Cognitive Flashcards
(97 cards)
1
Q
What is coding?
A
How information is stored in the memory stores
2
Q
Who researched into coding in the STM and what did they do?
A
- Baddeley
- participants were shown 4 lists of words
- most mistakes were made in acoustically similar words with immediate recall
3
Q
How is information coded in the STM?
A
Acoustically
4
Q
Who researched into coding in the LTM and what did they do?
A
- Baddeley
- participants were shown 4 lists of words
- most mistakes were made with semantically similar words
5
Q
How is information coded in the LTM?
A
Semantically
6
Q
What is capacity?
A
How much information can be held in the memory stores
7
Q
Who researched capacity of the STM and what did they do?
A
- Jacob’s
- gave participants a sequence of digits to repeat and for every correct repetition another digit was added
- mean was 9.3
8
Q
What did Miller do for capacity of STM?
A
- the magic number 7+/-2
- chunking information into items of 7 is most effective way to learn information
9
Q
What is the capacity of STM?
A
7+/-2
10
Q
What is the capacity of the LTM?
A
Unlimited
11
Q
What is duration?
A
How long information is stored in the memory stores
12
Q
Who studied duration of STM and what did they do?
A
- Peterson and Peterson
- participants were shown a consonant trigram and then given a 3 digit number to count back from in 3’s then asked to recall the consonants
13
Q
What is the duration of STM?
A
18-30s
14
Q
Who studied duration of LTM and what did they do?
A
- Bahrick
- participants were asked to either free recall or match names to faces of their yearbook
15
Q
What is the duration of LTM?
A
A lifetime
16
Q
What are the strengths of the coding, capacity and duration of memory?
A
- Bahricks study as it used meaningful stimuli and had high mundane realism so it could be generalised
17
Q
What are the weaknesses of coding, capacity and duration of memory?
A
- lack of standardisation and scientific methods meaning there is a low reliability due to increased affect of confounding variables
- some of the studies lack mundane realism so they lack generalisability
- Miller may have over exaggerated the capacity of STM - due to outdated methods and a lack of control his estimate has been suggested to be more like 4 chunks
18
Q
What does the multi store model represent?
A
How memory is stored, transferred, retrieved and forgotten
19
Q
What are the three stores of the MSM?
A
Sensory register, STM and LTM
20
Q
What is the sensory register?
A
- receives sensory information from senses
- huge capacity
- short duration
21
Q
How do you get information into the sensory register?
A
Paying attention to environmental stimuli
22
Q
What is the STM?
A
- coded acoustically
- duration of 18-30s
- capacity of 7+/-2
- temporary store of new information
23
Q
How do you get information into the STM?
A
Maintenance rehearsal
24
Q
How is information lost from the STM?
A
Displacement and decay
25
What is the LTM?
- coded semantically
- lifelong duration
- unlimited capacity
- a potentially permanent store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged period of time
26
How is information transferred into LTM?
Elaborative rehearsal
27
How is information lost from the LTM?
Interference and retrieval failure
28
What is the case study of HM for the MSM?
- supports the model as it shows that the STM and LTM are 2 different stores
- has his hippocampus removed due to epilepsy
- LTM remained intact but STM was damaged as he couldn’t form new memories
29
What are the strengths of the MSM?
- supported by case studies such as HM because it shows the STM and LTM are separate stores
30
What are the weaknesses of the MSM?
- evidence for the LTM not being a unitary store - semantic, episodic and procedural stores suggesting the model is too simple
- the studies used to develop the model lack mundane realism making them hard to generalise
- contradicting evidence - Craik et al suggest the type of rehearsal is more important for storing information in LTM not how much
31
What are the 3 types of LTM?
Episodic, semantic and procedural
32
What is the episodic memory?
Memories which have a personal meaning which are linked with context and any associated emotions e.g. first psychology lesson
33
What is the semantic memory?
Memories that are universal shared experiences e.g. London is the capital city of England
34
What is procedural memory?
Memories of learned skills e.g. riding a bike
35
What types of LTM are recalled consciously?
Episodic and semantic
36
What type of LTM is recalled unconsciously?
Procedural
37
What are the strengths of the types of LTM?
- evidence from brain scans for different parts of the brain lighting up when using different types of LTM
- the case study of HM - he could form new procedural memories but not semantic or episodic
38
What are the weaknesses of the types of LTM?
- most studies are conducted on living patients where it is hard to see if the brain is responsible for a behaviour or acting as a relay station
- the use of case studies - the trauma itself may have changed the behaviour and also they are hard to generalise
39
What is the WMM a representation of?
The STM
40
What are the components of the WMM?
Central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketch pad and episodic buffer
41
What is the central executive?
- directs attention to particular tasks
- organises information to one of the 3 slave systems
- limited capacity
42
What is the phonological loop?
- processes auditory information
- phonological store is the inner ear
- articulatory process is the inner voice
43
What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
- processes spatial and visual information
- visual cache stores visual information
- inner scribe stores information about arrangement of objects
44
What is the episodic buffer?
- storage component of central executive
- links STM to LTM
- integrates all types of information
45
What are the strengths of the WMM?
- case study of KF - had poor STM recall for auditory information but good for visual suggesting they are separate
- dual-task performance studies - participants undertook a visual and verbal task simultaneously and performance was poor supporting idea that central executive has limited capacity
- neuroscanning evidence - demonstrated that short term visual and auditory recall occurs at different areas of the brain
46
What are the weaknesses of the WMM?
- the central executive has not been precisely defined - the term process is vague and it is unknown the structure of it suggesting a lack of knowledge about it
47
What is interference?
An explanation for forgetting where the recall of a memory disrupts the recall of another
48
What is proactive interference?
Past learning interferes with current attempts to learn something
49
What is retroactive interference?
When current attempts to learn something interfere with past learning
50
What did McDonald et al do for research into interference?
Gave participants a list of 10 adjectives to learn and then a 10 minute break, then given another list that was either similar words, dissimilar words or digits. Recall of original list was poorest when the second list was similar words and best when second list was digits
51
What are the strengths of interference?
- real world application to advertising - repeated viewing of the advert will help viewers to remember it over competitors
52
What are the weaknesses of interference?
- the research is artificial - the studies lack meaning to real life
- only explains some situations of forgetting as the conditions for interference are rare
- accessibility vs availability - interference is temporary and memories are temporarily blocked suggesting research is incomplete
53
What is retrieval failure?
Forgetting occurs when retrieval cues that are present at the time of encoding are absent at time of recall
54
What is the Encoding Specificity Principle?
Memory is most effective if information that was present at the time of encoding is also available at time of retrieval
55
What is context-dependent forgetting?
When external cues at the time of encoding aren’t present at the time of recall
56
What research supports context-dependent forgetting?
- Baddeley
- deep water divers who learnt a list of words under water have more accurate recall under water than on land
57
What is state dependent forgetting?
When internal cues that are present at the time of encoding aren’t present at time of retrieval
58
What research supports state-dependent forgetting?
- Carter et al
- found 40% higher rates of accurate recall when participants have taken antihistamines at encoding and recall
59
What are the strengths of retrieval failure?
- lots of research support - Tulving et al displayed the power of retrieval cues suggesting it has a high ecological validity
- real world application - it has been suggested that taking exams in the same room in which you learnt the information test scores are better
60
What are the weaknesses of retrieval failure?
- retrieval cues don’t always work - if there are lots of cues, retrieval sometimes still fails
- the myth of the encoding retrieval match - the research only shows a correlational link not causal as it is impossible to prove whether information has been encoded or not
61
What is an eye witness testimony?
The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime with a view to identifying the perpetrators of the crime
62
What is a leading question?
A question that suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads them to the desired answer
63
What is a misleading question?
Supplying information that may lead a witness‘ memory for a crime to be altered
64
What are the two types of misleading information?
Leading questions and post-event discussion
65
What is post-event discussion?
Conversation between co-witnesses/interviewer and an eye witness after a crime has taken place which may contaminate a witness’s memory for the event
66
Who conducted the study into leading questions?
Loftus and Palmer
67
What was Loftus and Palmers first procedure?
45 students were shown videos of car accidents and then given a questionnaire. The critical asked about the speed at which the cars were travelling using different verbs such as hit, smashed, collided etc
68
What were the findings of Loftus and Palmers first study?
When the verb smashed was used the mean speed estimate was 40.8 mph and when the verb was contacted it was 31.8 mph
69
What was the procedure of Loftus and Palmers second study?
A new group of participants were shown a video of a car crash and asked questions about speed using the verbs smashed or hit. 10 days later they were asked if there was any broken glass.
70
What were the findings of Loftus and Palmers second study?
More people said there was broken glass if they were asked about the speed with the verb smashed even though there was no glass
71
What is the conformity effect?
When co-witnesses reach a consensus view of what actually happened
72
What was the research into conformity effect?
- Gabbert et al
- pairs watched different videos each and then were encouraged to discuss the event before each partner individually recalled the video and 71% of witnesses mistakenly recalled the videos
73
Why is repeat interviewing done?
Comments from interviewers may become incorporated into a witness’s recollection of events
74
What are the strengths of misleading information being a weakness of EWT?
- supporting evidence - Loftus conducted a study showed that misleading information about Bugs Bunny and Ariel led to students reporting they had shaken hands with these characters at disneyland when that wasn’t possible showing the power of misleading information
75
What are the weaknesses of misleading information being a weakness of EWT?
- studies are often subject to age bias - lots of studies use students and therefore we cannot know that people of all ages will react the same
- demand characteristics may have affected results - as people often want to please researchers they may be subject to social desirability bias and make things up to give the researcher what they want
- studies lack mundane realism
76
What is anxiety?
A physiological response to external pressures, characterised by an increased heart rate, vasoconstriction and sweating
77
What is the negative effect that anxiety has on accuracy?
If anxiety is too low or too high then performance is poor
78
Who studied into weapon focus?
Johnson et al
79
What was Johnson et al’s procedure and findings?
- participants sat in a waiting room where they overheard a heated argument and then saw a man run through the room carrying a blood covered knife or a grease covered pen and then were asked to identify the man
- supported the idea of weapon focus
- 49% identified the man accurately in the grease condition and 33% in the blood condition
80
What were Christianson et al’s method and findings?
- questioned real witnesses to bank robberies (were either victims or bystanders)
- all witnesses showed good recall of the robbery and those who were most anxious showed best recall of
81
What is the positive effect of anxiety on EWT?
When anxiety levels are moderate, the accuracy of EWT are high as the fight or flight response draws our attention but we aren’t over panicked
82
What are the strengths of anxiety for EWT?
- some of the studies are that they are in the context of real life (e.g. Christianson et al) which means they have a high ecological validity
83
What is the Yerkes - Dodson’s Law?
Anxiety has a negative effect on performance when it is very low or very high but moderate levels are beneficial to accuracy
84
What are the weaknesses of anxiety affecting EWT?
- the Yerkes-Dodson’s Law is oversimplified - Fazey et al suggested a better model that shoes a gradual increase in performance and a rapid drop that is more realistic
- individual differences - participants may be more susceptible to anxiety and therefore cannot control how well they perform
- there are some ethical issues with Johnson et al’s study as it may be distressing to participant
85
What is the cognitive interview?
A method of interviewing eyewitnesses that is thought be particularly effective in increasing accurate recall
86
What are the steps of a cognitive interview?
- mental reinstatement
- report everything
- change order
- change perspective
87
What is mental reinstatement?
Recalling the scene, weather, thoughts and feelings
88
What is the report everything stage?
Reporting every little detail whether it is relevant or not
89
What is the change order stage?
Describe the event in reverse order
90
What is the change perspective stage?
Describing the event as if it was from different points of view
91
Why do they do the mental reinstatement stage?
There may be cues that can help witnesses to remember detail
92
Why do they do the report everything stage?
Witnesses may not be aware that details they think are irrelevant are actually relevant
93
Why do they do the change order stage?
To get rid of schemas so the recall is more accurate
94
Why do they do the change perspective stage?
To encourage other retrieval paths
95
What are the strengths of the cognitive interview?
- there is lots of supporting research - a meta analysis showed that there was an increase of 34% accuracy when using the cognitive interview compared to using standard interview techniques
96
What are the weaknesses of the cognitive interview?
- using it in real life - lots of time and training is needed to the CI to be most effective so lots of police officers use it some components
- individual differences - the CI is more effective when used on older people than young people making it hard to compare between the two
- quality may suffer - although an increase of 81% correct information. was found there was also a 61% increase of incorrect information suggesting that it doesn’t guarantee accuracy
97
What are the factors affecting the quality of EWT?
- anxiety
- schemas
- age
- real life/lab study
- misleading information
