MEMORY STUDIES

MEMORY STUDIES

1. Cognitive Interview

   • Kohnken
     • Meta-analysis and found 34% more correct information was given in CI than in standard interview
   • Milne and Bull
     • examined 4 components using children and undergraduates
     • When using individual components there was no difference between CI and the control group
     • However combing component one and two significantly improved recall

2. Models of memory

   • Multi-Store Model
     • Sperling
       • Ppts looked at a 12 digit grid for 50 milliseconds.
       • A tone would sound telling ppts to list all the grid
       • No tone would mean only one row should be written
       • Recall of the entire grid was worse than recall of one row
       • This shows that information decays rapidly in the sensory store
     • Glanzer and Cunitz
       • Shown 20 words, one at a time, and asked to recall as many as they could.
       • Found that words at the beginning and the end of the list were remembered best.
       • This suggests that there are separate stores in the MSM
     • Beardsley
       • Used fMRI scans to look at brain activity
       • Hippocampus was activated in LTM and the prefrontal lobe in STM
     • Patient HM
       • Patient had his hippocampus removed due to severe epilepsy
       • He was unable to form new long term memories and was found to suffer from anterograde amnesia
       • This suggests that STM and LTM are separate stores
     • Simon
       • Simon found that chunking helps to increase the capacity of STM
       • This relies on the activation of LTM to understand the chunks
       • This questions who unitary the STM and LTM are
   • Working Memory Model
     • Hitch and Baddeley
       • Task 1 occupied the central executive alone while task 2 occupied either the articulatory alone or the articulatory loop and the central executive
       • Performance was worse when the same store was being used at the same time
       • Supports the theory of separate stores within STM
     • Bunge et al
       • Used fMRI to see where brain was engaged when doing 2 tasks
       • The same are was active in dual and single tasks however activity increased in the dual tasks in comparison to the single tasks
       • Provides support for the central exec as a decision making store
     • Patient KF
       • Had a functioning LTM however had issues with certain aspects of his STM
       • He had problems with auditory information but was fine with visual information
       • Supports the idea of separate STM stores
     • Eslinger and Damasio
       • Showed a brain damaged patient who had no decision making skills post op but performed well on reasoning tests
       • Suggests the central exec could be split into different compartments

3. Eye witness testimony

   • Accuracy
     • Yuille and Cutshall
       • Armed robbery in Canada witnesses were asked to report to the police they were asked many question including 2 leading ones
       • They found that even 4 months later despite the leading question their recall was correct
     • Loftus and Palmer
       • Watched a car crash on video and were later interviewed. They were asked to rate the speed of the car when it smashed, hit and controlled into the second car
       • Found that after a week when the ppts were asked if they saw any broken glass more said yes if they were in the smashed group
   • Anxiety
     • Deffenbacher
       • meta-analysis on the effects of anxiety on EWT
       • Significant evidence to support that stress negatively impacts on eye witness memory
     • Christianson and Hubinette
       • Questioned 58 real life robbery witnesses those who experienced high anxiety were more accurate in recall than those who experienced low anxiety
       • This suggests anxiety improves EWT
   • Weapon Focus
     • Loftus
       • used 2 conditions one with a weapon and one without. PPts would here a discussion next door one men would emerge with a pen in the other condition a man would emerge with a paper knife
       • It was found that recall was poorer in the weapon condition
   • Age
     • Yarmey
       • Stopped 651 adults and asked them to recall the physical characteristics of a young woman that they had just spoken to around the corner
       • Although older ppts were less confident in recall their cognitive ability was no different

4. Memory Improvement

   • Bower et al
     • showed 112 words to learn if they were organised recall was two or three times better than if the words were in a random order
   • Bower
     • Showed ppts 100 cards with two unrelated words on it one group were asked to mentally create an image relating the words while the other group were asked to just remember the words.
     • Found the image group to have 35% better recall