Memory

• evaluation of Baddeley's research into coding

  Artificial stimuli - It used irrelevant and meaningless words which is a big limitation because it limits the application it has to real life situations. This therefore means that the findings cannot be generalised to all situations as they are normally much more complex
• Digit span and capacity research

  Lacks validity – Jacobs study took place a long time ago so would have lacked control = confounding variables mean that the mean is not valid in telling us about capacity

  Overestimates chunking – Miller may have overestimated the capacity of STM = Cowan says it’s more likely to be 3 or 4 chunks
• STM research

  Meaningless stimuli in STM study – Limitation is that trying to remember consonant syllables does not reflect anything to do with real life
• LTM research

  High external validity– Bahrick used real-life meaningful memories which means that his study demonstrates the influence of duration on real life.

  However couldn’t control confounding variables such as if the pp’s had been to reunions where they may have seen the people since leaving school
• Multi store model of memory strength

  Supporting evidence – Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar in STM, but mix up words with similar meanings in LTM. This supports coding in STM being acoustic and LTM being semantic
• Multi store model of memory weakness - STM

  There is more than one type of STM – The MSM argues that there is only one type of STM but this is incorrect. The case of KF showed that he couldn’t remember information that was read to him, but he could remember it if he read info himself. Shows there must be separate stores for auditory and semantic
• Multi store model of memory weakness - rehearsal

  There is more than one type of rehearsal – The MSM argues that the amount of rehearsal determines ability to remember. However, Craik and Watkins found that the type of rehearsal is more important and says that ‘elaborative rehearsal’ is better because it links to information you already know
• Types of LTM - clinical evidence

  The case of Clive Wearing shows that his episodic memory was affected, but he was still able to play the piano so his procedural memory was unaffected. Therefore must be different types of LTM
• Types of LTM - neuroimaging evidence

  Brain scans show that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain. Tulving got participants to do a brain scan whilst doing a memory task and found that each area of the brain was active for different activities
• Types of LTM - real life applications

  Belleville et al found that episodic memories could be improved in older people who had a mild cognitive impairment through training
• Types of LTM - problems with clinical

  Psychologists who use case studies may not fully take into consideration the lack of control they have when conducting longitudinal studies
• Working memory model - clinical evidence

  Shallice and Warrington looked at KF = couldn’t remember things said to him but could process things that he read = only the phonological loop had been damaged which supports the need for separate stores
• Working memory model - dual task performance

  Baddeley = showed it was harder to do visual x visual than visual x verbal which suggests that there must be different slave systems
• Working memory model - word length studies

  Baddeley showed its harder to remember a list of long words which supports the idea that there is limited space to rehearse information
• Interference - lab studies

  Interference is the most consistently demonstrated finding in psychology = thousands of lab experiments have been carried out for this explanation (e.g McGeoch and McDonald) – shows that the explanation is valid
• Interference - real life studies

  Baddeley and Hitch rugby player study = asked players to name teams they had played in the season, week by week – ability to recall depended upon how many games they had played in between
• Retrieval failure - supporting evidence

  The work of Godden and Baddeley, and Carter and Cassaday show clear support for the importance cues = Eysenck says retrieval failure is the main reason for forgetting in LTM
• Retrieval failure - real life applications

  Times when you can’t remember something so have to go back to the place where it was recalled and then we can remember it
• Misleading information - real life applications

  a strength of this research is that it has helped police to consider how they structure their interviews = cognitive interview developed from realising the importance of how the phrasing of questions will affect answers
• Anxiety - ethical issues

  reminding people of traumatic events is wrong because they are probably still emotionally traumatised from it
• Anxiety - inverted-u explanation

  Too simplistic - Anxiety is difficult to define and measure because it has many characteristics. The U theory thinks that all anxiety is the same
• Anxiety - demand characteristics

  Most lab studies about crimes make it pretty obvious for people to work out that they are going to be asked about the crime
• Cognitive interview - time consuming

  Takes a lot longer than the standard police interview, as more time is needed to establish rapport – also need to be trained in it
• Cognitive interview - some elements for valuable

  Milne and Bull found each element was valuable, but using report everything and context reinstatement produced better recall than any other conditions = it’s a strength because we can just use those 2 elements
• Cognitive interview - increase in inaccurate info

  Having someone pretend that they are someone else (change perspective) is arguably not going to be successful in getting accurate information
• Interference - artificial materials

  Most lab studies are unrealistic because they rely on people learning lists and use nonsense words to demonstrate a complex theory = therefore may not represent how often real-life interference happens
• Interference - time between learning

  In lab studies, for practical reasons the time between learning is relatively short (otherwise pp’s may not come back) which doesn’t represent the longer time we go in real life between needing to recall information
• Retrieval failure - context effects

  Baddeley argues context effects actually aren’t that strong, especially in real life. His land vs water is very extreme in terms of condition changes and learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to have much of an effect
• Retrieval failure - recall v recognition

  Godden and Baddeley replicated their experiment and made pp’s say whether they recognised a word read to them and found that there was no context-dependent effect. Limitation because it means that cues only affect memory when it’s tested in a certain way.
• Retrieval failure - encoding specificity principle

  It can’t actually be tested because we just have to make assumptions about cues as there is no way to independently establish whether a cue has been encoded
• Misleading information - artificial tasks

  The students watched film clips which is very different to watching a real accident = anxiety would come into play = the study doesn’t help us understand how leading questions affect real accidents
• Misleading information - demand characteristics

  Zaragosa argues that many answers given in labs are DC’s because pp’s don’t want to let the researcher down, so they guess if they don’t know the answer
• Misleading information - sample

  Used students who can’t actually drive which is a limitation as they may not understand the elements of the crash
• Misleading information - consequences of EWT

  Foster et al points out that the pp’s were aware that what they said had no consequences on the future, like a real eyewitness account would
• Anxiety - weapon focus irrelevant

  Johnson and Scott’s study may test surprise rather than anxiety. This means that the weapon-focus effect is based upon the response people have towards unusualness as opposed to anxiety or threats
• Anxiety - field studies lack control

  Researchers usually interview a long time after the event. This means that events will have happened in between that the researcher has no control over, which therefore means we cannot see the effect anxiety has solely on recall
• Cognitive interview - support for effectiveness

  A meta-analysis by Kohnken combined data from 50 studies and found that C.I consistently provided more correct information than the standard cognitive interview
• Cognitive interview - variations used 


  Can be varied for different situations