Memory

Multi Store Model (Atkinson and Shiffrin)

* One way flow of information

* Seperate stores of LTM and STM

Working Memory model (Baddley and Hitch)

LONG TERM MEMORY

Central executive- controlls attention

- flexible

- limited storage capacity

Phonological loop - allows acoustically coded information to be stored

Visuo-spatial scratch pad- responsible for setting up and manipulating mental images.

- limited capacity

Episodic Buffer-Added on later

- limited capacity

- binds together info from different sources

Encoding- changing sensory imput into a form or code to be processed by the memory.

Capacity- the amount of information that can be stored in the memory at any particular time

Duration- the length of time the information can be kept in memory

Eye witness testimony.

* the role of anciety

* the role of schemas

* the age of the witness

* use of leading questions

* the consequences of the testimony

* how witnesses are tested

* the effects of misleading information

* use of the cognitive interview.

eyewitness testimony is usually really important, when considering the reliability we should think about the anxiety of the witness..especially at the time of the incident. Especially if it was a violent one. Anxiety doesnt always lead to unreliable evidence though.

Weapon focus phenomenon

Loftus' study in the lab where the guy comes out the room with a knife? and the other guy came out holding a pen? The people who saw the pen guy remembered him correctly more times than those who saw the knife.

The role of schemas

Schemas are like steriotypical ideas of how we expect things to be. We use what we already know and apply it to scenarios that havent yet happened. This enables us to make sence of things.

we often just fill in gaps of things we cant remember to make sence of it..

we distort memories to make them fit our preconcieved conceptions. eg. we'd expect a robber to wear a mask..really he wore a cap.

we may use schemas as a basis to make a correct guess if we cant remember exactly.

the age of the witness

People tend to think that children are unreliable witnesses. Most researchers agree that childrens accounts of past events are usually inferior to adults. This improves wirth age.

Young children have a lack of prior knowlege and schemas to help them see links between elements.

Some studies have found that children are less accurate than adults when reporting on things such as robbery but other researchers have failed to show these differences, especially when open ended free recall is used.

The use of Leading questions-

Leading questions are questions worded in a way that it might bias how the respondant answers. Loftus and Palmer showed participants a film of a car accident and then asked "how fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed/collided/bumped into each other" ot was found that the word used effected the estimated speed.

consequesnces of testimony

It's possible that the participants in experiments are less accurate than genuine witnesses because they know that their innacuracies wont lead to serious consequences (e.g. wrong person in jail!?)

Strategies for memory improvement-

- pay attention

- use elaborative rehearsal

- organisation

- avoid interferance effects

- using mnemonics (loci. peg words etc.)

- spacing your studies.