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Memory notes
Coding – Baddeley (1966)
Coding is the process of converting information between different forms, in order for it to be stored
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When they did this
task immediately (from short-term memory (STM)), they tended to do worse with acoustically similar words
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These findings suggest that information is coded acoustically in STM and semantically in LTM
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Later research showed that
there are some exceptions to Baddeley’s findings but the idea that STM uses mostly acoustic
coding and LTM uses mostly semantic has stood the test of time
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Limitation: It used artificial stimuli rather than meaningful material
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When processing more
meaningful material, people may use semantic coding for STM
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Capacity – Jacobs (1887) and Miller (1956)
Capacity – the amount of information that can be held in a memory store
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For example, the researcher reads out four digits and the
participant recalls these out loud in the correct order
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Jacobs found the mean span for digits
was 9
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The mean span for letters was 7
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Miller’s procedure (span of memory and chunking): Made observations of everyday practice
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But he also noted that people can recall five words as easily as they can
recall five letters, We do this by chunking – groups sets of digits or letters into units or chunks
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The study is very old and lacked adequate controls
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Despite this, Jacobs’ findings have been
confirmed by other, better controlled studies since (e
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Bopp and Verhaegen 2005)
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Limitation: Miller may have overestimated STM capacity
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This suggests that the lower end
of Miller’s estimate (5 items) is more appropriate than 7 items
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(1975)
Duration – the length of time information can be held in memory
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They were given
consonant syllables (e
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YCG) to remember, and had to count backwards in threes for an increasing amount of
time each trial from a 3-digit number in order to prevent rehearsal (articulatory suppression)
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Their findings suggested that STM duration
may be about 18 seconds, unless we repeat the information over and over (i
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verbal rehearsal)
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Recall was tested by photo
recognition test (recognising people from their class) and free recall (naming as many people as they can)
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After 48 years,
recall declined to about 70% for photo recognition
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This shows that LTM may last up to a lifetime for some material
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The study isn’t
stimuli in
completely irrelevant because we do sometimes try to remember fairly meaningless material
STM study
(e
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phone numbers)
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Therefore, this means
the study lacked external validity
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’s study has high external validity, because the researchers investigated
external
meaningful memories (i
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people’s names and faces)
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g
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This suggests that Bahrick et al
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The multi-store model – Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968, 1971)
Assumptions:
-

-

Information travels in
a linear fashion
between the stores
Each store is unitary
and can function
independently

Capacity
Potentially
unlimited

STM

Encoding
Modality specific (iconic,
echoic, gustatory, haptic
and olfactory)
Acoustically

LTM

Semantically

Unlimited

SR

7 +/- 2

Duration
2 seconds or less
(depends on type of
sense)
20 seconds (without
maintenance rehearsal)
Unlimited

Forgetting
If information is not
attended to it will be
forgotten due to trace decay
Displacement, due to
capacity being exceeded
Lost due to retrieval failure
(still there, but insufficient
cues to bring it back)

AO3
Experimental Glanzer & Cunitz on the Serial Position Effect: participants could recall more words from the
research
beginning of the list (primacy effect) and the end of the list (recency effect), This is because
support
the first words are rehearsed and the last words are fresh in STM
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Baddeley’s research into coding: we mix up words that are acoustically similar when we use
our STM, and words that are semantically similar when using our LTM
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M
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He was unable to recall old memories from his
from case
LRM and couldn’t create new LTMs
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studies
The MSM is valid in claiming that all information must pass through the stores in a linear
fashion and that it is possible to sustain damage to one of these stores with the others
remaining relatively unharmed
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F
...
g
...
g
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Clive Wearing remembers little of his life before 1985; he knows that he has children from an
earlier marriage, but cannot remember their names (no episodic memory)
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These cases show that some claims of the MSM may be invalid, as STM and LTM may contain
sub-components which are responsible for processing different types of information – they
are not unitary stores
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However,
Craik & Watkins (1973) found that the type of rehearsal is more important that the amount
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This means info van be transferred
to LTM without prolonged rehearsal
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Episodic

-

Semantic

Procedural

-

AO3
Clinical
evidence

Our ability to recall events (episodes) from our lives, likened to a diary
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They
store info about how events relate to each other in time
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g
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Declarative: you have to make a conscious effort to recall episodic memories
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Memories are not time-stamped, semantic knowledge is less personal and more about facts that we
all share
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Declarative: according to Tulving, it is less vulnerable to distortion and forgetting
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Strength: Evidence of HM and Clive C/A: Studying people with brain injuries can help
Wearing
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But clinical studies lack control of
brain damage , but their semantic
variables and the brain injuries experienced by ppts
memories were relatively
were unexpected so there was no way of controlling
unaffected
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This
knowledge of the individual’s memory before the
supports Tulving’s view that there
damage
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– one store can be damaged but
The lack of control limits what clinical studies can tell
other stores are unaffected
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Conflicting
Limitation: There are conflicting research findings linking types of LTM to areas of the brain
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g
...
However, other research reverses this
(Tulving et al
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This challenges any neurophysiological evidence to support types of
memory as there is poor agreement on where each type might be located
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E
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as people age they experience memory loss
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Sylvie
Belleville et al
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The trained participants performed better on a test of episodic memory after training than a
control group
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The working memory model (Baddeley and Hitch 1974)
Explanation for how STM is organised and how it
functions, concerned with the mental space that is
active when we are temporarily storing and
manipulating information
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Limited
processing capacity, doesn’t store information
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Articulatory process – allows maintenance rehearsal, capacity of loop is 1-2 secs of what you can say
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3-4 chunk capacity
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Inner scribe – records the arrangement of objects in the visual field
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Maintains a sense of timesequencing and sends information to LTM
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AO3
Clinical
evidence

Supporting
research
from dualtasks
Real-world
application

Strength: KF suffered severe brain damage
C/A: Unclear whether KF had other cognitive
from a motorbike accident
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This shows his on memory tasks
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different systems
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’s ppts carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time
(dual tasks), their performance on each was similar to when they carried out the task
separately
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Both visual tasks complete for the same subsystem, whereas there is no
competition when performing a verbal and visual task together
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Baddeley said
“the CE is the most important but the least understood component of the WMM”
...
g
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Eslinger and Damasio (1985) studied
EVR who had a cerebral tumour removed: performed well on reasoning tests, suggesting his
CE was intact
...
g
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This challenges the
integrity of the WMM and suggests other theories are required to better understand the CE
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Likely to occur when memories are similar and when they are encoded
in similar contexts
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Proactive– occurs when you cannot learn a new task because of an old task that had been learnt
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2
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Current
learning interferes with earlier learning (new memories disrupting old)
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e
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Procedure:
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Ppts had to learn a list of words until they could remember them 100% accurately
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1 – synonyms, 2 – antonyms, 3 – unrelated words, 4 – nonsense syllables, 5 – numbers, 6 – control
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Findings:
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No
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The lowest recall was in group
1 (synonyms) and the highest was in group 5 (numbers)
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AO3
Supporting
evidence is
scientific

Supported by
real-world
evidence

May be better
explanations

Strength: Lab experiments like
C/A: The supporting evidence lacks mundane
McGeoch & McDonald’s have high
realism
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Cognitive research
experiments, where researchers can create ideal
involves tight manipulation of IVs e
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conditions for interference due to the high degree
similarity, and measurement of clearly of control
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g
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words
memories have to be fairly similar in order to
recalled
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Lab studies tend to use
held constant, meaning causal
artificial materials and unrealistic procedures (e
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relationships between interference
10/ 20 mins between learning and recall)
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This because lab studies maximise the possibility of
means interference can be accepted
interference occurring, interference theory may be
as a valid explanation for forgetting
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Strength: Baddeley and Hitch (1877) asked rugby players to recall the names of the teams
they had played against during the season
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intervening games was different for each player
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The fact that accuracy of recall did not depend on how long ago the games had been played,
but the no
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The study
is also high in mundane realism
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They gave ppts lists of words organised onto categories, one list at a
time (they were not told what the categories were)
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At the end of the
procedure ppts were given a cued recall test – they were told the name of the categories:
recall rose again to about 70%
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Forgetting then is perhaps due to a lack of cues
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Retrieval failure theory operates on the Encoding Specificity Principle (ESP) – memory is most effective when
information present at the time of encoding is also present at the time of recall (recall is best when there is a
large overlap of the info between the 2)
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Meaningful cues
(semantic)
Forgetting occurs due to
a lack of meaningful
cues
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Procedure: ppts were
given words to learn
which belonged to
certain categories (e
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animals)
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Findings: free recall
group forgot 60% of the
words and title group
forgot 40%
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g
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State-Dependent Forgetting

Forgetting occurs when internal
cues, e
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the mental or
emotional state at the term of
leaning, are different to that
when recalling the material
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internal cues at encoding match
Procedure: sea divers asked to learn 36 words those at retrieval
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Ppts had to
- Learning dry, Recall wet: 24%
learn a list of words (4 conditions
- Learning wet, Recall dry: 23%
– learn + recall on/ without drug)
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performance on memory test
External cues available at learning were
was significantly worse
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when learning info but awake
when recalling) there is more
forgetting
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Ppts learn 15 words in 2 mins
encoding match retrieval
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Procedure: 48 males medical
Findings: immediate – only small difference,
students asked to learn words
after 24hrs – 11 words gum-gum, 8
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Aggleton & Waskett 1999
Aim: does smell affects memory?
Procedure: visitors to Yorvik centre in York
asked to participate 6-7 years after their visit
and asked questions about museum info
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Findings: the group without smells forgot the
most info
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AO3
Useful reallife
applications

ESP is
impossible to
test
scientifically

Recognition
vs Recall

Strength: Application of context-dependent learning can
C/A: Context effects are not
allow us to recall the item by revisiting the environment
very strong in rea life
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This is a basic principle used in the contexts have to be very
cognitive interview, a method of getting eyewitness to
different before an effect is
crime scenes to recall more information
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E
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its hard to find an
called “context reinstatement” and has been shown to be environment as different as
effective at improving the accuracy of testimony and
land and water, but one room to
reducing wrongful convictions
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can improve performance in the use of techniques e
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This means the real-life
mnemonics and chunking
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much forgetting
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We cannot actually test whether the cues were encoded at the time of
learning or not
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If the cue did produce
recall, we assume it must have been encoded
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Limitation: The “context” effect may only occur if you test memory a certain way
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There was no difference in performance in the 4 conditions – no contextdependent effect
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Factors affecting eyewitness testimony: Misleading Information
Legal term referring to the use of eyewitnesses to give evidence in court concerning the identity of someone
who has committed a crime – the least trustworthy type of evidence used in court as memories are fragile and
become easily distorted
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Two forms: leading questions or PED
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Verb
Smashed
Collided
Bumped
Hit
Contacted

Estimate of speed (mph)
41
39
38
34
32

Procedure: Loftus and Palmer conducted a lab experiment which investigated the effects of leading questions
for memory of a car accident
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Response bias explanation – the wording of the question has no real effect on the ppts’ memories, but just
influences how they decide to answer
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Substitution explanation proposes that the
wording of a leading question changes the ppt’s memory of the clip
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Gabbert et al 2003
Aim: To investigate the effects of PED on accuracy of eyewitness testimony
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Told they saw the same footage but had different perspectives, e
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only one witness could read the
title of a book being carried by a woman in the footage)
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Ppts pairing in the control
condition did not discuss before completing the test
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% ppts who recalled info they had not seen

PED (experimental)
71%

No PED (control)
0%

Conclusion: Witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the
other eye witnesses to be right and they are wrong (memory conformity)
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This occurs because they combine (mis)information from
other witnesses with their own memories
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The actual
memory is unchanged, unlike memory contamination
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Recall was
more accurate for those ppts who were warned that anything they hear from a co-witness is second-hand
information and that they should forget it and recall only their own memory of the event
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In one version, the
can be reduced if ppts are warned of its
mugger had light brown hair and in the other
impact
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The ppts in the two different
who were warned
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They usually conform with other
heard from the PED: medium brown hair
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This supports the memory
rather than memory conformity
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Strength: This is because it has been used to warn the justice system of problems with
relying on EWT
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This means the research can be praised, since it has been used to improve the justice
system and reduce wrongful convictions
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When they were asked
misleading questions, their recall was more accurate for central details than for peripheral
ones
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This suggests that the original memories for central details survived and were not distorted,
an outcome that is not predicted by the substitution explanation
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For example, in real world EWT, individuals search
their memory with greater effort and it is more stressful as their testimony may lead to a
conviction
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Negative effects of anxiety on EWT
Johnson & Scott
Procedure
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Ppts invited to lab and told to wait in reception, then exposed to one of two conditions:
1) No weapon/ low anxiety – ppts overheard a casual conversation in lab
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A confederate
walked out of the lab holding a bloodied paper knife
Both groups were then shown 50 photos and asked to identify the confederate (told they might not be in)
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Explanation:
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TUNNEL THEORY = attention narrows to focus on a weapon as it is a source of danger (tunnel vision)
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Pickel
conducted an experiment which involved the
handheld item being scissors, a handgun, a
wallet or a raw chicken in a hairdressers
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Weapon focus effect may be due to surprise
rather than anxiety and so there is limited
support for the damaging effects of anxiety on
EWT
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Objective measures, like heart
rates to measure anxiety, were used to
divide ppts into high and low anxiety
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Witnesses were also asked to rate how stressed they had felt at the time out of 7
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g
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AO3
Research
support

Strength: Christianson & Hubinette
(1993) – interviewed 58 witnesses
to actual bank robberies in
Sweden
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Findings: recall was more than 75%
accurate across all witnesses
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Anxiety may even enhance
accuracy of EWT
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Researchers had no control over
what happened to ppts in intervening time (PED)
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g
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No manipulation of IV, so unsure of the cause of the
DV
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Moderate anxiety may be optimal for EWT accuracy
The relationship between emotional arousal and performance = inverted
‘U’
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Yerkes-Dodson Law – Performance increases with stress up to a certain
point before it declines drastically
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He then used and applied the YDL to explain the findings
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Accuracy increases up to an optimal point
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Parker et al (2006):
Procedure: Interviewed people affected by Hurricane Andrew to see if there was a link between memory and
amount of damage to homes (a measure of anxiety – value of insurance claims)
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Anxiety can have a positive or negative effect
on recall depending on how extreme it is
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One factor is cognitive processes (how we think about the stressful event)
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The model fails to provide a complete account of how anxiety affects EWT due to its improper
operationalisation of anxiety as just physical arousal
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g
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1
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They may actually be important and also trigger other important memories
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Reinstate Context
The witness is asked to mentally recreate the crime scene and imagine the environment, their emotions and
thoughts at the time of the incident, etc
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3
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g
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This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations of how the event must have happened
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4
...
g
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This is done to prevent people reporting their expectations and disrupt the effect of schema on recall
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Kohnken et al (1999)
increase in the amount of inaccurate
conducted a meta-analysis of 55 studies
information recalled
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The CI gave an average 41% increase in (accuracy) in favour of quantity
accurate information compared to the standard
(amount)
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evidence from CI with caution
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Milne & Bull
found that using a combination of ‘Report Everything’ and ‘Reinstate Context’ produced
better recall than any other elements or combinations
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However, police have taken a ‘pick and mix’ approach to using the CI
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Strength: The CI has led to improved accuracy in C/A: The CI takes more time than regular
EWT, facilitating smoother police investigations
police interviews
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It therefore establish rapport with the witness and
reduces the resources expended on wrongful
allow them to relax
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The complete CI is
justice system
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police to use to improve EWT

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