MEMORY A03

• What is the strength of Baddeley's study (seperate memory stores)?

  -It identified a clear difference between 2 memory stores

  -His findings indicated the STM is responsible for coding information acoustically, whereas the LTM codes information semantically

  -This is a strength as this lead to the discovery of understanding different memory systems and the creation of the multi store model
• What is a limitation of Baddeley's study (artificial stimuli)?

  -It used quite artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material

  -E.g the word lists had no personal meaning to ppts

  -Thus his findings may not tell us much about coding in different kind of memory tasks, especially in everyday life

  -When processing more meaningful information people may use semantic coding even for STM tasks

  -This suggests that findings from this study have limited application and lacks external validity
• What is a strength of Jacob's study (a valid study)?

  -It is a valid study as it has been replicated

  -The study is old and early research in psychology often lacked adequate controls

  -Eg some ppts digit spans might have been underestimated because they were distracted during testing (confounding variable)

  -Despite this, Jacobs' findings have been confirmed by other, better controlled studies since (e.g Bopp and Verhaeghen 2005)

  -This suggests Jacobs' study is a valid test of digit span in STM
• What is the limitation of Miller's research (not so many chunks)?

  -He may have overestimated STM capacity

  -Nelson Cowan (2001) reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity of STM is only about 4 (plus or minus 1) chunks

  -This suggests that the lower end of Miller's estimate (five items) is more appropriate than 7 items
• What is the limitation of Peterson and Peterson's study (meaningless stimuli)?

  -The stimulus material was artificial

  -The study is not completely irrelevant because we do sometimes try to remember fairly meaningless material (E.g phone numbers)

  -Even so, recalling consonant syllables does not reflect most everyday memory activities where what we are trying to remember is meaningful

  -Thus the study lacked external validity
• What is the strength of Bahrick's study (high external validity)?

  -It has high external validity

  -This is because the researchers investigated meaningful memories (i.e people's faces and names)

  -When studies on LTM were conducted with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower (e.g Shepard 1967)

  -This suggests that Bahrick et al's findings reflect a more 'real' estimate of the duration of LTM
• What is the strength of the MSM (research support)?

  -Support from other studies showing the STM and LTM are different

  -E.g Baddeley (1996): found we tend to mix up words that are acoustically similar when we are using our STM but we mix up words that are semantically similar when using our LTM

  -Further support= Bahrick, Peterson and Peterson, Miller, Jacobs

  -These studies clearly show STM and LTM are separate and independent memory stores, as claimed by the MSM
• What is the limitation/ counterpoint of research support regarding MSM?

  -Despite the research support in everyday life we form memories related to useful things, people's faces, names, facts, places

  -Though many of the studies that support the MSM used artificial stimuli, such as digits, letters (Jacobs) and sometimes words (Baddeley), and even consonant syllables (Peterson and Peterson)

  -This means the MSM may not be a valid model of how memory works in our everyday lives where we have to remember much more meaningful information
• What is the limitation of the MSM (more than one STM store)?

  -Evidence of more than one STM store

  -Shallice and Warrington (1970) studies a client called patient KF who had a clinical memory disorder called amnesia

  -KF's STM for digits was very poor when they were read aloud

  -His recall was much better when he read the digits to himself

  -Further studies of KF and others showed there could even be another STM store for non-verbal sounds

  -This evidence suggests the MSM is wrong in claiming there is just one STM store processing different types of information
• What is the limitation of the MSM (elaborative rehearsal)?

  -Prolonged rehearsal is not needed for transfer to LTM

  -According to the MSM what matters about rehearsal is the amount of it, so the more you rehearse something, the more likely it is to transfer to LTM (prolonged rehearsal)

  -Craik and Watkins (1973): Found that the type of rehearsal is 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

  -Thus, this means information can be transferred to the LTM without prolonged rehearsal

  -This suggests the MSM does not fully explain how LTM storage is achieved
• How does the case of HM support the MSM?

  -The study of HM supports the model because it shows that the long term and short term memories are two distinct stores. -After having his hippocampus accidentally removed due to surgery for epilepsy, his short term memory remained intact.

  -HM could not form new long-term memories (e.g he would read the same magazines repeatedly without remembering it)

  -However he performed well on tests of immediate memory span, a measure of STM
• What is the strength of types of long term memory (clinical evidence)?

  -Evidence from the famous case studies of HM and Clive Wearing

  -Episodic memory in both men was severely impaired due to brain damage

  -Their semantic memories were relatively unaffected, they still understood the meaning of words

  -E.g HM could not recall stroking a dog half an hour prior but he did not need to have the concept of 'dog' explained to him

  -Their procedural memories were also intact as they both still knew how to walk, and speak and Clive Wearing- who was a professional musician- knew how to read music, sing and play the piano

  -This evidence supports Tulving's view that there are different memory stores in LTM, as one store can be damaged but the others are unaffected
• What is the limitation/counterpoint of clinical evidence to support types of long term memory?

  -Studying people with brain injuries can help researchers understand how memory is supposed to work normally

  -Though clinical studies are not perfect

  -A major limitation is that they lack control of variables

  -The brain injuries experienced by ppts were typically unexpected

  -The researcher had no way of controlling what happened to the ppt before or during the injury

  -The researcher has no knowledge of the individual's memory before the damage

  -Without this knowledge it is difficult to judge exactly how much worse the individual's memory is afterwards

  -This lack of control limits what clinical studies can tell us about different types of LTM
• What is the strength of types of long term memory (evidence from brain scan studies)?

  -There is evidence from brain scan studies that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain

  -Tulving et al (1994): asked their ppts to perform various tasks whilst scanning their brain with a PET scanner

  -They found that semantic memories involved the left prefrontal cortex whilst episodic memories involved the right prefrontal cortex

  -This support's Tulving's theory as it shows there is a physical reality to the different LTM stores

  -Thus, high validity
• What is the strength of types of long term memory (real world application)?

  -Understanding types of LTM allows psychologists to help people with memory problems

  -E.g as people age they experience memory loss

  -But research has shown this seems to be specific to episodic memory

  -It becomes harder to recall memories of personal events/experiences that occurred relatively recently

  -Belleville et al (2006): Devised an intervention to improve episodic memory in older people

  -Trained ppts performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a control group

  -This shows that distinguishing between types of LTM enables specific treatments to be developed
• What is the strength of the working memory model (clinical evidence)?

  -Support from Shallice and Warrington's (1970) case study of patient KF

  -After his brain surgery KF had poor STM ability for auditory information but could process visual information normally

  -E.g his immediate recall of digits and letters was better when he read them visually than when they were read to him, acoustically

  -KF's phonological loop was damaged but his visuo-spatial sketchpad was intact

  -This strongly supports the existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores
• What is the counterpoint/ limitation of the clinical evidence supporting the WMM?

  -It is unclear whether KF had other cognitive impairments, apart from damage to his phonological loop which might have affected his performance on memory tasks

  -E.g his injury was caused by a motorbike accident

  -The trauma involved may have affected his cognitive performance quite apart from any brain injury

  -This challenges the evidence that comes from clinical studies of people with brain injuries that may have affected different systems
• What is the strength of the WMM (dual-task performance)?

  -Studies of dual task performance support the separate existence of the visuo-spatial sketchpad

  -Baddeley et al's (1975) ppts carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time (dual task) their performance on each was similar to when they carried out the tasks separately

  -But when both tasks were visual or both verbal performance on both declined substantially

  -This is because both visual tasks compete for the same subsystem (VSS), whereas there is no competition when performing a visual and verbal task together

  -This shows there must be a separate subsystem
• What is the limitation of the WMM (nature of the central executive)?

  -There is lack of clarity over the nature of the central executive

  -Baddeley (2003): recognised this when he said 'the central executive is the most important but the least understood component of working memory'

  -The CE needs to be more clearly specified than just simply being 'attention'

  -For example, some psychologists believe the CE may consist of separate subcomponents

  -This means that the CE is an unsatisfactory component and this challenges the integrity of the WMM
• What is a strength of interference as an explanation of forgetting (real world interference)?

  -There is evidence of interference effects in everyday situations

  -Baddeley and Hitch (1977) asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams they had played against during a rugby season

  -The players all played for the same time interval- over a season- but the number of intervening games varied because some players missed matches due to injury

  -Players who played the most games (most interference for memory) had the poorest recall

  -This study shows that interference can operate in at least some real-world situations, increasing the validity of the theory
• What is counterpoint/limitation to real world application?

  -Interference may cause some forgetting in everyday situations but this is unusual

  -This is because the conditions necessary for interference to occur are relatively rare

  -This is very unlike lab studies, where the high degree of control means a researcher can create ideal conditions for interference

  -E.g interference theory suggests that two memories have to be fairly similar to interfere with each other

  -This may happen occasionally in everyday life, but not often

  -This suggests that most forgetting may be better explained by other theories such as retrieval failure due to a lack of cues
• What is the limitation of interference as an explanation of forgetting (interference and cues)?

  -Interference is temporary and can be overcome by using cues

  -Tulving and Psotka (1971) gave ppts lists of words organised into categories, one list at a time (ppts were not told what the categories were)

  -Recall averaged about 70% for the first list but became progressively worse when learning an additional list (interference)

  -But had the words really disappeared from LTM or were they still available?

  -At the end of the procedure the ppts were given a cued recall test, they were told the names of the categories

  -Recall rose again to about 70%

  -This shows that interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in LTM, which is a finding not predicted by interference theory
• What is a strength of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting (research support)?

  -There is an impressive range of research that supports the retrieval failure explanation

  -The studies by Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassaday are just two examples because they show that a lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context-dependent and state dependent forgetting in everyday life

  -Memory researchers Eysenck and Keane (2010) argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from LTM

  -This evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real-world situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the lab
• What is the counterpoint/ limitation of research support for retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting?

  -Baddeley (1997): argues context effects are not actually very strong, especially in everyday life

  -Different contexts have to be very different before an effect is seen

  -E.g it would be hard to find an environment as different from land as underwater (Godden and Baddeley)

  -In contrast learning something in one room and recalling it another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because the environments are not different enough

  -This means that retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting
• What is the limitation of retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting (recall vs recognition)?

  -Context effects may depend substantially on the type of memory being tested

  -E.g Godden and Baddeley (1980) replicated their underwater experiment but used a recognition test instead of recall- ppts had to say whether they recognised a word read to them from a list, instead of retrieving it for themselves

  -When recognition was tested there was no context-dependent effect, performance was the same in all four conditions

  -This suggests that retrieval failure is a limited explanation for forgetting because it only applies when a person has to recall information rather than recognise it
• What is the strength of misleading information as a factor that affects the accuracy of eyewitness testimony (real world application)?

  -It has important practical uses in the criminal justice system

  -The consequence of inaccurate EWT can be very serious

  -Loftus (1975) believes leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be very careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses

  -Psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court trials and explain the limits of EWT to juries

  -This shows that psychologists can help to improve the way the legal system works, especially by protecting innocent people from faulty convictions based on unreliable EWT
• What is the counterpoint to the real world application of misleading information?

  -The practical applications of EWT may be affected by issues with research

  -For example, Loftus and Palmer's ppts watched film clips in a lab, a very different experience from witnessing a real event as it is less stressful

  -Also Foster et al (1994): point out that what eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world, but ppts responses in research do not matter in the same way so ppts are less motivated to be accurate

  -This suggests that researchers such as Loftus are too pessimistic about the effects of misleading information- EWT may be more dependable than many studies suggest
• What is the limitation of misleading information as a factor affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony (evidence against substitution)?


  -One limitation of the substitution explanation is that EWT is more accurate for some aspects of an event than for others

  -E.g Sutherland and Hayne (2001) showed ppts a video clip

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

  -Presumably the ppts attention was focused on the central features of the event and these memories were relatively resistant to misleading information

  -This suggests that the original memories for central details survived and were not distorted, an outcome that is not predicted by the substitution explanation
• What is the limitation of misleading information as a factor affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony (evidence challenging memory conformity)?

  -Evidence that post event discussion actually alters EWT

  -Skagerberg and Wright (2008): showed their ppts film clips and there were two versions: a mugger's hair was dark brown in one but light brown in another

  -Ppts discussed the clips in pairs, each having seen different versions

  -They often did not report what they had seen in the clips or what they had heard from co-witnesses but a mixture of both

  -A common answer to the hair question was not light brown or dark brown but medium brown

  -This suggests that the memory itself is distorted through contamination by misleading post event discussion, rather than the result of memory conformity
• What is the limitation of anxiety affecting accuracy of eyewitness testimony (unusualness not anxiety)?

  -One limitation of the study by Johnson and Scott is that it may not have tested anxiety

  -The reason ppts focused on the weapon may be because they were surprised at what they saw rather than scared

  -Pickel (1998) conducted an experiment using scissors, a handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken as the hand held items in a hairdressing salon video (where scissors would be high anxiety, low unusualness)

  -Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in the high unusualness conditions (chicken and handgun)

  -This suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to the unusualness rather than anxiety/threat and thus tells us nothing specifically about the effects of anxiety on EWT
• What is the strength of anxiety affecting accuracy of eyewitness testimony (support for positive effects)?

  -Evidence showing that anxiety can have positive effects on the accuracy of recall

  -Christianson and Hubinette (1993) interviewed 58 witnesses to actual bank robberies in Sweden

  -Some of the witnesses were directly involved (e.g bank workers) and some were indirectly involved (e.g bystanders)

  -The researchers assumed those directly involved would experience the most anxiety

  -It was found recall was more than 75% accurate across all witnesses

  -The direct victims (most anxious) were even more accurate

  -These findings from the actual crimes confirm that anxiety does not reduce the accuracy for recall of eyewitnesses and may even enhance it
• What is the limitation of anxiety affecting accuracy of eyewitness testimony (artificial)?

  -Based in a lab so artificial environment

  -For example Johnson and Scott's experiment was conducted in a lab, where participants were expecting to be part of some sort of a study.

  -This is unlike a real EWT situation where the individual may not have been paying attention or was affected by fear due to what they were witnessing.

  -Therefore, such studies may tell us little about how anxiety affects EWT.

  -Ppts may give responses which they believe to be helpful to the researcher leading to demand characteristics.

  - These findings may therefore lack ecological validity.
• What is the limitation of anxiety affecting accuracy of eyewitness testimony (unethical)?

  -Another limitation is that lab experiments testing anxiety may be unethical.

  -Creating anxiety in participants is potentially unethical because it may subject people to psychological harm purely for research purposes.

  -So real-life studies are beneficial: psychologists interview people who have already witnessed an event, so there is no need to create it.

  -As a result, perhaps it is better to use real witnesses to study the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT.
• What is a strength of cognitive interview (support for effectiveness)?


  -There is evidence it works

  -E.g a meta-analysis by Kohnken et al (1999) combined data from 55 studies comparing the CI and the ECI with the standard police interview

  -The CI gave an average 41% increase in accurate information compared with the standard interview

  -Only 4 studies in the analysis showed no difference between the types of interview

  -This shows that the CI is an effective technique in helping witnesses to recall information that is stored in memory but not immediately accessible
• What is a weakness of cognitive interviews (some elements may be more useful)?

  -Not all of its elements are equally effective or useful

  -Milne and Bull (2002): found that each of the 4 techniques used alone produced more information than the standard police interview

  -But they also found that using a combination of 'report everything' and 'reinstate the context' produced better recall than any of the other elements or combination of them

  -This confirmed police officers suspicions that some aspects of the CI are more useful than others

  -This casts some doubt on the credibility of the overall cognitive interview
• What is a weakness of cognitive interviews (time consuming)?

  -Police officers may be reluctant to use the CI because it takes more time and training than the standard police interview

  -E.g more time is needed to establish rapport with a witness and allow them to relax

  -The CI also requires special training and many forces do not have the resources to provide more than a few hours

  -This suggests that the complete CI is not a realistic method for police officers to use and it may be better to focus on just a few key elements