memory Flashcards

Question

What are the two explanations for forgetting?

Answer 1

Retrieval failure and Interferance theory

Answer 2

Refers to the conflict between two pieces of information leading to forgetting one or both pieces of information or distortion.

Answer 3

Proactive and retroactive interferance. Proactive interferance refers to the idea that older memories which are already stored disrupt the recall of new memories. Interferance works froward from old to new. The degree of forgetting is effected by the similarity between the memories. for example old and new phone number. You forget youre new one because of the old one interfering. Retroactive interferance- forgetting occurs when new infromation disrupts the recall of old already stored information. Interferance works backwards - new to old

Answer 4

They supported the role of interferance as an explanation for forgetting. They asked participants to remember a list of words until 100%accuracy then gave participants a second list of words. Participants were split into 6 groups for the second list of words. Some were given a second list of words with antonyms other with synonyms. When the participants had to recall the original list of words, their performance depended on the nature of the second list. The most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall. This shows that interference is strongest when the information (memory content) is similar, supporting the claims that similar information becomes confused and interferes with the memory, resulting in forgetting.

Answer 5

Lab experiments e.g. McGeoch & McDonald (1931) use very artificial materials. Learning lists of words is very different to the types of things we learn in everyday life e.g. people’s faces, birthdays – this means the findings lack ecological validity and it is very difficult to generalise the effects of interference in these situations to everyday memory content

Answer 6

Supported interferance theory as an explanation for forgetting and more specifically retroactive interferance in real life setting(high ecological validity). He did this by testing ppts childhood memories of street names. A random sample of 211 old students of a Dutch school, aged 11-79 years completed a questionnaire, where they had to remember as many street names as possible from a map of the area they had gone to school in. Other details were also collected e.g. how many times they had moved house, where they had lived and for how long. Schmidt et al. found a positive correlation, between the number of times participants had moved house outside the area and the number of street names forgotten. This suggests that learning new street names when moving house makes recalling older street names harder to do. thereby supporting the idea of retroactive interferance

Answer 7

A cue is a trigger that allows us to access memories.

Answer 8

It argues that we forget due to the fact that we do not have the necessary cues to access memory. Memory is available but cannot be accesses unless the cues are present.

Answer 9

If coding was to acts as a trigger for remembering information this cue must be present at both coding and retrieval. Coding refers to the the idea of the cue being present at learning and it must also be present at retrieval. if the cue is not consistent or present at both itll lead to forgetting

Answer 10

Context dependant forgetting and state dependant. . Context-dependent forgetting This occurs with external/environmental retrieval cues – i.e. when the external environment is different at recall from how it was at coding e.g. getting fewer marks in a test when sitting the test in a room you’re not familiar with, than when sitting the test in the room you learnt the material in. 2. State-dependent forgetting This occurs with internal retrieval cues – i.e. when the internal environment is different at recall from how it was at coding e.g. trying to recall information learned when sober while you are drunk.

Answer 11

Godden and Baddeley They conducted a field experiment where they got divers to learn a list of words either on land or under water. They were then asked to recall the words either on land or under water. They had four conditions: 1. Learn on land-recall on land; 2. Learn on land-recall under water; 3. Learn under water-recall on land; 4. Learn under water-recall under water. Recall was found to be worse when it occurred in a different context to coding, than the same context – e.g. recalling words learned under water were recalled better when under water than when on land

Answer 12

ound support for state-dependent forgetting. They gave anti-histamine drugs (for treating hay fever, which have a slightly sedative effect) to their participants. These create a different internal state to the ‘normal’ state of being alert. They were then asked to learn lists of words and passages and then recall the information again. There were four conditions: 1. Learn on drug-recall on drug; 2. Learn on drug-recall not on drug; 3. Learn not on drug-recall on drug; 4. Learn not on drug-recall not on drug. They found that when there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse.

Answer 13

Baddeley (1997) argues context effects are actually not as strong in real life. It would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater. In contrast, for example, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting, as these environments are not that different. This is a limitation because it means that forgetting in real life due to contextual cues does not explain much forgetting. The supporting evidence by Godden and Baddeley lacks ecological validity, as the findings cannot be generalised to other settings

Answer 14

EWT = Evidence given by a witness to a significant event such as a crime or a serious accident

Answer 15

Participants were exposed to one of two situations whilst ‘waiting for the study to begin’: 1) Low-Anxiety: Participants overheard a low-key discussion in the laboratory/next room about equipment failure. A man then emerged from the lab holding a pen with grease on his hands. 2) High-Anxiety: Participants overheard a heated and hostile exchange between people in the laboratory/next room. After the sound of breaking glass and crashing chairs, a man emerged from the lab holding a paper knife covered in blood. They were then given 50 photos and asked to identify the person who had come out of the lab.

Answer 16

Those who had witnessed the man holding a pen accurately identified the person 49% of the time Ø Those who had witnessed the man holding the bloodstained paper knife were successful only 33% of the time. Findings have led to the ‘weapon focus’ phenomenon, and the tunnel theory which argues fear/anxiety induced by the sight of a weapon (e.g. bloody knife) narrows the focus of witnesses’ attention and leads to very accurate recall of central details (the knife!) of the scene but less accurate recall of peripheral details (the man!).

Answer 17

Anxiety is a state of emotional and physiological arousal. Emotions include worried thoughts and feelings, which can lead to physical changes such as increased heart rate and sweatiness, and differences in the processing of the brain, therefore Anxiety (which is a normal reaction to stressful situations) can affect memory recall. Anxiety experienced by witnesses at the time of the incident, affects the encoding stage of the memory process

Answer 18

This research is lab based. It is therefore possible that participants might be expecting something to occur and therefore displayed demand characteristics or that the lab based stimulation of 'anxiety' wasnt realistic enough. Therefore findings can be accused of lacking ecological validity which means its difficult to understand how anxiety affects the accuracy of eye witness testimony

Answer 19

Christianson and Hubinnete Questioned 110 witnesses who had, between them, witnessed a total of 22 genuine bank robberies. Ø Some of the witnesses were onlookers who happened to be in the banks at the time (low-anxiety group), whereas others were bank employees who had been directly threatened in the robberies (high-anxiety group).

Answer 20

All individuals demonstrated high accuracy (75% accurate recall), however those who were victims (had been directly threatened) were even more accurate in their recall of specific details about the robber than those who had been bystanders. Ø This superior recall was still evident even after a 15-month interval

Answer 21

People (especially victims) are good at remembering highly stressful events if they occur in real life rather than in artificial surroundings (a lab); suggests that high levels of anxiety may actually enhance recall not reduce it.

Answer 22

Creating anxiety is unethical because it may subject people to psychological harm purely for the purpose of research. This is why real life studies (see below) are so beneficial, as the researcher is taking advantage of an event that has already occurr

Answer 23

A leading question is a question that is phrased in such a way that it suggests a certain answer fro example was the knife in the persons left hand will suggest that the knife was in the left hand

Answer 24

Loftus and palmer procedure- Participants were shown a film of a car accident and then asked a question: Ø “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” All participants were asked the same type of question except that the word ‘hit’ was replaced with ‘collided’, ‘smashed’, ‘bumped’, or ‘contacted’ for some participan findings- The word used had an effect on speed estimation. Ø ‘smashed’ produced the highest estimate (40.8 mph) Ø ‘Contacted’ produced the lowest estimate. A week later participants were asked if they had seen any broken glass Ø Those in the ‘smashed’ group were consistently more likely to answer ‘yes’ (incorrectly – as there was no broken glass) conclusions- This suggests that people’s memory for an incident can be easily influenced by changing just a single word in a question. This can even alter people’s memories for other details about the event when questioned at a later date ‘After-the-f

Answer 25

Occurs when theirs more than witness of the ame event. Witnesses might dicuss what they had seen this may include recall of unaccurate information.

Answer 26

Studied participants in pairs Ø Each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from different points of view. This meant that each participant could see elements in the event that the other could not. Ø Both participants then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a recall test Ø A control group did not have the opportunity for any post-event discussion.

Answer 27

71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up during discussion. Ø In the control group, there was 0% mistaken recall

Answer 28

This suggests that witnesses often go along with each other to win social approval, or because they believe other witnesses are right and they are wrong. This is called memory conformity Another processes that might be involved is memory contamination – where the new information from the post event discussion has altered or distorted the original memo

Answer 29

This research has provided practical applications for police work. As post-event discussion has been shown to contaminate an eye-witness’ memory, police procedure is to now ensure (where possible) that eye-witnesses do not have the opportunity to discuss what they saw, in order to help them obtain a more accurate representation of what the eye-witnesses observed.

Answer 30

The Cognitive Interview was developed (1992) as a method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It is based on the idea that there are several memory retrieval paths to each memory, and that information not available through one technique may be accessible through another. this interview type is used by police investigators and uses 4 techniques based on the ways memory works

Answer 31

1. Recreate the CONTEXT of the original incident. This involves returning to the scene ‘in their mind’ and imagine the environment e.g. weather and their emotions e.g. what they were feeling. This is based on the principles of context & state dependent forgetting 2. Recall the event in DIFFERENT ORDERS. Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence, from the middle to the beginning. This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened, rather than the actual events 3. CHANGE PERSPECTIVE Witnesses should recall the incident from other people’s perspectives. For example, how the event might have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator. This is also done to prevent the effect of expectations or schema on recall. 4. 4. REPORT EVERY DETAIL. Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant.

Answer 32

Research by Geiselman provided support for the use of the Cognitive Interview. In research comparing the cognitive interview with a standard police interview, 89 students were shown videos of violent crimes. 48 hours later, they were interviewed by an American law enforcement officer trained in either Standard police interviewing or the new Cognitive interview schedule. Each interview was taped and analysed for accuracy of recall, and Geiselman found that the number of Correct items (accurately recalled from the film) was higher in the Cognitive Interview (41.5) compared to the Standard police interview (29.5). These findings suggest that the Cognitive interview is a more effective form of interview technique, which helps to improve the accuracy and range of information elicited from an eyewitness. Further supporting evidence for the Cognitive comes from Kohnken. From a metanalysis of 55 studies comparing the cognitive interview with the standard police interview, they found a significant increase in accurate information from eyewitnesses when using the cognitive interview. These findings indicate the usefulness of this interview technique in eliciting information, which is not readily accessible to the witnesses

Answer 33

Time consuming and expensive - The Cognitive Interview is more time consuming that the standard interview. This is because it requires much more training of police workers to be able to deliver the technique appropriately and, as the processes are more in depth, the actual interviews take longer to conduct. As many police forces are unable to provide more than a few hours to the interviewing of witnesses, it means that it is likely that the ‘proper’ version of the CI is not always used.

Answer 34

Johnson and Scott and Christenson and Hubbinete- J and S- argued that anxiety inhibits accurate and succesful eye witness testimony as only the central weapon features are accurately recalled whetherea C and H suggested that anxity increased the accuracy of ewt

Answer 35

Yerkes Dodson Law- lower levels of anxiety produce lower performance i.e lower levels of recall. However memory becomes more accurate when the levels of anxiety increase but only up to a certain point when an optimal level of anxiety is reached. If more than the optimum is experienced accuracy falls.

Answer 36

The Johnson and Scott study may be testing suprise rather than anxiety people may be focusing on the weapon not because theyre scared (showing anxiety) but because theyre suprised. for example pickel conducted an experiment using scissors a handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken as the handheld items in the hairdressing salon video. eyewitnesses recall was significant lower in the higher unusualeness conditions- handgun and chicken suggesting it may be suprise that creates the focused attention.

Answer 37

Belleive et al- there is some benefits of being able to distinguish between different types of LTM as it enables specific treatments to be developed. he demonstrated how wpisodic memories can be improved in older people who had mild cognitive impairements. ppts who had received cognitive training performed bettwe in a test of episodic memory than a control group who had received no training

Answer 38

Baddeley and Hitch

Answer 39

Baddeley and Hitch proposed the WMM to try and challenge the MSM model proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin. WMM provides an alternative representation of STM and it suggested that STM should be divided into sub units which are coordinated by a central decision making system- called the central executive. The other three components were the visuospatial sketchpad, the episodic buffer and the Phonological loop. Each of the four component are qualitatively different especially in terms of capacity and coding.

Answer 40

the most important component of the wmm it controls attention, makes decisions and allocates tasks to other slave systems. it doesnt store information.

Answer 41

limited processing capacity. can only attend to a limited number of things at a time

Answer 42

modality free can code in different formats

Answer 43

component of wmm. its a brief store of visual and spatial information such as faces. its responsible for setting up and manipulating mental images

Answer 44

3-4 objects

Answer 45

the visual cache- stores visual data inner scribe- records the arrangements of objects in the visual field

Answer 46

brief store for auditory information

Answer 47

coding is acoustic

Answer 48

the phonological store (inner ear)- which stores the words you hear articulatory process- inner voice- which allows maintaence rehearsal - repeating sounds in a loop to retain them.

Answer 49

approx 2 milliseconds of what you can say

Answer 50

temporary storage component of the central executive. it is responsible for integrating vuisual and verbal info- visual and acoustic coding

Answer 51

4 chunks of info

Answer 52

he asked ppts to track a spot of light whilst also tracing the letter F. He found that ppts demonstrated poor performance in the simultaneous completion of these two tasks, however they were capable of the tracking task if it was paired with an acoustic tasks. this suggests that both visual tasks were competing for the visuospatial sketchpad which meant that the capacity for this component was getting stretched whereas when the task used different components visual and acoustic the task was possible. this suggests that there must be both visual and acoustic components of stm not just acoustic as msm suggested

Answer 53

the dual task experiment uses simplistic stimuli- this means that the findings lack ecological validity and cannot be generalised to all memory processes in ever day life case study of kf may also b unreliable becauuse its a unique individual case of a a person suffering a traumatic experience so findings can not be genralised to others.

memory Flashcards

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