Psychology

• Capacity


  A measure of the amount of information that can be stored in memory
• Coding


  The way that information is modified so it can be stored in memory. Information can be stored in the form of visual, acoustic or semantic codes.
• Duration


  A measure of how long a memory can be stored before it is no longer available
• Peterson and Peterson's study on STM duration


  1. Participants were given a nonsense consonant triad and a three digit number

  2. Participants then had to count down in threes from their three digit number during a retention period of either 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds

  3. After the retention period, participants had to recall the triad they were given
• Baddeley's study on coding in LTM and STM


  1. Baddeley gave participants word lists to learn- one semantically similar, acoustically different, and one semantically different, acoustically similar

  2. Participants struggled short-term with the acoustically similar list, and long-term with the semantically similar list

  3. Baddeley concluded that LTM is encoded semantically and STM acoustically
• Proactive Interference


  Past learning interferes with attempts to learn something new
• Retroactive Interference


  Current attempts at learning interfere with the recollection of past learning
• Goodwin's study on state-dependent forgetting


  1. Participants had to learn a word list either drunk or sober

  2. Recall of the words was best when they were drunk during both encoding and recall or sober during both encoding and recall
• Scoville and Milner (1957) studied HM who had his hippocampus removed to treat his epilepsy. He was unable to form new LTMs but could form STMs.
• Abernathy's study on context dependent forgetting

  1. Students were tested in different conditions: by their regular instructor in their usual teaching room/different one, or by a different instructor in usual teaching room/different one

  2. Results were best when tested in their usual room by their usual instructor
• Components of the Cognitive Interview

  • Mental reinstatement of events
  • Report everything
  • Change the order
  • Change perspective
• Johnson and Scott's study on the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT


  1. Participants heard an argument and then saw a man run past holding a grease covered pen (low anxiety) or knife covered in blood (high anxiety)

  2. In the low anxiety situation identification of the man was 49% accurate but only 33% in the high anxiety scenario
• Types of declarative memory


  • Semantic Memory
  • Episodic Memory
• Procedural Memory


  Memory that is concerned with knowing how to do things (like ride a bike/ drive a car) which eventually, through repetition become automatic
• Loftus and Palmer in 1974 conducted research on the effects of misleading information on EWT
• Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) research related to retrieval failure


  1. Participants were given a list of 48 words from 12 different categories

  2. Recall was 40% accurate without retrieval cues

  3. Recall was 60% accurate when the category was given as a retrieval cue
• Cues (in regards to memory)


  Things that serve as triggers to a memory. They may be things about the memory like the category a word belonged to, or the room in which you learned it
• Semantic memory


  Memory that is concerned with knowledge of facts, like the capital city of a country
• Episodic memory


  Memory that is concerned with the knowledge of life events such as the first day of school
• Eyewitness testimony


  The ability of a person to remember events they have witnessed, usually with the effect that they have to testify about what they have seen in court, or identify the perpetrator of the crime