Memory flashcards

Coding

Coding

The format in which information is stored in the various memory models

Capacity

The amount of information held in a memory store

Duration

The length of time information is held in memory

Short term memory

The limited capacity memory store

Long-term memory

The permanent memory store

What did Jacobs and Miller study

The capacity of short term memory

Describe Jacob’s study on memory

He measured digit span by asking participants to repeat back a sequence of numbers and if correct the sequence became longer by one digit, this was repeated until the participant made an error

What did Jacobs conclude about memory

That the mean digit span is 9.3 and is 7.3 for letters

Describe Miller’s study on memory

Miller observed that things commonly occurred in 7’s e.g. the 7 deadly sins and so applied this to short term memory, he also observed that people used chunking to aid memory

What did Miller conclude about memory

That the capacity of the short term memory is 7 ± 2/ that recall was easier when using chunking and that chunking was most effective when chunked into 5 chunks

Evaluate the validity of Jacobs study

The study has a high validity as it has been replicated many times by other researchers with the same conclusion

Evaluate the validity of Miller’s conclusions about memory

Miller’s conclusions have a low validity as other research such as that of Nelson suggest that Miller overestimated the capacity of STM when using chunking it’s instead around 4±1 than the 7 that Miller originally suggested

What did Peterson and Peterson and bahrick investigate

The duration of the STM (short-term memory)

Describe Peterson and Peterson study

24 Participants were given a trigram and were then asked to count backwards to prevent rehearsal, during each trial they were asked to stop counting at varying retention intervals and then to correctly repeat the trigram

What did Peterson and Peterson conclude about duration of STM

That the duration is around 18 seconds (up to 30 seconds)

Describe Bahricks study on photo-recognition and the results

392 participants between 17-74 were given 50 photos from their high school year book and were asked to name the people shown, within 15 years of graduating participants were 90% accurate but 48 years after graduating participants were 70% accurate

Describe Bahricks study on free-recall and give the results

Participants were asked to recall the names of everyone in their graduating class, within 15 years of graduating participants were 90% effective but 48 years after graduating this dropped to 30% accuracy

What did Bahrick conclude

That some information can last a lifetime in LTM

Describe a limitation of Peterson and Peterskon’s study

They used an artificial stimuli, participants ability to remember trigrams doesn’t accurately reflect someone’s ability to learn and remember meaningful information, therefore the study has a low external validity

Describe a strength of Bahrick’s research

His research has high validity because he investigated meaningful memories, his stimuli wasn’t artificial and therefore the results of his study reflect everyday learning and memories more accurately

Describe Bahrick’s study into LTM using grades

He has 267 participants who has graduated from university 1-54 years ago and gave them a free recall test where they had to list the courses they’d taken and the grades received or he gave them a cued recall test where they were given a list of the courses they had taken and they had to fill in the grades received

What were the results of Bahrick’s study into LTM using grades

He found that people who achieved higher grades were more accurate in their recall and that when people made mistakes they tended to overestimate their grade rather than underestimating itv

What did Baddely study

Coding in memory stores

Describe baddely’s study

He gave 4 groups lists of words that were semantically similar or dissimilar or words that were acoustically similar or dissimilar and asked them to repeat them in the correct order

What were the results of Baddeley’s study

In the short-term memory participants did worse when recalling acoustically similar words showing that information in STM is coded acoustically whereas in the long-term memory participants did worse when recalling semantically similar words showing that in LTM information is coded semantically

What did baddeley conclude from his study

That the STM store and LTM store are separate and work differently

What is a limitation of Baddeley’s study

He used artificial stimuli that had no personal meaning to the participants and so the results of his study don’t accurately represent how coding occurs in everyday life, which limits the application of this study

What is the iconic sensory register store

A visual store for stimuli from the environment

What is the echoic sensory register store

A sound store for stimuli from the environment

What is the key process for the sensory register

Attention

How does information leave the sensory register

Through decay

What is the key process for keeping information in the STM

Maintenance rehearsal

How is information transferred from the STM to LTM

Prolonged/elaborative rehearsal

How does the KF case study suggest that STM isn’t a unitary store as suggested by the MSM

Shallace and Warrington studied KF who had amnesia and his STM for digits was poor when read aloud to him but when reading the digits himself his recall improved suggesting that there’s another STM store for non-verbal sounds and therefore the MSM is too simple

Describe STM according to the MSM

Acoustically coded, limited duration (18 seconds) and limited capacity (5-9 items)

Describe LTM according to the MSM

Semantically coded, duration up to a lifetime and unlimited capacity

What is maintenance rehearsal

Repeating a memory to keep it in STM

What is prolonged rehearsal

the continuous repetition of information to transfer it from STM to LTM

What is elaborative rehearsal

Giving a memory meaning during rehearsal to transfer it from STM to LTM

How does the case study of HM provide supporting evidence for the MSM

HM had a damaged LTM and couldn’t recall previous memories but he still had a functional STM including an average digit span showing that there is a difference between STM store and LTM store

Describe Craig and Watkins’ study

They found that prolonged rehearsal isn’t needed to transfer information to the LTM and that the duration of rehearsal isn’t important but the type of rehearsal is especially elaborative rehearsal therefore the MSM doesn’t fully explain how LTM storage is achieved

Describe Glanzer and Cunitz’s study into recall

They found that the position of words in a list affected recall due to two effects known as the recency effect and primacy effect. They tested 240 Army enlisted males The recency effect effected the lastly words to be shown and at the end of the task the only words left in STM are the ones that have just been heard and haven’t yet been bumped out by older words. The primacy effect occurs because words towards them start of the list can be rehearsed more and are payed more attention to and therefore have a greater chance of being transferred to the LTM and then be recalled.

What is episodic memory

Our ability to recall events from our lives which is time stamped and consciously recalled

What is procedural memory

Our memory for actions or skills which is taught

What is semantic memory

Our shared knowledge of the world which is consciously recalled

What are the three types of LTM

Episodic, procedural and semantic

Describe how clinical evidence provides support for multiple LTM stores

Famous case studies such as HM and clive wearing provide evidence for different LTM stores being affected following injury for example they could walk and talk but not remember recent events showing that their procedural and semantic memory were unaffected but their episodic memory was impaired. This supports Tulving’s view that there are many LTM stores which can be impaired separately from one another. However there was a lack of control within these studies specifically how the injuries occurred and there was little knowledge of their memory before the accident and this limits the value of case studies as supporting evidence

Describe how neuroimaging is a limitation of Tulving’s multiple LTM stores

There are conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to different areas of the brain e.g. Buckner and Peterson found semantic memory was located in the left prefrontal cortex and episodic on the right but Tulving et al found the encoding of episodic memory in the left prefrontal cortex but the retrieval in the right and this challenges any neurophysiological evidence that there are types of LTM

Describe how real world application is a strength of Tulving’s multiple LTM stores

By understanding the different types of LTM stores this can aid advancements in treatments for memory problems e.g. old age memory loss to episodic memory (Sylvie Belleville) devised an intervention to improve their memory. Therefore distinguishing between these memory stores allows more targeted specific treatments to be developed

What is the role of the central executive

To monitor incoming data and focus/divide our limited attention to allocate subsystems to tasks

What is the phonological loop

A store that deals with auditory information and preserves the order that the information arrives in, it’s coded acoustically

What are the subdivisions of the phonological loop

The phonological store and articulatory process

What is the role of the phonological store

To store then words you hear

What is the role of the articulatory process

To allow maintenance rehearsal (Repeating sounds to keep them in the working memory) it has a capacity of 2 seconds worth of what you can say

What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS)

It’s a store of visual and or spatial information which has a limited capacity of 3/4 objects

What are the subdivisions of the VSS

The visual cache store and the inner scribe

What does the visual cache do

Stores visual data

What does the inner scribe do

It record the arrangements of objects within the visual field

What is the episodic buffer

A temporary store for information that integrates visual, spatial and verbal information to provide a time-sequence of events linking WM and LTM, it has a limited capacity of 4 chunks

Describe Baddeley’s study on dual task performance

Studied participants STM by allocating them to 3 conditions where they were given an auditory task, auditory and visual task or two auditory tasks. When participants preformed an auditory and visual task at the same time they performed the same on both as they would’ve done if they were performed separately. However when both auditory tasks were performed together their performance declined as the tasks competed for the same subsystem and therefore this supports the theory that there are separate subsystems for auditory and visual information

Explain why the case study of KF supports the WMM

After a brain injury KF had poor STM for auditory information but his visual information was unaffected as shown by his recall of digits/letters being better when reading them himself than when they were read aloud. Therefore his phonological loop was damaged but his visual-spatial sketchpad was intact. However he may have had cognitive impairments following his injury reducing the validity of KF as supporting evidence.

Explain why the central executive is a limitation of the WMM

There’s a lack of clarity about the nature of the CE which is broadly defined as attention, many people believe that it should be more specific and even consist of separate subcomponents and so the CE is an unsatisfactory component that challenges the integrity of the WMM

Describe Baddely’s study on the duration of the phonological loop

Participants were allocated lists of words of varying lengths, participants allocated shorter words had a higher recall than the participants allocated longer words suggesting that the phonological loop has a limited capacity which has been discovered to be the amount you can say in 2 seconds

What is interference

When two pieces of information conflict with one another

What is proactive interference

When previous information interferes with new learning

What is retroactive interference

When new learning interferes with previous learning

Describe the significance of McGeoch and McDonald’s study on interference

They studied participants recall of two lists in different conditions, the recall when the new list contained synonyms of the old list was the worst because the effect of similarity (the fact that the words were similar) meant that interference was highest in this condition. This provides supporting evidence for interference but also the fact that the effect of similarity plays a key role in the impact of interference on a memory

Describe interference from cues as a weakness of interference theory

One weakness is that interference is only temporary and can be overcome by using associated cues. For example Tulving and Psotka devised a study comparing participants recall of words in two categories one list at a time and when they were given a cued recall test of the same words by being given the name of the categories, they found recall rose to 70% therefore because it can be overcome interference isn’t a full explanation for forgetting

Describe drug studies as a strength of interference

Coenen and Luijtelaar tested people’s recall when learning the words under the influence of diazepam and when learning the list before taking diazepam, recall was poorer than the placebo when learning under the influence of the drug but was better when learning before taking the drug. The drug therefore improved the recall of material learned beforehand because the drug was suggested to have prevented new information reaching the areas of the brain associated with processing memories and therefore it cannot interfere retroactively with the information already stored. Therefore this shows that forgetting can be due to interference as when interference is reduced so is the rate of forgetting

Describe how real life studies are a strength of interference

Baddelely and Hitch studied rugby players, asking them to recall the names of teams they’d played against during the rugby season. The players all played for the same time interbank but the number of intervening games varied (as some players missed games) players who played the most games had the poorest recall due the increased interference compared to those who had played fewer games. Therefore the study’s shows that interference can operate in some real-world situations increasing the validity of the theory. However interference in everyday situations is unusual because of the specific conditions necessary for interference to occur (then high level of similarity) and therefore forgetting may be better explained by other theories such as retrieval failure.

What is retrieval failure

When a memory is available but inaccessible

What is a cue

A trigger that enables access to memories

What is ESP (encoding specificity principles)

Tulving suggested that the efficacy of memory retrieval depends on the overlap between contextual cues present during encoding and those present during retrieval

Describe Baddeley and Godden’s study into context-dependant forgetting

They conducted a study using deep sea divers who learned a list of words either underwater or on land and then were asked to recall them either underwater or on land. In non-matching conditions recall was around 40% lower than matching conditions because the contextual cues present during encoding didn’t overlap with those present during retrieval leading to retrieval failure.

Describe Carter and Cassady’s study into state-dependant forgetting

They devised a study looking at the effect of antihistamines on recall. The participants then had to learn a list of words either on the drug or not on the drug and then recall it when on the drug or when not on the drug. Because the drug created an internal physiological state different to the normal state in conditions where the internal states during learning and recall were mismatched performance was significantly worse due to the lack of overlap of state dependant cues during encoding and recall.

explain real world application as a strength of retrieval failure

Retrieval cues can help overcome forgetting in everyday situations for example when you can’t remember something recalling the environment where you first learnt it can help improve recall significantly showing how research can remind us of strategies we use in the real world to improve recall

Explain how ESP can be seen as a limitation of retrieval failure

Lots of evidence for forgetting occurs when encoding and retrieval cues don’t match but is it possible to independently establish whether a cues been encoded or not. The reasoning is circular that if a cue didn’t produce recall we assume that it wasn’t encoded and if it does we assume it was.

How do leading questions affect the accuracy of EWT

Leading questions can have a retroactive interfering effect on someone’s recollection and therefore reduce the accuracy of an EWT

Describe Loftus and Palmer’s first experiment on the effect of leading questions on EWT

They tested the recall of 45 students of a traffic accident, they were given a set of questions to answer after seeing the video including one asking how fast the cars were going when they hit each other. The IV was the verb used in the question which ranged in violence. Participants who were asked a question with a more violent verb guessed the cars speed as highest.

Describe Loftus and Palmer’ second experiment into the effect of leading questions on EWT

They used 150 students and filled out the same questionnaire following a video of a road traffic accident including a question with different phrasing based on differing levels of violence. They then returned one week later and were asked whether there was broken glass, although there was none participants who had been asked questions with more violent verbs believed that there was broken glass showing that the phrasing of the question did alter people’s memory of the event

What is post-event discussion

When co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with one another

How can post-event discussion alter memories

By contaminating their memories through either source monitoring theory or conformity theory

What is source monitoring theory

When someone’s memories of an event become distorted, the witness can recall information (accurate and inaccurate) but not where it’s come from (source confusion)

What is conformity theory

When someone’s memories of an event aren’t distorted but their recall of the event changes after hearing co-witnesses accounts, this occurs either due to the desire for social approval or believing that the other witnesses are correct and they are wrong

Describe Gabbert’s study into post-event discussion

She studied participants in pairs who both saw the same event occurring but from different angles, they then discussed what they’d seen before individually completing a recall test. They found that 71% of participants recalled aspects of the event that they couldn’t see but that they had discussed compared to 0% in the control group which provides supporting evidence for conformity theory

Explain how real world application provides supporting evidence for misleading information

The research into misleading information has practical information within the justice system for example Loftus’s research into leading questions can help improve the way police phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses. Therefore psychology can be used to improve the legal system and prevent wrongful convictions

Explain how evidence against substitution is a weakness of misleading information

EWT is more accurate for some events than others, Sutherland and Hayne’s study showed that participants memories of the central event of a crime were resistant to contamination and remained relatively accurate. This suggests that misleading information has reduced validity when being used as an explanation for the reduced accuracy of EWT

Explain how evidence challenging memory conformity is a limitation of misleading information

Evidence shows that post-event discussion alters EWT and therefore source confusion theory is more likely to contaminate memory than social conformity and therefore that people are more likely to be honest and helpful when giving an EWT

How can researchers reduce demand characteristics in EWT memory studies

Using very open questions and removing any potential cues that participants could use to try and guess the aims of the study

Describe Johnson and Scott’s study into the weapon focus effect

Participants were split into two conditions (low-anxiety and high-anxiety) and thought that they were participating in a lab study but when waiting participants either heard a casual conversation and then saw a man walk out with a pen and greasy hands or heard a heated argument, breaking glass and saw a man walk out with a bloodied knife. When identifying the man from a set of 50 pictures 49% of participants in the low-anxiety condition correctly identified him compared to 33% from the high-anxiety condition. Therefore lower levels of anxiety led to an increased accuracy suggesting that high-anxiety worsens the accuracy of EWT due to the weapon focus effect (they focused on the weapon not on other details). However this study was a lab study reducing the ecological validity

Describe Yuille and Cutshall’s study

They interviewed 13 witnesses to a crime (shooting in a gun shop) 4-5 months after the event and compared their recounts to the original police interviews, they then rated the accuracy and the participants self-reported stress levels and any emotional problems. Witnesses were very accurate and there was little change after 5 months but some details were less detailed e.g. the colour of items. There was 88% accuracy in the high-anxiety condition and 75%accuracy in the low-anxiety condition suggesting that anxiety doesn’t have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of EWT and may even enhance it. However participants did self-report their anxiety levels which may reduce the validity of the study and extraneous variables weren’t controlled.

Describe Pickel’s study on unusualness

Suggested that participants may have had the weapon focus effect die to unusualness not anxiety, suggesting that the internal validity of Johnson and Scott’s study was poor, they tested accuracy of EW recall using scissors, a handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken as the handheld item in a hairdressing salon video, the accuracy of participants recall was highest in the highest unusualness condition (the handgun and the chicken)

Describe Valentine and Mesout’s study

They carried out a study on anxiety and accuracy of EW recall, they used the London dungeon and had volunteers wear a heart rate monitor to objectively study anxiety, 17% of participants in the high-anxiety condition correctly identified someone they encountered compared to 75% in the low-anxiety condition. This is supportive evidence for the negative effect of anxiety. However the stimuli was artificial and there was the potential or demand characteristics

Describe Christianson and Hubinette’s study

They interviewed 58 witnesses to a crime, some of who were directly and indirectly involved, recall was 75% accurate across all witnesses with direct witnesses being more accurate suggesting that anxiety enhances EWT accuracy and is supportive evidence for the positive effect of anxiety

Describe Parker et al’s study

They interviewed people following a hurricane, they categorised participants into high and low anxiety groups based on the damage suffered to their houses. They found that there was a link between level of recall and the amount of damage/anxiety experienced. Despite this being a natural study and therefore the ecological validity being high the use of damage to define anxiety is potentially inaccurate as anxiety may have been influenced by many other factors

Who came up with the concept of a cognitive interview

Fisher and Geiselman

What is report everything

Asking EW to tell the police everything no matter how minor the detail

What is reinstating the context

Putting yourself mentally back in the situation

What is reverse the order

Describing what happened from the end back to the beginning

What is change the perspective

Putting yourself in the shoes of someone else who was there