Memory AO3

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Nature of memory: Lab based

  • A strength of much of this lab based research is high control of extraneous variables, for example giving an interference task to stop rehearsal. Therefore, cause and effect can be inferred.
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Memory in real life- Bahrick

  • Bahrick's study is an example of how memory is used in real life since it used memory for classmates. Trivial lists of words are not remembered for nealry as long therefore this study illustrates the dangers of lab based artificial studies not being appropriate to study memory.
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NOM: External validity

  • A problem with research into the nature of memory is that test using strings of consonants in a lab are not much like we do in real. In real life we remeber events and meaningful related information therefore much of this research may lack ecological validity and in fact not tell us anything useful about the nature of memory and how we use it. For example, research into anxiety shows that emotion can effect your memory.
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NOM: Demand characteristics

  • The studies specifically ask participants to remember single words/letters so they introduce demands characterisitcs where Ps guess that theya re supposed to be remebering the words that are presented to them Therefore, the research may lack internal validity.
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CON Bahrick-Memory for faces

  • Bahrick only tested memory for faces of people we know therefore the results may not be representative of all types of memory- it is possible that memory for faces is a special type of memory and remebered for longer than other other types of infomration due to the fact that humans are a social species and in terms of evolutionary survival it would be very beneficial to remember the faces of our enemies and allies.
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Bahrick-High control not possible

  • The researchers could not control how often the Ps had seen their ex-classmates or looked at their year books therefore it is possible that the high accuracy is due to frequent rehearsal.
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MSM: Free recall experiments

  • Ps are given a number of words(20) in succession to remeber and asked to recall them in any order. The results fall into a pattern known as the serial position curve:
  • Primacy effect- Ps tend to recall first words in the list indicating that the 1st words entered the STM and had time to be passes to LTM. This effect therefore reflects recall from LTM.
  • Asymptote- middle portion is remebered poorly. The increasing number of items fill STM and are displaced before reaching LTM.
  • Recency effect- Ps recall the last items on the list. Thought to be from STM as there is no displacement.
  • this suggests the existence of 2 stores like the model suggests.
  • Further evidence for 2 stores comes form the fact that each of the 2 effects can be manipulated independently. Slower rates of presentatopm imporve primacy but have no effect on recency. The recency effect disappears if the last words are not recalled straight away e.g. by giving an interference task. There is no effect on the primacy effect.
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PRO MSM: Brain damaged patients

  • Case studies of brain damaged patients have identified that patients have one of the stores unaffected and the other severly impaired suggesting the LTM and STM are separate stores:
  • milner reported the case of HM- normal STM but greatly impaired LTM.
  • Shallic and Warrington reported KF- impaired STM(2 item digit span) but no impaired LTM.
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Con MSM: Brain damaged patients

  • The model argues that studies of brain damaged patients support the model however upon further inspection the patients do not fully support the model.
  • For KF the model does not explain how info is passed into LTM without being affected by the impaired STM.
  • Although HM cannot learn any new facts or events research show that he is capable of learning new skills e.g. mirror drawing. This suggests LTM is not just one store, instead there are different types of LTM e.g. procedural and episodic.
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Con MSM: Forgetting some things

  • The model does not explain why some things are remembered and othrs are forgotten. For example, it is too simple as it does not take into account such strategies people employ to remember things.
  • However, the levels of processing model was developed to explain this.This is based off experiments that shows when Ps are asked to categorise words on their meaning they remember them better then if they were just asked to process them in terms of physical attributes. Therefore, it is the type of processing we do that affects our memory.
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Con of MSM: Rehearsal

  • The idea of reheasal being the mechanism of transferring info form STM to LTM has also been crticised. Rote rehearsal is not the only way info is passed to LTM since we do not repeat everything that gets transferred or ransfer everything we repeat.
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Con of MSM: Flow of info

  • The model states that info only flows from STM to LTM. However, information must flow in both directions e.g. for chuncking to work meaning must be accessed from LTM and passed to STM. Therefore, the information flow is interactive, not sequential as the model suggests.
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WMM: Dual-task performance

  • Support for the distinction between the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad is supported by studies of dual-task performance. Performacne of two simultaeous tasks requring the use of two separate systems is nearly as sufficeient as performance of the task individually. In contrast, when a person tries to carry out two task simultaneously that use the same system performance is less efficeient than when performing them individually. This supports the model as it demonstrates that the components of WM are separate and they have limited capacity.
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Dual-task performance study

  • In their experiment, Baddeley and Hitch had two tasks:
  • Task 1:Ps completed a verbal reasoning task in which they were shown letters AB  or BA and a statement describing the order. Participants were required to state whether the order was true or false as quickly as possible. This occupies the central executive.
  • Task 2: This could be one of three different 'tasks'.
  • A.     Participants were required to repeat 'THE THE THE THE THE' over and over again. This occupies the articulatory loop.
  • B.     Participants had to say random digits out loud. This occupies both the articulatory loop and the central executive.
  • C.      Participants were not required to complete a second task.
  • The results showed that when task 1(the verbal reasoning task) was combined with version A or version C of the second task, performance on task 1 was not affected. Participants were just as fast at making the true or false decision. When different components are· used, performance on the tasks is not adversely affected.
  • When combined with version B of task 2, speed dropped significantly. This shows that doing two tasks that use the same component of memory (central executive used for the verbal reasoning test AND to generate the random numbers) causes difficulty.
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WMM:Brain damaged patients

  • Some patients have impaired verbal skills but intact spatial ones and vice versa supporting the idea that the visuo-spatial sketchpad and phonoloigcal loop are located in diffrerent brain areas and therefore are seperate components of the working model.
  • Further support: LH was good at spatial tasks that involved organising objects according to their spatial reationships with each other but not good at tasks that required visual imagery. This is evidence that there is a visual AND spatial system within the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
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Support for WMM: Brain imaging

  • Brain imaging suggests that tasks needing different parts of the WMM use different parts of the brain giving us evidence that there are separate systems that work e.g. if a person is given a tak that uses the phonological loop like reciting a poem then one brain areas is active but if they are asked to do a task tha uses the visuo-spatial sketchpad such as mentally picturing a route from their house to town then a diffeerent brain area is active.
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PRO WMM: Word length effect

  • Word length effect-  this is the tendency to immediately recall short words better than long words. Working memory explains this by saying the articulatory loop has a limited time capacity and as short words take less time to say we can remember more of them. This effect can be made to go away if the articulatory loop is already used up. If Ps repeated simple word sounds e.g. the, the, the... over and over whilst learning long and short words, the number of short words remembered would not be greater than the long words.
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CON WMM: Research on CE

  • Most research focuses on the 'slave' components but there is little experimental support for the central executive (CE). It is sad to have a limited capcity but the actual capacity is not known.
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CON WMM: Individual differences

  • Research suggests there are individual differences in working memory e.g. in attention, capacity and duration which lead to differences in abilities such as reading, spelling and writing. However, from the model it is not clear why these differences occur.
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Communication management

  • Although the episodic buffer provides a useful explanation of how working memory and LTM communicate and work together it is not really clear how the communication is managed.
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Types of LTM: Brain scans

  • Research shows that different areas of the brain are active when the different kinds of LTM are used. Episodic memory is associated with the hippocampus and temporal lobe, semantic memory uses the temporal lobe and procedural memory uses the cerebellum and motor cortex.
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Brain damaged patients

  • HM had an operation to reduce his epileptic fits which removed the hippocampus from both sides of the brain; this also destroyed part of his temporal lobes. HM could not form episodic or semantic memories because his hippocampus and temporal lobes had been removed. But he could still form procedural memories. 
  • Milner found that HM could learn new procedural skills but he didn't know that he had learnt them e.g. mirror drawing- Milner found error and time scores on the task decreased over 3 days of training. First day, first attempt=30 errors but 3rd day, first attmpt=1 error.
  • Clive Wearing suffered from an infection which damaged the hippocampus and temporal lobe region of the brain. After this he was unable to remeber episodes in his life e.g if his wife left the room and re-entered he would greet her as if he hadn't seen her. However, CW could still play the piano, a procedural memory as his cerebellum was still intact.
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Types of LTM:Case studies

  • Each individual case study has unique characterisitc, therefore it may not be possible to generalise the conclusions from a case study like HM's to the rest of the population.
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Distinction between semantic and episodic

  • Researchers have found that some patients with Alzheimer's have the ability to form new semantic memories but not episodic ones. Therefore, suggesting that the two types of explicit memory are separate.
  • However, others have argued that this is not sufficient evidence that the two are distinct types of memory and instead it could be that episodic memories place greater demands on mental processes which is why it is more affected by brain damage.
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Interference: Lab based

  • Most research into interference is lab based. Learning word lists is an artifical task and Ps may not be motivated to learn such lists. Therefore, lacks ecological validity and findings may not generalise to real life situations.
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Interference:Forgetting

  • Interference only seems to lead to forgetting if the 2 memories are similar. Other memories might be forgotten due to decay or retrieval failure. Therefore, this explantion cannot explain all types of forgetting.
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Interference:Applications

  • Research has shown that recall and recongition of an advertiser's message is reduced when people are exposed to 2 adverts from competing brands in the same week. Companies should enhance memory trace by repeating the advert several times on the same day.
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Interference:Individual differences

  • Individual difference may play a role in forgetting. Those with a greater working memory span were less affected by proactive interference as they may be better at consciously controlling processing of information. However, the theory does not acknowledge this.
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Loftus: 80% not misled

  • Although the barn study shows that some witnesses can be misled, it is important to recognise that over 80% of Ps in the misled group gave the correct response.
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Loftus:Purse Study

  • Contradictory evidence shows that misleading information may not affect the accuracy of EWT.
  • Loftus found that Ps were not susceptible to blantantly incorrect information.Ps watched a slide show depicting the theft of a large RED purse. They then read a professor's account of the theft, which contained several errors. Ps resisted the misleading info that the purse was BROWN not RED.
  • This suggests that info which is obvious and central is less subject to distortion, therefore misleading in does not always result in poor EWT.
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MQ: Headlight study

  • A strength is that there is supporting evidence that lading questions affect the accuracy of EWT. Loftus showed Ps a film of a car accidence. They were asked either, 'did you see A broken headlight?' or 'did you see THE broken headlight?'.There was no broken headlight. Participants given the 'THE' question were 2x as likely to report that they had. 
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Oklahoma Bombing

  • Supporting evidence comes form studies on real crimes. The Oklahoma bombing is one example where post-event discussion influenced EWT.
  • Key evidence came from three witnesses who worked at the truck rental shop where the bromber rented the truck he used in the bombing. one of these witnesses claimed thay saw Mcveigh with an accomplice. Initally the other two did not report an accomplice but later they soon claimed to remember details of a 2nd person. This sparked a hunt for an accomplice. Months later, the first witness confessed that he may have made a mistake and was recalling another customer.
  • It is lkely that the confidence of the first witness unintentionally influenced the others leading them to report that they also recalled a 2nd man. 
  • Indeed, witnesses admitted in testimony that they had discussed their memories before being questioned.
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Multiple interviews

  • Supporting evidence comes from studies where the Ps are interviewed multiple times. Here the post-event discussion with the interviewer becomes incoroporated into their recollection of events. comments or leading question from the interviewer will affect their memory of the event.
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Role of anxiety-Boy shot study

  • The violence of an event can be a cause of anxiety. Loftus made Ps in her study watch a film of a crime. Some Ps however saw a version with an extremely violent scene of a young boy being shot in the face. When questioned about the events in the film, those Ps who saw the non-violent film recalled much more detail of the crime than those who witnessed the more violent crime. It seems that the shock of the event disrupted storage of other deatils, both before and after the actual violent scene.
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Role of anxiety-Boy shot study

  • The violence of an event can be a cause of anxiety. Loftus made Ps in her study watch a film of a crime. Some Ps however saw a version with an extremely violent scene of a young boy being shot in the face. When questioned about the events in the film, those Ps who saw the non-violent film recalled much more detail of the crime than those who witnessed the more violent crime. It seems that the shock of the event disrupted storage of other deatils, both before and after the actual violent scene.
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Health clinic study

  • Peters conducted a study in a health clinic where people were receiving inoculations. The experience of Ps was manipulated so that they met a nurse and a researcher for a brief but equal amount of time. One week later the Ps were aksed to identify the nurse and researcher from a selection of photographs. It was found that the researcher was more readily recognised than the nurse. It was suggested by Peters that the anxiety of the injection directly affected the accuracy of memory.
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Weapon focus effect

  • Loftus monitored the gaze of Ps and found that when shown a film of a crime, they tended to focus their gaze on the gun used in the robbery. When questioned later, these Ps were less able to identify the robber and recalled fewer details of the crime than other Ps who saw a similar film minus the gun.
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Yuille and Cutshall

  • Contradictory evidence for the role of anxiety come from Yuille and Cutshall (gun shop robbery in Canada) which suggests that anxety can have a positive effect on EWT.
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Devlin Report

  • EWT research has made a valuable contrbution to our understanding of EW and has presented convincing evidence that post-event information can affect the memory of the original event. Loftus' findings were highly influential in the writing of The Devlin Report, which concluded that, unless the circumstances were highly unusual, eyewitness testimoney should not result in a conviction in an English court in the absence of other corroborating evidence.
  • EWT can be distorted significantly by post event information and this has significant implication for the use of eyewitnesses in courtrooms and the use of misleading questions. This has led to the development of the cognitive interview.
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EWT work lacks validity

  • Much EWT work has been criticised for lacking ecological validity. It was carried out in an artifical lab environment, therefore the results may not be generalisable to real life EWT.
  • Firstly, the research is artifical because it lacks the stress and emotion of real life. Supporting evidence for this being a problem comes from a study of a real robbery of a gun shop in Canada which has shown that real life witnesses can recall info more accurately. Yuille & Cutshall (1986) examined the recall of witnesses to a shooting in a town in Canada. A man had attempted to rob a gun shop. During the course of the robbery the shop owner was shot. He returned fire, killing the would-be robber. The incident occurred in broad daylight, in front of a large number of witnesses. Some months after the event, Yuille and Cutshall tracked down the witnesses and asked to interview them. Fifteen of them agreed to take part in the study. Examining their accounts, Yuille and Cutshall made several important finding:The witnesses were able to recall the incident in a great deal of detail.There was a very high level of agreement between the accounts given by the different witnesses.The witnesses’ accounts did not alter in response to leading questions.
  • These findings are contrary to those that Loftus might lead us to expect. Such findings, which are obtained from real-world witnesses and hence are high in ecological validity cast doubt on the validity of Loftus' conclusions.
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EWT lack validity- consequences

  • The research is artifical because there are no consequences in lab experiments. It is possible that Ps in experiments are less accurate than in real life because they know inaccuracies will not lead to serious consequences.
  • Foster had Ps be shown a video of a bank robbery and were subsequently asked to identify the robber in an identity parade. Half were led to believe the robbery was real and that their responses would be used in the trial. The other half assumed it was a simulation. They found that identification was more accurate in the first group suggesting that consequences are an important factor.
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CI is effective

  • Geiselman et al published the first empirical test of the CI. With relatively little training, cognitive interviewers obtained up to 35% more correct details about simulated events than untrained interviewers with no increase in the number of errors.This result was replicated in numerous studies in which both children and cadults were witnesses. More recently, the CI has been found to increase the reporting of correct details in adults with learning disabilities as witnesses, senior citizens and in children of preschool age.
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Not enough time to have CI

  • Kebbell and Wagstaff report a problem with the CI in practice. Police officers suggest that the technique requires more time than is often avalible and that instead they refer to use deliberate strategies aimed to limit the eyewitness's report to the minimum amount of information that the officer feels is necessary. Getting info fast is often important to catch the criminal before they have time to escape.
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CI: Skills of interviewer

  • The success of the SI depends on the skills of the interviewer. Whilst they can be trained, it is difficult to assess their competence as they are doing more than simply follwing a set of learned technical skills. Similarly, it is very easy for an inexperienced or slightly clumsy interviewr to ask question that might be considered as 'leading' to the witness. The accuracy of information from the CI may be subject to the same problems as regular interviews where the wording of the question might play a very siginificant role.
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CI: Recognition of culprit

  • Because context does more to improve recall than recognition, the CI does not help with recognition of a culprit e.g. from photofit evidence.
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CI: Time is of the essence

  • The CI is most effective when the interview follows shortly after the event. It becomes less effective as the passage of time between the event and recall increases.
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