memory

Question 1

what are the 3 stores in the MSM model?

Answer 1

Sensory register —> Short term Memory —> Long term Memory

Question 2

what does the Sensory register do?

Answer 2

receives raw sense impressions
- Attention passed info into STM
- Coding = modality

Question 3

what does the STM do?

Answer 3

• receives info from the SR by Attention or from the LTM by Retrieval
• keeps info by maintenance rehearsal
• coding = acoustic
• duration = approx 18 secs
• capacity = 7 +- 2 items

Question 4

what does the LTM do?

Answer 4

• very long/ permanent memory storage
• to use info it must be Retrieved to the STM
• coding = semantic
• duration = very long/ permanent
• capacity = theoretically unlimited

Question 5

Strengths of MSM

Answer 5

• Glazner & Cunitz found the LTM and STM are separate. Words at the start and end of word list are recalled more easily

Question 6

research proving capacity of MSM

Answer 6

• Spearing (recall of a random row of a 12 letter grid was 75% suggests all rows are stored in SR)
• Jacobs (recall for lists averaged 7 items for letters and 9 for numbers. capacity of 7 +- 2)
• Wagenaar (tested himself on his 2400 diary entries and found 75% recall for critical details. suggests very large storage of LTM)

Question 7

research proving duration of MSM

Answer 7

• Sperling (recall of a random row of a 12 letter grid was 75% all 12 could not be written as they were forgot too quickly)
• Peterson & Peterson (recall of 3 letter trigrams was less than 10% after 18 secs if performing an interfering task. suggest short STM duration)
• Bahrick (recall of school peers names from photos was 90% after 15 years and 80% after 48 years. suggests LTM duration is very long/ maybe limitless)

Question 8

research proving coding of MSM

Answer 8

• Baddely (four 10 word lists were given to participants, words were acoustically similar or dissimilar and semantically similar or dissimilar. immediate recall was worse for acoustically similar words and recall after 20 mins was worse for semantically similar words. Suggests STM is coded acoustically and LTM is coded semantically)

Question 9

weaknesses of MSM

Answer 9

-research is highly artificial (low mundane realism) which reduces ecological validity
- there are different types of LTM and WMM explains STM in more detail
- the capacity of STM can be altered (age or practice)

Question 10

what are the Types of LTM?

Answer 10

• Episodic
• Semantic
• Procedural

Question 11

what are Episodic Memories?

Answer 11

• experiences/ events
• time stamped
• declarative
• recalled consciously

Question 12

what are Semantic Memories?

Answer 12

• facts, meanings and knowledge
• declarative
• recalled consciously
• not time stamped
• episodic becomes semantic over time
• longer lasting than episodic

Question 13

what are Procedural Memories?

Answer 13

• unconscious memories of skills
• often learnt in childhood
• non-declarative
• not recalled consciously

Question 14

strengths for types of LTM

Answer 14

• Vargha-Khadem (children with damage to hippocampus had episodic amnesia but could still learn and retain semantic info)
• Clive Wearing (has retrograde amnesia so can’t remember episodic memories but can remember facts about his life and can play the piano. semantic, episodic and procedural are all separate)
• Tulving (fMRIs identified which types of LTM memory are associated with different parts of the brain)

Question 15

limitation of types of LTM

Answer 15

• generalising the findings of ideographic clinical cases to explain how memory works in the wider population is problematic
• types of LTM may not be truest distinct

Question 16

who developed the Working Memory Model?

Answer 16

Baddely and Hitch - an active processor made of multiple stores - made to replace the STM

Question 17

what is the WMM made up of?

Answer 17

• Central executive
• Phonological loop
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad
• Episodic buffer

Question 18

what is the Central executive?

Answer 18

• receives sense information
• controls attention and filters info before passing on to the subsystems
• limited capacity (4)
• capable of dealing with 1 strand of info at a time

Question 19

what is the Phonological loop?

Answer 19

• processes sound info
• acoustic coding
• made up of: Primary Acoustic Store (inner ear, storing recent words) & Articulatory Process (inner voice, storing sub-vocal repetition)
• capacity of 2 secs

Question 20

what is the Visio-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 20

• processes visual and spatial info
• made up of: Visual Cache (passive store of form and colour) & Inner Scribe (active store of relationships in 3D space)

Question 21

what is the Episodic buffer?

Answer 21

• a general store to hold and combine info from VSS, PL, CE and LTM

Question 22

strength of the WMM

Answer 22

• Baddely (when doing two visual tasks it was found that performance was much better when the tasks were not using the same processing. this suggests the VSS and PL are different subsystems)
• Shallice and Warrington (KF has a selective impairment to his verbal STM but visual functioning was not affected. suggests PL and VSS are in separate brain regions)
• Baddely (found participants could recall more short words than long words. suggests PL is the time it says to say the words approx 2 secs, word length effect)
• the WMM seems more accurate than the STM components of the MSM in describing how memory is used as an active processor

Question 23

limitations of WMM

Answer 23

• low external validity due to low mundane realism making it less generalisable
• the Central executive is a concept without full explanation of its function
• inferences must be made due to it being impossible to directly observe the processes of memory

Question 24

what is interference theory?

Answer 24

we forget because our long term memories get disrupted by other information when it is coded

Question 25

what are the 2 types of interference?

Answer 25

- proactive interference - retroactive interference

Question 26

what is retroactive interference?

Answer 26

new information being stored disrupts recall of old info

Question 27

what is proactive interference?

Answer 27

old information already stored interferes with recalling something new

Question 28

what factors increase chance of interference?

Answer 28

- Similarity: when two pieces of info are similar interference increases due to response competition - Time sensitivity: interference is less likely when there is a large gap between learning

Question 29

what is cue dependant forgetting?

Answer 29

information is in the LTM but forgetting happens due to the absence of appropriate cues/ prompts encoded at the same time

Question 30

what are Context dependent cues?

Answer 30

aspects of our external environment work as cues (sight, sounds, smells) being in a different place inhibits memory

Question 31

what is state dependant cues?

Answer 31

aspects of our internal environment work as cue to memory (emotions, drugs, arousal) being in a different emotional state inhibits memory

Question 32

what are strengths for Interference?

Answer 32

- retroactive: Schmidt (questionnaire for 211 11-79 year olds with a map of the area around their old schools without street names. the more times someone moved house the fewest street names could be recalled. suggests having had more street names made recalling old names harder) - proactive: Greenberg & Underwood (participants given a list of 10 word pairs and were given a new list every 48 hours. found the number of correctly recalled word pairs decreased the more word pairs learnt previously. suggest the later learnt words interfered with the previous ones)

Question 33

limitation of interference?

Answer 33

- only explains forgetting when 2 sets of info are similar and learnt close together in time. therefore struggles to explain day-to-day example of forgetting

Question 34

strengths of Cue dependant forgetting

Answer 34

- context dependent: Godden & Baddely (material was learnt underwater and on land. recall was better with divers if learnt in the same environment they were tested in. suggests environmental cues promote recall) - state dependent: Overton (Material learnt drunk and sober. found recall was better when in the same internal state. suggests internal cues promote recall) - research into forgetting has practical applications; students can develop effective revision strategies and the techniques of the cognitive interview

Question 35

limitations of cue dependant forgetting?

Answer 35

- interference and cue dependent forgetting only explain a temporary loss of information. may not be a valid explaination of forgetting

Question 36

what are the methods used in the cognitive interview?

Answer 36

- reinstate the context - change the perspective - state everything - reverse the order

Question 37

strengths of cognitive interview

Answer 37

Kohnken meta-analysis - 55 studies found CI gave 41% in accurate information

Question 38

limitations of cognitive interview

Answer 38

not all elements are equally useful - Milne and Bull found 'report everything' and 'reinstate the context' produced the best information Time consuming - the training necessary for the cognitive interview as may not be realistic for all officers to complete

Question 39

how does anxiety negatively effect recall?

Answer 39

Johnson and Scott did an experiment with 2 conditions - the low anxiety condition and the high anxiety condition in the low anxiety condition the participants saw a man walk past with oily hands and a pen in the high anxiety condition participants overheard a heated argument and then a man walk past with a knife covered in blood. - identification from the low anxiety condition was 49% - identification in the high anxiety condition was 33%

Question 40

how does anxiety have a positive effect on recall?

Answer 40

Yuille and Cutshall did a study on a shooting of a gun shop in Canada. they interview 13 witnesses and asked them to report what happened and rate their anxiety levels on a 1-7 scale - the people who reported the highest levels of stress were the most accurate - 88%

Question 41

what is the Yerkes Dodson law?

Answer 41

there is an optimal level of anxiety which is the point of maximum accuracy. but the accuracy is decreased when anxiety is too low or too high

Question 42

strength of anxiety on recall

Answer 42

negative effect on recall - Valentine and Mesout measured anxiety through heart rate and found that high anxiety participants couldn't recall as much about the London Dungeon Labyrinths positive effect on recall - Christianson and Hubinette interviewed 58 witnesses of a bank robbery and found that those who were directly involved had the greatest recall

Question 43

limitations of anxiety on recall

Answer 43

unusualness not anxiety - Pickel did a study using a raw chicken, scissors, gun or wallet in a hair salon video and found that eye witness accuracy was worse in the unusual scenarios - limitation to Johnson and Scott study

Question 44

how do leading questions effect EWT?

Answer 44

Loftus and Palmer - 45 participants asked to estimate speed of car crash video but given different verbs in the question - 'hit', 'contacted', 'collided', 'smashed' and 'bumped' - contacted had lowest mean estimation - 31.8 mph whereas smashed had the highest - 40.5 mph - this suggests the wording of a question can 'alter the memory'

Question 45

how does Post Event Discussion effect EWT?

Answer 45

Gabbert - studied participants in pairs who each watched a video of the same crime from different POV's meaning the could see things the other couldnt - they found that 71% recalled something that they couldnt see in their video after discussing the events compared to 0% in a control group

Question 46

strengths of Misleading Information

Answer 46

real world application - important usage in the criminal justice system as police officers need to be careful in how they phrase questions as to not 'distort' the memories - suggests an impact in preventing wrong convictions

Question 47

limitations of misleading information

Answer 47

Sutherland and Hayne - when participants were asked a misleading question following a video clip their recall was more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones - suggests original memories for the central details remained un-distorted Demand Characteristics - Both are lab studies so may be susceptible to Demand Characteristics - Decreases Validity due to interfering variables affecting results