Content

• Coding

  The process of converting format in which information is stored in the various memory stores

  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
• Capacity

  The amount of information that can be held in a memory store

  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

  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)
• Duration

  The length of time information can be held in memory

  Peterson + Peterson (1959)

  STM

  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

  Bahrick et al. (1975)

  LTM

  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
• Multi Store Model

  Atkinson + Shiffrin (1968, 1971)

  3 stores linked by processing

  Stimulus from the environment -> Sensory register -(attention)-> STM -(prolonged rehearsal)-> LTM OR Response

  LTM -(retrieval or maintenance rehearsal)-> STM
• Sensory Register

  All stimulus from the environment pass into the sensory register, comprises of a register for each sense

  Coding in each store is modality-specific

  Visual - iconic memory, Acoustic - echoic memory

  Duration less than half a second

  High capacity

  Info only passes further into memory if you pay attention
• Short-term Memory

  Coded mainly acoustically

  Lasts around 18 seconds unless reversed, so temporary store

  Limited capacity 7 +/-2, or 5

  Maintenance rehearsal occurs when we repeat material to ourselves over and over

  Can retain info in STM by rehearsing, if rehearsed long enough it passes into LTM
• Long-term Memory

  Potentially permanent memory store for info that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time

  Coded mostly semantically

  When we want to recall info it is transferred back into the STM by a process called retrieval
• HM

  Henry Molaison

  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)
• Types of Long-term Memory

  Tulving (1985)

  One of the first cognitive psychologists to realise multi-store models view of long term memory too simplistic and inflexible

  3 LTM stores: episodic memory, semantic memory and procedural memory
• Episodic Memory

  A long-term memory store for personal events, it includes complex memories of when the events occurred and of the people, objects, places and behaviours involved, which have to be retrieved consciously and with effort

  Time stamped, remember when they happened and how time relates to events

  Single episode includes several elements which are interwoven into a single memory

  Conscious effort to recall episodic memories, happens quickly but you are still aware you are searching for a memory
• Semantic Memory

  A long-term memory store for our knowledge of the world, includes facts and our knowledge of what words and concepts mean, memories usually need to be recalled deliberately

  Not usually time-stamped as less personal and more about shared facts

  Immense collection that is constantly being added to

  Tulving says it is less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting than episodic memory
• Procedural

  A long-term memory store for our knowledge of how to do things, includes memories of learned skills, which are usually recalled without making a conscious or deliberate effort

  The ability becomes automatic through practice which may make it difficult to explain it to other people
• The Working Memory Model

  Baddeley + Hitch (1974)

  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

  
• Central Executive

  The component of the WMM that co-ordinates the activities of the 3 subsystems in memory, it also allocates processing resources to those activities

  Supervisory role

  Monitors incoming data, focuses and divides our limited attention and allocates slave systems to tasks

  Limited processing capacity

  Does not store information
• Phonological Loop

  Component of WMM that processes information in terms of sound, includes both written and spoken material, it is divided into the phonological store (stores the words you hear) and articulatory process (allows maintenance rehearsal to keep them in working memory while they are needed, capacity 2 seconds worth of what you can say)

  Slave system

  Preserves the order in which info arrives

  Phonology (sounds of language), accesses long-term memory to store and retrieve info about language sounds, this allows us to develop our vocabulary as children and in a foreign language as adults
• Visuo-spatial Sketchpad

  Component of the WMM that processes visual and spatial information in a mental space often called our inner eye

  Slave system

  Stores visual and/or spatial info when required

  E.G. asked how many windows on your house you visualise it

  Visual semantics (the meanings of objects in our visual environment), it can access LTM to store and retrieve visuo-spatial info

  Limited capacity, Baddeley (2003) says 3-4 objects

  Robert Logie (1995) subdivided the VSS into:

  Visual cache - stores visual data

  Inner scribe - records the arrangement of objects in the visual field
• Episodic Buffer

  Component of the WMM that brings together material from the other subsystems into a single memory rather than separate strands, provides a bridge between working memory and long-term memory as well as wider cognitive processes such as perception

  Slave system

  Added to the model by Baddeley (2000)

  Temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal info processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing

  Records events that are happening

  Storage component of the central executive

  Limited capacity of 4 chunks
• 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
• Interference Theory

  Forgetting because one memory blocks another, causing one or both memories to be distorted or forgotten

  Mainly in the LTM, memories there basically permanent but we may not be able to access them even though they are available

  Interference between memories makes it harder for us to locate them and is experienced as forgetting
• Types of Interference

  Likely two memories that are interfering with each other were stored at different times

  2 types of interference:

  Proactive interference - older memory interferes with a newer one

  Retroactive interference - newer memory interferes with an older one
• Proactive interference

  Occurs when an older memory already stored interferes with recall of a newer one, the degree of forgetting is greater when the memories are similar (eg. learning so many old players hard to remember new team)
• Retroactive interference

  Happens when a newer memory interferes with the recall of an older memory that is already stored, the degree of forgetting is greater when the memories are similar (eg. learning new football team means its harder to remember the old ones)
• Similarity Affecting Interference

  Interference worse when the memories are similar

  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 - previously stored info makes new similar info more difficult to store or retroactive - new info overwrites previous similar memories because of the similarity
• Retrieval Failure due to Absence of Cues

  Retrieval Failure - a form of forgetting, occurs when we don't have the necessary cues to access available memory

  Cue - a trigger of information that allows us to access a memory, such cues may be meaningful or may be indirectly linked by being encoded at the time of learning, indirect cues may be external or internal

  When info initially placed in memory its associated cues are stored at the same time if they are not available cannot access memory
• Encoding Specificity Principle

  Tulving (1983)

  Reviewed research into retrieval failure

  Consistent pattern to the findings

  States a cue has to be both present at encoding and retrieval

  If cues at retrieval are different or absent there will be some forgetting

  Some cues are encoded at the time of learning in a meaningful way

  Other cues encoded at the time of learning but not in a meaningful way such as context-dependant forgetting and state-dependant forgetting
• Context-dependent forgetting

  Recall depends on external cues

  Godden + Baddeley (1975)

  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
• State-dependent Forgetting

  Recall depends on internal cues

  Carter and Cassaday (1998)

  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 cues absent there is more forgetting
• Aggleton + 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
• Leading Questions

  A question which because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer

  Eye witness testimony, police questioning witness

  Loftus + Palmer (1974)

  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
• Post-event Discussion

  Occurs when there is more than one witness to an event, witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or with other people, this may influence the accuracy of each witness's recall of events

  Gabbert et al. (2003)

  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
• Memory Contamination

  Co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other, their eyewitness testimonies may become altered or distorted, they combine information from others with their own memories
• Memory Conformity

  Gabbert et al., witnesses often go along with each other to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong, but the actual memory is unchanged
• Anxiety's Effect on Eyewitness Testimony

  Anxiety - a state of emotional and physical arousal, such as emotionally worry and tension and physically increased heart rate and sweatiness

  Not clear whether it improves or worsens recall

  Yerkes + Dodson (1908)

  Relationship between emotional arousal and performance is an inverted U

  Deffenbacher (1983)

  Reviewed 21 studies of Eyewitness testimony

  Noted contradictory effects of anxiety

  Used Yerkes-Dodson law to explain findings

  When we witness a crime/accident become emotionally and physiologically aroused, lower anxiety produce lower level of recall accuracy, memory becomes more accurate as arousal increases

  Optimal level of anxiety = point of maximum accuracy

  If they experience any more arousal then their recall suffers a drastic decline
• Anxiety has a Negative Effect on Recall

  Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues

  Weapons create anxiety, focus on the weapon, reducing witness recall for other details of the event

  Procedure:

  Johnson + Scott (1976)

  Participants believe they were taking part in a lab study

  Seated in waiting room either heard casual conversation and a man walked out with a pen and greased hands or a heated argument and the sound of breaking glass after a man walked out of the room holding a blood covered knife

  Findings:

  Later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos

  49% who saw him carrying a pen could identify him

  33% man holding blood-covered knife

  Tunnel theory - people have enhanced memory for central events
• Anxiety has a Positive Effect on Recall

  Anxiety causes physiological arousal triggering fight or flight increasing alertness which may make us more aware of cues

  Procedure:

  Yuille + Cutshall (1986)

  Study of an actual shooting in a gun shop in Vancouver, Canada

  Shop owner shot thief dead

  13/21 witnesses took part in the study

  Interviewed 4/5 months after the incident and these interviews were compared with original police interviews

  Accuracy determined by the number of details reported in each account

  Witness also asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time of the incident and whether they had any emotional problems since the event

  Findings:

  Witnesses very accurate in their accounts and there was little change in the amount recalled or accuracy after 5 months

  Some details were less accurate

  Those who reported the highest levels of stress were most accurate (88% compared to 75%)

  Anxiety may enhance recall
• The Cognitive Interview

  Fisher + Geiselman (1992)

  Eyewitness testimony could be improved

  Techniques based on psychological insights on memory

  Foundation in cognitive psychology

  1 - Report Everything, trivial details may be important or trigger other memories

  2 - Reinstate the Context, imagine the environment and emotions which is related to context-dependent forgetting

  3 - Reverse the Order, prevents people reporting their expectations and the effect of schema on recall as well as preventing dishonesty

  4 - Change Perspective, like another witness or the perpetrator which disrupts the effect of explanations and schema on recall

  Fisher et al. (1987)

  Developed additional elements to focus on social dynamics of the interaction

  Eye contact, reduce anxiety, minimise distractions, getting witness to speak slowly and asking open-ended questions