psychology-memory Flashcards
what is memory?
the process of retaining and retrieving information after the original material is no longer present.
what is a memory?
,coding/encoding
creating a chemical trace in the brain during the presentation of the stimulus, it is then transformed to sensory input.
what is the order of how a memory gets created.
sensory register=>short term memory=>long term store.
What is duration?
How long a memory can be stored before it is forgotten
what is the duration of the sensory memory?
a fraction of a second(250 milliseconds)
What is capacity ?
Capacity is how much information that can be stored
how is capacity measured? STM & LTM?
Chunks. 7+-2 chunks for stm. unlimited for ltm
What is the Peterson and Peterson experiment ?
to test the stm, nonsense trigrams are mentioned and then you must count backwards in threes from a 3 digit number for a certain amount time (3,6,9,12,15,18 secs) then repeat the trigrams.
What was the Shiffrin and Atkinson model?
it proposed that there were 3 stores of memory. sensory register stm and ltm.
What part of the brain is linked with the LTM?
hippocampus
what part of the brain is linked with the STM?
prefrontal cortex
What are the 3 LTM studies?
Henry Molaison, Clive wearing and KF
Describe the HM study
Henry Molaison, went under brain surgery, they removed his hippocampus, reduced his brain seizures but caused severe amnesia. couldn’t remember or create long term semantic or episodic memories
Describe the KF study
due to a motorcycle accident and this reduced his stm to only hold one or two chunks of info. however he could still transfer from short to long term
describe the Clive wearing study
clive caught a virus that affected his episodic and semantic ltm but he could still play the piano . the only person he remembers is is wife
what is episodic LTM?
personal memories of events with contextual details
what is semantic LTM?
generalised information like facts and knowledge
what is the procedural LTM?
automatic response because of repetition
what are the key features of the working memory model?
central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer
what does the central executive do?
coordinates mental functions in the working memory, involved in planning decision making and reasoning
what does the phonological loop do?
codes speech and acoustic information according to the tone and pitch
what are the subcomponents of the phonological loop?
articulatory control process- inner voice
phonological store- inner ear(when you can replay something you just heard)
what does the visuo-spatial sketchpad do?
codes visual information “inner eye”
what are the subcomponents for the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
visual cache-properties of visual items and inner scribe- spatial relations
what are the strengths of the WMM?
it is a better explanation of the STM the MSM, PET scan show the STM to be different components, multitasking is enabled because Letter F task which show you can use auditory and visual
What are the limitations of the WMM
central executive is too vague(EVR temporal lobe is removed because of a tumour and the CE is used in different areas of its jobs), studying people with brain damage makes it difficult to generalise findings
what is forgetting?
loss of ability to recall or recognise something that they had previously learnt
what is proactive interference?
previous learning prevents recall of more recent events information
what is retroactive interference?
new learning prevents recall of previous information learnt
what is paired associate learning?
you learn list A paired with list B(cat-door) and then you learn list A paired with list C (cat-computer). Then you are asked to recall one of the paired lists and you recall is recorded.
what is retrieval failure?
an explanation of forgetting because of an absence of cues
who is the encoding specificity principle proposed by?
Tulving and Thomson
what is the encoding specificity principle?
forgetting occurs when there is a poor match of fit between the information contained in the memory trace and the cues available at the time of attempted retrieval.
what are the types of cues
external and internal
what are the external types of cues?
explicit cues linked to learning material, environmental context
what is the internal cue?
emotional or physiological state
what is the definition of eyewitness testimony?
evidence given by a witness to a significant event
what is thought to affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?
misleading information, post event discussion and anxiety
what is the definition of misleading information?
usually takes the form of a question or a statement to an eyewitness that wrongly implies that something has happened when it didn’t
summarise the Loftus and barn stop sign experiment
to test the effects of leading questions participants were showed a film of events that lead to a car crash, they were separated into a control group who were asked questions in line with the stimulus they had seen and the experimental group who had other questions. 17% from the experimental group reported seeing a barn(they didn’t), whereas 3% of the control group thought they saw a barn
summarise the Loftus red purse experiment
participants were shown slides of a large red purse from a handbag. An immediate recall test proved 98% accuracy for the colour of the purse. They were then asked to read an account from a ‘professor of psychology’ one of the accounts contained incorrect info. in the second recall test all but two resisted the blatantly wrong information of the purse being brown.
this suggests that particularly noticeable information will rarely be mistaken
What is a leading question?
A question that is worded in such a way that it might bias how a respondent answers
Loftus and Palmer car crash.
Participants were shown a film leading up to a car crash. They were then asked a question of how fast were the cars going when they hit, bumped smashed, bumped, collided or contacted. They found that the more impactful the verb the higher the estimated speed
what is post event discussion?
a conversation between co-witnesses or a interviewer and an eyewitness after a crime has taken place which could contaminate a witnesses memory of the event
explain the study by Gabbert et al about post event discussions.
participants were paired up but individually watched a film about a either girl stealing money from a wallet or a similar film without the theft. the witnesses were led to believe they had watched the same film as their co-witness. They were paired back together and discussed the film, and then completed a questionnaire independently and they found 71% of witnesses recalled information they hadn’t seen
what is a schema?
a package of information about something that is built up through our experience of the world
why do schemas lead to reconstructive memory?
we tend to ignore aspects that do not fit the currently activated schema
describe the Johnson and Scott study about eyewitness testimony
participants were told to sit in a waiting room, they overheard a staged argument and a man ran out with either a pen covered in grease or a blood stained knife. those who had witnessed the man holding the pen accurately identified the person 49% of the time, those who saw the blood stained knife accurately identified the man 33% of the time. this has been linked to the weapon focus theory
what is weapon focus?
witnesses focus their attention to the weapon and this distracts the attention form the appearance of the perpetrator
what is the Loftus and Burns experiment regarding eyewitness experiment.
participants watched a violent or non-violent film of a crime. those who saw the violent version in which a boy was sot in the face were less accurate in recalling information about a crime
describe the Yuille and Cutshall experiment regarding eye witness testimony
an armed thief tried to steal from a gun shop in Vancouver Canada. a real life shooting occurred where the thief was shot dead. Witnesses were interviewed by the police at the time of the crime. several months later some of the witnesses were interviewed where they were introduced to misleading information however the witnesses weren’t affected by misleading information
describe the research conducted by Christiansen and Hubinette regarding eyewitness testimony.
they obtained 58 testimonies of witnesses who had witnessed bank robberies. victims who were directly involved were more accurate in their recall and remembered details about what the robbers wore and their behaviour and the weapons they used and the bystanders . this was tested 15 months later so they found high accuracy in EWT over an extended time period
