Memory

• Anxiety

  Anxiety is a factor that has been shown to affect the accuracy of eye-witness testimony. Loftus proposed the ‘weapon focus effect’, which suggests that the anxiety caused as a result of witnessing a weapon focuses the attention away from potential perpetrators and reduces the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.  
• Capacity

  Capacity refers to the amount or quantity of information that can be stored in memory.
• Central Executive

  The central executive is the boss of the working memory model. It directs attention to the two slave systems: the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
• Cognitive Interview

  Geiselman et al. (1985) developed the cognitive interview, in response to criticisms of the traditional police interview. Geiselman identified four key principles that he believed would enhance recall, including: Context reinstatement (CR), Report everything (RE), Recall from changed perspective (CP) and Recall in reverse order (RO).
• Duration

  Duration refers to the length of time information is held for in memory.
• Episodic Memory

  Episodic memories are personal memories, which have three specific elements: details of the event, the context, and the emotions experienced. Episodic memories are associated with a part of the brain called the hippocampus.
• Episodic Buffer

  The episodic buffer is one of the components of working memory model. It is a temporary store that integrates information from the other components and maintains a sense of time, so that events occur in a continuing sequence.
• Eyewitness Testimony

  An eyewitness testimony is the evidence given in court or a police investigation, by someone who has witnessed a crime or accident.
• Forgetting

  Forgetting is a failure to remember something. It can occur due to interference or retrieval failure.
• Leading Questions

  Leading questions are questions that are worded to suggest a particular answer. For example, if you say ‘did you see the broken glass?’ it implies that there was broken glass and therefore the witness is more likely to say ‘yes’.
• Long-Term Memory

  Long-term memory (LTM) is a ‘permanent’ store that holds unlimited amounts of information for long periods of time. There are different types of LTM: episodic, semantic and procedural.
• Misleading Information

  Misleading information is a key factor that can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Misleading information is incorrect information given to an eyewitness following an event. This can be during post-event discussion or take the form of leading questions.
• Multi-Store Model

  Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) proposed the multi-store model of memory (MSM), which has three components: sensory register (SR), short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM). Each of these stores has a different capacity, duration and coding.
• Phonological Loop

  The phonological loop is a component of the working memory model that deals with auditory information. It is subdivided into the phonological store (which holds words we hear) and the articulatory process (which allows us to repeat words in a loop).
• Post-Event Discussion

  Post-event discussion is a potential source of misleading information where witnesses discuss what they saw after an event. This can then affect the accuracy of their accounts.
• Proactive Interference

  Proactive interference occurs when old information stored in long-term memory interferes with the learning of new information. This usually occurs when the new information is similar to the old information. An everyday example of proactive interference is when you try to remember a new mobile phone number and your memory for your old number disrupts your attempts to remember this new information.
• Procedural Memory

  Procedural memory includes our memory of performed motor tasks/skills. For example, swimming, writing, etc. Procedural memories are acquired through repetition and practice, and are associated with the cerebellum and motor cortex.
• Retrieval Failure

  Retrieval failure is an explanation for forgetting from long-term memory. It refers to difficulties in recall that are due to the absence of correct retrieval cues or triggers.
• Retroactive Interference

  Retroactive interference occurs when the learning of new information interferes with the recall of old information from long-term memory. For example, once you have learned a new mobile number, it is often very difficult to recall your old number.
• Semantic Memory

  Semantic memories include our knowledge of facts, concepts and meaning. For example, knowing that London is the capital of England is a semantic memory. Semantic memories are associated with a part of the brain known as the temporal lobe.
• Sensory Register

  The sensory register is the memory store where information first comes in through the senses. There are separate sensory registers for each sense: the iconic store codes visual information and the echoic store codes auditory information. Information only lasts for a brief moment unless attention is directed to that register, which then transfers the information to STM.
• Short-Term Memory

  Short-term memory is a temporary memory store that holds a limited amount of information for a short period. The multi-store model views STM as a unitary store, whereas the working memory model sees it as a number of components.
• Visuo-spatial Sketchpad

   The visuo-spatial sketchpad is the component of working memory that processes visual information (the visual cache) and spatial information (the inner scribe).
• Working Memory Model

  Baddeley & Hitch (1974) put forward the working memory model (WMM) to explain some of the research findings that could not be explained by the MSM. The WMM is a multi-component short-term memory system, which consists of a central executive, phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad.