Memory Flashcards

Question

What was Peterson and Peterson's method?

Answer 1

nonsense trigrams, counting backwards in 3s from a 3 figure number to reduce rehersals and increased the time by 3 seconds each time

Answer 2

90% recalled correctly after 3 seconds | 10% correct recall after 18 seconds

Answer 3

without rehersal, STM is probably less than 18 seconds

Answer 4

- he studies 392 American ppts between 17 and 74 - obtained their yearbooks from high school - tested their recall in various ways: photo recognition and free recall

Answer 5

ppts tested within 15 years of graduation were 90% accurate in photo recognition after 48 years, recall declined to 70% for photo recognition free recall was less accurate than photos: 60% after 15 years and 30% after 48 years shows that LTM may last up to a lifetime for some material

Answer 6

- experimental support - high ecological validity - real life memories

Answer 7

- recognition not recall - lacked important controls (may be friends) - emotional significance

Answer 8

- ppts saw a grid of digits for 50 milliseconds | - they were asked to write down all 12 items or they were told after which row to recall

Answer 9

- 75% for one row (3 letters) - 42% for the whole grid (5 letters) suggests that sensory memory cannot hold information for long and it decays rapidly in the sensory store - supports the existence of a sensory store

Answer 10

Maintenance rehearsal | retrieval environmental stimuli -> sensory register -> attention -> STM LTM rehearsal | | decay forgetting

Answer 11

- showed ppts a list of 20 words, presented one at a time and then asked them to recall - serial position effect - when asking people to remember a list of words which is greater than the capacity of STM they have a tendency to remember the beginning and end of the list.

Answer 12

the tendency for people to remember the first 5 or so words from the beginning of the list - occurs because the first words are best rehearsed and transferred to the LTM

Answer 13

the tendency for people to remember the last 5 or so words from the end of the list - occurs because they are the last words to be presented therefore they are fresh in the STM at the start of recall

Answer 14

- Glanzer and Cunitz | - Baddeley (1966)

Answer 15

- man who underwent brain surgery to relieve his epilepsy - a part of his brain called the hippocampus was removed from both sides of his brain (central to memory function) - when his memory was tested he got his age and the year wrong - he could not form new LTM memories however, he performed well on tests of immediate memory span, a measure of STM

Answer 16

- how to do things -> motor skills - events - general knowledge

Answer 17

- refers to our ability to recall events (episodes) from our lives - this has been linked to a diary, a record of daily happenings. Some examples are: - most recent visit to the dentist - the breakfast you ate this morning - more complex than you think - it includes several elements such as people, places, objects and behaviours - have to make a conscious effort to remember them

Answer 18

- our knowledge of the world - eg. facts, remembering how things taste - not timestamped - less personal and more about facts we all share

Answer 19

- memory for actions or skills or how we do things - we can recall these memories without conscious awareness or a great deal of effort e. g . driving or walking

Answer 20

- Cohen argues that there are only 2 types of LTM and not 3 - declarative memory - semantic and episodic that are consciously recalled - non-declarative memory - procedural memory that can be unconsciously recalled

Answer 21

- central executive - episodic buffer - visou-spatial sketchpad - phonological loop ( articulatory process / phonological store)

Answer 22

- believed that memory has a number of different components: - 2 visual tasks = poorer performance but 1 visual and 1 verbal means no interruption - focused on STM only and believed it was not a unitary store (like MSM) - LTM as a more passive store that holds previously learned material for use by the STM when needed

Answer 23

- limited capacity - Determines how resources (slave systems) are allocated. - involves reasoning and decision making tasks - They also select strategies but can only do a limited number of things at the same time - Modality free (no coding specificity)

Answer 24

- limited capacity (2 seconds) - Deals with auditory information and preserves word order – Inner Ear - Baddeley (1986) further subdivided it into -Phonological store (holds words heard) Articulatory process (holds words heard/seen and silently repeated (looped) like an inner voice. This is a kind of maintenance rehearsal. - coded acoustically

Answer 25

- Visual and/or spatial information stored here – Inner Eye - Visual = what things look like - Spatial = relationships between things - Limited capacity – 3-4 objects - Logie (1995) suggested subdivision: - Visuo-cache (store) - Inner scribe for spatial relations.

Answer 26

- Baddeley (2000) added episodic buffer as he realised model needed a more general store. - Slave systems deal with specific types of information. - Central executive has no storage capacity - Buffer extra storage system but with limited capacity of 4 chunks - Integrates information from all other areas.

Answer 27

- supports WMM - Gave participants two tasks to perform simultaneously. - Task 1: True or False task occupied the Central Executive as it tested verbal reasoning. They were asked to perform this task at the same time as performing either…. - Asked to say ‘the the the’ – a task involving the Articulatory Loop. - Asked to say random digits – a task involving both the Central Executive and Articulatory Loop. - Results: The true or false task was slower when given the 2nd task involving both the Central Executive and Articulatory Loop. - Conclusion: completing two tasks that involve the same component causes difficulty. This supports the Central Executive and the Working Memory Model.

Answer 28

used fMRI to see which parts of the brain were most active when participants were doing two tasks (reading a sentence and recalling the final word in each sentence). The same brain areas (pre-frontal cortex) were active in either dual or single task conditions but there was significantly more activation in dual task condition.

Answer 29

One memory disturbs the ability to recall another, this might results in forgetting or distorting one or the other or both. This is more likely to happen if the memories are similar.

Answer 30

``` previously leant information interferes with the new information you are trying to store. e.g. you have difficulties learning the names of the students in your psychology class instead you keep remembering the names of the students in your maths group last year ```

Answer 31

- a new memory interferes with older ones e. g. you have difficulty remembering the names of the students in your maths class because you learnt the names of your psychology class this year.

Answer 32

Aim: To investigate how retroactive interference affects learning/ to investigate whether information you have recently received interferes with the ability to recall something you learned earlier. Method: A lab experiment was used. Participants were split into two groups. Both groups had to remember a list of paired words – e.g. cat - tree. The experimental group also had to learn another list of words where the second paired word is different – e.g. cat – glass. The control group were not given the second list. All participants were asked to recall the words on the first list.

Answer 33

Results: The recall of the control group was more accurate than that of the experimental group. Conclusion: This suggests that learning items in the second list interfered with participants’ ability to recall the list. This is an example of retroactive interference.

Answer 34

- Procedure: studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between 2 sets of materials. Ppts had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then learned a new list. There were 6 groups of ppts who had to learn different types of new lists: Group 1 - synonyms of the original words Group 2 - antonyms of the original words Group 3 - words unrelated to the original words Group 4 - consonant syllables Group 5 - 3 digit number Group 6 - no new list

Answer 35

when the ppts were asked to recall the original list of words the most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall. This shows interference is strongest when memories are made.

Answer 36

The reason we forget is due to insufficient cues. If the cues are not present when we come to recall then we find it difficult to retrieve the memory. It is not necessarily because we have forgotten it, it’s just that we don’t have the cues to help us to access the memory. It is still available – it’s just a problem with accessing the memory. ‘Encoding Specificity Principle’ (Tulving) = “the greater the similarity between the encoding

Answer 37

Context dependent forgetting = External environmental cues State dependent forgetting= Internal cues

Answer 38

They carried out a study of deep sea divers working underwater. Divers learned a list of words underwater or on land and were asked to recall underwater or on land Group 1 - learn on land, recall on land Group 2 - learn on land, recall underwater Group 3 - learn underwater, recall on land Group 4 - learn underwater, recall underwater

Answer 39

In 2 of the conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, whereas in the other 2 they did not. Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non matching conditions.

Answer 40

- They looked at the effect of anti-histimines, the participants had to learn list of words and passages of prose and then call the information - Group 1 –Learn on the drug – recall when on it - Group 2 – Learn on drug – recall when not on it - Group 3 – Learn not on drug – recall when on it - Group 4 – Learn not on drug – recall when not on it

Answer 41

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 (for example, you are drowsy when recalling information but been alert learning it) then there is more forgetting.

Answer 42

- real life application - dementia patients - lots of research support (e.g. gum-gum study), argued that it reflects real life (i.e. diving was an every day activity in Godden and Baddley’s study). BUT Baddeley himself argues that the contexts have to be really different to see an effect. E.g. an exam hall is still in the school so not much different to the classroom. - BUT there are different types of forgetting: testing recall rather than recognition (link to Bahrick)

Answer 43

the evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator.

Answer 44

Aim: to investigate if the language used can alter the witness’ perception of what happened - 45 students shown 7 films of traffic accidents. - Students were given questionnaire - There was one critical question about how fast the cars were going – each with a different adjective. Results: As the verb ‘smashed’ has connotations with increased speed this group estimated the speed as higher than the other groups. This shows that misleading or suggestive information can distort EWT

Answer 45

- Broken glass study - 150 student participants were shown a short film that showed a multi-vehicle car accident and then they were asked questions about it. The participants were split into 3 groups (with 50 in each group). - 1st group: ‘How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’ - 2nd group: ‘How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?’ - 3rd group: asked nothing about the speed. All groups returned a week later and were asked: “Did you see any broken glass?” even though there was none in the film.

Answer 46

Participants who had heard the ‘smashed’ question were more than twice as likely to report seeing broken glass, than those in the other two conditions. Conclusion: Therefore, misleading information/leading questions have the ability to alter eyewitness testimony/memories.

Answer 47

- good real life application - meant that they way police questioned was changed to ensure no leading questions were used as they may have a serious consequence - vulnerable to demand characteristics - people may want to please experimenters so alter their responses and are therefore more likely to guess. This is a problem, because eyewitnesses are less likely to guess in real life, and therefore the results of the experiment may not be representative. - EWT research has no real consequences if eyewitnesses get their response wrong. Real life eyewitnesses results have very real consequences for the people that they identify. Therefore EWT studies lack the realism and significance of a real life account of a crime. - Lacks ecological validity - fear/anxiety someone may feel if they were a real eye witness

Answer 48

When co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other their eyewitness testimonies may become contaminated.

Answer 49

Procedure – studied ppts in pairs. Each watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points of view. This meant that each participant could see elements in the event that the other could not. E.g. only one ppt could see the title of the book being carried by a young woman. Both ppts discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall. Findings – 71% of ppts mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see but had picked up in the discussion

Answer 50

- divided 120 subjects into four groups. The subjects were told they were going to evaluate advertising copy, fill out several questionnaires and answer questions about a trip to Disneyland. - The first group read a generic Disneyland ad that mentioned no cartoon characters. The second group read the same copy and was exposed to a 4-foot-tall cardboard figure of Bugs Bunny that was placed in the interview room. No mention was made of Bugs Bunny. The third, or Bugs group, read the fake Disneyland ad featuring Bugs Bunny. The fourth, or double, exposure group read the fake add and also saw the cardboard rabbit. Results: 30% of the people in the Bugs group later said they remembered or knew they had met Bugs Bunny when they visited Disneyland and 40% of the people in the double exposure group reported the same thing.

Answer 51

Deffenbacher et al 2004 - meta-analysis which found that high levels of stress impacted on the accuracy of EWT. Christianson & Hubinette 1993 - Questioned real victims of a bank robbery. They found that those who had actually been threatened were more accurate in their recall, compared to those who were onlookers. This continued to be true 15 months later.

Answer 52

This is where in violent crimes, arousal may focus the witness on more central details of the attack (eg: weapon) than the more peripheral details (eg: what else was going on and what the perpetrator looked like).”

Answer 53

- invited participants to a lab where they were told to wait in the reception area. A receptionist excused herself, leaving the participant alone. The experiment used an independent groups design, as participants were then exposed to one of two conditions: 1) In the ‘no-weapon’ condition, ppts overheard a conversation in the lab about equipment failure. Thereafter an individual (the target) left the lab and walk passed the participant holding a pen, with his hands covered in grease. 2) In the ‘weapon’ condition, ppts overheard a heated exchange and the sound of breaking glass and crashing chairs. This was followed by an individual (the target) running into the reception area, holding a bloodied letter opener. Both groups were then shown 50 photographs and ask to identify the person who had left the lab. The ppts were informed that the suspect may, or may not be present in the photographs. Those who had witness the man holding a pen correctly identified the target 49% of the time, compared to those who had witness the man holding a knife, who correctly identified the target 33% of the time. Loftus claimed that the participants who were exposed to the knife had higher levels of anxiety and were more likely to focus their attention on the weapon and not the face of the target, a phenomenon known as the weapon focus effect. Therefore, the anxiety associated with seeing a knife reduces the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Answer 54

- contradicts weapon focus effect - investigated effect of anxiety in a real life shooting - 13 witnesses agreed to take part in follow up research 4-5 months later

Answer 55

- all EWT were accurate, only minor details changed (height, weight etc) - leading q's had no effect - real life cases of extreme anxiety the accuracy of EWT is not effected

Answer 56

- inverted U theory - as anxiety increases EWT fluctuates

Answer 57

police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate the original context in order to increase the accessibility of stored information.

Answer 58

``` Reviewed memory literature – people remember things better if they are provided with retrieval cues. Came up with 4 techniques: - change recall order - recall from changed perspective - context reinstatement - report everything ```

Answer 59

- minimise distractions - reduce anxiety - encourage witness to speak slowly - ask open ended questions

Answer 60

investigated how age affects recall – the older the participant (75-95 years old), the less complete and less accurate the recall. However, when they used the cognitive interview technique, the older participants recalled significantly greater detail without giving any false information

Answer 61

Kohnken et al (1999) - meta-analysis of 53 studies - Found on average a 34% increase in amount of correct information generated in CI - BUT Most of the sample were university students Milne and Bull (2002) - Found that when they used a combination of “report everything” and “mental reinstatement”, participants’ recall was significantly higher. - BUT -Still in a laboratory - artificial

Answer 62

Weaknesses: - Different police forces use different aspects of the CI technique so it is difficult to evaluate its effectiveness fully - The technique takes more time than is often available - Techniques that limit the eyewitnesses account to the minimum are often preferred - Demands are placed on the interviewer to ‘probe’ effectively - The quantity and quality of CI training is an issue Strengths: - Although cognitive interviewing produces an increase in ‘false positives’ (recall of additional items), there is a bigger increase in the amount of correct information recalled compared to a standard interview - The CI is valuable in reducing miscarriages of justice in countries where these are likely to occur (e.g. Brazil)

Memory Flashcards

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