Memory (NEW VERSION)

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Memory

Coding - This means changing input into a format that the brain can use. The three main ways memory can be coded are:

  • Orthographic/visual - storing how something looks.
  • Phonological/acoustic - storing how something sounds.
  • Semantic code - storing what something means.

Storage - Information is kept in different memory stores for different amounts of time. Each store has a different:

  • Memory capacity - how much can be stored.
  • Memory duration - how long information can be stored.

Retrieval - This is when information is taken out of a memory store and used.

  • Recall - bringing information to mind.
  • Recognition - deciding whether information has been encountered before.
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Describing Multi-Store Model of memory

The multi-store model of memory is concerned with the structure of memory. It proposes that information flows one way through the model.

Information is inputted from our five senses into the sensory register. This memory store has a large capacity and information is stored here for a duration of 2-3 seconds, and stored in its raw sensory form. From here, information needs to paid attention to within this duration, otherwise it will be lost.

If this information is paid attention to, it will flow through to the short term memory, or lost if attention isn't paid. This memory store has a capacity of 7+-2 pieces of information and a duration of 30 seconds. The coding in this store is phonological. Once here, a response can be made or the information will need to be rehearsed in order to be used any further; if neither is used the information will be lost.

If rehearsed, the information can flow through to the long term memory. This memory store has a limitless capacity and a duration of a lifetime. The coding in this store is semantic. Once here, a response can be made from the information, or the information can be stored and retrieved at a later date.

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Evaluating Multi-Store Model of memory

Murdock Serial Position Curve - when presented with a list of words, we have a tendeny to remember the first few words and the last few words, forgetting the words inbetween. It is the primacy effect that enables us to recall the earlier words, as the person has longer to rehearse these words and pass them onto the long term memory. It is the recency effect that enables us to remember the last few words as these are still apparent in the short term memory. Therefore this shows support for the multi-store modle as it is evidence for the separate existence of the STM and the LTM.

The model is influential as it has generated lots of research into memory. It has provided many explanations as to why people suffer from memory loss and also has helped in explaining the best way to learn by providing ideas about effective ways to remember information.

It can be argued that the model is too reductionist and it ignores the complexity of the mind. For example, it cannot explain why we are able to read magazine articles about celebrities etc and remember it all, but cannot remember the content from a page in a book.

The model suggests that rehearsal is needed for information to flow into the long term memory, however evidence suggests that this is not essential and doesn't necessarily lead to better recall. For example, why are we able to recall information which we did not rehearse, yet we are unable to recall information which we have rehearsed, such as revision.

There is considerable evidence for the existence of the short term memory and the long term memory, with research also proving that they are two separate memory stores.

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Describing Types of Long Term Memory

Episodic LTM - refers to the ability to recall events, and has therefore been likened to a diary of events. These memories are 'time - stamped' and therefore we can remember when they happened. They also have several elements to each memory such as people, places etc. You have to make a conscious effort to recall these memories. Research evidence is Tulving, who suggests that episodic and semantic LTMs involve different areas of the brain and are therefore different types of LTM.

Semantic LTM - The store contains our knowledge of the world, including the facts we have made sense of, e.g. the meaning of words. It can be likened to an encylopedia or a dictionary as it can contain the knowledge of an impressive number of concepts. We don't necessarily remember when we learned the information, however these stored facts are continously being added to. Research evidence is Kroenig who found that Alzheimer sufferers were not as good as non-sufferers at identifying imaginary animals when using rule-based training. This suggests that semantic memory involves different processes and brain areas.

Procedural LTM - This store contains details about our actions, skills and the way we do things. Not a great deal of effort or conscious awareness is needed to recall these e.g. how to drive a car. RThe ability to do such tasks simply relies on this type of memory. Research evidence is Finke et al who used the case study of PM, a musician who suffered damage to areas of the brain. Episodic and semantic memory were affected, but they still had the ability to read and play music, which must have come from their procedural long term memory.

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General Evaluation of the type of LTM

Real life application - psychologists have been able to better the lives of individuals, knowing that they are able to resolve or target any issues that are linked to the specific memory type. As episodic memory is the type of memory that is most affected by mild cognitive impairment, this highlights the usefulness of being able to distinguish between the different types of LTM and allows for specific treatment to be developed.

Clinical evidence -famous case studies such as patient HM and Clive Wearing, both had impaired episodic memory due to amnesia, for example HM needed the concept of what a dog was explaining to him again. However, he could still understand the meaning of words (semantic LTM) and how to tie his shoelaces (procedural LTM). CW could still read music, sing and play the piano. This evidence supports Tulvings idea that there are different LTM stores and that one store can be damaged whilst the others remain unaffected.

Although psychologists are very interested in studing people with brain injuries, there are many flaws in the methods that are used to conduct these studies. Studies such as HM and CW are case studies based on one person. As no two cases are the same, this makes the difficult to generalise.

Brain scan studies provide evidence that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain. Tulving et al found that left pre-frontal cortex was involved in recalling semantic memories and the right pre-frontal cortex was involved in recalling episodic memories. This supports the view that there is a physical reality to the different types of LTM within the brain.

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Describing the Working Memory Model

The model creates an explanation of the structure and function of short term memory. It is concerned with the part of our mind that is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating. The model consists of four components. Each are different in terms of coding and capacity.

  • The central executive - this area is focussed on the process that monitors incoming data. It also makes decisions and allocates slave systems to tasks. This has a very limited storage capacity.
  • The phonological loop - the first slave system deals with auditory information. The coding is acoustic. It preserves the order in which information arrives. It has two subsections - the phonological store - a store of the words you hear, and the articulary process - a process that allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating words or sounds in a loop to keep them in working memory while they are needed). The capacity is believed to be 2 seconds worth of what you can say.
  • The visuo-spatial sketchpad - the second slave system that stores visual and spatial information, for example faces or surroundings. It has a limited capacity of about 3 or 4 objects. It can be divided in to the visual cache, which stores visual data, or the inner scribe, which records the management of objects in the visual field.
  • The episodic buffer - the third slave system is a temporary store for information. It integrates the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores. It maintains a sense of time sequencing and can record events that are happening. It has a limited capacity of about 4 chunks of information.
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Evaluating the Working Memory Model

Supporting Research - Gathercole and Baddeley investigated the visuospatial sketchpad by asking participants to track a moving light while describing angles on a hollow F. They found that the participants had difficulty completing this task as both tasks involved using the visuo-spatial sketchpad. This shows support as it indicates that the visuospatial sketchpad is a seperate slave system.

Application - the working memory model applies to real life tasks such as reading (phonological loop), problem solving (central executive) and navigation (visual and spatial processing).

Limitation - there is a lack of evidence to explain the exact role of the central executive. It has been suggested that the area needs to be more clearly specified than just being 'attention' and that perhaps it may too consist of separate components. Therefore, the WMM has not yet been fully explained.

Supporting research - Baddeley investigated the central executive by seeing whether participants could create lists of numbers whilst simultaneously switching between pressing numbers and letters on a keyboard. They found that participants found it hard to complete this task. This shows support for the central executive as the two tasks were competing for the use of resources in this part of the WMM at the same time, therefore proving the central executive has a limited capacity.

The working memory model is not a comprehensive model of memory because it does not include sensory memory or the long term memory.

The model does not explain how practise over time can result in changes in processing ability.

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Describing Retrieval Failure Theory

Memory depends on cues being available. Cues are additional pieces of information that help us find the information we need. Forgetting happens because we do not have the right cues.

When we encode a memory, we also store information that occured around it e.g. the way we felt, the place we were in.

If we are not in a similar situation when we try to recall something, we will not remember it. The greater the similarity between the encoding situation and the retrieval situation, the greater the chance of recalling a memory. This is called the encoding specificity principle.

There are two types of cues:

Context dependent forgetting - these are cues to do with the environment we are in e.g. sights, sounds, smells. We forget things if these context cues are not present.

State-dependent forgetting - These are cues to do with our internal feelings, e.g. mood, emotion, alcohol. We forget things if we are not in the same state when we try to remember it.

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Evaluating Retrieval Failure Theory

Supporting Research - Godden and Baddeley investigated the effect of context cues on recall using trained divers. They created four conditions: learning on land, recall on land; learning on land, recall in water; learning in water, recall in water; learning in water, recall on land. They found that recall was 50% higher when the recall took place in the same environment as learning. This supports the theory as it shows that when the context-dependent cues are present, you are less likely to forget.

Application - the cue-dependency theory can be applied to real life. For example, when we get older our memory fades, but the cue-dependency theory can help to explain why when older people return to ther childhood streets, houses and schools help them to retrieve old memories.

Limitation - a problem with the theory is that we don't know what information is in the memory trace and what information is extracted from the cue. Therefore it is difficult to distinguish whether a true memory is recalled due to the result of a cue or whether the memory is merely a construction.

The theory does not take biological factors into account. Trace decay believes that forgetting happens because the neural trace of the memory wastes away over time and therefore forgetting is more to do with time than context.

The cue-dependency theory can successfully be applied to real life such as helping the police with reconstructions of crimes.

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Describing Interference Theory

As we store more and more information in the LTM, some of this information becomes confused. This is interference. Interference is most likely to occur between similar information.

There are two types of interference:

Proactive interference, where old information interferes with new information.

Retroactive interference, where new information interferes with old information.

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Evaluating Interference Theory

Jenkins and Dallenbach gave participants a list of nonsense syllables to learn, half having to learn the list before going to sleep, and half learning the list first thing in the morning. They were then tested 8 hours later. Recall was higher in the group which slept, which shows support because there was no new information to interfere with the syllables.

The theory can be used to explain why students forget the information they learn in certain subjects, or even how they get information confused when learning similar subjects; for example psychology and sociology. The theory would help teachers to suggest strategic revision techniques that stop interference from occuring.

The majority of research supporting the interference theory is based on la experiments and use tasks such as learning nonsense syllables to demonstrate interference. The research therefore has low ecological validity.

The theory places too much emphasis on the activity between the learning of information and recall, ignoring the internal and external cues.

Baddeley and Hitch asked rugby players to recall the names of team players they had played earlier in the season. If they had a higher number of games inbetween the recall then they had lower recall. This shows that their knowledge had been interfered with, showing active interference.

Godden and Baddeley oppose the theory because they provide evidence that it is when cues aren't available that we forget, rather than interference.

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Eye witness testimony

Eyewitnesses are individuals who have knowingly or unknowingly seen a crime or a situation that could contribute to the apprehension of criminals. They report evidence to the police and in court. The reliability of eyewitness testimony is crucial to the criminal justice system. Psychologists are therefore concerned with the accuracy of eyewitness reports.

Misleading information - EWT can be affected by experiences occuring after an event, such as leading questions and post-event discussion. Leading questions increase the likelihood of an influence on an individual's schema. The way a question is worded will then influence them to give a desired answer. Post-event discussion concerns misleading information being added to a memory after an event has occured, with research indicating that false memories can be stimulated by misleading post-event experiences.

Anxiety -  Real life events, such as violent crimes, often cause the witness to have high anxiety, which could then greatly affect recall. A criticism of research into EMT is that it is often done in artificial environments, therefore there's no emotional involvement like anxiety. Weapons effect - anxiety may divert attention away from the important aspects of an event that has been witnessed. Loftus et al argued that witnesses to violent crimes tend to focus on the weapon being used rather than the culprits face. Witnessing a crime or accident creates anxiety through physiological arousal within the body. The fight or flight response can be used to explain this, as it triggers our alertness and improves our memory of the event due to the cues that arise from the situation. Therefore anxiety can also positively affect the ability to recall important details.

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Describing Loftus and Palmer's Study

Aim - to investigate the effect of a leading question about a car accident that implies damage on subsequent recall of speed and of damage caused.

Procedure - Experiment 1 - the sample of the study was 45 students. Participants were shown 7 health and safety video clips of different cars crashing. They were asked to give a description of the accident and answer a questionnaire about what they had seen. The questionnaire included a critical question 'About how fast were the cars going when they ... each other?' The missing verb was either 'smashed', 'collided', 'bumped', 'hit' or 'contacted'.

Experiment 2 - 150 students were shown a four second scene of a car accident (which did not include any broken glass). One third of the Ps were asked the critical question 'About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?' A third were asked the same question but with the word hit and the remainder were not asked about speed. A week later the Ps were given another questionnaire including the critical question 'did you see any broken glass?'

Findings - Experiment 1 - Ps asked the question with the verb smashed estimated the car to be travelling at 40.8mph. Ps asked the question with the verb contacted estimated the car to be travelling at 31.8mph. The highest speed estimate was for smashed, then collided, then bumped, then hit and the lowest was for contacted.

Experiment 2 - Ps who were exposed to the word smashed in a question were more likely to recall broken glass. 32% recalled broken glass in the smashed condition. 14% recalled broken glass in the hit condition.

Conclusion - lead questions did affect the participants judgements of car speed and that post event information in the form of a leading question can influence eyewitness testimony.

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Evaluating Loftus and Palmer's study

The sample of both studies only consisted of students. Therefore the results are not generalisable to other age groups.

As it was a lab experiment, there was control over many aspects of the study. For example, participants were controlled with how many times they watched the video etc.

There was a standardised procedure as all participants watched the same 7 videos in the same environment and the questionnaires were standardised. Only the verb was altered. This makes the study reliable as it can be easily repeated.

Eyewitnesses that have viewed a real life event are more accurate than psychologists would expect based on previous lab research.

The study was conducted in a lab which is an artificial environment so it lacks ecological validity because it does not measure the natural behaviour that would have been expected by real witnesses.

Real witnesses may not give the same attention to detail and the incident in real life. This could be because they wouldn't be prepared/ready to witness something like they were in the study.

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Describing Yuille and Cutshall's study

Aim - to see if the eyewitness testimony of real witnesses was reliable.

Procedure - They interviewed real witnesses to a gun shop robbery months after the incident. There were originally 21 witnesses, 13 agreed to take part in the study. They compared the interview transcripts with the original police interviews. They used leading questions within the interviews about non-existent objects such as a broken head light and a yellow car panel. Witnesses were asked first for a free recall account of the roberry then were asked specific questions. The number of accurate action, person and object descriptions was recorded. Witnesses also self-rate the stress they had felt at the time.

Findings - they found the witnesses were very accurate and there was little change in the amount they recalled over time. Witnesses were not misled by the leading questions. The amount of details recorded by the witness depended on their position to the indicident. 10 of the witnesses were unaffected by the leading questions. 3 witnesses reported non-existent details without misleading questions. Witnesses who reported being more stressed by the incident were more accurate than those who were less stressed.

Conclusions - witnesses to real crimes are more accurate and less influenced by leading questions than laboratory research suggests. Witnesses can recall one detail incorrectly but still give many other accurate facts. Eyewitness testionies of real witnesses can be considered to be reliable. They concluded that eye witnesses are less influenced than they would be in lab studies.

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Evaluating Yuille and Cutshall's Study

Only 13 witnesses could be investigated which limits reliability of the findings because of possible participant variables/bias in the sample.

Eyewitnesses that have viewed a real life event are more accurate than psychologists would expect based on previous lab research. Therefore, stress does not negatively affect memory as shown by Yuille and Cutshall.

This field study is a real case with real witnesses which is true to life unlike lab studies.

It has greater ecological validity because it investigates real life testimony.

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Evaluating Anxiety

Supporting Research - Yuille and Cutshall investigated the eyewitness testimony of real witnesses to see if it was reliable, using real witnesses to a gun robbery. They found that witnesses who reported to have the highest levels of stress were the most accurate. This shows support as it shows that anxiety has a positive effect on recall during eye witness testimonies.

Much of the research in to this theory is conducted as a field study. Much of the research is conducted some time after an incident has occured. As lots could happen in between this time, such as post-event discussion, interviews with the police or information in the media, then it may be these extraneous variables that are affecting the accuracy in these studies. Therefore, there is a lack of control in much of the research that supports this theory.

In order to test this theory an element of anxiety needs to be created wthin research studies. It can be argued that this is unethical as individuals are being subjected to psychological harm.

Due to the fact that mst research into this theory is conducted through field studies, it can be argued that the thoery is high in ecological validity, as the research shows how anxiety affects eyewitnesses in real life.

Demand characteristics are an issue with the research behind this theory, as many crimes are set up within controlled conditions and therefore participants become aware that they are watching a crime for no reason, some of which may then guess the aim of the study.

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Evaluating Misleading Information

Supporting Research - Loftus and Palmer investigated the effect of a leading question about a car accident that implies damage on subsequent recall of speed and of damage caused. They found that leading questions do affect the participant's judgement of car speed. Alos, post event discussion in the form of a leading question can influence eyewitness testimony. This shows support for the theory as misleading information is a factor that affects eyewitness testimony.

Application - The theory of misleading information can have useful applications in the real world. As the consequences of an inaccurare EWT could be very serious, police offciers need to be very careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eye witnesses.

Limitation - much of the research conducted into studying the effects of misleading information takes place in highly controlled, laboratory settings. It can be argued that this is a somewhat artifical way of studying EWT as it does not impose the same degree of stress as witnessing a real crime would.

As much of the research into EWT is lab studies, it could be argued that demand characteristics may affect the results. Participants may not want to let the researcher down, so if they are asked a question they don't know the answer to, they may guess the answer.

The stimuli used in studies of EWT could be distressing to an individual and therefore may raise ethical concerns.

Participants aren't expecting tne be deliberately misled by the researchers and therefore inaccurate recall should be expected since participants will believe the researcher to be telling the truth.

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Improving the accuracy of EWT: cognitive interview

EWT could be improved if the police used better techniques when interviewing witnesses. These techniques should be based on psychological insights into how the memory works, with the foundations of how it works based on the principles of cognitive psychology.

Report everything - witnesses are encouraged to discuss every single detail about the event, even if they don't feel it is important or they aren't confident abuot the information. Any information may be important, and could trigger other memories about the event.

Reinstate the context - the witnesses should be prompted to allow their mind to return to the scene of the crime and imagine the environment again (e.g. weather, feelings). This links to context - dependent and state dependent cues.

Reverse the order - events should be recalled in a different chronological order to the way the event happened, for example from the end to the beginning. This prevents expectations of how the event happened, and also prevents dishonesty as it is a hard task to carry out and they'd be less likely to be untruthful if they have to think about the order of events.

Change perspective - witnesses should recall the incident from the perspective of others e.g. other witnesses or the perpetrator. This would be done to disrupt the effect of a schema upon recall, as a schema would generate certain expectations.

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Evaluating Cognitive Interviews

Useful application to everyday life - highlights that cognitive interview techniques gain more information from a witness and that more officers should be traine din this technique.

The detectives would have interviewed the witnesses regardless, so they were not put under psychological distress from conducting their job.

Conducted in real life situations using detectives and witnesses for real crimes, therefore cognitive interviews would have high ecological validity.

The technique lacks accuracy as it depends on how much of the crime the person saw and other factors that play a role in identification, therefore the process may lack validity.

Cognitive interviews often involve a traumatic and distressing experience for the person involved and may provoke discomfort within the interview, therefore this may break an ethical guideline.

The cognitive interview technique may not be accurate for all types of crimes. A **** crime may cause extreme distress to the witness, whereas a ****** and run crime may not be appropriate for the CI as it's a very brief encounter with the suspect. Therefore, the process may lack reliability.

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