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A-level Psychology > Memory > Flashcards

Memory Flashcards

1
Q

What is short term memory?

A
  • information that we process and recall straight away

- stores the information we are currently aware of

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2
Q

What is coding?

A

the format in which the information is stored in memory

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3
Q

What happens when we experience sensory information?

A

it stays there just long enough to decide if we should process it further. If we attend to it, it will transfer to our STM

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4
Q

What is long term memory?

A
  • the permanent memory store

- continual storage of information which is largely outside of our awareness but can be recalled

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5
Q

What type of coding is in the LTM?

A

semantic

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6
Q

What does capacity mean?

A

the amount of information held in a memory store

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7
Q

What does duration mean?

A

the length of time information can be held in memory

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8
Q

What is the capacity of STM?

A

5-9 items

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9
Q

What is the capacity of LTM?

A

unlimited

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10
Q

What is the duration of STM?

A

18-30 seconds

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11
Q

What is the duration of LTM?

A

potential lifetime

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12
Q

What is Miller’s Magic number?

A

7

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13
Q

What did Miller argue?

A
  • he argued that most things come in 7s
  • he concluded that on average we can recall 7 items + or - 2
  • we can remember more as long as we information down in to 5-9 manageable chunks
  • he discovered we can remember 5 words as easy as 5 letters
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14
Q

What is the digit span test?

A
  • developed by Jacobs in 1887
  • the researcher gives a number of digits and the participant has to recall them in order
  • the researcher then increases the amount by 1 digit and the ppts has to recall them again until they cannot recall the correct order
  • this determines their digit span
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15
Q

What were the results of the digit span test?

A
  1. 3 items for numbers

7. 3 for letters

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16
Q

What are strengths of the digit span test?

A
  • quick and easy to do (straightforward)
  • tells us capacity of STM
  • replicable
  • supports multi store model of memory
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17
Q

What are weaknesses of the digit span test?

A
  • not applicable to real life (random sequence of number/letters -> controlled conditions
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18
Q

What was Baddeley’s aim?

A

to investigate whether coding in STM and LTM is acoustic or semantic (meaning)

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19
Q

What was Baddeley’s method?

A

he gave the ppts one of four word lists and asked them to memorise them
- list A - acoustically similar
- list B - acoustically dissimilar
- list C - semantically similar
- list D - semantically dissimilar
they were asked to recall them either immediatley of after 20 minutes

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20
Q

What were Baddeley’s findings?

A

List A was recalled the worst immediately (10% recalled)

List C recalled the worst after 20 minutes

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21
Q

What were Baddeley’s conclusions?

A

List A recalled worst immediately - suggests acoustic confusion in STM
List C recalled worst after 20 mins - semantic confusion in the LTM

Therefore, STM tends to be coded acoustically and LTM is coded semantically

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22
Q

What are the strengths of Baddeley’s research?

A
  • seperate memory stores - identified a clear difference between two memory stores
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23
Q

What are the weaknesses of Baddeley research?

A

Artificial stimuli - no personal meaning to the participants

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24
Q

What was Peterson and Peterson’s aim?

A

1959

duration of STM

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25
Q

What was Peterson and Peterson’s method?

A

nonsense trigrams, counting backwards in 3s from a 3 figure number to reduce rehersals and increased the time by 3 seconds each time

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26
Q

What were Peterson and Peterson’s results?

A

90% recalled correctly after 3 seconds

10% correct recall after 18 seconds

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27
Q

What was Peterson and Peterson’s conclusion?

A

without rehersal, STM is probably less than 18 seconds

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28
Q

What was Bahrick’s yearbook study?

A
  • he studies 392 American ppts between 17 and 74
  • obtained their yearbooks from high school
  • tested their recall in various ways: photo recognition and free recall
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29
Q

What were Bahrick’s results?

A

ppts tested within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate in photo recognition
after 48 years, recall declined to 70% for photo recognition
free recall was less accurate than photos: 60% after 15 years and 30% after 48 years
shows that LTM may last up to a lifetime for some material

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30
Q

What are strengths of Bahrick’s study?

A
  • experimental support
  • high ecological validity
  • real life memories
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31
Q

What are the weaknesses of Bahrick’s study?

A
  • recognition not recall
  • lacked important controls (may be friends)
  • emotional significance
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32
Q

What was Sperling’s study?

A
  • ppts saw a grid of digits for 50 milliseconds

- they were asked to write down all 12 items or they were told after which row to recall

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33
Q

What were Sperling’s results?

A
  • 75% for one row (3 letters)
  • 42% for the whole grid (5 letters)

suggests that sensory memory cannot hold information for long and it decays rapidly in the sensory store - supports the existence of a sensory store

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34
Q

What is the multi-store model of memory?

A

Maintenance rehearsal
| retrieval
environmental stimuli -> sensory register -> attention -> STM LTM
rehearsal
| |
decay forgetting

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35
Q

What was Glanzer and Cunitz study (1966) ?

A
  • showed ppts a list of 20 words, presented one at a time and then asked them to recall
  • serial position effect - when asking people to remember a list of words which is greater than the capacity of STM they have a tendency to remember the beginning and end of the list.
36
Q

What is the primary effect?

A

the tendency for people to remember the first 5 or so words from the beginning of the list
- occurs because the first words are best rehearsed and transferred to the LTM

37
Q

What is the recency effect?

A

the tendency for people to remember the last 5 or so words from the end of the list
- occurs because they are the last words to be presented therefore they are fresh in the STM at the start of recall

38
Q

What studies support MSM?

A
  • Glanzer and Cunitz

- Baddeley (1966)

39
Q

What is the case of HM?

A
  • man who underwent brain surgery to relieve his epilepsy
  • a part of his brain called the hippocampus was removed from both sides of his brain (central to memory function)
  • when his memory was tested he got his age and the year wrong
  • he could not form new LTM memories however, he performed well on tests of immediate memory span, a measure of STM
40
Q

What is LTM used for?

A
  • how to do things -> motor skills
  • events
  • general knowledge
41
Q

What are episodic memories?

A
  • refers to our ability to recall events (episodes) from our lives
  • this has been linked to a diary, a record of daily happenings. Some examples are:
    • most recent visit to the dentist
    • the breakfast you ate this morning
  • more complex than you think - it includes several elements such as people, places, objects and behaviours
  • have to make a conscious effort to remember them
42
Q

What are semantic memories?

A
  • our knowledge of the world
    • eg. facts, remembering how things taste
  • not timestamped
  • less personal and more about facts we all share
43
Q

What are procedural memories?

A
  • memory for actions or skills or how we do things
  • we can recall these memories without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort
    e. g . driving or walking
44
Q

What does Cohen argue?

A
  • Cohen argues that there are only 2 types of LTM and not 3
  • declarative memory - semantic and episodic that are consciously recalled
  • non-declarative memory - procedural memory that can be unconsciously recalled
45
Q

What does the working memory model involve?

A
  • central executive
  • episodic buffer
  • visou-spatial sketchpad
  • phonological loop ( articulatory process / phonological store)
46
Q

What did Baddeley and Hitch believe (1974)?

A
  • believed that memory has a number of different components:
    • 2 visual tasks = poorer performance but 1 visual and 1 verbal means no interruption
  • focused on STM only and believed it was not a unitary store (like MSM)
  • LTM as a more passive store that holds previously learned material for use by the STM when needed
47
Q

What is the central executive?

A
  • limited capacity
  • Determines how resources (slave systems) are allocated.
  • involves reasoning and decision making tasks
  • They also select strategies but can only do a limited number of things at the same time
  • Modality free (no coding specificity)
48
Q

What is the phonological loop?

A
  • limited capacity (2 seconds)
  • Deals with auditory information and preserves word order – Inner Ear
  • Baddeley (1986) further subdivided it into
    -Phonological store (holds words heard)
    Articulatory process (holds words heard/seen and silently repeated
    (looped) like an inner voice. This is a kind of maintenance rehearsal.
  • coded acoustically
49
Q

What is the visou-spatial capacity?

A
  • Visual and/or spatial information stored here – Inner Eye
    - Visual = what things look like
    - Spatial = relationships between things
  • Limited capacity – 3-4 objects
  • Logie (1995) suggested subdivision:
    - Visuo-cache (store)
    - Inner scribe for spatial relations.
50
Q

What is the episodic buffer?

A
  • Baddeley (2000) added episodic buffer as he realised model needed a more
    general store.
  • Slave systems deal with specific types of information.
  • Central executive has no storage capacity
  • Buffer extra storage system but with limited capacity of 4 chunks
  • Integrates information from all other areas.
51
Q

What was Baddeley and Hitch’s experiment?

A
  • supports WMM
  • Gave participants two tasks to perform simultaneously.
    • Task 1: True or False task occupied the Central Executive as it tested verbal reasoning. They were asked to perform this task at the same time as performing either….
      • Asked to say ‘the the the’ – a task involving the Articulatory Loop.
      • Asked to say random digits – a task involving both the Central Executive and Articulatory Loop.
  • Results: The true or false task was slower when given the 2nd task involving both the Central Executive and Articulatory Loop.
  • Conclusion: completing two tasks that involve the same component causes difficulty. This supports the Central Executive and the Working Memory Model.
52
Q

What did Bunge do (2000)?

A

used fMRI to see which parts of the brain were most active when participants were doing two tasks (reading a sentence and recalling the final word in each sentence).

The same brain areas (pre-frontal cortex) were active in either dual or single task conditions but there was significantly more activation in dual task condition.

53
Q

What is interference?

A

One memory disturbs the ability to recall another, this might results in forgetting or distorting one or the other or both. This is more likely to happen if the memories are similar.

54
Q

What is proactive interfernce?

A 
previously leant information interferes with the new information you are trying to store.
e.g. you have difficulties learning the names of the students in your psychology  class instead you keep remembering the names of the students in your maths group last year
55
Q

What is retroactive interference?

A
  • a new memory interferes with older ones
    e. g. you have difficulty remembering the names of the students in your maths class because you learnt the names of your psychology class this year.
56
Q

What was Underwood and Postman’s (1960) study?

A

Aim: To investigate how retroactive interference affects learning/ to investigate whether information you have recently received interferes with the ability to recall something you learned earlier.

Method: A lab experiment was used. Participants were split into two groups. Both groups had to remember a list of paired words – e.g. cat - tree. The
experimental group also had to learn another list of words where the second paired word is different – e.g. cat – glass.
The control group were not given the second list. All participants were asked to recall the words on the first list.

57
Q

What were the results/ conclusion in Underwood and Postman’s study?

A

Results: The recall of the control group was more accurate than that of the experimental group.

Conclusion: This suggests that learning items in the second list interfered with participants’ ability to recall the list. This is an example of retroactive interference.

58
Q

What was McGeoch and Mcdonalds study (1931)?

A
  • Procedure: studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between 2 sets of materials. Ppts had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then learned a new list. There were 6 groups of ppts who had to learn different types of new lists:
    Group 1 - synonyms of the original words
    Group 2 - antonyms of the original words
    Group 3 - words unrelated to the original words
    Group 4 - consonant syllables
    Group 5 - 3 digit number
    Group 6 - no new list
59
Q

What were McGeoch and Mcdonalds findings?

A

when the ppts were asked to recall the original list of words the most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall. This shows interference is strongest when memories are made.

60
Q

What is retrieval failure/ Tulving’s theory?

A

The reason we forget is due to insufficient cues.
If the cues are not present when we come to recall then we find it difficult to retrieve the memory. It is not necessarily because we have forgotten it, it’s just that we don’t have the cues to help us to access the memory. It is still available – it’s just a problem with accessing the memory.

‘Encoding Specificity Principle’ (Tulving) = “the greater the similarity between the encoding

61
Q

What are the two types of cue dependent forgetting?

A

Context dependent forgetting = External environmental cues

State dependent forgetting= Internal cues

62
Q

What was Godden and Baddeley’s (1975) study ?

A

They carried out a study of deep sea divers working underwater.
Divers learned a list of words underwater or on land and were asked to recall underwater or on land
Group 1 - learn on land, recall on land
Group 2 - learn on land, recall underwater
Group 3 - learn underwater, recall on land
Group 4 - learn underwater, recall underwater

63
Q

What were Godden and Baddeley’s findings?

A

In 2 of the conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas in the other 2 they did not. Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non matching conditions.

64
Q

What was Carter and Cassaday’s study?

A
  • They looked at the effect of anti-histimines, the participants had to learn list of words and passages of prose and then call the information
  • Group 1 –Learn on the drug – recall when on it
  • Group 2 – Learn on drug – recall when not on it
  • Group 3 – Learn not on drug – recall when on it
  • Group 4 – Learn not on drug – recall when not on it
65
Q

What were Carter and Cassaday’s findings?

A

In the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse. So when the cues are absent (for example, you are drowsy when recalling information but been alert learning it) then there is more forgetting.

66
Q

Evaluation for retrieval failure?

A
  • real life application - dementia patients
  • lots of research support (e.g. gum-gum study), argued that it reflects real life (i.e. diving was an every day activity in Godden and Baddley’s study). BUT Baddeley himself argues that the contexts have to be really different to see an effect. E.g. an exam hall is still in the school so not much different to the classroom.
  • BUT there are different types of forgetting: testing recall rather than recognition (link to Bahrick)
67
Q

What is an eye witness testimony?

A

the evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator.

68
Q

What was Loftus and Palmer’s first study (1974)?

A

Aim: to investigate if the language used can alter the witness’ perception of what happened
- 45 students shown 7 films of traffic accidents.
- Students were given questionnaire
- There was one critical question about how fast the cars were going – each with a different adjective.
Results: As the verb ‘smashed’ has connotations with increased speed this group estimated the speed as higher than the other groups.

This shows that misleading or suggestive information can distort EWT

69
Q

What was Loftus and Palmer’s second study?

A
  • Broken glass study
  • 150 student participants were shown a short film that showed a multi-vehicle car accident and then they were asked questions about it. The participants were split into 3 groups (with 50 in each group).
    • 1st group: ‘How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’
      - 2nd group: ‘How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each
      other?’
    • 3rd group: asked nothing about the speed.
      All groups returned a week later and were asked:

“Did you see any broken glass?” even though there was none in the film.

70
Q

What were the results of Loftus and Palmer’s broken glass experiment?

A

Participants who had heard the ‘smashed’ question were more than twice as likely to report seeing broken glass, than those in the other two conditions.

Conclusion: Therefore, misleading information/leading questions have the ability to alter eyewitness testimony/memories.

71
Q

Evaluation of EWT research?

A
  • good real life application - meant that they way police questioned was changed to ensure no leading questions were used as they may have a serious consequence
  • vulnerable to demand characteristics - people may want to please experimenters so alter their responses and are therefore more likely to guess. This is a problem, because eyewitnesses are less likely to guess in real life, and therefore the results of the experiment may not be representative.
  • EWT research has no real consequences if eyewitnesses get their response wrong. Real life eyewitnesses results have very real consequences for the people that they identify. Therefore EWT studies lack the realism and significance of a real life account of a crime.
  • Lacks ecological validity - fear/anxiety someone may feel if they were a real eye witness
72
Q

What is post event discussion?

A

When co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other their eyewitness testimonies may become contaminated.

73
Q

What was Gabbert’s study / results (2003)?

A

Procedure – studied ppts in pairs. Each watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points of view. This meant that each participant could
see elements in the event that the other could not. E.g. only one ppt could see
the title of the book being carried by a young woman. Both ppts discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall.

Findings – 71% of ppts mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did
not see but had picked up in the discussion

74
Q

What was Pickerell and Loftus’ study?

A
  • divided 120 subjects into four groups. The subjects were told they were
    going to evaluate advertising copy, fill out several questionnaires and answer questions about a trip to Disneyland.
  • The first group read a generic Disneyland ad that mentioned no cartoon characters. The second group read the same copy and was exposed to a 4-foot-tall cardboard figure of Bugs Bunny that was placed in the interview room. No mention was made of Bugs Bunny. The third, or Bugs group, read the fake Disneyland ad featuring Bugs Bunny. The fourth, or double, exposure group read the fake add and also saw the cardboard rabbit.

Results: 30% of the people in the Bugs group later said they remembered or knew they had met Bugs Bunny when they visited Disneyland and 40% of the people in the double exposure group reported the same thing.

75
Q

How does EWT affect accuracy of EWT?

A

Deffenbacher et al 2004 - meta-analysis which found that high levels of stress impacted on the accuracy of EWT.

Christianson & Hubinette 1993 - Questioned real victims of a bank robbery. They found that those who had actually been threatened were more accurate in their recall, compared to those who were onlookers. This continued to be true 15 months later.

76
Q

What is the weapon focus effect?

A

This is where in violent crimes, arousal may focus the witness on more central details of the attack (eg: weapon) than the more peripheral details (eg: what else was going on and what the perpetrator looked like).”

77
Q

What was Johnson and Scott’s study into anxiety affecting EWT/ weapon focus?

A
  • invited participants to a lab where they were told to wait in the reception area. A receptionist excused herself, leaving the participant alone. The
    experiment used an independent groups design, as participants were then exposed to one of two conditions:
    1) In the ‘no-weapon’ condition, ppts overheard a conversation in the lab about equipment failure. Thereafter an individual (the target) left the lab and walk passed the participant holding a pen, with his hands covered in grease.
    2) In the ‘weapon’ condition, ppts overheard a heated exchange and the sound of breaking glass and crashing chairs. This was followed by an individual (the target) running into the reception area, holding a bloodied letter opener.

Both groups were then shown 50 photographs and ask to identify the person who had left the lab. The ppts were informed that the suspect may, or may not be present in the photographs.
Those who had witness the man holding a pen correctly identified the target 49% of the time, compared to those who had witness the man holding a knife, who correctly identified the target 33% of the time.
Loftus claimed that the participants who were exposed to the knife had higher levels of anxiety and were more likely to focus their attention on the weapon and not the face of the target, a phenomenon known as the weapon focus
effect. Therefore, the anxiety associated with seeing a knife reduces the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

78
Q

What was Yuille and Cutshall (1986) study?

A
  • contradicts weapon focus effect
  • investigated effect of anxiety in a real life shooting
  • 13 witnesses agreed to take part in follow up research 4-5 months later
79
Q

What did Yuille and Cutshall (1986) find?

A
  • all EWT were accurate, only minor details changed (height, weight etc)
  • leading q’s had no effect
  • real life cases of extreme anxiety the accuracy of EWT is not effected
80
Q

What was the Yerkes-Dodson law?

A
  • inverted U theory - as anxiety increases EWT fluctuates
81
Q

What is a cognitive interview?

A

police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate the original context in order to increase the accessibility of stored information.

82
Q

What did Fisher and Greiselman (1992) come up with / 4 techinques?

A 
Reviewed memory literature – people remember things better if they are provided with retrieval cues.
Came up with 4 techniques:
- change recall order
- recall from changed perspective
- context reinstatement 
- report everything
83
Q

What does an enhanced cognitive interview consist of?

A
  • minimise distractions
  • reduce anxiety
  • encourage witness to speak slowly
  • ask open ended questions
84
Q

What was Wright and Holliday (2007)?

A

investigated how age affects recall – the older the participant (75-95 years old), the less complete and less accurate the recall.

However, when they used the cognitive interview technique, the older participants recalled significantly greater detail without giving any false information

85
Q

What are examples of cognitive interview experiments?

A

Kohnken et al (1999)

  • meta-analysis of 53 studies
  • Found on average a 34% increase in amount of correct information generated in CI
  • BUT Most of the sample were university students

Milne and Bull (2002)

  • Found that when they used a combination of “report everything” and “mental reinstatement”, participants’ recall was significantly higher.
  • BUT -Still in a laboratory - artificial
86
Q

Cognitive interview evaluation?

A

Weaknesses:
- Different police forces use different aspects of the CI technique so it is difficult to evaluate its effectiveness fully
- The technique takes more time than is often available
- Techniques that limit the eyewitnesses account to the minimum are often
preferred
- Demands are placed on the interviewer to ‘probe’ effectively
- The quantity and quality of CI training is an issue
Strengths:
- Although cognitive interviewing produces an increase in ‘false positives’ (recall of additional items), there is a bigger increase in the amount of correct information recalled compared to a standard interview
- The CI is valuable in reducing miscarriages of justice in countries where these are likely to occur (e.g. Brazil)

A-level Psychology (7 decks)

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