (1987) developed additional elements to add to the cognitive interview. It involves interviewers ensuring the social dynamics are considered eg:
- When to establish / relinquish eye contact
- Ensure the room is free from distractions
- Take steps to reduce anxiety
- Have the witness speak slowly
- Ask open-ended questions

Question 105

What’s the strengths and limitations of the cognitive interview

Answer 105

Support evidence - Konkhen
Contradictory research of Enhanced cognitive interview - Kohnken
Limited practical use - Kebbel and Wagstaff

• Supportive empirical Evidence

Kohnken et al (1999) conducted a meta- analysis which combined data from 55 studies and the cognitive interview consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview used by police, with the average being a 34% increase.

increases the validity of the theory as there is research evidence to support its predictions. It also shows benefits for real practical use within improving the likelihood police will catch and charge criminals.
L: The CI is therefore of benefit to society as it could have an impact on the criminal justice system.

Limit: Contradictory Research
Eg: Kohnken et al (1999) found an 81% increase of correct information but also a 61% increase of incorrect information (false positives) where the enhanced cognitive interview was used compared to a standard interview.
E: This shows that whilst the cognitive interview may produce more information it cannot ensure that the information is accurate.
L: This shows that police need to treat all information collected from cognitive interviews with caution as they are at higher risk of collecting inaccurate information compared to the standard interview.

Limit: Limited practical application
P: very time consuming and takes more time than the standard police interview.
E: Kebbell and Wagstaff (1999) found many police officers did not use the cognitive interview technique in less serious crimes as they did not have the time. More time is needed to establish a rapport with the witness, the incident needs to explored for several perspectives which may take longer to conduct, and more training is needed for the police officer.
E: It is also not effective with children, as they are limited to an egocentric perspective, and therefore are unable to consider a changed perspective.
L: Therefore, whilst it is grounded is good academic theory, it may have limited practical use which limits its usefulness.