Memory

Question 1

Memory definition.

Answer 1

The mental processes involved in retaining information.

Question 2

Three aspects of the memory process.

Answer 2

Encoding (creating a memory trace).
Storage (holding the information in the memory).
Retrieval (accessing the stored information).

Question 3

Short term memory duration.

Answer 3

Brief duration 18-30 seconds, it is a temporary store and anything that we need to remember for a longer period of time needs to be transferred into the LTM.

Question 4

Test for duration of STM.

Answer 4

Peterson and Peterson (Brown Peterson).
Participants briefly shown a consonant trigram and asked to count back in threes, preventing them from rehearsing the letters. After intervals of 6,9,12,15,18 participants were asked to recall the original trigram WITHIN 30 SECONDS

Question 5

Results of Peterson and Peterson.

Answer 5

Participants were able to recall 80% of trigrams after a 3 second interval.
Progressively fewer trigrams were recalled as the time intervals lengthened.
After 18 seconds, fewer than 10% of the original trigrams were recalled correctly.

Question 6

Strengths of the Peterson and Peterson technique.

Answer 6

Controlled lab experiment, allows control over extraneous variables (other distractions), increasing validity of the experiment and it is easily replicable.

Question 7

Limitations of the Peterson and Peterson technique.

Answer 7

Controlled lab experiment, artificial and not relevant to the real world, decreasing external validity.

Question 8

Duration of long term memory.

Answer 8

Lifetime.

Question 9

Test for duration of LTM.

Answer 9

Yearbook Study - Bahrick.
Used 392 people who had graduated over a 50 year period. Participants were split into 2 groups (independent measures). Recognition group and recall group.
The recognition group were asked to state whether they recognised the faces of of people from school or not, the recall group were asked to name the people.

Question 10

Results of the Yearbook Study.

Answer 10

Recognition group - 15 years since graduations - 90% accurate at identifying people. 48 years since graduation - 70% accurate.
Recall group - 15 years since graduation - 60% accurate. 48 years since graduation - 30% accurate.

Question 11

Strengths of Bahrick’s research.

Answer 11

High external validity, investigated meaningful memories (names and faces).

It is supported by other research, recently (2008) Bahrick researches whether people could remember their grades at college or not, 3025/3967 college grades were correctly remembered, showing that the original research has high reliability and accuracy.

Question 12

Limitations of Bahrick’s research.

Answer 12

Possible extraneous variables (some people could still be in contact with the people from their class), lacking internal validity.

Question 13

Test for capacity of short term memory.

Answer 13

Digit span technique - Jacobs.
Presented with a sequence of numbers and IMMEDIATELY recalling them in the order that they appeared. This continues until a mistake is made, showing that the STM has reached its capacity.
443 female students were studied using letters and numbers, it was found that numbers were recalled better than letters. On average people could recall between 5 and 9 items.
Miller conducted meta analysis on digit span technique and came to the same conclusion - the ‘magic number’ is 7+-2.

Chunks - Combinations of individual letters or numbers into a meaningful unit (MRI, GCSE, 999).
This allows us to store more in the STM as chunks only take up one space, leaving 6 more to fill.

Question 14

Strengths of research into capacity of STM.

Answer 14

Findings have been the same in replicated experiments with better controlled conditions (lack of distractions), high validity.

Higher external validity using numbers as we are more likely to be asked to remember a series of numbers (phone numbers).

Question 15

Limitations of research into capacity of STM.

Answer 15

Miller may have overestimated the capacity of STM, Cowan concluded that the capacity of the STM is only 4 +-1 chunks, lack of reliability, Miller’s original research lacks internal validity.

Jacobs’ and Miller’s research into STM does not take other factors into account, capacity decreasing as age increases, extraneous variables are ignored.

Miller’s research did not specify how large each chunk could be, lacks specific important information.

Question 16

Coding of STM and LTM.

Answer 16

Storing information can be done visually according to how it looks, acoustically according to how it sounds, or semantically according to its meaning.

Question 17

Study for coding for STM and LTM.

Answer 17

Baddeley (1966) - substitution error study.
People asked to remember letters or words and the mistakes were focussed on. Confusing things that look the same suggests the participant was encoding the material visually.
Confusing things that sound the same suggests that they were encoding the material acoustically.
Confusing things that have the same meaning suggests that the participant was encoding the material semantically.

Participants put into 4 groups (independent measures), each with a different set of words.
Group 1 - acoustically similar, group 2 - acoustically dissimilar, group 3 - semantically similar, group 4 - semantically dissimilar.

Question 18

Results from the substitution error study.

Answer 18

When recalling from STM (immediately after) participants did worse recalling words that were acoustically similar.
When recalling from LTM (20 mins after) participants did worse with the words that were semantically similar.
This shows that STM uses acoustic coding and LTM uses semantic coding.

Question 19

Strengths of research for coding.

Answer 19

Baddeley’s study identified a clear difference between 2 memory stores, shows that there is definitely a difference between LTM coding and STM coding, making the research more accurate.

Conrad gave participants letters to recall, some were acoustically similar and others were acoustically dissimilar, more mistakes were make with letters that sounded the same, this is further evidence that acoustic coding is linked with STM, increasing accuracy.

Question 20

Limitations of research for coding.

Answer 20

Baddeley’s study used quite artificial stimuli, using word lists rather than meaningful material, decreasing external validity because it is not relevant to everyday life.

Does not account for different types of LTM - episodic, procedural.

Posner found evidence to suggest that visual codes are used in STM, this contrasts with the work of Baddeley and Conrad, whose research implied that STM uses acoustic coding, this reduces the validity as results are not consistent.

Question 21

The multi-store model.

Answer 21

The sensory information comes in from the environment (5 senses).

The information travels to the sensory register store, the duration is 0.5 seconds, the capacity is large, the information is coded in sub-stores for each type of sensory information (iconic sub-store - visual, echoic sub-store - auditory). Information is lost from here due to it being filtered out after not paying attention to it (95-99% of info is filtered out).

If information is payed attention to it moves to the short-term memory, the duration is 18-30 seconds without rehearsal (Peterson trigram study shows this), the capacity is 5-9 items (the digit span technique shows this), this information is coded mainly acoustically (shown by the substitution error study). Information is lost due to lack of availability, exceeding the duration or capacity (decaying and displacement). The maintenance rehearsal loop increases the duration of the STM.

Information if moved into the long-term memory through prolonged rehearsal which requires a lot of effort. The duration can be up to a lifetime (shown by the yearbook study - Bahrick), the capacity is unlimited, the information is coded mainly semantically (shown by the substitution error study). Information is lost from the LTM due to a lack of accessibility, retrieval failure (lack of cues or interference). Info can be moved back into the STM through retrival.

Question 22

Strengths of the MSM.

Answer 22

Supporting case study, Clive Wearing, anterograde amnesia, cannot move new info from STM to LTM. Suggests that the STM and LTM are 2 separate memory stores which is what the MSM suggests.

Free recall experiments show that the first and last words in a series are remembered, predicted by the MSM.

Question 23

Limitation of the MSM.

Answer 23

Too simplistic, STM is more complicated than the MSM says.
Over-emphasised the idea of prolonged rehearsal, Tulving; participants asked to read list of words over and over again, did not find that this rehearsal meant that words were recalled more frequently or easily.

Question 24

Tulving argument.

Answer 24

MSM is too simplistic for explaining LTM, said there was 3 sub-stores, episodic (events), semantic (knowledge), procedural (skills).

Question 25

Episodic memories.

Answer 25

Memories of events. Time stamped. Include people, places, objects and behaviours. Requires effort to recall.

Question 26

Semantic memory.

Answer 26

Knowledge. Less personal. Constantly being added to. Less vulnerable to distortion or forgetting.

Question 27

Procedural memory.

Answer 27

Skills. Recall without conscious effort. Difficult to describe to someone else.

Question 28

Strength of Tulving’s theory.

Answer 28

Supporting case studies, Clive Wearing, no longer create new episodic or semantic memories, procedural skills relatively unaffected.

Practical applications to help people with memory problems, specific to episodic memory, strategies to help.

Question 29

Limitations of Tulving’s theory.

Answer 29

Lack of control of variables with case studies, don’t know what the memory was like before the damage.

Conflicting research, Buckner and Peterson said that the episodic memory was stored in the right pre-frontal lobe. Tulving said that it was in the left pre-frontal lobe, lack of reliability.

Question 30

The working memory model.

Answer 30

A theoretical model of STM proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), said that the MSM was too simplistic and this model considered our STM to be a multi-component which actively processes and manipulates information.

Question 31

How was the working memory model made?

Answer 31

Baddeley and Hitch realised that if you do 2 things at the same time and they are both visual tasks then you perform less well then if you do them separately. Whereas if you do 2 things at once and one is visual and one involves sound there is no interference.

Question 32

Study for the WMM.

Answer 32

Dual-task studies, completing a visual task while remembering a sound. They found that participants performed better on this task compared to completing 2 visual tasks or 2 sound bases tasks.

Question 33

Components of the WMM.

Answer 33

Central executive - most important component. Major role in attention, problem solving and decision making. Monitors incoming info and co-ordinating operation of slave systems. The capacity is very limited. The coding is modality-free (can process in any format).

Phonological loop (inner voice) - deals with auditory information. Phonological store (inner ear) stores the word you hear. Articulatory process (inner voice) maintenance rehearsal of words processed. The capacity is the equivalent of what you can say in 2 seconds. The coding is acoustic.

Visuospatial sketchpad (inner eye) - stores visual/spatial information. Visual cache stores visual data. Inner scribe arranges/manipulated visual data. The capacity is 3-4 objects. The coding is visual.

Episodic buffer - maintains the sense of sequencing. Links working memory to LTM. It brings together and temporarily stores information stored by other slave systems. The capacity is 4 chunks. The coding is modality free.

Question 34

Strengths of the WMM.

Answer 34

More explanatory power than the MSM, explains daily tasks: reading (phonological loop), problem solving (central executive).

Supporting case study - KF. Brain damage, could remember visual information, but not verbal information, showing that they are separate parts of short term memory

Question 35

Limitations of the WMM.

Answer 35

There is little evidence to show how the central executive works. Baddeley said ‘the central executive is the most important, but the least understood component’. More research is needed to fully understand.

It is not a comprehensive model of memory - it does not include LTM or how information is transferred form STM to LTM.

Question 36

Why is information forgotten from the long-term memory?

Answer 36

Problems with accessibility.

Question 37

Interference theory.

Answer 37

Suggests that information gets muddled up in the long-term memory which makes it harder for us to locate the memories. 2 types - proactive interference, retroactive interference.

Question 38

2 types of interference.

Answer 38

Proactive and retroactive.

Question 39

Proactive interference.

Answer 39

Older memory interferes with remembering a newer memory.

Question 40

Retroactive interference.

Answer 40

Newer memory interferes with remembering an older memory.

Question 41

Research on proactive interference.

Answer 41

Underwood (1957).
Asked participants to learn a list of words of nonsense syllables, 24 hours later he asked them to recall them.
Level of recall was much lower than expected.
Student had participated in in a previous memory test that he had conducted.
They had given the nonsense syllables from the previous memory test.

Question 42

Research on retroactive interference.

Answer 42

McGeoch and McDonald (1931).
Participants were asked to learn a list of words.
Then the participants were placed in one of six groups.
One group had words very closely related to the original list (the experimental group).
The other groups were given less similar words.
It was found that the experimental group had the worst recall of the original list.
All the other groups performed better as it was likely the memory for the original list had not been interfered with.

Question 43

Limitations of interference theory.

Answer 43

Mostly lab experiments - lacks ecological validity.

Explains how information is forgotten from the long term memory, however for practical reasons the time between learning the information and recalling the information was short (shown in retroactive interference study), therefore the participants might actually be recalling from short term memory instead of ,one term memory. So the results do not show the actual process of interference. Lacks accuracy.

Question 44

Strengths of interference theory.

Answer 44

Real world based research - Baddeley and Hitch (1977).
Rugby players were asked to recall the names of all the teams they had played across one season
It was found that those who had played the least matches had the greatest recall
The players who had played every game were more likely to forget matches: The later games had interfered with a recall of the earlier matches

Lab studies = high control.

Question 45

Retrieval failure theory.

Answer 45

Tulving and Thompson (1973) proposed the encoding specificity principle. This said that memory is most effective if the information that is present at learning is also present at the time of retrieval.
Context-dependant retrieval.
Sate-dependant retrieval.

Question 46

Context-dependant retrieval.

Answer 46

Environmental cues (being in the same place when retrieving the information as you were when you learnt it.

Question 47

Context-dependant retrieval study.

Answer 47

Godden and Baddeley (1975).
Asked 18 deep sea divers to remember a list of 36 unrelated words of 2 or 3 syllables.
4 conditions.
The divers were asked to remember the words either underwater or on land and then asked to retrieve the words again, underwater or on land.
Those who learnt the words underwater and recalled them underwater had an average of 32% of words recalled.
Learning underwater and recalling on land was 23%.
Learning on land and recalling on land was 38%.
Learning on land and recalling underwater was 24%.
This shows that the external context acts as a cue for recall as the participants performed better when they had learnt and recalled the words in the same environment.

Question 48

State-dependant retrieval.

Answer 48

Physiological or psychological cues (being in the same physical state or mood when retrieving information as you were when you learnt it)

Question 49

State-dependant retrieval study.

Answer 49

Carter and Cassidy (1998).
Gave participants antihistamines, which had mild sedative effects.
They were asked to learn a list of words and passages.
Asked to recall the information in different conditions.
A - learn on dug - recall on drug
B - learn on drug - recall not on drug
C - learn not on drug - recall on drug
D - learn not on drug - recall not on drug
Groups B and C performed the worst as they were not in the same physiological state as they were when learning the information.

Question 50

Strengths of retrieval failure theory.

Answer 50

Supporting research for context-dependant retrieval, Smith (1979), imagining yourself in the original environment can also work. 80 words, 3 groups, learn info in basement or different room, 1/3 recall in basement, 1/3 recall in different room, 1/3 recall in different room and told to imagine being in the basement. First group recalled 18 items, second group recalled 12 items, third group recalled 17 items.

Supporting research for state-dependant retrieval, Goodwin et al (1969) heavy drinkers that learn information when drunk were more likely to recall information when drunk than sober.

Practical applications - exams.

Question 51

Limitations of retrieval failure theory.

Answer 51

Godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of a recall test and the performance was the same in all 4 conditions - may not be a complete explanation for forgetting, only explains forgetting in recall tasks.

Context-dependant not relevant to everyday retrieval. Different contexts would have to be very different (underwater and on land), everyday environments are more similar (different rooms).

Question 52

Leading questions.

Answer 52

A question suggests to the witness what answer is desired, or leads them to the desired answer.
May be used by the police when interviewing witnesses after an event.

Question 53

Study on leading questions.

Answer 53

Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Experiment 1. (independent design)
See if speed estimates would be influenced by the wording of the question, comparison of ‘hit’ and ‘smashed’.
45 students.
7 different films depicting a traffic accident.
Students were asked to give an account of the accident they had just seen to act as a distractor to hide the aim of the study and then asked about the speed of the vehicles.
“how fast were the cars going when they (…) each other?” (hit, smashed, collided, bumped, contacted).
Findings - smashed estimate = 40.5mph, contacted estimate = 31.8mph
Response-bias explanation suggests the wording of the question alters how the question is answered.
Substitution explanation suggests that the wording of the leading question alters the participants memory of the event.

Experiment 2
See if particular wording of leading question altered the participants memory.
150 students.
Film showing a car accident shown followed by a questionnaire.
50 students were asked “how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other”.
50 students were asked “how fast were the cars going when they hit each other”.
50 students were not asked about the speed of the cars (control group).
One week later they were asked if there was any broken glass. The students who were asked the ‘smashed’ question were more likely to answer yes. (16/50) Compared to the control group 6/50.
Memory was changed.

Question 54

Strengths of leading questions.

Answer 54

Supported by other studies. Loftus and Zanni (1975). Shown a film of a car accident and asked ‘did you see A broken headlight’ and others asked ‘did you see THE broken headlight’. 7% yes for ‘a’, 17% for ‘the’. There was actually no broken headlight, so leading questions can cause people to remember things that aren’t there.

Practical applications - police ensure leading questions are not used to maintain the accuracy, also helped to develop the cognitive interview.

Lab experiments, control over extraneous variables, increased internal validity.

Question 55

Limitations of leading questions.

Answer 55

Loftus (1979). Showed a picture of a man stealing a red purse from a woman’s bag. 98% correctly identified the colour. After using leading questions the participants persisted the purse was red. The purse was the main focus of the event and leading questions did not change the memory.

Lacks ecological validity as the participants knew it was an experiment and there was no consequences.

Watching a film is very different from watching the actual event.

Individual differences (may be unable to drive).

Question 56

Post-event discussion.

Answer 56

Where there is more than 1 witness and they discuss what they have seen, may influence the accuracy.

2 groups - young adults and older adults. Shown staged crime, exposed to misleading information from a conversation with a ‘witness’ who was a confederate or through a report supposedly written by another witness.
Both groups were more likely to report misleading information after speaking to someone else rather than reading the report.

Question 57

Anxiety.

Answer 57

Victims or witnesses of a crime experience intense emotions, including anxiety, this may impede or improve the memory of the event.

Question 58

Study which says that anxiety has a bad effect on memory.

Answer 58

Deffenbacher et al (2004).
Conducted meta-analysis on studies of eyewitness recall.
Found that high stress had a negative impact on accuracy.

Question 59

Study which says that anxiety has a no effect on memory.

Answer 59

MacLeod et al (1986).
Investigated real life eyewitness reports on 379 physical assaults and compared them to crimes where no physical injury occurred.
Found no overall difference in accuracy.
Suggesting that levels of emotion do not make a difference to recall.

Question 60

Study which says that anxiety has a positive impact on memory.

Answer 60

Odinot et al (2009).
Interviewed 14 witnesses to an armed robbery and checked their recall against security footage.
84% of information was recalled correctly.
Witnesses who reported a higher level of emotional impact had the most accurate recall.

Question 61

Weapon focus study.

Answer 61

Johnson and Scott (1976).
Field experiment, independent measures.
Participants exposed to 1 of 2 situations.
1. Overheard a low-key discussion about equipment failure, a person emerged holding a pen.
2. Overheard a hostile exchange, after the sound of breaking glass and crashing chairs, a man emerged holding a knife covered in blood.
Participants were given 50 photographs and asked to identify the man who came out of the room.
Those who has witnessed the man with the pen correctly identified him 49% of the time, whereas those who saw the man with the knife correctly identified him 33% of the time.
Suggests that the anxiety decreased the accuracy of the EWT.
Tunnel theory.

Question 62

Tunnel theory.

Answer 62

For weapon focus, witnesses will concentrate on the weapon which distracts attention from the appearance of the woman.

Question 63

Strengths of EWT and anxiety.

Answer 63

Supporting studies. Loftus and Burns (1982). Video of a crime, half watched a non-violent crime, half watched a violent crime. Those who saw the violent version were less accurate.

Knife/pen study.

Use of real crimes and witnesses

Question 64

Limitations of EWT and anxiety.

Answer 64

Ethical issues, deception and lack of consent.

extraneous variable. The witnesses who experienced the highest levels of stress were actually closer to the event (the shooting), and this may have helped with the accuracy of their memory recall.

May lack internal validity (might not measure what it claims to measure). May not have measured effect of anxiety on EWT. Pickel (1998) scissors, raw chicken, handgun and wallet. EWT was worse in the more unusual conditions (raw chicken and gun). Could be due to unusualness rather than anxiety.

Lacks ecological validity. Lab studies.

Question 65

Fight or flight response.

Answer 65

Increases alertness which may improve memory.

Question 66

Fight or flight response study.

Answer 66

Yuille and Cutshall (1986).
Witnesses to a real life crime were more accurate in what they were saying even 4-5 months after the shooting.
They were asked about it again 4 months later and asked about how they felt on a 7 point scale.
People who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate 88% compared to 75% for the less stressed.

X - no control over what happened to their participants in the time between the original robbery and the follow-up interviews.

Question 67

Yerkes Dodson curve.

Answer 67

Shows the relationship between emotional arousal and level of performance on task.
Suggests lower levels of anxiety provides lower levels of recall accuracy and that our recall accuracy will increase with anxiety, but only up to a certain point, after the optimum it decreases drastically.

Difficult to generalise due to individual differences.

Question 68

Cognitive interview.

Answer 68

Fisher and Geiselman (1992).
Helps to increase the accuracy of EWT.
4 instructions:
Recall everything - recall everything in as much detail as possible, enables the witness to recall more information.
Recall the events in reverse order - makes witnesses think more carefully about events and they cannot rely on schemas or prior knowledge to influence them.
Reinstate the context - witness has to think about what was happening at the time of the event (was it raining), may prompt a new memory.
Describe events from someone else’s perspective - thinking about what they might have seen if they were stood in a different location, may bring up new memories as they are thinking in a different way.

Question 69

Testing the effectiveness of the cognitive interview.

Answer 69

Geiselman et al compared it with standard police interviewing techniques.
89 student participants shown a video of violent crimes and 48 hours later they were questioned using either the cognitive interview or the standard police interviewing technique.
Each interview was recorded and analysed for accuracy.
Participants were tested on number of correct items recalled and the number of errors made.
Correct items for the cognitive interview were 41.5 compared to 29.4 for the standard police interview.
Incorrect items was 7.3 for cognitive and 6.1 for standard.
Cognitive interview is more effective.

Question 70

Strengths of the cognitive interview.

Answer 70

Supporting evidence. Fisher et al (1989), 47% increase in amount of information gained from witnesses using the cognitive interview.

Bekerian and Dennett (1993), meta-analysis of 27 cognitive interview studies, found that in all 27 cases the cognitive interview provided more accurate information.

Question 71

Limitations of the cognitive interview.

Answer 71

Kohnken (1999) found that there was in increase of inaccurate information recalled by participants when using CI.

Time consuming.

Some aspects are more effective than others. Milne and Bull (2002) found that the ‘report everything’ and the ‘reinstate the context’ elements were effective and useful, but not the others.