P1: memory

• What are the 3 stages of memory?

  Sensory register, stm, ltm
• What is the duration and capacity of sensory register?

  Duration: Less than half a second

  Capacity: huge
• Why is SR 'modality specific'?

  Two main information stores: iconic memory (visual coded visually) and echoic memory (sound coded acoustically)
• How is information coded in LTM?

  Semantically
• What's the capacity of LTM?

  Unlimited
• What's the duration of LTM?

  Infinite
• Memory: process in which information is retained about the past.
• Multi-Store Model (Attkinson & Shiffrin 1968) describes how info is transferred between stores, and how it’s remembered and forgotten.
• Sensory Register temporarily stores information from senses and constantly receives information around us, unless we pay attention to it, it disappears quickly → spontaneous decay.
• The memory stores for each of our five senses, such as vision (iconic store) and hearing (echoic store).
• Capacity of Short Term Memory (STM) is 7 +/- 2 items, duration is 30 sec, coding is acoustic.
• Jacobs (1890) found that the average capacity for numbers was 9, letters was 7.
• STM increased with age, from 8 to 19 years old, where 8 year olds recalled 7 numbers, and 19 year olds recalled 9 numbers.
• Context reinstatement and report everything produced the greatest accuracy of recall of correct information, suggesting at least these two elements should be used to improve police interviewing of eyewitnesses even if full CIT isn't used.
• Kohnken conducted a meta-analysis by combining data from 50 studies, finding that ECI constantly provided more correct information than the standard interview used by police, suggesting real practical benefits of using ECI, giving police a greater chance at catching and charging criminals, which benefits the rest of society.
• Conrad (1964) found that information changed to sound on the way through memory for acoustic errors to occur, otherwise, errors would have been based on appearance.
• Peterson & Peterson (1959) found that the duration of Short Term Memory (STM) is 30 sec.
• Psychology students were used as participants in Peterson & Peterson's (1959) study, which may introduce demand characteristics and limit generalisability.
• Conrad's (1964) study lacks mundane realism due to the artificial task that does not reflect real life use of memory.
• Peterson & Peterson's (1959) study lacks ecological validity due to the use of artificial stimuli.
• Fisher et al (1989) conducted a study where 16 detectives from Dade County, Florida were trained in cognitive interview and found that 63% more information was gained by detectives trained in CI than those who were not.
• CIT gets more information because one spends more time with eyewitnesses, but also gets more incorrect info.
• Cognitive Interview consists of four key aspects: reporting everything, context reinstatement, reversing order and changing perspective.
• Enhanced Cognitive Interview is an enhanced type of cognitive interview with additional elements and focused on the social aspect of interviews.
• Kebbel and Wagstaff argued that only a few hours of training, as is possible for many police forces, is insufficient to adequately train interviewers, especially for the enhanced social understanding required for the enhanced cognitive interview.
• Demand Characteristics refer to the conditions under which participants in a lab study are aware they are part of a study.
• Cognitive Interview Technique (CIT) is being used worldwide by police forces to train interviewers.
• Change perspectives in Cognitive Interview involves asking eyewitnesses to recall events from someone else’s perspective, as it avoids the effect of personal expectations and schema disrupting memories.
• Cognitive Interview is an interviewing method for eyewitnesses that helps them retrieve more accurate memories.
• Bahrick (1975) found that Long Term Memory (LTM) has unlimited capacity and duration, and is coded semantically.
• Reporting everything in Cognitive Interview encourages eyewitnesses to report every single detail, no matter how big or small, as some details can trigger other memories that may be crucial evidence.
• Reversing the order in Cognitive Interview causes eyewitnesses to think more carefully about what happened, as it avoids personal expectations of how the event happened being reported and it’s harder to be dishonest when the order of events is reversed.
• Some aspects of CIT are better, such as context reinstatement and reporting everything.
• Context Reinstatement in Cognitive Interview involves asking eyewitnesses to place themselves at the crime scene and ask questions about the environment, such as what was the weather like or how did you feel, to avoid context-dependant forgetting.
• Godden & Baddeley (1980) replicated their underwater experiment, but used a recognition test instead of recall.
• Accuracy is important as eyewitness testimony is used as a key form of evidence by the criminal justice system.
• Schema Theory: developed by Bartlett (1932) to explain why, when recalling information, individuals leave out details and introduce ‘rationalisation’.
• Real Life applications of context cues include making an effort to try and recall in the environment first learned, which was used in the cognitive interview.
• Found accurate recall was 40% lower in the non-matching conditions.
• Baddeley (1997) argues context effects are usually not very strong, especially in real life.