Memory Flashcards
(20 cards)
Short Term Memory
- (Jacobs) - Capacity - (7+/-2)
- (Petersonx2) - Duration - (18 -30 seconds)
- (Baddeley) - Coding - (Acoustically)
Long Term Memory
- (Capacity) - (Unlimited)
- (Duration) - (Unlimited)
- (Coding) - (Semantically)
Multi-Store Model of Memory
- Atkinson proposed an explanation of memory based on three separate memory stores.
- Sensory Register - Where information collected by the senses is stored, large capacity, brief duration.
- Short-term Memory - Information held in STM is for immediate use, limited duration.
- Long-term memory - Potentially unlimited in duration and capacity.
-Attention, retrieval, maintenance rehearsal.
Working Memory Model
-Baddeley & Hitch(1974)
-Addresses how STM is split into multiple components.
-Central Executive - directs attention to tasks.
-Phonological Loop - deals with auditory information
-Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad - Codes visual information.
-Episodic Buffer - WMM’s general store, an extra storage system.
Types of Long-term Memory
-Episodic - Personal memories of events, such as what you did yesterday.
-Procedural - Memory for how to do things, such as riding a bike or learning how to read, such memories are automatic as the result of repeated practice.
-Semantic - Shared memories for facts and knowledge, memories are concrete or abstract.
Explanation for Forgetting: Interference
- The disruption of one memory affecting the recall of another memory.
-Proactive Interference- when past learning interferes with the recall of a new memory.
-Retroactive Interference- when new learning interferes with the recall of an old memory.
-A real-world Study - Baddeley & Hitch (1977) - investigated interference effects in an everyday setting of rugby players recalling the names of the teams they had played against over a season.
Explanations for forgetting: Retrieval Failure
-Forgetting occurs due to the absence of cues.
-Encoding-specificity Principle - Tulving and Thomson (1973) proposed memory is effective if information that was present at
encoding is also available at time of retrieval, a cue doesn’t have to be exactly right, but the closer a cue is the more useful it will be.
-Tulving & Pearlstone (1966) - Ppts had to learn 48 words belonging to 12 categories, each word was presented as category + word, e.g. fruit-apple, fruit-orange. Two Conditions;
1)Ppts had to recall as many words as they could(free recall).
2)Ppts were given cues in the form of the category names(cued recall).
-In free recall, 40% of words were recalled on average, in cued-recall ppts recalled 60% of the words.
Dependent Forgetting Types - Context Dependent Forgetting
-Context-dependent forgetting - can occur when the environment during retrieval is different from the environment you were in when you were encoding.
-E.g. Godden and Baddeley (1975) - investigated the effect of contextual cues, researchers recruited scuba divers as ppts, arranged for them to learn and be tested on a set of words on land or underwater. Results showed that highest recall occurred when the initial context matched the recall environment, e.g. encoding on land and retrieving on land.
Dependent Forgetting Types - State Dependent Forgetting
-State-dependent forgetting - occurs when your mood or physiological state during retrieval is different from the mood you were in when you were encoding.
-E.g. Goodwin et al (1969) - asked male ppts to remember a list of words when either drunk or sober, ppts were asked to recall the lists after 24 hours, recall scores showed that if one was sober on learning their recall was better on recall, same for drunk.
Accuracy of Eyewitness testimony: Misleading Information
-Supplying information that may lead a witness’ memory for a crime to be altered.
EWT: Misleading Information - Key Study: Loftus & Palmer(1974)
-Procedure
-Procedure - 45 students were shown seven films of different traffic accidents, then ppts were given a questionnaire which asked them to describe the accident and then answer a series of specific questions about it, the critical question was ‘About how fast were the cars going when they ___ each other?’, in each of the four conditions, the verbs, smashed, collided, bumped, hit or contacted were put in.
EWT: Misleading Information - Key Study: Loftus & Palmer(1974)
-Findings - The more severe a verb came across, the higher the mean estimate speed was predicted with ‘smashed’ = 40.8, and ‘contacted’ = 31.8.
EWT: Misleading Information - Post-event Discussion
-A conversation between co-eyewitnesses or an interviewer and an eyewitness after a crime has taken place which may contaminate a witness’ memory for the event.
Accuracy of Eyewitness testimony: Anxiety
-Stress and anxiety have a negative effect on memory as well as performance generally.
EWT: Accuracy - Key Study: Johnson & Scott(1976)
-Weapon Focus Effect
-the view that a weapon in a criminal’s hand distracts attention due to the anxiety it creates therefore reduces the accuracy of identification.
-Procedure - Asked ppts to sit in a waiting room where they heard an argument in an adjoining room and then saw a man run through the room carrying either a pen covered in grease (low anxiety condition) or a knife covered in blood (weapon focus condition), ppts were followingly asked to identify the man.
-Findings - Supported weapon focus effect, mean accuracy was 49% in identification in low anxiety condition, compared to 33% accuracy in knife condition.
EWT: Anxiety - Weapon focus effect - Alternative Arguement
-Anxiety has a positive effect on accuracy, high arousal creates more enduring and accurate memories .
-Evolutionary argument states it would be adaptive to remember events that are emotionally important that suggests it would be adaptive to remember events that are emotionally important so that you could identify similar situations in the future and recall how to respond.
Improving accuracy of EWT: Cognitive Interview
-A police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, encouraging them to recreate the original context in order to increase the accessibility of stored information.
-The original cognitive interview is characterized by the following four distinct components.
1)Mental Reinstatement - encourages the eyewitness to recreate both the physical and psychological environment of the original incident.
2)Report Everything - encourages the eyewitness to report every single detail without editing.
3)Change Order - encourages the eyewitness to reverse the order in which events occurred.
4)Change Perspective - encourages the eyewitness to recall the incident from multiple perspectives, e.g. imagining how it would have appeared to other witnesses present at the time.
Procedural Memory
-A type of long term memory relating to knowledge of how to do things.
-I.e. perform skills and actions (riding a bike)
-Requires little conscious effort - automatic.
Semantic Memory
-A type of long-term memory that relates to knowledge facts, figures and general knowledge.
-Requires conscious effort for recall.
