psychology - memory

Question 1

describe the layout of the multi store model of memory

Answer 1

environmental input

sensory register
attention passes it to the short term memory

maintenance rehearsal keeps it in the short term memory and eventually passes it to the long term memory

when we want to recall information we have to retrieve it from long term memory to the short term memory.

Question 2

what is the capacity and duration of the sensory register?

Answer 2

It has an unlimited capacity

duration : visually: half a second
acoustic: 2 seconds

Question 3

what is the duration and capacity of the short term memory?

Answer 3

the duration is 18-30 seconds

the capacity is 5-9 items

Question 4

what is the capacity and duration of long term memory?

Answer 4

it has an unlimited capacity and unlimited duration

Question 5

how is memory encoded in the short term and long term memory?

Answer 5

Short term memory: acoustically

Long term memory: semantically

Question 6

importance of attention and maintenance rehearsal (repetition)

Answer 6

paying attention to things will put it in your short term memory.

if information is not rehearsed or paid attention to it will decay and be forgotten

Question 7

explain Baddely’s research on coding

Answer 7

baddely gave 4 different lists of words to 4 groups of ptps to remember
group 1 - acoustically similar
group 2 - acoustically dissimilar
group 3 - semantically similar
group 4 - semantically dissimilar

ptps recalled immediately after 20 minutes

He found participants had difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM. ​

Participants also found it hard to remember semantically similar words in LTM.​

Question 8

what are the evaluations of the multi store model of memory

Answer 8

1. theres research to contradict the model. shalice and warrington studied a patient with amnesia and found his stm for digits was poor when they were read out to him but his recall was much better when he read them himself. shows there must be atleast 2 stores (auditory and visual) for stm
2. it contradicts other models. According to msm the amount of rehearsal you do matters.
   however, craig and watkins found the type of rehearsal you do matters there are 2 types : maintenance and elaborate. elaborate rehearsal is needed for transfer to ltm, this occurs when you think about the meaning.
3. Baddely found we confuse acoustically similar words for stm and confuse semantically similar words. this shows stm and ltm are different stores encoded differently. however it uses artificial stimuli that was meaningless.

Question 9

give 2 evaluations of coding research

Answer 9

Baddely may not have tested ltm as he only waited 20 minutes

Baddely used artificial stimuli like cat cab and can. they had no personal meaning so they cant explain or be applied to real life memory and lack external validity.

Question 10

evaluation of capacity

Answer 10

1. Research doesnt factor in individual differences. capacity steadily increases with age. 8 yo recalls 6.6 digits and 19 yo 8.6. research isnt representative.
2. research on stm may have been overstated. miller says we can remember 5-9 items and 5 chuncks but cowan did a review on stm, its limited to 4 chuncks, lower end is more accurate

Question 11

explain peterson and petersons study into duration and the findings

Answer 11

p and p tested 24 undergrads who each took part in 8 trials
they were given a triagram to remember along with a 3 digit number. they were told to recall the triagram after a retention interval of counting back in 3 to prevent rehearsal

90% were correct after 3 seconds

20% were correct after 9 seconds

2% were correct after 18 seconds

short term memory has a duration of 18-30 seconds

Question 12

explain bahricks research into duration

Answer 12

got 400 american students and their highschool yearbooks and tested recall in different ways
1. photo recognition test with 50 different phots
2. free recall where people said the names in their graduating class

ptps tested within 15 years of graduating were 90% correct

after 48 years recall dropped to 70%

free recall after 15 years 60% accurate

after 48 years they were 30%correct

Question 13

evaluate duration in memory

Answer 13

1. Artificial stimuli through the triagram, doesnt reflect real life memory activities in which we remember useful things, lacks external and ecological validity
2. p+p werent measuring duration of STM. ptps had to count numbers in their stm which displaces the triagram so they were measuring displacement and decay not stm
3. Bahricks research has high external validity as it uses meaningful memories (name and faces of former classsmates). when research into ltm duration uses meaningless dtimuli recall rates are lower. so his findings are valid to irl memory.

Question 14

what is the working memory model.

Answer 14

baddely and hitch believe theres separate stores for visual and auditory processing.

wmm is concerned with the active part of the mind

Question 15

What is the role of the central executive

Answer 15

The CE acts as a filter to determine which information will and wont have attention directed to it and be attended to

Determines how the brains slave systems are allocated tasks

limited capacity so it selectively divides and allocates attention

Question 16

explain the role of the phonological loop (slave system)

Answer 16

This deals with all auditory and it has 2 subdivisions:
phonological store: words you hear
articulatory process: allows maintenance rehearsal

Question 17

visuo spatial sketchpad (2nd slave system)

Answer 17

stores visual and spacial information
e.g someone asks how many windows you have in your house you visualize it

visual - what things look like
spatial - physical relationship between them

limited capacity of 3-4 objects

2 subdivisions:

visual cache stores visual data

inner scribe records arrangements of objects

Question 18

episodic buffer (3rd slave system)

Answer 18

records events - episodes that are happening
maintains a sense of time sequencing holds and sends info to ltm

Question 20

3 evaluations of the working memory model

Answer 20

1. theres studies to support the visuo spatial sketchpad. Baddely et al found patients had more difficulty doing 2 visual tasks than doing a visual and verbal task at the same time as both visual tasks would be completed in the same slave system whereas visual and verbal theres no competition for attention
2. shalice and warrington studied a patient with kf amnesia and found his stm for digits was very poor when they were read out to him but recall was better when he read them out himslef supporting there must be atleast 2 slave systems for stm visual and auditory. however it lacks validity as the patient has traumatic brain study cant be applicable.
3. wmm is simplistic and it equates the central executive to attention.the description is vague and its been suggested theres several other components. eslinger and damalso studied patients with removed tumors and found they performed well on tests requiring reasoning so the ce was intact but they had poor decision making so it wasnt fully intact.

Question 21

what is episodic memory (ltm)

Answer 21

This is our ability to recall events from our lives.

the memories are times stamped as you remember when they happened and you have to make a conscious effort to recall them and they are declarative(can be expressed verbally)

Question 22

explain procedural memory

Answer 22

this is for actions and skills = how we do things

we recall them without conscious awareness and they are non declarative (difficult to explain verbally)

e.g driving a car

Question 23

explain semantic memory

Answer 23

constains our knowledge of the world and impressive concepts
e.g animals music and love

they arent time stamped and its less about personal things and more about facts

Question 24

evaluate the types of long term memory

Answer 24

1. brain studies prove memories are stored differently.tulving et al usin pet scans found that episodic and semantic memories were recalled from the prefrontal cortex. this is a strength supporting the view that theres a physical reality to different ltm in the brain.

2.allows psychologists to help with memory problems. as people age they develop memory loss specifically episodic. it becomes harder to recall personal recent events though old ones are still intact.belle ville et al divised a plan to help improve ep memory and ptps performed better on a test after training

3. theres research from clinical evidence to support different memory stores in ltm. clive wearing suffered brain damage and his semantic memories were unaffected as he understood the meaning of words, could play piano, wlak and talk! but episodic memories were damaged as he couldnt recall personal memories showing theres atleast 2 stores as each was affected differently.

Question 25

what is retroactive interference ?

Answer 25

forgetting occurs when new memories disrupt the recall of older memories

retro = old memories get messed up

Question 26

what is proactive interference ?

Answer 26

forgetting occurs when older memories disrupts the recall of newer memories

p = present memories get messed

Question 27

outline mcgeoch and mcdonald similarity test of materials

Answer 27

they gave ptps a list of 10 adjectives (list a)

after they learned them there was a resting interval of 10 mins where they learned list b followed by recall.

when list b was synonyms of list a recall was 12%

when list b was nonsense syllables recall was 26%

when it was numbers recall was 37%

similarity affects recall due to :

proactive interferene - explain or retroactive interference explain

Question 28

evaluation of intereference as an explanation of forgetting

Answer 28

1. proactive interference affects some more/less than others. kane and engle found people w a greater memory working span were less susceptible to proactive.i . by giving them 3 lists of words to learn. ptps with low working memory spans showed grater interference recalling the 2nd and 3rd list

2.interference affects everyday situations. baddely and hitch made rugby players recall people they played against on a season. no. interfering games differed some weren’t present due to injury. players who played the most matches had the most interefence/ poorest recall, increases validity.

3. only explains some forgetting, they dont occur everyday. special conditions are needed e.g the memories have to be quite similar so this is an unimportant explanation for everyday forgetting. mcgeoch and mcdonald show interefence is the strongest the more similar the items are

Question 29

what is a cue?

Answer 29

a cue is a trigger of information that allows us to access a memory.

indirectly linked by being present at time of encoding or meaningful.

external : environmental

internal : mood

Question 30

evidence for encoding freeand cued recall

Answer 30

tulving and pearlstone

participants had to learn 48 words in 12 different categories

each word was presented as category/ word. ptps had to recall as many words as they could or they were given cues in the form of category names

free recall : recall was 40%
cued recall : recall was 60%

Question 31

ao3 evaluate retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting

Answer 31

retrieval failure is used to improve accuracy of ewt.
the cognitive interview has witnesses mentally go back to the scene of the crime with that weather and time of day. based on the idea that conditions present at encoding must be present at the time of recall.

studies support retrieval failure in lab, filed and natural experiments. e.g godden and baddely study shows retrieval failur happens irl and in labs. however baddely argues that context has to be very different before an effect is seen. e.g hard to find a difference like land and water but learning and recall in different rooms would have much of an effect.

context effects are dependent on the type of memory being tested. godden and baddely found recall was poor when context for recall and learn were different. however when they repeated this using a recognition test instead of recall there was no context dependent forgetting. retrieval failure is a limited explanation as it only refers to recall not recognition

Question 32

factors affecting ewt accuracy

Answer 32

misleading information - incorrect info given to the eye witness after event through post event discussions or leading questions

Question 33

what are leading questions and post event discussions

Answer 33

lq - because of the way they were phrased they suggest a certain answer.

ped - witnesses discuss what they have seen with eachother and influence the accuracy of eachothers recall

Question 34

loftus and palmer leading questions

Answer 34

test their hypothethesis about language and misleading questions

45 students were shown films of traffic incidents ranging from 5 to 30seconds.

after each film ptps were given a questionnaire to describe the accidents and answer questions on them

there was one critcal question : about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other? 5 groups of ptps were given 5 different verbs : hit contracted bumped collided and smashed

contacted- 30.8
smashed - 40.8

Question 35

how do post even discussions influence ewt

Answer 35

they combine misinformation from other witnesses with their own memory.memoryconformity: co witnesses reach a consensus view of what actually happened.

gabbert et al had each ptp was the same crime from different povs so some could see things that others couldnt. both ptps discussed what they had seen befor doing recall alone. researcher found 71% mistakenly recalled parts of the event they didnt see but picked up in the talk.

Question 36

A03Evaluation into ewt misleading information

Answer 36

real worldapplication.​ leading questions, misleading information and post-event discussions lead to inaccurate EWT.​ educate police officers and detectives on how not to conduct an eyewitness interview. positive results for the individual as it prevents innocent people from being wrongly convicted. ​

there are individual differences older people are less accurate than younger people. Anastasi and rhobes found 18-45 were more accurate than 55-78. this is important as these studies typically use younger people so the results cant be generalised to older people.

artificial tasks. l + p asked them to watch a video about how fast the cars were going in a crash. this is artificial. watching a car crash through a video is a different experience than watching it in real life where people are more likely to be anxious and distressed affecting their judgement and response as its been proven that emotion can affect an individuals memory. Lacks external validity n tells us little about real crimes

Question 37

outline anxiety negative effect

Answer 37

anxiety leads to changes in the body which prevents us from paying attention to important cues so our recall is worse.

tunnel theory suggests our attention tunnels to specific features and our attention to detail of other aspects is flawed e.g weapon focus

Question 38

johnson and scott negative effect study

Answer 38

while seated in a waiting room participants heard an argument in the next room.

low anxiety condition : man then walks through the waiting room with a pen and grease on his hands

High anxiety condition : participants heard the sound of breaking glass and a man walks out of the room with a paper knife and blood on his hands.

then the had to pick out the man in 50 photos. in the low anxiety condition recall was 49% in the high anxiety condition recall was 33%

Question 39

positive effect

Answer 39

the stress of witnessing a crime or accident creates physiological changes in the body through anxiety.

this triggers fight or flight which increases our alertness and improves our memory as we become more aware of cues and this improves the detail of our recall

Question 40

research to support positive effect

Answer 40

real life shooting in a gun shop in Canada. The shop owner shot a thief dead​

21 witnesses: 13 agreed to take part in the study ​

Interviewers were held 4-5 months after the incident and these were compared with their orginal police interviewers​

The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident using a 7-point scale and asked if they had any emotional problems since the event​

The witnesses were accurate in their account and their was very little change in the amount or accuracy after 5 months.​

Those participants who reported the highest level of stress were most accurate.​

Question 41

A03 evaluation of ewt ANXIETY

Answer 41

evidence supporting the negative effects of anxiety on memory ​. Valentine and Mesout used an heart rate, which is an objective measure, to divide participants into low anxiety and high anxiety groups. In this study, anxiety clearly disrupted the participants ability to recall details about the actor in the London Dungeon’s Labyrinth​
This suggests that high anxiety does have a negative effects on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event​

field studies sometimes lack control for example yuille and cutshall conducted a study of a real life shooting in a gunshop and interviewed participants 4-5 months after. alot of events could have happened in the mean time that the researcher could not control e.g discussions with other people about other accounts. these can act as extraneous variables and effect the study.

research to support anxiety having a positive effect on the accuracy of memory ​Christianson and Hubinette interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden. Some of the witnesses were directly involved such as the bank workers and some that were indirectly involved such as the bystanders.​It was round that recall was 75% accurate across all witnesses. The direct witnesses were more accurate ​

Question 42

probelms with interviewing witnesses

Answer 42

witnesses were often interrupted and not allowed to talk freely

witnesses were bombareded with short brief close ended questions aimed to elicit facts.

interview revolves around the interviewer

Question 43

4 techniques psychologists made to improve ewt

Answer 43

mentally reinstating context - return to the original crime scene in their mind and imagine the environment

reporting everything - include every detail even if it seems irrelevant as it could trigger the recall of other information

changing the order - recall in a different order e.g backwards to ensure theyre reporting what actually happened not how it should’ve happened

recall events from another persons perspective to disrupt the schema and promote a holistic view of events.

Question 44

outline the enhanced cognitive interview

Answer 44

fisher et al added some developments for the social aspect

interviewer must know when to establish eye contact and when to withdraw it.

eci includes: reducing anxiety , getting partici[ants to speak slowly,minimizing distractions and asking open ended questions

build a rapport so they reveal more information.

Question 45

A03 evaluation of the cognitive interview

Answer 45

the cognitive interview is more time consuming than a standard police interview. time is needed to establish a rapport and allow them to relax and the special training also takes time. weakness as they may be reluctant to use the c.i. because they have high demands to solve lots of crimes quickly.

some aspects of the cognitive interview may be more useful than others. Milne and bull found each element is valuable but when combined found reinstating context and report everything were the most helpful. This is a strength as it increases the credibility of police officers who use it and helps the cognitive interview to not be so time consuming so they can use it.

theres research to support the effectiveness of eci. konken et al did meta analysis on 50 studies and found that the ci. consistently provided more accurate results than the standard police interview. This is a strength as it suggest there a real practical benefit to using the cognitive interview which gives the police a better chance of catching these criminals which protects the whole of society