A-level Psychology: Memory Unit Review

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the Multi-store model, Working memory model, types of LTM, explanations for forgetting, and factors affecting eyewitness testimony accuracy based on the lecture transcript.

Multi-store model of memory (MSM)

A theoretical cognitive model by Atkinson and Shiffron (1968) describing how the memory system processes information through sensory, short-term, and long-term stores.

Sensory Register

The first store in the MSM which receives raw sense impressions with modality-specific coding, a very large capacity, and a duration of approximately $250\,\text{ms}$.

Short-term memory (STM)

A store with acoustic coding, a duration of approximately $18\,\text{seconds}$, and a limited capacity of $7 \pm 2$ items as described by Miller.

Long-term memory (LTM)

A permanent memory store with semantic coding (meaning) and a theoretically unlimited capacity.

Maintenance rehearsal

The process of repeating information to keep it in short-term memory.

Elaborative rehearsal

Passing information to long-term memory by linking it to information already stored in the LTM.

Displacement

The loss of information in short-term memory when new information enters, because the store has a limited capacity.

Primacy and Regency effect

Findings by Glazer and Kunit that words at the start and end of lists are easily recalled, suggesting they are stored in LTM and STM respectively.

Chunking

Improving the capacity of short-term memory by grouping items together into small sets.

Mundane realism

The degree to which experimental tasks, often artificial or lab-based, generalize to how memory is used in day-to-day life.

Declarative (explicit) memory

Long-term memories that can be accessed consciously and expressed in words.

Non-declarative (implicit) memory

Memories that are not consciously recalled and are difficult to explain in words, such as procedural skills.

Episodic memory

A type of declarative LTM for experiences and events that are timestamped, autobiographical, and associated with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

Semantic memory

A type of declarative LTM for facts, meanings, and knowledge that is not timestamped; it is associated with the prefrontal cortex.

Procedural memory

Unconscious memories of skills, like riding a bike, associated with the motor cortex and cerebellum.

Retrograde amnesia

The inability to remember past episodic or semantic memories, as seen in the case of Clive wearing.

Anterograde amnesia

The inability to encode new episodic or semantic memories, though new procedural memories may still be gained via repetition.

Working memory model (WMM)

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) cognitive model that describes STM as an active processor with multiple stores rather than a passive unitary store.

Central Executive

The head of the WMM that controls attention, filters information, and has a limited capacity of $4$ items.

Phonological loop

A WMM subsystem that processes sound (acoustic coding) and has a capacity of approximately $2\,\text{seconds}$.

Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS)

A WMM subsystem that processes visual and spatial information, consisting of the visual cache and the inner scribe.

Episodic buffer

Added in 2000, this store holds and combines information from the VSS, PL, CE, and LTM.

Word length effect

The observation that participants recall more monosyllabic words than polysyllabic words, reflecting the approximate $2\,\text{second}$ capacity of the phonological loop.

Interference theory

The explanation that forgetting occurs because long-term memories become confused or disrupted by other information during coding.

Proactive interference

Where old information already stored interferes with the ability to recall something new.

Retroactive interference

Where new information being stored interferes with the ability to recall old information.

Encoding specificity principle

The idea that forgetting occurs due to the absence of appropriate cues that were encoded at the same time as the memory.

Context dependent cues

External environmental prompts, such as sight or smell, that aid memory retrieval.

State dependent cues

Internal environmental prompts, such as emotions or states of arousal, that aid memory retrieval.

Reconstructive memory

Bartlett's theory that memory is not an accurate recording but is reconstructed during recall, often influenced by schemas.

Substitution bias

An actual change to a witness's memory caused by leading questions or misleading information.

Response bias

Emotional pressure causing a witness to give a particular response without an actual change to the underlying memory.

Memory conformity

When witnesses change their accounts of crimes to match the accounts given by other witnesses during post-event discussion.

Weapons effect

A phenomenon where high anxiety levels cause witnesses to focus on a weapon rather than the criminal's face, decreasing recall accuracy.

Yerkes-Dodson law of arousal

The principle that eyewitness accuracy increases with anxiety up to an optimal point, after which stress results in lower accuracy.

Cognitive Interview

A technique developed by Fisher and Geiselman using context reinstatement, reporting everything, changed perspectives, and reverse order to improve recall accuracy.

Context reinstatement

A cognitive interview technique involving mentally returning to the crime scene to trigger environmental and emotional cues.