Memory

EWT

If recall is not objective, this is a problem for ________ ➢ Reconstructive memory: Not an accurate recording.

Gabbert

________ (2003) found when able to discuss alternate videos of the same crime, 71 % of participant pairs included information that wasn't in their own videos compared to 0 % of pairs who couldn't discuss.

Bartlett

________ (1931) memories are not accurate snapshots of events, but are 'reconstructions ', Influenced by attitudes, stereotypes, bias.

Modality specific

Coding: ________, (iconic= Vision, Echoic= Sound, Haptic= Touch, Gustatory= Taste, Olfactory= Smell)

Capacity

________: very large, for all sense impressions each moment.

emotional aspect

➢ Increases Recall: a state of arousal could improve general alertness /awareness of the situation and surroundings and the ________ could improve memory encoding.

observations of police

Fisher (1987) defined the standard interview from ________ interviews in Florida.

CI

________ was improved into the Enhanced ________, focusing on reducing anxiety and building trust in the interviewer, and the Modified ________ for use with children and people with learning difficulties.

STM

________ in MSM is only a passive store of information, WMM is an improvement in description as an active processor.

Retrieval failure

________ due to absence of cues ➢ ________ or Cue dependant forgetting, info is in LTM but forgetting happens due to the absence of prompts ➢ Context Dependent Cues: Being in a different place inhibits recall as lacking environmental cues from encoding.

Proactive

________ and retroactive interference ➢ Interference: is where two lots of information become confused in memory overwriting or blocking each other.

MSM

The ________ sees each store as a single unit, however there seems to be different types of LTM and the WMM explains STM as a much more active system with multiple stores.

LTM

________ is coded semantically (in the form of meaning)

Memory

________ is reconstructed in recalling, producing errors (confabulations) ➢ Leading questions, questions that imply a particular answer can influence how a(n) ________ is recalled.

Case studies

Idiographic /________: lack control to suggest a cause and effect relationship between brain areas and memory functions.

➢ Episodic Buffer

________: Added to WMM in 2000, as the Model needed a general store to hold and combine information from VSS, PL, CE and long term memory.

EWT

________ after violent crimes include high anxiety but research in ________ often has no emotional impact on the participant, resulting in low validity ➢ Decreases Recall: high levels of anxiety produce poor recall of the perpetrator.

CI

________ is time- consuming, requiring more time than officers have operationally available.

EWT

________ is inaccurate, shown by studies on anxiety and leading questions.

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) Theoretical cognitive model of how the memory system processes information

3 stores 1) Sensory Register (SR) receives raw sense impressions, attention passes information to STM

Coding

Modality specific, (iconic=Vision, Echoic=Sound, Haptic=Touch, Gustatory=Taste, Olfactory=Smell)

Capacity

very large, for all sense impressions each moment

Forever Capacity SR

Spearling, found recall of random row of 20 letter grid flashed for 1/20th of a second was high

Suggesting all the rows were stored in SR (large capacity) Capacity STM

Jacobs (1887) Found recall for lists of letters was around 7 items and 9 for numbers

Capacity LTM

Wagnaar (1986) Created a diary (2400 events over six years)

Coding STM & LTM

Baddeley (1966) 4 10 word lists to 4 participant groups

Duration STM

Peterson and Peterson (1959) found recall of three letter trigrams (e.g

Duration LTM

Bahrick (1975) found recall of school friends in photographs was 90% after 15 years, and still 80% for names after 48 years in participants ranging from 17-74

Types of LTM

episodic, semantic, procedural LTM is the storage of memories over a lengthy period of time

➢ Episodic

experiences and events

➢ Semantic

facts, meanings, and knowledge

Associated with Perihhinal cortex ➢ Procedural

unconscious memories of skills (riding a bike)

Herlitz (1997)

N = 1000 male and females given tasks that tested either episodic or semantic ability

Found

females better on episodic tasks but no difference in semantic tasks

Idiographic/Case studies

lack control to suggest a cause and effect relationship between brain areas and memory functions

"Credit diagram" ➢ Phonological Loop

Processes sound information (acoustic coding)

Contains

Primary acoustic store (inner ear, storing words recently heard) and Articulatory Process (inner voice, storing via subvocal repetition)

Capacity of 2 seconds ➢ Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad

Limited capacity, 4 objects, codes visual/ spatial information

➢ Episodic Buffer

Added to WMM in 2000, as the Model needed a general store to hold and combine information from VSS, PL, CE and long term memory

PL & VSS

SC (Trojani and Grossi, 1995) and KF (Shallice and Warrington, 1970) both had STM difficulties with their PL functioning but not VSS after brain damage

Proactive and retroactive interference ➢ Interference

is where two lots of information become confused in memory overwriting or blocking each other

➢ Types of interference

Proactive, Old info disrupts retrieval of new

➢ Similarity

Interference more likely when the two pieces of information are similar, termed response competition

➢ Time sensitivity

Interference less likely when there is a time gap between the instances of learning

Retrieval failure due to absence of cues ➢ Retrieval Failure or Cue dependant forgetting, info is in LTM but forgetting happens due to the absence of prompts ➢ Context Dependent Cues

Being in a different place inhibits recall as lacking environmental cues from encoding

Context Dependent Cues

Godden & Baddeley (1975) Material learnt underwater or on land

State Dependent Cues

Overton (1972)

If recall is not objective, this is a problem for EWT ➢ Reconstructive memory

Not an accurate recording

This could be due to an actual change to the memory (substitution bias explanation) or not to a change in memory, but due to an emotional pressure to give a particular response (response bias explanation) ➢ Post-event contamination/discussion

is when the recalling of events by one witness alters the accuracy of the recall by another witness

This could be memory conformity, the witnesses go along with others accounts for social approval Loftus and Palmer (1974); found

when shown clips of traffic accidents, then asked a leading question about the cars speed, participants (N=45) estimated a higher speed if a more extreme verb was used Contacted-31.8, smashed =40.8

If witnesses are warned of its effects the impact of post-event discussion can be reduced (Bonder 2009) Factors affecting EWT

anxiety

➢ Anxiety

mental state of arousal that includes feelings of extreme concern and tension

EWT after violent crimes include high anxiety but research in EWT often has no emotional impact on the participant, resulting in low validity ➢ Decreases Recall

high levels of anxiety produce poor recall of the perpetrator

This may be due to Weapon effect/focus

Weapons causing anxiety, witnesses are distracted, focusing on the weapon rather than the criminal

➢ Increases Recall

a state of arousal could improve general alertness / awareness of the situation and surroundings and the emotional aspect could improve memory encoding

➢ Yerks-Dodson Law of arousal

these conflicting results could be explained by accuracy increasing as anxiety raises due to attention, to a point at which anxiety becomes too high and more stress results in lower accuracy

Improving the accuracy of EWT

the cognitive interview

Fisher and Geiselman (1985) suggested the cognitive interview including the following techniques

➢ Context reinstatement, mentally returning to the crime scene