Memory

Question 1

What does the sensory register do?

Answer 1

Temporarily stores information from our senses

Question 2

What happens to the information in the sensory register if we don’t pay attention to it?

Answer 2

Spontaneous decay

Question 3

Name 3 characteristics of the sensory register.

Answer 3

Limited capacity. very limited duration and coded depending on the sense it has picked up

Question 4

Name 3 characteristics of STM.

Answer 4

Limited capacity, limited duration and coded acoustically

Question 5

Name 3 characteristics of LTM.

Answer 5

Unlimited capacity, permanent and coded semantically

Question 6

Name the 3 types of LTM.

Answer 6

Episodic, semantic and procedural

Question 7

What is meant by episodic memory?

Answer 7

Stores info about events that you have actually experienced, they are declarative

Question 8

What is meant by semantic memory?

Answer 8

Stores facts and knowledge that we have learnt and can consciously recall

Question 9

What is meant by procedural memory?

Answer 9

Info about how to do things such as walking and they can’t be recalled

Question 10

What the capacity of STM?

Answer 10

7 plus or minus 2

Question 11

What did Miller suggest we use to remember information (1956)?

Answer 11

Chunking

Question 12

What is meant by coding?

Answer 12

The way information is stored in memory

Question 13

What is meant by duration?

Answer 13

How long the information can be stored for

Question 14

What is meant by capacity?

Answer 14

How much memory can be stored

Question 15

Who came up with the multi-store model?

Answer 15

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Question 16

What does the multi-stores memory model propose?

Answer 16

That memory consists of 3 stores and move through these to create a memory

Question 17

Name the 3 stores in the MSM?

Answer 17

Sensory register, STM and LTM

Question 18

What is the primary effect?

Answer 18

When the first few items of a list are recalled better than the rest

Question 19

What is the recency effect?

Answer 19

Last few items remembered better than those from the middle

Question 20

Name 2 limitations of the MSM.

Answer 20

In real life we don’t spend time rehearsing in real life and the model is oversimplified

Question 21

Who came up with the working memory model?

Answer 21

Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

Question 22

Name the 5 components to the WMM.

Answer 22

Central executive, phonological loop, episodic buffer, visuo-spatical sketchpad and LTM

Question 23

What does the central executive do?

Answer 23

A component that can be described as attention it has a limited capacity that controls ‘slave’ systems that also have a limited capacity

Question 24

What does the phonological loop do?

Answer 24

Holds speech-based info
Assesses LTM to store info about long sounds and allow us to develop vocabulary as children and foreign languages as adults

Question 25

What is the phonological loop made up of?

Answer 25

Phonological store: holds info you hear articulatory process: allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating words and sounds in a loop) 2 seconds worth of what u say

Question 26

What does the visuo-spatial sketchpad do?

Answer 26

Deals with temporary storage of visual and spatial information

Question 27

What does the episodic buffer do?

Answer 27

Briefly stores info from the other sub-systems and integrates it together, along with info from LTM Links LTM to wider cognitive processes

Question 28

When was the episodic buffer added?

Answer 28

2000

Question 29

What did baddeley and Hitch base their model on the results of?

Answer 29

Interference tasks

Question 30

Name 2 strengths of WMM.

Answer 30

Does not over emphasise the importance of rehearsal and supported by dual-task studies

Question 31

Name weaknesses of WMM.

Answer 31

There is little direct evidence for how the central executive works and the model is simplistic and vauge Explains how info is dealt with in STM but not transferred into LTM, lots of the research has been lab studies lacking EV

Question 32

What is forgetting?

Answer 32

When learnt information can't be retrieved

Question 33

In STM what can forgetting be down to?

Answer 33

Availability problem

Question 34

In LTM what can forgetting be down to?

Answer 34

Decay/accessibility problem

Question 35

What is proactive interference?

Answer 35

Is where older information interferes with an ability to recall new information

Question 36

What is retro active interference?

Answer 36

GIs where new information interferes with an ability to recall old information

Question 37

What can recall depend on?

Answer 37

Cues

Question 38

What is most forgetting seen to be caused by?

Answer 38

retrieval failure

Question 39

What are the problem about forgetting studies?

Answer 39

Evidence is artificial and might not explain all types of memory

Question 40

What is a problem with eye witness testimony?

Answer 40

Can be inaccurate and distorted

Question 41

What is an eyewitness testimony?

Answer 41

Evidence provided from someone who witnessed a particular event or crime

Question 42

Who investigated misleading information affecting EWT?

Answer 42

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Question 43

Who investigated leading questions affecting EWT?

Answer 43

Loftus and Zanni (1975)

Question 44

Who investigated the effect of anxiety in EWT?

Answer 44

Loftus (1979)

Question 45

Who came up with the cognitive interview?

Answer 45

Geiselman et al (1984)

Question 46

Name the 6 steps of the cognitive interview.

Answer 46

1) Interviewer makes the witness relaxed 2) Witness mentally recreated environmental context 3) Witness reports everything they can remember 4) Asked to recall details in different orders 5) Asked to recall details from different perspectives 6) Interviewer avoids judgmental and personal details

Question 47

What do psychologists believe about anxiety in EWT?

Answer 47

That small increases in anxiety and arousal may increase the accuracy of memory, but high levels might have a negative effect

Question 48

What did Logie do to the visual-spatial sketch pad

Answer 48

Sub divided it into Visual cache: visual data Inner scribe: records the arrangements of an object

Question 49

What’s the case of KF?

Answer 49

Patient KF who suffered brain damage STM ability for verbal but could process visual normally When presented visually he was not good at sounds but good at letters and digits Suggesting PL damages but other areas intact

Question 50

Give a study that provides evidence for dual task performance in WMM

Answer 50

provides evidence that VSS and PL are separate Baddeley (1975) RPS had more difficulty doing 2 visual tasks than a visual and a verbal task As both visual tasks happen in the same slave system Meaning must be separate system for visual input

Question 51

What’s the brain scanning evidence to support WMM (central executive)

Answer 51

Braver (1997) gave RPS tasks that involve the CE while having a brain scan Greater activity in the prefrontal cortex Activity in this area increases as task becomes more difficult In WMM demands on the CE increase it has to work harder to fulfil functions

Question 52

What is encoding specificity principle

Answer 52

Tulving (1983) ESP if a clue is to help it must be presented at encoding and retrieval Cues used in mnemonic techniques

Question 53

Evidence for context-depended forgetting

Answer 53

Golden and Baddeley (1975) sea drivers Drivers learned a list of words underwater/ land and had to recall then on land/underwater 40% lower recall in non-matching conditions = retrieval failure

Question 54

Evidence for state dependent forgetting

Answer 54

Carter and Cassidy (1998) Antihistamines given to RPS in a different psychological state they were given a list of words (drugs/none) then asked to recall then other on drugs or not Mismatching produced the worse results, when cues are absent there is more forgetting

Question 55

What are the 3 ways leading questions affect EWT

Answer 55

Response bias Substitution explanation Post-event discussion

Question 56

In terms of effects of leading questions what’s response bias

Answer 56

When wording of the questions has no effect on memories but influences how they decide to answer the question

Question 57

In terms of effects of leading questions what’s substitution explanation

Answer 57

Wording leading questions changes the RPS memory of a film clip E.g those who heard smashed said there was broken glass (loftus and Palmer 1974)

Question 58

In terms of effects of leading questions what’s post event discussion

Answer 58

When co-witnesses to a crime discuss their testimonies they can become contaminated as they combine misinformation from other witnesses with their own memories

Question 59

What is anxiety

Answer 59

A state of emotional and physiological arousal including having thoughts and feelings of tension Resulting in physical changes such as increased HR

Question 60

What did Yerkes and Dobson say about anxiety in EWT

Answer 60

Suggested the inverted U theory suggesting that a level of arousal was required

Question 61

What did shallice and Warrington study in 1974

Answer 61

Case of KF showing support for WMM KF was a brain damages patient who had impaired STM, struggled with immediate recall of words presented verbally but not with visual info Suggesting he had an impaired articulatory loop but intact VSS Showing they are in different store

Question 62

In terms of retroactive interference what did Underwood and Postman 1960 study

Answer 62

Carried out a lab study participants were split into two groups Both groups given a word list of paired words (cat-tree) Experimental group given a seconds list of words to learn, but the first word of each pair was the same (cat-dirt) control wasn’t given a second list Both groups were tested on their recall of the first list by being given the first word from each pair recall was better in the control

Question 63

In terms of proactive interference what did Underwood 1957 study

Answer 63

Looked at results i to forgetting over a 24 hour period He found if people had if people had previously learnt 15 words during the same experiment a day later their recall of the last word list was 20% If they hadn’t learnt any earlier list recall was 80%

Question 64

What are the pos and neg of interference theory for forgetting

Answer 64

+ supported by a lot of studies, many highly controlled lab experiments + as well as in a lab there’s lots of evidence in real life - artificial in lab so may not be as strong as we once thought -theory saw why we forgetting not any cog or bio processes involved

Question 65

How did tulving and psotka in 1971 study forgetting in LTM

Answer 65

Compared interference and cue-depended forgetting Each participant was given either 1,2,3,4,5,6 lists of 24 words each divided into 6 categories of 4 words. Words were presented in order (all animals then all trees ect) After the lists were presented in one condition participants were given all the categories and had to recall (free cued recall) or no cue total free recall In total free recall they found evidence of retroactive interference In cued recall retroactive interference had disappeared every person around 70% recall Suggests interference hasn’t caused forgetting just inaccessible lab experiments

Question 66

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the theory recall depends on cues

Answer 66

+cue depended forgetting seen to be the best explanation for forgetting in LTM as it has the strongest evidence most forgetting is seen to be down to retrieval failure meaning it there but need right cue to access it - evidence is artificial -very hard to test if the info in LTM is accessible and available and just needs right cue - theory might not explain all types of memory