Memory

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Coding

Coding- The format in which information is stored in the various memory stores.

Research - Baddley gave a different list of words to four groups of participants to remember 

  • Group 1- ( Acoustically similar)  words that sound similar
  • Group 2 - ( Acoustically dissimilar) words that sound differrent 
  • Group 3 - ( semantically similar) words with similar meaning
  • Group 4- ( semantically dissimilar) words that have different meaning

Participants were shown the orginal words and asked to recall them in the correct order when they had to do this recall tak immediately after hearing  they tended to do worse with acoustically similar words. ( short term memory recall.)If participants were asked to recall the word list after a time interval of 20 minutes, they did worse with the semantically similar words. This suggest that information is coded semantically in long term memory. ( Long term  memory recall)

Evaluation  - Artificial stimuli didnt use meanigful material the word list had no personal meaning to participants.

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Capacity

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

Research -  Jacobs developed a technique to measure digit span. The researcher gives for example, four digits and then the participant is asked to recall these in the correct order out loud, if this is correct the researcher reads out 5 digits and so on until the participants cannot recall the oder correctly. This determines the individual's digit span.Found that the mean span for digits across all participants was 9.3 items and for letters 7.3. 

George miller  made observations of everyday practice he noted that things come in sevens. This suggest that the span of short term memory is about 7 items (plus or minus 2.) However Miller also noted that people can recall 5 words as wells as they can recall  5 letters. They do this by chunking- grouping sets of digits or letters into units or chunks.

Evaluation -  lacks validity conducted a long time ago. Early research in psychology lacked adequate control  for example some participants may have been distracted while they were being tested so they didnt perform aswell, this means results might not be valid because of confounding variables. 

he overestimated the capacity of stm. It was concluded that the capacity of stm was only about 4 chunk. five item more appropiate.

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Duration

Duration - The length of time information can be held in memory

STM - Peterson & Peterson : tested  24 undergraduates students. each student took part in eight trials. In each trial they were given a consonant syllable also know as trigram and was given a 3 digit number and was asked to count backwards until told to stop to prevent mental rehersal. Went up to 18 secobds, called retention interval. STM has a very short duration unless we repeat something over and over again.

LTM- Bahrick: 392 particpants from the American state aged 17-74. High schoole year books were obtained from participants or schools recallers were tested. Photo recognition test so photos and free recalls so recall names. Participants also were tested withing 15 years of graduation they were about 90% accurate in photo recognition after 48% they were 70% accurate. For free call 15 years they ere 60% accurate and 48 years they were 30% accurate 

Evaluation - stimuli material was artifical doesnt reflect real life memory activities where what we are trying to remember is meaningful. lacked external validity. However we try to remember phone numbers.

High external validity real meaningful memories were studid. When studies on LTM  have been conducted with meaningless pictures to be remembered, recall rates were lower. However confounding variables are not controlled, they could have rehearsed pictures,

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The multi store model of memory

Sensory register : iconic and echoic stores with very brief duration, high capacity. transfer by attention.

short tem memory : limited capacity and duration store mainly acoustic coding . transfer to LTM by rehersal.

Long term memory: unlimited capacity and duration permanet store, mainly semantic. created through maintenance rehersal.

Evaluation:

supporting research evidence -  studies into coding, capacity and duration demonstrate difference between STM and LTM.

There is more than one type of STM - studies of ammenisa (e.g KF)  show different STMs for visual and auditory material

There is more than one type of rehersal - Elaborative rehersal necessary for transfer to LTM , not maintenance rehersal.

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The multi store model of memory

Sensory register : iconic and echoic stores with very brief duration, high capacity. transfer by attention.

short tem memory : limited capacity and duration store mainly acoustic coding . transfer to LTM by rehersal.

Long term memory: unlimited capacity and duration permanet store, mainly semantic. created through maintenance rehersal.

Evaluation:

supporting research evidence -  studies into coding, capacity and duration demonstrate difference between STM and LTM.

There is more than one type of STM - studies of ammenisa (e.g KF)  show different STMs for visual and auditory material

There is more than one type of rehersal - Elaborative rehersal necessary for transfer to LTM , not maintenance rehersal.

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Long term memory

Episodic memory

  •  events from our own lives
  •  time stamped
  • includes several elements
  • conscious effort to reall 

Semantic memory

  • Knowledge of the world 
  • like a dictronary and enclyopedia
  • huge amount of information
  • contiously being added to
  • not time stamped

Procedural memory

  • Action skills 
  • can recall withouth much effor ot concious awarness
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Evaluation of long term memory

clinical evidence- clive wearing and HM  had damaged episodic memories but semantic and procedual memories were fine.

Neuroimaging evidence - Episodic  and procedural memories recalled from different parts of the prefontal cortext

Real life application- Training programme for adult with mild cognitive impairments.

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working memory model

Central executive- Co-ordinates slave systems and allocates resources, very limited storage

Phonological loop- Auditory inormation

  • Phonological store- stores the words you hear
  • auditory processes- this allow you to silentky repeat words maintenace rehersal.

Visuo spatial sketchpad- visual information temporarily stored here

  • visual cache - stores visual data
  • inner scrive- records the arrangement of objects in a visual field 

episodic buffer- Integrates processing of slaves systems and record the order of events linked to LTM.

Evaluation

Clinical evidence- KF had poor auditory memory but good visual memory. Damaged phononlogical loop but visuo spatial sketchpad fine

Dual task perfomance- Difficult to do two visual task at the same time by one visual and one verbal is okay

Lack of clarity of central executive - Not yet fully explained, probably has different components.

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Interference of forgetting

Types of interference

Proactive - Old memories disrupt new ones

Retroactive- New memories disrupt old ones

Evalaution 

evidence form lab studies- well controlled studies show interference effetcs McGeoch & McDonald found that when participants had to lean a second list of words after learning the orginal set they performed worse when recalling the first set if the the second set was similar to first.

artifical materials- list of words are not like everday memory may overemphasise interference as an explanation

real life studies- Baddely and Hitch supported interference.

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retrieval failure

retrieval failure - occurs when we dont have he neccessary cues to access memory. The memory is available but not accesible unless a suitable cue is provided a Cue is a trigger of information that allows us to access a memory.

encoding specificty princile- Cues most effective if present at coding and retrieval. May be a meaningful link.

Context dependent forgetting  - Godden and Baddely deep sea divers recall better when external contexts and matched.

State dependent forgetting - Carter and cassaday anti histamine recall better when internal states are matched.

evaluation

supporting evidence- eysenk claims retrieval failure is most important reason for Ltm forgetting

questioning context effects - no forgetting unless contexts are very different

recall versus recognition- absence of cues affecs recall but not recognititon 

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eyewitness testimony misleading information

Leading question - Loftus and palmer car speed estimates affetced by leading questions  smashed versus contacted

Why do leading question affect EWT? response bias no change to memory. subsitution explanation supported by loftus and palmer and report of presence of glass.

Post event discussion- discussion with other contaminmats eyewitness mememories

Gabbert et al demonstrated effect calling it memory conformity- information and normative social influence involed 

Evaluation

Useful real life application - could help prevent miscarriages of justice and change police intervewing

Tasks are artifical - watching fiml clips ignores the stress and anxiety associate with real crime

 Individual differences- older people may be less accuate beacuse of own age bias.

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eyewitness testimony anxiety

anxiety has a negative effect on recall - johnson and scoot weapon focus - hgih anxiety knife condition led to less good recall.

Anxiety has a positive effect on recall - Yullie and cutshall shooting - high anxiety associated with better recall when witnessing real crime.

Evaluation

Weapon fouc effect may not be revelant- pickel showed that it may be surprise and therefore tell us nothing about effect of anxiety

field studies sometimes lack control - researcher cant control what happens to witness between the crime and the interview

There are ethical issues- creating anxiety in lab studies may cause psychological harm.

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Improving the accuracy of EWT cognitive imterview

  • Report everything - include even unimportant details
  • Reinstate the context - picture the scene and recall how you felt
  • Reverse the oder- recall from the end and work backwards disrupt expectation
  • Change perspective - put yourself in the shoes of someone else disrupts schema
  • The enhanced cognitive interview - adds social dynamis establishing eye contact

evaluation 

ci is time consuming - takes longer and needs special training

some elements may be more valuable than other- report everything and reinstate the context together produce best recall

support for the effectiveness of the eci - eci consistenly produces more accurate recall than standard interview 

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