psychology - memory Flashcards
describe the layout of the multi store model of memory
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.
what is the capacity and duration of the sensory register?
It has an unlimited capacity
duration : visually: half a second
acoustic: 2 seconds
what is the duration and capacity of the short term memory?
the duration is 18-30 seconds
the capacity is 5-9 items
what is the capacity and duration of long term memory?
it has an unlimited capacity and unlimited duration
how is memory encoded in the short term and long term memory?
Short term memory: acoustically
Long term memory: semantically
importance of attention and maintenance rehearsal (repetition)
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
explain Baddely’s research on coding
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.
what are the evaluations of the multi store model of memory
- 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
- 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. - 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.
give 2 evaluations of coding research
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.
evaluation of capacity
- 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.
- 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
explain peterson and petersons study into duration and the findings
p and p tested 24 undergrads who each took part in 8 trials
they were given a triagram to remember. Rehearsal was prevented by asking them to count backwards in threes from a specified number. After intervals of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds participants were asked to stop counting and to repeat the trigram. The % of trigrams correctly recalled was recorded for each time interval.
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
explain bahricks research into duration
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
evaluate duration in memory
- Artificial stimuli through the triagram, doesnt reflect real life memory activities in which we remember useful things, lacks external and ecological validity
- 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
- 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.
what is the working memory model.
baddely and hitch believe theres separate stores for visual and auditory processing.
wmm is concerned with the active part of the mind
What is the role of the central executive
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
explain the role of the phonological loop (slave system)
This deals with all auditory and it has 2 subdivisions:
phonological store: words you hear
articulatory process: allows maintenance rehearsal
visuo spatial sketchpad (2nd slave system)
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
episodic buffer (3rd slave system)
records events - episodes that are happening
maintains a sense of time sequencing holds and sends info to ltm
3 evaluations of the working memory model
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
what is episodic memory (ltm)
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)
explain procedural memory
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
explain semantic memory
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
evaluate the types of long term memory
- brain studies prove memories are stored differently.tulving et al has ptps recall memories during 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
- theres research from clinical evidence to support different memory stores in ltm. clive wearing suffered brain damage and his semantic and procedural 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.
what is retroactive interference ?
forgetting occurs when new memories disrupt the recall of older memories
retro = old memories get messed up
what is proactive interference ?
forgetting occurs when older memories disrupts the recall of newer memories
p = present memories get messed
outline mcgeoch and mcdonald similarity test of materials
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
evaluation of intereference as an explanation of forgetting
- 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.
- 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
what is a cue?
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
evidence for encoding freeand cued recall
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%
ao3 evaluate retrieval failure as an explanation of forgetting
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
factors affecting ewt accuracy
misleading information - incorrect info given to the eye witness after event through post event discussions or leading questions
what are leading questions and post event discussions
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
loftus and palmer leading questions
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- 31.8
smashed - 40.8
how do post event discussions influence ewt
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 watch the same crime from different povs so some could see things that others couldnt. both ptps discussed what they had seen before doing recall alone. researcher found 71% mistakenly recalled parts of the event they didnt see but picked up in the talk.
A03Evaluation into ewt misleading information
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
outline anxiety negative effect
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
johnson and scott negative effect study
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%
positive effect
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
research to support positive effect
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.
A03 evaluation of ewt ANXIETY
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
probelms with interviewing witnesses
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
4 techniques psychologists made to improve ewt
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.
outline the enhanced cognitive interview
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.
A03 evaluation of the cognitive interview
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
outline retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting
Retrieval failure is a form of forgetting. It occurs when we don’t have the necessary cues to access memory.
The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided.
Forgetting in long term memory is mainly due to retrieval failure
what is the coding specificity principle?
Tulving and Thomson proposed memory is most effective if information that was present at encoding is also available at the time of retrieval.
outline research evidence for the encoding specificity principle
Tulving and Pearlstone
Participants had to learn 48 words, belonging to 12 categories.
Each word was presented as category + word, e.g. fruit-apple, fruit-orange.
Participants either had to recall as many words as they could (free recall) or they were given cues in the form of the category names (cued recall).
free recall: 40%
cued recall: 60%
what is context dependent forgetting and what is state dependent forgetting
Context dependent forgetting is the reduction in recall of specific information when the context present at encoding and recall are different
The mental state you are in at the time of learning can also act as a cue: state dependent forgetting
Provide research eveidence for context dependent forgetting
godden and baddely
18 deep sea divers had to learn a list of words on land or underwater and then recall the list of words on land or underwater
LL;RL
LL;RU
LU;RU
LU;RL
Recall was 40% higher in the matching conditions
