Retrieval

Question 1

What techniques can be used to measure retrieval?

Answer 1

Free recall, cued recall, recognition and relearning.

Question 2

According to Nelson (1978), which retrieval technique is the most sensitive?

Answer 2

Relearning (then recognition, then cued recall, then free recall).

Question 3

What did Tulving and Psotka (1971) find regarding the difference between free and cued recall?

Answer 3

On lists of 24 words (6 categories, 4 in each), with a number of lists after the tested one (interference), free recall gradually decreased, while cued recall was slightly higher, then increased after 1 list, subsequently decreasing to about the level of the first free recall point.

Question 4

What conclusion can be made from Tulving and Psotka (1971)?

Answer 4

Cued recall is less susceptible to interference.

Question 5

What is the generate-recognise theory of free recall?

Answer 5

Anderson and Bower (1972) - mnemonic techniques like the pegword method or the method of loci work because they enable people to provide cues and consequently generate candidates for recognition.

Question 6

What is the problem with the generate-recognise theory of free recall?

Answer 6

Research suggests that it doesn’t work - logically, it follows that recognition should be part of recall, but Tulving and Thomson (1973) demonstrated recognition failure - that not every item that can be recalled is recognised.

Question 7

What method was used by Tulving and Thomson (1973)?

Answer 7

Given paired associates (cues are weak associates) to learn.
Then recognition condition - asked to produce 4 associates to cues which are strong associates, then asked if they recognise any of them.
Followed by recall condition - given half of associated pairs.

Question 8

What did Tulving and Thomson (1973) find?

Answer 8

• recall is better than recognition

- many words are recalled that were not recognised.

Question 9

How are Tulving and Thomson (1973)’s findings explained?

Answer 9

• cued recall task is very easy - weak associates
• recognition task is very difficult - all the semantic associates seem very similar, and there’s the self-generation effect (Slameka and Graf, 1978)

Question 10

What conclusions can be drawn from Tulving and Thomson (1973)?

Answer 10

• Recall can produce better memory than recognition if it provides better retrieval cues.
• Sometimes the item itself isn’t actually the best cue for identifying the context in which it was previously encountered.
• The generate-recognise approach may often be used in free recall tasks, but it is not a complete model of all recall (e.g. cued recall).

Question 11

What is the encoding specificity principle (Tulving, 1983)?

Answer 11

The idea that memory performance is best when the cues present at test match those that were encoded with the memory at study (Morris, Bransford and Franks, 1977).

Question 12

What effect is explained by the encoding specificity principle?

Answer 12

Context dependent memory.

Question 13

What did Gordon and Baddeley (1975) do?

Answer 13

Investigated context dependent memory - got divers to memorise a list of words either on land or underwater, then recall them also on land or underwater.

Question 14

What did Gordon and Baddeley (1975) find?

Answer 14

A change of context impairs recall - this suggests that cues from the environment have been integrated into the encoding.

Question 15

What did Gordon and Baddeley (1980) state?

Answer 15

That the same context dependent memory effect is not found in recognition.

Question 16

What did Goodwin et al. (1960) do?

Answer 16

Investigated state dependent memory - the internal state of the subject (drunk or sober) with a 2x2 design similar to Gordon and Baddeley (1975).

Question 17

What did Goodwin et al. (1969) find?

Answer 17

That alcohol generally impairs memory, but there is a strong state dependency effect.

Question 18

Can state dependent memory be extended to other, less extreme, internal states?

Answer 18

Perhaps - mood dependent memory is very difficult to investigate, effect is weak. However mood congruent memory is much more robust.

Question 19

What is mood congruent memory?

Answer 19

The fact that we tend to recall information congruent with our current mood.

Question 20

How is mood congruent memory investigated?

Answer 20

Through using the Velten procedure - participants read either positive or negative statements before being asked to recall positive, negative or neutral words.

Question 21

What did Teasdale and Russell (1983) find?

Answer 21

Mood congruency effect - more positive words remembered when elated, more negative when depressed.

Question 22

What steps does the cognitive interview technique involve?

Answer 22

1. Mentally reinstate event context (scene, thoughts, preceding events).
2. Report EVERY detail.
3. Report in different temporal orders.
4. Describe from different viewpoints.

Question 23

What did Geiselman et al. (1986) do?

Answer 23

Had participants watch a violent films and then gave them a standard or cognitive interview 2 days later.

Question 24

What did Geiselman et al. (1986) find?

Answer 24

Standard interview yielded 29.4 correct items, cognitive 41.2, with no difference in number of errors.

Question 25

What support is there for the effectiveness of cognitive interviews?

Answer 25

Geiselman et al (1986), plus other recent support for many different contexts.

Question 26

Why are findings from cognitive psychology rarely used in court?

Answer 26

1. There’s a perception that there are no agreed results.

2. People think that psychology is all common sense.

Question 27

What did Kassin, Ellsworth and Smith (1989) do?

Answer 27

A survey of 63 EWT experts, asking them about whether statements are true and common sense.

Question 28

What did Kassin, Ellsworth and Smith (1989) find?

Answer 28

For the statements about EWT being affected by question wording, other context wrong identification, and confidence as a predictor, truth rates were high and common sense rates low.

Question 29

What has research found about the relationship between confidence and accuracy?

Answer 29

Lab experiments rarely demonstrate a convincing relationship.

Question 30

What did Robinson and Johnson (1996) do?

Answer 30

Had participants watch a film of a crime then asked them to recall or recognise (4 answer forced choice) items from a film and rate their confidence.

Question 31

What did Robinson and Johnson (1996) find?

Answer 31

Confidence/accuracy correlations were 0.29 for recognition and 0.53 for recall - small but significant. Ease of retrieval may explain confidence.

Question 32

What problem is there with the fact that ease of retrieval may explain confidence?

Answer 32

It creates a problem with repeated recalls - conflation.

Question 33

How may real life confidence-accuracy correlations compare to those found in lab experiments?

Answer 33

Much higher - Gruneberg & Sykes (1993).