Memory (Paper 1) Flashcards

Question

What is a positive evaluation (supporting evidence) of MSM | Page 49

Answer 1

A major strength of the MSM is that it is supported by research studies that show that STM and LTM are indeed qualitatively different. e.g, Baddeley (page 46-47) found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs. But we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTMs. The strength of this study is that it clearly shows that coding in STM is acoustic and in LTM it is semantic. So they are different, and this supports the MSM's view that these two memory stores are separate and independent. Further support is given by all the studies of coding, capacity and duration we encountered on page 47 | A03

Answer 2

This is the potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time. Psychologists believe that its capacity is unlimited and can last very many years. For example, as we saw in the previous spread, Bahrick et al. (1975) found that many of their participants were able to recognise the names and faces of their school classmates almost 50 years after graduating. We also saw that LTMs tend to be coded semantically (i.e. in terms of meaning). Although this material is stored in LTM, when we want to recall it, it has to be transferred back into STM by a process called retrieval. According to the MSM, this is true of all our memories. None of them are recalled directly from LTM. | A01

Answer 3

A proccess where when a material is stored in LTM, if we want to recall it - it has to be proccessed back in STM ( this process is called Retrieval) | A01

Answer 4

Evidence from people suffering amnesia shows that this isin't true. e.g, Shallice and Warrington (1970) studied a patient with amnesia known as KF. They found that KF's short-term memory for digits was very poor when they read them out loud to him. But his recall was much better when he was able to read the digits to himself. Further studies of KF and other people with amnesia showed that there could even be another short-term store for non-verbal sounds (such as noises). The unitary STM is a limitation of the MSM because research shows that at the very least there must be one short-term store to process visual information and another one to process auditory information. The working memory model (see page 52) includes these separate stores. | A03

Answer 5

What really matters about rehearsal is the **type**. Craik and Watkins discovered that there are two types of rehearsal. **Maintenance rehearsal** is the type described in the MSM - **but** this does not transfer information into LTM. It just maintains it in STM, hence the name. **Elaborative rehearsal** is actually what is needed for long-term storage. This occurs when you link the information to your existing knowledge, or you think about what it means. This is a very serious limitation of the MSM because Craik and Watkins have a research finding that cannot be explained by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin's MSM | A03

Answer 6

In everyday life, we form memories related to all sorts of useful things - people's faces, names, facts, places, and so on. But a lot of the research studies that provide support for the MSM used none of these materials. Instead, they used digits, letters, and sometimes words. They even used what are known as consonant syllables that have no meaning. It is a limitation because it means the MSM may not be a good explanation of how memory works in our everyday lives. So we could study memory by using more real-life everyday materials such as pictures of people's faces, people's names, meaningful words or sentences. The problem with using these materials is that the researcher loses some control over their experiment. For example, which faces would you use? If you use pictures of well-known celebrities then some of them will be more familiar to some participants than to others. If you use faces of people known to the participants, then how do you know the materials are comparable from one participant to another? | A03

Answer 7

There is a lot of research evidence that LTM, (like STM,) is not a unitary memory store. For example, we have one long-term store for our memories of facts about the world (semantic), and we have a different one for our memories of how to ride a bicycle. (procedural). It is a problem because the multi-store model is very clear that there is only one single unitary long-term store. The finding that there are different types of LTM undermines this model. | A03

Answer 8

(positive evaluation) HM underwent brain surgery to relieve his epilepsy. The procedure used was in its infancy and not fully understood. Crucially, a part of his brain known as the hippocampus was removed from both sides of his brain. We now know this to be central to memory function. When his memory was assessed in 1955, he thought the year was 1953, and that he was 27 years old (he was actually 31). He had very little recall of the operation and he could not remember speaking with someone just an hour earlier. His LTM was tested over and over again but never improved with practice. He would read the same magazine repeatedly without remembering it. He couldn't recall what he had eaten earlier the same day. However, despite all this, he performed well on tests of immediate memory span, a measure of STM. (limitation) You can also criticise the methodology used (it was a unique case study of a brain-damaged individual). However, such methodological criticisms are only creditworthy if they are explicitly linked to the MSM, e.g. you say 'therefore this case study does not offer good support for the MSM'. Extra: The case of HM supports the multi-store model because it supports the central feature of the model – that there are two separate and independent memory stores, short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM). What happened to HM is evidence that it is possible to suffer damage to one of these stores with the other remaining relatively unaffected. HM's LTM was badly damaged. He had no memory for events that happened just hours or even minutes earlier. His LTM never improved with practice either. But testing showed that his STM was much less badly affected. His almost-normal digit span showed that he could recall information that was presented to him immediately. Many people with amnesia show a similar pattern of memory – one store is damaged, the other is OK. Clinical psychologists call this difference in performance a dissociation. | A02

Answer 9

Episodic memory is the memory that allows us to recall specific events or “episodes” from our lives, e.g a recent trip to the dentist. This is called “time stamped” memory because we remember when the events occurred - It includes various details of an experience, including people, places, objects and requires a conscious effort to recall. Part of you LTM | A01

Answer 10

Semantic memory holds our general knowledge about the world, e.g facts and concepts - like the meaning of the word "love" or the taste of an orange. It is not time- stamped, (so we do not remember when we learned this information.) It grows over time and includes simple facts as well as vast concepts. needs to be recalled deliberatly. Part of your LTM. | A01

Answer 11

Procedural memory involves memory for action and skills - It's how we perform tasks. Allows us to carry out actions like driving a car without consciously thinking about every step. This memory type often does not use conscious recall. Part of your LTM. | A01

Answer 12

The famous case studies of HM (Henry Molaison) and Clive Wearing are relevant here. Episodic memory in both men was severely impaired as a consequence of amnesia. They had great difficulty recalling events that had happened to them in their pasts. But their semantic memories were relatively unaffected. e.g, they still understood the meaning of words. So HM would not be able to recall stroking a dog half an hour earlier and could not remember having owned a dog in the past, but he would not need to have the concept of 'dog' explained to him over and over again. Their procedural memories were also intact. They both knew how to tie their shoelaces, how to walk and speak, and, in Clive Wearing's case (he was a professional musician), how to read music, sing and play the piano. This evidence supports Tulving's view that there are different memory stores in LTM. One store can be damaged but other stores are unaffected. This is clear evidence that not only are these types of memory different, but they are stored in different parts of the brain. | A03 ## Footnote clinical evidence

Answer 13

There is evidence from brain scan studies that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain. For example, Tulving et al. (1994) got their participants to perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned using a PET scanner. They found that episodic and semantic memories were both recalled from the prefrontal cortex. This area is divided in two, one on each side (or hemisphere) of the brain. The left prefrontal cortex was involved in recalling semantic memories. Episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex. The strength of this finding is that it supports the view that there is a physical reality to the different types of LTM, within the brain. It has also been confirmed many times in later research studies, further supporting the validity of this finding. | A03 ## Footnote Nerouimaging evidence

Answer 14

Being able to identify different aspects of LTM allows psychologists to target certain kinds of memory in order to better people's lives. -Belleville et al. (2006) demonstrated that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment. The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group. Episodic memory is the type of memory most often affected by mild cognitive impairment, which highlights the benefit of being able to distinguish between types of LTM - because it enables specific treatments to be developed. | A03

Answer 15

Psychologists are very interested in studying people with brain injuries. e.g Clive Wearing and Henry Molaison. Who have helped researchers to understand how memory is supposed to work normally. But such clinical studies are not perfect. For there is a serious lack of control of all sorts of different variables in clinical studies. Clinical studies involve people who have had brain injuries, usually due to an accident. By definition, these are unexpected. The psychologist/researcher has no control over what happened to the patient/participant before they experienced the injury. This is a very serious limitation of clinical studies. e.g, in the case of amnesia, the psychologist will have very little idea of what the patient's memory was like before the injury. Therefore, they won't know how much worse it is now than it was then. If the patient achieves a digit span of just three items on a test of STM capacity, is this a lot worse than they would have managed before the injury? Or about the same? This means it is hard to know what has caused the amnesia - the injury to a certain part of the brain, or other variables that could not be controlled? Therefore the conclusions researchers have reached about memory, based on clinical studies, may not be valid. [There is one way to try and get around this problem. Psychologists talk to the patient's family members to get some idea of what their memory was like previously. This helps, but it is very far from ideal.] | A03

Answer 16

Cohen and Squire (1980) disagree with Tulving's division of LTM into three types. They accept that procedural memories represent one type of LTM. But they argue that episodic and semantic memories are stored together in one LTM store - that they call declarative memory (memories that can be consciously recalled.) In contrast procedural memories are non-declarative. (can't be consiously recalled) This may seem trivial but is an imporant difference . We need to get the distinctions right for two main reasons. First, we need to have an accurate conception of how memory works. This includes the issue of whether LTM is made up of two or three stores. It is important because we can apply accurate knowledge practically to help people who suffer from amnesia. We are in a better position to help if we know exactly which type of memory is affected. Secondly, it is important from a scientific point of view. This is because we should accept the theory of LTM that best matches the evidence, both from lab experiments and from clinical studies of amnesia. Science progresses by formulating a theory, conducting studies to test the theory, and then changing the theory to account for the evidence. | A03

Answer 17

WMM is representation of STM as dynamic processor of different types of information - using sub-units coordinated by a central decision-making system. It is an explanation of how one aspect of memory (short-term memory) is organised and how it functions. Concerned with the part of the mind that is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating information, e.g when working on an arithmetic problem or playing chess or comprehending language, etc. The model consists of four main components, each of which is qualitatively different especially in terms of capacity and coding. | A01

Answer 18

The component of the WMM that co-ordinates the activities of the three subsystems in memory. It also allocates processing resources to those activities. It is essentially an attentional process that monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave systems to tasks (PL, VSS and EB). The central executive has a very limited processing capacity. | A01

Answer 19

The component of the WMM that processes information in terms of sound. This includes both written and spoken material. It's divided into the phonological store and the articulatory process. (it is one of the slave systems) It deals with auditory information (i.e. coding is acoustic) and preserves the order in which the information arrives. The PL is subdivided into: * The phonological store, which stores the words you hear. * The articulatory process, which allows maintenance rehearsal maintenance rehersal= repeating sounds or words in a 'loop' to keep them in working memory while they are needed). The capacity of this 'loop' is believed to be two seconds' worth of what you can say | A01

Answer 20

The component of the WMM that processes visual and spatial information in a mental space often called our 'inner eye'. The second slave system is the visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS). The VSS stores visual and/or spatial information when required. e.g, if you are asked to work out how many windows there are on your house you visualise it. It also has a limited capacity, which according to Baddeley (2003) is about three or four objects. Logie (1995) subdivided the VSS into: * The visual cache, which stores visual data. * The inner scribe, which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field. | A01

Answer 21

The component of the WMM that brings together material from the other subsystems into a single memory. Also a bridge between working memory and long-term memory. The third slave system is the episodic buffer. This was added later to the model by Baddeley in 2000. It is a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial, and verbal information processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing - basically recording events (episodes) that are happening. It can be seen as the storage component of the central executive and has a limited capacity of about four chunks (Baddeley 2012). The episodic buffer links working memory to LTM and wider cognitive processes such as perception. | A01

Answer 22

sadly can't insert here- your chance to look the two up and recall it. | A01

Answer 23

Support for the WMM comes from Shallice and Warrington's (1970) case study of patient KF who had suffered brain damage (see also page 49). After this damage happened KF had poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information normally presented visually, i.e. he had difficulty with sounds but could recall letters and digits. This suggests that just his phonological loop had been damaged leaving other areas of memory intact. This supports the existence of a separate visual and acoustic store. However, evidence from brain-damaged patients may not be reliable because it concerns unique cases with patients who have had traumatic experiences. | A03

Answer 24

Baddeley et al. (1975) showed that participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks (tracking a light and describing the letter F) than doing both a visual and verbal task at the same time. This increased difficulty is because both visual tasks compete for the same slave system whereas, when doing a verbal and visual task simultaneously, there is no competition. This means there must be a separate slave system (the VSS) that processes visual input. | A03 ## Footnote ( A positive evaluation of the WMM)

Answer 25

Cognitive psychologists suggest that this component of the WMM is unsatisfactory and doesn't really explain anything. Alan Baddeley himself recognised this when he said: 'The central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory' (Baddeley, 2003). The central executive needs to be more clearly specified than just being simply 'attention'. e.g, some psychologists believe it may consist of separate components. This means that the WMM hasn't been fully explained. | A03

Answer 26

Baddeley et al. (1975) demonstrated that people find it more difficult to remember a list of long words (such as 'association') rather than short words. This is called the word length effect. This is because there is a finite space for rehearsal in the articulatory process (probably about two seconds' worth). The word length effect disappears if a person is given an articulatory suppression task - this is a repetitive task that ties up the articulatory process. For example, doing a task while saying 'la la la' means that your articulatory process is kept busy. (The study, as predicted by the WMM. supports the model's view that the phonological loop has a limited capacity which is determined by how many words can be vocalised within about two seconds. It's possible to rehearse more words in that time if they are shorter because you can 'fit more in'. It also supports the prediction that the word length effect will disappear if the participant is given a repetitive verbal task to perform at the same time (such as saying 'the the the…' over and over again, out loud. Because this task uses the articulatory process, shorter words no longer have an advantage. There is no room to rehearse them any more than there is room to rehearse longer words.) | A03

Answer 27

Braver et al. (1997) gave their participants tasks that involved the central executive while they were having a brain scan. The researchers found greater activity in the left prefrontal cortex. The activity in this area increased as the task became harder. This makes a lot of sense in terms of the WMM: as demands on the CE increase, it has to work harder to fulfil its function. This finding supports the WMM because it clearly shows that different memory functions are handled by different areas of the brain. This is biologically-based evidence to support the different components of the model. It also supports the model's prediction that there will be more activity in the central executive as more demands are placed upon it, as reflected in greater brain activity. | A03

Answer 28

Forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten. At least some forgetting takes place because of interference. This occurs when two pieces of information conflict with each other, resulting in forgetting of one or both, or in some distortion of memory. Interference has been proposed mainly as an explanation for forgetting in long-term memory (LTM). Once information has reached LTM it is more-or-less permanent. Therefore, any forgetting of LTMs is most likely because we can't get access to them even though they are available. Interference between memories makes it harder for us to locate them, and this is experienced as 'forgetting'. | A01

Answer 29

Forgetting occurs when older memories, disrupt the recall of newer memories. Proactive interference (PI) occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one (pro in this context means working forwards, from old to new). For example, your teacher has learned so many names in the past that she has difficulty remembering the names of her current class. | A01 ## Footnote The degree of forgetting is again greater when the memories are similar.

Answer 30

Forgetting occurs when newer memories disrupt the recall of older memories. Retroactive interference (RI) happens when a newer memory interferes with an older one (retro meaning working backwards). For example, your teacher has learned so many new names this year that she has difficulty remembering the names of the students last year. | A01 ## Footnote The degree of forgetting is again greater when the memories are similar.

Answer 31

McGeoch and McDonald studied retroactive interference by changing the amount of similarity between two sets of materials. Pp's had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy. They then learned a new list. There were six groups of participants who had to learn different types of lists: Group 1: synonyms - words with the same meanings as the originals. Group 2: antonyms - words with the opposite meanings to the originals. Group 3: words unrelated to the original ones. Group 4: consonant syllables. Group 5: three-digit numbers. Group 6: no new list - these participants just rested. Findings: When the Pp's then recalled 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 memories are similar. | A01 ## Footnote (RI)

Answer 32

This is a strength because lab experiments control the effects of irrelevant influences and thus give us confidence that interference is a valid explanation for at least some forgetting. e.g McGeoch and McDonald study (page 45) | A03 ## Footnote Positive evaluation

Answer 33

There is a much greater chance that interference will be demonstrated in the lab than in real-life situations. The stimulus materials used in most studies are lists of words. The task facing participants is to learn these lists. Learning lists of actual words is definitely more realistic than learning lists of consonant syllables (such as TZK). But this is still quite some distance from the things we learn and try to remember in everyday life - faces, birthdays, ect. This is a limitation because the use of artificial tasks makes interference much more likely in the lab. Just because someone is forgetful in the lab who does those tasks, does not mean they are forgetful in everyday life. | A03 ## Footnote (negative evaluation)

Answer 34

Some research studies have considered interference effects in more everyday situations e.g: Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch (1977) They wanted to find out if interference was a better explanation for forgetting than the passage of time. They asked rugby players to try to remember the names of the teams they had played so far in that season, week by week. Because most of the players had missed games, for some the 'last team' they played might have been two weeks ago, or three weeks ago, or more. The results very clearly showed that accurate recall did not depend on how long ago the matches took place. Much more important was the number of games they played in the meantime. So a player's recall of a team from three weeks ago was better if they had played no matches since then. This study shows that interference explanations can apply to at least some everyday situations. The study by Burke and Skull (Page 54) also demonstrated interference in more everyday situations. | A03 ## Footnote Positive evaluation for Interference

Answer 35

Raymond Burke and Thomas Skrull (1988) Presented a series of magazine adverts to their Pp's, who had to recall the details of what they had seen (e.g, the brand names). In some cases, they had more difficulty in recalling earlier adverts. In other cases, they had problems remembering the later ones. The effect was greater when the adverts were similar (, e.g for identical products by different brands). This phenomenon is known as competitive interference. | A02

Answer 36

The time periods between learning lists of words and recalling them. For good practical reasons, these time periods are relatively short, and may in some cases be very short indeed (if your Pp's go away they may not come back!). So a Pp may have to learn one list of words, and then learn a second one 20 minutes later, and then recall one of them a few minutes after that. The whole experience of learning something and recalling it could be over within an hour. We do not generally learn and recall information within such a short time. We often learn something and then recall it a long time later, perhaps months or even years later. e.g, a student might learn and revise a topic and then recall that material in an exam several weeks afterwards. The longer the time between learning and recall, the less likely there is to be forgetting due to interference. So lab studies may think their studies of interference to be related to real life forgetting - which may not be the case. ( a limitation to studies of interference) | A03

Answer 37

Endel Tulving and Joseph Psotka (1971) gave participants five lists of 24 words, each list organised into six categories. (e.g, words such as: hut, cottage, tent, hotel, cliff, river, hill, volcano, captain, corporal, sergeant, colonel, ant, wasp, beetle, mosquito, zinc, copper, aluminum, bronze, drill, saw, chisel) The categories were not explicit but it was presumed that they would be obvious to participants (can you spot the categories?). Recall was about 70% for the first word list but this fell as Pp's were given each additional list to learn, presumably due to interference. However, at the end they were given a cued recall test - they were told the names of the categories as a clue. Recall rose again to about 70%. This tells us that interference may not be a valid explanation for forgetting. Interference theory explains why the Pps' performance became worse as they learnt more lists of words. However, if interference theory is correct, the words should disappear from memory altogether and no longer be available to recall. Therefore, even if the participants are given a cued-recall test, they should perform poorly because the words are no longer stored in LTM. This is not what Tulving and Psotka found. The fact that recall returned to high levels clearly shows that the words were still stored in LTM and had not disappeared. They were available, but were not accessible. This finding is difficult for the interference theory to explain. | A03 ## Footnote Strength of the Interference explanation. limitation of the inference theory

Answer 38

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. | A01

Answer 39

A 'trigger' of information that allows us to access a memory. Such cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning. e.g, cues may be external (environmental context) or internal (mood or degree of drunkenness). | A01

Answer 40

Forgetting information because there are no sufficient cues to allow you to recall it. When information is initially placed in memory, associated cues are stored at the same time. If these cues are not available at the time of recall, it may make it appear as if you have forgotten the information but, in fact, this is due to retrieval failure - not being able to access memories that are there. | A01

Answer 41

Endel Tulving (1983) found a pattern - which he called the encoding specificity principle. States that if a cue is to help us recall information it has to be present when we learn the material (encoding) and when we are recalling it (retrieval). It follows from this that if the cues available at encoding and retrieval are different (or if cues are entirely absent at retrieval) there will be some forgetting. Some cues are linked to the material-to-be-remembered in a meaningful way. Cues are encoded at the time of learning but not in a meaningful way. Two examples of this: context-dependent forgetting (external cues) and state-dependent forgetting (internal cues). | A01

Answer 42

Organisation of information is an important cue to recall. Discovered by Endel Tulving and Zena Pearlstone (1966). They gave their Pp's lists of words from various categories to learn (e.g, names of animals, weapons, professions). The participants were then asked to recall the words – some of them were given the category names and some weren't. Those who were not given the category names recalled significantly fewer words. The Pp's who were given the category names had a higher recall rate. | A01

Answer 43

Duncan Godden and Alan Baddeley (1975) carried out a study of deep-sea divers working underwater. In this situation it's crucial - a matter of life and death - for divers to remember instructions given before diving about their work underwater. Procedure: In this study the divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then were asked to recall the words either underwater or on land. This therefore created four conditions: * Learn on land - recall on land. * Learn on land - recall underwater. * Learn underwater - recall on land. * Learn underwater - recall underwater. Findings: Accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions. (The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and this led to retrieval failure.) | A01

Answer 44

Procedure: Sara Carter and Helen Cassaday (1998) gave anti-histamine drugs (for treating hay fever) to their Pp's. The anti-histamines had a mild sedative effect making the Pp's slightly drowsy. This creates an internal physiological state different from the 'normal' state of being awake and alert. The participants had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the information, again creating four conditions: * Learn on drug - recall when on it. * Learn on drug - recall when not on it. * Learn not on drug - recall when on it. * Learn not on drug - recall when not on it. Findings: In the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse. So when the cues are absent (for example, you are drowsy when recalling information but had been alert learning it) then there is more forgetting. | A01

Answer 45

Studies by Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassaday are two examples of supporting evidence. Michael Eysenck (2010), goes so far as to argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM. (A prominent memory researcher) This is a strength cuz supporting evidence increases the validity of an explanation. Especially true when the evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-life situations as well as in highly controlled conditions of a lab. | A03

Answer 46

Baddeley (1997). He says different contexts have to be very different indeed before an effect is seen. e.g, it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater. In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough. This is a limitation because it means that the real-life applications of retrieval failure due to contextual cues don't actually explain much forgetting. | A03

Answer 47

The context effect may be related to the kind of memory being tested. Godden and Baddeley (1980) replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall - Pp's had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from the list, instead of retrieving it for themselves. When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect; performance was the same in all four conditions. This is a further limitation of context effects because it means that the presence or absence of cues only affects memory when you test it in a certain way. | A03

Answer 48

ESP cannot be tested. The ESP is not testable and leads to a form of circular reasoning. In experiments where a cue produces the successful recall of a word, we assume the cue must have been encoded at the time of learning. If a cue does not result in successful recall of a word, then we assume that the cue was not encoded at the time of learning. But these are just assumptions - there is no way to independently establish whether or not the cue has really been encoded. The ESP makes an assumption - that a cue is stored at the same time as a memory, if the memory is successfully recalled later on. But it is impossible to test this assumption. This means it is impossible to show that the ESP is false. This is a weakness because such circular arguments are not scientific. But this does not mean that the ESP should be abandoned or seen as worthless. It explains a huge amount and variety of research into remembering and forgetting. It also has useful practical applications and has drawn attention to the importance of context-related and state-related cues. | A03

Answer 49

Although context-related cues appear not to have a very strong effect on forgetting, Baddeley still suggests they are worth paying attention to. e.g, You are upstairs in your bedroom and you think 'I must go and get such-and-such item from downstairs'. You go downstairs only to forget what it was you came down for. But the moment you go back upstairs, you remember again. When we are having trouble remembering something, it is probably worth making the effort to try and recall the environment in which you learned it first. (This is in fact a basic principle of the cognitive interview, a method of getting eyewitnesses to crimes to recall more information ) Being able to apply an explanation for forgetting to real life is a strength because it gives us the opportunity to help people to remember things more accurately. e.g helps the police catch more criminals. | A03

Answer 50

The ability of people to remember the details of events, such as accidents and crimes, which they themselves have observed. | A01 ## Footnote But Accuracy of EWT can be affected by factors such as misleading information, leading questions and anxiety.

Answer 51

Incorrect information given to the eyewitness usually after the event ( often called 'post-event information'). It can take many forms, such as leading questions and post-event discussion between co-witnesses and/or other people. | A01

Answer 52

A question which, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer. e.g: 'Was the knife in the accused's left hand?'. This suggests the answer is 'left hand'. or "Did the cars crash into eachother?" suggests the incident was violent (unlike a word like "connected" with eachother.) | A01

Answer 53

Post-event discussion (PED) occurs when there is more than one witness to an event. Witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or with other people - This may influence the accuracy of each witness's recall of the event. | A01

Answer 54

Procedure: Elizabeth Lotus and John Palmer (1974) arranged for Pp's (students) to watch film clips of car accidents and then gave them questions about the accident. In the critical question (a leading question) Pp's were asked to describe how fast they thought the cars were travelling: 'About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?' This is a leading question because the verb 'hit' suggests the speed the car was going. There were 5 groups of Pp's, each given a different verb in the critical question. One group had the verb hit, the others had contacted, bumped, collided, smashed. Findings: The mean estimated speed was calculated for each Pp group. The verb contacted resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph. For the verb smashed, the mean was 40.5 mph. The leading question biased the eyewitness recall of an event. | A01

Answer 55

The response-bias explanation suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect on the Pp's memories, but just influences how they decide to answer. When a participant gets a leading question using the word 'smashed', this encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate. However Lofts and Palmer (1974) conducted a second experiment that supported the substitution explanation - the wording of a leading question actually changes the participant's memory of the film clip. This was demonstrated because Pp's who originally heard 'smashed' later were more likely to report seeing broken glass (there was none) than those who heard 'hit'. The critical verb altered their memory of the incident. | A01

Answer 56

When co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other (post-event discussion), their eyewitness testimonies may become contaminated. This is because they combine (misinformation from other witnesses with their own memories. Research has demonstrated how this happens. Procedure: Fiona Gabbert and her colleagues (2003) studied Pp's in pairs. 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. e.g, only one of the Pp's could see the title of a book being carried by a young woman. Both pp's then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall. Findings: The researchers found that 71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in the discussion. The corresponding figure in a control group, where there was no discussion, was 0%. Gabbert et al. concluded that witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. They called this phenomenon memory conformity. | A01

Answer 57

Lotus (1975) 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. Research into EWT is one area in which psychologists believe they can make an important positive difference to the lives of real people, for instance by improving the way the legal system works and by appearing in court trials as expert witnesses. | A03 ## Footnote an expert witness would be a psychologist or cognitive scientist with specialized knowledge in memory, perception, or human behavior. They might be called to testify about the reliability of eyewitness accounts; how memories can be distorted, or how certain factors (like stress or leading questions) might affect the accuracy of a witness's testimony.

Answer 58

The tasks are artificial- A real limitation of Lotus and Palmer's study is that their Pp's watched film clips of car accidents. This is very different experience than witnessing a real accident - especially since there is some evidence that emotions can have an influence on memory - and these such clips lack the stress of a real accident. This is a limitation because studies that use such artificial tasks may tell us very little about how leading questions affect EWT in cases of real accidents or crimes. | A03 ## Footnote But It could always be that researchers such as Lofts are too pessimistic about the accuracy of EWT - it may be more reliable than many studies suggest.

Answer 59

There is evidence that older people are less accurate than younger people when giving eyewitness reports. e.g Anastasi and Rhodes (2006) found that people in age groups 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than people in the group 55-78 years. However, all age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own age group (called own age bias). Research studies often use younger people as Pp's in identification tasks, which may make it seem like other age groups are less accurate, even though this might not actually be the case- since the study design or task may be more suited towards the younger Pp's. | A03

Answer 60

Zaragosa and McCloskey (1989) argue that many answers Pp's give in lab studies of EWT are the result of demand characteristics. Pp's usually do not want to let the researcher down, and want to appear helpful and attentive. So when they are asked a question they don't know the answer to, they guess, especially if it's a yes/no question. Demand characteristics mean that Pp's try to work out what is expected of them, by using cues in the procedure. e.g, In EWT studies, they may see films of car accidents, robberies, weapons, be asked to chew gum, or be asked questions that are worded in a certain way. They conclude that a certain response is expected of them. They may then behave to fulfil those expectations or to undermine them. Either way, there is a danger that Pp's will not behave how we want them to, i.e. naturally. When this happens, it decreases the validity of research studies because they are no longer measuring the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Instead, research studies are measuring the Pps' ability to second-guess the hypothesis. | A03

Answer 61

Pp's in an EWT study usually know they are in a study. They may be shown a film clip of an accident or robbery and asked questions about what they have seen. They know that, no matter how serious or horrific the incident, the answers they give will not have any significant effects. e.g, in a real-life murder trial in the US, the reliability of eyewitness testimony could make the difference between life and death (and in this country between freedom and life imprisonment). There are no such serious consequences in research studies. Perhaps leading questions have less effect on the accuracy of EWT when the consequences are more serious, because participants know that their responses really do matter. Therefore, lab studies of EWT may underestimate its accuracy. | A03

Answer 62

A state of emotional and physical arousal. The emotions include having worried thoughts and feelings of tension. Physical changes include an increased heart rate and sweatiness. Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations, but can affect the accuracy and detail of eyewitness testimony. | A01

Answer 63

Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues. so recall is worse. One approach to studying anxiety and EWT has been to look at the effect of weapons (which create anxiety) and test the accuracy of recall from the witnesses. Procedure: Johnson and Scott (1976) did research on this. They led Pp's to believe they were going to take part in a lab study. While seated in a waiting room Pp's heard an argument in the next room. In the 'low-anxiety' conditions a man then walked through the waiting area, carrying a pen and with grease on his hands. Other Pp's overheard the same heated argument, but this time accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. A man walked out of the room. holding a paper knife (type of knife) that was covered in blood. This was the 'high-anxiety' condition. Findings: The Pp's later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos; 49% of the participants who had seen the man carrying the pen were able to identify him. The Pp's who had seen the man holding the blood-covered knife was just 33%. The tunnel theory of memory argues that a witnesses attention narrows to focus on a weapon, because it is the source of anxiety. | A01

Answer 64

The stress of witnessing a crime or accident creates anxiety through physiological arousal within the body. The fight-or-flight response is triggered which increases our alertness and improves our memory for the event since we become more aware of cues in the situation. Procedure: John Yuille and Judith Cutshall (1986) conducted a study of a real-life shooting in a gun shop in Vancouver, Canada. The shop owner shot a thief dead. There were 21 witnesses - 13 agreed to take part in the study. The interviews were held 4-5 months after the incident and these were compared with the original police interviews made at the time of the shooting. Accuracy was determined by the number of details reported in each account. The witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time of the incident, using a 7-point scale, and asked if they had any emotional problems since the event, such as sleeplessness. Findings: The witnesses were very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount of accuracy after 5 months. Though some details were less accuratly recalled , such as the colour of items and age/height/weight estimates. Those Pp's who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate. (about 88% compared to 75% for the less-stressed group). | A01

Answer 65

According to Robert Yerkes and John Dodson (1908) the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an 'inverted U' on a graph. Kenneth Deffenbacher (1983) applied the Yerkes-Dodson Law to EW: It showed that lower levels of anxiety produced less recall accuracy (memory), then those with higher their level of anxiety (just as you would expect from the graph). But basically, there comes a point where the optimal level of anxiety is reached. This is the point of maximum accuracy. If an eyewitness experiences any more stress than this then their recall of the event suffers a drastic decline. | A01

Answer 66

The study by Johnson and Scott on the weapon focus, may test surprise rather than anxiety. The reason Pp's focus on the weapon may be because they are surprised at what they see rather than because they are scared. Pickel (1998) conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, wallet and a raw chicken - as the hand-held items in a hairdressing salon video. (where scissors would be low anxiety, low unusualness). Eyewitness accuracy was significantly worse in the high unusualness conditions (chicken and handgun). This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety/threat and so doesn't prove Johnson and Scott's idea that the weapon focus effect is due to the anxiety they cause. | A03

Answer 67

Researchers usually interview real-life eyewitnesses, sometimes after the event. All sorts of things will have happened to the Pp's in the meantime that the researchers have no control over. - Discussions with other people about the event, - accounts they may have read or seen in the media, - the effects of being interviewed by the police, and so on (i.e. post-event discussions). This is a limitation of field research because it is possible that these extraneous variables (EV) may be responsible for the accuracy of recall. Anxiety might not be the only factor affecting a person's memory or recall. Other things, like stress, distractions, or even the passage of time, could all influence how well someone remembers details of an event. By the time they're interviewed, these other factors could make it even harder to assess how much anxiety alone affected their ability to recall the event accurately. | A03

Answer 68

Creating anxiety in Pp's is very risky. It is potentially unethical because it may subject people to psychological harm purely for the purposes of research. This is why real-life studies are so beneficial - psychologists interview people who have already witnessed a real-life event so there is no need to create it. This issue doesn't challenge the findings from studies such as Johnson and Scott but it does question the need for such research. One reason may be that the benefits of the research will outweigh the issues. | A03

Answer 69

Anxiety is very difficult to define and measure accurately. One reason for this is that it has many elements - cognitive, behavioural, emotional and physical. The inverted-U explanation assumes only physiological (physical) arousal is linked to poor performance. The inverted-U explanation also only focuses on the physiological aspects of anxiety. It says that it is the physical changes to the body and brain during stressful incidents affect the accuracy of EWT. However, anxiety is more complex than this, and has many components. This inverted-u explanation/ theory ignores this. - A good example is the cognitive element, which psychologists are especially interested in. The way that we think about the stressful incident can have a major effect on what we remember about it. - It is also possible that we can think clearly about an event even though we feel very anxious and our bodies experience many physical changes. Therefore, anxiety might have a different effect on EWT than the one predicted by the Inverted-U explanation/theory. | A03

Answer 70

Most lab studies show Pp's a filmed (and usually staged) crime. Most of these Pp's will be aware they are watching a filmed crime for a reason to do with the study. Chances are most of them will work out for themselves that they are going to be asked questions about what they have seen. Demand characteristics are the cues that Pp's use to work out how they are expected to respond in a study. If Pp's are shown a film of a car accident they may well realise that the researcher is interested in how fast they think the cars are going. This could make their response more accurate because they want to be helpful so they pay more attention to the film and listen very carefully to the instructions, etc. Or it could make them less accurate since they have decided to undermine the procedure by deliberately giving a different response to the one they think the researcher's wants. Such responses decrease the validity of the study because it is not truly measuring accuracy of EWT. | A03

Answer 71

Tim Valentine and Jan Mesout (2009) carried out a study in the Horror Labyrinth at the London Dungeon. It is designed to be frightening with many 'scares' such as darkness, screams, gory models and sudden movements. Visitors to the Labyrinth were offered a reduced entrance fee if they agreed to complete questionnaires at the end of their visit to assess their level of self-reported anxiety. They wore wireless heart monitors to confirm that they were experiencing anxiety. On the basis of these two measures Pp's were divided into two groups: high anxiety and low anxiety. The Pp's task was to describe a person encountered in the Labyrinth (played by an actor). The researchers found that the high anxiety participants recalled the fewest correct details of the actor and made more mistakes. 75% of those in the **low anxiety group** correctly identified the actor in the lineup. In comparison- only 17% correclty identified the actor from the **high anxiety group.** | A02

Answer 72

A method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories. It uses four main techniques, all based on well-established psychological knowledge of human memory: report everything, reinstate the context, reverse the order, and change perspective. | A01

Answer 73

Ronald Fisher and Edward Geiselman (1992) argued that **eyewitness testimony could be improved** if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses, based on psychological insights into how memory works. They called these techniques the cognitive interview (CI) to indicate its foundation in cognitive psychology. There are **four main techniques** that are used: 1. Report everything Witnesses are encouraged to include every single detail of the event, even though it may seem irrelevant or the witness doesn't feel confident about it. Seemingly trivial details may be important and, moreover, they may trigger other important memories. 2. Reinstate the context The witness should return to the original crime scene 'in their mind' and imagine the environment (such as what the weather was like, what they could see) and their emotions (such as what were their feelings). This is related to context-dependent forgetting discussed on page 56. 3. Reverse the order Events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the original sequence, for example, from the final point back to the beginning, or 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. It also prevents dishonesty (it's harder for people to produce an untruthful account if they have to reverse it). 4. Change perspective Witnesses should recall the incident from other people's perspectives. For example, how it would have appeared to other witnesses or to the perpetrator. This is done to disrupt the effect of expectations and schema on recall. The schema you have for a particular setting (such as going into a shop) generate expectations of what would have happened and it is the schema that is recalled rather than what actually happened. | A01 ## Footnote schema: a mental framework or structure that helps us organize and interpret information based on our past experiences and knowledge. It's like a mental shortcut that allows us to quickly understand and respond to new situations by fitting them into familiar patterns.

Answer 74

The interviewer needs to know: - when to establish eye contact/ when to relinquish it. - reducing eyewitness anxiety, - minimising distractions, - getting the witness to speak slowly, - asking open-ended questions. | A01 ## Footnote This is called the ECI (enhanced cognitive interview)

Answer 75

Police may be reluctant to use the the Cl is because it is time-consuming. Takes way longer than the standard police interview and more time is needed to establish rapport with the witness and allow them to relax. The CI also requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours (Kebbell and Wagstaff 1996). This means it is unlikely that the 'proper' version of the CI is actually used, which may explain why police have not been that impressed by it. | A03

Answer 76

Milne and Bull (2002) found that each individual element was equally valuable. Each technique used singly produced more information than the standard police interview. However, Milne and Bull found that using a combination of 'report everything' and 'context reinstatement' produced better recall than any of the other conditions. This, in turn, makes the CI feel more trustworthy and reliable for police officers who decide use it. - It confirmed police officers' suspicions that some aspects of the CI are more useful than others. This finding is a strength because it suggests that at least two elements of the CI can be used to improve police interviewing for EWT's even if the full CI isn't used. | A03

Answer 77

Research suggests that the enhanced cognitive interview (ECI) may offerer special benefits. e.g. a meta-analysis by Kähnken et al (1999) combined data from 50 studies The enhanced CI consistently provided more correct information than the standard interview used by police. This is a strength because studies such as this one indicate that there are real practical benefits to the police of using the enhanced version of the CI. The research shows that it gives the police a greater chance of catching and charging criminals which is beneficial to society as a whole | A03

Answer 78

Studies of the effectiveness of the Cl inevitably use slightiy different CI techniques or use the ECI. (enhanced version) The same is true in real life - police forces evolve their own methods. If a research study evaluates the effectiveness of one version of the CI, then the findings may not apply when it is used differently by a different police force. This makes it very difficult to compare the ways the CI is used. It also makes it easier for police officers to reject it because they could argue, 'it'll never work here'. However, this variation is probably a strength because the CI being flexiable means It can be adapted to different circumstances. (Crucially, it is flexible enough to be used in ways that overcome the objections of the people who would benefit from it most– police officers. Using the CI in this way gives it greater face validity. The best response to 'it'll never work here' is to say 'well let's change it so it does'.) | A03 ## Footnote Greater face validity: measuring what it claims to measure

Answer 79

The techniques of the CI aim to increase the amount of correct information remembered but the recall of incorrect information may also be increased. Köhnken et al. (1999) found an 81% increase of correct information but also a 61% increase of incorrect information (false positives) when the enhanced CI was compared to a standard interview. | A03

Answer 80

The CI is still successful because it is based on a solid foundation of valid research and fits with our knowledge of how human memory works. The CI should not be abandoned for the favour of continuing the standard police interview as CI leads to an increase in inaccurate recall is a good reason to find ways of improving the CI, not abandoning it. Also, the CI does still produce more accurate recall than inaccurate recall so this outweighs the inaccurate information. | A03

Memory (Paper 1) Flashcards

(104 cards)