Memory 😱 Flashcards
Paper 1
1
Q
what is memory?
A
- process of retaining information after the original material is no longer present
- refers to the mental processes used to encode, store and retrieve information
2
Q
what are the three types of long term memory?
A
- episodic
- semantic
- procedural
3
Q
what is episodic memory?
A
- autobiographical memory
- ie. first day of school
4
Q
what is semantic memory?
A
- knowledge/ facts
- ie. revision
5
Q
what is procedural memory?
A
- action/ skill or muscle based
- ie. riding a bike
6
Q
what are the three stages of memory?
A
- encoding
- storage
- retrieval
7
Q
what is encoding?
A
- creating a chemical trace in the brain
- transforms sensory input into a form that can be registered and stored in the brain
- 3 types
8
Q
what is storage?
A
- holding/ retaining information
9
Q
what is retrieval?
A
- recovering stored information
10
Q
what are the three types of encoding?
A
- visual
- acoustic
- semantic (meaning)
11
Q
what is the multi store model (MSM) of memory?
A
- linear model
- information is transferred to the sensory memory
- then it decays or is transferred (through attention) to the short term store
- this is then displaced/ decays or (through rehearsal) transferred to the long term store
- in the long term store, retrieval failure or interference can occur
- both the LTM and STM are unitary
12
Q
what are the properties of the sensory memory (MSM)?
A
- has many sensory registers (AKA passive stores)
- non unitary
13
Q
what are the sensory registers in the sensory memory (MSM)?
A
- iconic register
- echoic register
- haptic register
14
Q
what does the iconic register do (MSM)?
A
- deals with visual information
15
Q
what does the echoic register do (MSM)?
A
- deals with auditory information
16
Q
what does the haptic register do (MSM)?
A
- is concerned with touch
17
Q
what is the duration of the sensory memory (MSM)?
A
- limited
- 250 milliseconds
18
Q
what is the capacity of the sensory memory (MSM)?
A
- very large
- potentially unlimited
19
Q
what is the encoding used by the sensory memory (MSM)?
A
- limited
- modality specific
20
Q
why are the sensory registers also known as passive stores (MSM)?
A
- we cannot control our sensory registers consciously
21
Q
what mechanism is used by the sensory memory (MSM)?
A
- attention
- enables us to select the relevant information
22
Q
what is the capacity of the short term store (MSM)?
A
- limited
- 7+/ - 2 items
23
Q
what is the duration of the short term store (MSM)?
A
- 18-30 seconds
24
Q
what is the encoding used by the short term store (MSM)?
A
- acoustic
25
what is the capacity of the long term store (MSM)?
- unlimited
26
what is the duration of the long term store (MSM)?
- 30 seconds to always
27
what encoding is used by the long term store (MSM)?
- semantic
28
what is duration?
- how long you can hold the input for
29
what is capacity?
- how much input you can hold
30
who researched iconic memory?
- Sperling (1960)
31
what was the procedure of Sperling's study into iconic memory?
- presented participants with visual array of 3 rows of 4 letters each
- for 50 milliseconds
32
what was the finding of Sperling's study into iconic memory?
- participants could only recall four or five letters
33
what were the reasons behind Sperling's findings from his study into iconic memory?
- memory for many of the letters had decayed before they could be reported
34
who researched echoic memory?
- Darwen et al
35
what did Darwen et al suggest about echoic memory?
- duration may be slightly longer than iconic memory
36
what was the procedure of Darwen et al' study into echoic memory?
- carried out a similar experiment to Sperling
- participants listened to spoken recordings of letter and numbers
- wore headphones and were asked to recall one of the 3 lists
37
what were the findings of Darwin et al's study into echoic memory?
- a delay between presentation of the stimuli and the recall varied between 0 and 4 seconds
- duration of echoic memory is very limited
- information is only held in an unprocessed 'raw' form before it is transferred
38
who researched encoding within the short term memory store (MSM)?
- Baddeley (1966)
39
what did Baddeley find when investigating encoding in short term memory (MSM)?
- if participants were presented with words to recall from the short term memory, they didn't confuse words with similar meanings
- instead they confused words which sounded similar
- suggests short term memory uses acoustic encoding
40
what are the two types of long term memory that are explicit?
- episodic
- semantic
41
what is the one type of long term memory that is implicit?
- procedural
42
what does explicit mean?
- knowing 'that'
43
what does implicit mean?
- knowing 'how'
44
where is episodic memory associated?
- hippocampus
- other parts of the temporal and frontal lobes
45
where is semantic memory associated?
- temporal lobe
46
where is procedural memory associated?
- cerebellum
- involved in control of fine motor skills and the motor cortex
- basal ganglia
- limbic system
47
what case studies can be used to evaluate the MSM?
- HM (Scoville and Miller)
- KF (Warrington and Shallice)
48
what was the case study of HM about?
- underwent a brain surgery to prevent severe epileptic seizures
- removed hippocampus which caused amnesia
- HM was able to form STM but his ability to create LTM was impaired
- difficulty creating LT semantic and episodic memories
- could create procedural memories
49
what the case study of KF about?
- brain damage from a motorcycle accident
- LTM appeared unimpaired
- digit span of STM of 1/2 items
- more likely to forget auditory than visual stimuli
- problems centred in 'auditory- verbal short-term store'
50
how can the primary and recency effect be used to evaluate the MSM?
- demonstrates the existence of separate memory stores
- as STM is represented by the recency effect and LTM is represented by the primary effect
- words in the middle of the list are usually forgotten due to displacement
51
what is the primary effect?
- superior recall of the earlier items in a list
52
what is the recency effect?
- superior recall of the items at the end of a list
53
how can the MSM be criticised as over simplified?
- suggests both LTM and STM are unitary stores
- working memory model shows STM is divided into a number of qualitatively different stores
- lots of research suggests LTM is non unitary and each aspect of it behaves differently, ie. this can explained through maintenance rehearsal
54
what is maintenance rehearsal (MSM)?
- repetition of information in the STM creates a LTM
- more information is rehearsed, the better it is remembered
55
what is the working memory model?
- model based on the short term
- more accurate representation
- concerned with active processing and short term storage
56
what are the components of the WM model?
- visuo spatial sketchpad
- central executive
- phonological loop
- episodic buffer
57
what is the central executive?
- monitors and coordinates mental functions
- involved in planning, reasoning and decision making
- no storage but does have limited attentional capacity
58
what is the visuo spatial sketchpad (VSS)?
- 'inner eye'
- visual encoding
- capacity of 3/4 items (limited)
- has two subcomponents
59
what are the two subcomponents of the VSS?
- visual cache
- inner scribe
60
what is the visual cache involved in?
- properties of visual items
61
what is the inner scribe involved in?
- spatial relations
62
what is the phonological loop (PL)?
- holds acoustic information according to tone, volume and pitch
- speech sound coding
- limited capacity
- duration of 1.5 to 2 seconds
- has two subcomponents
63
what are the two subcomponents of the PL?
- articulatory control process
- phonological store
64
what does the articulatory control process act as?
- inner voice
65
what does the phonological store act as?
- inner ear
66
what is the episodic buffer?
- manages information in any form
- retrieves or sends information to the long term memory from the VSS or PL
- only has temporary storage
67
how does the WM model suggest we can dual task?
- different components can operate independently
- ie. VSS or PL
68
is the WM unitary or non unitary?
- non unitary
69
what are limitations of the WM model?
central executive is too vague
- Eslinger and Damasio studied EVR (cerebral tumour removed)
- performed well on tasks requiring reasoning so CE was intact
- he had poor decision making skills which suggests CE was not intact
- probably more complex than currently represented (maybe not unitary in itself)
70
what is a strength of the WM model?
evidence from brain damaged patients
- Shallice and Warrington studied KF whose ST forgetting of auditory information was much greater than of visual stimuli
- brain was restricted to the phonological loop
- SC also had generally good learning abilities but couldn't learn word pairs that were presented out loud
- damage to phonological loop
71
how could using evidence from brain damaged patients not be entirely accurate?
- traumatic, so may change their behaviour and perform worse on certain tasks
- other difficulties present anyway, ie. difficulties paying attention therefore may underperform on tasks
72
what is forgetting?
- inability to recall previously learnt material
73
what is interference?
- an explanation of forgetting where one memory disrupts the ability to recall another
74
what does the interference theory propose?
- memory encoded in LTM can be forgotten (or unable to be retrieved) because memories can interfere with each other
75
why does interference occur?
- due to competition between the correct in incorrect responses
76
what increases the degree of competition between two memories (interference)?
- more similar they are to one another
- strength of the incorrect response appears to result in interference rather than the inaccessibility of the correct response
77
when are memories particularly vulnerable to interference?
- consolidation
78
which memories are the most resistant to interference?
- semantic memories
79
what are the two types of interference?
- proactive interference
- retroactive interference
80
what is proactive interference?
- when previous learning interferes with newer memories
81
what is retroactive interference?
- when recent memories interfere with the ability to recall older memories
82
how can retroactive interference be demonstrated?
- paired association task
83
what did McGeoch and McDonald study in reference to interference?
effects of the similarities of materials
- participants with a list of 10 adjectives (A), then 10 minute interval, then retested
- during the interval they learned list B, followed by recall
- if list B was synonyms of list A, recall was poorer (12%), if B was nonscence syllables, only 26%, if B was numbers (37%) (least effect of interference)
84
what are cues?
- relate to things that offer a reminder as they can link to the thing being remembered
85
what is one explanation of retrieval failure?
- encoding specificity principle
86
what is the encoding specificity principle?
- Tulving and Thompson argued forgetting occurs when there is a poor match of fit between the information present during creation of a memory and the cues available at the time of attempted retrieval
- according to ESP, when we acquire memories we encode them with links to other information which existed at the same time of acquisition
- becomes a positive retrieval cue to help recall information
87
what are the main types of cues?
- external cues
- internal cues
88
what are external cues?
- explicit cues linked to learning material
- environmental context
89
what are internal cues?
- emotional
- physiological
- physiological state
90
what are the two types of forgetting?
- context dependent forgetting
- state dependent forgetting
91
what is context dependent forgetting?
- individuals fail to recall something because they are not in the same context as retrieval as they were in when they learned the information
92
what is state dependent forgetting?
- internal environment can impact retrieval
- ie. emotional state
93
what is retrieval failure?
- occurs due to the absence of cues
- relates to being able to retrieve a memory than there is available but not accessible
94
what did Tulving and Pearlstone research?
- affect of cues on recall
95
how did Tulving and Pearlstone carry out their research?
- asked participants to learn 48 words belonging to 12 categories
- they then completed a free recall test or a cued recall test (without/ with category names)
96
what were the findings of Tulving and Pearlstone's research?
- 40% recall on average from free recall
- 60% recall on average from cued recall
97
what did Godden and Baddeley research?
- importance of context dependent forgetting
98
how did Godden and Baddeley carry out their research?
- scuba divers either learned a list of words in water or on land
- tested their recall either in the same context or different
99
what were the findings of Godden and Baddeley's research?
- recall was highest when the initial learning context matched the recall context
100
what did Goodwin et al research?
- importance of state dependent forgetting
101
how did Goodwin et al carry out their research?
- asked male volunteers to learn a list of words when they were either sober or drunk
- asked to recall the lists 24 hours later, when they were either sober or drunk again
102
what were the findings of Goodwin et al's research?
- those who had learned the list in a drunken state were more able to recall the list when drunk again
- similarly, those who learned the list when in a sober state were more able to recall when sober
103
what support is there for retrieval failure?
real world application
- use it to improve recall when you need to ie. taking exams
- Smith showed us that just thinking of the room where the original learning took place (mental reinstatement) was as effective as being in the same room at the time of retrieval
- same applies to cognitive interview
explains interference effects
- Tulving and Psotka demonstrated that interference effects are due to the absence of a cue
- participants were given 6 different word lists , which were then divided into 6 categories and they were asked to free recall
- after all the lists were given, the participants were given category names and asked for cued recall
- more lists they were asked to learn, the less they recalled (retroactive interference)
- in the cued recall scenario, effects of interference disappeared (70%)
- retrieval failure is more important than interference
104
what are limitations of retrieval failure?
retrieval cues do not always work
- not always very effective as learned information is related to more than cues
- reduced effectiveness by the presence of better cues (outshining hypothesis)
105
what is eye witness testimony (EWT)?
- evidence given by a witness to a significant event
106
where can errors occur in the stages of memory (EWT)?
- acquisition/ encoding
- storage
- retrieval
107
what are the factors influencing EWT?
- misleading information
- anxiety
108
what is the role of misleading information and post event discussion on EWT?
- recall can be affected by misleading information received after an event
109
what is misleading information (EWT)?
- usually takes place in the form of a question/ statement to the eyewitness that wrongly implies that something happened when it didn't
110
what are the two types of misleading information?
- leading questions
- post event discussion
111
what is the effect of misleading information of recall?
- leads us to reconstruct our memories producing inaccuracies in our recall
112
what are leading questions?
- questions that are worded in such a way that it may be bias how a respondent answers
113
who investigated leading questions?
- Loftus and Palmer
- Loftus
114
how many experiments did Loftus and Palmer conduct?
- 2
115
what was experiment 1(hit, smashed, bumped, etc) by Loftus and Palmer?
- showed participants 7 films of different traffic accidents and asked them questions
- ie. how fast were the cars going when they 'hit' each other? they changed the verb used to smashed, bumped, etc
- 'smashed' produced the highest speed estimates and 'contacted' produced the lowest
116
what was experiment 2 (broken glass) by Loftus and Palmer?
- new set of participants were divided into 3 groups and shown a film of a car accident and asked questions about the speed
- they then came back later and were asked if they had seen any broken glass
- many answered yes however there was none
- leading questions change the actual memory the participants had for the event
117
what is post event discussion?
- a conversation between co witnesses/ interviewer after a crime to contaminate a witnesses memory for the event
118
who investigated post event discussion?
- Skagerberg and Wright
- Gabbert et al
119
how did Skagerberg and Wright investigate post event discussion?
- asked 60 eyewitnesses to a crime to complete questionnaires
- 58% discussed the crime with another person
120
what the procedure used by Gabbert et al to investigate post event discussion?
- eyewitnesses watched a short film of a girl stealing money from a wallet, either individually or in pairs
- those in pairs believed they were watching the same film, but only one was watching the crime
- they discussed the event then completed a questionnaire
121
what were the findings of Gabbert et al's investigation into post event discussion?
- 71% that discussed the information had mistakenly recalled information they had not witnessed
122
what did Gabbert et al conclude about post event discussion?
- that it can contaminate recall of an event
- may incorporate the recollections of others into their own memory
123
what did Loftus investigate in reference to leading questions?
- showed participants a film of events leading up to a car accident
- divided them into a control versus experiment group
- the control group were asked questions ie. how fast was the car going when it passed the stop sign?
- the experiment group were asked leading questions ie. how fast was the sports car going when it passed the barn?
- there was no barn but there was a stop sign
- 17% in the experiment group reportedly had seen a barn compared to 3% of the control group
- absorbed misleading information into their original memory for the event
124
what are strengths of post event discussion and leading questions?
laboratory experiments
- control over variables, such as what participants had witnessed, the nature of the leading questions, presence of distractions, anxiety, etc
- replicability is possible due to high control
- can establish cause and effect (ie. leading questions lead to inaccurate recall)
real life applications
- criminal justice system relies heavily of EWT for identifying and prosecuting crimes
- DNA exoneration cases have confirmed the warnings of psychologists by showing that the largest factor contributing to conviction of innocent people is mistaken EWT
125
what are limitations of post event discussion and leading questions?
artificial laboratory setting
- less anxiety
- no consequences
- lack of element of surprise
- could lead to demand characteristics
126
what is anxiety (EWT)?
- unpleasant emotional state that is often accompanied by increased heart rate and rapid breathing
127
who was the key study into anxiety by (EWT)?
- Johnson and Scott
- Yuille and Cutshall
128
what was the procedure of Johnson and Scott's study into anxiety (EWT)?
- asked participants to sit in a waiting room where they heard an argument in an adjoining room and then saw a man running through carrying either a pen covered in grease or a knife covered in blood
- the pen was the low anxiety condition and the knife was the high anxiety condition
- participants were later asked to identify the man from a set of photographs
129
what were the findings of Johnson and Scott's study into anxiety (EWT)?
- findings supported the idea of a weapon focus effect
- mean accuracy was 49% in identifying the man in the pen condition and 33% accuracy in the knife condition
- presence of the weapon caused attention to be drawn towards the weapon and away from the person's face due to anxiety
130
what was the procedure of Yuille and Cutshall's study into anxiety (EWT)?
- real life crime research of a thief who had attempted to steal a gun from a gun shop in Canada
- real life shooting had occurred and people had witnessed it (nearby or at a distant)
- witnesses were interviewed by police at the time of the crime and 1/3 interviewed by researchers with misleading information slightly later
131
what were the findings of Yuille and Cutshall's study into anxiety (EWT)?
- witnesses accounts stayed highly accurate
- 83% accuracy for actions, 76% for people, 90% for objects
- those closer to the event provided most details and misleading information had no effect on their accuracy
- heightened arousal associated with anxiety were most accurate in this case
132
what are positive evaluation points for Yuille and Cutshall's study?
- natural setting (high ecological validity)
- real life testimonies
- overcomes ethical issues
133
what are the negative evaluation points for Yuille and Cutshall's study?
- lack of control
- hard to establish cause and effect (extraneous variables)
- unable to establish whether anxiety causes inaccuracies or accuracies of memory
134
what are the positive evaluation points of Johnson and Scott's study?
- laboratory experiment
- controls for extraneous variables
- more confident in establishing cause and effect
135
what are the negative evaluation points of Johnson and Scott's study?
- high anxiety condition
- not a real life situation (demand characteristics)
- no real consequences
- may reduce anxiety levels and affect reliability of results
136
what is cognitive interview?
- a police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime that attempts to increase the accessibility of stored information by using multiple retrieving strategies
137
what are the retrieving strategies used in cognitive interview?
- changing Perspective
- Reinstating context
- changing Order
- reporting every Detail
138
what are the differences between standard interviews (SI) and cognitive interviews (CI)?
- interview does most of the talking (SI) vs interviewer talks less (CI)
- asks specific questions (SI) vs avoids asking direct questions (CI)
- witnesses discouraged from adding additional details (SI) vs participants encouraged to add extra details/ original context (CI)
139
what does reinstating context refer to in cognitive interviews?
- interviewee mentally recreates both the physical/ psychological environment of the original incident
- aims to make memories accessible
- think about cues
140
what does reporting every detail refer to in cognitive interviews?
- report everything even if it seems irrelevant
- as memories are interconnected with each other, recollection of one may help other memories to form
- form a clearer picture of the event
141
what does changing the oder refer to in cognitive interviews?
- schemas affect recollection
- prevents pre existing schemas affecting recall
142
what does changing the perspective refer to in cognitive interviews?
- interviewee is asked to recall the incident from multiple perspectives
- disrupts affect schemas have on recall
143
what is an example of an interviewer reinstating context in a cognitive interview?
- ie. think about that day... what had you been doing?
144
what is an example of an interviewer asking the person to report everything in a cognitive interview?
- ie. tell me everything about the day?
145
what is a way in which the order of recalling an event can be changed in a cognitive interview?
- ie. reversing the order in which events occurred
146
what are strengths of using the cognitive interview?
more effective in older adults
- negative stereotypes about older adults memory makes witnesses cautious, CI overcomes this
- Mello and Fisherfound when comparing older and younger adults, better results from CI were produced by older adults than SI
147
what are limitations of using the cognitive interview?
quantity versus quality
- designed to enhance quantity of correct recall, compromising quality
- Köhnken et al found 81% increase in correct information but also 61% increase of incorrect information (false positives) when CI was used compared to SI
- CI doesn't guarantee accuracy
problems with using CI in practice
- Kebbel and Wagstaff report a problem with CI in practice from interviews with police
- police officers suggest CI requires more time than is available and instead they deliberately use strategies aimed to limit an eyewitnesses report to the minimum
- also requires special training and is not widespread
148
what limitations are there with the role of anxiety affecting EWT?
no simple conclusions
- many real life crimes did no involve violence
- Halford and Milner found victims of violent crime were more accurate in recall of crime scene information than victims of non violent crimes
149
what strengths are there with the role of anxiety affecting EWT?
real life versus lab studies
- review of 34 studies found that lab studies showed anxiety leads to reduced accuracy
- real life studies were associated with even greater loss of accuracy
