Memory Flashcards

Question

Draw the working memory model ? | (Working Memory Model)

Answer 1

Explanation of how the STM is organised and functions Concerned with the part of the mind that is active when temporarily storing or manipulating information

Answer 2

monitors incoming data, it is involved in decision making and allocates ‘slave systems’ to tasks Has a very limited capacity Doesnt code information

Answer 3

One of the slave systems Deals with auditory information Preserves the order in which information arrives Divides into: Phonological store - stores words you hear Articulatory control system - allows for maintenance rehearsal Acesses LTM to store and retrieve information about language stores

Answer 4

Stores visual/spatial information Logie subdivided into: Visual cache - stores visual data Inner scribe - records the arangements of objects in the visual field Accesses the LTM to store and retrive visual-spatial information

Answer 5

Temporary store for information Integrates visual, spatial and verbal information maintains a sense of time sequencing Sends information to the LTM

Answer 6

Point - Case study of KF who suffered brain damage, had poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information. Suggests phonological loop had been damaged but other parts of WMM intact I&D - Use of case study means idiograophic approach was taken, this means meaningful generalisations cannot be made

Answer 7

Point - Baddeley et al's dual performance study showed P's had more difficulty doing two visual tasks than doing a visual and verbal task. Suggests that when doing two visual tasks they were competing for the same slave system Counter - Study used artificial stimulus material, these dont reflect real-life memory activities and therefore lacks mundane realism

Answer 8

Point - Baddley said the CE was the most important but least understood component of the working memory Further - there must be more for the central executive than just being for attention. The central executives job needs to be more clearly specified. Some claim it may have more componants

Answer 9

When two pieces of information conflict with eachother, resulting in regretting one or both, pieces of information

Answer 10

When an older memory interferes with a newer memory

Answer 11

When a newer memory interferes with an older memory

Answer 12

Aim - Is proactive and retroactive interference worse when memories are similar or different Procedure - Ps learnt list of 10 words until they could remember 100% accurately Then given a new list of words to learn: Group 1 – new list was synonyms of 1st list Group 2 – new list was antonyms of 1st list Group 3 – new list was unrelated to 1st list Group 4 – new list was nonsense syllables Group 5 – new list was 3 digit numbers Group 6 – no new list, Ps rested

Answer 13

Findings - Performance of remembering first list depended on the second list - most similar words had worst recall Conclusion - interference is worse when memories are similar

Answer 14

Point - There have been thousands of lab experiments on interference which show both types of interference are very likely to be common ways we forget information from LTM. Lab experiments control for extraneous variables which improves the validity Counter - Uses artificial stimulus in these lab experiments. Which is different from what we try to remeber in everday life therefore studies lack mundane realism

Answer 15

Point - Baddeley and Hitch ask rugby players to remeber names of the teams they played in the season. Results showed accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches took place but the number of games they played in the meantime (amount of interference) Further - Burke and Skrull presented magazine articles to Ps who had to recall details of what they had seen. Found forgetting was worse when adverts were similar

Answer 16

Point - There needs to be quite specific circumstances for interference to lead to forgetting because the two memories need to be quite similar Further - there are individual differences in the effect of interference on forgetting. Kane and Eagle found individuals with working memory span are less susceptible to proactive interfernce

Answer 17

Not being able to access memories that are their due to insufficient cues

Answer 18

Tulving et al - encoding specificity principle claims if a cue is going to help us recall information , it has to be present at: Encoding - when we learnt it Retrieval - when we recall it

Answer 19

Meaningful cues - having a specific link to material Context cues - environmental, based on where we was when we learnt the information State cues - emotional, how we felt when the information was learnt

Answer 20

Context dependant forgetting - if the external cues at learning and recall are different this may lead to retrieval failure State depedant forgetting - forgetting becayse the state cues are different at encoding and retrieval

Answer 21

Point - Godden and Baddeley's deep sea diver study. Ps either learnt a list of words on water or land then recalled in same or different setting. Found that when environmental contexts of learning did not match, recall was 40% lower Further - Abernathy using a combination of usual/different teacher and usual/different room. Found those tested by usual teacher in usual room performed better due to context dependant cues

Answer 22

Point - Carter and Cassaday tested Ps recall of words and passages when some learnt words on antihistamines and some when not then recall either on or not. Found when there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on memory test was worse Further - Goodwin et al got Ps to learn and recall words either drunk or sober. Found when there was a match between states Ps performed better

Answer 23

Point - Smith and Vela claim when learning more meaningful material, context effects are largely eliminated as complex information is less easily triggered by a single cue Counter - Has real life application. Research about context dependant cues has helped develop cognitive intertview used in eyewitness testimony where witnesses return to the crime scene in their mind and imagine the environment

Answer 24

Aim - to investigate the effects of leading questions on eye witness testimony Procedure - Students were given a clip of the car crash and asked questions about it The critical question was ''how fast were the cars going when they hit eachother '' The word hit was changed for different groups - collided, bumped, contacted, crashed

Answer 25

Findings: Mean estimated speed for group with word contact was 31.8mph Mean estimated speed for group with word smashed was 40.5mph Conclusion - Lading questions caused a bias in eyewitness recall of the event

Answer 26

Wording of the question doesnt actually alter their memory, but just influences how they awnser

Answer 27

Loftus and Palmer found wording of leading questions actually changed the memories of participants

Answer 28

Aim - To investigate nthe impact of post event discusion of eye witness testimony Procedure - Ps in pairs Ps watched of the same crime but from different angles Each P could see something the other couldn't Both Ps discussed what they had seen before individually recalling

Answer 29

Findings - 71% of Ps mistakenly recorded aspects they had not seen in the video In control group with no discussion there was 0% mistakenly recalled aspects Conclusions - Witnesses go along with eachother either for social approval or because they believe them to be correct

Answer 30

Source monitoring theory - memories of the event are generally distorted. They can recall information from the event but not where it came from Conformity theory - Eyewitness memories are not actually distorted. Eyewitness recall changes because they go along with co-witnesses. Either to win social approval or because they believe the other is correct

Answer 31

Point - Consequences of innacurate eye witness testimony can be very serious leading to false conviction and imprisonment of innocent people. Loftus said that police need to be careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing witnesses Further - Wells and Olsen found recent DNA exoneration cases confirm the warnings about eye witness testimony. Mistaken identification was the largest single factor contributing to the conviction of innocent people

Answer 32

Point - Lostus and Palmer's study was based on film clips. This is very different from witnessing a real car accident because of the lack of stress Further - Foster et al found that if Ps thought they was watching a real life robbery and their responses would influence a trial, their identification of the robber was more accurate

Answer 33

Point - Loftus and Palmers experiment used 150 American students, therefore it can be assumed they were less experienced drivers who would be less accurate in estimating speeds and findings cannot be generalised to older more experienced drivers Further - Demand characteristics are caused because participants do not want to let the researcher down.This means they are more likely to awnser yes to yes/no questions when they dont know the awnser which many of these experiments contained

Answer 34

Theory - Anxiety causes physiological arousal in the body, which can prevent us from paying attention to important cues Aim - Investigate the effects of weapons on recall Procedure - Ps believed they were taking part in a lab study and when seated Ps heard an argument in the next room Low anxiety condition - man walked through a waiting area with pen covered in grease High anxiety condition - Heard sound of breaking glass. Man walked out the room with knife covered in blood Ps asked to identify man from a set of photos

Answer 35

Findings - 49% of Ps in low anxiety condition identified him correctly, 33% of Ps in high anxiety condition identified him correctly Conclusion - Weapon focus and tunnel theory, whereby witnesses attention narrows and focuses on a weapon because its the source of anxiety

Answer 36

Theory - Fight or flight response is triggered through stress, this increases alertness and improves memory as we are more aware of our cues Aims - to inestigate the affect of anxiety on recall and real life robbery Procedure - 13 witnesses to a reallife armed robbery Witnesses interviewed 4-5 months later, interviews compared with original police testimony Witnesses also asked to rate how stressed they were at the time of the incident

Answer 37

Findings - witnesses were very accurate in their accounts with little change since their first interview. Ps who reported highest levels of stress were the most accurate Conclusion - Anxiety has a posititve effect on recall

Answer 38

relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U

Answer 39

Point - Pickel claims Johnson and Scott’s experiment may test surprise rather than anxiety. Experiment showing video of a hairdressing salon, thief enters with different items: Scissors, hand-gun, wallet and raw chicken. Recall was worse with high surprise items rather than high threat Counter - External validity - Ps watching videos - may not have taken the experiment seriously as may not have been as emotionally aroused as real life

Answer 40

Point - Real-life witnesses usually interviewed sometime after the event in the mean time post-event discussion, reading or seeing other accounts in the media may occur. These extraneous variables may be responsible for the accuracy of the recall I&D and Counter - There are less ethical issues in natural experiments, creating anxiety on purpose could potentially be unethical as it may subject people to psychological harm. Natural experiments that take advantage of real life events are beneficial

Answer 41

Point - Christiansen and Hubinette questioned 58 real witnesses to bank robberies in Sweden, witnesses either victims or bystanders. Witnesses showed generally good memories and those most anxious had the best recall Further - Halford and Milne found victims of violent crimes were more accurate in their recall of crime scene information than victims of non-violent crimes

Answer 42

Discussions during interviews may contaminate witness memories Practices encourage witholdal of information Techniques disrupt the natural process os searching through memory

Answer 43

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

Answer 44

Witnesses encourage to report everything they see, even if information may seem irrelevant This is used to trigger other memories

Answer 45

Witnesses return to the crime scene in ''their mind'' and imagine the environment reimagining the environment and emotions may trigger memories

Answer 46

Events must be recalled in a different order to the original sequence - End to beggining Prevents people reporting their expectations of how event occureds Prevents dishonesty

Answer 47

Witnesses encouraged to recall incident from other people's perspectives disrupts the expectations based on pre-exisitng schemas

Answer 48

Created by Fisher et al Added focus to the social dynamics of the sitution such as: When to make eye contact Techniques to reduce witness anxiety Minimising distractions Getting witnesses to talk slowly Asking open ended questions

Answer 49

Point - Kohnken et al's meta analysis found a 34% increase in the amount of correct information given when using the cognitive interview Counter - While it enhanced the quantity of information this could be at the cost of quality. Kohnken et al found an increase in the amount of incorrect information

Answer 50

Point - Kebbell and Wagstaff found police officers report that the technique requires more time than usually available and police officers prefer to use deliberate strategies to limit witness reports Further - Kebbell and Wagstaff claim the cognitive interview requires specialist training and many forces have only been able to provide a few hours

Answer 51

Point - Mello and Fisher found the cognitive interview is most useful when interviewing the elderly. Negative stereotypes of older peoples memories makes them cautious about what they report, but the cognitive interview may overcome this I&D - The explanation of the benefits of the cognitive approach generally takes a nomothetic approach in attempting to make general laws of human behaviour