Psychologists

• Jonat Parker et al. (2006)


  Lab-based and real-world studies of anxiety only compare high and low anxiety groups

  Inverted U theory can only be tested if there is a moderate anxiety group as well

  Interviewed people who had been affected by the destruction wrought by Hurricane Andrew in the United States in 1992

  Researchers defined anxiety in terms of damage the participants suffered to their homes

  Link between level of recall and the amount of damage/anxiety experienced
• Valentine + Mesout (2009)


  Real-world setting Horror Labyrinth at the London Dungeon

  Designed to be frightening

  Scares: darkness, screams, gory models, sudden movements

  Reduced entrance fee if they completed questionnaires at the end of their visit to assess their level of self-reported anxiety

  They also wore wireless heart monitors to confirm their anxiety

  Participants divided into low and high anxiety groups

  Participants had to describe a person encountered in the Labyrinth

  High anxiety recalled fewest correct details of the actor and more mistakes

  Researchers found 17% of the high anxiety group correctly identified the actor, 75% low anxiety

  Supports weapon focus, finding negative recall

  Researchers used objective method, heart rate to divide participants

  Anxiety clearly disrupted participants recall about the actor

  High anxiety does have negative effect on the immediate eyewitness recall of a stressful event
• Hartmut Bodner et al. (2009)


  Effects of post-event discussion can be reduced if participants are warned of their impact

  Recall was more accurate for those participants who were warned that anything they hear from a co-witness is second-hand information and that they should forget it and recall only their own memory of the event
• Seema Clifasefi (2013)


  Attempted to use leading questions to implant a memory of an event that never happed (false memory)

  Gave participants a document claiming to be a personalised food and drink profile

  Supposedly put together by powerful computer software based on the participants earlier responses to a questionnaire

  One group included false info that they had once drunk so much alcohol when they were 16 they were sick

  Later participants completed a memory test in which a leading question asked if they had ever become sick from drinking too much alcohol before they were 16

  Some people even claimed they disliked certain alcohol because of this fake experience
• Jess Baker et al. (2004)


  Can chewing gum enhance memory?

  Students randomly placed into 4 groups

  1 - Chewed gum when learning a list of words and when recalling

  2 - Gum learning / no gum recalling

  3 - No gum learning / gum recalling

  4 - No gum

  All participants learned a list of 15 words in 2 minutes

  Recall the words straight away, again 24 hours later

  Immediate recall showed only small differences between the groups

  After 24 hours the average number of words correctly recalled was 11 for gum, 8 gum/no gum, 7 no gum/gum, 8.5 no gum
• Aggelton + Waskett (1999)


  Smell can be a context-related cue to memory

  Jorvik Museum in the city of York

  1000 years ago in Viking times York was called Jorvik and the ruins still exist under today's city

  At the museum the town has been reconstructed including the smells so you can travel back in time and experience Jorvik

  Researchers found that recreating these smells helped people to recall the details of their trip even after several years
• Raymond Burke and Thomas Skrull (1988)



  Presented a series of magazine adverts to their participants

  Had to recall the details of what they had seen

  Some cases more difficulty recalling earlier adverts

  Other cases problems remembering the later ones

  The effect was greater when the adverts were similar
• George Sperling (1960)


  Testing iconic sensory register

  Participants saw a grid of digits and letters for 50 milliseconds

  Either asked to write down all 12 items or they were told they would hear a tone immediately after the exposure and they should just write down the row indicated

  When asked to recall the whole thing recall was poorer, 5 items or 42%

  One row, 3 items or 75%
• Henry Molaison (HM)


  Underwent surgery to relieve his epilepsy

  Procedure in its infancy and not fully understood

  Hippocampus removed from both sides from both sides of his brain

  Memory assessed in 1955 when he was 31 but he thought the year was 1953 and he was 27

  Little recall of the operation

  Could not form long-term memories

  Performed well on tests of immediate memory span (STM)

  Unique case study does not give strong support to MSM

  Semantic memory and procedural memory relatively unaffected
• Alan Baddeley (1966)


  Gave different lists of words to 4 groups of participants to remember

  Group 1 - acoustically similar (sound)

  Group 2 - acoustically dissimilar

  Group 3 - semantically similar (meaning)

  Group 4 - semantically dissimilar

  Participants shown the original words and asked to recall them in the correct order

  When they did this immediately, recalling from STM tended to do worse acoustically

  When they recalled word list after a time interval of 20 mins (LTM) they did worse with semantically similar words
• Joseph Jacobs (1887)


  Measuring digit span

  Researcher reads out 4 digits and the participant recalls these out loud in the correct order

  If this is correct the number of digits increase by 1 until they cannot recall the order correctly, this indicates the digit span

  Mean digit span was 9.3 items, letters 7.3
• George Miller (1956)


  Made observations of everyday practice

  Things often come in 7s

  STM span +/- 7

  Chunking - grouping sets of digits or letters into units or chunks (to remember them easier)
• Margaret Peterson + Lloyd Peterson (1959)


  STM duration

  24 students in 8 trials each

  Each trial consonant syllable to remember

  Also given 3 digit number, count back until told to stop this prevents mental rehearsal

  Stop after varying times: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 seconds

  3s average recall 80% vs 18s 3%

  STM around 18s unless info repeated
• Harry Bahrick et al. (1975)


  LTM duration

  392 American participants aged 17-74

  Highschool yearbooks obtained from participants or school themself

  Photo-recognition test consisting of 50 photos, some from yearbook

  Free recall test where participants recalled all the names of their graduating class

  Tested within 15 years 90% accurate photo recognition, 48yrs 70%

  Free recall 15yrs 60% and 48 yrs 30%

  LTM may last lifetime
• Nelson Cowan (2001)


  Reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of STM is only about 4 +/- 1 chunks

  Suggests Millers estimate 5 terms more appropriate than 7
• Richard Atkinson + Richard Shiffrin (1968,1971)


  Multi Store Model - a representation of how memory works in terms of 3 stores called the sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory, it is also described how information is transferred from one store to another, what makes some memories last and what makes some memories disappear

  3 stores linked by processing

  Sensory register - the memory stores for each of our five senses, capacity is huge and information lasts for less than half a second

  Short-term Memory - temporary limited-capacity memory store, mainly acoustic coding, duration 18 seconds and capacity is between 5 and 9 items

  Long-term Memory - unlimited capacity permanent memory store coded mainly semantically

  
• Fergus Craik + Michael Watkins (1973)


  Type of rehearsal more important than the amount

  Elaborative rehearsal is needed for long-term storage

  This occurs when you link the information to your existing knowledge or you think about what it means

  This means that information can be transferred to LTM without prolonged rehearsal which means MSM may not fully explain how long-term storage is achieved
• Clive Wearing


  Serious form of amnesia from a viral infection that attacked his brain

  Damaged the hippocampus and other associated areas

  Before this he was a world-class musician

  Semantic memory still intact, as well as procedural he still knew how to read music, sing and play piano

  Couldn't remember his musical education

  Can remember some things like children but not their names

  Supports multiple stores in LTM
• Randy Buckner + Steven Petersen (1996)


  Reviewed evidence regarding the location of semantic and episodic memory

  Concluded semantic memory is located in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and episodic memory

  Other research disagrees and says left prefrontal cortex linked to episodic memories and right prefrontal cortex with semantic memories

  Challenges neurophysiological evidence to support types of memory as there is poor agreement
• Sylvie Belleville et al. (2006)


  Devised an intervention to improve episodic memories in older people

  The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group
• Tulving


  (1985)


  Cognitive psychologist realised multi-store models view of long term memory too simplistic and inflexible

  3 LTM stores:

  Episodic Memory - personal events, conscious effort

  Semantic Memory
- knowledge of the world, deliberately recalled, it is less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic memory

  Procedural Memory - our knowledge of how to do things, usually recalled without a conscious effort

  Encoding Specificity Principle


  Reviewed research into retrieval failure, consistent pattern

  A cue has to be both present at encoding and retrieval, if different or absent there will be some forgetting

  Some cues encoded meaningfully but other cues encoded not such as context-dependant forgetting and state-dependant forgetting

  (2002)

  Episodic memory a specialised subcategory of semantic memory

  People with amnesia have functioning semantic alongside episodic but not episodic with damaged semantic
• John Hodges + Karalyn Patterson (2007)


  Some people with Alzheimer's could form new episodic memories but not semantic memories
• Baddeley


  (2000)

  Added episodic buffer to the WMM which records events that are happening

  (1975)

  Visual and verbal task at the same time, their performance on each was similar to separately but when both tasks verbal/visual performance on both declined substantially, as they compete for the same slave subsystem proving there may be separate subsystems

  (2003)

  'The central executive is the most important but least understood component of working memory', challenges the integrity of the WMM

  (1997)

  Context effects not very strong in real-life as the environments aren't very different
• Tim Shallice + Elizabeth Warrington (1970)


  Studied KF, who had a clinical memory disorder called amnesia following motorbike accident

  STM for digits very poor when they were read out to him

  Recall much better when he read the digits himself

  Could be another STM store for non-verbal sounds which would make MSM wrong

  Phonological loop damaged but visuo-spatial sketchpad intact

  Supports existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores but the trauma may have affected his cognitive performance separately from brain injury which challenges the evidence from clinical studies from brain studies
• Robert Logie (1995)


  Subdivided the Visuo-spatial sketchpad

  Visual cache - stores visual data

  Inner scribe - records the arrangement of objects in the visual field
• McGeoch + McDonald (1931)


  Procedure:

  Studied retroactive interference

  Changed the amount of similarity between 2 sets of materials

  Participants had to learn a list of 10 words until they could remember them with 100% accuracy

  Then learned a new list

  Group 1: synonyms (same meanings)

  Group 2: antonyms (opposite meanings)

  Group 3: words unrelated to the original ones

  Group 4: consonant syllables

  Group 5: 3 digit numbers

  Group 6: no new list, rested (control)

  Findings:

  When recalling the original list, the most similar (synonyms) produced the worst recall

  This could be due to proactive interference - previously stored info makes new similar info more difficult to store or retroactive - new info overwrites previous similar memories because of the similarity

  Interference worse when the memories are similar
• Baddeley + Hitch


  (1977)

  Asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against during a rugby season

  Players all played from the same time interval (over 1 season)

  Number of intervening games varied because some missed matches due to injury

  Players who played the most had the worst recall

  Interference in real-world situations increases validity of interference theory

  (1977)

  Working Memory Model

  Explains how STM is organised and functions

  Suggests STM is a dynamic processor of different types of information using subunits coordinated by a central decision making system

  Contains 4 main components which is qualitatively different especially in terms of coding and capacity: Visuo-spatial sketchpad, phonological loop (phonological store + articulatory process), central executive
• Endel Tulving + Joseph Psotka (1971)


  Gave participants lists of words organised into categories

  1 list at a time

  Participants not told what the categories were

  Recall averaged 70% for the first list

  Progressively worse as participants learned each additional list (proactive interference)

  At the end of the procedure the participants were given a cued recall test, they were told the name of the categories

  Recall rose again up to about 70%

  Interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in LTM which is not predicted by the Interference Theory
• Anton Coenen + Gilles van Luijtelaar (1997)


  Gave participants a list of words and later asked them to recall the list

  Assuming intervening experiences would act as interference

  They found that when a list of words was learned under the influence of the drug diazepam

  Recall 1 week later was poor compared to placebo control group

  When a list was learned before the drug was taken later recall was better than the placebo

  So drug facilitated recall of material learned beforehand

  Reduced interference reduces forgetting
• John Wixted (2004)


  Following Coenen + Luijtelaar (1997)

  Drug diazepam after learning list of words improved recall

  The drug prevents new information reaching parts of the brain involved in processing memories so it cannot interfere retroactively with information already stored

  Reduced interference reduces the forgetting
• Godden + Baddeley (1975)


  Context-dependent forgetting

  Procedure:

  Studied deep sea divers who work underwater to see if training on land helped or hindered their work underwater

  Divers learned a list of words either underwater or on land

  4 conditions:

  Learn on land, recall on land

  Learn on land, recall underwater

  Learn underwater, recall on land

  Learn underwater, recall underwater

  Findings:

  Accurate recall 40% lower in the non-matching conditions

  External cues available at learning were different from the ones available at recall and this led to retrieval failure

  Recall depends on external cues

  This shows how real-life strategies work

  (1980)

  Replicated the experiment but a recognition test instead of recall

  Participants said if they recalled a list read to them

  No context-dependent effect, performance same in all 4 conditions

  Retrieval failure limited explanation as it only applies to recall rather than recognition
• Carter and Cassaday (1998)


  State-dependent forgetting

  Procedure:

  Gave antihistamine drugs to their participants

  Internal physiological state different from the normal state of being awake and alert

  Participants had to learn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the info

  4 conditions:

  Learn on drug, recall on drug

  Learn on drug, recall not on drug

  Learn not on drug, recall on drug

  Learn not on drug, recall not on drug

  Findings:

  When there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse

  When internal cues absent there is more forgetting
• Michael Eysenck + Mark Keane (2010)


  Retrieval failure the main reason for forgetting from LTM

  Retrieval failure occurs in real-world situations as well as highly controlled labs
• Loftus + Palmer (1974)


  Leading question

  Procedure:

  45 students watch film clips of car accidents and then asked them questions about the accident

  Critical question - About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?

  5 groups each different verb

  Findings:

  Mean estimated speed was calculated for each group

  Contacted - 31.8

  Hit - 34.0

  Bumped - 38.1

  Collided - 39.3

  Smashed - 40.5

  Leading question biased eyewitness recall of an event

  Response bias explanation, wording of the question has no real effect on the memories but influences the answer

  Loftus + Palmer (1974) conducted a second experiment

  Participants who originally heard smashed later more likely to report seeing glass than those who heard hit, there was no glass, memory was altered by critical verb

  Watching clip very different from real experience
• Gabbert et al. (2003)


  Post-event discussion

  Procedure:

  Studied participants in pairs

  Each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed different POVs

  Each participant saw elements the others could not

  Both participants discussed what they had seen individually before taking recall test

  Only 1 saw the title of the book a woman was carrying

  Findings:

  71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in discussion

  Corresponding figure in a control group where there was no discussion was 0%

  Memory conformity, combine others

  Memory contamination, go along with each other for social reasons
• Loftus (1975)


  Leading questions can have a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be very careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses

  Psychologists sometimes used as expert witnesses in court trials and explain the limits of EWT to juries

  Psychologists can help to improve the legal system especially by protecting innocent people from faulty convictions based on unreliable EWT
• Rachel Foster et al. 1994


  What eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world

  Participants response in research do not matter in the same way so research participants are less motivated to be accurate

  Researchers too pessimistic about misleading information
• Rachel Sutherland + Harlene Hayne (2001)


  Showed participants a video clip

  When participants were later asked misleading questions, their recall was more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones

  Presumably the participants attention was focused pm central features of the event and these memories were relatively resistant to misleading information

  Original memories for central details survived and were not distorted which is not predicted by the substitution explanation
• Elin Skagerberg + Daniel Wright (2008)


  Showed participants film clips

  2 versions

  Participants discussed the clips in pairs, each having seen different versions

  They tended to blend what they and the other had seen

  Memory is distorted through contamination by misleading post-event discussion rather than memory conformity
• Maria Zaragoza + Michael McCloskey (1989)


  Many answers given by participants in lab studies ae due to demand characteristics

  Participants usually want to be helpful and not let the researchers down

  So they guess when they are asked a question they don't know the answer to