Memory in Everyday Life

Memory in Everyday Life

1. Eyewitness Testimony

   • Accuracy
     • Loftus & Palmer - leading question (hit vs contacted), inaccurate recall
     • Yuille & Cutshall - real-life robbery, accurate recall despite misleading question
     • Individual Differences
       • Males & females same
       • Older people have more difficulty remembering source of information but recall same as for younger people
     • RWA
       • Mistaken EWT largest single factor in wrongful convictions
   • Misleading Information
     • Loftus & Palmer - broken glass, misleading questions affect storage
     • Loftus - STOP or YIELD sign
     • Validity
       • Lab experiments may not be taken seriously
       • Pps not emotionally involved
       • Better identification with real-life set up
   • Factors that Influence Accuracy
     • Anxiety
       • Deffenbacher meta-analysis showed anxiety reduced accuracy of EWT
       • C & H - anxiety increased accuracy in real-life bank robberies
       • Contradiction explained by Yerkes-Dodson law
       • Loftus - weapon focus effect
       • RWA
         • EWT from Titanic was accurate
     • Age of witness
       • Describe young woman, younger pps more confident but no age difference
       • Older pps less accurate when delay was 1 week
       • Own-age bias
       • Individual Differences
         • Alcohol impairs attention
   • Cognitive Interview
     • 1. Report everything 2. Recreate original context 3. Change order 4. Change perspective
     • Meta-analysis, 34% increase in correct recall
     • M & B - report everything & mental reinstatement gave best recall
     • Hard to evaluate because there are many versions of CI
     • Time consuming
     • Training may not increase usefulness (Memon)
     • ID - CI works better than SI
     • RWA
       • CI used in Brazil

2. Memory Improvement Strategies

   • Mnemonic techniques
     • Verbal - acronym, acrostic, rhymes, chunking
       • Visual imagery - method of loci, keyword method, spider diagrams, mind maps
   • Explaining how they work
     • Organisation - creating memory hooks & organising material
       • Elaborative rehearsal - amount & nature of rehearsal
         • Dual coding hypothesis - Paivio
   • RWA
     • Woodrow showed that memory techniques do improve memory
   • Validity
     • High because application relates to word lists (semantic memory)