Memory

Coding

• Baddeley: acoustic in STM, semantic in LTM
• Artifical stimuli - word had no personal significance

Capacity

• Jacobs: Digit Span - 9.3 digits, 7.3 letters
• Miller: 7+-2
• Lacking validity - extraneous variables such as distractions
• Not so many chunks - Cowan: est. 4 chunks in STM

Duration

• Peterson + Peterson: up to 18secs in STM
• Bahrick et al: recog. 90% after 15yrs, 70% after 48yrs in LTM
• Meaningless stimuli - constonant syllables
• Higher external validity - meaningful real-life memories
• Peterson + Peterson - may be displacement, not decay

Model

• Sensory register - iconic + echoic, brief duration + high capacity, transfer by attention
• STM - limited capacity + duration, acoustic coding, transfer by rehearsal
• LTM - unlimited capacity and duration, semantic coding, created through maintenance rehearsal

Evaluation

• Supporting evidence - see previous card
• More than one type of STM - KF: different STMs for auditory and visual
• More than one type of rehearsal - elaborative necessary for STM --> LTM
• Artificial material
• More than one type of LTM

Types

• Episodic - memory for events in our lives
• Semantic - memory for knowledge of the world; like an encylopaedia/dictionary. Inc. language
• Procedural - memory for automatic and often skilled behaviours

Evaluation

• Clinical evidence - Clive Wearing + HM: damaged episodic,not semantic/procedural
• Neuroimaging evidence - episodic and procedural recalled from different parts of prefrontal cortex
• Real-life application - training programs for adults with mild cognitive impairments
• Problems with clinical evidence
• Three types of LTM or two?

Model

• Central Execuative - co-ordinates slave systems and allocated resources, very limited capacity
• Phonological Loop - auditority information: phonological store and articulatory process (maintenance rehearsal)
• Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad - visual information: visual cashe (store) and inner scribe (spatial arrangement)
• Episodic Buffer - integrates processing of slave systems and records the order of events, linked to LTM 

Evaluation

• Clinical evidence - KF had poor auditory but good visual
• Dual-task performance - Baddeley et al: difficult to do two visual tasks at same time
• Lack of clarity over CE - not yet fully explained, probably has different components
• Word-length effect supports PL
• Brain scanning studies

Interference Theory

• Proactive - old memories disrupt new memories
• Retroactive - new memories disrupt old memories
• McGeoch + McDonald: similar words create more interference

Evaluation

• Lab studies - well-controlled studies show interference effects
• Artificial material - list of words are not like everyday memories, may overemphasise interference as an explanation
• Real-life studies - Baddeley + HItch: rugby players study supports
• Time between learning
• Interference effects may be overcome using cues

Retrieval Failure Theory

• Encoding specificity principle - Tulving: cues most effective if present at coding and rertrieval
• Context-dependent forgetting - Godden + Baddeley: recall better when external contexts matched
• State-dependent forgetting - Carter + Cassaday: recall better when internal states matched

Evaluation

• Eysenck: claims retrieval failure is most important reason for LTM forgetting
• Questioning context effects - no fogetting unless contexts are very different (Godden + Baddeley)
• Recall vs recognition - absence of cues affects recalls but not recognition
• Problems with ESP
• Real-life application

Misleading Information

• Leading questions - Loftus + Palmer: est. speed affected by leading question (smashed vs contacted)
• Response bias - no change to ones memory
• Substitution explanation supported by Loftus + Palmer, and report of presence of glass
• Post-event discussion - discussion contaminates eyewitnesses' memories; memory conformity (information and NSI involved)

Evaluation

• Real-life application - could help prevent miscarriages of justice + change police interviewing
• Artificial tasks - watching film clips ignores stress + anxiety associated with real-life accident/crime
• Individual differences - older people may be less accurate due to own-age bias
• Damand characteristics
• Consequences of eyewitness testimony

Effects of Anxiety

• Negative effect on recall - Johnson + Scott: high-anxiety knife condition led to less good recall
• Positive effect on recall - Yuille + Cutshall: high anxiety associated with better recall when witnessing real crime
• Yerkes-Dodson Law - both low and high anxiety levels lead to poorer recall

Evaluation

• Weapon focus effect not relevant - Pickel: may be surprise, therefore tells nothing of effects of anxiety
• Field studies - lack control; cannot control what happens to witnesses between crime and interviewing
• Ethical issues - creating anxiety can casue psychological harm
• Damand characterists operate in lab studies of anxiety
• Inverted-U explanation is too simplistic

Cognitive Interview

• Report everything - include even unimportant details
• Reinstate the context - picture the scene and recall how you felt; context-dependent forgetting
• Reverse the order - recall from the end and work backwards; disrupts expectations
• Change perspective - put yourself in the shoes of someone else present; disrupts schema
• Enhanced cognitive interview - adds social dynamics (e.g. establishing eye contact)

Evaluation

• Time-consuming - takes longer and needs special training
• Some elements are more valuable - 'report everything' and 'reinstate the context' together produced best recall
• Effectiveness of ECI - consistently produces more accurate recall than standard interview
• Variations of CI are used - weakness
• CI creates an increase in inaccurate information