Memory

Question 1

Describe the multi-store model

Answer 1

Sensory store
Capacity- 9-18 items
Duration 250ms
Encoding Modal Specific

Attention

Short term memory
Capacity 5-9 items
Duration 18-30 seconds
Encoding Acoustic

Displacement or Maintenance Rehearsal

Long term memory
Capacity Unlimited
Duration Unlimited
Encoding Semantic

Decay

We remember the first items (primacy) and last items (recency) in a list, as had time to rehearse primacy information to get into LTM, and recency items are still being rehearsed in STM

Question 2

What are the Multi-Store Model of Memory: Key Studies

Answer 2

Sperling (tones)
Peterson & Peterson (trigrams)
Jacobs (digit span)
Baddeley (Sim & Dissim Lists)
Bahrick (yearbook)

Question 3

Describe Sperling

Answer 3

Condition 1:
Flashed a 3x4 grid of letters on the screen for 250ms.
Pp’s were asked to recall any letters,.
Results = 3-4 letters recalled.

Condition 2:
Flashed grid for 250ms.
Low, medium or high tone played after.
Asked to recall row for that tone.
Results = ¾ from the tone row. Therefore remembered 9-12 letters in total.

Question 4

Describe Jacobs

Answer 4

Gave pps letters, numbers of words and increased them by one each time. Asked them after each increase to immediately recall strings of letters/numbers.
Found that people could generally recall between 5-9 items. Chunking letters could increase capacity.

Question 5

Describe Baddeley

Answer 5

4 conditions:
Acoustically similar & dissimilar.
Recalled immediately
Recalled after 30 min

Semantically similar & dissimilar.
Recalled immediately
Recalled after 30 min

Results:
Acoustically similar sounding words (cat, hat etc) were confused on immediate recall.
STM = acoustic encoding.
Semantically similar words (e.g big, large etc) were confused after 30 min recall.
LTM = semantic encoding.

Question 6

Describe Peterson

Answer 6

3 nonsense letter trigrams show (JRX)
They had to count back in 3s from 300 = no maintenance rehearsal.
The counting increased in 3 sec intervals (3,6 ,9, up to 30 secs)

They found around 90% of trigrams were remembered after 3 seconds, 5% after 18 seconds.
Duration STM = 18-30 secs.

Question 7

Describe Bahrick

Answer 7

50 photos shown from school yearbook.
Asked to match name to photo or free recall.

Results:
Up to 15yrs
90% accuracy matching
60% on free recall.
After 48 yrs
60% recall matching
30% free recall.

Question 8

Can you match the study to the store?

Answer 8

Sensory store
Sperling- Capacity

Short term memory
Jacobs- capacity
Peterson- duration
Baddeley- Encoding in STM and LTM

Long term memory
Bahrick- capacity and duration

Question 9

Strengths of Key MSM Studies apart from Bahrick

Answer 9

Strength: high scientificness (control).

Trigrams = standardised procedure apart from change in length of maintenance rehearsal = high causation ensures its only looking at STM duration and not LTM.

Sperling = apart from tone everything standardised. High causation as only difference in conditions is the tone and hence shows that SR does have 9-12 items recalled.

Baddeley = all the same apart from the acoustically and semantically similar and dissimilar list and whether immediate or 30 min recall. Hence can only be the length of recall and type of list that is the cause of memory confused. Hence STM = acoustic and LTM = semantic.

Jacobs = the same recall time and only difference is the number of letters to recall. Hence must be capacity of 5-9 items otherwise causes displacement.

Question 10

Weakness of Key MSM Studies apart from Bahrick

Answer 10

Weakness: lack of ecological validity

Trigrams = lack of semantic detail in trigrams

Sperling tones = no consequence of misremembering letters

Baddeley lists = only considers acoustic information, in real life, it is both acoustic, visual and semantic.

Jacobs = in real life more semantic meaning than random letters/numbers, e.g. crime.

Question 11

Types of LTM

Answer 11

Episodic
Semantic
Procedural

Question 12

Describe the types of LTM

Answer 12

Episodic Memory

Personal Autobiographical Memories
Strengthened by emotions at the time
Time-stamped, place and context of memory also included (e.g. birthday)
Explicit Memory
Least resistant to forgetting
Areas of the brain: Right PFC

Semantic Memory

General Knowledge
Facts, meanings, concepts about our world
Knowledge had by many rather than personal experience. (e.g. capital of Paris)
Explicit Memory
Less resistant to forgetting
Areas of the brain: Left PFC & hippocampus

Procedural Memory

Skills acquired through practise
Automatic memories
Knowledge of motor movement tasks (e.g. riding a bike)
Implicit Memory
Very resistant to forgetting
Areas of the brain: cerebellum, caudate nucleus & motor cortex

Question 13

Describe the Working Memory Model

Answer 13

Central Executive
It directs attention to particular tasks & allocates the brains resources (slave systems) to them.
Data arrives from the senses or LTM. It has limited capacity (based on how autonomic). Less capacity if experienced.

Episodic Buffer
Added in 2000. Storage system that holds auditory and visual information
Limited capacity, integrates information from CE, VSS & PL. Maintains time sequencing (episodic events).

Phonological Loop
This deals with auditory information, and keeps the order of information.
Inner ear: holds words you hear. 2 sec capacity,
Articulatory loop: for words seen or heard which are repeated (inner voice)

Visuo-spatial sketchpad
This deals with planning spatial tasks, the physical relationship between objects
Visual cache: stores information about visual items e.g. form and colour
Inner scribe: stores the arrangement of objects in visual field.

Question 14

Working Memory Model: Key Study

Answer 14

Baddeley & Hitch (dual processing, letter and track light).

Question 15

Working Memory Model: Key Study supporting the VSS (Baddeley)

Answer 15

Method: repeated measures design.
Condition 1. track a spot of light with a pointer whilst saying yes/no to angles on an imagined letter, e.g., F.
Condition 2. track a spot of light whilst doing a verbal task, e.g., answering questions.
Proecdure for Condition 1: Pps started at the bottom left-hand corner for each angle of the letter they reach say yes if the angle is at the bottom or top line of the letter and no if the angle appears anywhere else in the letter.

Results:
Participants found it difficult to hold the image of the letter in their heads and track the moving light.
However, if asked to carry out a verbal task and track light they could perform both well.

Conclusion:
The two tasks (tracking light and imagining the angles of a letter) both used the same resource in STM: the visuo –spatial sketchpad.
The visuo –spatial sketchpad is a limited resource as it cannot carry out both tasks at the same time. Both are done poorly, or one is done well and the other hardly attempted.

Question 16

Working Memory Model AO3 Strengths

Answer 16

Based on highly controlled lab experiments – causality (Baddeley letter tracking study). Proves that there are separate slave systems

Proves that there are separate slave systems, K.F. motorcycle accident (lost his PL auditory memory but had his visual memory intact (VSS).

There is evidence for a 2sec capacity for Phonological store. Hence some specific detail on capacity.

Explains STM in more depth – can dual process unlike the MSM.

Question 17

Working Memory Model AO3 weaknesses

Answer 17

Lack of ecological validity and mundane realism – not an everyday task to track lights and say yes to angles. Real life situation e.g., driving, crimes importance to task then maybe we can process more Visual information and use the slave systems more that Baddeley supposes.

However, lack of evidence and specific capacity and duration for the slave systems and the CE.

The Episodic buffer was an afterthought added later. It missed the point of where the information is stored.

Question 18

Explanations of forgetting

Answer 18

Interference- Interference theory sees info in LTM being disrupted by other information during coding.

Retrieval Failure

Question 19

Types of Interference

Answer 19

Proactive
Retroactive

Question 20

Describe two form of interference with examples

Answer 20

Proactive: old information affects new (remember old, forget new)
E.g., you learn French and then Spanish. In Spanish you end up speaking French.

Retroactive: new information affects old (remember new, forget old)
E.g., You get a new telephone number and memorise it. You then need to put the old telephone number for a security password and can’t recall it.

Question 21

Interference: Key Studies

Answer 21

Retroactive Interference: List A & B (similar and dissimilar)
McGeoch & McDonald: Gave participants 10 adjectives (List A). They learned list A then had a break for 10 min and learned list B. They then recalled List A.
List A & B similar = recall of A poor (12%)
List B nonsense = recall better (26%)
List B was numbers (very dissimilar) = recall best (36%).

Rugby Players: interference or retrieval delay
Rugby! Pp’s who had played several rugby games were asked to remember as many of the teams they had played against they could. Forgetting was more due to the number of games played (so interference of memory had occurred) rather than the amount of time that passed between games.

Proactive interference: meta-analysis
Meta-analysis of other studies on proactive interference. If 10 or more lists remembered, after 24hrs 20% recalled new information. If only 1 list, it was 70% recalled.

Question 22

Types of Retrieval Failure

Answer 22

Encoding Specificity Principle
Context-dependent retrieval failure
State-dependent retrieval failure

Question 23

Describe types of encoding specificity

Answer 23

Context-Dependent Forgetting
External retrieval cues different or same as when learnt/encoded. E.g., learning information in a classroom and recalling in an exam hall.

State-Dependent Forgetting
Internal retrieval cues different or same as when learnt/encoded. E.g., eyewitness recalling a crime they saw when drunk, when they were sober.

Question 24

Retrieval Failure AO1

Answer 24

Forgetting is due to a failure to find information. The memory is inaccessible because you have insufficient CUES present at recall compared to coding.

Encoding Specificity Principle
Information present at time of encoding, also available at time of retrieval = good memory recall.
Doesn’t have to be an exact match but the closer the cue the more successful the retrieval.

Question 25

Retrieval Failure: Key Studies

Answer 25

Encoding Specificity Principle (categories-word lists) Pps learnt 48 words belonging to 12 categories. Presented as category + word, e.g., fruit-apple. Condition 1: free recall; Condition 2: cued recall. Found free recall = 40% recalled; cued recall = 60% recalled. Context-dependent retrieval failure (BOOB situation study) Ev: (BOOB) 18 divers learnt lists of 36 unrelated words of 2/3 syllables. Beach learnt – Beach recalled (same context) = 13.5 Beach learnt – Ocean recalled (different context) = 8.5 Ocean learnt – Ocean recalled (same context) = 11.4 Ocean learnt – Beach recalled (different context) = 8.6 State-dependent retrieval failure (what a state!! Drunk Med students) 48 medical students Day 1 = training session; Day 2 = testing. Randomly assigned to 4 groups. SS (sober on both days) AA (drunk on both days) AS (drunk and sober when tested) SA (sober and drunk when tested) More errors made in AS & SA condition than AA or SS. SS performed best in all tasks.

Question 26

Factors Affecting Eyewitness Testimony

Answer 26

Leading Questions Post event discussions Anxiety

Question 27

Leading Questions: Key studies

Answer 27

Car Crash study Broken Glass study

Question 28

Loftus & Palmer: Car crash

Answer 28

Car Crash Experiment 1 1. 45 Students shown film clips of car accidents. 2. They were asked a variety of questions, but one that was the experimental questions “How fast was the car going when it… into the other vehicle. They added in 5 different verbs (hit, collided, smashed, bumped, contacted). 3. Hit: 31 mph mean; Smashed 41 mph (mean). Leading Questions change our memories (false memories). Therefore EWT is not reliable and should not be used if interviewers used leading questions. Broken Glass Experiment 2 4. ‘Broken Glass’ Study: Study 2. 150 students, 7 film clips. Hit, smashed. Asked questions. Guess estimate mph. 5. One week later re-interviewed and asked question; ‘Did you see broken glass?’. (LTM test). More people reported seeing broken glass when verb smashed was used than hit. 6. Conclusion : More said broken glass in smashed than hit. However, still more people reported not seeing broken glass in any condition (e.g. smashed). The majority of people did not have a false memory. However people were more likely to have a false memory if they had had a leading question.

Question 29

Post Event Discussions: Key studies

Answer 29

Gabbart: Women “stealing” money discussion study

Question 30

Eyewitness testimony: Post Event Discussion (Gabbart)

Answer 30

When witnesses discuss a crime their testimony can become CONTAMINATED. They combine mis-information from other witnesses into their memory. It can also create entirely FALSE MEMORIES. Gabbert (2003) 120 pp’s (1/2 students, ½ older people) Pps watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet. Condition 1: tested individually – control group. Condition 2: tested in pairs (co-witnesses). They were told they had watched the same video, but they had in fact watched a video of a crime filmed from different angles. They were put together after to have a ‘post event discussion’. They then completed a questionnaire. 71% of pp’s gave information they hadn’t seen 60% said the girl was guilty, despite not seeing her commit the crime.

Question 31

Anxiety: Key studies

Answer 31

Weapon study

Question 32

Eyewitness testimony: Anxiety Weapon focus study

Answer 32

Weapon Focus Study AO1 Pp sat outside lab and thought they were hearing genuine conversation with people inside. Condition 1: amicable discussion about equipment failure, man came out with greasy hands holding a pen. Condition 2: hostile discussion, sound of breaking glass and overturned furniture; man emerged covered in blood, holding a knife. Pps given 50 photos and asked to id the man. Results: Condition 1 = 49% accuracy in id’íng man Results: Condition 2 = 33% accuracy in id’ing man. Possible explanations Positive Effect: Triggers fight or flight – enhances alertness and memory Negative Effect: Weapon Focus Effect, attention on the weapon rather than the face due to anxiety - Linked to TUNNEL THEORY of MEMORY. Yerkes-Dodson Law: There is an optimal level of arousal which enhances memory. Underarousal or overarousal leads to poor memory performance.

Question 33

Standard v Cognitive Interview AO1 (Standard)

Answer 33

Standard Interview Questions are not in sequential order It feels more interrogatory and formal Police will interrupt EWT They will cross-question to check for inconsistencies Police may end up asking leading questions Problems Interruptions and lack of sequential order can reduce the flow of memory recall. Less information given. Lack of trust/rapport and hence less likely to speak openly. Leading questions can lead to false memories. Children are susceptible to changing their answers under cross-questions making their testimony unreliable.

Question 34

Standard v Cognitive Interview AO1 (Cognitive)

Answer 34

Standard Cognitive Interview 4 parts: Recall everything: free recall “What happened, tell me everything from the beginning?” Reinstatement of context: using context & state -dependent retrieval cues. “What were you doing that day?”, “How were you feeling?” Reverse the order: increase depth of semantic processing to increase quantity of recall. “What was the last thing that happened? Then what happened before that? Before that?” Change Perspective: getting EW to look from a different point of view, from another person at the scene. “What do you think X saw?” Enhanced: use of rapport building, open questions, EW centred, positive closure.