Memory Studies

Baddeley (1966)

Participants were given 1 of 4 word lists, acoustically (dis) similar or semantically (dis) similar. Participants either recalled the list immediately or after a delay
When recalled immediately the acoustically similar words were remembered worst, semantically similar words were remembered worst when recalled after 20 minutes

Jacobs (1887)

Participants saw increasingly long lists of numbers or letters and had to recall them in the right order. Two-syllable letters or numbers were left out. The capacity for numbers was 9, and for letters, it was 7.

Miller (1956)

Showed that the span of information held within STM is 7 items but that, through chunking, the capacity can be increased.

Bopp + Verhaegen (2005)

A better controlled version of Jacobs (1887) that shows the same results

Cowan (2001)

Reviewed other research and concluded capacity of STM was only 4 chunks

Peterson + Peterson (1959)

tested 24 students in 8 trials each and on each trial, they were given a consonant syllable to remember and then they had to count back from a 3-digit number for either 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or 18 seconds and then recall the syllable. After 3 seconds, average recall was 80% and after 18, it was 3%.

Bahrick et al (1975)

This study asked participants to recall students from their high school by name or by face. It found that autobiographical memory was 90% accurate after 15 years and 70% after 48,but free recall of names or faces led to 60% accuracy after 15 years and 30% after 48.

Shephard (1967)

A study that conducted recall rates of meaningless pictures which were lower than meaningful memories.

Atkinson + Shiffrin (1968)

Multi-store model

Shallice + Warrington (1970)

Patient KF: could recall digits he read himself but not if they were read out to him

Craik + Watkins (1973)

Found that elaborative rehearsal (when you link info to your existing knowledge) is more important than maintenance rehearsal in transferring info from the STM to LTM

Tulving (1985)

Proposed there were 3 LTM stores: episodic (life memories), semantic (knowledge of the world) and procedural (muscle memory)

Clive Wearing + H.M

Patients which their episodic memories both destroyed but semantic and procedural memories were left in tact

Buckner + Peterson (1996)

Reviewed evidence for the location of semantic and episodic memory and concluded semantic memory is found in the prefrontal cortex and episodic memory on the right.

Tulving et al (1994)

Conducted a PET scan while participants performed various memory tasks. Found links between the left prefrontal cortex and encoding of episodic memories and the right prefrontal cortex with episodic retrieval

Belleville et al (2006)

Demonstrated that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment using specific training.

Hodges + Patterson (2007)

Found some with Alzheimer's could form new episodic memories but not semantic

Baddeley + Hitch (1974)

Working memory model

Baddeley et al (1975)

Participants completed visual and verbal tasks (dual tasks) and there performance on each was similar. but when the tasks were the same type, the performance declined because the same slave system was being competed for use.

McGeoch + McDonald (1931)

studied retroactive recall by making participants learn 1 set of words until their recall was 100%. Then they had to learn a second of either synonyms, antonyms, unrelated words, consonant syllables, three digit numbers or no new list. When participants were asked to recall the first list, those that learnt the synonyms did the worst.

Baddeley + Hitch (1977)

Asked rugby players about teams they had played during the season. Those that had been at more games had the poorest recall.

Tulving + Psotka (1971)

Gave participants lists of words in two categories one list at a time. Recall averaged 70% for the first list but as more lists were added, recall worsened. However when the participants were told the names of the categories, recall rose again to 70%.

Coenen + van Luijtelaar (1997)

Found when a list of words was learned under the influence of diazepam, recall one week later was poor but if the list was learned before the drug was taken, later recall was better than the placebo.

Tulving (1983)

Encoding Specificity Principle: Cues help retrieval if the same cues are present at encoding and retrieval. The closer to the original the cue is , the better it works.

Godden + Baddeley (1975)

Divers that learned a list of words either underwater or on land did better in recall when they were recalled in the same condition they were learnt. Accurate recall in non-matching conditions was 40% lower than in matching conditions.

Carter + Cassaday (1998)

Participants learned and recalled a list words either on an antihistamine or not. When they learned and recalled the words in matching conditions (on the drug or not), the performance on recall was significantly better than mismatched conditions.

Eysenck + Keane (2010)

Argue that retrieval failure is the main reason for forgetting in the LTM

Godden + Baddeley (1980)

Replicated underwater experiment using recognition, not recall and without the context-dependent effect, performance was the same in all 4 conditions.

Loftus + Palmer (1974)

Arranged 45 students to watch film clips of car accidents and then they were asked q's about the accident. When asked 'About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?' the verb hit was changed to either contacted, bumped, collided or smashed in 4 other conditions. Those with the verb contacted guessed a mean speed of 31.8mph and those with smashed guessed 40.4mph.

Gabbert et al (2003)

A pair of participants watched a video of the same crime, but from different perspectives. They then discussed what they had seen and then completed a test of recall. A control group did the same thing, however did not discuss the crime afterwards. 71% of participants mistakenly recalled the video if they had discussed it.

Sutherland + Hayne (2001)

Showed participants a video clip and when participants were later asked misleading q's, their recall was more accurate for central details of the even than peripheral ones.

Skagerberg + Wright (2008)

Showed participants 1 of 2 video clips and when they discussed the clips in pairs, each seeing different versions, they often didn't report what they had seen in the clips or what their partner had but instead offered a 'blend' of the info.

Johnson + Scott (1976)

Led participants to believe they were going to be part of a lab study and while seated in a waiting room participants heard an argument next door. In the 'low anxiety' condition a man walked through the door carrying a greasy pen. In the 'high anxiety' group saw a man with a bloody knife. 49% of the 'low anxiety' group correctly identified the man but only 33% of the 'high anxiety' group correctly identified the man.

Yuille + Cutshall (1986)

13 witnesses to a real life shooting were interviewed 4-5 months post event and were asked to rate their stress ona 7 point scale and whether they had experienced emotional problems since. Their testimonies were compared with their original police interview and those reported being most stressed were 88% accurate compared to 75% for the low-stress group.

Deffenbacher (1983)

Reviewed 21 studies of EWT and found lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy but memory becomes more accurate as the anxiety levels increase. However there comes a point where the optimal level of anxiety is reached. This is the point of maximum accuracy. If an eyewitness experiences more stress than this, accuracy decreases dramatically.

Yerkes-Dodson Law (1908)

the principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases (inverted U)

Pickel (1998)

Replicated Johnson and scott's study using unusual items (such as raw chicken) and showed that Eyewitnesses recall was worse in the high unusualness conditions (chicken + handgun). Suggests WFE is due to unusualness and not anxiety.

Valentine and Mesout (2009)

Investigated how stress and anxiety levels affect eyewitness identification. Found that only 30% of participants that scored above the median state anxiety correctly identified the 'scary' person in comparison to 75% of participants who scored below the median state anxiety level who correctly identified the 'scary' person.

Christianson + Hubinette (1993)

Questioned 58 witnesses to real bank robberies. Some were onlookers, others were employees who were directly threatened. Recall was more than 75% accurate across all witnesses and direct witnesses were even more accurate.

Fisher and Geiselman (1992)

Claim EWT can be improved by the 'cognitive interview' in which rapport is built up and certain principles (report everything, reinstate the context, reverse the order and change the perspective) are followed.

Kohnken et al (1999)

Meta-analysis that combined data from 50 studies. The CI gave a 41% increase in accurate info than the SPI and only 4 studies showed no difference. However there was also an increased yield in inaccurate info.

Milne + Bull (2002)

Study on the CI that found the 'report everything' and 'context reinstatement' aspects of the CI were key techniques in gaining accurate, detailed recall and that the entire interview wasn't needed.

Kebbell + Wagstaff (1997)

Found police forces don't have the resources or time to provide more than a few hours for the CI training.