A summary of memory in a level psychology, including the multi-store model, working memory model, factors affecting eye witness testimony, the cognitive interview, and memory improvement strategies

1. MEMORY

2. THE MULTI STORE MODEL
 Considerable evidence of different stores
 Clive Wearing- STM but no new LTM, but can recall some LTM
 Glanzer & Cunitz- primacy and recency effect
 Bekerian and Baddeley- people didn’t notice a change in radio wavelength (e.g. 95.8
changed to 96.7) despite rehearsal of seeing/hearing it regularly
 Over-simplified- assumes a single STM and LTM, but it is proven that there are
different stores within both STM and LTM

3. SHORT TERM MEMORY
• Capacity
– Baddeley- 5 words; set of one-syllable words and set of multi-syllable words
– Whatever can be articulated in 2 seconds, more short words recalled than long
words
– Miller 1956- people have a digit span of 7+/- 2
• Duration
– Peterson & Peterson 1959- shown trigrams then asked to count backwards to
prevent rehearsal
– 80% of trigrams were recalled after 3 seconds, but less than 10% after 18
seconds
• Encoding
– Baddeley 1966- participants in four groups; acoustically similar, acoustically
dissimilar, semantically similar, semantically dissimilar
– 55% of acoustically similar words recalled, 75% of acoustically dissimilar words
recalled
– Semantics did not affect the results that much

4. LONG TERM MEMORY
• Capacity- potentially unlimited
• Duration
– Bahrick 1975- 392 graduates shown yearbook photos after 47 years
– One group recalled names from memory (recall) and other matched
names to faces (recognition)
– Recall group had less than 20% accuracy
– Recognition group had 60% accuracy
• Encoding
– Baddeley 1966- participants in four groups; acoustically similar,
acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar, semantically dissimilar
– After 20 minutes they were given another task before recalling words
– 55% accuracy for semantically similar words, and 85% accuracy for
semantically dissimilar words
– Acoustics did not affect the results that much

5. THE WORKING MEMORY MODEL
 Farah- patient was good at spatial
tasks but not ones involving visual
imagery
 Word length effect- short words
recalled better than long words,
supporting articulatory loop having
limited time-based capacity
 If we do two tasks simultaneously
that need the same systems, we
struggle
 Not enough research into central
executive, which is the most
important component
 Not clear how working memory
and LTM work together

6. ANXIETY & EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY
• Effect- narrows focus of attention so recall is better, but too much
anxiety can have negative effects on EWT
• Research
– Christianson & Hubinette- 110 bank robbery witnesses
– Victims of the crime had more accurate recall and bystanders had less
accurate recall
– Loftus 1979- participants heard a discussion in a nearby room
– Condition 1- man enters with a pen and grease on hands
– Condition 2- man enters with knife covered in blood
– 49% of condition 1 were accurate in identifying the face from 50 photos,
but only 33% from condition 2 were accurate, disproving Christianson &
Hubinette but supporting the fact that too much anxiety causes
inaccurate recall

7. SCHEMAS & EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY
• Effect
– Low schema expectancy = ignored
– False information remembered (high schema expectancy)
• Research
– Brewer & Treyens 1981- 30 people wait in office for 35
seconds
– Unexpected recall test- 61 items (some typical office items,
some random/incompatible items)
– People remembered typical items with high schema
expectancy, and recalled false items due to a high
expectancy

8. AGE & EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY
• Effect- children are inferior to adults because they
lack schemas, have inferior capability, and memory
capacity increases with age
• Research
– Ceci & Bruck 1993
– Leading questions confuse children
– Preschool children provide relevant eye witness
testimony

9. MISLEADING INFORMATION & EYE
WITNESS TESTIMONY
• Effect
– Words used/leading questions- influence answers
– Information given after the event in leading questions may
replace the actual information
• Research
– Loftus 1975- group shown car accident film and asked
questions using different words for each individual group e.g.
‘smashed’, ‘bumped’
– People stated that the speed of the car before the crash was
much faster in the ‘smashed’ group than in the ‘bumped’
group

10. THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW
• Context reinstatement- does not involve revisiting the
scene of the crime, but to recall wider scenes; the
weather, your thoughts/feelings, preceding events
• Report everything- recall every detail, even if the
relevance is questionable
• Recall from changed perspective- attempt to describe
the incident from the perspective of someone else at
the scene
• Recall in reverse order- report incident in reverse order

11. MEMORY IMPROVEMENT
• The role of attention
– Ericsson & Chase- person who could memorise up to 80 things (2 year
practice- 1 hour a day) proves that rehearsal and attention improve
memory (multi-store)
• Elaborative rehearsal
– Craik & Watkins
– Maintenance rehearsal; repeat information, only stays in STM for a few
seconds
– Elaborate; needed to transfer to LTM, link to previous knowledge, easier
to recall because there are several paths to reach it
• Encoding
– Tulving & Osler- two weakly linked words; recall vs. recognition
– Recognition- greater overlap with the information originally encoded

12. MEMORY IMPROVEMENT
• Organisation
– Bower- list of words, either randomly or in a hierarchy
– Organised group- 65% correctly remembered
– Control group- 19% correctly remembered
– Bower & Clark- either random or presented in a story
– Organised group- over 90% correctly remembered
– Control group- 10% correctly remembered
• Mnemonics
– Effective retrieval cues
– Method of loci- associate with places
– Peg-word- one=bun, two=shoe, etc. associate words with these
– Bellezza- peg-words are more flexible and effective than method of loci