Memory Revision Cards

Jacobs - digit span 9.3 for digits, 7.3 for letters

Miller - people remember about 7 items and 7 chunks 

Cowan - 4 chunks probably the limit. Same for visual information (Vogel et al)

Simon - larger chunks mean fewer recalled 

Jacobs - 19 year olds have a longer digit span than 8 year olds 

Peterson and Peterson - used consonant syllables, prevented verbal rehearsal. STM lasted 18 seconds

Bahrick et al - after 48 years participants were 70% accurate in face recognition of classmates and 30% for names 

Consonant syllables not meaningful but some memory activities do involve such stimuli 

Reitman - auditory tones to avoid displacement, led to longer duration of STM 

Naime et al - duration of STM 96 seconds

Baddeley - difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM but not in LTM, reverse for semantically similar words

In Baddeley's study, LTM was tested by waiting 20 minutes, not really LTM

Brandimote et al - STMs visually coded if verbal rehearsal was prevented 

Wickens et al - STM sometimes uses a semantic code 

Frost - visual coding in LTM

Nelson and Rothbart - acoustic coding in LTM 

Sensory register - large capacity very short duration (milliseconds)

Attention transfers information from sensory register to STM 

STM - limited capacity (5 items/chunks) so information decays, limited duration (a few minutes) unless rehearsed

Maintenance rehearsal eventually creates a LTM 

LTM - potentially unlimited capacity and duration, forgetting may be due to lack of accessibility 

Retrieval from LTM goes through STM 

STM/LTM difference supported by:

Lab studies e.g Jacobs, Miller, Peterson and Peterson, Bahrick, Baddeley 

Brain scans e.g Baddeley linked STM to prefrontal cortex, Squire linked LTM to hippocampus 

Case study of HM - linked formation of new LTMs to hippocampus (Scoville and Milner)

MSM is too simples, STM and LTM are not unitary stores

LTM involves elaborative rather than just maintenance rehearsal 

STM is not independent of LTM - Ruchkin et al showed different brain activity for words and pseudo-words

Central Executive (CE) acts as 'attention', allocates tasks to slave systems, no storage 

Phonological loop (PL) preserves order of auditory information: phonological store holds the words for PL (inner ear), articulatory process performs maintenance rehearsal for PL (inner voice)

Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS) for planning and processing visual and/or spatial tasks: visual cache for form and colour, inner scribe for spatial relations

Episodic buffer records events as they happen, links to LTM

Hitch and Baddeley - participants slower when doing dual tasks (CE + articulatory loop). Demonstrates CE 

KF - damage to PL, problems with verbal material (words not sounds) (Shallice and Warrington)

SC - damage to PL, unable to learn word pairs presented out loud (Trojano and Grossi)

LH - damage to spatial system (Farah et al)

Word length effect - longer words can't be rehearsed (supports phonological loop), articulatory suppression task cancels out word-length effect (supports articulatory process) 

CE doesn't explain anything and more complex than currently represented, evidence from EVR (Eslinger and Damasio)

Brain damage evidence unreliable because trauma may cause problems

Episodic memories - personal memories for events forming a sequence. They may include details of context and emotion

Semantic memories - knowledge shared by everyone, abstract and concrete. They are acquired through episodic memories 

Procedural memories - knowing how to do something. They become automatic through repetition and are disrupted if you think about them 

Episodic memories associated with temporal lobe including hippocampus plus frontal lobe 

Semantic memory associated with temporal lobe 

Procedural memory associated with cerebellum and basal ganglia and limbic system 

HM - new procedural memories could be formed but not semantic and episodic ones 

Evidence from amnesia patients - semantic memories can form independently of episodic memories 

Brain damage evidence unreliable because can't be certain that causal part of the brain identified 

Perceptual-representation system may be a kind of implicit memory related to priming 

Retroactive interference - old interferes with new 

Muller and Pilzecker - recall was less good if there was an intervening task (describing paintings)

Proactive interference - new interferes with old 

Underwood - analysed many studies, the more lists learned from the lower percentage of recall 

McGeoch and McDonald - learn list of words + list of synonyms > 12% recall, learn lists of words + lists of digits > 37% recall. Similarity matters 

Baddeley and Hitch - rugby players who played fewer games had better recall of teams played against (less interference)

Artificial research - words and nonsense syllables, and low motivation. Doesn't represent everyday memory 

Limited to some situations of forgetting, where two sets of stimuli are quite similar 

Ceraso - spontaneous recovery of recognition memory after interference suggests memories are available but not acceptable 

Real world application - competing advertisements reduce their effect because of interference, better to show three in one day (Danaher et al)

Individual differences - people with greater working memory span less susceptible to proactive interference 

Encoding specificity principle - material present at encoding is present at retrieval (Tulving and Thomson)

Tulving and Pearlstone - category + word learned. Free recall was 40%, cued recall was 60% 

Some cues are not meaningfully linked at encoding but also act as cues 

Context-dependent forgetting - Abernethy - recall best with same instructor in same room 

Context-dependent forgetting - Baddeley and Godden - recall best when initial context (land or water) matched recall environment 

State-dependent forgetting - Goodwin et al - recall best when initial state (drunk or sober) matched state at recall

High validity - wealth of supporting research in both lab and natural experiments 

Real world application - to revising and the cognitive interview 

Cues don't always work - not useful when learning meaningful material (SMoth and Vela)

Encoding specifically is circular - it is not a casual relationship (Nairne) and cannot be tested (Baddley)

Retrieval failure can explain interference effects and thus is more important explanation of forgetting 

Leading questions suggest the desired answer

Loftus and Palmer - critical question containing hit, smashed, collided, bumped or contacted, spread estimates were highest with the word smashed 

Loftus and Palmer - the verb altered the actual memory of the event, participants more likely to report broken glass

Post-event discussion may contanimate eyewitness memory of an event 

Conformity effect - particpipants' recollection influenced by discussion with others (Gabbert et al)

Repeat interviewing - especially problematic with a child witness (LeRooy et al)

Braun et al - misleading information (Bugs Bunny) altered participant recall 

Real life EWT may be more accurate - lab studies not taken seriously 

Foster et al - film of supposed robbery, high accuracy 

Yullie and Cutshall - witnesses to real crime fed misleading information but still accurate recall 

Real world application - mistaken EWT largest factor of innocent people (Wells and Olson) 

Individual differences - misinformation effect in older people, thus more susceptible to misleading information 

Response bias - recalling events in original order led to recovery of recall so memory not altered (Bekerian and Bowers

Stress (psychological arousal) reduces performance on complicated cognitive tasks 

Johnson and Scott - weapon focus effect reduces accuracy of face identification 

Loftus et al - monitored eye movements during weapon exposure, focus was on weapon 

Evolutionary argument - it is adaptive to remember stress-inducing events 

Christianson and Hubinetter - high-anxiety victims (bank tellers) remember most accurately 

Deffenbacher et al - Yerkes_dodson effect explains high accuracy at moderate levels of anxiety and low accuracy when anxiety is high (or low)

Pickel - weapon focus effect due to surprise not anxiety 

Deffenbacher et a - real life studies show even less accuracy than lab studies, so lab findings actually underestimate the effects of anxiety 

Halford and Milne - kind of crime effects accuracy, e.g victims of violent crime are more accurate than non violent crime 

Bothwell et al - neurotic patients become less accurate with increasing anxiety, opposite true for emotionally more stable patients 

Deffenbacher - catasrophe model better than inverted U

Based on psychological research:

- Mental reinstatement of original context - physical and psychological, cued recall 

- Report everything - even seemingly insignificant details, may cue recall 

- Change order, reduces effect of schemas

- Change perspective, disrupts schemas, supported by Andersons and Picherts study (burglar and House buyer perspective)

Kohnken et al - review of 53 studies, 34 more information from CI, but lad studies with students

Milne and Bull - effectiveness may be due to 'report everything' and 'mental reinstatement' components

Quality may suffer - 81%  increase  in correct recall but 61% false positives (Kohnken et al)

Police dislike CI - time consuming, inadequate training 

Comparisons difficult - older adults' memories helped more by the CI than younger adults (Mello and Fisher