COGNITIVE

COGNITIVE

1. Created by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974. Explains how STM works and different components

   • EVALUATING
     • Explains memory in greater depth than the MSM - more reliable and valid
     • Explains how we can do more than one task simultaneously
     • Supported by Baddeley et al (1973) who found evidence for the existence of the visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer
     • The role of the CE is poorly researched and difficult to provide evidence for
     • Model fails to account musical memory as we are able to listen to music without impairing performance on other acoustic tasks
   • EVIDENCE
     • Baddeley et al
     • KF
   • CE - 'the boss'
     • Very limited capacity, modality free, controls the other slave systems, acts like attention
   • Episodic buffer
     • Added in year 2000. Used as a general store for visual and acoustic info, limited capacity, incorporates info from all other parts
   • Visuo-spatial scratchpad
     • Visual and spatial info is temporarily stored here. Recognises patterns and shapes, can rotate images in head
   • holds spoken/acoustic info - very limited capacity

2. MULTI-STORE MODEL

   • Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968
   • CAPACITY - amount of info that can be stored
     • STM - MILLER (1956)
       • Shows how limited capacity is by the digit span technique. Span can be increased by chunking. 7+/-2
     • LTM - Unlimited
     • SENSORY - Unlimited
   • ENCODING - the way info is represented
     • STM - CONRAD (1964)
       • Shows consonants in two conditions. Similar sounding consonant sequence suffered as ST uses acoustic
     • LTM - BADDELEY (1966)
       • Lists of words in four categories - different lists of words prevented rehearsal. Lists with similar meaning suffered as LT codes semantically
     • visual (picture)
     • semantically (meaning)
     • acoustic (sound)
     • SENSORY - too limited
   • DURATION - the length of time memories held
     • STM - PETERSON (1959)
       • To recall consonant trigram after intervals ranging between. Very brief duration when rehearsal prevented. Memories held 18-30 secs
     • LTM - BAHRICK
       • In 1975 tested 400 school graduates on name recalling, different recall tests. Performed well up to 34 years
     • SENSORY - Sperling (1960)
       • Memories can be held up to 3 secs
   • EVALUATING
     • This model is supported by Miller (1956), Conrad (1964), Bahrick (1975), Baddeley (1966), Peterson and Peterson (1969). As well as the case studies of HM, Clive Wearing. ALL SHOW THE DIFFERENT STORES.
       • Increases reliability and validity as it appears to measure what it set out to
     • Too simple to explain how our memory fully works. External validity is questionable
     • Do not always need rehearsal for info to be transferred from sensory memories into STM then LTM
     • Brain scanning techniques have shown different areas of the brain are activated in STM and LTM tasks - indicating separate stores (increasing reliability
   • very limited/unlimited capacity limited capacity unlimited capacity
   • very limited duration 3 secs & duration 18-30 secs & duration
   • multimodal encoding acoustically encoding semantically encoding

3. EYE-WITNESS TESITMONY

   • AGE
     • Poole and Lindsay 2001
       • Asked children aged 3-8 to watch a scientific demonstration and then listen to a story containing more info. Later when questioned the children had added some of the story to their recollection - younger age group less able to distinguish were they got the source of info than the older
     • Flin et al 1992
       • Asked children and adults questions about an incident that they had witnessed one day and five months after event. Recall was similar for adults and children but after 5 months children performed poorly
     • Gordon et al 2001
       • Reviewed a number of studies of child EWT accounts. Found that children accurately recall details but are more susceptible to misleading info than adults. Therefore children should be questioned carefully as could easily become unreliable witnesses
     • Yarmey 1984
       • Showed young/older adults a film of a staged event then asked Qs. 80% of elderly and 20% of younger failed to mention the key detail of the attacker holding a knife
     • EVALUATING
       • Significant real life application as children and adults are often called as eye-witnesses
       • Much research has been conducted in artificial situations which have high internal validity and should be reliable due to controlled variables
       • Low ecological validity occurs from artificial situations (lab) Usefulness is questionable as it is artificial - can it be applied to real life?
         • Could be high in mundane realism if representative of normal life
       • Ethical issues need to considered - showing people violence may cause psychological harm short/long term
         • Children cannot give informed consent
   • ANXIETY
     • Loftus 1979
       • Asked PPs to sit outside a lab where they thought they were listening to a genuine argument between 2 people inside. 2 conditions - violent/nonviolent (man with a knife/pen). Both sets of PPs shown 50 photos of man. More violent scene witnesses were less accurate in identifying the man suggesting the weapon caused anxiety leading to poorer recall.
     • Christianson and Hubinette 1993
       • Surveyed 110 people who between them had witnessed 22 different bank robberies. The victims who had been subjected to the greatest levels of anxiety were more detail and accurate in their recall than bystanders
       • High in ecological validity as real event occurred (not artificial
     • heightened threat of danger
     • EVALUATING
       • Significant real-life application as adults are often witnesses. Tells us anxiety greatly effects EWT
       • Research should have high internal validity and should be reliable due to controlling of variables.
       • Low ecological validity from artificial situations (lab)
         • However mundane realism is higher
       • Ethical issues need to be considered - showing violence = psychological harm
   • The evidence provided by a person in court who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator of the crime. The accuracy of eyewitness recall may be affected during initial encoding, subsequent storage and retrieval
   • MISLEADING INFORMATION
     • Loftus and Palmer 1974
       • ONE -Showed 45 student PPs a film of a car accident then asked them how fast the cars were going when they smashed/bumped/collided/hit or contacted each other.
         • PPs who were asked the smashed question produced the highest est speed at 40mph while those hearing contacted gave the lowest est at 30mph.
       • Shows how unreliable the EWT is. The verb had significant effect on the speed estimate of the car. PPs may have been responding to demand characterisitics
       • TWO- 150 PPs assigned to either smashed, hit or control condition. All shown a film of a crash and a week later asked whether they had seen any broken glass
         • There was none present yet 36% of the PPs reported seeing it compared to 14% of the control group. Shows the language has a long-last significant effect
       • EVALUATING
         • Speed is difficult to estimate, especially for students -therefore not valid?
         • PPs knew they were in an experiment (artificial) - low ecological validity as responding to socially desirable answers likely
         • Only students were used as PPs therefore difficult to generalise the results to (population validity low)
         • Lab experiment which was highly controlled (high internal validity) meaning a relationship can be established between IV and DV. Increases reliability has scientific conclusions are drawn

4. COGNITIVE INTERVIEW TECHNIQUES (CIT)

   • CONTEXT REINSTATEMENT (CR)
     • What were you thinking, doing? Weather? Who were you with? 5 Ws
   • REPORT EVERYTHING (RE)
     • say everything even if it seem trivial
   • RECALL IN REVERSE ORDER (RO)
     • Back to front or start with a particular aspect of the scene and work backwards
   • RECALL FROM CHANGED PERSPECTIVE (CP)
     • Describe from another POV, in someone elses shoes
   • Geiselman created the cognitive interview 2003 to improve EWT
   • Geiselman et al (1985) showed PPs videos of a simulated crime and tested recall through standard interview cognitive interview, hypnosis. Cognitive interview prompted the most info
   • Fisher et al (1990) trained real detectives to use the enhanced cognitive interview with real crime witnesses and found that this technique increased the amount of recall hugely in caparison to the standard interview
   • Milne and Bull (2002) tested each of the cognitive interview techniques singly or in combination. All four more effective singularly than regular interview. CR with RE most effective
   • Koehnken et al (1999) the CIT produced more incorrect info than the standard interview

5. MEMORY IMPROVEMENT

   • Methods of Loci
     • associating items with a route
   • Chunking
     • Reducing the amount to learn into small chunks to help store in LTM
   • Active Processing
     • rehearsing information to make it easier to recall
   • Verbal Mnemonics
     • Using a rhyme or song when needing to recall the order of things

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