AO3 Flashcards
(36 cards)
One strength of Jacob’s capacity of STM study
Good replication in later studies. Jacob’s original study was conducted in the 1880s, a time when psychological research often lacked adequate control. However, later replications of Jacob’s study have confirmed its findings after carrying out controlled replications. This showing that Jacob’s study is a valid measure of STM digit span.
One limitation of Jacob’s capacity of STM study
Individual differences between participants. Jacobs found that the recall for digit span increased with age - 8 year olds remembering on average 6.6 digits and 19 year olds remembering 8.6 digits. He concluded this may be due to a gradual increase in brain capacity. Therefore, Jacobs did not take into account age differences and how the ability to recall higher quantities of information from STM depends on the age and brain structure of the individual.
One limitation of Miller’s capacity of STM study (amount of chunks)
Not so many chunks. Cowan reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of the STM is only about 4 chunks. This suggests that the lower end of Miller’s estimate (five items) is more appropriate than 7 times. This shows that Miller might be overestimating the capacity of the STM.
One limitation of Miller’s capacity of STM study (size of chunks)
Size of the chunks. Herbert Simon suggested that the capacity of STM is about 5 chunks. He found that people had a shorter memory span for large chunks, such as 8 word phrases, rather than smaller chunks such as one syllable words. This shows that Miller might be overestimating the capacity of the STM.
One limitation of Peterson & Peterson’s duration of STM study
Meaningless stimuli in the STM study. A lot of the stimulus material was artificial. Trying to memorise consonant trigrams does not reflect most real-life memory activities where what we are trying to remember is meaningful. Study therefore lacks external validity as it doesn’t reflect memory in the real world.
One strength of Peterson & Peterson’s duration of STM study
Valuable findings. However, we do sometimes get tasked in the real-world to remember meaningless things - such as phone numbers. So it can be argued that the study and its procedure are not totally irrelevant. Peterson + Peterson’s research gives us valuable insight into how the STM might work.
One strength of Bahrick’s duration of LTM study
Higher external validity. Bahrick’s study used every day real-life memories - people’s faces and names they went to school with. When lab studies were conducted with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower. Therefore a strength as Bahrick used meaningful stimuli which reflected a more ‘real’ estimate of the duration of LTM, increasing the external validity.
One limitation of Bahrick’s duration of LTM study
Lack of controlled cofounding variables. In real-life research, it is harder for cofounding variables to be controlled. For example, Bahrick’s participants may have looked through their yearbook photos throughout the years thus rehearsing memories over the years. This therefore reduces the internal validity of the research.
One strength of Baddeley’s coding of the STM and LTM study
Findings of separate memory stores. Baddeley’s study later led to the findings of two memory stores. Although there were exceptions found to his findings later on, the idea that the STM uses mostly acoustic coding and the LTM uses mostly semantic coding has been significant to later memory research. This was an important step in our understanding of the memory system, which led to the multi-store model.
One limitation of Baddeley’s coding of the STM and LTM study
The use of artificial stimuli. Baddeley used artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material, this is because the word lists had no meaning to the participants. This means we should be cautious about generalising findings to different kinds of memory tasks. Findings from Baddeley’s study therefore has limited application in the real world, also known as lacking mundane realism.
One strength of the Multi-Store model
Research support. Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using our STMs (so STM coding is acoustic). But he found that we mix up words with similar meanings when we use our LTMs (so LTM coding is semantic). Studies clearly show that STM and LTM are separate and independent memory stores.
One limitation of the Multi-Store model
Argued that the MSM is oversimplified. There is a lot of research evidence that the LTM, like the STM is not a unitary memory store. For example, we have one long-term store for our memories of facts about the world and a different one for our memories of how to ride a bicycle. As there is more than one STM store and rehearsal type, the MSM is oversimplified.
One limitation of the Multi-Store model (not applicable to…) / counterpoint
Lacks generalisability to how we use our memories in everyday life. In everyday life, we form memories based off useful things - such as people’s face, names, facts, places and so on. Research studies that provide support for the MSM use none of these materials, often using digits, letters and words. This means that MSM may not be a valid model for everyday life.
One strength of Tulving’s different types of long-term memory study (evidence)
Evidence of different types of LTM. Clinical studies of amnesia (HM and Clive Wearing) showed that both individuals had difficulty recalling events that had happened to them in their pasts (episodic memory). But their semantic memories wee relatively unaffected, procedural memories also being intact. This supports the view that there are different memory stores in LTM because one store can be damaged but the others remain unaffected.
One strength of Tulving’s different types of long-term memory study (treatment/help)
Real world application to help with memory problems. Memory loss in old age is specific to episodic memory - it is harder to recall memories of recent events although past episodic memories are intact. Belleville devised an intervention for older people targeting episodic memory, which improved their memory compared to a control group. This shows that distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed.
One limitation of Tulving’s different types of long-term memory study
There are conflicting findings about types of LTM and brain areas. Buckner and Peterson reviewed research findings and concluded that semantic memory is located in the left prefrontal cortex and episodic within the right prefrontal cortex. But other studies have found that the reverse is true. This challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located.
One strength of interference (Baddeley & Hitch)
Real world evidence. Baddeley & Hitch asked players to recall all the names of the teams they had played against that season - some had played all games, some had missed games due to injury. Those who played the most games (the most interference) forgot proportionally more names than those who played the fewest games. Shows interference does happen in real life situations, increasing validity.
One strength of interference (popular)
Interference in memory is one of the most consistently demonstrated findings in the whole world of psychology. Thousands of lab studies have been carried out that provide evidence for both types of interference. Lab experiments often have high control over extraneous variables, limiting the chance that participant’s memories can be contaminated by external factors. Despite the fact that lab studies are very contrived and artificial in nature, we can be confident that interference is a valid explanation for at least some instances of forgetting.
One limitation of interference
Interference does not seem to be the main reason for most everyday instances of forgetting. In order for interference to occur the two memories have to be quite similar, which is not usually a common scenario. Anderson concluded that there is no doubt that interference plays a part in forgetting, but there must be another explanation for forgetting memories that are not similar to each other. Suggests there must be a better/alternative explanation, such as retrieval failure.
One strength of retrieval failure
Face validity. People often go to another room to get an item but forget what they wanted, but they remember again when they go back to the original room. When we have trouble remembering something it is probably worth making the effort to recall the environment in which you learned it first.
One limitation of retrieval failure (recall vs recognition)
The context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested. Godden and Baddeley replicated their underwater experiment but instead used a recognition test instead of recall. When recognition was tested, there was no context-dependent effect as the performance was the same in all 4 conditions. Suggests that retrieval failure may only apply to recall of information, not recognition of information.
One limitation of retrieval failure (context effects)
Baddeley argues that the context effects are nit usually very strong, especially in real life. For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater. In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is likely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough. This means that retrieval failure cannot explain forgetting when there is minimal loss of cues.
One strength of misleading information (supporting evidence)
Lots of supporting evidence for anxiety having a negative affect on EWT. Loftus showed participants advertisements for Disney Land and asked participants to evaluate the effectiveness of the adverts - Bugs Bunny was featured on the advert. When later interviewed about childhood experiences of Disney Land, 36% of people recalled meeting and shaking hands with Bugs Bunny, which did not happen. Supports misleading information as the picture of Bugs Bunny distorted people’s memories.
One strength of misleading information (real world app)
Good real world application. Psychologists such as Loftus are often called into a court of law to explain to the jury about the problems with, and the inaccuracies of EWT. This research has therefore led to improvement in the way police question witnesses, leading to the development of the cognitive interview. The cognitive interview does not allow leading questions so the police cannot give interviewees misleading information.
