Memory (paper 1)

Question 1

What are the type of memory and their coding/capacity/duration?

Answer 1

Short term memory:
-acoustic
-7 +/- 2
-18 - 30 seconds

Long term memory
-semantic
-unlimited
-unlimited

Question 2

What was Baddeley’s aim?

Answer 2

To research wether coding in STM and LTM was mainly acoustic (sound) or semantic (meaning)

Question 3

What was Baddeley’s procedure?

Answer 3

-4 sets of word lists; acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar, and semantically dissimilar
-participants had to recall the order of the word lists
-this was done immediately to assess STM and after 20 mins to assess LTM

Question 4

What was Braddeley’s findings and conclusions?

Answer 4

-for immediate recall, the list of acoustically similar words were not remembered well.
-suggesting STM is acoustically coded

-for delayed recall, semantically sounding words were not remembered well
-suggesting LTM is semantically coded

Question 5

What’s was Jacob’s aim and procedure?

Answer 5

-The capacity of STM

-developed a technique to measure digit span
-how many items a person can remember in sequence

Question 6

What was Jacob’s findings and conclusions?

Answer 6

-found a mean span for digit recall was 9.3 items and mean span for letter recall was 7.3
-memory can hold 7-9 items

Question 7

What was Miller’s aim and procedure?

Answer 7

-research capacity of STM

-observed that things came in 7’s
-used the digit span technique but ‘chunked’ items into groups

Question 8

What was Miller’s findings and conclusions?

Answer 8

-found people could recall 5 words
-used the term the ‘magical number 7’ to describe the capacity of the STM

Question 9

What was the aim and procedure of Peterson and Peterson?

Answer 9

-The duration of STM

-24 students in 8 trials
-given a trigram and 3 digit numbers
-asked to count backwards to prevent rehearsal
-on each trial they were stopped randomly

Question 10

What was Peterson and Peterson’s findings and conclusions?

Answer 10

-found the STM lasts about 18 seconds after that few people correctly recalled
-suggesting that STM may have a very short duration, unless it is rehearsed

Question 11

What is Bahrick’s aim and procedure?

Answer 11

-duration of LTM
-Tested recall of people participants had gone to school with using photo recognition (50 photos from a person’s yearbook) and free recall (participants recalled all the names of their graduating class).

Question 12

What was Bahrick’s findings and conclusions?

Answer 12

-90% accuracy for photo recognition for people who had graduated within 15 years and 60% accuracy for free recall
-After 48 years, photo recognition recall was about 70% and 30% for free recall.
-LTM lasts a very long time.

Question 13

What is the sensory register store and its coding/capacity/duration?

Answer 13

The memory store for each of our five senses.

Coding
-Iconic=visual
-Echoic=sound
-Haptic=touch
-Gustatory=taste
-Olfactory=smell

Capacity
-high (huge)

Duration
-less than half a second

Question 14

What is the multi-store model of memory (MSM)?

Answer 14

-Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
-representation of how memory works and flows in terms of three stores (SR, STM, and LTM)

-SR is where information from senses is stored for a short duration before it’s forgotten
-if attended to sensory information moves into STM for temporary storage
-STM capacity can be increased through ‘chunking’
-rehearsing information via rehearsal loop helps retain information in the STM and consolidate it to the LTM

Question 15

Multi-store model evaluation, strengths and weaknesses

Answer 15

Strengths

Question 16

What are the types of long term memory stores?

Answer 16

-episodic:
-store for personal events, includes memories of when events occurred and of the people, objects, places and behaviours involved
-Memories from this store have to be retrieved consciously

-semantic:
-store for knowledge of the world
-includes facts and knowledge of what words and concepts mean.
-need to be recalled deliberately

-procedural
-store for how to do things
-includes memories of learned skills
-recall these memories without making a conscious or deliberate effort

Question 17

What is episodic memory?

Answer 17

-refers to any event that can be reported from a person’s life
-information such as any times and places involved.
-For example, whenyou went to the zoo with a friend last week.
-They are “time stamped”.
-It is a type of ‘declarative’ memory, i.e. it can be explicitly inspected and recalled consciously.
-The prefrontal cortex is involved in initial coding of episodic memories with consolidation and storage involving the neocortex and hippocampus

Question 18

What is semantic memory?

Answer 18

-type of ‘declarative’ (explicit, consciously recalled) memory.
-The conscious recall is of facts that have meaning
- For instance, recalling that you listen to music using your ears does not require knowing when or where you first learned this fact.
The hippocampus, frontal lobes and temporal lobes are thought to be involved

Question 19

What is procedural memory?

Answer 19

-describes our implicit knowledge of tasks that usually do not require conscious recall to perform them
-One example would be riding a bike - you might struggle to consciously recall how to manage the task, but we can unconsciously perform it with relative ease.
The neocortex including the primary motor cortex, cerebellum and prefrontal cortex are thought to be involved with procedural memory.

Question 20

What is the working memory model?

Answer 20

-representation of STM that suggests it’s a dynamic processor of different types of information using sub-units coordinated by a central decision-making system.

-consists of central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer
-Features of the model: coding and capacity.

Question 21

What is the central executive (WMM)?

Answer 21

-component of WMM
-coordinates the activities of the three subsystems in memory
-controls information from the two ’slave’ stores (PL and VS)
-allocates processing resources (attention) to activities and gives particular ones priority

-coding= processes in all sensory forms
-Capacity= one strand of information at a time

Question 22

What is the phonological loop (WMM)?

Answer 22

-temporarily retains language based information in auditory form
-includes written and spoken material.
-divided into the phonological store and the articulatory process.

-coding= processes in auditory form
-capacity= amount of info that can be spoken out loud in two seconds

-phonological store:
-holds auditory speech information and the order it was heard

-articulatory rehearsal process:
-process of language, allows maintenance rehearsal.
-includes any language presented visually then converted into a phonological state

Question 23

What is the visuo-spacial sketchpad?

Answer 23

-temporarily retains visual and spatial information
-consists of a visual cache which stores visual information about form and colour and a inner scribe which deals with spatial relationships and the arrangement of objects

-coding= processes visual and spatial information
-capacity= 3 or 4 objects

Question 24

What is the eposodic buffer?

Answer 24

-brings together material from the other subsystems into a single memory rather than separate strands
-maintains a sense of time sequencing
-facilitates communication between working memory and long-term memory

-coding= processes in all sensory forms
-capacity= 4 chunks of info

Question 25

What is the difference between the central executive and the episodic buffer?

Answer 25

-central executive is the “sorter”, Information arrives after the CE has paid attention
-It then controls where the information is going - PL or VSS.

-episodic buffer is to link between the central Executive and long term memory
-Before it was introduced there was no way information from the LTM could enter the WMM
-also holds information together and remembers the sequence of information.

Question 26

What is dual tasks?

Answer 26

-The WMM stemmed from research using a ‘dual-task technique’ (or ‘interference tasks’), whereby performance is measured as participants perform two tasks simultaneously.

-The following observations provided evidence to suggest different, limited-capacity STM stores process different types of memory:
• If one store is utilised for both tasks, task performance is poorer than when they are completed separately, due to the store’s limited capacity
-For example, repeating “the the the” aloud and reading some text silently would use the articulatory-phonological loop for both tasks, slowing performance
• If the tasks require different stores, performance would be unaffected when performing them simultaneously.
For example, repeating “the the the” aloud whilst performing a reasoning task (requiring attention, i.e. the central executive), or whilst following a mobile stimulus with your eyes (using the visuo-spatial sketchpad)

Question 27

Evaluate the working memory model?

Answer 27

Strength
-supportive studies, like patient KF who suffered brain damage
-brain scans showed activity in brain changed with task difficulty, makes it more valid

Limitations
-brain damaged patient studies may not be reliable, no control performance to compare to
-lack of clarity, CE need to be more specified, so the model is incomplete

Question 28

What is interference theory?

Answer 28

-Forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten

-explanation for forgetting LTM
-Once information reaches LTM its
more-or-less permanent, therefore forgetting is thought to occur because we cannot access the information, even though it is available.
-interference occurs when information that is similar in format gets in the way of the information that someone is trying to recall.

The types of interference is proactive and retroactive

Question 29

What is proactive interference?

Answer 29

-old information that is already stored disrupts the recall of newer information.
-An example would be calling your current boyfriend/girlfriend by the name of your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend.

Question 30

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 30

-newer memories disrupt the recall of older memories that are already stored
-An example is not being able to remember your old postcode because all you can think about is your new postcode.

Question 31

What was aim and procedure of McGeoch and McDonald’s research into retroactive interference?

Answer 31

-investigate retroactive interference

-participants learned a list if 10 words till they had 100% accurate recall
-they then had to learn another list of words.
-There were 6 different conditions, each with a different second word list to remember.
Group 1 = synonyms (words meaning the same as the original list)
Group 2 = antonyms (words meaning the opposite of the original list)
Group 3 = unrelated words
Group 4 = non-sense syllables
Group 5 = 3 digit numbers
Group 6 = no new list

Question 32

What was McGeoch and McDonald’s findings and conclusions?

Answer 32

-Recall of the original list was dependent on the nature of the second list
-The most similar material, group 1 synonyms, produced the worst recall.

-This shows that interference is strongest when the memories are similar

Question 33

Evaluate interference theory?

Answer 33

Strengths
-supportive studies, MG’s and MD’s study into retroactive, suggests a valid explanation

Limitation
-study is not reflective of real life tasks,which reduces its application
-artificial stimuli which reduces validity

Question 34

What is retrieval failure theory?

Answer 34

-form of forgetting.
-occurs when we do not have the necessary cues to access memory
-The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided.

-Such cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning.
When information is initially placed in memory, associated cues are stored at the same time. The suggestion is that internal (such as mood state) and external (such as temperature and smell) cues can help facilitate recall of a long-term memory. If these cues are not available at the time of recall, it may make it appear as though the information has been forgotten i.e. context and state dependent forgetting.
However, if the context and state of the individual are similar at recall, to the situation where the memory was originally processed. then the chances of recalling the memory will be increased.

Question 35

What was the aim and procedure of Loftus and Palmer’s (1974) first experiment into leading questions?

Answer 35

-Investigating the effect of leading questions on eyewitness accounts

-45 American students, divided into five groups of nine
-All participants watched video of car crash then they answered questionnaire (which had a critical question about the speed of the cars)
-Loftus and Palmer manipulated the verb used in the question, for example: “How fast were they cars going when they smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted with each other?”

Question 36

What was the findings and conclusion of Loftus and Palmer’s (1974) first experiment into leading questions?

Answer 36

-They found that the estimated speed was affected by the verb used

-The results show that the accuracy of eyewitness testimony is affected by leading questions and that a single word in a question can significantly affect the accuracy of our judgements.

Question 37

What was the aim and procedure of Loftus and Palmer’s (1974) second experiment into leading questions?

Answer 37

-Investigating the effects of leading questions on later memory

-150 students who were divided into three even groups
-All watched a one-minute video of a car accident and were then given a questionnaire to complete.
-One group was 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 was not asked about the speed of the vehicles
-One week later the participants returned and were asked a series of questions about the accident
-The critical question was: “Did you see any broken glass?”
-There was no broken glass!

Question 38

What was the findings and conclusion of Loftus and Palmer’s (1974) second experiment into leading questions?

Answer 38

-the verb smashed has connotation of faster speeds and broken glass and this question led the 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

Question 39

How does leading questions impact eye witness testimonies?

Answer 39

Response bias explanation
-The wording of the question has no real impact on the participants’ memories it just influences how they decide to answer
-leading questions like “smashed”, encourages participants to choose a higher speed estimate

substitution explanation
-The wording of a question can change the participant’s memory -demonstrated in Lotus’ second experiment, where the participants had their memory altered depending on which word they heard in the original question.

Question 40

What was the aim and procedure in Gabbert et al’s (2003) experiment into post event discussion?

Answer 40

-Investigated the effect of post-event discussion on the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies

-60 students from University of Aberdeen and 60 older adults from local community participated.
-They watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet
-They were either tested individually (control group) or in pairs (co-witness group on their recall.
-participants in the co-witness group were told that they had watched the same video but they had seen different perspectives of the same crime (only one person had actually witnessed the girl stealing)
-Participants in the co-witness group discussed the crime together
-All participants then completed a questionnaire, testing their memory of the event.

Question 41

What was the findings and conclusion in Gabbert et al’s (2003) experiment into post event discussion?

Answer 41

-71% of the witnesses in the co-witness group recalled information they had not actually seen.
-The control group did not recall any information that they had not seen

-These results highlights the issue of post-event discussion and the powerful effect this can have on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Question 42

Loftus and Palmer EWT evaluation

Answer 42

Strengths
-good control. lab experiment, control of extraneous variables so easy to establish cause and effect between IV/DV. So greater internal validity

Limitation
-lacked mundane realism Participants watching video probs knew they’d be asked questions after. In real life eye witnesses are not expecting it. Also emotional difference between witnessing real event and a video. Thus reduces validity of study
-lacked population validity. Participants were uni students, (may not be experienced drivers so impacts their susceptibility to leading q’s) results may not be generalisable to older people etc

Question 43

Gabbert et al EWT evaluation

Answer 43

Strength
-increased population validity, used two different populations (students/older people) results are applicable to more people
-great deal of control, lab experiment so greater control of extraneous variables. Shows the DV was only impacted by IV. Results have been greater internal validity

Limitation
-lacked mundane realism. Participants guessed they’d be asked questions in the video. Real life eye witnesses don’t have warning before event. Difference in emotion in real event vs video. reduces validity of study

Question 44

What is anxiety?

Answer 44

-state of emotional and physical arousal
-emotions are feelings of tension and worry
-physical changes include increased heart rate and sweatiness

-a normal reaction to stressful situations but can affect the accuracy and detail of EWT
-thought to have positive and negative effects on the accuracy of EWT

Question 45

What did loftus suggest was a negative impact of anxiety on recall?

Answer 45

-proposed the weapon focus effect which suggests that the anxiety caused as a result of witnessing a weapon focuses the attention away from potential perpetrators and reduces the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Question 46

What was the aim and procedure of Johnson and Scott’s (1976) into the negative impact anxiety?

Answer 46

-investigate weapon focus effect

-invited participants to a laboratory where they were told to wait in the reception area
-A receptionist excuses self to run an errand, leaving the participant alone.
-The experiment used an independent groups design, as participants were then exposed to one of two conditions:
• In the ’no-weapon’ condition, participants overheard an argument in the lab. Then an individual (the target) left the laboratory and walk past the participant holding a pen, with his hands covered in grease.
• In the ‘weapon’ condition, participants overheard the same argument and the sound of breaking glass, followed by an individual (the target) walking into the reception area, holding a bloodied letter opener
-Both groups were then shown 50 photographs and asked to identify the person who had left the lab
-participants informed that the suspect may or may not be present in the phototgraphs

Question 47

What was the findings and conclusions of Johnson and Scotts investigation?

Answer 47

-Those who had witnessed the man holding a pen correctly identified the target 49% of the time, compared to those who had witness the man holding a knife, who correctly identified the target 33% of the time

-Loftus claimed that the participants who were exposed to the knife had higher levels of anxiety and were more likely to focus their attention on the weapon and not the face of the target, a phenomenon known as the weapon focus effect.
-Therefore, the anxiety associated with seeing a knife reduces the accuracy of EWT

Question 48

What was the aim and procedure of Yuille and Cutshall’s investigation into the positive effects in anxiety on EWT?

Answer 48

-investigate the positive effects of anxiety in recall

-conducted a study into a real-life shooting where a shop owner shot a thief dead
-21 witnesses, 13 agreed to take part
-interviews happened 4-5 months after the incident and were compared to the original EWT interviews to the police at the time of the shooting.
-Accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account.
The witnesses also rated their stress levels at the time of incident on a 7-point scale and asked if they had any emotional problems since the event.

Question 49

What was the findings and conclusions of Yuille and Cutshall’s investigation into the positive effects in anxiety on EWT?

Answer 49

-witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount of accuracy after 5 months.
-participants who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate
-About 88% compare to 75% for the less-stressed group.

-suggests that anxiety can improve the accuracy of EWT

Question 50

How are the contradictory findings of anxiety’s effect on recall explained?

Answer 50

-Deffenbacher applied Yerkes and Dodson’s inverted U hypothesis to explain the contradictions
-inverted U hypothesis suggests that the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U
-Lower levels of anxiety produced lower levels of recall accuracy. -Memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety experienced increases
-there comes a point of the optimal level of anxiety is reached,(the point of maximum accuracy)
If an eyewitness experiences any more stress than this, then their recall suffers a drastic decline i.e. recall accuracy decreases.

Question 51

Evaluate anxiety and its effect on EWT

Answer 51

Strengths
-real world application, effect of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT could help to determine the credibility of a witness. Useful for those questioning witnesses

Limitations
-Field studies can lack control. Researchers interviewing real life witnesses have no control over discussions with other people about the event, accounts they may have read or seen in the media. These extraneous variables may effect the recall. Reduces the validity of the findings on positive effects if anxiety
-inverted-U explanation focuses on the physiological aspects of anxiety. Says physical changes to body/brain during stressful events affect EWT, but Anxiety is more complex than this with many components inc a cognitive element.anxiety may have different effect on EWT than the one predicted by the theory

Question 52

What was Tim Valentine and Jan Mesout’s (2009) study into the effects of anxiety on EWT?

Answer 52

-real-life setting of the Horror Labyrinth at the London Dungeon
-designed to be frightening with many ‘scares’ such as darkness, screams, gory models and sudden movements.
-Visitors were offered a reduced entrance fee if they agreed to complete questionnaires at the end of the visit to assess their level of self-reported anxiety.
-They wore wireless heart monitors to confirm that they were experiencing anxiety.

-On the basis of these two measures participants were divided into two groups: high anxiety and low anxiety
-participants’ task was to describe a person encountered in the Labyrinth (played by an actor).

-researchers found that the high anxiety participants recalled the fewest correct details of the actor and made more mistakes.
-found that 17% of the high anxiety group correctly identified the actor in a line-up compared to 75% correct identification by those in the low anxiety

Question 53

What were the ways that Geiselman and colleagues (1985) identified would negatively impact EWT in a standard police interview methodology?

Answer 53

-regular jumps between memory modalities (eg describing physical appearances and recalling dialogue)
-non-chronological event recall
-False memories due to leading questions

Question 54

What is the cognitive interviews and their focus?

Answer 54

-Geiselman et al, integrated effective memory recall techniques to achieve more detailed/accurate EWT

-At the start interviewer attempts to relax witness and be non judgmental/avoid personal comments
-focus on utilising retrieval cues

Question 55

What are the four techniques involved in a cognitive interview and the reason behind them?

Answer 55

Report everything
-witness encouraged to inc every detail even if it seems irrelevant/they aren’t confident about it
-details may highlight something overlooked that’s actually important and may trigger important memories

Reinstate the context
-return to original crime scene in their mind imagine the environment/emotions
-links context to state dependent forgetting
-may act as cues to recall

Reverse the order
-events recalled in different chronological order
-helps verify accuracy and prevents reporting of expectations of events rather than actual event (difficult to produce fake account in wrong order)

Change persepetive
-recall event from other viewpoints
-promotes holistic view of event which may enhance recall
-disrupts effect of expectations and schema on recall