Memory Flashcards

Question

Evaluate the multi-store model of memory.

Answer 1

- supporting research evidence, MSM is supported by research studies that show that STM and LTM are qualitatively different. For example, Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs. But we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTMs. The strength of this study is that it clearly shows that coding in STM is acoustic and in LTM it is semantic. So they are different, and this supports the MSM's view that these two memory stores are separate and independent. Further support is given by all the studies of coding, capacity and duration we encountered in the previous spread. - there is more than one type of STM, MSM states that STM is a unitary store. However, evidence from people suffering from a clinical condition called amnesia shows that this cannot be true. E.g. Shallice and Warrington 1970 studied a patient with amnesia known as KF. They found that KF's short-term memory for digits was very poor when they read them out loud to him. But his recall was much better when he was able to read the digits to himself. This and other studies of people with amnesia showed that there could be another short-term store for non-verbal sounds. The unitary STM is a limitation of the MSM because research shows that at the very least there must be one short-term store to process visual information and another to process auditory information. - there is more than one type of rehearsal, according to MSM what matters in rehearsal is the amount of it that you do. So the more you rehearse some information, the more likely you are to transfer it to LTM and remember it for a long time. However, Craik and Watkins 1973 found that this prediction is wrong, what really matters is the type of rehearsal. They discovered that there are 2 types of rehearsal, maintenance rehearsal (this doesn't transfer information into LTM, it just maintains it in the STM) and elaborative rehearsal - this is needed for long-term storage. This is when you link the information to your existing knowledge, or you think about what it means. This is a limitation because the MSM cannot explain this. - artificial materials, a lot of research studies use artificial materials when testing memory, these have no meaning and therefore lack external validity. - there is more than one type of LTM, there is a lot of research evidence that LTM is not a unitary memory store, these different types of memory cannot be explained by the MSM.

Answer 2

HM underwent brain surgery to relieve his epilepsy. Unfortunately for him, the procedure used was in its infancy and not fully understood. Crucially, a part of his brain known as the hippocampus was removed from both sides of his brain. We now know this to be central to memory function. When his memory was assessed in 1955, he thought the year was 1953, and that he was 27 years old (he was actually 31). He had very little recall of the operation and he could not remember speaking with someone just an hour earlier. His LTM was tested over and over again but never improved with practice. He would read the same magazine repeatedly without remembering it. He couldn't recall what he had eaten earlier the same day. However, despite all of this, he performed well on tests of immediate memory span, a measure of STM.

Answer 3

Endel Tulving 1985 was one of the first cognitive psychologists to realise that the multi-store model's view of LTM was too simplistic and inflexible. Tulving proposed that there are in fact three LTM stores, containing different types of information. They were episodic memory, semantic memory and procedural memory.

Answer 4

Episodic memory is our long-term memory store for personal events, it refers to our ability to recall events from our lives. These memories are time-stamped, you remember when they happened. They also include several elements that are interwoven to produce a single memory. With episodic memory you have to make a conscious effort to recall them, you will be able to do so quickly but are still aware that you are searching for your memory of what happened.

Answer 5

Semantic memory contains our knowledge of the world, this includes facts, but in the broadest possible sense. This type of memory is linked to an encyclopedia and a dictionary. These memories are not timestamped, we usually don't remember when we first learned about something. It is less personal and more about facts we all share. It contains an immense collection of material which is constantly being added to. These memories usually also need to be recalled deliberately.

Answer 6

Procedural memory is our memory for actions, skills or basically how we do things. We can recall these memories without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort.

Answer 7

- clinical evidence, case studies of HM (Henry Molaison) and Clive Wearing show support. Episodic memory in both men was severely impaired as a consequence of amnesia. They had great difficulty recalling events that had happened to them in their pasts. But their semantic memories were relatively unaffected, meaning they still understood the meaning of words. Their procedural memories were also intact. This evidence supports Tulving's view that there are different memory stores in LTM. One store can be damaged but other stores are unaffected, this makes is clear that there are different types of memory stored in different parts of the brain. - neuroimaging evidence, there is evidence from brain scan studies that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain. Tulving et al 1994 got their participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner. They found that episodic and semantic memories were both recalled from an area of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex. This area is divided in two, one on each side (hemisphere) of the brain. The left prefrontal cortex was involved in recalling semantic memories while episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex. This supports the view that there is a physical reality to the different types of LTM. It has also been confirmed many times in later research studies, further supporting the validity of this finding. - real-life applications, being able to identify different aspects of LTM allows psychologists to target certain kinds of memory in order to better people's lives. Belleville et al 2006 demonstrated that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment. The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group. Episodic memory is the type of memory most often affected by mild cognitive impairment, which highlights the benefit of being able to distinguish between types of LTM - because it enables specific treatments to be developed. - problems with clinical evidence (evidence from case studies), clinical studies often lack control from of all sorts of different variables. There should also be caution when generalising findings to the wider population because these people have suffered trauma. - Three or two types of LTM, Cohen and Squire 1980 disagree with Tulving's division of LTM into three types. They accept that procedural memories represent one type of LTM. But they argue that episodic and semantic memories are stored together in one LTM store that they call declarative memory (memories that can be consciously recalled). This makes procedural memory non-declarative.

Answer 8

Clive Wearing suffers from a severe form of amnesia that resulted from a viral infection that attacked his brain, damaging the hippocampus and associated areas. Before this infection Clive was a world-class musician and he can still play the piano brilliantly and conduct a choir but he can't remember his musical education. He can remember some other aspects of his life before the infection, but not others. For example, he knows that he has children from an earlier marriage, but cannot remember their names. He recognises his second wife, Deborah, and greets her joyously every time they meet, believing he has not seen her in years, even though she may have just left the room for a few minutes.

Answer 9

Memories that can be consciously recalled. - Episodic memory - Semantic memory

Answer 10

``` Central executive Phonological loop Visuo-spatial sketchpad Episodic buffer (LTM - not exclusively WMM but included in diagram) ```

Answer 11

The working memory model is an explanation of how one aspect of memory (STM) is organised and how it functions. The WMM is concerned with the part of the mind that is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating information. The WMM suggests that STM is a dynamic processor of different types of information using sub-units coordinated by a central decision-making system.

Answer 12

The central executive is an attentional process that monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave systems to tasks - the slave systems being the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer. The central executive has a very limited processing capacity.

Answer 13

One of the slave systems that deals with auditory information (coding is acoustic) and preserves the order in which the information arrives. The PL is subdivided into: - the phonological store, which stores the words you hear. - the articulatory process, which allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating sounds or words in a loop to keep them in working memory while they are needed). The capacity of this loop is believed to be two seconds' worth of what you can say.

Answer 14

The second slave system is the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The VSS stores visual and/ or spatial information when required. It also has a limited capacity, which according to Baddeley 2003 is about three or four objects. Logie 1995 subdivided the VSS into: - the visual cache (which stores visual data) - the inner scribe (which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field)

Answer 15

Spatial memory is a form of memory responsible for the recording and recovery of information needed to plan a course to a location and to recall the location of an object or the occurrence of an event

Answer 16

The third slave system is the episodic buffer. This was added to the model by Baddeley in 2000. It is a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing - basically recording events (episodes) that are happening. It can be seen as the storage component of the central executive and has a limited capacity of about four chunks (Baddeley 2012). The episodic buffer links working memory to LTM and wider cognitive processes such as perception.

Answer 17

``` Episodic buffer in the middle. Visuo-spatial sketchpad on the left. Phonological loop on the right. Central executive on the top. LTM on the bottom. ```

Answer 18

- clinical evidence, support for WMM comes from Shallice and Warrington's case study of patient KF who had suffered brain damage. After this damage happened KF had poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information normally presented visually. This suggests that just his phonological loop had been damaged leaving other areas of memory intact. The supports the existence of a separate visual and acoustic store. However, evidence from brain-damaged patients may not be reliable because it concerns unique cases with patients who have had traumatic experiences. - Dual task performance, studies of dual-task performance support the separate existence of the visuo-spatial sketchpad. Baddeley et al 1975 showed that participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks (tracking a light and describing the letter F) than doing both a visual and verbal task at the same time. This increased difficulty is because both visual tasks compete for the same slave system whereas, when doing a verbal and visual task simultaneously, there is no competition. This means there must be a separate slave system (the VSS) that processes visual input. - lack of clarity over the central executive, cognitive psychologists suggest that this component of the WMM is unsatisfactory and doesn't really explain anything. Alan Baddeley himself recognised this when he said: 'The central executive is the most important but least understood component of working memory'. The central executive needs to be more clearly specified than just being simply 'attention'. This means that the WMM hasn't been fully explained. - studies of the word length effect support the phonological loop, Baddeley et al 1975 demonstrated that people find it more difficult to remember a list of long words rather than short words. This is called the word length effect. This is because there is a finite space for rehearsal in the articulatory process. The word length effect disappears if a person is given an articulatory suppression task - this is a repetitive task that ties up the articulatory process. - Brain scanning studies support the WMM, Braver et al 1997 gave their participants tasks that involved the central executive while they were having a brain scan. The researchers found greater activity in an area known as the left prefrontal cortex. The activity in the area increased as the task became harder. This makes a lot of sense in terms of the WMM: as demands on the CE increase, it has to work harder to fulfil its function.

Answer 19

Forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten. This occurs when two pieces of information conflict with each other, resulting in forgetting of one or both, or in some distortion of memory.

Answer 20

Interference has been proposed mainly as an explanation for forgetting in long-term memory. Once information has reached LTM it is more-or-less permanent. Therefore, any forgetting of LTMs is most likely because we can't get access to them even though they are available. Interference between memories makes it harder for us to locate them, and this is experienced as 'forgetting'.

Answer 21

Proactive interference | Retroactive interference

Answer 22

Proactive interference occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one (pro in the context means working forwards, from old to new).

Answer 23

Retroactive interference happens when a newer memory interferes with an older one (retro meaning working backwards).

Answer 24

For both proactive and retroactive interference, interference is worse when the memories (or leaning) are similar, as discovered by John McGeoch and William McDonald 1931.

Answer 25

McGeoch and McDonald studies retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials. Participants had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then learned a new list. There were six groups of participants who had to learn different types of lists: - Group 1 = synonyms (words with the same meaning as the original) - Group 2 = antonyms (words with the opposite meanings to the original) - Group 3 = words unrelated to the original ones - Group 4 = consonant syllables - Group 5 = three-digit numbers - Group 6 = no new list (these participants just rested)

Answer 26

When the participants recalled the original list of words, their performance depended on the nature of the second list. The most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall. This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar. The results were synonyms (worst), antonyms, unrelated adjectives, consonant syllables, numbers, no new list (best).

Answer 27

Raymond Burke and Thomas Skrull 1988 presented a series of magazine adverts to their participants, who had to recall the details of what they had seen. In some cases, they had more difficulty in recalling earlier adverts. In other cases, they had problems remembering the later ones. The effect was greater when the adverts were similar (that is, the ads were for identical products by different brands). This phenomenon is known as competitive interference.

Answer 28

- evidence from lab studies, interference in memory is probably one of the most consistently demonstrated findings in the whole of psychology. Thousands of lab experiments have been carried out into this explanation for forgetting. Most of these show that both types of interference are very likely to be common ways we forget information from LTM. This is a strength because lab experiments control the effects of irrelevant influences and thus give confidence that interference is a valid explanation for at least some forgetting. - artificial materials, there is a much greater chance that interference will be demonstrated in the lab than in real-life situations because the stimulus material used in most studies are lists of words. This is distant from the things we learn and try to remember in everyday life. This is a limitation because the use of artificial tasks makes interference much more likely in the lab, thus the studies lack external validity. - real-life studies, some studies consider interference effects in everyday situations. Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch 1977 wanted to find out if interference was a better explanation for forgetting than the passage of time. So they asked rugby players to try to remember the names of the teams they had played so far in that season, week by week. Because most of the players had missed games, for some the last team they played might have been two weeks ago, or three weeks ago, or more. The results very clearly showed that accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches took place. Much more important was the number of games they played in the meantime. So a player's recall of a team from three weeks ago was better if they played no matches from then. This shows that interference explanations can apply to at least some everyday situations. Burke and Skrull's study also applies here. - time between learning, lab experiments are designed to maximise interference however, time periods between learning and recalling may be and often are short. The whole experience of learning and recalling could be over within an hour. This is a limitation as it doesn't generalise to everyday situations of learning and recalling. Questions the validity of some findings. - interference effects may be overcome using cues, Endel Tulving and Joseph Psotka 1971 gave participants five lists of 24 words, each list organised into six categories. The categories were not explicit but it was presumed that they would be obvious to participants. Recall was about 70% for the first word list but this fell as participants were given each additional list to learn, presumably due to interference. However, at the end they were given a cued recall test - they were told the names of the categories as a clue. Recall rose again to about 70%.

Answer 29

The theory that the reason people forget information may be because of insufficient cues. When information is initially placed in memory, associated cues are stored at the same time. If these cues are not available at the time of recall, it may make it appear as if you have forgotten the information but, in fact, this is due to retrieval failure - not being able to access memories that are there (available). It is a form of forgetting that occurs when we don't have the necessary cues to access memory. The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue to provided.

Answer 30

A trigger of information that allows us to access a memory. Such cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning. They can be external or internal (mood).

Answer 31

Endel Tulving 1983 reviewed research into retrieval failure and discovered a consistent pattern to the findings. This pattern is what he calls the encoding specificity principle. This states that if a cue is to help us to recall information it has to be present at encoding (when we learn the material) and at retrieval (when we are recalling it). It follows from this that if the cues available at encoding and retrieval are different (or if cues are entirely absent at retrieval) there will be some forgetting.

Answer 32

Meaningful cues = mnemonic techniques | Not meaningful cues = context-dependent forgetting (external cues) and state-dependent forgetting (internal cues).

Answer 33

Context-dependent forgetting | State-dependent forgetting

Answer 34

Duncan Godden and Alan Baddeley 1975 carried out a study of deep sea divers working underwater. It is crucial - a matter of life and death - for divers to remember instructions given before diving about their work underwater. The divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land. This created 4 conditions: - learn on land, recall on land - learn on land, recall underwater - learn underwater, recall on land - learn underwater, recall underwater In two of these conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas in the other two they did not. Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions. The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and this led to retrieval failure.

Answer 35

Sara Carter and Helen Cassaday 1998 gave anti-histamine drugs (for treating hay fever) to their participants. The anti-histamines had a mild sedative effect making the participants slightly drowsy. This creates an internal physiological state different from the normal state of being awake and alert. The participants had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the information, again creating four conditions: - learn on drug, recall on drug - learn on drug, recall off drug - learn off drug, recall on drug - learn off drug, recall off drug In the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse. So when the cues are absent there is more forgetting.

Answer 36

John Aggleton and Louise Waskett 1999 showed that smell can act as a context-related cue to memory. They based their study on a museum in York, which was called Jorvik in Viking times. There is an underground museum in York where you can walk round the 1000-year old ruins of Jorvik, recreated to be like the town of that time - including all the smells. Aggleton and Waskett found that recreating these smells helped people to recall the details of their trip to the museum more accurately, even after several years.

Answer 37

Baker et al investigated whether chewing gum can enhance memory. Students were randomly placed into one of four groups: - chewing gum when learning a list of words, chewing when recalling - chewing gum when learning, no chewing when recalling - not chewing when learning, chewing gum when recalling - not chewing when learning, not chewing when recalling All the participants had to learn a list of 15 words in two minutes. They then had to recall the words straight away and again 24 hours later. Immediate recall showed only small differences between the groups. But after 24 hours, the average number of words correctly recalled was 11 for gum-gum, 8 for gum-no gum, 7 for the no gum-gum group and 8.5 for the no gum-no gum group.

Answer 38

- supporting evidence, an impressive range of research supports the retrieval failure explanation for forgetting. E.g. Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassady. Moreover prominent memory researcher Michael Eysenck 2010 argues that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM. This is a strength because supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation. This is especially true when the evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-life situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the lab. - questioning context effects, Baddeley 1997 argues that context effects are actually not very strong, especially in real life. Different contexts have to be very different indeed before an effect is seen. For example, underwater and on land are very different but learning in one room and recalling in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because the environments are generally not different enough. This is a limitation because it means that the real-life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don't actually explain much forgetting. - recall versus recognition, the context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested. Godden and Baddeley 1980 replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall ,participants had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from the list, instead of retrieving it for themselves. When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect; performance was the same in all four conditions. This is a further limitation of context effects because it means that the presence or absence of cues only affects memory when you test it in a certain way. - problems with the encoding specificity principle, the ESP is not testable and this leads to a form of circular reasoning. In experiments where a cue produces the successful recall of a word, we assume that the cue must have been encoded at the time of learning. If a cue does not result in successful recall of a word, then we assume that the cue was not encoded at the time of learning. But these are just assumptions - there is no way to independently establish whether or not the cue has really been encoded. - real-life applications, although context-related cues appear not to have a very strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley still suggests they are worth paying attention to e.g. we have probably all had the experience of needing to do something, doing another task and then forgetting, but the moment you continue to do the task you remember.

Answer 39

The ability of people to remember the details of events which they themselves have observed.

Answer 40

Accuracy of EWT can be affected by factors such as misleading information, leading questions and anxiety.

Answer 41

Incorrect information given to the eyewitness usually after the event (hence often called post-event information). It can take many forms, such as leading questions and post-event discussion between co-witnesses and or other people.

Answer 42

A question which, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer.

Answer 43

Post-event discussion occurs when there is more than one witness to an event. Witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or with other people. This may influence the accuracy of each witness's recall of the event.

Answer 44

Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer 1974 arranged for participants (students) to watch film clips of car accidents and then gave them questions about the accident. In the critical question (a leading question) participants were asked to describe how fast the cars were travelling. 'About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?'. This is a leading question because the verb 'hit' suggests the speed the car was going. There were five groups of participants, each was given a different verb in the critical question. One group had the verb hit, the others had contacted, bumped, collided, smashed. Loftus and Palmer calculated the mean estimated speed for each participant group. They found that the verb contacted resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph. For the verb smashed, the mean was 40.5 mph. The leading question biased the eyewitness recall of an event.

Answer 45

The response-bias explanation suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants' memories, but just influences how they decide to answer. When a participant gets a leading question using the word 'smashed' (in reference to Loftus and Palmer study) this encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate.

Answer 46

Loftus and Palmer 1974 conducted a second experiment that supported the substitution explanation - the wording of a leading question actually changes the participant's memory of the film clip. This was demonstrated because participants who originally heard 'smashed' later were more likely to report seeing broken glass (there was none) than those who hear 'hit'. The critical verb altered their memory of the incident.

Answer 47

When co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other (post-event discussion), their eyewitness testimonies may become contaminated. This is because they combine (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memories.

Answer 48

Fiona Gabbert and her colleagues (2003) studied participants in pairs. Each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points off view. This meant that each participant could see elements in the event that the other could not. Both participants then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall. The researchers found that 71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in the discussion. The corresponding figure in a control group, where there was no discussion, was 0%. Gabbert et al concluded that witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong (ISI and NSI). They call this memory conformity.

Answer 49

Bodner et al 2009 found that the effects of post-event discussion can be reduced if participants are warned of the effects. Recall was more accurate for those participants who were warned that anything they hear from a co-witness is second-hand information and that they should forget it and recall only their own memory of the event.

Answer 50

Seema Clifasefi and colleagues 2013 attempted to use leading questions to implant a memory of an event that never happened (a false memory). They did this by giving their participants a document that claimed to be personalised food and drink profile. This was supposedly put together by powerful computer software based on the participants' earlier responses to a questionnaire. For one group, their profiles included the false information that they had once, under the age of 16, drunk so much alcohol that they were sick. Later, the participants completed a memory test in which a leading question asked when they had become sick from drinking too much alcohol. The researchers found that a significant number of the participants 'recalled' being sick due to drinking too much alcohol before they were 16. Even more surprisingly, a proportion of these participants also claimed that they now disliked certain alcoholic drinks because of this (non-existent) experience.

Answer 51

- useful real-life application, all research into misleading information has important practical uses in the real world, where the consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious. Loftus 1975 believes that leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be very careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses. Researchers into EWT believe that this can have a positive difference to the lives of people, e.g. by improving the way the legal system works and be appearing in court trials as expert witnesses. - artificial tasks, Loftus and Palmer's study had participants watch film clips of car accidents, this is a different experience from witnessing a real accident. There is evidence that emotions can have an influence on memory. This is a limitation because studies that use such artificial tasks may tell us very little about how leading questions affect EWT in cases of real accidents or crimes. It could be that researchers are even too pessimistic about the accuracy of EWT, it may be more reliable than many studies suggest. - individual differences, there is evidence that older people are less accurate than younger people when giving eyewitness reports. E.g. Anastasi and Rhodes 2006 found that people in age groups 18 - 25 and 35 - 45 were more accurate than people in the group 55 - 78 years. However, all age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own age group (own age bias). Also, studies often use younger people as the target to identify, and this may mean that some age groups appear less accurate but in fact this is not true. - demand characteristics, Zaragosa and McCloskey 1989 argue that many answers participants give in lab studies of EWT are the result of demand characteristics. Participants usually do not want to let the researcher down, and want to appear helpful and attentive. So when they are asked a question they don't know the answer to, they guess, especially if it's a yes/ no question. - consequences of EWT, Foster et al 1994 point out that what you remember as an eyewitness can have some important consequences in the real world, but the same is not true in research studies (it is trivial).

Answer 52

A state of emotional and physical arousal. The emotions include having worried thoughts and feelings of tension. Physical changes include an increased heart rate and sweatiness. Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations, but can affect the accuracy and detail of EWT.

Answer 53

Anxiety has strong emotional and physical effects. But it is not clear whether these effects make eyewitness recall better or worse. There is research to support both possibilities.

Answer 54

Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse.

Answer 55

One approach to studying anxiety and eyewitness testimony has been to look at the effect of weapons (which create anxiety) on accuracy of recall of the witness.

Answer 56

Johnson and Scott 1976 led participants to believe they were going to take part in a lab study. While seated in a waiting room participants heard an argument in the next room. In the 'low-anxiety' condition a man then walked through the waiting area, carrying a pen and with grease on his hands. Other participants overheard the same heated argument, but this time accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. A man walked out of the room, holding a paper knife that was covered in blood. This was the 'high-anxiety' condition. The participants later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos; 49% of the participants who had seen the man carrying the pen were able to identify him. The corresponding figure for the participants who had seen the man holding the blood-covered knife was just 33%. The tunnel theory of memory argues that a witness's attention narrows to focus on a weapon, because it is a source of anxiety.

Answer 57

The stress of witnessing a crime or accident creates anxiety through physiological arousal within the body. The fight-or-flight response is triggered which increases our alertness and improves our memory for the event because we become more aware of cues in the situation.

Answer 58

John Yuille and Judith Cutshall 1986 conducted a study of a real-life shooting in a gun shop in Canada. The shop owner shot a thief dead. There were 21 witnesses - 13 agreed to take part in the study. The interviews were held 4 - 5 months after the incident and these were compared with the original police interviews made at the time of the shooting. Accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account. The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident, using a 7-point scale, and asked if they had any emotional problems since the event, such as sleeplessness. The witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount or accuracy after 5 months - though some details were less accurate, such as recollection of the colour of items and age/ height/ weight estimates. Those participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate (about 88% compared to 75% for the less-stressed group).

Answer 59

According to Robert Yerkes and John Dodson 1908 the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an 'inverted U'. Kenneth Deffenbacher 1983 applied the Yerkes-Dodson Law to EWT. Lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy. But memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety experienced increases, just as you would expect. However, there comes a point where the optimal level of anxiety is reached. This is the point of maximum accuracy. If an eyewitness experiences any more stress than this, then their recall of the event suffers a drastic decline.

Answer 60

Parker et al overcame the problem that many lab-based and real-life studies of anxiety have, they only compare high and low anxiety groups. The inverted-U theory cannot be properly tested unless there is a moderate anxiety group as well. Parker et al 2006 interviewed people who had been affected by the destruction wrought by Hurricane Andrew in the United States in 1992. The researchers defined anxiety in terms of the amount of damage the participants suffered to their homes. The researchers found that there was a link between the level of recall and the amount of damage/ anxiety experienced.

Answer 61

Tim Valentine and Jan Mesout 2009 carried out a study in the real-life setting of the Horror Labyrinth at the London Dungeon. It is designed to be frightening with many 'scares'. Visitors to the Labyrinth were offered a reduced entrance fee if they agreed to complete questionnaires at the end of their visit to assess their level of self-reported anxiety. They wore wireless heart monitors to confirm that they were experiencing anxiety. On the basis of these two measures participants were divided into two groups: high anxiety and low anxiety. The participants' task was to describe a person encountered in the Labyrinth (played by an actor). The researchers found that the high anxiety participants recalled the fewest correct details of the actor and made more mistakes. The researchers also found that 17% of the high anxiety group correctly identified the actor in a line-up compared to 75% correct identification by those in the low anxiety group.

Answer 62

- weapon focus effect may not be relevant, Johnson and Scott's study on the weapon focus may test surprise rather than anxiety. The reason participants focus on the weapon may be because they are surprised at what they see rather than because they are scared. Pickel 1998 conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken as the hand-held items in a hairdressing salon video (where scissors would be low anxiety, low unusualness). Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (chicken and handgun). This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/ threat and therefore tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety of EWT. - field studies sometimes lack control, researchers usually interview real-life eyewitnesses sometime after the event. All sorts of things will have happened to the participants in the meantime that the researchers have no control over - discussions with other people about the event, accounts they may have read or seen in the media, the effects of being interviewed by the police and so on (post-event discussion). This is a limitation of field research because it is possible that these extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of recall. The effects of anxiety may be overwhelmed by these other factors, and impossible to assess by the time the participants are interviewed. - ethical issues, creating anxiety in participants is risky and potentially unethical because it may subject people to psychological harm purely for the purpose of research. This is why real-life studies are so beneficial. This issue doesn't challenge the findings from studies but it does question the need for such research. One reason is to compare findings with the less controlled field studies - and the benefits of this research may outweigh the issues. - the inverted-U explanation is too simplistic, anxiety is very difficult to define and measure accurately. This is due to anxiety having many elements (cognitive, behavioural, emotional and physical), but the inverted-U explanation assumes only one of these is liked to poor performance - physiological (physical) arousal. - demand characteristics operate in lab studies of anxiety, most lab studies show participants a filmed and usually staged crime, participants will be aware they are watching a filmed crime for a reason to do with the study. Chances are most of them will work out for themselves that they are going to be asked questions about what they have seen.

Answer 63

A method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It uses four main techniques, all based on well-established psychological knowledge of human memory.

Answer 64

1. Report everything 2. Reinstate the context 3. Reverse the order 4. Change perspective

Answer 65

Ronald Fisher and Edward Geiselman 1992 argued that eyewitness testimony could be improved if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses. They recommended that such techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works, and called these techniques collectively the cognitive interview to indicate its foundation in cognitive psychology.

Answer 66

Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant or the witness doesn't feel confident about it. Seemingly trivial details may be important and, moreover, they may trigger other important memories.

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The witness should return to the original crime scene 'in their mind' and imagine the environment and their emotions. This is related to context-dependent forgetting.

Answer 68

Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence, e.g. from the final point back to the beginning. This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than the actual events. It also prevents dishonesty, it's harder for people to produce an untruthful account if they have to reverse it.

Answer 69

Witnesses should recall the incident from other people's perspectives. E.g. how it would have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator. This is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and schema on recall. The schema you have for a particular setting generate expectations of what would have happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened.

Answer 70

Fisher et al 1987 developed some additional elements of the CI to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction. E.g. the interviewer needs to know when to establish eye contact and when to relinquish it. The enhanced CI also includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open-ended questions.

Answer 71

- a great strength of the cognitive interview is that its techniques are based on sound psychological research into how human memory works. For example, report everything and reinstate the context are both bases on Tulving's encoding specificity hypothesis. - the CI is time-consuming, police may be reluctant to use the CI because it takes much more time than the standard police interview. More time is needed to establish rapport with the witness and allow them to relax. The CI also requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours (Kebbel and Wagstaff 1996). This means it is unlikely that the proper version of the CI is actually used, which may explain why police have not been impressed by it. - some elements may be more valuable than others, Milne and Bull 2002 found that each individual element was equally valuable. Each technique used singly produced more information than the standard police interview. However, Milne and Bull found that using a combination of report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than any of the other conditions. This confirmed police officers' suspicions that some aspects of the CI are most useful than others. This finding is a strength because it suggests that at least these two elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eyewitnesses even of the full CI isn't used. This is turn increases the credibility of the CI amongst those who use it - police officers. - support for the effectiveness of the ECI, research suggests that the enhanced cognitive interview (ECI) may offer special benefits. A meta-analysis by Kohnken at al 1999 combined data from 50 studies. The enhanced CI consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview used by police. This is a strength because studies such as this one indicate that there are real practical benefits to the police of using the enhanced version of the CI. The research shows that it gives the police a greater chance of catching and charging criminals, which is beneficial to society as a whole. - variations of the CI are used, studies of the effectiveness of the CI inevitably use slightly different CI techniques or used the enhanced CI. The same is true in real-life, police forces evolve their own methods. This is a problem when trying to evaluate the effectiveness of the CI. - CI creates an increase in inaccurate information, the techniques of the CI aim to increase the amount of correct information remembered but the recall of incorrect information may also be increased. Kohnken et al 1999 found an 81% increase of correct information but also a 61% increase of incorrect information (false positives) when the enhanced CI was compared to a standard interview.