Topic 4: Memory Flashcards

Question

The Working memory model

Answer 1

The working memory model was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch as a way of explaining some of the research findings that could not be accounted for by the multi-store model. They challenged the MSM, claiming it was too simple. Working memory is essentially a multi-component short-term memory system. Views STM as an **active processor** (in contrast to the MSM). It consists of a central Executive and three slave systems: a phonological loop and it's two subcomponents: phonological storage and articulatory process, a visual spatial sketchpad and it's two subcomponents: Visual cache and inner scribe, and an episodic buffer.

Answer 2

This component controls attention and directs information to the three slave systems. It has a very limited capacity.

Answer 3

Processes speech-based information, preserves the order of auditory information, confusion with similar sounds, limited capacity. Consists of two subcomponents: Phonological storage - Stores acoustic items (speech based sounds) for as short period of time. Articulatory process - Allows for sub-vocal repetition of items in the phonological store, otherwise known as maintenance rehearsal.

Answer 4

Processes visual info through the senses or LTM. Plans and processes spatial and visual tasks. Consists of two subcomponents: Visual cache - Stores visual information (e.g. form, shape, colour) Inner Scribe - Deals with spatial relationship

Answer 5

Receives input from many sources, temporarily stores this information, and then integrates it in order to construct a mental episode of what is being experiences.

Answer 6

Strengths: - **Baddeley and Hitch dual-task performance**: Found that when pp's performed two visual tasks at the same time, their performance was worse. However, when they performed a visual task and a verbal task (these task require the use of different slave systems) simultaneously, they performed just as well as they would have done if they had completed the tasks separately. This supports there being separate stored for processing visual info and processing verbal info. - **Shallice & Warrington 1970 - The KF Case Study** : Reported that brain-damaged patient KF could recall verbal but not visual information immediately after its presentation, which supports the WWM's claim that separate short-term stores manage short-term phonological and visual memories. - Practical Aplications: You could apply Working Memory to helping dementia patients by giving them a quiet environment, so that background noise doesn't confuse them with dual tasking. Working Memory is a better model than the Multi Store Model. Working Memory tells us how to improve our memory in some situations. If you have to encode something in one particular way (like listening to a radio broadcast) then remove competing information (by muting the TV). However, it suggests you can concentrate on two differently coded sources at once – so you can do revision by copying a mind map while listening to a podcast. - **Paulescu et al** (1993) used PET scans to record brain activity when participants were performing either verbal tasks (using the phonological loop) or visual tasks (using the visuo-spatial sketch pad), and found that very different areas of the brain were active during each task. This showed quite clearly that verbal and visual tasks are performed by different brain regions and therefore suggests that the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketch pad are physically separate from each other as the working memory model suggests. Limitations: - There is a lack of calrity around the role of the CE and the episodic buffer. There's **little direct evidence** for how the central executive works and what it deos. The capacity of the CE has never been directly measured. The concept of the central executive has remained vague, even though this is the most important part of the model. Baddeley and Hitch still have no idea what the capacity is exactly and they’re aren’t sure whether it is 1 component doing 4 or 5 jobs, or 4 or 5 components working together as 1. - Working memory only involves STM do it is **not a comprehensive model** of memeory (as it does not explain the SM or LTM). - **Eslinger & Damasio** (1985) - Brain scan & prefrontal cortex activity in patient EVR, who had a cerebral tumour removed, concluded the CE is more complex that first thought. He performed well on tests require reasoning suggesting his CE was intact. However, he had poor decision making skills, suggesting his CE was not fully intact. - **Lieberman** (1980) criticized the WMM as the visuo-spatial sketch pad (VSS) implies that all visual and spatial information are linked . However Lieberman points out that blind people have excellent spatial awareness although they have never had any visual info. Argues that VSS should be separated into 2 different components: one for visual info and one for spatial.

Answer 7

- Scoville and Milner - Hippocampus removed to reduce severe epilepsy - HM's personality and intellect remained intact but he couldn't form new LTM's or remember anything from the last decade. Star Study - Milner asked H.M. to copy a 5 pointed star by drawing between the lines of a template. H.M. could only see the reflection of the star in a mirror. He was asked to re-attempt the task many times and he grew more skilled at the procedure even though he didn't remember doing it before. This suggests that his **procedural/mechanical memory** remains in tact, which suggests that our LTM consists of separate stores.

Answer 8

**Tulving** later proposed a more complex process in the LTM: 1) Explicit: - Episodic (Hippocampus & frontal lobe) - Semantic (Hippocampus & temporal lobe) 2) Implicit: - Procedural (basal and cerebellum)

Answer 9

Implicit Memory: Is unconscious and effortless. IM allows you to perform actions without needing to consciously recall how to do them. Uses the cerebellum. Explicit: The recall of previously learned information that requires conscious effort to receive. Em allows you to bring information into conscious awareness. Uses the hippocampus and the temporal/frontal lobe.

Answer 10

- Personal memories of events that have happened in your life. - Time, place, people and emotion - Preconscious area

Answer 11

- Knowledge about the world that is shared by everyone - generally begin as episodic memories.

Answer 12

- Memory of knowing how to do something. - Implicit - automatic

Answer 13

They show that different areas of the brain are active when the different kinds of LTM are active: - Episodic memory is associated with the hippocampus and frontal lobe - Semantic memeory relies on the temporal lobe and the hippocampus - Procedural memory is associated with the cerebellum. Brain scans provide objective, scientific evidence, however we cannot be sure of cause and effect.

Answer 14

When one memory disrupts the ability to recall another memory.

Answer 15

past learning interferes with current learning.

Answer 16

Current learning interferes with past learning.

Answer 17

- lab study into proactive reinforcement - Analysed findings from a number of studies - found that if PP's memorised **10** or more lists, then after 24 hrs they remembered about **20%** of what they learned vs if they only learned one, list recall was over **70** - Suggests that the more lists PP has to learn, the worse their overall recall. This can be explained by proactive interference because each list makes it harder to learn subsequent/following lists.

Answer 18

Procedure: gave PPs a list of nonsense syllables to learn for 6 mins and then after a retention interval, asked PPs to recall the list. Findings: Performance was less good if PPs had been given an intervening task between initial learning and recall. Explanation: The intervening task produced **retroactive interference** because the later task interfered with what has initially been learned.

Answer 19

- Looked at effects of interference in a real-life setting. - Asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against over the rugby season. Some players played in every game, other players missed quite a few games. Results showed that the players who played the most games forgot significantly more team names compared to players that had played in less games. - This could be explained by retroactive interference as the new information from more current games is effecting the players' ability to recall information from their past games.

Answer 20

Tulving & Thomson 1973 argues that memory is most effective when information that was present at the time of coding, is also present at the time of retrieval.

Answer 21

Forgetting in the LTM could be mainly due to retrieval failure - it's available but you can't access it. This happens when you have insufficient clues or cues.

Answer 22

1) Context - environmental cues 2) State - mental/physical cues (emotional or semantic)

Answer 23

When the environmental cues are missing during recall.

Answer 24

When the individuals emotional state is different when trying to recall information.

Answer 25

Investigated the effect of contextual cues on recall, in a novel experiment using divers. Their aim was to see if memory for words learned and recalled in the same environment, is better than memory for words learned and recalled in a different environment. Findings: Number of recalled from a list of 36 in each condition: Both environments dry = 13.5 Learning environment (dry), recall environment (wet) = 8.6 Both environments wet = 11.4 Learning environment (wet), recall environment (dry) = 8.5 Conclusions: Recall is better in the same environment, which the info was learnt in.

Answer 26

Supports the idea of state dependent forgetting. Male volunteers were asked to remember lists of words when they were either drunk or sober. The PPs were then asked to recall the words 24hrs later, in either a drunk or sober state. Words learned when drunk were better recalled when drunk and vice versa for words learnt when sober.

Answer 27

Retrieval failure is a more comprehensive explanation of forgetting but also has its weaknesses. Advantages **Real world applications** - it has been found that though cues may not have a large impact on forgetting it is still important to use them in everyday situations. Baddeley says that returning to the environment (either physically or mentally) in which the information was learned to improve memory. This is an example of overcoming retrieval failure. **Research support** - Godden and Baddeley for context dependent failure and Goodwin for state dependent forgetting - increases validity. **Practical applications**: The theory has been helpful to forensic and police work as it helps facilitate recall from eye witnesses. This means the theory has a real world practical application making it useful outside of the psychology laboratory. Disadvantages: Encoding specificity principle - Tulving says that for a cue to be significant it must be present at both the time of learning and time of recall. It is hard to control whether a cue is encoded or not. This limits the explanation of retrieval failure. Ecological validity: Much of the research on this theory is laboratory based and therefore **lacks ecological validity**. The studies do not test ‘everyday memory’ and therefore it could be argued the evidence lacks validity Recall vs Recognition-Godden and Baddeley(1980) replicated their underwater study with a recognition test instead of a recall test.There was no context-dependent effect and performance was the same in all four conditions. The test didn’t require any recall. This is another limitation of context effects as it suggests that the presence/absence of cue only affects memory when you test it in a certain way. Circularity problems - Tulving says that for a cue to be significant it must be present at both the time of learning and time of recall. It is hard to controland test whether a cue is encoded or not. This limits the explanation of retrieval failure and means that a cause and effect cannot be established.

Answer 28

EWT is the evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetration of the crime.

Answer 29

1) The witness **encodes** into LTM details of the event and persons involved. Encoding may be partial and distorted. 2) Witness **retains** information for a period of time. Memories may be modified during retention. 3) Witness **retrieves** the memory from storage. The accuracy of recall could be affected by the presence of absence of cues.

Answer 30

Experiment 1 - Car speed study: 45 students shown 7 films of traffic accidents. Given critical question: 'About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?' - 1 group was given this question and the other 4 groups were given verbs: smashed, collided, bumped and contacted in place of hits. Those with the most violent verb 'smashed' on average gave the highest speed, then 'collide', 'bumped', 'hit' and those who had 'contact' on average gave the lowest speed. Experiment 2 - Glass study: Aim: To test if information can be altered before it is stored. The participants were asked to return 1 week after watching the films and asked if they saw any broken glass. There was no glass in the films. The findings showed that more PPs with the verb 'smashed' said they saw glass and than PPs with the verb 'hit'. And the least amount of PPs in the control group claimed that they saw glass.

Answer 31

**Gabbert '03** Lab experiment. 60 uni students and 60 adults. PPs watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet and were tested either individually (control group) or in pairs (co-witness group). PPs in the co-witness groups were told that they had watched the same video, however they had seen different perspectives and only one actually saw the girl stealing. PPs in the co-witness group discussed the crime all together. They then completed a questionnarie individually. Found that **71%** in the co-witness group recalled info they had not seen and **60%** said the girl was guilty, despite not seeing her commit the crime. Eval: This is directly application to real life i.e. Police now get witness reports as soon as possible when they reach the crime scene. The results have questionable ecological validity. witnesses knew they were taking part in an experiment and were more likely to have paid close attention to the details of the video clip. Therefore, these results do not reflect everyday examples of crime, where witnesses may be exposed to less information. Good population validity: Tested two different populations - students and older adults.

Answer 32

Every time a person is interviewed the information from the interviewer may become integrated in the memory or the I/V may use **leading information** in the interview, which could alter the individual's memory of the event.

Answer 33

AO3: Supporting misleading info as a theory - PPs all had visited Disneyland in their past. Assigned to 1 of 2 groups and asked to study advertising material from Disneyland. - Experimental group: advertising material or Disneyland distorted to include Bugs Bunny and Ariel. - Control group: No info was altered. - Asked PPs that had visited Disney to recall who they had visited Disney to recall who they had shaken hands with during their visits - Experimental PPs were more likely to recall shaking hands with Bugs Bunny and Ariel due to the misleading info. This couldn't have been possible as BB isn't a Disney character and Ariel wasn't released at the time.

Answer 34

Disagrees with L&P. Found that the more realistic they thought the robbery they watched was, and whether they believed their testimony would be used in court; the more accurate their description. This suggests that L&P's findings may not be valid/applicable to real life as there was no stress/importance involved.

Answer 35

The Innocence Project has helped over 300 people in the United States to be freed from prison after proving their innocence with DNA evidence. About three-quarters of the wrongful convictions involved mistaken eyewitness testimony.

Answer 36

Challenging MI research: They found greater accuracy in real-life. Witness accuracy of a robbery in Canada was strong after 4 months, despite some misleading information from the police, suggesting less impact of MI on real-life EWT.

Answer 37

Argued that individual differences (age of witness) affects memory Participants watched a video of a kidnapping. Questions: Participants were asked a series of questions about the video, some of which contained misleading information. Results: Young adults were more accurate in their recall than both older adults and children. Both the elderly and children gave more incorrect answers to non-leading questions. However, children were also more likely to be misled by leading questions. Conclusion: This shows that children are more susceptible to the influence of leading questions and therefore do not make reliable eyewitnesses. The elderly and children are more likely to have poorer memories for events than young adults. This shows that age does influence the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Answer 38

Support: Loftus Bugs Bunny research The innocence project Real life application - repeat interviews and leading questions Gabbert '03 - conformity effect Weakness: Foster 1994 - real life testimony's are more accurate Yuille & Cutshall - Greater accuracy in real life L&P - low ecological validity Coxon and Valentine - Individual (age) differences

Answer 39

A question that, either by its form or content, suggests to the witness what answered is desired or leads him or her to the desired answer.

Answer 40

Supplying information that may lead a witness' memory memory for an event being altered. There are two type of MI: leading questions and post-event discussion.

Answer 41

A conversation between co-witnesses or an interviewer and an eye-witness after a crime has taken place which may contaminate a witness' memory for the event.

Answer 42

Knife & pen study - weapon focus effect: A: To find out whether anxiety would increase or decrease accuracy of EWT. P: PPs overheard argument from waiting room and then saw a man run through the room carry either a greasy pen (low anxiety condition) or a knife (high anxiety condition). F: Pen condition = **49%** accuracy, knife condition = **33%** accuracy C: Supported the idea of WFE, where witnesses are faced with a weapon they are unable to focus on anything else. therefore suggests anxiety decreases the accuracy of EWT.

Answer 43

Bank Robber Study A: Does anxiety has a positive effect on accuracy of EWT? P: Questioned real witnesses to bank robberies. Witnesses were either victims (high anxiety) or bystanders (low anxiety). F: The victims (most anxious) had the best overall recall. C: High anxiety creates more enduring and accurate memories.

Answer 44

**Deffenbacher** suggested that the inconsistencies between studies regarding the positive and negative effects can be explained using the Yerkes and Dodson effect. The inverted U suggests that anxiety can have both a positive and negative effect on EWT. It suggests that physiological arousal/anxiety can improve accuracy of EWT but on to a certain point. When anxiety gets too high it can begin to have a negative effect on EWT.

Answer 45

**Fazy and Hardy** challenge the simplicity of Yerkes - Dodson by taking a more complex approach including **cognitive anxiety**. Like inverted U it states an increase in recall with increased physiological arousal, however with the addition of mental anxiety there is not a gradual reduction but rather a **dramatic decline in recall**.

Answer 46

Hairdressers weapon study: A: Proposed that reduced accuracy of identification due to the weapon could be a result of surprise rather than anxiety. P: Gun condition = high surprise, high anxiety. Scissors condition = Low surprise, high anxiety. Raw chicken condition = High surprise, low anxiety. Wallet condition = Low surprise, low anxiety. F: Identification was the least accurate in the high surprise conditions rather than high threat. C: Supports the view the the weapon effect is related to surprise rather than anxiety.

Answer 47

- Alternative argument - Pickle (Anxiety or surprise causes the weapon focus effect) - Individual differences - personal experiences with weapons/violence could've impacted result? Anxious personalities vs calm personalities? - Real life vs lab studies - The real life studies i.e Christianson & Hubinette have higher ecological validity but the lab studies e.g Johnson & Scott have higher control of extraneous variables and are replicable. - The inverted and catastrophe theory

Answer 48

Geiselman et al's (1985) 1) **Mental reinstatement of original context**: Witness encouraged to recreate the physical and psychological environment of the crime, often using the 5 senses. This can make more memories accessible by providing contextual and emotional cues to them. 2) **Report everything**: Witnesses encouraged to report every detail even if it seems irrelevant. Memories are interconnected so the recollection of one may act as a cue for more. Can help piece together the crime. 3) **Change order**: Recount the incident in a different narrative order. Witnesses should be encouraged to work backwards from the end to beginning. This disrupts schema activation. 4) **Change of perspective**: Report the incident from different perspectives, describing what they think other witnesses might have seen. This disrupts schema activation.

Answer 49

Compared CIT with standard interview techniques on 51 PPs from wide demographic bg's. PPs watched two films of violent crimes and later interviewed them using SIT or CIT. Findings: The results showed that PPs who were interviewed using CIT were generally recalled more accurately. Eval points: Research lacks ecological validity because it's a film and potential harm to PP watching a violent crime.

Answer 50

Fisher et al (1987) found that police officers often lacked the social skills to apply to CI so added a few extra features: - Knowing when to keep and relinquish eye contact - Reducing anxiety - Minimising distraction - Questioning techniques (open questioning) - Encouraging witnesses to slow down - Listening without interruption

Answer 51

Strengths - **Geiselman Et Al** (1985) Found a significant increase in in the n.o. of correct recalled using CIT's than SIT's. Geiselman and Fisher (1997) found increased effectiveness of the CI when it was used within a short time following the event as opposed to a longer time delay. - **Kohnken et al**. (1999) Kohnken et al. (1999) carried out a meta-analysis of fifty-five studies comparing the CI to the standard police interview and found: CI resulted in both more accurate detail and more inaccurate detail, suggesting that the CI may be effective in quantity of recalled information but could compromise the quality of the testimony by increasing the risk of inaccurate details.No differences in terms of the age of the witness. Recall was enhanced when the witness was personally involved. The amount of correct detail declined the longer after the event the interview was conducted. - **Wider Application** Useful for combating the problems of age in memory recall i.e. can be used in old peoples homes. Makes it more valuable and increases reliability. - **Fisher** et al. (1989) found that the ECI produced superior results in comparison to the standard police interview. **Coker** (2013) found that an ECI that placed greater emphasis on the use of focused mental imagery produced more accurate details than standard CI. Weaknesses: - Individual difference: The CI could be more successful with certain types of individuals. **Holliday** (2003) produced a modified version for use with children. Holliday emphasised the building of trust between the interviewer and the witness, but removed the ‘change perspective’ to concerns that young children would find this too difficult. He compared the standard police interview with the MCI (designed for use with children) and found that the modified version produced more accurate results with groups of four to five and nine to ten year olds. - Not all elements are equal: **Milne & Bull** (2002) found that combining the stages 'report everything' and 'reinstate the context' gave better accuracy than the other stages of the CI when used alone. This suggests that some components of the CI are more effective than oth - Time consuming. The CI & ECI require more training & time so officers sometimes forced to cut corners.Shorter version of the CI and ECI are also used because of the time constraints experienced by many police forces who do not have the time to use the full version. This makes Real life interview situations are difficult to investigate as many police forces do not use all 4 stages of the CI. - The CI has been highly successful and has led to calls for it to be used beyond the realm of police interviews. But comparison between the standard police interview and the CI is difficult because the police interview techniques tend to vary, with no agreed upon format. The CI is not generally effective when witnesses are asked to identify a suspect from a photograph or from an identity parade.

Answer 52

- Clinical evidence: The case of Clive Wearing supports that there are different types of LTM. Following a brain infection, Wearing’s semantic and procedural memories seemed intact (e.g. being able to dress himself and even play the piano), but his episodic memory was severely damaged. When his wife left the room and returned, even after only a few minutes, he would greet her as if they had not seen each other for years. This supports that there are different stores for different types of LTM but case studies are limitng because there is no way to test the memory of such individuals before their brain damage, and it is hard to use one person’s case to apply to the entire population. This weakens the supporting evidence for types of LTM. - The deterioration of dementia patients also suggests that episodic and semantic memory are separate because episodic memory is lost first and semantic memory last. - Patient HM 5 point star study - procedural memory stayed intact - Studying brain injuries lacks control of variables which prevents the researcher being able to study memory properly. - The Classic Cognitive Study by **Baddeley** (1966b) also supports the existence of semantic memory. Baddeley found that participants struggled with word lists linked by a common theme, which suggests the semantic similarity confused LTM. Unrelated word lists were not confusing. This suggests at least part of LTM works semantically. - There is a practical application in being able to differentiate between different types of LTM. For example, **Belleville** et al notes that mild cognitive impairments most commonly affect episodic memories and so an increased understanding of episodic memory, alongside the differences between different types of LTM, may lead to improved, increasingly targeted treatments for mild cognitive impairments. E.g. ageing people tend to lose a certain type of episodic memory (they can recall long ago events, but not recent ones). Distinguishing between the types of LTM allows for specific treatments to be developed. **Belleville** et al(2006) studied how episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment.Trained participants performed better in a test compared to a control group. - **Petersen et al.** demonstrated that semantic memories were recalled from the left prefrontal cortex, whilst episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex. This supports not only the idea that there are different types of LTM, but shows that they each have a different neurological basis because they are recalled from different parts of the brain. - There are some cross-overs between episodic and semantic memories e.g. learning French at school is both semantic (understanding the language) and episodic (time-stamped to school experience), thus it seems as if semantic and episodic memory both rely on each other and might not be all that separate. **Cohen and Squire**(1980) disagree with the division of the LTM into three types.They argued that episodic and semantic memories are stored together within the declarative memory system, and highlighted the role of the medial temporal lobe in declarative memoty. **Squire & Zola** found that damage to the MTL, particularly the hippocampus, impairs both episodic and semantic memory, which supports the idea that the two memory functions are linked or even the same thing.

Answer 53

Strengths: - **H.M**'s hippocampus was damaged and he was left unable to make new memories. However, he still had a lot of memories from before his surgery, which suggests he still possessed LTM, but could no longer add to it. Supports the role of distinct stores. - There is a large base of research that supports the idea of distinct STM and LTM systems (e.g. patient HM and primary and recency Glanzer and Cunitz) - It makes sense that memories in the LTM are encoded semantically – i.e. you might recall the general message put across in a political speech, rather than all of the words as they were heard. - The MSM was a pioneering model of memory that inspired further research and consequently other influential models, such as the Working Memory Model. - Explanatory power: Unreliable eyewitnesses - This might happen because of inattention. If eyewitnesses are distracted, key details might not reach STM. Other details might not reach LTM if they are not rehearsed – if the victim refuses to think about or talk about the crime because it was so traumatic, they won’t rehearse the information, at least not Elaborate Rehearsal. - Clive Wearing received brain damage to his hippocampus and could still use his STM to remember things for about 20 seconds but then he would forget everything – he could not “make new memories”. The Multi Store Model can be applied to his case, because it suggests an inability to rehearse information into LTM. - Beardsley's research using fMRI showed the prefrontal cortex is active during short-term memory (STM) tasks, while Squire et al.'s PET studies indicated the hippocampus is active during long-term memory (LTM) tasks. Supports the idea of seperate stores. Weaknesses: - Some research into STM duration has low ecological validity, as the stimuli participants were asked to remember bear little resemblance to items learned in real life, e.g. Peterson and Peterson (1959) used nonsense trigrams such as ‘XQF’ to investigate STM duration. - The model is arguably over-simplified, as evidence suggests that there are multiple short and long-term memory stores, e.g. ‘LTM’ can be split into Episodic, Procedural and Semantic memory. - It does not make much sense to think of procedural memory (a type of LTM) as being encoded semantically, i.e. knowing how to ride a bike through its meaning. - It is only assumed that LTM has an unlimited capacity, as research has been unable to measure this accurately. - Shallice & Warrington (1970) report a victim of a motorbike accident (K.F.) who could still add memories to LTM even though his STM was so damaged he couldn't repeat back more than 2 digits. While patient KF supports the role of seperate distincts stores in the MSM, according to the MSM for info to be stored in the LTM it has no first go through the STM and thus suggests that if a persons STM is damaged they would loose both their short and long term memories. KF and case studies like his challenge this element of the MSM. The MSM incorrectly represents STM as a single, unitary store as Shallice and Warrington also found that KF had poor STM recall for auditory stimuli, but increasingly accurate recall for visual stimuli. This suggests that there may be multiple types of STM. - The MSM suggests that the amount of maintenance rehearsal determines the likelihood that the information will pass into the LTM, whereas Craik and Watkins (1973) suggest that it is the type of rehearsal which is more important. They suggest that **elaborative rehearsal**, instead of prolonged rehearsal, is needed to transfer information from the STM into the LTM, by making links with existing knowledge. The MSM model ignores factors such as motivation, effect and strategy (e.g. mnemonics) which underpin learning, while**Elaboration rehearsal** refers to a more meaningful analysis (e.g. images, thinking, associations etc.) of information, which leads to better recall. For example, giving words a meaning or linking them with previous knowledge. These limitations are dealt with by the levels of processing model (Craik, & Lockhart, 1972), which suggests that the deeper the level of processing, the better the memory retention.

Answer 54

Aim: To investigate evidence for a limited capacity central executive. Method: This was repeated measures design (all p’s experience both conditions). P’s performed a psychomotor task – gliding a lever between two posts with only the use of thumb and index finger – and at the same time completed an intelligence test consisting of spatial patterns. Results Hunt interpreted the deterioration in performance (found that as the spatial intelligent test became more difficult, preformance on the psychomotor task decreased) as evidence that both tasks were making use of the same central processor (rather than sub-components) and both were competing for the same limited capacity available. Conclusion: - hunt concluded that both tasks involved the use of the central executive to allocate attention but due to its limited capacity it is unable to maintain performance on both. Evaluation The experiment requires p’s to perform two concurrent tasks that are not likely to take place together in the real world and therefore it can be said t lack ecological validity. Furthermore, it is implied that the two tasks are using the one central component, but could it be that the visuo-spatial scratch pad is in use?

Answer 55

memory contamination – co-witnesses mix (mis)information memory conformity – witnesses go along with others for social approval.