Memory Part 2

Question 1

Two explanations for forgetting

Answer 1

• Interference (proactive/retroactive)
• Retrieval failure due to absence of cues

Question 2

When is interference more likely

Answer 2

When memories are similar

Question 3

Proactive interference

Answer 3

When an old memory interferes with the recall of a new memory

Question 4

Retroactive interference

Answer 4

When a new memory interferes with the recall of an old memory

Question 5

How does proactive interference cause forgetting

Answer 5

It makes new information harder to store

Question 6

How does retroactive interference cause forgetting

Answer 6

Previous memories are overwritten if they are similar

Question 7

McGeoch and McDonald Study

Answer 7

• Six groups of pps
• Learn a list till 100% accurate
• 5/6 groups had to learn a new list
• Had to recall the original list

Question 8

McGeoch and McDonald study list types

Answer 8

IN ORDER OF WORST TO BEST RECALL
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
- Unrelated adjectives
- Nonsense syllables
- Numbers
- (No new list, control group)

Question 9

McDonald and McGeoch strengths

Answer 9

• Lab study
• Well-controlled
• Extraneous variables are minimised

Question 10

Baddeley and Hitch (1977)

Answer 10

• Sample of rugby players who had played every match, and who had missed some due to injury
• Players who played more games forgot more games
• Equal accuracy in recalling previous team played regardless of time
• Retroactive interference

Question 11

Schmidt et al (2000)

Answer 11

• 211 dutch pps
• age range 11-79
• Given a questionnaire with a streetmap of the Molenburg neighbourhood
• Had to remember as many steetnames as possible
• The more people had moved outside of Molenburg, the more street names were forgotten due to retroactive intereference

Question 12

Weaknesses of interference theory

Answer 12

• evidence is mostly from lab studies
• lab studies use unrealistic material and therefore lack ecological validity
• lab studies have short time periods between learning and recall, which may exaggerate effects
• interference can be overcome using cues
• Tulving and Psotka gave 5 lists of 24 words in different categories
• 70% accuracy on first list and reduces as it goes on
• accuracy went back to 70% when reminded of category

Question 13

Retrieval failure due to absence of cues

Answer 13

The memory is present, but cannot be retrieved due to absence of cues

Question 14

Encoding specificity principle (Tulving)

Answer 14

Retrieval is easier when the same cues from encoding are present

Question 15

Types of cues (ESP)

Answer 15

Meaningfully linked cues
Non-meaningfully linked cues: External and Internal
External cues are context dependent (environment)
Internal cues state dependent (mental state)

Question 16

Tulving and Pearlstone (1966)

Answer 16

• Got pps to recall 48 words among 12 categories
• Category was given before the word was mentioned
• When the cue was present, recall was 60%
• When not present, 40%

Question 17

Types of retrieval faliure

Answer 17

Context dependent
State dependent

Question 18

Abernethy (1940)

Answer 18

• Tested students in different groups on a course they were doing
• Same room, same instructor (best results)
• Different instructor, same room
• Different room, same instructor
• Different room, different instructor (worst results)
• More ‘able’ students were less affected

Question 19

Godden and Baddeley (1975)

Answer 19

• 18 divers were asked to learn lists of 36 words
  Conditions (best to worst):
• Learn on the beach, recall on the beach
• Learn underwater, recall underwater
• Learn on the beach, recall underwater
• Learn underwater, recall underwater

Question 20

Context dependent retrieval failure evaluation

Answer 20

• Effects may not be as strong in real life, as context differences are smaller than in Godden and Baddeley experiment
• Abernerthy’s study showed that it does apply in real life contexts
• In Godden and Baddeley’s experiement, there was no effect on recognising the words rather than aving to free recall

Question 21

State-dependent retrieval faliure

Answer 21

Retrieval failure can happen when state of mind is different at learning and recall was

Question 22

Carter and Cassaday

Answer 22

• Learn words and information passages either on anti-histamines or not
• Recall was either with or without drug (4 groups)
• Results were best when internal state matched

Question 23

State-Dependant Retrieval failure evaluation

Answer 23

• Range of research for both state and context dependencies
• Goodwin et al: Learning words while drunk, recall drunk or sober 24 hours later
• Has real life application (Cognitive Interview), remember your internal state
• Word list tasks lack ecological validity
• You cant tell which cues are actually meaningful, can’t analyse people’s minds

Question 24

What can affect Eyewitness Testimony (EWT) accuracy?

Answer 24

Leading questions and post-event discussion

Question 25

What is a leading question?

Answer 25

A question that suggests what answer is desired because of its phrasing

Question 26

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Answer 26

- Showed 45 students a car accident - Asked how fast the car where doing when they ‘hit’ each other - Changed the verb ‘hit’ to ‘smashed’, ‘bumped’, ‘collided’, ‘contacted’ - ‘contacted’ gave average speed estimate of 31.8mph, and ‘smashed’ gave average speed estimate of 40.5mph

Question 27

How do leading questions affect EWT?

Answer 27

It does not affect memories, but only influences how they choose to answer (response-bias explaination) However a second experiment by Loftus and Palmer showed that those who used the verb ‘smashed’ reported broken glass when there was none (substitution explanation)

Question 28

Loftus and Zanni (1975)

Answer 28

- Shown a car accident - Asked if they saw ‘a’ broken headlight or ‘the’ broken headlight - Condition 1: 7% reported - Condition 2: 17% reported - Supports the substitution explanation

Question 29

Post Event Discussion

Answer 29

- Co-witnesses to a crime experience the event differently - Memory contamination can occur by mixing the different accounts - People show conformity and go along with what others say

Question 30

Gabbert et al (2003)

Answer 30

- 60 students, university of Aberdeen - 60 older adults - Watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet - Tested individually or in pairs - Told they saw the same video (only one actually saw her steal) - 71% of pps who were tested in pairs reported information they didn’t see - 60% said the girl was guilty even if they didn’t see the crime

Question 31

EWT strengths

Answer 31

- Lab studies are easy to control - Lab studies are easily repeated - Important real-life application - Helped police to not ask leading questions, and avoid witnesses discussing - Bodner et al (2009), effects of post event discussion can be reduced by warning witnesses about it

Question 32

EWT weaknesses

Answer 32

- Watching videos is different from real experiences - Less anxiety - pps may not feel motivated as there are no serious consequences - Risks demand characteristics - Participants in Loftus’ experiments were all students, low population validity

Question 33

Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

Answer 33

- Natural experiment (high ecological validity) - 13 witnesses of a real crime (armed robbery in Canada) - Traumatic (shop owner shot the thief dead) - Interviewed 5 months later - Asked two leading questions: had no effect - Those who reported higher stress were 88% accurate, those who reported lower stress were 75% accurate

Question 34

Yerkes-Dodson law

Answer 34

Performance increases with stress, but only to a certain point, after which it drops off

Question 35

Deffenbacher (1983)

Answer 35

- Reviewed 21 studies linking stress to EWT accuracy - 10 showed higher stress increased EWT accuracy - 11 showed the opposite - Memory recall is best at an optimum level of anxiety

Question 36

Loftus and Burns

Answer 36

- pps either watch a boy get shot in the head (violent) or a non-violent crime - pps who watched the violent video showed less accuracy

Question 37

Weapon focus effect

Answer 37

Witnesses will focus on the weapon out of fear, causing them to miss out on key details other than the weapon

Question 38

Johnson and Scott

Answer 38

Participants sat outside a lab and heard one of two situations: 1) A friendly conversation followed by a man emerging carrying a pen with grease on his hands (low anxiety) 2) An argument with smashing glass and overturned furniture followed by a man emerging with a blood stained knife - 49% accuracy identifying man with pen - 33% accuracy with the knife

Question 39

Christianson and Hubinette

Answer 39

- Natural experiment - 58 real witnesses to a bank robbery in Sweden - General accuracy was 75% - Highest accuracy was from victims, who had highest anxiety

Question 40

Pickel (1998)

Answer 40

- Suggests weapon focus effect was due to surprise more than anxiety - Thief enters hair salon with either scissors (high threat, low surprise), handgun (high threat, high surprise), wallet (low threat, low surprise) or whole raw chicken (low threat, high surprise) - Weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety

Question 41

Anxiety effect on EWT weakness

Answer 41

- Field studies have a lack on control, as the more anxious participants were likely closer to the crime and got to see more details - Ethical issues with causing stressful situations on participants - Anxiety is hard to measure - Bothwell et al found that Neurotic (highly anxious) people were less accurate as stress increased, whereas stable individuals were more accurate with higher stress - May not affect everyone in the same way

Question 42

Who originally developed the cognitive interview

Answer 42

Geiselman et al

Question 43

Problem with standard police interviews

Answer 43

Brief, direct, closed questions Witnesses can be interrupted Leading questions

Question 44

Cognitive Interview Principles

Answer 44

1) Context Reinstatement Remembering the physical and psychological context of the incident, and being asked to recall it to make use of state-dependent and context-dependent recall 2) Report everything Encourage the reporting of everything, even insignificant details. Interruption is avoided. Allowed for small details from many witnesses to form a larger picture, or for memories to get triggered 3) Recall in changed order Trying to recall the event in a different timelines, as recollections are influenced by schema, and your general expectations of a situation may be influenced in normal order 4) Recall from a different perspective Imagine how it would have appeared to other witnesses to prevent the effect of schemas

Question 45

Gieselman et al (1986)

Answer 45

- Staged situation of an intruder with a BLUE RUCKSACK stealing a slide projector from a classroom - pps asked a misleading question “was the guy with the GREEN BACKPACK nervous?” - Interviewed under standard police interview and cognitive interview - Cognitive interview pps were less likely to recall the rucksack as being green

Question 46

Cognitive Interview weaknesses

Answer 46

- Time consuming, these interviews take longer - Interviewer needs a lot of training: Memon et al reported that experienced detectives with little (4 hours) of CI training did not generate much more information - CI studies on EWT are normally done in labs, which may not generalise, and there is less stress - CI is less effective on children under the age of 8, likely due to them not being able to understand the instructions.