cognitive psychology

models of memory
1. multi store model
  1. Atkinson and Shiffrin
    1. 1968
  2. sensory memory
    1. holds information in relatively unprocessed way
    2. fractions of a second after the physical stimulus is no longer there
    3. used for watching a film to make sense of one still image to the next
  3. short term memory
    1. elements
      1. encoding
        the way that sensory input is represented in STM
        factors affecting encoding of STM
        sound of words
        acoustic is preferred in STM
        Brandimonte, 1992
        aim
        influence of visual process on encoding
        procedure
        6 drawings of familiar objects and asked to removed certain parts
        create mental image and subtract part of it. then rename
        findings
        could name 2.7 times out of 6
        better than those repeating meaningless chant
        evaluation
        lacks eco validity
        cant be generalised for all images
        same 6 images
      2. duration
        the length of time that information can be held in STM
        factors affecting duration of STM
        maintenance rehearsal
        deliberate intention to recall
        amount of information to be retained
        Peterson and Peterson (1959)
        aim
        to test how long STM lasts when rehearsal is prevented
        procedure
        shown a trigram
        count backwards in 3s from specific number
        after 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 secs intervals had to recall
        findings
        recall 80% of trigrams after 3 secs
        fewer trigrams as longer time
        18 secs less than 10%
        conclusion
        less items recalled after longer time
        evaluation
        trigrams are artificial
        don't fully reflect
        interferece from previous trigrams after recall not just decay
      3. capacity
        the amount of information that can be stored in STM at any one time
        factors affecting capacity of STM
        influence of LTM
        information stored in the LTM is helping to increase STM capacity temporarily
        reading aloud
        if participant reads the digits aloud before recall, performance is better than when they simply read them withoout speaking to themselves
        rhythmic grouping
        performance improves if the numbers are grouped together rhythmically
        explains why we divide up telephone numbers
        pronunciation time
        some words are longer than others
        arabic compared to english
        Baddeley et al. (1975)
        aim
        to see if people could remember more short words than long words in a serial recall test
        demonstrate that it is pronunciation time that determines capacity rather than number of items
        procedure
        the reading speed was measured
        Ps. were presented with sets of 5 words on a screen
        the words were taken from either one-syllable or poly-syllable sets
        Ps. were asked to write down the 5 words in order immediately after presentaion. they recalled several lists of both sets.
        findings
        recalled more short than long words
        recall as many words as could say in 2 secs
        strong positive correlation between reading speed and memory span
        conclusion
        immediate memory span represents the number of items of whatever length that can be articulated in approximately 2 seconds
        evaluation
        might be that short words are easier to recall than long words because they are more familar
        used unconnected words so didn't reflect everyday use of the STM
        lab experiment --> high control
        length of time each condition was seen for was able to be kept the same
  5. one-way (linear) flow of information
  6. unitary, separate stores
  7. long term memory
    1. elements
      1. encoding
        Baddeley (1966)
        aim
        explore the effects of acoustic or semantic encoding
        procedure
        divided into 4 groups each group shown 10 words from one of the following lists:
        acoustically similiar
        acoustically dissimiliar
        semantically similiar
        semantically dissimiliar
        after 20 mins doing another task Ps. asked to recall in order.
        carried out 4 times
        findings
        recall for semantically similar than sissimilar
        acoustic same for both
        conclusion
        LTM uses semantic encoding generally
        evaluation
      2. duration
        factors affecting duration of LTM
        childhood amnesia
        young children bad at organising and intergrating memories
        how duration is measured
        recognition better than free recall
        thorough learning
        Bahrick et al. (1975)
        aim
        establish the existence of very long term memory and see whether there was any difference between recognition and recall
        procedure
        investigators tracked down graduates of a high school over a 50 year period
        392 graduates shown pics from high school
        recognition group: match name with pic
        recall group: name people in pics
        findings
        recognition
        90% -- 14 years 80% -- 25 years 75% -- 34 years 60% -- 47 years
        recall
        60% -- 7 years >20% -- 47 years
        conclusion
        certain types of info for almost a lifetime
        VLTM better in recognition than recall
        evaluation
        meaningful stimulus --> memories of own life
        drop at 47 due to general decline or limit of duration??
  8. strengths
    1. matches with the processes people experience in real life
    2. explains memory stores in terms of capacity, duration and encoding
    3. MRI scans of different tasks back up ideas
    4. brain damage supports separate memory stores
  9. weaknesses
    1. too simple
    2. brain damage shows that STM can be bypassed
2. working memory model
  1. central executive
    1. problem solving and decision making
    2. controls attention
    3. flexible
    4. limited storage capacity
  2. phonological loop
    1. acoustically encoded items
  3. visuo-spatial sketch pad
    1. mental images
  4. episodic buffer
    1. temporary storage system that allows information from the slave systems to be combined with information from the LTM
  5. strengths
    1. explains how we store and process information unlike the multi store model
    2. Baddeley has evidence for the phonological loop (1975)
    3. Baddeley has evidence for sketch pad (1973)
  6. weaknesses
    1. know very little about central executive ( most important part)
    2. richardson (1984) argues that it is difficult to identify the function f the central executive
EWT
1. factors affecting EWT
  1. anxiety
    1. Loftus (1979)
      1. aim
        to find out if anxiety during a witnessed incident affects the accuracy of later identification
      2. procedure
        2 situations
        1)) low key discussion. person comes out with a pen and grease on him
        2)) heated discussion, breaking glass, chairs, paper knife covered in blood
        Ps. had to identify the man from photos
      3. findings
        1)) 49% accuracy
        2)) 33% accuracy
      4. evaluation
        lab study
        may lack ecological validity
        later research supports finding
        ethics
        deception
        upset by seeing bloodstained paperknife
      5. conclusion
        concentrates on weapon which distracts from appearance of man. the anxiety of the weapon narrows attention and gives rise to very accurate recall of the central details, but less about other things
    2. yerkes - dodson
      1. low anxiety --> low accuracy middle anx --> high accuracy high anxiety --> low accuracy
  2. age
    1. koriat (2001)
      1. examined the amount of information as well as the accuracy given by children
      2. most researchers agree that children are worse than adults at providing an accurate account of past events and that the amount of information a child can recall develops with age. This is due to lack of retrieval capabilities as well as inferior capacity and duration.
      3. researchers disagree on the accuracy of a child's memory. Studies such as Geisselman and Padilla found that after being shown a film of a bank robbery, children aged 7-12 were less accurate at reporting details of the incident. However, Cassa et al and other studies have failed to find such differences.
  3. misleading questions
    1. Loftus and Pickerell (1995)
      1. aim
        to demonstratehow false memories can be created through suggestions made to the Ps.
      2. Procedure
        4 short narratives of their childhood, allegedly provided by family members
        one of the Ps. was given false narrative which was about when they got lost at a supermarket. The details were from actual family shopping trips
      3. findings
        25% able to recall event even though it never happened
        repeated on people of all ages
      4. conclusion
        imaging events can lead to false memories
2. cognitive interview
  1. recreate context
  2. recall everything
  3. change perspective
  4. change order
  5. Fisher et al. (1989)
    1. detectives in Florida were trained to use the CI and were asked to use it in real life interviews. compared to the standard interview, there was an information gain of 47%
  6. Geisselman and colleagues (1988)
    1. 89 students were shown police training videos of crime. Later they were interviewed by American police, some of whom used the CI.
    2. level of information gained was measured by:
      1. the number of correctly recalled details
      2. number of incorect details or errors of things that weren't in the video
    3. the students interviewed using CI recalled 41.5% of the details compared to 29.4%
strategies for improving memory
1. loci
  1. involves identifying a set of familiar places and matching each location to the item you want tot remember. Once you have done this, you imagine walking through each loaction. The locations act as retrieval cues because you know them all well.
2. mnemonics
  1. peg word method
    1. based on same principle as loci except that the retrieval cues are a set of learned 'pegs'. after you have learned these, you convert each item you wish to remember into an image.
      1. example: learning a set of objects that rhyme with numbers 1-20: 1 - gun, 2 - shoe...
      2. example:shopping list: shooting a loaf of bread, walking on eggs...
3. organisational charts
  1. create hierarchies to organise material into meaningful patterns
  2. Bower et al. (1969)
    1. Ps. had to learn a list of words. The experimental group saw words organised into a hierarchies and control group saw random words. In total Ps. saw 112 words and the experimental group could recall 65% on average compared to 19%.
4. rehearsal
  1. Craik and Watkins (1973) identified 2 different forms of rehearsal
    1. maintenance rehearsal
      1. this is a technique mainly used by children, which involves repeating things over and over.
    2. elaborative rehearsal
      1. form of rehearsal requires you to make the information you repeat meaningful in some way. Elaborated memories are easier to recall, because their meanings will help you to recall them.
5. spacing
  1. in a review of 63 studies, Donovan and Radosevich found that people who distributed their studies had a better learning and recall rate than those who crammed their studies into a short period of time.
6. pay attention

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	Created by Georgia Sargent almost 10 years ago