Memory Flashcards
(98 cards)
1
Q
What is episodic memory?
A
Memory of personal events
2
Q
What is semantic memory?
A
Memory of facts.
Personal encyclopaedia.
3
Q
What is procedural memory?
A
Memory for skills or processes.
‘How to’
4
Q
What does declarative mean?
A
A memory can be consciously recalled and explained
5
Q
What does time stamped mean?
A
We can recall when the memory occurred
6
Q
Explain one strength of the types of LTM.
A
Clinical evidence.
Famous case of HM, episodic memory was impaired so could not recall events but he could tie shoe laces still and understand the meaning of words.
This evidence supports the idea that there is multiple types of LTM.
7
Q
Explain one weakness of the types of LTM.
A
Problems with clinical evidence/case studies.
Lack of control over EVs e.g. which area is damaged or personality variables.
Decreased validity as confounding variables effect DV outcome.
8
Q
Explain how neuroimaging evidence supports the types of LTM.
A
Evidence from brain scans.
Tulving found using a PET scan that semantic memories are recalled from the left prefrontal cortex, and episodic memories from the right.
Supports the idea of different types of LTM as there is physical evidence.
9
Q
What is the job of the central executive?
A
It is an attentional process that monitors incoming data and directs it to the appropriate subsystems.
10
Q
What does the Visio-spatial sketchpad do?
A
Processes visual and spatial information
11
Q
What is the job of the phonological loop?
A
Processes information in terms of sound.
12
Q
What is the episodic buffer?
A
Integrates information into a single memory forLTM storage.
13
Q
What is the job of the articulatory process?
A
Maintenance rehearsal of acoustic info.
14
Q
What does the phonological store do?
A
Stores the words you hear
15
Q
Explain one strength of the multi store model of memory.
A
Research evidence.
Baddeley found we mix up similar sounding words in our STM and words with similar meaning in our LTM, this shows that encoding in the STM is acoustic and in the STM is semantic.
This supports the idea that there are different memory stores.
16
Q
Explain one weakness of the multi store model.
A
More than 1 type of LTM.
Research support to show that there is semantic, episodic and procedural memory.
Model is too simple for such a complex process.
17
Q
Name 2 features of episodic memory.
A
Declarative.
Time stamped.
18
Q
Name 2 features of semantic memory.
A
Declarative.
Not time stamped.
19
Q
Name 2 features of procedural memory.
A
Non declarative.
Not time stamped.
Recalled unconsciously.
20
Q
Name the two factors that can affect EWT.
A
Misleading information.
Anxiety.
21
Q
Define a leading question.
A
A question which suggests an answer.
22
Q
Explain the method of Loftus and Palmers study into leading questions.
A
Participants watch a clip of a car accident and then were given questions about it.
5 groups.
The critical (leading) question asked how fast the car was going using verbs such as ‘hit’ ‘smashed’ to suggest a speed.
23
Q
Describe the results the Loftus and Palmer study.
A
Mean answers from each group were calculated.
E.g. ‘contacted — 31.8mph, ‘smashed’ - 40.5mph.
This shows the leading question biased the answer.
24
Q
Name the two explanations for the effects of leading questions on EWT.
A
Response bias explanation.
Substitution explanation.
25
What is the response bias explanation?
Wording has no effect on participants memory but rather how they decide their answer.
26
What is the substitution explanation?
The wording of a leading question actually changes the participants memory.
This was demonstrated as participants who had ‘smashed’ recalled seeing broken glass.
27
Define post event discussion.
When co-witnesses to a crime discuss with each other.
Their EWT may become contaminated.
28
Describe Gabberts study into the effects of post event discussion on EWT.
Participants were split into pairs.
Both videos of the same crime from different angles.
Each saw details the other couldn’t see.
Afterwards both discussed what they saw before individually recalling.
29
What were the results of Gabberts post event discussion study?
71% of participants mistakenly recalled details that they did not see in their video.
This is due to post event discussion.
30
Explain one strength of misleading info as a factor that affects EWT.
Real life application.
Hugely important practical uses as inaccurate EWT can have serious consequences - so police must be careful for how they word questions, and not solely rely on EWT.
Research can improve the legal system.
31
Explain how demand characteristics is a weakness of the studies into misleading information.
May suffer due to being a lab study.
Participants want to be helpful so if they don’t know an answer to a question, they will guess e.g. if you ask ‘did you see glass’ but they don’t know may just answer yes.
Decreases validity and may bias the findings.
32
Explain why artificial tasks are a weakness of studying misleading information.
Watching a clip doesn’t cause the same level of stress as witnessing a real crime.
Low external validity, lacks generalisability to real life settings.
33
Explain how anxiety can have a negative effect on recall.
It creates a physiological arousal in the body which prevent us paying attention to cues, so recall is worse.
34
Describe the method used to study if anxiety has a negative effect on recall.
Participants were told they were doing a lab study, sat in waiting room.
Each group heard people arguing next door.
Low anxiety condition - man walked through holding a pen + greasy hands.
High anxiety - glass smashes, man walks through holding paper knife and bloody hands.
35
Describe the findings of the study into the negative effects of anxiety.
Participants shown 50 photos and had to pick out the man.
Low anxiety - 49% correctly identified.
High - 33%.
Focus on weapon rather than person.
36
Explain how anxiety could have a positive effect on recall.
Stress creates physiological arousal.
Fight or flight response is triggered which increases our alertness and improves our memory as we are more aware of the cues.
37
Describe the study that shows anxiety has a positive effect on recall.
After a real life shooting in a shop 13 participants were interviewed after 4/5 months.
These interviews were compared to original police interviews.
Accuracy was determined by number of details recalled.
Asked how stressed they were at the time on a 7 point scale.
38
Describe the results that show anxiety has a positive effect on recall.
Witnesses were very accurate with their accounts.
Participants who reported high levels of stress were more accurate.
88% compared to 75% in less stress group.
39
Explain how being a field study is a weakness of the study that supports the idea that anxiety has a positive effect on recall.
Field studies lack control.
Things like post even discussion may have impacted the memory of people.
May be EVs that also affect the DV.
40
Explain how ethical issues are involved in the anxiety studies.
They create anxiety in the study.
Not protected from harm.
41
What is the Yerkes-Dodson law?
Recall will improve as levels of anxiety/stress increase but only to a certain point, from there it dramatically decreases.
42
What are the 4 stages of the cognitive interview?
Report everything.
Reinstate the context.
Reverse the order.
Change perspective.
43
Describe the report everything stage of the cognitive interview.
Include every single detail of the event even if irrelevant/not confident about it.
44
Describe the reinstate the context stage.
Imagine the environment of the scene and the emotions, this relates the context dependent forgetting.
45
Describe the ‘reverse the order’ stage of the cognitive interview.
Everything is recalled in a different chronological order e.g. end to start.
Prevents expectations affecting recall or dishonesty.
46
Describe the ‘change perspectives stage of a cognitive interview.
Recall the incident from the other peoples perspective e.g. other witnesses.
Distrusts the effects of expectations/schemas.
47
What is the enhanced cognitive interview?
Additional elements added to focus on the social dynamics of the interaction.
E.g. when to use eye contact.
Can also reduce anxiety, distractions, open ended questions.
48
Describe the research evidence used to support the use of the cognitive interview.
Half a group of police officers used normal interviews, half used the cognitive interview.
Both groups interviewed the same person, second using CI.
CI obtained 47% more facts.
49
Explain one weakness of the cognitive interview.
Time consuming.
Requires special training which many forces are unable to provide for more than a few hours.
So they are not using the proper version.
Explains why police may not be impressed by it.
50
Explain how the cognitive interview can create an increase in inaccurate information.
81% increase in correct info, but 61% increase in incorrect info.
False positives may make the technique appear more effective than it actually is.
51
Define proactive interference.
When you forget new information because of the old information.
52
Define retroactive interference.
When you forget old information because of the new information.
53
Describe the method of a study into the effects of similarity on interference.
McGeoch and McDonald.
Participants learned a list of 10 words until recall was 100% accurate.
Then learn a new list.
6 groups.
Some lists related to the first e.g. synonyms, others unrelated e.g. 3 digit numbers, and 1 group rested.
54
Describe the results of a study into the effects of similarity.
Recall of the original list depended on the second list.
More similar lists produced the worst recall.
Shows interference is strongest when memories are similar.
55
Explain one strength of interference as an explanation for forgetting in terms research evidence.
Most supporting evidence come from lab studies.
Control over EVs.
Can be confident the explanation has high validity.
56
What is the encoding specificity principle (ESP)?
Tulving - if a cue is to help us recall something it must be present at encoding and retrieval.
If cues at retrieval are different or entirely absent, there will be some forgetting.
57
Describe the sensory register.
Stimulus from the environment.
Consists of 5 stores as has one for each sense.
Duration - less than 0.5s, Capacity - high, Coding - dependent on sense.
58
Describe features of the short term memory store in MSM.
Duration - 18-30s unless rehearsed.
Capacity - 5-9 chunks.
Coding - acoustic.
59
How does information transfer from the sensory register to the STM?
Paying attention to it.
60
How does info move from the STM to the LTM?
Maintenance rehearsal.
61
What is maintenance rehearsal?
Repeating information.
Keeps info in STM for longer, then eventually transferred to LTM as continues.
62
What happens when memories are recalled?
Process of retrieval - memories transfer from LTM to STM.
63
Describe features of the LTM store.
Unlimited capacity.
Coded semantically - by meaning.
Can last up to a lifetime.
64
Elaborate - the MSM only explains one typed rehearsal.
Craik and Watkins - two types of rehearsal.
Maintenance and elaborative.
Maintenance only keeps info in STM store.
Elaborative is needed for long term storage - occurs when you link info to existing knowledge or consider meaning.
Too simple - another finding which cannot be explained by the model.
65
Describe reserach into coding of STM and LTM.
Baddeley - Participants tested on acoustically similar, or dissimilar words.
Also tested on semantically similar or dissimilar words.
Immediate recall worse with acoustically similar words - STM coded acoustically.
After 20minutes recall of semantically similar words worse - LTM coded semantically.
66
Explain one weakness of Baddeley’s research into coding.
Lacks ecological validity.
Uses artificial tasks - recalling word lists don’t reflect ow memory is used in real life.
Findings lack generalisability to real world memory processes.
67
Describe research into the capacity of STM.
Jacob - digit span.
Researcher reads out 4 digits and has participants recall.
Increases number of digits until participant cannot accurately recall the order.
Average - 9.3 numbers, 7.3 letters of correct recall.
68
Explain one limitation of Jacob’s research into STM capacity.
Conducted in 19th century.
Methods don’t match modern scientific standards e.g. control of EVs.
Results lack temporal validity - results may lack relevance to modern understandings of memory.
However, more recent studies such as Miller evidence similar results.
69
Describe research into the duration of STM.
Peterson and Peterson.
24 students given a trigram with no meaning, then asked to count backwards from a 3 digit number for a specified time interval.
Time intervals were 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds.
At 3 second interval - 80% correct.
After 18 - 3%.
Maximum duration for STM without rehearsal is 18-30 seconds.
70
Evaluate research into duration of STM.
Reliance of standardised procedures.
Specific tasks, timing, and instructions.
Allow for replicating which increases reliability.
Plus feature of science so increases scientific validity.
71
What are the 2 parts of the Visio-spatial sketchpad.
Visual cache.
Inner scribe.
72
What does the visual cache do?
Stores visual data.
73
What is the job of the inner scribe?
Processes spatial relationships.
74
What is the capacity and coding of the Visio-spatial sketchpad?
3-4 items.
Coding is visual or spatial.
75
What are the 2 parts of the phonological loop?
Phonological store.
Articulatory process.
76
Coding and capacity of the phonological loop.
Acoustic.
2 seconds of speech.
77
Coding and capacity of the central executive.
Coding is modality free.
Capacity is limited.
78
Coding and capacity of the episodic buffer.
Coding modality free.
Capacity about 4 chunks.
79
Describe one case study that supports the WMM.
KF.
Brain damage left with poor STM ability for verbal info but could process visual information normally.
Demonstrates there are separate visual and acoustic stores.
80
What does the WMM describe?
How short term memory is organised.
81
Describe one study that supports the vision-spatial sketchpad.
Baddeley.
Participants had more difficulty doing 2 visual tasks than a visual and verbal task at the same time.
This is because both tasks competing for limited capacity in VSS.
Provides evidence for existence.
82
Explain one weakness of WMM.
Lack of clarity over central executive.
Should be described as more than just attention - some psychologists believe it may consist of multiple components.
WMM not a fully complete and explained model.
83
Describe research into the duration of LTM.
Bahrick - yearbooks of students aged 17-74 and has them either free recall names or recognise 50 people from photos.
15 years after graduation - 90% accuracy in photo recognition.
After 48 years - declined to70%.
Shows LTM can last up to a lifetime.
84
Explain one strength of research into duration of LTM.
Studied real life meaningful memories.
When repeated with meaningless/artificial tasks - recall is lower.
High ecological validity.
85
Explain research evidence that supports the interference explanation.
Baddeley and Hitch - asked rugby players to recall names of teams played so far in the season.
Accurate recall didn’t depend on how long ago a match was, but rather the number of games played since.
Demonstrates interference (specifically retroactive) explanations in a real life settings - increases ecological validity.
86
Explain one weakness of interference explanations.
Limited time allowed between learning.
Reduces whole experience into a very small time frame which does not reflect learning information in real life.
Difficult to generalise findings beyond the lab setting.
87
Explain meaningful cues for retrieval.
Cues linked to the material to be remembered in a meaningful way.
E.g. STM may trigger recall of facts about it.
88
What are the 2 types of non meaningful cues?
Context dependent forgetting.
State dependent forgetting.
89
Define context dependent forgetting.
When retrieval is dependents on an external/environmental cue e.g. a certain place.
90
What is state dependent forgetting?
Where retrieval is dependent on an internal cue e.g. being drunk.
91
Who researched context dependent forgetting?
Godden and Baddeley.
92
Describe research and its findings into context dependent forgetting.
Godden and Baddeley.
4 variations where groups of deep sea divers learned and recalled word lists on land or underwater.
When environmental contexts of learning and recall matched, recall was 40% higher than when they didn’t match e.g. both learned and recalled underwater.
This is due to a lack of cues at recall - leading to retrieval failure.
93
Explain one strength of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting.
Everyday applications.
Common to remember something downstairs, go upstairs to find it, forget, and then remember what they needed when back downstairs.
If forgetting something, it may be worth revisiting place which it was originally experienced.
Concept is also applied to cognitive interview (reinstate the context) in order to improve recall.
94
Explain why contexts are not very strong in real life.
Baddeley argued that different contexts have to be very different in order to have an effect e.g. land vs water.
Whereas if you move from one room to the other, it is unlikely to result in much forgetting.
Therefore real life applications to retrieval failure don’t explain much as use insignificant contextual differences.
95
Explain one weakness of retrieval failure using research evidence.
Opposing research evidence.
Godden and Baddeley replicated study using a recognition test rather than recall.
Performance was the same in all 4 conditions - no context dependent forgetting.
Context effects only occur when memory is tested in certain ways - recall over recognition.
Retrieval failure is only a limited explanation for forgetting.
96
What are the 2 effects of post event discussion?
Memory contamination.
Memory conformity.
97
Define memory contamination.
When cowitnesses discuss a crime, they mix information from other witnesses with their own memories.
98
Define memory conformity.
Witnesses go along with what other witnesses say in order to gain social approval (normative social influence) and they believe that other witnesses must be right (informational social influence)
