Memory Flashcards

Question

Evaluation

Answer 1

Many studies into retrieval failure due to cue dependent forgetting are based in the laboratory lack ecological validity and mundane realism as they are not indicative of real-world environments or situations of forgetting. such explanations are not able to explain why retrieval failure cannot be explained with cue dependent forgetting for activities such as riding a bike, suggesting retrieval failure as a theory for forgetting is oversimplified and incomplete. - Research into retrieval failure and cue dependent forgetting has real-world applications particularly in the search for missing people and reconstructing the last known whereabouts. This was used to aid in the conviction of Danielle Jones killer as a reconstruction in 2001 prompted witnesses to recall her arguing with a man which later led to the conviction of her uncle through witness testimony. This has also helped in cognitive interviews to help people recall information for witness testimonies. Therefore understanding how cues affect recall can help us develop ways to improve memory for the benefit of society. - Support for retrieval failure having more validity than interference theory comes from Tulving and Psotka (1971). They showed how interference effects occurred due to the absence of any cues to aid retrieval. Participants were given word lists to remember with one condition having category headings and another without. In conditions without category headings, fewer words were recalled than when headings were present showing the information was available but simply unable to be accessed due to the absence of cues. - Research into state-dependent failure such as Overtons (1972) study raises ethical concerns as they encouraging people to become drunk and under the influence of substances which can lead to injury or even death even by accident. Also the level of engagement from participants when under the influence of alcohol may not necessarily be genuine due to the way it affects peoples willingness to give honest responses. Some participants may have deliberately done poorly in some situations or try harder in others due to how alcohol affects people in unpredictable ways. - Baddeley (1997) criticised the encoding specificity principle as impossible to test and verify for certain making it unscientific. If a cue aids retrieval then it could be argued to have been encoded in the memory however if it does not then it could be argued that it wasn’t encoded in memory as a cue. The fact that it is impossible to test for an item as having been encoded or not means we cannot fully test the encoding specificity principle. - Baddeley’s (1975) study did find supporting evidence for cue dependent learning and how context cues aided retrieval. Divers tasked with learning material either on dry land or while underwater were found to have poorer recall when they were tested on retrieval in a context that differed from where encoding and learning happened. For example, testing them for the material they learnt underwater while on land resulted in poorer retrieval than if they were tested while still underwater. The same was true vice versa too with better recall shown when the learning context remained the same as encoding. This supported cue- dependent failure, however, this was during free recall only. When given a recognition test and asked to say whether the item on the list was in the learning list or not, context-based failure effects were not observed showing how cue dependency can not explain all forms of forgetting.

Answer 2

Leading questions , post event discussion , anxiety

Answer 3

Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiments measuring how leading information affected recall and is the primary research study you need to know as part of your revision. In their key study, 45 students were shown several films of road traffic incidents and then given a questionnaire to describe the accident and answer a series of questions about their observation. One critical question varied between conditions with one group asked how fast the vehicles were going when they “hit” each other while other groups had verbs implying different degree’s of a collision such as “bumped, smashed, contacted, collided”. Results found the words that implied a stronger collision resulted in greater average estimates of speeds from participants. Those exposed to “smashed” gave the highest estimates (41mph) while “contacted” resulted in the lowest speed estimate (30mph), demonstrating how leading questions could influence memory recall. The experiment was recreated with another group with the verbs “smashed” and “hit” while a control group was not exposed to such leading questions. They were questioned 1 week later and asked a series of questions with one critical question being whether they witnessed any broken glass. There was no broken glass in the film however results found that those who were exposed to the “smashed” condition and thus led to believe the car was travelling faster were more likely to report seeing broken glass with the control group being least likely. This highlighted how misleading information post-event can change the way information is stored or recalled.

Answer 4

The way an event is remembered can also be altered or contaminated by discussing events with others and/or being questioned repeatedly. In another study, Loftus & Pickrell (1995) investigated how misleading information could create false memories in individuals. 24 participants ranging in age from 18-53 were given four stories about their childhood gathered from relatives. 3 of the stories were true while one was false and it included being lost in a department store when aged 5 and an elderly lady rescuing them. Participants then asked questions on whether they recalled these stories and results found 29% of the fake stories were recalled by participants believing them to be true. 68% of the true stories were recalled correctly also. This highlighted how false memories could be created from suggestion and misleading information. Other research has found a ‘conformity effect’ occurs when co-witnesses reach a consensus view of what they think happened from discussing. Gabbert et al (2003) conducted a study where participants were paired up and each partner watched a different video of the same event so that they had each viewed unique items. Pairs in one condition were encouraged to discuss the event before each partner recalled the event they watched. The results found that 71% of witnesses who had discussed the event went on to mistakenly recall items acquired during their discussion. This highlights clearly how post-event discussion can cause people to mistakenly recall incorrect information.

Answer 5

Absolutely! Here’s a full evaluation summary of misleading information and post-event discussion in eyewitness testimony (EWT), with all your points clearly written out and simplified for easier memorisation: ⸻ Evaluation of Misleading Information and Post-Event Discussion ⸻ 1. Weakness – Lab Studies Lack Realism and Generalisability • Many studies on misleading info are done in laboratory settings with artificial tasks (e.g. watching videos of car crashes). • These settings lack ecological validity – they don’t reflect real-life emotional or high-stress eyewitness situations. • Therefore, results may not have external validity or be easily generalised to everyday events. ⸻ 2. Strength – High Control & Reliability in Lab Studies • Lab conditions allow researchers to control extraneous variables, making it easier to establish cause-and-effect between leading questions and memory recall. • Replication is easier, and repeat studies have found similar results, supporting the idea that leading questions can distort memory. ⸻ 3. Weakness – Sample Bias (Use of Students) • Many studies use students, who may not represent the wider population – they are generally younger, more educated, and less experienced. • This reduces population validity. • Warren et al. found that children are more influenced by misleading questions than adults, showing that age is a confounding variable. • So, findings may only show how leading questions affect certain age groups, not everyone. ⸻ 4. Weakness – Questionnaires and Interpretation Issues • Use of questionnaires in research can lead to misunderstandings: • Participants may misread questions, and researchers may misinterpret answers. • This affects the accuracy and validity of results. • Adds another layer of uncertainty to findings on the impact of misleading information. ⸻ 5. Real-Life Evidence Challenges Lab Findings – Yuille & Cutshall • In a real-life study, witnesses to a real armed robbery still gave accurate recall months later, even when asked misleading questions. • This suggests that misleading information may have less impact in real-life, high-stakes situations. • Lab studies may show greater effects due to demand characteristics or lack of emotional involvement. ⸻ 6. Weakness – Other Real-Life Factors May Be Stronger than Leading Questions • In real situations, arousal, stress, focus, or motivation may affect recall more than misleading questions. • Forster et al. found participants who believed they were watching a real robbery and thought their answers would impact a trial gave more accurate recall. • Suggests that emotional involvement can override the effects of misleading information. • However, the study used deception, raising ethical concerns.

Answer 6

- Deffenbacher looked at 21 studies and found that the relationship between stress and performance follows the inverted U shape of the Yerkes-Dodson Curve. the accuracy of eyewitness testimony is affected by how stressed someone is. When stress levels are either very low or very high, people's recall is worse. However, when stress is at a moderate level, their memory and performance are at their best. - The practical takeaway is that understanding how anxious an eyewitness was can be crucial for evaluating their testimony in court. However, figuring out someone's level of anxiety can be tricky and often relies on subjective judgment. - Loftus et al found similar findings when two groups in different conditions observed a violent and non-violent event. In condition 1 a man exited a discussion holding a pen while condition 2 saw a man exiting holding a paper-knife covered in blood after a loud altercation. The group who observed the pen were more accurate (49%) than the group observing the violent situation (33%). A possible explanation is the weapon may have distracted their attention from everything else happening and may explain why some witnesses struggle for other details in violent crimes as their focus switches to the weapon itself - Clifford and Scott found people who saw a film of a violent attack remembered less than people in a control group who saw a less stressful version. concluded witnessing stressful situations in real life far more stressful than observing a film memory accuracy may well be more affected in real life with poorer recall. However Christianson (1993) et al found contradicting evidence. When witnesses to real bank robberies tested on recall, found increased anxiety led to improvements in the accuracy of recall. suggests high levels of anxiety in situations do not always divert attention away from what is happening.

Answer 7

- Criticisms of research into how anxiety affects eyewitness testimony point to the fact that studies have been conducted in laboratory settings and therefore lack ecological validity due to their controlled nature. Participants are usually motivated and eager to engage in the study which may be unrealistic of real-life witnesses and motivation in itself may, therefore, be a confounding variable. Therefore the possibility of demand characteristics is very possible with such laboratory studies. - benefit of these key studies being conducted in the laboratory, however, was that such experiments can be easily replicated for validity and reliability checking as well as limiting confounding and extraneous variables to establish cause and effect relationships between anxiety and eyewitness testimony. - Due to the ease of replication other studies have found similar findings showing the findings of Deffenbacher and Loftus are reliable. However again the replicated studies tend to be within artificial settings which could be affecting results and lack external validity and wider generalisation to real-world situations which is again limited. - Yuille & Cutshall’s study contradicts laboratory findings highlighting the importance of stress in eyewitness testimony. Witnesses to a real-life violent crime such as a gun shooting were found to have remarkable memories of the stressful situation even after observing the gunman be killed. Even those re-interviewed 5 months later were found to have accurate recall with even misleading questions which were inserted into the questioning having no effect. One thing to note however was the witnesses who experienced the most stress were closest to the event and this may have aided their accurate recall. Therefore proximity to events itself may be a confounding variable in such research studies. This study illustrated that in instances of real-life stressful situations recall may be accurate even months later. Also, misleading questions, as illustrated, tended to have less of an effect in real-life situations compared to Loftus & Palmer’s laboratory study on misleading questions and stress may be a stronger mitigating factor in recall. - Studies that have subsequently found stress/anxiety to aid recall were likely to have experienced the first increasing levels of stress in the Yerkes-Dodson curve while those suffering from poor recall may be due to them being within the second part with over-arousal resulting in poor recall performance. Such studies involving violence (Loftus/ Clifford) to heighten anxiety levels also raise ethical concerns due to the possible psychological harm they can cause from observing such events. Other research suggests age is also a mitigating factor which could be a confounding variable beyond simply anxiety and this needs to be considered also. - There is also research evidence to suggest the Yerkes-Dodson curve is far too simplified to explain how anxiety affects eyewitness accounts. Fazey & Hardy (1988) proposed Catastrophe theory which may better explain the conflicting findings of how anxiety affects EWT on a 3- dimensional scale. This includes performance, physiological arousal and also cognitive anxiety too. This model proposes that as physiological arousal increases beyond the moderate optimum level, unlike the Yerkes-Dodson curve where there is a steady decline, they observed a drastic drop in performance which they proposed is caused by increased mental anxiety and worry. However, trying to distinguish whether a person felt anxiety or stress in itself would be difficult and subjective.

Answer 8

- method used primarily by the police to aid eyewitnesses in recalling information more accurately. - witness is encouraged to: - Report every detail regardless of how trivial it may seem. This is because the recollection of one small memory may act as a retrieval cue for other important memories. - Recreate the context of the event itself with the witness encouraged to mentally recreate the environment or contacts they may have had as well as their own psychological state. Doing this may help trigger contextual or emotional cues which aid recall. - Recall the event in different orders such as in reverse order or at different stages. This reduces the chance of expectations or existing “schemas” of how an event unfolds influencing recall. - Recall the event from different points of view or perspectives of what others may have seen again to reduce the influence of an individuals schema on recall. - The interviewer may also try to ensure they reduce the anxiety of the witness, minimise distractions, allow them to take their time in their recall and avoid interruptions or leading questions while the interview occurs.

Answer 9

Strengths - Fisher et al. (1990) found that witnesses reported greater detail in their accounts of crimes when American detectives had been trained to use the technique. - The technique is more structured than the standard technique, and it seems appropriate for crime-related interviews to be very thorough in order to gather the detail required for a useful testimony. Weaknesses - Koehnken et al. (1999) found that witnesses recalled more incorrect information when interviewed with the cognitive interview compared to the standard interview technique, perhaps because more detailed recall increases the chances of making mistakes. - The interview is far more time-consuming than the standard interview.

Memory Flashcards

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