Memory

Capacity

The amount of information held In a memory store

Duration

Length of time information can be held in memory

Coding

The way in which information is stored in memory.

Short term memory CCD

Coding- acoustically

Capacity- 7 +/ -2

Duration- 18- 30s

Long term memory CCD

Coding- Semantically

Capacity- Unlimited

Duration- A life time

Jacob’s- Digit span test

Participants asked to recall a string of numbers, digits increasing until no more could be remembered. Mean finding of digits= 9.3. Mean number of letters= 7.3

Jacob’s evaluation

Limitation- Lack of validity as it was conducted a long time ago. Cannot be generalised. Lacked adequate control of EV’s.

Strength- Real life application, Replicated with no confounding variables.

Miller- chunking

Proposed the idea of the magical number 7, plus or minus 2. Capacity of STM is 7 on average, ranging form 5-9. Chunking information increases capacity.

Miller evaluations

Strength- old study, replicated with no confounding variables, better control, can be generalised, real world application

Limitation- Not so many chunks (reviewed to be found 4+/-1 )Overestimated STM capacity

Peterson and Peterson

Participants were presented with nonsense trigrams then were asked to count backwards in 3’s from a chosen number for 3,9,15 or 18 seconds then asked to recall the trigrams.

Peterson and Peterson evaluation

Strength- lab study, replicated, lack of EV’s, reliable and highly controlled.

Limitation- No real world application, unrealistic, ecological validity, artificial. Not representative and cannot be generalised.

Bohrick et al

Studied 392 participants from Ohio aged 17 and 74. High school year books were obtained from participants or schools. Recall was tested in various ways including photo recognition recall or free recall. Participants who were tested within 15yrs of graduating were 90% accurate in photo recognition and 60% free recall. 48 years after graduation declined to 70% in photo recognition and 30% free recall.

Bohick et al

Strength- Real world application, large size sample, generalisable, ecological validity.

Limitation- Lacks population validity, Culture bias, regular contact, Role in school- know more people.

Coding type

Semantic- meaning

Visual- image

Acoustic- sound

Baddeley

Participants shown a Random number of 10 words from 1 of 4 categories.

1. Acoustically Similar

2. Acoustically dissimilar

3. Semantically similar

4. Semantically dissimilar

Concluded STM encodes acoustically and LTM semantically.

Baddeley Evaluations.

Strength- Separated memory stores, later research showed some expectation in Baddeley findings-lead to MSM

Limitations- Artificial stimuli, No personal meaning, Lack real world application.

Memory, Two separate stores evaluation

Strength- reach support, Glanzer and Cunitz. Participants were presented with a list of words, they tend to remember the first few words and last words, more likely to forget Middley; serial position effects

Limitation- Baddeley, confuse similar sounding words

Central Executive

Monitors incoming data and directs information to two slave systems. Limited capacity and coding is modality free.

Phonological loop

One of the slave systems dealing with auditory information (acoustical coding)

Auditory process- the par of the phonological loop that repeats words we hear.

Phonological store- Part of the phonological loop that stores the words you hear for a short period of time

The Visuo- spatial sketchpad

One of the slave systems dealing with with visual information

The Visual cache- responsible for storing visual information

The Inner scribe- responsible for recording the arrangement of objects in the visual field.

Episodic Buffer

Added in 2000.

Binds together the visual, spatial and verbal information from the VSS and PL

Links WM to LM

Evaluation of WWM

Strength- Goes into more detail in STM in comparison to MSM, clinical evidence to support the model (KF) Dual performance tasks supports the existence of multiple components responsible for processing types of information.

Limitation- Central executive is oversimplified, doesn’t account for effects of before and after effects of brain damage, Confirmation bias- Baddeley conducted research to support existence of his own model. Research support based on case studies.

HM

Lost ability to form new memories and forgets everything in a matter of seconds

STM- fairly normal

LTM- impaired, episodic damaged,semantic intacted

Clive wearing

Damaged hippocampus after visual infection. STM lasted 7seconds, cannot make new memories.

Impaired STM

Intact procedural and semantic LTM

KF

Brain damage from a motorcycle accident, process visual information but had difficulty with verbal information

Impaired STM- damaged PL but can process visual information

LTM-intact

Types of LTM

Episodic- Retrieve conscious memories of specific past event

Semantic- Stores genera knowledge bout world, facts and meaning.

Procedural- Enables us to perform learned skills and tasks without conscious awareness.

Evaluating LTM

Strength- Clinical evidence, real world application

Limitation- Conflicting research

Central Executive

Oversimplified, WWM does not fully explain the function it has. Most important but lest understood component.

Interference

Two pieces of informatio conflict with each other resulting in one or both memory become distorted or forgotten

Proactive interference

An older memory interfere with a new one. The new one is distorted or forgotten.

Retroactive interference

A new memory interferes with an old one. The old one is distorted or forgotten.

McGeoch and McDonald- fetched of similarity

Studied retroactive interference in a lab. Participates had to learn list of words until able to recall 100% accurately. Learnt new list changing depending on group. G1- synonyms of list 1. G2- Antonyms. G3- Unrelated. G4- Nonsense syllables. G5- 3 digit numbers. G6- No list

Baddeley and Hitch

Asked rugby players to recall nae of team players so far in the season. Number of games influenced accuracy

Turving and Psotka’s

Participants given 5 lists of 24 words, organise into 6 categories.

Findings- accuracy recall when learnt words then asked to recall. Recall decreased when seeing additional lists.

Encoding Specificity Principle

Turvling suggested that in order for cues to work they had to be present at encoding retrieval.

State dependent forgetting

Struggle to recall memories if our state of consciousness is not the same when memory was formed

Carter and Cassaday

Given antihistamine drugs hen given a recall list of words and passages to learn whilst in 1 of 4 conditions.

More likely to forget words when mismatch between internal state of participant during L and R

Carter and Cassidy evaluation

Strength- research support, useful for dementia.

Limitation- Replicated, no context dependent effect

Eyewitness testimony definition

Ability to remember detailed effects

Post event discussion

When co- existing witnesses to a crime discuss with others their eyewitness testimony

loftus and palmer

45 participants into 5 condition, watched same clips and were asked leading questions.

Smashed, dumped, contacted eg. Influenced perception for 40mph to 31mph

Loftus and palmer evaluation

Strength- Real life Application, practicals use.

Limitation - Artificial, lacks adrenaline or stress, Individual differences- age bias

Fiona Gabbet

• showed different group of participants the same clips from different viewpoints, and allowed them to have a post event discussion.

• Found that 70% of particapants falsely recalled something that they saw on the clip.

• Same evaluation as Loftus and palmer

Johnson and Scott

Ps beloved they were taking part in a lab study,a man walked through- in the airing room- with a pen, or a blood covered knife after having a heated argument in the room next or.

49% of participants recalled the pen man, while 33%guessed the knife man or recto

Yuille and Curshall

Conducted a real life study on shooting in a gun sop, owner shot thief dead, 13/21 particapants agreed the interviewed 4-5 months after crime, evidence was compared to police interviews- only found little changes.

Cognitive interview, Ronald fisher and Edward Geiselman

• argued eyewitness testimonies could be improved if the police used better interviewing questions, based on psychological insight collectively called cognitive interview.

Cognitive interview 4 stages

Report everything, Reverse the order, reinstate the context, change perspective.

Report everything

Detailed account an trigger other details about the events they may have forgotten

Reverse the order

Events can be recalled in different chronological order, to remove expectations.

Reinstate context

Witness should return to original crime scene in their minds and imagine how they felt and the environment they were in, context dependent forgetting.

Change perspective

Witness should recall incident from other perspectives to disrupt expectations and schema to recall

Enhanced cognitive interview

Fisher et al, developed some additional elements of he ci to focus on on social dynamics of the interview, for example knowing when to make contact, reducing eyewitness anxiety and minimise distractions, asking open ended questions.

Evaluating the cognitive interview

Strength- support for effectiveness- meta analysis from 50 studies proved consistency, real world application

Limitation- time consuming (requires special training)