Memory (P1) Flashcards

Question

Describe the phonological loop | The working memory model

Answer 1

* Coding is acoustic * Preserves order in which information arrives * Phonological store - stores words heared * Articulatory process - allows maintenance rehearsal * Capacity = 2 seconds

Answer 2

* Stores visual and/or spatial information * Capacity of 3 or 4 objects * Coding = visual * Visua cache - stores visual data * Inner scribe - records arrangement of objects in the visual field

Answer 3

* Temporary store of information * Intergrates visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores and maintaining time sequencing - records events that are happening * Capacity = 4 chunks * Coding = flexible * Links working memory to LTM

Answer 4

1. Clinical evidence 2. Dual task performance ## Footnote **1. Shallice and Warrington's Patient KF** * Post brain injury KF had poor STM ability for auditory information * Could process visual information normally * Immediate recall of letters and digits was better when he read them than when they were spoken to him * Phonological loop damaged * visuo-spatial sketchpad intact * Supports existence of seperate visual and auditory acoustic memory stores **2. Baddeley et al** * Ps carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time * Performance on each was similar to when the tasks were carried out seperately * When both tasks were verbal or both visual performance on both declined * Because there is no competition when performing a verbal and visual task together * Must be a seperate slave system that process visual infor and one for verbal processing

Answer 5

1. Challenging evidence 2. Nature of central executive ## Footnote **1. Lieberman (1980)** * Visuo-spatial sketchpad implies all spatial information was first visual (they're linked) * Points out blind people have excellent spatial awareness although they've never had any visual information * Visual-spatial sketchpad should be seperated into 2 different components (1 for visual 1 for spatial) **2. Baddeley** * Central executive is most important but least understood component of working memory * CE needs to be more clearly specified than just being attention * Some believe CE consists of different sub-components * CE is an unsatisfactory componenet and this challengest the integrity of WMM

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

Occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one

Answer 8

Occurs when a newer memory interferes with an older one

Answer 9

* Ps had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy * Then learned a new list * 6 groups 1. Synonyms - words with same meaning as the orginals 2. Antonyms - words without opposite meanings to the orginals 3. Words unrelated to the original 1s 4. Consonant syllables 5. Three-digit numbers 6. No new list - control condition

Answer 10

* When participants were asked to recall orginal list of words, the most similar material (synonyms) produced the worst recall * Shows interference strongiest when memories are similar

Answer 11

1. Real-world interference 2. Support from drug studies ## Footnote 1.Baddeley and Hitch * Asked rugby players to recall names of teams they played against during a rugby season * All played for same time interval but number of intervening games varied because some players missed matches due to injury * Those who played most games (most interference memory) had the poorest recall * Interference can operate in some real-world situations increasing validty of theory 2. Coemem amd Luijtelaar * Ps given a list of words and later asked to recall the list assuming intervening experiences would act as interference * Found when a list of words was learned under the influence of the drug diazepam recall one week later was poor (compared with a placebo control group) * When a list was learned before the drug was taken recall was better than the placebo * Drug improved recall of material learned beforehand * Wixted, drug prevents new information reaching parts of the brain involved in processing memories so it cannot interfere retroactively with information already stored

Answer 12

1. Interference and cues 2. Retrieval failure ## Footnote 1. Tulving and Psotka * Ps given lists of words organised into categories * One list at a time (ps weren't told what the categories were) * Recall averaged around 70% for 1st list * Became progressively worse as participants learned each additional list (proactive interference) * End of procedure ps were given a cued recall test - they were told the names of the categories * Recall rose again to 70% * Interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in LTM a finding not predicted by interference theory

Answer 13

A form of forgetting. It occurs when we don't have the necessary cues to access memory. The memory is available but not accessible unless a suitable cue is provided

Answer 14

* If a cue is to be helpful it has to be present at encoding and present at retrieval * If the cues are absent at retrieval there will be some forgetting * Some cues are encoded at time of learning in a meaningful way * Such cues used in mnemoic techniques * Other cues are encoded at time of learning but not in a meaningful way such as 1. Context-dependent forgetting - recall depends on external cue 2. State-dependent forgetting - recall depends on internal cues

Answer 15

Godden and Baddeley

Answer 16

* Ps learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land * 4 conditions 1. Learn on land - recall on land 2. Learn on land - recall underwater 3. Learn underwater - recall on land 4. Learn underwater - recall underwater

Answer 17

* in 2 of 3 conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall matched whereas in other 2 they did not * Accurate recall was 40% lower in non-matching conditions * External cues available at learning were different from ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure

Answer 18

Carter and Cassaday

Answer 19

* Gave antihistamine drugs to ps * Had a mild sedative effect making Ps drowsy * Creates an internal physiological state different from the normal state of being awake and alert * Ps had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the info again * 4 conditions 1. Learn on drug - recall when on drug 2. Learn on drug - recall when not on drug 3. Learn not on drug - recall when on drug 4. Learn not on drug - recall when not on drug

Answer 20

* Conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall performance on the memory test was significantly worse * When cues are absent then there is more forgetting

Answer 21

1. Real world application 2. Research support ## Footnote 1. Retrieval cues may help overcome some forgetting in everyday situations * Cues may not have a strong effect on forgetting * Baddeley suggests they're still worth paying attention to * Forgetting purpose of going to a room and having to return to the first room to recall * Making the effort to recall the environment in which you learned first * Research enables strategies to be used i real world to improve our recall 2. L * Sudies by Godden and Baddeley, Baddeley and Cassaday * Show a lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context-dependent and state-dependent forgetting in everyday life * Eysneck and Keane argue retrieval failure is main reason for forgetting from LTM * Retrieval failure occurs in real-world situations as in highly controlled conditions of the lab

Answer 22

1. Challenging evidence 2. Recall versus recognition ## Footnote 1. Baddeley * Context effects are actually not very strong especially in everyday life * Different contexts have to be different indeed before an effect is seen * Hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater * Learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environemnts aren't different enough * Retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting 2. Godden and Badeley * Replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall * Participants had to say whether they recognised a word read to the from a list instead of retrieving it for themselves * When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect * Performance same in all 4 conditions * Retrieval failure is a limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it

Answer 23

The ability of people to remember the details of events (such as accidents and crimes) which they themselves have observed. Accuracy of EWT can be affected by factors such as misleading info and anxiety

Answer 24

Loftus and Palmer

Answer 25

* 45 Ps (students) * To watch clips of car accidents and then asked them questions about the accident * In the critical question (a leading question) Ps were asked to describe how fast the cars were travelling * 5 Groups of Ps * Each group were given a different verb in critical question: hit, contacted, bumped, collided, smashed

Answer 26

* The mean estimated speed was calculated for each group * Verb contacted resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph * Verb smashed was 40.5mph * Leading questions biased the eyewitness' recall of an event

Answer 27

* Response-bias explanation - suggests wording of the questions has no real effect on participants' memories but just influences how they decide to answer * Substitution explanation - wording of a leading question changes the participant's memory

Answer 28

Loftus and Palmer ## Footnote * Conducted a second experiment * Proposes wording of a leading question changes the participant's memory of the film clip * Ps who originally heared smashed were later more likely to report seeing broken glass (there was none) than those who heard hit * Critical verb altered their memory of the incident

Answer 29

Gabbert et al

Answer 30

* Ps in pairs * Each P watched a video of the same crime but filmed from different points of view * Each P could see elements in the event that the other couldn't * Both Ps then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall

Answer 31

* 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they didn't see in the video but had picken up in the discussion * Corresponding figure in a control group where there was no discussion was 0% * Evidence of memory conformity

Answer 32

* Explanation of post-event discussion affecting EWT * When co-witesses to a crime discuss it with each other their eyewitness testimonies may become altered or distorted. Because (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memories

Answer 33

* Explanation of how post-event discussion affects EWT * Witnesses often go along with eachother either because of ISI or NSI * Actual memory is unchanged

Answer 34

1. Real-world application ## Footnote * Loftus believes that leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be very careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses * Psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court trials and explain the limits of EWT to juries * Psychologists can help to improve the way the legal system works especially by protecting innocent people from wrongful convictions based on unreliable EWT COUNTERPOINT * Practical applications of EWT may be affected by issues with research * Loftus and Palmer's Ps watched film clips in a lab which is a different expereince from witnessing a real event * Foster et al oint out what eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world but participants' responses in research do not matter in the same way (less motivation to be accurate) * Suggests Loftus is too pessimistic about effects of misleading info

Answer 35

1. Evidence against substitution 2. Evidence challenging memory conformity ## Footnote 1. Sutherland and Hayne (2001) * Showed Ps a video clop * When Ps were later asked misleading questions their recall was more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones * Presumably the PS attention was focused on central features of the event and these memories were relatively resistant to misleading information * Original memories for central details survived and weren't distorted * Outcome not predicted by substitution explanation 2. Skagerberg and Wright (2008) * Showed Ps film clips * 2 versions 1. Mugger's hair was dark brown 2. Mugger's hair was light brown * Ps discussed the clips in pairs * Didn't report what they had seen in the clips or what they had heard from the co-witness but a 'blend' of the 2 (common answer was medium brown) * Suggests memory is distorted through contamination by misleading post-event discussion rather than the result of memory conformity

Answer 36

A state of emotional and physical arousal. The emotions include having worried thoughs and feelings of tension. Physical changes include an increased heart rate and sweatiness. Is a normal reaction to stressful situations but it can affect the accuracy and detail of eyewitness testimony

Answer 37

Johnson and Scott

Answer 38

* Ps believed they were taking part in a lab study * While seated in a waiting room participants in the low-anxiety condition heard a casual conversation in the next room and then saw a man walk past them carrying a pan and with grease on his hands * Other Ps overheard a heated argument accompanied by the sound of breaking glass * A man walked out of the room holding a knife covered in blood * High-anxiety condition

Answer 39

* Ps later picked out man from a set of photos * 49% who had seen the man carring a pen were able to identify them * Ps who has seen man holding blood-coverd knife was 33% * Tunnel theory of memory argues people have enhanced memory for central events * Weapon focus due to anxiety can have this effect

Answer 40

Yuille and Cutshall

Answer 41

* Actual shooting in a gun shop in Vanncouber, Canada * Shop owner shot a thief dead * 13/21 witnesses took part in a study * Interviewed 4-5 months after the incident and these interviews were compared with the original police interviews at time of shooting * Accuracy was determined by number of details reported in each account * Ps also asked how stressed they felt at time of incident (7-point scale) and whether they had any emotional problems since the event (e.g. sleeplessness)

Answer 42

* Witnesses were very accurate in their accounts * There was little change in amount recalled on accuracy after 5 months * Some details were less accurate such as recollection of the colour of items and age/height/weight estimates * Ps who reported highest levels of stress were most accurate (88% compate to 75% for the less-stressed groups) * Anxiety may enhance accuracy of EWT

Answer 43

* Relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U * Reviewed 21 students of EWT * Used Yerkes-Dodson Law to explain contradictory findings * When we witness a crime/accident we become emotionally and physiologically aroused * We experience anxiety (emotional) as well as physiological changes in our body (fight or flight response) * Lower levels of anxiety/arousal produce lower levels of recall accuracy * memory becomes more accurate as as the anxiety/arousal increases * Optimal level of anxiety which is the point of maximum accuracy. Suffering anny more arousal their recall suffers a drastic decline

Answer 44

1. Support for negative effects 2. Support for positive effects ## Footnote 1. Valentine and Mesout * Supports research on weapon focus, finding negative effects on recall * Researchers used heart rate to divide Ps into high and low anxiety groups * In this study anxiety clearly disrupted Ps ability to recall details about the actor in the London Dungeon's Labyrinth * Suggests a high level of anxiety does have a negative effect on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event 2. Christianson and Hubinette * Interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden * Some witnesses were directly involed (bank workers) and some were indirectly involved (bystanders) * Assumed that those directly involved would experience most anxiety * Recall across all experiences was more than 75% accurate across all Ps * Direct victims were even more accurate * Findings from acutal crimes confirm that anxiety does not reduce the accuracy of recall for eyewitnesses, may enhance it COUNTERPOINT * Interviewed their Ps several months after the event * Researchers had no control over what happened to their Ps in this time (e.g. post-event dicussions) * Effects of anxiety may have been overwhelmed by these other factors and impossible to assess by the time the participants were interviewed * Lack of control over confounding variables

Answer 45

1. Unusualness not anxiety ## Footnote * Reason Ps focused on weapon may be because they were suprised at what they saw rather than scared * Pickel conducted an experiment using scissors, handhun, wallet or a raw chicken as the hand-held items in a hairdressing salon video (scissors would be high anxiety low unusualness) * Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (chicken and handgun/) * Weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety and therefore tells us nothing specificallt about the effects of anxiety on EWT

Answer 46

A method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It uses four main techniques all based on evidence-based psychological knowledge of human memory - report everything, reinstate the context, reverse the order and change perspective

Answer 47

* Witnesses encouraged to include every single detail of the event * Trivial details may trigger other important memories

Answer 48

* Witnesses should return to the orginal crime scene 'in their mind' and imagine the environment and their emotions * Related to context-dependent forgetting

Answer 49

* Events should be recalled in a different order from original sequence * Done to prevent people from reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened rather than reporting the actual events * Prevents dishonesty

Answer 50

* Witnesses recall incident from other's perspectives# * Done to disrupt the effect of expectations and effect of schema on recall * Schema you have for a particular setting generate expectations of what would have happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened

Answer 51

* Fisher et al * Developed additional elements of the CI to focus on social dynamics of interaction * Enhanced CI also includes ideas such as reducing eyewitness anxiety, minimising distractions, getting the witness to speak slowly and asking open-ended questions

Answer 52

1. Support for effectiveness of CI ## Footnote Kohnken et al - meta-analysis * Combined data from 55 studies comparing CI (and ECI) with standard police interview * CI gave an average 41% increase in accurate information compared with the standard interview * Only 4 studies in the analysis showed no difference between the types of interview * Shows CI is an effective technique in helping witnesses to recall information that is stores in memory (available) but not immediately accessible COUNTERPOINT * Also found an increase in amount of inaccurate information recalled by Ps * This was an issue in ECI which produced more incorrect details than CI * CI may sacrifice quality of EWT in favour of amount of details * Means police officers should treat eyewitness evidence from CIs/ECIs with caution

Answer 53

1. Some elements may be more useful 2. The CI is time-consuming ## Footnote 1. Milne and Bull * Found each of 4 techniques used alone produced more information than the standard police interview * Also found that using a combination of report everything and reinstate the context produced better recall than any other elements or combinations * Confirmed some aspects of CI are more useful than others * Casts some doubts on credibility of the overall CI 2. * Police officers may be reluctant to use CI because it takes more time and training than standard police interview * Kebell and Wagstaff * CI also requires special training and many forces do not have the resources to provide more than a few hours * Suggests the complete CI as it exists is not a realistic method for police officers to use and it might be better to focus on just a few key elements

Memory (P1) Flashcards

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