A-Level Psychology: Memory Systems, Models, and Eyewitness Testimony

Comprehensive review flashcards covering the Multi-Store Model (MSM), Working Memory Model (WMM), types of Long-Term Memory (LTM), and factors affecting Eyewitness Testimony (leading questions, post-event discussion, and anxiety) for AQA A-Level Psychology.

What is the definition of eyewitness testimony (EWT)?

The ability of people to remember the details of events, such as accidents and crimes, which they themselves have observed.

What is a leading question, and what is an example of one?

A question that, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer; for example, "Did you see the knife in his left hand?" leads a person to believe the knife was in that hand.

In Godden & Baddeley's study on context-dependent forgetting, by what percentage was recall lower in non-matching conditions?

Recall was $32\%$ lower in non-matching conditions.

What substance did Carter & Cassaday use to change participants' internal state when investigating state-dependent forgetting?

Antihistamine drugs, which caused participants to feel drowsy.

What were the speed estimates for the verbs "contacted" and "smashed" in Experiment 1 of Loftus and Palmer (1974)?

The verb "contacted" yielded a mean estimated speed of $31.8\,\text{mph}$, whereas the verb "smashed" yielded a mean estimated speed of $40.5\,\text{mph}$.

What were the findings of Loftus and Palmer's (1974) Experiment 2 regarding the presence of broken glass?

$32\%$ of the "smashed" group reported seeing broken glass compared to $14\%$ of the "hit" group and $12\%$ of the control group (when there was none in the film), supporting the substitution explanation of memory distortion.

What were the findings of the stop/yield sign study by Loftus & Zanni (1975)?

Participants given misleading post-event questions were far more likely to select the incorrect slide ($41\%$ correct with misleading information versus $75\%$ correct with consistent information), showing the misinformation effect.

How did Sutherland and Hayne (2001) challenge the substitution explanation of leading questions?

They showed that participants' recall was more accurate for central details than peripheral details after receiving leading questions, demonstrating that central details receive focused attention and resist distortion.

Why did Zaragoza and McCloskey (1989) argue that lab findings on leading questions may lack internal validity?

They argued that participants in lab experiments often guess answers in an attempt to be helpful, meaning responses may reflect demand characteristics rather than genuine memory alteration.

Which two psychologists proposed the Multi-Store Model of Memory, and what are its three sequential stores?

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin; the three stores are the sensory register, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM).

What structural model of human memory is represented by this flowchart?

The Multi-Store Model (MSM) by Atkinson and Shiffrin, showing the flow of information from the sensory register to STM and LTM, with rehearsal, retrieval, and forgetting pathways.

What is the capacity, duration, and encoding format of the sensory register in the Multi-Store Model?

The capacity is very large, the duration is very short (milliseconds, or less than a few seconds), and encoding is sense-specific (e.g., iconic for vision, echoic for audition).

What crucial process governs the transfer of information from the sensory register to short-term memory (STM)?

Attention; unattended sensory information rapidly decays and is lost.

What did Sperling (1960) discover about iconic memory using the partial-report procedure?

When participants saw a $12\text{-letter}$ array for $50\,\text{milliseconds}$ and were cued by a tone indicating which row to report, they recalled approximately $75\%$ of that row, proving iconic memory has a large capacity but decays within about $0.5\,\text{seconds}$.

What did Darwen et al. (1972) find regarding the duration of echoic memory?

Recall of auditory lists decreased as the delay before a cue increased, with cues no longer aiding recall after approximately $3\,\text{seconds}$, establishing the duration of echoic memory as roughly $3\,\text{seconds}$.

Why did Baddeley and Hitch (1974) reject the Multi-Store Model's view of short-term memory?

Clinical evidence from patients like KF showed that STM could be selectively damaged while retaining the ability to form long-term memories, indicating STM is an active mental workspace with multiple components rather than a single unitary store.

What were the findings of Baddeley and Hitch's (1974) dual-task study involving digit repetition and reasoning?

Participants repeating a six-digit number while completing true/false reasoning statements made very few errors on both tasks and were only slightly slower, demonstrating that STM contains separate components that can operate simultaneously.

What are the primary functions and limitations of the central executive in the Working Memory Model?

It controls attention, sets goals, switches tasks, monitors performance, coordinates slave systems, and retrieves information from LTM; it has a very limited capacity and does not store information itself.

What are the two subdivisions of the phonological loop and what does each do?

The phonological store ("inner ear"), which briefly holds acoustic sounds/words that quickly fade; and the articulatory control process ("inner voice"), which maintains information via subvocal rehearsal.

What is the word length effect identified by Baddeley et al. (1975)?

Participants recall lists of short words better than long words because longer words take longer to rehearse subvocalising; the capacity of the phonological loop is determined by speech duration (approximately $1.5\,\text{seconds}$ of speech).

What are the two components of the visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS) and their separate roles?

The visual cache (stores visual information such as form, shape, and colour) and the inner scribe (handles spatial relationships, locations, and movement).

What did Klauer and Zhao (2004) find regarding the dual components of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Visual memory tasks were disrupted more by visual interference, whereas spatial memory tasks were disrupted more by spatial interference, confirming separate visual and spatial subsystems within the VSS.

Why did Baddeley add the episodic buffer to the Working Memory Model in the year 2000?

To explain how information from the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, and LTM is integrated and bound into coherent episodes, such as remembering meaningful prose.

What did Baddeley & Wilson (2002) discover about the episodic buffer in amnesic patients?

Patients with severe amnesia and intact central executive function could immediately recall meaningful prose using the episodic buffer, but could not retain it after a delay because transfer to LTM was impaired.

What are the three distinct types of long-term memory identified by Tulving?

Episodic memory (explicit, time-stamped memories of personal events), semantic memory (explicit memory for objective facts and knowledge of the world), and procedural memory (implicit memory for motor actions and skills).

Which specific brain regions are linked with episodic, semantic, and procedural memory?

Episodic memory is linked with the hippocampus and temporal lobe (and prefrontal cortex); semantic memory is linked with the temporal lobe; procedural memory is linked with the cerebellum and motor cortex.

How does the case of Patient HM support the distinction between types of long-term memory?

Following the removal of his hippocampus and temporal lobe structures to treat epilepsy, HM could not form new episodic memories, but his ability to learn and perform procedural tasks remained intact.

How does the case study of Patient PM (Finke et al., 2012) provide evidence for LTM subdivisions?

PM, a cellist who suffered amnesia due to a virus, experienced impaired explicit memory (episodic and semantic) while his procedural memory for reading and playing music was preserved.

What is the weapon focus effect in eyewitness memory?

A phenomenon where a witness focuses attention on a weapon during a crime due to high threat and salience, which increases anxiety and results in poorer recall of surrounding details, such as the perpetrator's appearance.

What did Loftus & Burns (1982) discover regarding violent events and eyewitness memory?

Participants who watched a violent version of a crime in which a boy was shot in the face had significantly poorer recall for events leading up to the shooting compared to those who saw a non-violent version.

What were the findings of Loftus (1979) in the red purse study regarding central versus peripheral details?

Almost all participants resisted misleading post-event information stating that the red purse was brown (only two accepted it), but they were easily misled on peripheral details, proving central details are more resistant to distortion.

What did Jacobs (1887) find regarding the capacity of short-term memory using the digit span technique?

In a sample of $443$ female students, participants recalled an average span of $7.3\,\text{letters}$ and $9.3\,\text{numbers}$.

What did Simon (1974) conclude regarding the capacity of STM and chunk size?

He found that the larger the size of the chunks, the fewer chunks people could recall (e.g., fewer eight-word phrases than two-word phrases), demonstrating that STM capacity depends on chunk size and content.

What were the procedure and results of Peterson & Peterson (1959) regarding STM duration?

$24$ students were given three-letter trigrams and counted backwards to prevent rehearsal; recall fell from approximately $80\%$ after $3\,\text{seconds}$ to less than $10\%$ after $18\,\text{seconds}$, indicating an unrehearsed duration of about $18\,\text{seconds}$.

How do maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal differ according to Craik & Tulving (1973)?

Maintenance rehearsal involves mechanical repetition to keep information active in STM, whereas elaborative rehearsal connects information to meaning and existing knowledge, transferring it into LTM.

What did Conrad (1964) find regarding the encoding format of short-term memory?

Participants made significantly more errors when recalling lists of acoustically similar letters (such as B, C, D, T) than acoustically dissimilar ones, proving that STM relies primarily on acoustic coding.

What did Shulman (1970) find that demonstrated short-term memory is not solely acoustic?

Participants were able to recognize semantic relationships (such as synonyms like LEAP and JUMP) in STM tasks, proving that STM can also utilize semantic encoding.

What did Bahrick et al. (1975) find regarding the duration and durability of long-term memory?

Testing $392$ American high school graduates aged up to $74$, recognition of classmate photographs was approximately $90\%$ after $34\,\text{years}$ and $80\%$ after $48\,\text{years}$, demonstrating that LTM can last for decades.

What did Baddeley (1966) find when comparing coding in STM and LTM?

In immediate recall (STM), acoustically similar words caused the most recall errors, whereas after a $20\text{-minute}$ delay (LTM), semantically similar words caused the most errors, demonstrating that STM is mainly acoustic while LTM is mainly semantic.

What did Bahrick & Hall (1991) find concerning long-term retention of secondary versus higher-level mathematics?

Participants who had completed higher-level maths retained accurate knowledge up to $55\,\text{years}$ later, showing that depth and strength of initial learning directly influence LTM retention.

How does the case of Clive Wearing provide support for the Multi-Store Model?

His brain damage caused severe amnesia that destroyed the ability to transfer information from STM to LTM, supporting the model's hypothesis that memory stores are distinct, separate, and linear.

How does the case of Patient KF (Shallice & Warrington, 1966) challenge the linear assumption of the MSM?

KF had an impaired STM capacity of only about $2\,\text{chunks}$ following a motorcycle accident, yet his LTM remained intact and he was still able to form new long-term memories, disproving the idea that information must pass sequentially through STM to reach LTM.

What did Drachman & Sahakian (1979) discover about acetylcholine and the separation of STM and LTM?

Administering a drug that blocked acetylcholine significantly impaired participants' performance on LTM tasks while leaving STM task performance normal, demonstrating distinct neurochemical mechanisms.

What biological evidence did Squire et al. (1993) find using PET scans to support separate memory stores?

The hippocampus showed increased activation during long-term memory tasks, whereas areas of the prefrontal cortex were more active during short-term memory tasks.

How do flashbulb memories (Brown & Kulik, 1977) challenge the Multi-Store Model?

Flashbulb memories are vivid, durable memories of shocking or highly emotional events that form immediately without repeated rehearsal, contradicting the MSM's claim that prolonged rehearsal is required to form LTM.