Memory

Question 1

Baddeley gave what four different lists of words to four groups?

Answer 1

1. Acoustically similar words. (sound similar)
2. Acoustically dissimilar words. (sound different)
3. Semantically similar. (similar meanings)
4. Semantically dissimilar. (different meanings)

Question 2

What words did Baddeley’s participants do worse on (STM) ?

What about after 20 minutes (LTM)?

What does this suggest?

Answer 2

Acoustically similar words.

Semantically similar words.

Information is coded semantically in LTM.

Question 3

What is digit span and who conducted the study?

What was the average digit span?

Answer 3

Number of digits a person is able to recall in order. Joseph Jacobs

9.3.

Question 4

What is chunking and who discovered it?

Answer 4

Grouping words or numbers into sections. e.g. 7 days, 7 notes on music. George Miller.

Question 5

Summarise research on STM and who it was conducted by.

Answer 5

24 undergrads. Eight tests. Given a trigram and asked to count to prevent rehearsal. STM has very short duration unless we rehearse. Margaret and Lloyd Peterson.

Question 6

Summarise research on LTM and who it was conducted by.

Answer 6

392 participants aged 17 to 74. Photo recognition of yearbook and free recall of class. Photo after 15 years = 90% accurate. Photo after 48 years = 70% accurate. Free recall after 15 years = 60%. Free recall after 48 years = 30%. LTM can last a long time. Harry Bahrick.

Question 7

Evaluate coding research. (1)

Answer 7

Used artificial stimuli - Word lists had no meaning. Difficult to generalise findings to different kinds of memory task. E.g. when processing meaningful info people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks. Therefore limited application.

Question 8

Evaluate capacity research. (2)

Answer 8

Digit Span - Conducted long time ago. Lacked control. Participants may have been distracted so didn’t perform as well. Confounding variables not controlled. Results confirmed in other research though.

Memory and Chunking - Overestimated capacity of STM. Cowan said it was only 4 chunks.

Question 9

Evaluate duration research. (2)

Answer 9

Duration of STM, Peterson and Peterson undergrads - Stimulus was artificial. Not meaningful material. Lacked external validity. But sometimes we remember phone numbers.

Duration of LTM, Bahrick 392 yearbook photos - Shepard et al, Higher external validity. Real life memories were studied. Non-meaningful studies did not recall as well. Confounding variables were not controlled though.

Question 10

What do stimulus pass into? (MSM)

Answer 10

Sensory registers.

Question 11

What are the two main stores and what do they hold? (MSM)

Answer 11

Iconic memory (visual info coded visually). 
Echoic memory (sound coded acoustically).

Question 12

How many items can STM hold (coded how?) and how long does it last? (MSM)

Answer 12

5-9 items acoustically. 30 seconds.

Question 13

What is maintenance rehearsal? (MSM)

Answer 13

When we rehearse material to ourselves over and over until it eventually passes into our long-term memory.

Question 14

How many items can LTM hold (coded how?) and how long does it last? (MSM)

Answer 14

Unlimited items semantically. Many years.

Question 15

What happens when we want to recall info from LTM? (MSM)

Answer 15

It is passed into STM by retrieval.

Question 16

Evaluate multi-store model (5)

Answer 16

1. Support from research studies that show LTM and STM are different. - E.g. Badelley, found we are likely to mix up words that sound similar when using STM. In LTM we mix up words with similar meanings. Clearly shows STM is acoustic and LTM is semantic.
2. MSM states that there is only one type of STM - Shallice and Warrington KF Study, Evidence from amnesia patients shows different types of STM. E.g. a store for verbal and non-verbal sounds. This is a limitation as it shows there must be be one STM for visual info and another for auditory.
3. MSM states that more rehearsal = more remembered. Craig and Watkins, found this was wrong. What matters is the type of rehearsal. Elaborative rehearsal is needed for long-term storage which is linking the info to existing knowledge.
4. Artificial materials - digits, letters and words.
5. More than one type of LTM - one store about facts and one about actions e.g. driving.

Question 17

Summarise episodic memory.

Answer 17

Recalling events from life such as a gig you went to last week, with a timestamp (e.g. last week). Will contain multiple elements and you will have to search for the memory.

Question 18

Summarise semantic memory.

Answer 18

Knowledge of the world. Dictionary. Less personal and more about facts.

Question 19

Summarise procedural memory.

Answer 19

Memory for actions or skills. Can recall without conscious awareness e.g. driving a car.

Question 20

Evaluate types of long term memory. (5)

Answer 20

1. Clinical evidence - Study of HM. Episodic memory was harmed by amnesia. Difficulty recalling events but semantic memories were fine. Supports the view that there are different stores.
2. Neuroimaging evidence - Brain scans show memory is in different parts of brain. Tulving, scanned brains while doing tasks. Episodic (right) and semantic (left) = prefrontal cortex. Supports validity of findings.
3. Real life application - Allows people to target certain memories. Belleville, - test of episodic memory. Better after training. Enables specific treatments.
4. Problems with clinical evidence - Lack of control of many variables and they are rare cases.
5. Two types of LTM - Cohen and Squire found episodic and semantic memories are stored together in declarative memory.

Question 21

What is the central executive? (WMM)

Answer 21

Monitors incoming data and makes decisions.

Question 22

What is the phonological loop? (WMM)

Answer 22

Deals with auditory information.

Divided into phonological store (words you hear) and articulatory process which allows rehearsal.

Question 23

What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad? (WMM)

Answer 23

Stores visual and spatial information when required (Mr Lodge’s office…) Divided into visual cache (visual data) and the inner scribe (arrangement of objects).

Question 24

What is the episodic buffer? (WMM)

Answer 24

Temporary store for information. Integrates all systems.

Question 25

Name all components of the working memory model.

Answer 25

Central executive. Phonological loop (articulatory process and phonological store). Visuo-spatial sketchpad (visual cache and inner scribe). Episodic Buffer.

Question 26

Evaluate the WMM (5).

Answer 26

1. Clinical evidence - Shallice and Warrington. Patient KF suffered brain damage. Poor STM ability for verbal info but could process visual info. Just his phonological loop had been damaged. 2. Dual task performance - Baddeley et al, difficulty doing two visual tasks, ok doing visual and verbal. Shows there are two different components. 3. Central exec - Baddeley, Not enough explanation of it. WMM not fully explained. 4. Research support for loop - Baddeley et al found people find it more difficult to remember long words in articulatory suppression tasks. 5. Brain scan studies support - Braver et al, gave participants task involving central exec and found greater activity in left prefrontal cortex.

Question 27

What are the two types of interference?

Answer 27

Proactive - occurs when an older memory interferes with a new one. Retroactive - newer memory interferes with an older one.

Question 28

What 6 groups were used in similarity procedure? (interference)

Answer 28

1. Synonyms. 2. Antonyms. 3. Words unrelated to original 10. 4. Nonsense syllables. 5. Three digit numbers. 6. No new list.

Question 29

What were the findings of the similarity study for interference?

Answer 29

Most similar words found worst recall.

Question 30

Evaluate interference (5).

Answer 30

1. Lab study evidence - McGeoch and McDonald's research on facing page shows both types of interference are common. Lab controls effects of irrelevant influences so valid explanation for forgetting. 2. Artificial materials - Different from what we learn in real life such as faces. Interference is much more likely in the lab than it is in everyday life. 3. Real-life studies - Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall details. Recall did not depend on time since played, but how many matches played since. Shows interference can apply to real life. 4. Time between learning - we don't remember info like they do in lab studies with time periods between learning. 5. Interference may be overcome with cues - Tulving and Psotka gave participants five lists of words. Recall fell as more words were given. When given cues (categories) recall rose again.

Question 31

What is retrieval failure?

Answer 31

Not being able to retrieve memories from the LTM, possibly due to lack of cues.

Question 32

Summarise encoding specificity principle. (RF)

Answer 32

Tulving, if a cue is to help us, it must be present at encoding and retrieval. Cues are used in many mnemonic techniques.

Question 33

Summarise context-dependent forgetting. (RF)

Answer 33

Godden and Baddeley. Deep sea divers. Land and water. Recall better in matching conditions than non-matching.

Question 34

Summarise state-dependent forgetting. (RF)

Answer 34

Carter and Cassaday. Hayfever tablets. Recall better in matching states than non-matching.

Question 35

Evaluate retrieval failure (5).

Answer 35

1. Supporting evidence - Hayfever and deep sea diver studies. 2. Context effects - Different contexts have to be very different for effect is seen. Water and land is extreme. Real life application of retrieval failure is limited. 3. Recall versus recognition - Repeated underwater experiment with recognition instead. Performance was the same on all conditions. Presence or absence of cues only affects memory in certain ways. 4. Problems with encoding specifity principle - it cant be tested and produces a form of circular reasoning. We only make assumptions. 5. Real-life application - Baddeley says it has good application to why we may forget things e.g. going upstairs for something then forgetting. Application to cognitive interview to reinstate context.

Question 36

Summarise leading questions for EWT.

Answer 36

Car crash video. Verbs: Hit, contacted, bumped, collided, smashed. The verb used biased the recall.

Question 37

Summarise post-event discussion for EWT.

Answer 37

Gabbert (2003). Studied participants in pairs. Watched a video of crimes. Discussed what they saw. 71% of participants recalled aspects they didn't see. Memory conformity occurred.

Question 38

Evaluate misleading information for EWT (5).

Answer 38

1. Useful real-life application - Loftus, Police officers need to be careful about how they phrase questions. Improves legal system so good life applications. 2. Artificial tasks - They watched film clips, not real life accidents. Lacked stress. Tell us very little about how leading questions can affect EWT in rl life. 3. Individual differences - Older people are less accurate than young when giving EWT. Anastasi and Rhodes, More accurate identifying own age group. If younger people are in study, recall for older will be deemed worse. 4. Demand characteristics - Zaraosa and McCloskey say that many answers are as a result of this as they don't want to let the researcher down so they guess. 5. EWT usefulness - Foster et al, in studies it is not important so they dont pay as much attention/care, but in real life they will care more if it will catch a criminal etc.

Question 39

Summarise anxiety negative effect on recall.

Answer 39

Johnson and Scott. Lab study where argument is heard. Some heard breaking glass and saw man with bloody knife. More recalled from low stress situation than high.

Question 40

What is the tunnel theory of anxiety on EWT?

Answer 40

Witnesses attention narrows on a weapon because it is a source of anxiety.

Question 41

Summarise anxiety positive effect on recall.

Answer 41

Yuille and Cutshall. Study of real life shooting. Interviewed 5 months after incident and compared with original interviews. High accuracy. High levels of stress = most accurate.

Question 42

Summarise inverted U (Yerkes-Dodson law).

Answer 42

Memory is more accurate as levels of anxiety increase, but there is an optimum where recall declines again after.

Question 43

Evaluate anxiety effecting EWT (5).

Answer 43

1. May test surprise rather than anxiety. EWT was weaker when holding a chicken and handgun vs scissors or wallet. 2. No control over what happens between incident and interview. E.g. accounts read in media. Extraneous variables may affect accuracy of recall. 3. Creating anxiety in participants can cause psychological harm. Real life studies are better. 4. Inverted-u is too simplistic - arousal is only linked to poor performance, there is more to it that that. 5. Demand characteristics in lab studies - participants aware they are in a study so will pay more attention to answer the questions.

Question 44

Summarise 4 stages of cognitive interview.

Answer 44

1. Report everything (even non-important). 2. Reinstate context (imagine the crime scene). 3. Reverse the order of events. 4. Change perspective (eyes of someone else).

Question 45

Evaluate the cognitive interview (5).

Answer 45

1. Time-consuming - Police reluctant to use it because is takes time than normal interview. More time needed for rapport. CI not actually used so cant impress police. 2. Some elements more valuable than others - Milne and Bull found every element was valuable. Found that report everything and context reinstatement were the best. Suggests at least two of the elements should be used to improve interviews. 3. Support for effectiveness - ECI offers special benefits. Meta-analysis by Kohnken et al, ECI provided more correct info than normal police interview. Shows there are real practical benefits. 4. Variations of cognitive interview are used - so we cant combine them all together into meta analysis as they may be slightly different which could affect recall. 5. Increases inaccurate information - Kohnken et al found an increase of 61% of inaccurate information compared to a normal interview.