Memory

Coding, capacity, duration

AO1

Coding STM & LTM: Baddeley (1966) Encoding is acoustic in STM & semantic in LTM

Capacity STM: Jacobs (1887) digit span task, 9.3 numbers, 7.3 letters and Miller's (1956) Magic Number 7+/- 2 items, chunking

Duration: STM Peterson & Peterson (1959) Trigrams 80% at 3s / 3% at 18s LTM Bahrick (1975) cued recall 70% even after 48 years

AO3

+/- Internal & ecological validity

- Size of the chunk not specified

- Individual differences (age)

- Miller overestimated capacity - closer to 4 (Cowan, 2001)

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Working Memory

Model

AO1

Baddeley & Hitch (1974)

Model to explain STM only

Central executive - supervisory role, attention, decisions, very limited capacity

Slave systems:

PL - phonological store (inner ear) / articulatory process (inner voice): holds 2 secs worth of info

VSS - visual cache (store) / inner scribe (spatial tasks): 4 objects

Episodic buffer - temporary,

allows for integration

Dual tasks - can be completed if using different components. Performance impaired if the same component is being used as the store gets overloaded.​

AO3

+ Evidence from KF (VSS intact, PL damaged)

+ Dual task studies - Baddeley, 1975

- CE least understood

- Evidence lacks mundane realism

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Eye witness testimony:

Misleading info

AO1

Leading questions

Loftus & Palmer (1974) contacted 31.8mph, smashed 40.5mph

Response bias or substitution?

Broken glass follow up = substitution more likely

Post event discussion

Gabbert (2003) 71% of the co-witness group reported info not seen & 60% of the ppts who had not seen her steal wrongly accused her of theft

Memory contamination or memory conformity

AO3

+ Real world application to criminal justice system

- Studies: low ecologically validity

- Higher recall in field experiment, Yuille & Cutshall (1986)

- Individual differences - age bias

Multi Store Model

of Memory

AO1

First ever model of memory

Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)

Linear, sequential model

Suggests there are 3 separate & distinct memory stores

SS - modality specific, less 1/2 second and large capacity

STM - acoustic, 18-30 secs, 7+/-2

LTM - Semantic, infinite, unlimited

SS->STM attention 

STM->LTM maintenance rehearsal

AO3

+ HM - more than one store

+ Very influential model

- Over emphasis of rehearsal (elaborative needed)

- KF more than one STM​​

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Forgetting:

Interference

AO1

When two memories disrupt

Proactive - old memory affects new memory

Retroactive - new memory affects old memory

Effects of similarity: more similar = more interference

McGeoch & McDonald (1931) - synonyms 12% and numbers 37%

Effects of time: shorter time = more interference

AO3

+ Baddeley & Hitch - Rugby study - Interference not time

- Studies lack ecological validity

+ Individual differences - greater WM, less susceptible

- Memories need to be very similar

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Eye witness testimony:

Anxiety

AO1

Anxiety: negative effect

Johnson & Scott (1976) Waiting room, pen knife study: 49% low anxiety, 33% high anxiety (weapon focus effect)

Anxiety: positive effect

Yuille & Cutshall (1986) Gun shop shooting in Canada

High anxiety 88%, low anxiety 75%

Yerkes-Dodson (1908) curve: inverted U theory can explain contradictory findings

AO3

+ Pickel (1998) Measuring surprise rather than anxiety?

- Y&C: confounding variables

- Individual differences: stables v neurotics

- U theory is too reductionist in only anxiety = arousal​

Types of

LTM (Y13 only)

AO1

Tulving (1972) 3 types of LTM:

Episodic - personal events, time stamped, declarative (conscious recall)

Semantic - knowledge, not time stamped, declarative (conscious recall)

Procedural - motor skills, not time stamped, non-declarative (conscious recall)

AO3

+ HM - more than one LTM

+ Brain scans  - episodic (right frontal) semantic (left frontal)

+ Real life application for helping with dementia

- Cohen & Squire: Only two stores declarative v non-declarative - not parsimonious​​​

Forgetting:

Retrieval Failure

AO1

Forgetting due to absence of cues

Encoding specificity principle

Context dependent forgetting

Godden & Baddeley (1975) -

Diver Study

State dependent forgetting

Carter & Cassaday (1998) - 

Antihistamine study

AO3

+ Real world application

- Studies: ecologically validity

- Cannot test ESP as do not know if cue was encoded or not

- Results not replicated for a recognition task​​

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Eye witness testimony:

Cognitive interview

AO1

Fisher & Geiselman (1984)

Report everything (cues)

Reinstate context (context dependent forgetting)

Reverse the order (schemas)

Change perspective (schemas)

Enhanced CI - social elements

AO3

+ Kohnken (1999) meta analysis - 41% more accurate

- Report everything and reinstate context most important

- Time consuming and training

- Individual differences: Wright and Holliday (2007) more effective when respondents are older