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Multi-Store Model of Memory

  • Over simplified and not flexible enough to explain the whole memory system, for example it does not take into account the nature of information - only the amount of it so fails to explain why some things are easier to remember, for example funny or distinctive things. Also, the working memory model by Baddely and Hitch showed that short-term memory could be comprised of 4 sub-stores which is much more elaborative than the MSM.
  • The model suggests that it is essential to rehearse information in order to convert it to LTM - however this is not the case as it is possible to recall for example, what you ate for dinner the night before, without rehearsing the information. This suggests there may be multiple ways for information to be passed into LTM. 
  • The case of Clive Wearing challenges the multi-store model, he could not remember new information for more than a few seconds; however, he could learn new skills (procedural) and remember parts of his life before his illness. He could not however, remember any new experiences, which suggests that long term memory is not a unitary store, and could be split into prodcedural, semantic and eposodic memory. 
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Working Memory Model

  • A strength of the working memory model is that there is research that supports it, for example the case study of KF, showed that while his brain damage caused his memory for verbal information to be serverly damaged, his visual memory was largely in tact. This gives evidence for the idea that the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial scratch pad are separate.
  • The model assumes that all spatial information was first visual, however this does not explain why born-blind people are seen to have excellent spatial awareness despite not having processed any visual information. An improvement might be dividing the visuo-spatial scratch pad into two separate stores.
  • Another problem is the central executive, which appears to be the most important part has the least known about it. Terminology used to describe it is vague and could be used to explain any results, and although it is known to have a limited capacity no one has been able to classify it. This means the model cannot be falsified.
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Cognitive Interview- Geislman

  • However in this study the participants only consisted of students meaning it has low population validity, and therefore we cannot generalise the results of this study to different age groups, for example the elderly. This could mean that the age of the participant affects how well the cognitive interview produces accurate results, so more research must be done, before the results of this study can be generalised to other populations. Similarly, this study was done in America, and so we cannot suggest that people from other cultures will perform in the same way, especially as this type of police interview was created in Westernised culutres for use within them, so may not apply to other places.
  • A criticism of this study is that it was conducted in a labatory, and therefore it may lack ecological validity. The participants watched a film of an incident, which is very different to witnessing a real crime - where factors like anxiety could influence memory. This means the results could not be indicitve of real life, and could just be because of the artifical situation that the participants were in. This could limit the applications of the study, as it would not nessecarily apply beyond a labatory situation. 
  • A number of studies have also investigated the accuracy of the cognitive interview. In a review of 27 studies, all cases showed the cognitive interview to proudce more accurate testimonies. This illustrates that the procedure has high reliablity and is well applicable to a variety of labatory situations.
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EWT - Car Crash

  • A criticism of this study is that it was conducted in a labatory, and therefore it lacks ecological validity. The participants watched a film of a crime which is very differen different to witnessing a real crime - where factors like anxiety could influence memory.  This means the results could not be indicitve of real life, and could just be because of the artifical situation that the participants were in. This could limit the applications of the study, as the results would not nessecarily apply beyond a labatory situation. 
  • The study has a high internal validity however, as extraneous variables like noise, that would be present in a real accident were eliminated. This means it is possible to agrue cause and effect, that the misleading word did influence the eye witness testimony and also means that the study can easily be repeated, to check for reliability. 
  • However in this study the participants only consisted of students meaning it has low population validity, and therefore we cannot generalise the results of this study to different age groups, for example the elderly. Also students are often less experienced drivers- so could have been less confident in their esitmations, this means they could have been more subject to the influence of the misleading word. The age of the paricipant might have affected eye wtiness testimony in this study, so more research must be done, before the results of this study can be generalised to other populations.
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Learning Theory

  • There has been reseach that condradicts the theory, for example Schaffer and Emerson found that less than half the 60 infants in their study had an attachment to the person who normally fed or bathed them. They found that it was the quality of interaction with the infant that was most important as stronger attachments were formed with the person who was most sensitive and responsive to the infant's needs.
  • Harlow also did a study on infant monkeys, in which they were presented with a wire mother, from which they could feed- satisfying this primary need, and a cloth mother who was comforting but they could not dervie nutrition from. It was found that the monkeys would cling to the cloth mother when frightened and use it as a safe base to explore from - both of which are attachment behaviours. This indicates that providing food is not the basis for attachment which undermines the theory, however some people have argued that human behaviours cannot be based upon animal behaviours.
  • One weakness of the learning theory of attachment is that it is a reductionist explanation. It reduces the complexity of attachment to the very simple components of stimulus-response or reinforcement. Learned experiences may influence attachment but reducing attachment to a single component means that learning theory ignores other influences on attachments such as innate drives and a child’s temperament.
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Evolutionary Theory

  • McCarthy did a study that used attachment data from infancy on a group of women who had been classed as insecurely attached. They recorded information on their attitudes and experiences of friendships and romantic relationships. Women classified as avoidant-insecure were more likely to have romantic problems, and resistant-insecure were more likly to have friendship problems. This supports Bowlby's ideas of contiunity from infancy to adulthood in social development
  • One study found that children could still form attachements after the critical period. Infants that had been abandoned or orphaned and then were adopted by families in the UK or US were able to form new attachments after the first year of life and made notable developmental progress. However the later they were adopted, the slower the progress was. This has lead to the critcism that the critical period should be renamed the sensitive period - where children find it easier to form attachments.
  • Finally evolutionary theory has been cricised for being reductionist.It reduces the complexity of attachment to simply fulfilling survival needs, and it is also deterministic as it suggests that attachments are innate however ignores the idea that the temperament of the child can influence attachment and suggests there is no free will.
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Strange Situation

  • The strange situation has been critcised for having low ecological validity. The study is highly artificial, following a predetermined script and takingplace in an unknown envrionment. This means that the caregiver is likely to behave differently, and the child may react to this and change their behaviour as they are unsure of how to handle the situation. This could create a bias in the results as the children would not nessecarily behave as they would at home so it may not be representative of their attachment behaviours.
  • The strange situation only shows one type of attachment, and that is the mother-child bond. Lamb found in a study that children behave differently depending on which attachment figure they are with, suggesting the stranger situation only measures one particular attachment, rather than a general attachment type. A better measure would be the average of all of the child's attachments.Therefore the strange situation is a valid measure but must include more than one attachment.
  • The strange situation has been found to be very reliable. A study in Germany showed children were classfied as the same type both at age 1 and 6 years 78% of the time. In the cases where differences occured, this was often due to a change in care - such as family structure due to divorce. This means the strange situation is a good measure of a child's attachment to a caregiver and that it can be repeated with the same, consistent results.
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Belsky & Rovine

  • The study has an extrememly small and narrow sample that lacks population validity. It was conducted on American, martially intact, middle class families, meaning that generalisation outside this demographic is very difficult, as it cannot be argued that the results will apply to families from different culutres, or those from different classes and family structures where attachment patterns might be different, and this makes the findings much less applicable. 
  • A strength of this study is that the families enrolled in the study before their infants were born, so the sample was selected before some daycare choices had been made, therefore it sample was less selective than other studies which tend to focus on families which have already made their choices regarding use of daycare.
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bunnyboo1

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So helpful , thank you

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