steyvers and hemmer Flashcards
what is the aim of their study?
they aimed to measure the contributions of episodic and semantic memories to recall of objects in naturalistic scenes
what was the experiment design?
the study was a laboratory experiment using an independent groups design
- 96 students took part in the study
the three groups:
- prior knowledge group
- perception group
- memory experiment group
what was phase 1 of the experiment?
assessed prior knowledge (held in semantic memory)
- the prior knowledge group were asked to list all the objects they would expect to find in five scenes
the researchers then selected 5 images for each of the five scenes and the perception group were shown each image and asked to name all the objects in the image
what was phase 2 of the experiment?
it was a memory experiment using two of the images form each scene type (10 in total)
- memory experiment group saw each image for either 2 seconds or 10 seconds and carried our a distractor task after each scene and then listed all the objects they could recall seeing in any order
what were the analysis of errors findings?
the error rate for high probability (expected) objects was 9% and low probability (unexpected) was 18 %
they also looked at false memory errors = 19%
this reflects the greater accuracy of recall when scenes are representative of the environment
what were the contribution of prior knowledge findings?
the researchers looked at the number of correct responses as a function of output position (order in which items were recalled)
- the first item was 85% decreasing to 55% after 16 items
what were the conclusions of the study?
prior knowledge makes a greater contribution to recall (episodic memory makes very little)
we are capable of recalling both expected and unexpected items from a scene as we make educated guesses on expected and then focus on the unexpected
what is the strength of the study?
it investigated memory in an ecologically valid way.
- the materials the researchers used were of naturalistic settings rather than artificial stimuli.
high degree of realism
what is a weakness of the study?
the procedure could be considered too controlled - laboratory settings and photographs of scenes instead of field and real life situation
- not as ecologically valid as they wanted
what is the competing argument?
the procedure was more ecologically valid than the majority of studies in memory research.
- the researchers argue that ecological validity exists on a spectrum
how can the study be applied?
the findings can be applied to improving the accuracy of eye-witness testimony
- use of prior knowledge should not be discounted but encouraged when eye-witnesses recall what they have seen
