Memory in Everyday life

Memory in Everyday life

1. Eyewitness Testimony

   • The evidence given by a witness to a crime ot accident, usually in the form of a verbal account of what happened
   • Anxiety
     • Unpleasant state of heightened arousal and unease. high level can impair our ability to both encode and recall memories
     • Weapons effect (loftus)
       • p's exposed to 2 situations; -Overheard convo on equipment failure, person emerges with pen+greasy hands -Overheard hostile, heated exchange between people, then sound of glass and chairs breaking, person emerges with bloody knife -then given 50 photos and asked to identify person who emerged
         • 49% 1st group identified the person as the other group were more focused on the weapon rather than the face
           • When anxiety is high EWT is reduced
     • Real life bank robberies
       • Surveyed 110 people who witnessed 22 genuine bank robberies between them. some onlookers, others directly threatened
         • Lower the anxiety, better accuracy of EWT
     • Real life murder
       • 21 witnessed observed shooting incident, 1 person killed 2 injured. all witnesses interviews, 13 agreed to research interview 5 months after.
         • Witnesses highly accurate. Anxiety increased accuracy of EWT
   • Age
     • Gordon - Young children can provide detailed & accurate witness statements, but susceptible to suggestion and accounts to be viewed with caution
     • Poole and Lindsay
       • children 3-8 in science demonstration, parents read them story containing elements from science demonstration. children questioned about science dem and incorporated info from story
         • in other phase, children asked to think carefully. older children revised account of science dem and extracted post event info. younger could not do this. children poor at source monitoring
     • Dodson and Kruger
       • showed video to young and old adults who later did questionnaire that reffered to video. older more likely to be affected by misleading info and more confident about judgements
     • Cohen and faulkner
       • Shown film of kidnapping to middle aged and elderly. read account fo what they have seen, half containing misleading info. elderly more susceptible to effects of misleading info
     • Increase accuracy techniques
       • Young
         • -Avoid post event info -Interview ASAP
       • Old
         • -Use Cognitive Interview -Avoid Misleading questions -Avoid post event info
   • Misleading info
     • Loftus and Palmer
       • Showed p's film of road accident, asked two question; How fast they BUMPED into each other or How fast they were going when they SMASHED/HIT each other. week later asked if they had seen any broken glass. (no broken glass - misleading info)
         • P's who saw broken glass -Smashed - 32% -Hit - 12% -Bumped - 14%
           • When misleading info used EWT decreases
   • Cognitive Interview
     • Questioning technique used by police, aims to develop memory retrieval to improve amount and accuracy of info EW provide
     • COPE
       • perspective change - Describe event from other peoples persepctive
       • Order change - beginning to end, vise versa
       • Content - recall scene, weather, mood, preceding events, etc
       • Everything - every detail, no matter how trival
     • Supporting evidence
       • Holliday - Improved recall in children over 8
       • Fisher - Trained Miami detectives to use in real crime cases, recall 47% more accurate
     • Limitations
       • Geiselman and Fisher - CI becomes less effective after long delay
       • Groger - CI doesn't improve ability to recognise someone in a line-up

2. Strats for memory improvment

   • Cue
     • Prompt/trigger that helps recall something.
       • Context - Baker
         • 83 students randomly assigned to 4 learning groups. 1&2 - same context (gum+gum/No gum+No Gum) 3&4 - different context - no gum+gum
           • Gum given prior to learning&recall. each p had 2 mins to learn list of 15. the recall them twice, immediately and 24 hours later
             • group 1 (gum+gum) had best recall. when cue is used, better recall
       • State - Goodwin
         • when people encode unfo when drunk, they are likely to recall it in the same state
   • Organisation
     • Bower
       • Asked p's to learn list of words. one group saw list organised in hierarches, control group saw words presented randomly. 4 trails, p's saw 112 words
         • organised - 65%, disorganised - 19%
   • Mnemonics
     • Verbal (NESW - never eat shreaded wheat)
     • Visual
       • Loci
         • Identify familiar place (house), place items around place and imagine yourself walking through remembering each item. acts as retrieval cues
           • Crovitz - memorise list 32 word Normal-25% Loci-78%