Memory

Question 1

Describe interference theory as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 1

Proactive interference- old information gets in the way of learning new info

Retroactive interference- new information getting in the way of recalling old information

Question 2

Describe retrieval failure theory as an explanation for forgetting

Answer 2

Context dependent cues- external environment acts as a schema. Being in a different setting means cues are unavailable

State dependent cues- internal environment acts as a schema, being in a different mood means lack of cues available

Question 3

Describe the working memory model

Answer 3

Presented by Baddeley and hitching. Has 3 slave systems: phonological loop, Visio-spatial sketch pad and episodic buffer and the phonological loop processes auditory and contains the primary acoustic store and articulatory control process. The Visio-spatial sketch pad processes visual information, contains the inner scribe and visual cache .

Question 4

Give a strength of the working memory model

Answer 4

Patient KF had verbal impairment and this visual STM still works therefore this suggests that visual and Verbal information is processed separately suggesting that’s STM isn’t a unitary store

Dual task research where ppts had to either do 2 visual tasks or 1 visual and 1 verbal.Those that did w separate tasks preformed better as it used 2 different stores to preform them suggesting visual and verbal information is processed separately

Question 5

Give weaknesses of the working memory model

Answer 5

Low external validity as research into this lacks mundane realism so it can’t be generalised to wider population however it has high internal validity as it used a lab experiment so variables were controlled

We can’t observe memory directly so it means we use inferences to make our assumptions that can be incorrect

Question 6

Draw the working memory model

Answer 6

Use google or notes to check

Question 7

Give a strength for interference theory

Answer 7

Baddeley and hitch asked rugby players to recall the matches they’ve played against. Players who played in most matches had worse recall due to retroactive interference

Underwood and postman -2 groups one group had 2 lists to lean and the control group had 1 list control group had better recall due to retroactive interference

Question 8

Strength for retrieval failure

Answer 8

Practical application to make efficient revision techniques and used by police in cognitive interviews

Question 9

Weakness for retrieval failure theory

Answer 9

Research into this lacks mundane realism as it uses artificial lab experiment so lacks external validity as it cannot be alllied to wider population and is only applicable in the lab as variables were controlled

Question 10

Describe the multi store model of memory

Answer 10

Presented by Atkinson and shiffrin. Has 3 stores: sensory register, short term and long term memory.
Sensory register- coding is modality specific capacity is very large and duration is very short (250ms)
Short term memory- coding is acoustically, capacity of +7/-2 and duration of 18-30s
Long term memory- coding is semantically, capacity is unlimited and so is duration

Question 11

Research support into capacity of short term memory

Answer 11

Jacob’s- gave a list of words and numbers to ppts and found the capacity of letters was around 7 and for numbers it was 9suggesting capacity of STM is limited

Question 12

Research support into duration of short term memory

Answer 12

Peterson & Peterson- 3 letter trigrams that are meaningless shown to ppts one group had an interference task and then asked to recall other group to to recall immediately. After 18s recall was less than 10% showing information stays in STM for around 18-30s

Question 13

Research support into duration of long term memory

Answer 13

Bahrick et al- 392 ppts tested for memory of old photos and name recognition. Recall fro name matching and recognition was 90% after 15 years and 80% for names after 48 years showing that the duration for long term memory is very large

Question 14

Describe the types of long term memory

Answer 14

Semantic- stores facts and knowledge e.g capital cities. Consciously recalled so is declarative
Episodic-stores information on events and experiences, has emotions and time stamp. Is consciously recalled so is declarative
Procedural- stores knowledge on how to do things e.g riding a bike. Muscle memory and can’t be consciously recalled so non-declarative

Question 15

Strengths of types of long term memory

Answer 15

Supporting evidence from Clive wearing- had retrograde amnesia and can’t remember episodic memory but remembers semantic memory and can play the piano which is procedural suggesting there’s. Different types of LTM. However, is ideographic research so can’t be generalised.

Tulving et al- used cognitive neuroscience brain scanning techniques of FRMRIs identifying diff parts of the brain to long term memory types

HM case study- retrograde amnesia couldn’t form new memories like semantic and episodic as hippocampus was removed

Question 16

Describe and explain the visual spatial sketch pad

Answer 16

Processes visual information and contains the visual cache that stores the colour and shape of object.also contains the inner scribe that deals with the spatial relationship between objects in the 3D space

Question 17

Describe and explain the phonological loop

Answer 17

Processes auditory information. Contains the primary acoustic store which is the inner ear holds words recently heard for a short time. Also has the articulatory control process which is the inner voice holds information by sub-vocal repetition

Question 18

Factors affecting accuracy of EWT

Answer 18

Leading questions- questions imply a certain answer influencing how memory is recalled
Post event discussion- recall of events by 1 witness influences the recall of another as they may go along for social approval
Anxiety- EWT causes high levels of anxiety that’s decreases recall

Question 19

Research support for anxiety on EWT

Answer 19

Johnson and Scott- witness who saw a man holding a pen 49% identified the culprit and those who saw a knife 33% identified the. this shows evidence for anxiety reducing accuracy for EWT due to weapon effect ( weapon causes anxiety, witness is focused on weapon rather than criminal (tunnel vision) can increase recall due to alterness)

Question 20

Research support for effect of misleading questions on accuracy of EWT

Answer 20

Loftus and palmer- ppts shown a video of a car crash and they were asked a questions on how fast do you think the car was going when it (hit, smashed, bumped, collided) the verb smashed had an estimation of 41 mph and contacted had an estimation of 32 mph

Yuille and cutshall- interviewed ppts after 4 months those with stress gave an accurate EWT and resisted misleading questions