memory Flashcards

Question

strength of peterson + petersons study?

Answer 1

highly controlled took place in a laboratory of Indiana University. As a result Peterson and Peterson had a high degree of control over extraneous variables, which makes their procedure easy to replicate to test reliability.

Answer 2

— Conversely, the key issues with the Petersen et al and Miller et al studies is that they feature methodologies with low mundane realism, thus producing findings with little ecological validity. This is due to the use of artificial stimuli, the trigrams are unlike anything that people want to memorise in everyday life and have no personal meaning to the participants. So the findings of Peterson and Peterson does not accurately reflect everyday learning experiences of memory. This therefore limits the generalisability of such findings. - Peterson and Peterson used a sample of psychology students, which is an issue for 2 reasons. Firstly, the psychology students may have encountered MSM of memory previously and therefore may have displayed demand characteristics by changing their behaviour to assist the experimenter. Secondly, the memory of psychology students may be different from that of other people, especially if they had previously studied strategies for memory improvement. As a result wea re unable to generalise the results of this study to non-psychology students.

Answer 3

To investigate the duration of LTM

Answer 4

392 american uni graduates were shown photographs from their high school year book and asked to recall names of people over a 50 year period. Conducted 2 tests: recognition test - given the names to match to person free recall test - told to write down the name s

Answer 5

90% of participants accurately recall 15 years after graduating 70% recall after 47 years after graduating this concluded that people could remember certain information such as faces and names up to a lifetime. This also supports the MSM.

Answer 6

Finally, it could be argued that Bahrick's study has high levels of ecological validity as the study used real-life memories. In this study participants recalled real-life information by matching pictures of classmates with their names. Therefore, these results reflect our memory for real-life events and can be applied to everyday human memory.

Answer 7

Bahrick's research used a sample of 392 American University graduates and therefore lacks population validity. Psychologists are unable to generalise the results of Bahrick's to other populations, for example former students from the UK or Europe. As a result we are unbale to conclude whether other populations would demonstrate the same ability to recall names and faces after 47 years Furthermore, Bahrick found that the accuracy of LTM was 90% after 14 years and 60% after 47 years. His research is unable to explain whether LTM becomes less accurate overtime because of limited duration or whether LTM gets worse with age. As a result unable to determine if LTM has an unlimited duration like the MSM suggests, which is affected by other factors such as age, or whether our LTM has a limited duration.

Answer 8

Coding = Modality specific - depends on our senses Capacity = Very High capacity, as One human eye contains over 100 million cells each storing data. Duration = Approximately 250 milliseconds - Sperling (1960)

Answer 9

The sensory register receives information from our senses, thus coding is modality specific. The sensory register has a high capacity (as one human eye has over 100 million cells each storing data but has a limited duration of Half a second (or 250 milliseconds) as concluded by Sperling (1960). Therefore information will only be passed onto the STM store only if we pay attention to it. Information that is then passed onto the STM store, where information is coded acoustically according to Baddeley (1966). The STM also has a limited capacity of 7+/-2 'chunks' (Miller and Jacobs) and a limited duration of approximately 18 seconds. Maintenance rehearsal occurs (when we repeat the new information to ourselves), allowing the information to be kept in the STM. Prolonged maintenance rehearsal allows the information to pass into the LTM, whilst a lack of such rehearsal causes forgetting. Information reaches the final store which is LTM store. Here information is coded semantically (Baddeley), With an unlimited capacity and duration of up to a lifetime (Bahrick et al). In order to remember information, ‘retrieval’ must occur, which is when information is transferred back into the STM, and will continue to pass through the maintenance/Rehearsal loop afterwards.

Answer 10

The case study of CLIVE WEARNING supports the MSM of memory. Clive wearing had severe amnesia, following a virus, which had completely eradicated his hippocampus. This meant that he was only able to remember information for only 20-30 seconds, he could not make or keep memories but he was able to remember some information from the past, for example, his wife's name, how to play piano and how to eat. Wearing was unable to transfer information from his STM to his LTM as Clive wearing was unable to rehearse to keep it into his LTM, but was able to retrieve information successfully. Wearing's case supports the idea that memories are formed by passing information from one store to the next in linear fashion and that damage to any part of the MSM can cause memory impairment. CASE OF HM- he had severe epilepsy and a new procedure was tried out on him where they removed a part of the brain, the hippocampus to relieve him of his epilepsy. However this procedure was in it's infancy, and knowledge of the role of the hippocampus which is crucial to memory, was unknown. After the operation HM thought that the year was 1953 and that he was 27 but he was actually 31 and the year was 1955. He had little recall of the operation and could not recall how to eat. He also could not form new long-term memories. For example, he would read the same magazine repeatedly and not remember it. Therefore the case study of HM supports the MSM because it shows there was 2 separate memory stores and more testing was done on him which showed his STM was much less affected. COUNTERPOINT: However, there are cases that the MSM cannot explain. For example the case study of KF. Shallice and Warrington (1970) found that their amnesiac patient KF had poor STM recall for auditory stimuli, but increasingly accurate recall for visual stimuli. This, alongside KF being able to differentiate and recall both verbal and non verbal sounds, suggests that there may be multiple types of STM. Which goes against the MSM which suggests that STM store is a unitary, single store. One strength of the MSM, is that there is support for the the distinction between the STM store and LTM store. For example, Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using STM but when we mix up words that have similar meaning when we use our LTM. Further support comes from Capacity and duration studies. Where Peterson and Peterson found the duration of STM approximately 18 seconds and Bahrick et al bound the duration of LTM being of up to a lifetime. These studies clearly show that STM and LTM are separate and independent memory stores, as claimed by the MSM. COUNTERPOINT: A lot of these studies used Artificial stimuli, such as word lists, consonant trigrams which lacks mundane realism. The tasks presented had no personal meaning to the participants, This means that the MSM may not be a valid model of how memory works in our everyday life where we have to remember much more meaning ful information.

Answer 11

According to the MSM what matters is the amount of rehearsal, (prolonged rehearsal) and that is what transfers information to LTM. However, Craik and Watkins (1973) found that prolonged maintenance rehearsal is not what matters IT'S THE TYPE OF REHEARSAL THAT MATTERS. ELABORATIVE REHEARSAL is needed for Long-term storage. This occurs when you link information to existing knowledge or you think about what it means. This means that Information can be transferred to LTM without prolonged Rehearsal and the MSM does not sufficiently explain how long-term storage is achieved.

Answer 12

procedural episodic and semantic

Answer 13

tulving (1972) he realised that the MSM view of long term memory was too simplistic and inflexible. he proposed that there was 3 LTM memory stores

Answer 14

-Episodic memory is a type of explicit (declarative) memory, refers to our ability to recall personal events (experiences) from our lives such as your first day at school -these memories are TIME-STAMPED and COMPLEX so would remember specific details of the event such as emotions and feelings and exact timings, and how timings of events relate to each other. -Require a CONSCIOUS effort to recall these memories

Answer 15

it is determined by the strength of emotions experienced when the memory is coded. therefore a conscious effort in required to retrieve them

Answer 16

the hippocampus

Answer 17

-sematic memory is a type of explicit (declarative) memory, which includes shared knowledge of the world, facts, concepts, meanings about the world around us. -These memories are not time-stamped, we do not know when we have learnt these memories. - we constantly add to semantic memories - According to Tulving, semantic memories are less vulnerable to forgetting and distortion.

Answer 18

start off as episodic memories, however they are not time stamped, but we acquire them based on our experiences

Answer 19

same way as episodic but semantic memories are often less personal. however they are stronger than episodic memory

Answer 20

a type of implicit memory for actions/skills which we do not have to make a conscious effort to recall. these certain skills become Automatic through practice / help direct awareness so we can multi-task therefor this memory is implicit (non-declarative) as it requires no conscious effort to recall

Answer 21

through repetition and practice, which usually happen earlier in life. e.g riding a bike, learning how to drive

Answer 22

cerebellum and motor cortex

Answer 23

RESEARCH SUPPORT - FROM CASES OF HM AND CLIVE WEARING - episodic memory in both men were severely impaired due to brain damage caused by operation and infection respectively). But their semantic memories were relatively unaffected. They still understood the meaning of words. For example, HM could not recall stroking a dog half an hour earlier but did not need to have the concept of the dog explained to him. Their procedural memories were also intact. They both still knew how to walk and eat and speak and Clive wearing a professional musician knew how to read music, sing and play piano. This evidence supports Tulving's view that there are different memory stores. one store can be damaged and the others unaffected Belleville et al (2006) compared the performance of older people suffering with mild cognitive impairment who received memory training with that of a control group who did not. it was found that the participants in the experimental group performed better on a test of episodic memory. This suggests that being able to identify different types of LTM can provide psychologists with the opportunity to improve people's life's as the research can lead to improved, increasingly targeted treatments for mild cognitive impairments.

Answer 24

Although both HM and Clive wearing support for the distinction between the separate types of LTM, evidence from the case studies must be treated with caution. It is difficult to establish exactly which brain regions are affected in patients with brain damage and damage to a particular region does not particularly mean that region is associated with a particular type of memory. Therefore it is difficult to generalise these case studies to larger populations. Furthermore, these studies may be used to help researchers understand how memory is supposed to work normally. But clinical studies are not perfect. a major limitation is that these studies lack control over variables and the brain injuries are usually unexpected. the researcher had no way of controlling what had happened to the patient before or during the injury. the researcher has no knowledge of the individuals memory before the damage. without this it is difficult to judge exactly how much worse it is afterwards. The lack of control limits what clinical studies can tell us about the different types of LTM

Answer 25

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) proposed the idea of the WMM as a way of explaining some of the research findings that could not be accounted for by the MSM for example dual-task studies

Answer 26

the central executive is like the 'boss'. it monitors incoming data, focuses and allocates attention to data and directs the information to it's two slave systems, because of it's limited capacity

Answer 27

for example two activities sometimes come into conflict, such as driving a car and talking. Rather than hitting a cyclists who is wobbling all over the road, it is preferable to stop talking and concentrate on driving. thus directs and allocates its attention on driving and prioritising it

Answer 28

-one of the slave systems and is a temporary storage system for verbal and auditory information so contributes to the learning sounds of languages. -preserves the order in which information arrives -encoding is acoustic and is made up of two other components: the articulatory control process (the Inner voice) and the phonological store (Inner Ear). -the articulatory control system allows you to repeat words on a loop (maintenance rehearsal) to keep it in working memory while you need it and -the phonological store stores the words your hear so are also referred to as your inner ear and inner voice. the capacity is believed to be 2 seconds

Answer 29

yes but must be first be converted into an articulatory (spoken) code before they can enter

Answer 30

-Is another slave system and is a temporary storage system for visual and spatial information. (acts like a sketchpad in our mind). - it is said that visuo-spatial sketchpad plays a crucial role in helping keep track of our surroundings in relation to other objects in our environment as we move. -Robert Logie (1995) stated it's two parts were: visual cache which stores visual data and is connected to the inner scribe acting as a rehearsal mechanism - recording the arrangement of objects in the visual field. this store also has a limited capacity

Answer 31

-the episodic buffer it is also a temporary slave system for the central executive which records visual, spatial and acoustic information processed by other stores. -and maintains a sense of time sequencing - records events (episodes) that are happening and passes information to the LTM store and links wider cognitive processes such as perception. -has a limited capacity approximately 4 chunks

Answer 32

as the number of digits increased in the digit span tasks, participants took longer to answer the reasoning questions, but not much longer - only fractions of a second. And they didn't make any more errors in the verbal reasoning tasks as the number of digits increased.

Answer 33

Baddeley concluded that there must be more than one store within STM and the verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive and the digit span task made use of the phonological loop

Answer 34

Further support comes from Dual task studies done by Baddeley et al (1995). participants carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time (dual task), their performance on each was similar to when they carried out tasks separately. But when both tasks were visual (or both were verbal), performance on both declined substantially. This is because both visual taks compete for the same slave system (VSS), whereas there is no competition when performing a verbal and a visual task together. this shows support that there must be two separate stores one for Visual and verbal which the WWM consists of. support for the WWM also comes from case study of KF. After his brain injury, Kf had poor STM ability for auditory (sound) information but could process visual information normally. For instance his immediate recall of letters and digits was better when he read them (visual) than when they were read to him (acoustic). KF's phonological loop was damaged but his visuo-spatial sketchpad was intact. this finding strongly supports the existence of WWM and the idea of two slave systems, the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad, therefore providing support to the WWM and the idea of a multi-component STM system

Answer 35

however, it is unclear whether KF had other cognitive impairments (apart from damage to his phonological loop) which might have affected his performance on memory tasks. For example, his injury was caused by a motorcycle accident. the trauma involved may have affected his cognitive performance quite apart from any brain injury. this challenges evidence that comes from clinical studies of people with brain injuries that may have affected many different systems.

Answer 36

one issue with the working memory model is that it only focuses on STM, and the link between the WWM and LTM is not fully explained. The WMM provides a detailed description of our STM memory store but limited detail of of how information is processed and transferred from STM to LTM and back again. Therefore, the WWM is an incomplete model of memory and other theories/ models are required to gain a complete picture of this complex cognitive phenomenon

Answer 37

forgetting refers to a persons loss of ability to recall or recognise something they have previously learnt

Answer 38

Proactive interference retroactive interference retrieval failure (due to the absense of cues)

Answer 39

Baddeley (1999) stated that forgetting occurs when memories interfere and distrupt one another. this idea suggests that information during encoding thus distorting/ distrupting memories

Answer 40

- past/ previous learning interferes with new learning e.g we may have difficulties with foreign currency when travelling abroad - New learning interferes with past/ previous learning e.g starting of Spanish learning may interfere with the previously learnt french

Answer 41

When the memories are similar and according to chandler (1989) those who study similar subjects at the same time are more likely to often experience interference

Answer 42

the effect of proactive interference on LTM

Answer 43

participants were presented with meaningless consonant triagrams at different intervals (3,6,9 sec etc..) to prevent rehersal the participants had to count backwards in 3's before recalling.

Answer 44

their results showed that participants typically remembered the trigrams that were presented first, irrespective of the interval length

Answer 45

suggest that proactive interference occurred, as memory for the earliest consonants (which had transferred to LTM) interfere with memory for new consonants, due to the similarity of the information presented

Answer 46

To investigate retroactive interference in everyday memory

Answer 47

Participants on a rugby team had played a varying number of rugby games during the season – all had missed some games. They were asked to remember as many of the names of teams they had played against. They were assessed to see how recall was affected by the number of games played and time between games.

Answer 48

It was found that forgetting was due to the number of games played rather than time between games. Those who played more games forgot more of the teams.

Answer 49

Concluded that this was retroactive interference, as the learning of new information (new team names) interfered with the memory of fold information (earlier team names)

Answer 50

investigate how retroactive interference affects learning.

Answer 51

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, jelly - moss, book - tractor. The experimental group also had to learn another list of words, where the second paired word is different – e.g. cat – glass, jelly- time, book – revolver. The control group were not given the second list. All participants were asked to recall the words on the first list.

Answer 52

The recall of the control group was more accurate than that of the experimental group. so 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 53

the results of Baddeley and Hitch are supported by other researchers, for example McGeoch and McDonald (1931). In their experiment, participants were given a list of 10 adjectives to learn (list A). Once these adjectives were learnt, participants were then given one of six other lists (list B) to learn, which varied in terms of it's similarity to the original. McGeoch and McDonald found recall was worse when list A and list B were closest in similarity. this supports the idea of retroactive interference because the more similar the new material is to the previously learnt material, the greater the interference. Another strength comes from evidence of retrograde facilitation. A drug study by Coenen and Luijtelaar (1997). Participants were given a list of words and then later asked to recall the lists, assuming the intervening experiences would act as interference. they found out that when a list of words were learnt under the influence of a drug Diazepam, recall one week later was poor (compared to placebo group). but when a list was learned before the drug was taken, later recall was better than placebo, so the drug actually improved recall of material learned beforehand. Wixted (2004) stated that the drug prevents new information reaching the brain involved in processing memories, so it can not interfere retroactively with information already stored. this finding shows that forgetting can be due to interference - reduce the interference you reduce the forgetting

Answer 54

One weakness of interference theory is that the research is mostly lab based. This means the stimulus is usually artificial and lacks mundane realism. Even when it isn’t, it is not similar to the forgetting we experience in everyday life. The information we forget is more complex and meaningful than just word lists, such as in Postman’s study. COUNTERPOINT: However, lab research is highly controlled which reduces extraneous variables that could impact on participants’ experience of forgetting. This means that although research into interference lacks ecological validity limiting generalisation, it is able to isolate interference as one cause of forgetting. Another weakness of interference research is that it only explain one type of forgetting - memory for similar information. For example, the results of Baddeley and Hitch demonstrate retroactive interference in rugby union players trying recall team names from earlier in the season and Keppel and Underwood demonstrate proactive interference when trying to learn 3 letter consonant trigrams. Both of these examples highlight interference effects of very similar information and therefore this research is limited in it's real world application and are unable to explain forgetting in some situations A final limitation is that interference has been shown to be temporary and can be overcome with cues to help us remember something. Tulving and Psotka found that when participants were given word lists to remember (organised into categories) one list at a time, recall of the 1st list was 70% but became progressively worse with each new list. However, the words were still in LTM and with a cued recall test at the end, recall went back up to 70%. Interference is therefore temporary.

Answer 55

A strength is that the research has proven to be useful. One way it is useful is it has real world applications such as use in advertising. Research has demonstrated the effects of interference when individuals are exposed to competing brands with similar products. If the products are too similar, interference is experienced. Therefore, it can help businesses to increase the effects of advertising. The fact that it has real world applications increases the ecological validity of the theory.

Answer 56

This suggests that Forgetting is due to insufficient cues. when information is initially placed into memory, associated cues are stored at the same time. if these cues are not available at the time of recall, it may 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. (i.e available)

Answer 57

Tulving and Thomas (1973) proposed the ENCODING SPECIFICITY PRINCIPLE and argued that memory is most effective when cues that were present st the time of encoding (when we learn the material) and at retrieval (when we are recalling). It follows from this that is cues are different or absent at the time of encoding and retrieval forgetting occurs. Example of such cues are mnemonic's

Answer 58

forgetting will occur

Answer 59

environmental and mental cues. environmental - include the room in which you learn information mental - include your emotional state

Answer 60

- context- dependent forgetting - state-dependent forgetting

Answer 61

CDF - Forgetting occurs when the environmental cues are missing. SDF - Forgetting occurs when an individual's emotional state is different when trying to recall information

Answer 62

the effect of contextual cues on recall (i.e would memory for words learned and recalled in the same environment be better than memory for words learned and recalled in different environments?

Answer 63

-compromised a sample of 18 participants (13m 5f) from a university diving club, who were divided into 4 conditions: 1) learning words on land and recalling on land 2) learning words on land and recalling underwater 3)learning underwater, recalling underwater 4) learning underwater recalling on land. -they used repeated measures design with each participant taking part in each of the conditions.

Answer 64

-recall was found to be worse when in a different context to coding. -recall was found to be better when in the same context to coding -so words learned underwater were better recalled underwater and words learned on land were better recalled on land. therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the environmental cues (context) improve recall

Answer 65

Although the results suggest that environmental cues aid memory recall, Godden and Baddeley didn't control many other variables. The divers took part in the experiment at different times of the day and at different diving locations. Therefore each diver would have experienced other contextual cues, which may have affected their memory.therefore we are unable to conclude whether the results of Godden and Baddeley's research is due to the on land/ underwater contextual cues or another contextual cue provided by the different time of day or diving location They used a repeated measures design, as each diver took part in all 4 conditions. it is possible that the divers worked out the aim of the experiment and displayed demand characteristics or order effects. By the fourth trial the participants may have demonstrated practice effects where their recall improved as a result of completing the experiment multiple times, or even fatigue effects where their results have declined due to boredom. A more suitable experimental design would have been independent measures. However this would have required significantly more participants, which would be difficult to achieve when recruiting trained divers. Furthermore, with a sample of just 18 divers the conclusions drawn should be treated with caution. Additionally, the context examined in their study is extreme and provides little insight into context-dependent forgetting in everyday life

Answer 66

Memory is most effective when we are in a similar mental state during encoding and at retrieval. the emotional state of an individuals serves as an aid to memory recall

Answer 67

Investigate the effect of state-dependent retrieval failure.

Answer 68

male volunteers were asked to recall a list of words when they were either drunk or sober. 24 hours later the participants were asked to recall the list of words either drunk or sober.

Answer 69

recall scores show that information learned when drunk was recalled better when drunk or recalled better sober when learned sober. so recall was better when they were in the same state for learning and recall

Answer 70

state-dependent forgetting using anti-histamine drugs

Answer 71

these are typically administered as hay fever relivers but they are known for their sedating effect. this can make the individual feel drowsy, and therefore not as alert as they normally would be, providing a comparison to everyday non-drug induced behaviour

Answer 72

gave anti-histamine drugs to their participants which had a mild sedative effect (drowsiness) this creates a different internal state (physiological) to normal (being woke and alert) and participants were asked to recall list of words and passages of prose in 4 conditions. 1)learn n drug, recall on drug 2). learn on drug recall not on drug 3). learn not on drug, recall not on drug 4). learn not on drug, recall on drug

Answer 73

in the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worsen and in conditions where the learning and recalling state matched memory was improved

Answer 74

when the physiological/emotional cues that are present at the time of encoding are missing and at the time of retrieval , state dependent forgetting is more likely to occur

Answer 75

there is research supporting state-dependent forgetting using a range of different substances to create an alternative state of consciousness. Darley et al (1973) researched the impact of marijuana on the individual's recollection. It was found that individuals who were under the influence of marijuana when they put money in a 'safe place' were less able to recall where this location was once they were no longer under the influence of the drug. this evidence adds weight to the argument that the emotional and physiological state that a person is in at the time of encoding is important at the time of retrieval. retrieval cues can help in some situations of forgetting. Although cues may not have a strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley suggests that they areas till worth paying attention to. For instance we all had the experience of being in a room and thinking ''i must go and get so and so..?'' you go to the other room only to forget what it is that you wanted but the moment that you go back to the first room, you remember again. When we have trouble remembering something, it is probably worth making the effort to recall the environment in which you first recalled. this shows how research can remind us of strategies we use in real life to improve our recall

Answer 76

there are issues with determining a cause and effect relationship with retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting. Nairne (2002) criticised research in this area suggesting there there is merely a correlation between cues present at the time of encoding and cues present at the time of later retrieval. He goes further and suggests that the cues present do not in themselves cause the retrieval failure (or success), but are simply associated with it. this would mean that the cue-dependent (context and state) explanations oof forgetting due to retrieval failure, and in fact circular in nature rather than linear and psychologists are unable to conclude whether a lack of cues actually causes retrieval failure.

Answer 77

the evidence given by someone in court or in police investigations by a witness

Answer 78

the eyewitness may have a poor recall of events so they do not see everything and simply state what they expected to see. also there are a number of examples of people who have been convicted based on EWT but freed using DNA evidence

Answer 79

are a package of beliefs and ideas that come from experience.

Answer 80

sometimes when we witness an incident, we don't see the whole event. to make sense of the whole event we add information. this information comes from our past experiences and memories . these memories are known as schemas. Because of this the memory we reconstruct can be inaccurate

Answer 81

misleading information and anxiety

Answer 82

leading questions post-event discussion

Answer 83

the effect of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Answer 84

a sample of 45 american university students, who were divided into 5 groups of 9. In an independent measures design participants watched a video of a car crash and then participants were asked the same question but with a manipulated critical verb. for example ''how fast were the cars going when they smashed/ collided/ bumped/ hit/ contacted with each other''

Answer 85

they found that the estimated speed was affected by the verb used. For example, participants who were given the verb 'smashed' reported an average speed of 40.5mph whereas participants who were given the verb 'contacted' reported an average speed of 31.8 mph.

Answer 86

this shows that accuracy of eyewitness testimony if affected by leading questions, a single word can significantly affect the accuracy of our judgements

Answer 87

gained a sample of 150 American students, who were divided into 3 groups. All students watched a 1 minute video of a car accident and then were given a questionnaire to complete. One group were asked ''how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other'' Another group was asked ''how fast were the cars going when they hit each other. The control group wasn't asked about the speed of the cars. One week later the participants returned and were asked series of questions about the accident. the critical question ''did you see any broken glass''. there was no broken glass in the video clip

Answer 88

32% of participants who were previously questioned using verb 'smashed' reported seeing broken glass. 14% of participants previously questioned with verb 'hit' reported broken glass. 12% of control group reported seeing glass

Answer 89

-The participants who were questioned previously using the verb smashed were more likely to report seeing broken glass, as a result of the earlier leading question. -the verb smashed has connotations of faster speeds and broken glass and this question led participants to report seeing something that was not actually present. -Their memory for the original event was distorted by the question used one week earlier, demonstrating the power of leading questions

Answer 90

there are two explanations: response bias and substitution explanation

Answer 91

the real wording has no effect on the participants memory but influences the way they choose an answer the verb smashed encourages them to pick a higher speed estimate

Answer 92

Loftus and Palmer found that the word of the question actually changed the memory of the film clip and those who originally heard the verb smashed would more likely recall glass being broken even when there was none than those who heard the word hit. The critical verb altered the memory of the incident

Answer 93

Loftus and Palmer's study lacks population validity. their two sample consists of university students and it can be argued that the students in the experiment may have been unexperienced drivers, so less accurate at estimating speeds. so consequently we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, for example Older and more experienced drivers, who may be more accurate in their judgement of speeds and therefore not as susceptible to leading questions. Loftus and Palmer's study also lacks ecological validity. this is because In real life car accidents, witnesses rarely see the whole event, they are either involved directly or see a small part within their peripheral vision. therefore their results do not reflect everyday car accidents so we are unable to conclude accuracy of eyewitnesses who may have had a more of an emotional impact to the event so may not be susceptible to leading questions in the same way

Answer 94

a strength of Loftus and Palmer's research is that it took place within a University Laboratory and therefore was highly controlled. this high degree of control reduces extraneous variables, increasing the validity of the results. Furthermore, it is easy for psychologists to replicate their research, to see if the same results are achieved with a different population. one strength of misleading information it that it has important practical uses in the criminal justice system. 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 on how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses. psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert eyewitnesses in court trials and explain the limits of EWT to juries. this shows that psychologists can improve the way the legal system works, especially by protecting innocent people from faulty convictions based on unreliable EWT.

Answer 95

where the memory of an event may be altered or contaminated through discussing events with others

Answer 96

the effect of post-event discussion on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Answer 97

a sample of 60 uni students and 60 older adults from community watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet. They were either tested in pairs (co-witness group) or individually (control group). The participants in the co-witness group were told they has seen the same clip but they had actually seen two different perspectives of the same crime and only one person actually witnessed seeing her take the money. Participants in the co-witness group discussed the crime together and completed a questionnaire to test their knowledge of the event

Answer 98

71% of witnesses in the co-witness group recalled information they had actually not seen and 60% said that the girl was guilty though they did not see her commit the crime conclusion? - the powerful effect having post-event discussions can have on the memories and judgments of an eye witness

Answer 99

they concluded that witnesses often go along with each other to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. they called this phenomenon memory conformity

Answer 100

- Memory contamination - Memory conformity

Answer 101

one explanation is memory contamination - when co-witnesses to a crime discuss with each other their eyewitness testimonies may become altered or distorted. This is because they combine misinformation from the other witness with their own memories. Another explanation is memory conformity - Gabbert et al concluded that witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe that the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. Unlike with memory contamination, the actual memory is uncharged.

Answer 102

Research into misleading information on the accuracy of EWT has important applications to real life. Because leading questions can affect witnesses memory, this shows that the police must be very careful in how they phrase questions when interviewing witnesses. Such research has prompted further research, which where it has been found that the effects of post-event discussion can be reduced if participants are warned of their impact. Bodner et al (2009) found that recall was more accurate for those participants who had been warned, that anything that they have heard from a co-witness is second-hand information and they should forget it and recall only their own memory of the event. Research of this nature therefore shows the dangers of post-event discussion and has had a real impact on the legal system such as police officers discouraging PED and thus improving the accuracy of EWT

Answer 103

the results of Gabbert et al have questionable ecological validity. the participants in the co-witness condition witnessed different perspectives of the same crime, as would typically be the case in real-life crimes. However. as in Loftus and Palmer's research, these witnesses knew they were taking part in the experiment and were more likely to have paid close attention to the details of the video clip, therefore these results do not reflect everyday examples of crime, where witnesses may be exposed to less information Another weakness of EWT studies in labs is that participants may exhibit demand characteristics, so may act in a way they assume the researcher wants them to react. this is a problem for eye-witness testimony research in labs because it reduces the accuracy and validity of the results so we are unable to judge whether post-event discussion has an effect on the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies. so we need to minimise demand characteristics by making the experiment more reliable Although Gabbert's results provide an insight into the effect of post-event discussion on the accuracy of eye-witness testimonies, we are unable to conclude why the distortion occurs. the distortion could be the result of poor memory, where people assimilate new information into their accounts of the event and are unable to distinguish between what they have seen and what they have heard. On the other hand, it could be that the distortion occurs due to conformity and the social pressure from the co-witness. therefore further research is required to answer this question Foster et al (1994) point out that what you witness in real life has very important consequences compared to what you may witness in a research study. A witness watching a video doesn't have any real connection to the crime they are witnessing and therefore no real life consequences. However if it was to be a real person, in a real life situation, the fear of ruining someone's life or impacting it in some way by giving an eyewitness testimony. therefore the person must be more careful in what they are saying and be aware of what they are saying.

Answer 104

anxiety creates physical arousal in the body which prevents us from paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse. one approach to study anxiety and eyewitness testimony has been to look at the effect of weapons (which cause anxiety) on the accuracy of the recall by the witness.

Answer 105

whether anxiety affects the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Answer 106

Participants told to wait in receptionist area alone, while the receptionist went to go run an errand. In an independent groups design. One participant was exposed to either of the 2 different conditions. C1 – no weapon so overheard a conversation about equipment failure and the individual left the room with a pen and covered in grease. C2- The weapon condition the participant overheard an argument and the sound of broken glass and crashing chairs and followed by an individual fleeing past the receptionist area with a bloodied letter-opening knife. Both participants were told to identify the man in 50 photographs and informed them that they may or may not be present in the photographs.

Answer 107

those who had witnessed first condition correctly identified the man 49% of times whereas in second condition correctly identified the an in 33% of times

Answer 108

those who were exposed to the knife had experienced anxiety and more likely to focus their attention on the weapon and not the face of the target - weapon focus effect. therefore, the anxiety with seeing a knife reduces the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Answer 109

weapon focus effect

Answer 110

participants were allocated to one of the two conditions: 1). watched a violent short film of a bank robbery where a young boy wearing a football shirt was shot in the back of the head as the bank robbers were escaping. 2) watched the same short film however did not see the boy being shot in the back of the head and instead shows the boy outside of the bank before the film cuts back to the manager comforting customers outside of the bank. immediately afterwards, participants were asked a series of questions about the film. The critical question was ''what number was on the boy's football shirt''

Answer 111

Only 4% of participants correctly recalled the number in the violent condition, whereas 28% recalled in the non-violent condition. This demonstrates support for the effects of anxiety on EWT as it shows that when people witness violent, anxiety provoking situations they are less likely to recall accurately.

Answer 112

one strength of evidence supporting the view that anxiety has a negative effect on the accuracy of EWT. they study by Valentine and Mesout (2009) supports the research on weapon focus, finding the negative effects on recall. the researchers used an objective measure (heart rate) to divide participants into high- and low-anxiety groups. in this study anxiety clearly distrupted the participants ability to recall details about the actor in the London Dungeon's Labrinth. This suggests that a high level of Anxiety does have a negative effect on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event

Answer 113

One limitation of the study conducted by Jhonson and Scott, is that it may not have tested anxiety. One reason why participants focused on the weapon may be because they were surprised at what they saw rather than scared. Pickel (1998) conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet and a raw chicken as one of the hand-held items to test this hypothesis in a hairdressing salon video (where scissors was high anxiety, low unusualness). Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer i high unusualness conditions (chicken and handgun). This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat, Therefore tells us nothing specifically about the effect of anxiety on EWT. another criticism is that numerous ethical guidelines were broken. the participants were deceived about the true nature of the experiment and not protected from harm. Loftus /Jhonson & Scot exposed some of the participants to a man holding a bloodied knife, which could have caused extreme feelings of anxiety. This is an issue, as these participants may have left the experiment feeling exceptionally stressed and anxious, especially if they, or someone knew, had been involved in a knife crime a real life case-study by Yullie & Cutshall contradicts the results of Loftus and the weapon focus effect. they showed that witnesses of a real life shooting incident had a remarkably accurate memories of a stressful event involving weapons. where a theif stole guns and money but, as he escaped, he was shot 6 times by the shopkeeper and died. Witnesses were interviewed 5 months later and their accounts compared to the original police interviews. there was found to be little change in their testimonies. it was found that those who reported higher stress levels were the most accurate (about 88% compared to 75% for less stressed group). Furthermore, the witnesses avoided responding in a biased way to leading questions and the anxiety had no subsequent memory for the event. Tese results refute the weapon focus effect and the results of Loftus (1979) and show that real-life cases of extreme anxiety, did not affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. although the participants were waiting in the reception area outside the laboratory, they may have anticipated that something was going to happen, which could have affected the accuracy of their judgements. Furthermore, the results from real-life case studies refute the findings of Loftus (J&S) and suggest that her results do not represent real-life cases of extreme anxiety

Answer 114

the physiological arousal caused by anxiety also triggers the fight or flight response which increases alertness and improves our memory of events because we become more aware of cues in the situation

Answer 115

Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

Answer 116

They investigated the effect of anxiety in a real life shooting

Answer 117

-They showed that witnesses of a real-life incident (a gun shooting outside a gun shop in Canada) had remarkably accurate memories of a stressful event involving weapons. -A thief stole guns and money but, as he escaped, he was shot six times by the shopkeeper and died. -Witnesses were interviewed five months later, and their accounts were compared with the original police interviews. -They were also asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time on a 7-point scale and if they’d had any emotional problems since.

Answer 118

-Their testimony was found to be very accurate and there was little change in the amount of accuracy over the 5-month gap. -Those participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate (about 88% compared to 75% for the less stressed group)

Answer 119

this inverted U theory states that performance will increase with stress, but only to a certain point, where it decreases drastically. 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 increases. However there comes a point where the optimal level of anxiety is reached. If an eyewitness experiences anymore stress than this, then their memory of events experiences a drastic deadline

Answer 120

another strength of evidence showing that anxiety can have a positive effect on the accuracy of recall. Christianson and Hubinette (1993) interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden. Some of the witnesses were directly involved (e.g bank workers) and some were indirectly involved (e.g bystanders). The researchers assumed that those directly involved would experience the most anxiety. it was found that recall was more than 75% accurate across all witnesses. the direct victims (most anxious) were even more accurate. these finding from actual crimes confirm that anxiety does not reduce the accuracy of recall for eyewitnesses and may even enhance it.

Answer 121

— Real-life studies, particularly with the use of field studies, are particularly susceptible to the biasing effects of extraneous variables which have not been controlled. For example, Yuille and Cutshall (1986) could not have controlled the influence of post-event discussions, which has been suggested to reduce the accuracy of EWT, as demonstrated by Gabbert et al. This, alongside media influences in the form of TV report, and the effects of individual schemas, means that field studies of EWT may be flawed in that they lack reliability. 2. Can mention previous studies which support the negative effects of Anxiety.

Answer 122

1985 in response to criticisms of the traditional police interviews. For example Fisher et al (1987) studied police interviews in Florida and found that witnesses were often presented with a series of short, closed questions, which attempted to elicit facts. (and found police officers would ask questions not in synchronised sequence with events.)

Answer 123

a network of assocoiations (schemas) rather than discrete and unconnected events

Answer 124

recall is reconstructive based on schemas that guide the eyewitness to recreating the event based on what they would expect to happen rather than what actually happened

Answer 125

it often prompts regular jumps between memory modalities (such as describing physical appearances and recalling dialogue) and event recall in a non-chronological order.

Answer 126

argued that EWT could be improved if the police used better interviewing techniques. They recommended that such techniques should be based on psychological insights into how memory works.

Answer 127

should be based on psychological insights into how memory works. The cognitive interview provides authorities with an interview technique that is less likely to activate schemas than a standard interview.

Answer 128

reinstate the context report everything change perspective recall in reverse order

Answer 129

-witness should return to the original crime scene in their mind and imagine what the environment was like and their emotions. -e.g ''close your eyes and place your self at the crime scene, describe what you see using all your senses'' -These mentally recalled details can act as a trigger, to help the person recall more information.

Answer 130

include every single details, even the little details the witness may think are irrelevant or unsure about them. Seemingly trivial details may be important and trigger other important memories. e.g ''please tell me as much as you can about what you could see on the day, please do not leave anything out even if you think they may be insignificant small details''

Answer 131

witness should recall from another person's perspective, so as if they were the criminal. This is used in order to disrupt effects of expectations of how the event has occurred and the effect of schemas. It also prevents dishonesty. (harder to lie when you reverse the order) e.g ''try and put yourself in the criminals shoes, what would he see?''

Answer 132

witness should explain everything from the end to the beginning. this prevents expectations of what must have happened and dishonesty '' retell the story from the ending to the beginning, include all details''

Answer 133

To examine the effectiveness of the cognitive interview

Answer 134

Participants viewed a film of a violent crime and, after 48 hours, were interviewed by a policeman using one of three methods: the cognitive interview; a standard interview used by the Los Angeles Police; or an interview using hypnosis. The number of facts accurately recalled, and the number of errors made, were recorded.

Answer 135

The average number of correctly recalled facts for the cognitive interview was 41.2, for hypnosis it was 38.0 and for the standard interview it was 29.4. There was no significant difference in the number of errors in each condition. Therefore, the cognitive interview leads to better memory for events, with witnesses able to recall more relevant information compared with a traditional interview method.

Answer 136

Fisher et al (1987)

Answer 137

to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction

Answer 138

 When to establish eye contact  Reducing eyewitness anxiety  Minimising distractions  Getting the witness to speak slowly  Asking open ended questions to help clarify their statements

Answer 139

establish a relationship, making the witness feel safe, confident to speak up, easy pressure so more likely to recall the incident

Answer 140

In comparison to the standard interview, the cognitive interview requires the interviewer to develop a rapport with the witness and make sure that the eyewitnesses are relaxed before being interviewed. The cognitive interview also requires special training and many police forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours of training. This means that it is unlikely that the proper version of the cognitive interview is actually used. therefore the complete CI is not realistic method for police officers to use. Milne and Bull (2002) found that each of the four techniques used alone produced more information than the standard police interview. In addition, they also found that using a combination of report everything and reinstate the context produced better recall than any of the other elements or combination of them. this shows that the cognitive interview is not perfect and needs to be reinvestigated and improved in order to acheive the most accurate results. aslo not as effective as we think. we can see that there are some parts of the CI which are better than other parts.

Answer 141

A meta-analysis by Kohnken et al., (1999) combined the data from 55 studies comparing the CI with the standard interview. The CI gave an average 41% increase in accurate information compared with the standard interview. Only four studies in the analysis showed no difference between the types of interview. this shows support for the cognitive interview as it increases the amount of recall of events. COUNTERPOINT: However, Kohnken et al. also found an increase in the amount of inaccurate information recalled by the participants. This was a particular issue in the enhanced cognitive interview, which produced more inaccurate details than the CI. Cognitive interviews may sacrifice the quality of EWT (accuracy) in favour of the quantity (amount of details). this shows that a certain way is needed to go about CI in order for them to be successful and may not work in certain types of cases. the results of gieselman have been supported by other research, including Fisher et al (1989). these research examined the effectiveness of the cognitive interview in real police interviews. 16 experienced detectives recorded a selection of their interviews, using a standard interviewing technique. the detectives were then divided into two groups. one group trained to used CI and the other SI. the training was recorded and analysed. the trained detectives elicited 46% more information after their cognitive interview training in comparison to the control group. where it was possible to confirm the information, over 90% of it was found to be accurate. these results support the findings of gieselman, using real police interviews, and provide support for the effectiveness of the CI

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