Download SAMPLE ANSWERS - MEMORY EXAM PREP File

Q. 1.
Match up:
A
Up to 30 seconds without rehearsal
B
7 + or – 2 items
C
acoustic for STM and semantic for LTM
Capacity
B
Duration
A
Encoding
C
3 marks
Q. 2
Outline the multi-store model of memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s MSM consists of 3 stores. The sensory memory store takes in
information from the environment through the five senses, (sight, hearing etc) and has very
brief capacity and duration. A lot of decay occurs from this store. If attention is paid to
information, it is passed to short-term memory store (STM). The STM has limited duration of
approximately 30 seconds without maintenance rehearsal and limited capacity 7 items give
or take 2. In STM information is encoded acoustically (by subvocal repetition). Elaborate
rehearsal leads to encoding information semantically (for meaning/understanding) which
can be stored in Long-term memory (LTM). This store has unlimited capacity and duration (a
lifetime). There is quite a lot of decay from STM but not from LTM. Information sometimes
suffers from interference in the LTM rather than decay.
6 marks
Q. 3
Explain one weakness of the Multi-store model
The MSM is a rather simple outline of how memory works and suggests that rehearsal is the
only way of remembering information whereas some things do not need to be rehearsed in
order to be remembered, e.g. emotional events, funny, disgusting things and the MSM does
not account for these. The fact that we sometimes remember things without rehearsal does
not completely support the model. The STM is far more complex than the model suggests
and the working model gives a better account of it.
3 marks
NOTE THAT THERE ARE OTHER WEAKNESSES YOU COULD USE. THIS IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE.
Q. 4
Outline the working model of memory.
Baddeley and Hitch’s Working memory model proposed a central executive with a brief
duration and capacity that controlled 2 subsidiary slave systems, the phonological loop and
the visuo spatial sketchpad. The phonological loop also has brief duration and small capacity
and is described as the inner ear or inner voice (articulatory control system) as it is used for
internal repetition to aid memory and also encodes acoustically. The visuo spatial scratch
pad encodes visually (inner eye) and is used for visual or spatial tasks. It too has brief
duration and a limited capacity. B and H stated that people could do a task with both the
phono loop and vss at the same time but not do two visual or verbal tasks at the same time.
The episodic buffer added in 2000 helped incorporate LTM in the context of aiding
imagination or giving meaning to new situations. Baddeley’s example was an elephant
playing ice hockey. To do this we have to draw on images stored in LTM and combine them
into a coherent, moving image.
6 marks
Q. 5
Explain two weaknesses of the WMM
Weakness one
The most important component of the WMM, the Central Executive is the one that least is
known about. There has been less research into this compared with the other components
and it is thought that it is likely that the CE is made up of several components rather than
being one single entity. (For example, we can still manage to recall some verbal stimuli even
when using articulatory suppression to occupy the phonological loop. The CE is often used
to account for confusing findings such as these rather than being clearly understood itself.)
NOTE THAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITHOUT THE LAST PART IN BRACKETS BUT IF YOU
UNDERSTAND IT YOU CAN USE IT
Weakness two
It is argued that the WMM does not account for musical memory as it doesn’t explain why
we can listen to music without it interfering with other tasks that use the phonological loop.
This goes against the idea that two tasks using the same component cannot be done at the
same time.
THE QUESTION HERE ASKS FOR WEAKNESSES BUT IF YOU WERE ASKED FOR STRENGTHS
OR IF THE QUESTION WAS FOR 12 MARKS YOU COULD USE THE FOLLOWING:
The WMM develops the idea of STM (especially) and shows that active processing of
information is involved rather than just single passive unitary stores as in the Multi-store
model. For example the phonological loop is made up of both an articulatory control
system and a phonological store which work together.
OR
The WMM is hugely influential and gave an explanation for why people can do a
mathematical equation in their heads which uses both storage and processing
simultaneously. The existence of different components explains why people can multi-task
and research studies provide a lot of evidence for this. For example, Baddeley et al. found
that participants could successfully complete a visual tracking task and a verbal task at the
same time but when asked to do the visual pointer tracking task alongside another visual
task of categorising angles on an imaginary letter F they couldn’t do it. This shows that if
two tasks use different components they can be done simultaneously, but where two tasks
require the same component, in this case the visuo spatial sketchpad, they cannot be done
at the same time.
Q. 6
What has research shown about the effects of anxiety on eyewitness testimony?
Conflicting results have been found in research into the effect of anxiety on EWT.
Laboratory experiments have generally found that recall in people who have witnessed
particularly unpleasant or anxiety-inducing situations is impaired. In a study by Loftus and
Burns (1982), some participants were shown a particularly violent version of a crime in
which a boy was shot in the face and these participants had significantly impaired recall for
events running up to the incident. Loftus and her colleagues also found that participants
were worse at identifying a man who had run out of a room, after a hostile exchange,
holding a bloodied knife than participants who had to identify a man who had emerged
holding a pen with greasy hands. Loftus concluded from this that the focus was on the
weapon and that the anxiety that this caused impaired recall. However, Christianson and
Hubinette (1993) reported on real incidents involving high levels of stress that memory can
be accurate, detailed and long lasting. The victims, i.e. those subjected to the greatest
anxiety showed more detailed and accurate recall than onlookers.
6 marks
Q. 7a Outline the research findings into the effects of age on eyewitness testimony.
Children and elderly witnesses have been found, in various research studies, to be quite
accurate in their recall of an event, but more susceptible to leading questions and to postevent information. In one study, young children were found to incorporate post event
information into their recall and couldn’t identify where this information had come from.
This showed that very young children (under 8 years old) are not able to identify the source
of their information compared with older children
Flin found that children were just as able to give accurate recall as adults after one day, but
were more likely to forget when asked about the event five months later compared with
adults showing that younger witnesses are affected by time delay.
Yarmey found that 80% of participants aged over 70 failed to mention that an attacker (seen
on a film) had a knife compared with only 20% of 24 – 48 year-olds.
Cohen and Faulkner found that elderly participants were much more susceptible to the
effects of misleading information about a kidnapping they saw on film compared with
younger adults.
6 marks
Q. 7b Evaluate the research into the effects of age on EWT.
The methodology used to research age and EWT is usually lab experiments and while these
are well controlled in terms of variables, they have a lot of problems when researching EWT.
For example, films were often used and participants may not respond to these in the same
way that they would in a real life situation because they may not take it as seriously and
therefore, they may not have the emotional response. Both of these things could affect
their recall making the findings not very generalisable to everyday life (ecological validity).
Additionally, participants usually know they are taking part in an experiment which may
mean they are looking out for things and are not taken by surprise in the same way that
they would be in everyday life. This particularly applies to the elderly witnesses and the
younger adults with whom they are compared rather than to the children. There are
possible ethical issues when using children in lab experiments of this kind, for example, they
may not be able to give informed consent as they may not fully understand what they are
involved in, they may suffer stress by being questioned. For the elderly, there may be a
danger of labelling them as ‘poor eyewitnesses’. If a specific group of people suffer through
research findings it is known as socially sensitive research.
6 marks
Q. 8 Identify and outline two strategies for improving memory.
Strategy one
Method of loci: Items to be remembered can be linked with locations on a familiar route or
in your house. For example, Jahoda’s six criteria for ideal mental health could be
remembered by placing them in a particular room: autonomy in the kitchen, selfactualisation in the study, coping with stress in the dining room etc. When you want to
retrieve the items, you mentally walk around the house or take the journey which prompts
recall.
NOTE THAT THE LAST SENTENCE IS IMPORTANT FOR THE 3rd MARK.
Strategy two
Acrostic: a poem or a sentence in which the first letter of each word represents an item in
the list you want to remember, e.g. Easter Bunnies Get Drunk At Easter (the open strings on
a guitar -EBGDAE) or Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (the colours of the rainbow, red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). Sentences with meaning like this can be easier to
recall than the item alone.
3 + 3 marks
Q. 9a Design a piece of research using one of the strategies outlined to see if memory
can be improved by using this technique.
Devise a directional hypothesis.
People who use acrostics will recall more items from a list than people who
do not use acrostics.
2 marks
NOTE THAT A HYPOTHESIS IS ONE SENTENCE IN THE FUTURE TENSE WHICH
OPERATIONALISES THE INDEPENDENT AND DEPENDENT VARIABLES. AVOID
VAGUE STATEMENTS LIKE ‘DO BETTER’.
FOR A DIRECTIONAL HYPOTHESIS, BEGIN WITH ‘PEOPLE WILL.......’
FOR A NON-DIRECTIONAL HYPOTHESIS BEGIN WITH ‘THERE WILL BE A
DIFFERENCE....’
Q. 9b
Identify the Research Design that you would use in your study.
Independent groups design
1 mark
NOTE THAT YOU WILL GET CREDIT FOR ‘REPEATED GROUPS’ OR ‘MATCHED
PARTICIPANTS’ BUT YOU WILL NEED TO BE ABLE TO RELATE THE NEXT TWO
QUESTIONS TO YOUR CHOICE.
Q. 9c Justify the design you have chosen in 9b.
Using two groups of people means that the researcher only has to use one test. This
avoids the problem of one of the tests being more difficult to remember than the
other one so and helps to establish the use of Acrostics as the cause of the
increased recall.
3 marks
Q. 9d Identify a disadvantage of using the design.
There may be participant variables because one group may have one or two
individuals in it who have exceptionally good memories. It may be this that affects
the result rather than the use of acrostics.
2 marks
Q. 9e Why might you want to carry out a pilot study?
3 marks
To ensure that the aspects of the methodology are correct for example, that the
instructions are clear, that the tasks measure what they are meant to measure. This
will give the opportunity to make necessary improvements to avoid wasting time
and money in carrying out a study that lacks validity.
Q. 9f What do the following show when analysing data
The mean: A measure of central tendency which uses every individual score divided
by the number of scores to show what the expected score would be in a particular
test. It shows the type of score that would be expected by most people (but is
affected by extreme scores).
The mode: A measure of central tendency - the most commonly occurring score.
There can be more than one mode, for example 8 people out of 20 might score 7 and
a different 8 people out of 20 might score 5. These would be both be modes (bimodal).
Standard deviations: A measure of dispersion which shows how the scores are
distributed. If a standard deviation is small it means that scores clustered around the
mean average whereas a large standard deviation indicates a lot of individual
variance in scores.
2+ 2 + 2 marks
NOTE THAT YOU WILL NOT BE REQUIRED TO CALCULATE MEANS OR STANDARD
DEVIATIONS.
YOU COULD BE ASKED TO IDENTIFY A MODE OR A MEDIAN (THESE DO NOT REQUIRE
CALCULATIONS.
YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN WHY EACH ONE MIGHT BE USED ALONG WITH
THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF EACH ONE.