memory A03 Flashcards
(9 cards)
evaluate the MSM
_strength: support for duration of STM in MSM_
Ev - P+P trigrams: duration of STM = 18-30 secs
pps found it hard to recall trigrams with no maintenance rehearsal (MR) for this length of time.
Ex -MSM strong explanation of memory - shows STM has a limited duration unless rehearsed. WMM doesn’t specify a set duration for its different components. MSM proves that STM and LTM have different durations, supporting the idea that these memory stores are separate and valid.
L - low mundane realism, not everyday task, no semantic meaning or consequences. IRL if don’t recall, can impact life (e.g. exam-career)
also, info IRL = more complex and can be revised during high stress and anxiety, which P+P pps didn’t have. so maybe duration IRL is longer, and MSM not good explanation of RL memory.
strength - RS with high EV
Ev - Clive Wearing - herpes virus, damaged his ability to have
MR. He therefore only had a STM of up to 10 secs.
Ex - supports the MSM- proves do need to MR information in STM, as without it Clive could not form LTM.
L - Clive Wearing = unique case study & his duration was lower than the 18-30sec duration supposed by P+P.
This disproves MSM as it could just be due to Clive’s herpes virus and not MR issues, but other areas of brain damage.
Criticism - MSM = oversimplified
Ev - assumes STM only encodes acoustically and that humans can only encode one peice of info at a time and not dual processing like WMM.
Ex - Humans are not as simplistic, we have emotions that will affect the way our memories are stored or retrieved. treats humans too much like computers and ignores emotions.
may need to elaborately rehearse info to get it into LTM by processing the importance and meaning to the info.
L - But some info can’t be encoded semantically so do need MR. Good start at explaining mem.
Long term memory A03
strength: Research support for types of LTM from brain scans
Ev - Tulving - PET scans. 6 pp’s performing memory tasks. Injected radioactive traces of gold.
More blood flow toanterior (front) = episodic.
More blood flow to posterior (back) = semantic.
Ex - Objective measure, scientific causation, no demand characteristics possible
when doing memory tasks and
measuring with PET scan so can be sure that Diff areas active when recalling distinct types of LTM.
L - only 6 pps, 3
dropped out (Tulving, his wife and 1
other pp left). Therefore, more of a case study, hard to generalise to others as maybe unique brain differences - unlike to normal pop, e.g., professors at universities (highly educated).
Lack of EV
strength - RS with high EV
Ev - Clive Wearing, lost episodic memories, but retained some semantic & full procedural memories, e.g., how to play
piano.
Ex - Proves that there are different types as each type was affected to a greater or lesser extent.
L - could argue playing piano is episodic as was a concert pianist and maybe recalling memories of playing the piano to play. Reading music (semantic). As a case study hard to generalise, different to other
people in terms of his profession.
Strength - RLA
Ev - Episodic memories can be improved in older people with mild cognitive impairments.
Ex - This means that specific treatments can be developed to help with different LT memory impairments.
L - splitting our LTM into types is reductionist.
semantic, procedural and episodic memories are linked together, e.g., knowing how to play the piano, understanding where to play and what time the concert event is on. So maybe we need to consider LTM more holistically.
working memory model (WMM) AO3
strengthresearch support for dual processing
Ev- Baddeley + Hitch, tracking light and angles.
Ex - proves we cannot do do similar tasks (e.g. two visual tasks) as it overloads the VSS. whereas, we can dual task (one articulatory and one visual) without decrease in performance. Hence 2 separate slave systems.
L- lack of EV, no semantics or consequences (IRL, driving and reading a map - more serious consequence so may be able to do it better)
Strength - evidence from studies with higher ecological validity
Ev- KF - motorcycle accident. STM forgetting of auditory info rather than visual.
Ex- Had issues specifically with his PL. This supports the idea we have separate slave systems.
L- case study, unique, accident could have altered his brain functions
criticism - WMM can be criticised for being too vague
Ev- doesn’t fully explain CE (assumes single component, rather than made of many functions. E.g. cerebral brain tumour removed, performed well on reasoning tests but poor decision making (CE needed for both)
Ex WMM = reductionist, oversimplifies role of CE - maybe CE is describing a number of cognitive functions
L - but still less reductionist than MSM
interference AO3
strength - research support
for the existence of retroactive interference
McGeoch & McDonald
proves that that List B (new info) was affecting the recall of old info(List A) = retroactive interference (RI)
Highly scientific, only change is the list given.
HOWEVER…
lack of EV (no consequence), possibly less likely to have Ri if there is semantics to the information. Also, could be retrieval delay issues as 10 min break.
Strength - However, there is
research support with high ecological validity
Rugby Players - Forgetting was more due to the number of games played (so interference of memory) rather than the amount of time that passed between games.
so, Interference is the issue, and not retrieval delay in a real-life situation.
HOWEVER… could only be true of RI
strength - Though there is research support for proactive interference
Meta-analysis of other studies on proactive interference. If 10 or more lists remembered, after 24hrs 20% recalled new information. If only 1 list, it was 70% recalled.
Therefore, evidence of both retroactive and proactive interference, over many studies and within a real-life setting.
This has real life application for understanding how to improve memory recall and reduce forgetting, e.g.,
avoiding revising similar subjects for an exam on the same day.
retrieval failure AO3
RS: importance of cues
Ev - Pps learnt 48 words belonging to 12 categories. Presented as category +
word, e.g., fruit-apple.
Condition 1: free recall.
Condition 2: cued recall.
free recall = 40% recalled
cued recall =60% recalled.
Ex - When given a cue (e.g. the category) recall was higher than without. Hence more retrieval failure without cues (proves the encoded specificity principle)
L - lacks mundane realism. The words have no semantic meaning. Maybe retrieval cues are less useful when emotive or strong meaning.
strength - RLA on retrieval failure
BOOB
same context= higher recall, useful as it shows should learn and recall in same external context. shows importance of learning in exam conditions to ensure a similar context.
HOWEVER…
not possible to conduct all learning in the same context, e.g. unethical to take eyewitnesses back to scene of crime (however can reinstate context in cognitive interview).
criticism - practical issues to using strategies for using retrieval cues
48 medical students
more errors made in AS and SA conditions than AA or SS.
Being in the same internal state increases recall.
HOWEVER…
unethical and impractical to place people in the same state, e.g. PTSD or getting someone intoxicated in a police interview or court.
HOWEVER..
this does help with increasing the accuracy of EWT, e.g., reinstatement of context (getting the EW to consider the context or their state at the time).
leading questions A03
strength - research support
loftus and palmer exp 1
Ev - 45 students
“how fast was the car going when it…into the other vehicle?”
(hit, collided, smashed, bumped, contacted)
hit 31mph, smashed 41mph average
Ex - shows leading Q’s decrease accuracy of EWT.
L - lack of MR (no consequence), response bias + not immediate recall (not testing LTM), Also students - not experienced drivers so inaccurate estimations of MPH.
exp 2 broken glass
Ev - removed response bias
more people said yes in smashed than hit - more likely to have a false memory if had leading Q.
Ex - 16/50 had false memories so their memory became more violent, so we shouldn’t use EWT.
L - BUT 34/50 didn’t have false memory. Can’t generalise to crimes due to the emotional response in sexual crimes.
criminals could get away with rape crimes if EWT seen as not reliable.
research support with high ecological validity
Ev - Yuille & Cutshall: interviewed 13 EW’s to real life armed robbery; 2 misleading questions but very accurate 4 months after robbery.
Ex - No consequences in L&P’s study, e.g. lack of surprise/emotion, unlike in Yuille & Cutshall. Hence why leading questions did not affect in real life
L - Good RLA, e.g. reducing police using leading questions in interviews (cognitive interview).
Post-event discussion AO3
strength - research support with good population validity
Ev - Gabbert - 120pps (1/2 students, 1/2 older)
control group, exp group (PED)
60% said girl was guilty despite not seeing her commit the crime.
Ex - Post event discussion decreases accuracy; highly generalisable, as not just students but older people.
L - low ecological validity – no surprise, knew taking part in an experiment. lack of consequences.
strength- application to real life
Ev- RS: 3 groups
• post event discussion
• read another pps report (no PED)
• watched an alternative video (no PED)
They were either warned or not warned about effects of post event discussions.
Ex - Reduce the effects when warned, PED group as accurate as non PED group. They were less likely to include non-witnessed detail.
L - RLA - used by police to improve EWT.
anxiety AO3
strength - weapon focus study
cond 1: amicable- 49% accuracy in id’ing man
cond 2: hostile - 33%
cristisicm weapon focus study has low ecological validity
extremely fake - staged hostile and amicable discussion. This was acted and the pp’s may have
realised. paper knife.
Possibly more under-arousal, lack of anxiety as not a real-life event. Hence poor memory performance; or demand characteristics.
HOWEVER…
low accuracy = surprised by the argument, rather than the anxiety of the weapon and threat it poses?
RS: high EV for weapon focus
London dungeons (heart monitor to measure anxiety when scared). Results: high state of anxiety = fewer correct descriptors of person & inaccurate line up id.
more anxiety the worse the accuracy of EWT.
HOWEVER…
this could be more due to surprise than weapon focussed anxiety.
backed up by pickel’s study where pp’s watched a thief enter hair salon
4 conditions: 1. Scissors, 2. handgun, 3. Wallet, 4. raw chicken.
The pp’s accuracy decreased to high surprise (raw chicken) than the handgun
(high threat).
criticises the weapon focus theory and supports the theory that EWT is affected by surprise rather than weapon focused anxiety.
However, both the London dungeon and the surprise studies results of poor
EWT recall may be overarousal, hence poor performance and not optimal
Yuille and Cutshall: Canada armed robbery. Police interviewed EW’s, 13 reinterviewed 4-5 months later. Accurate recall, even with 2 leading questions.
Highest levels of stress reported were the most accurate (88% - 75%).
Proves that in a real-life crime, EWT is accurate. Therefore, the weapon focus study was too underaroused and the London Dungeons over aroused (both not real crime situations).
This fits with Yerkes-Dodson Law: optimal anxiety which increases accuracy; too low (Weapon focus) or too high and less accuracy.
cognitive interview AO3
strength cognitive interview is more accurate
Simulated crime: used CI, SI and hypnosis. Found more accurate recall with CI.
Therefore, CI is more effective in getting reliable EWT for CJS.
Research found it also increases the amount of information recalled.
HOWEVER…
lack of EV, as no consequences to
incorrectly recalling, different in a real crime situation.
criticism - However, it depends on the element of the cognitive interview that is used
Recall everything & context reinstatement was the most preferred by police and seemed to be the most effective.
The CI as a whole lacks accuracy and is particularly ineffective in the more challenging elements of changing perspective and context reinstatement.
Therefore, better if only 2 elements, it also reduces the time taken to complete a cognitive interview.
criticism - On the other hand, there are problems in completing training and the time taken to do the training
Not all police are trained as it is expensive to do so. means that whilst training not being used to reduce offending.
Therefore, CI lacks usefulness as if there are few police then not employed in majority of crimes. so SI more used by police and hence useful.
Moreover, changing perspective and reversing the order are not good with children. They have not developed the ability to perspective take or abstract think until they are at least 7 years of
age.
