Memory: Coding, Capacity, Duration and Models

Flashcards covering memory research on coding, capacity, and duration, the Multi-Store and Working Memory Models, theories of forgetting, and factors affecting eyewitness testimony.

Coding

The process of converting information between different forms.

Acoustically similar words

Words that sound similar; Alan Baddeley found participants tended to do worse with these when recalling immediately from STM.

Semantically similar words

Words with similar meanings; Alan Baddeley found participants did worse with these when recalling from LTM after a 20-minute interval.

Capacity

How much information can be stored at once.

Digit span

A measurement of capacity where a researcher reads increasing sequences of digits until the participant cannot recall the order correctly; Jacobs found a mean of $9.3$ for digits and $7.3$ for letters.

Chunking

Grouping set digits or letters into units or chunks to enhance memory span; Miller stated the span of STM is $7 \text{ (add and subtract two)}$.

Duration of STM

Margaret and Lloyd Peterson found this to be about $18 \text{ seconds}$ unless verbal rehearsal occurs; recall dropped from 80 \text{ %} after $3 \text{ seconds}$ to 3 \text{ %} after $18 \text{ seconds}$.

Duration of LTM

Bahrick et al. showed memory may last up to a lifetime; photo recognition was 90 \text{ %} after $15 \text{ years}$ and 70 \text{ %} after $48 \text{ years}$.

Sensory Register (SR)

The store for environmental stimuli consisting of several registers for five senses, featuring high capacity but very short duration.

Iconic memory

Technical term for coding visual information in the sensory register.

Echoic memory

Technical term for coding acoustic information in the sensory register.

Maintenance rehearsal

Repeating material to oneself repeatedly to keep information in STM or transfer it to LTM if done long enough.

Central Executive (CE)

Component of the WMM that monitors incoming data, focuses and divides limited attention, and allocates subsystems to tasks without storing information.

Phonological loop (PL)

Component of WMM dealing with acoustic info, divided into the phonological store and the articulatory process; holds capacity of $2 \text{ seconds}$.

Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS)

Component of WMM storing visual and spatial info with a capacity of $3 \text{ to } 4 \text{ objects}$; divided into the visual cache and inner scribe.

Episodic buffer (EB)

A temporary store that integrates visual, spatial, and verbal information, maintains a sense of time and sequencing, and has a capacity of $4 \text{ chunks}$.

Proactive interference (PI)

Occurs when an older memory interferes with a newer one, such as difficulty remembering new student names due to many past names.

Retroactive interference (RI)

Occurs when a newer memory interferes with an older one, such as forgetting last year's students after learning current ones.

Encoding Specificity Principle (ESP)

Tulving's principle that a cue must be present at both encoding (learning) and retrieval (recalling) to be helpful; missing cues lead to forgetting.

Context-dependent forgetting

Retrieval failure due to a lack of external cues, such as weather or location; Godden and Baddeley found recall was 32 \text{ %} lower in non-matching land/underwater conditions.

State-dependent forgetting

Retrieval failure due to internal physiological or emotional state differences between learning and recall; studied by Carter and Cassaday using antihistamines.

Leading Questions

Questions worded to suggest a certain answer, acting as post-event information that can result in response bias or substitution.

Substitution explanation

The theory that leading questions change a witness's memory by adding details that were not originally present.

Post-event discussion (PED)

Occurs when eyewitnesses discuss the event, potentially leading to memory contamination or conformity where accounts are distorted by others' views.

Weapon focus

The tendency for a witness's attention to be drawn to a weapon as a source of danger, causing tunnel vision and negative effects on the recall of other details.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

The Inverted U theory stating that performance/accuracy in EWT increases with arousal up to an optimum point, after which it decreases due to strong anxiety.

Cognitive Interview (CI)

A four-step method (Report everything, Context reinstatement, Reverse the order, Change perspective) designed to facilitate maximum recall using retrieval prompts.

Enhanced Cognitive Interview

Fisher et al.'s development of CI focusing on social dynamics, such as eye contact, minimizing distraction, and reducing witness anxiety.