Memory

Memory

1. Types of memory

   • Episodic Memory
     • An event or a group of events occurring as part of a larger sequence
     • Key elements - specific details of the event, the context and the emotion
     • Memory that is personal to the person
     • Think of it as a "episode" of your life
   • Semantic Memory
     • About knowing THAT
     • Knowledge shared by everyone
     • Things such as, the capital of England, 2+2=4
   • Procedural Memory
     • Concerned with skills
     • Thing such as tying shoelaces or Riding a bike
     • Acquired with repetition and practice

2. Interference

   • Retroactive interference
     • Current attempts to learn something interferes with current attempts to learn something
   • Proactive Interference
     • Past learning interferes with current attempts to learn something

3. Misleading information

   • Loftus and Palmer
     • 45 students shown seven films of different traffic accidents
     • Critical question: "how fast were the cars going when they hit each other"
     • Given for words: smashed, collided, bumped or contracted
     • Findings show demonstrates that leadings questions affect the response
     • Experiment 2: Procedure
       • Critical question: "did you see any broken glass?"
       • Participants were asked about speed directly after the video
       • one week later they were asked to come back and discuss the critical question
       • Those who thought the cars who were travelling faster thought there was broken glass
   • Evaluations
     • Supporting evidence
       • College students asked to evaluate advertising material about Disneyland
       • Misleading information about either Bugs Bunny or Ariel
         • Bugs Bunny wasn't Disney and Ariel hadn't been introduced at the time of their childhood
       • ALL participants had visited Disneyland
       • Participants in the Bugs or Ariel group were more likely to report having shaken hands with this character compared to the control group
       • Shows how misleading information can create a false memory
     • EWT in real life
       • EWT was generally inaccurate
         • unreliable
       • Lab experiments carried out by Loftus may not represent real life
         • Factors such as demand characteristics
         • wouldn't be emotionally aroused in the way that they would if they were in a real car accident
     • Individual Differences
       • Ages differences could be a consequence of source monitoring
       • Eyewitness typically acquires information from two sources
         • From observing the event and from subsequent suggestions
       • Elderly people have difficulty remember the source of their information
         • Even if their memory itself isn't impaired
       • More prone to effect of misleading information when giving a testimony
       • Schacter et al (1991)

4. Working memory model

   • Central executive
     • Direct attention to particular tasks
     • Determines at any time how the brain's "resources" are allocated to tasks
       • "Resource"s are the three slave systems
     • Data arrives from the senses or from the LTM
     • CE has a very limited capacity
       • Can't attend to too many things at once
   • Phonological Loop
     • Limited capacity
     • Deals with auditory information
     • Preserves the order of information
     • Divided into two
       • Phonological store
         • Holds the words you hear, like an inner ear
       • Articulatory process
         • Used for words that are heard or seen
           • Silently repeated - form of maintenance rehearsal
   • Visuo-Spatial sketchpad
     • When you have to plan a spatial task
       • Counting all the windows in the house
     • Visual / spatial information temporarily stored here
   • Episodic buffer
     • General store to hold both visual and acoustic information
     • Extra storage system, that has in common with all units
     • Has limited capacity

5. Multi-Store Model

   • Sensory Register
     • Place where information is held at the senses
     • Large capacity - short duration
     • Constantly receiving information, but receives no attention
   • Attention
     • Attention is focused on one of the sensory stores
     • data is transferred to the STM
     • first step in remembering something
   • Short Term Memory
     • Information is held in the STM so it can be used for immediate tasks
     • STM has limited duration
     • will disappear if it isn't rehearsed
     • Maintenance rehearsal
       • Repetition keeps information in STM
       • repetition will create a LTM
       • direct relationship between rehearsal and strength of the STM
   • Long Term Memory
     • Unlimited in duration and capacity
     • Memories become permenant
   • Retrieval
     • Process of getting information from the LTM
     • Involves information passing back through STM

6. Accuracy of eyewitness testimony - Anxiety

   • Weapons focus effect
     • Loftus and Palmer
     • Two conditions
       • One walks out holding a pen and oil over hands
       • Another walks out holding a knife and bloodied hands
     • Participants waiting in a waiting room
     • argument occurs in adjacent room
     • Asked to recall what the man looked like
       • Knife condition 33%
       • Pen condition 49%

7. The cognitive interview

   • Mental reinstatement of original context
     • Use of leading questions
     • Make memories accessible
     • Provides appropriate contextual and emotional cues to retrieve memories
   • Report everything
     • Encourages the reporting of every single detail of the event without editing anything out

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