Memory - evaluation studies

Evaluate interference as an explanation of forgetting

McGeogh and McDonald: learn lists of 10 words and recall old list, recall was worse in group with synonyms

Baddley and Hitch: more rugby games played = worse accuracy

Tulving and Psotka: Interference overcome by cues, lists organised into categories, cued recall, 70% accuracy

Evaluate anxiety as an explanation of forgetting

Yuille and Cutshall (+): Real life robbery + shooting, 13 wins interviewed immediately after + 5 months after, the ones who experienced most anxiety gave the most accurate recall

Scott and Johnson(-): Man with pen condition = 49% accuracy at identifying, man with knife condition+ 33% accuracy at identifying, weapon focus - tunnel vision

Coding evaluation

Baddley: lists of words, recall immediately = acoustically similar, recall after 20 mins = semantically similar

+Identifies clear differences between stores

-Artificial task = lack ecological validity

Duration evaluation

Peterson and Peterson(STM): Trigrams + count backwards in threes to prevent rehearsal, after 18 seconds les than 10% accuracy

-Artificial task

Bahrick et al(LTM): photo recognition= 90% accuracy, Free-recall = 60% accuracy, ppl can remember certain info a life time

+High external validity

Capacity evaluation

Jacobs(STM): Digit span test, numbers=9.3 items, letters=7.3 items

+High validity + individual differences are acknowledged

Miller(STM) ppl can recall 5 words aswell as 5 letters by chunking, STM has a capacity of 7 +/-2 items

-underestimates STM