Name | Aim | As Psychology Key Studies – Cognitive
As Psychology Key Studies – Cognitive
Method | Findings | Conclusion | Evaluation | Milner et al1957 | To see where STM is stored | HM Who suffered from frequent epilepsy, had his hippocampus removed | Could not form new LTM. Reading a book without realising he read it before | * | * | Peterson & Peterson1959 | Duration of S/LTM | Pps were shown nonsense trigram e.g. NHB and had different time intervals 3, 6, 9…18. Distraction task was to count back in 3s from a given number | The longer the interval, the harder it is to remember i.e. 3 was the easiest and 18 the hardest | When rehearsal is prevented, very little can stay in STM for over 18 seconds | * Reliable – Lab experiment * Lacks ecological validity as nonsense trigrams are artificial * Pps saw many different trigrams and may get mixed up making only the 1st one realistic | Bahrick et al1975 | Duration of LTM and to study VLTM | Asked pps to name students from year book through name recall or photo recognition | It is weaker as you get older but also depending on the way of recall e.g. name or photo etc. | The study shows evidence of VLTMs in a real life setting. Recognition is better recall; so there may be a huge store of info. It’s not always easy to access but you may require help to get to it | * High ecological validity – field experiment * Hard to control all variables – less reliable * This type of info may be rehearsed. * Cannot generalise to all types of LTM | Jacobs1887 | Capacity of STM | Pps were given a string of letters to be repeated in same order | Average of 9 letters and 7 letters | Concluded that STM stores 5-9 items. This increased with age maybe due to memory capacity or chunking. | * Some digits may be easier to recall * Lacks ecological validity – not done in real life. And not meaningful info * Pps may confuse sequences with previous ones | Baddeley1966 | Encoding in STM/LTM | Given 4 types of words and asked to recall immediately or after a distraction task: * Acoustically dis/similar * Semantically dis/similar | Acoustically similar was easier to remember | A pattern of confusion between similar words shows that LTM is likely to rely on semantic encoding and for STM to use acoustic. | * Lacks ecological validity * There are different types of LTM and encoding * Independent groups design ignores pps variables |

EWT and Cognitive Interview Loftus and Palmer1974 | Evaluation of leading questions | Showed a video of a crash and used words like clashed, collided in one group and hit and smashed in another | The leading questions changed answers | Leading questions affect accuracy | * Artificial * Not as emotionally arousing as a real life situation – a later study of a real robbery proved that pps gave more accurate info. * Demand characteristics due to leading questions | Loftus and Zanni2975Add study | Misleading questions | Showed pps a film of a car crash and asked ‘Did you see the broken headlight?’ or ‘Did you see a broken headlight?’ | 7% asked using the work ‘a’ claimed they saw one compared to 17% on ‘the’ | Words can effect peoples accuracy of memory. | * | Valentine and Coxon1997Add study | Age and effect on EWT | Three groups of pps (children, young adults and elderly) watched a video of a kidnapping before non/leading questions were asked | Elderly and children gave more incorrect answers to non-leading questions. Children were misled the most | Ages does affect EWT | * Implications in law when children or elderly are questioned * Artificial so not emotionally arousing * Lacks external validity | Loftus1979 | To see how anxiousness and arousal can affect memory | Group 1: Heard discussion, man comes into a room with a knife and bloodGroup 2: Heard discussion, man comes into a room with a pen | Anxiousness and arousal can affect memory | When anxious and aroused pps focus more on weapon. | * High ecological validity as pps were unaware of it being staged * Ethical issues – may scare pps | Yuille and Cutshall 1986Add study | Anxiety and EWT | Carried out interviews with 13 people who had witnessed a shooting. | People nearest to incident gave most detail and those distressed pps gave accurate descriptions 5 months late and misleading questions don’t affect accuracy. | | * | Geiselman et al1986 | Cognitive interview | Independent groups design. In a staged situation an intruder with a blue rucksack entered a classroom and stole a slid projector. Two days later pps were questioned. Pps were questioned with either standard interview or cognitive interview. Early in the interview they were asked ‘Was the guy with the green bag nervous?’ then later were asked again about the colour | Pps in cognitive interview were less likely to say green as the standard interview | Cognitive technique enhances memory recall and reduces effect of leading questions | * High ecological validity as pps believed it was real. * Independent groups design so pps in cognitive condition may have been less susceptible(likely or liable to be influenced or harmed by a particular thing) to leading questions |

Mnemonics Bower and Clark1969 | The best way to memorise something | Group 1: remembered list with a storyGroup 2: Just learned the lists | Group who used stories recalled better at the end however before the end they all did okay | Creating stories helps recall from LTM | * Links to multi-store model as words move to LTM after rehearsal. * Control condition – independent variable can be measured. * Lacks ecological validity | Jenkins & Russell 1952 | To see how we memorise something | Particpants were given a list of word which were related in two categories | They lists were recalled with associated items called after each other | | | Murdock1962 | Investigate if there are separate memory stores e.g. STM,LTM etc. | Pps were given a list at 1 word a sec. Immediately after they had to recite in an order(free recall) so It is not long enough to put into STM. | Words presented early or the ends are remembered more.(Recency and Primary effect)** | | | Bower and Clark1969 | The best way to memorise something | Group 1: remembered list with a storyGroup 2: Just learned the lists | Group who used stories recalled better at the end however before the end they all did okay | Creating stories helps recall from LTM | * Links to multi-store model as words move to LTM after rehearsal. * Control condition – independent variable can be measured. * Lacks ecological validity | Jenkins & Russell 1952 | To see how we memorise something | Particpants were given a list of word which were related in two categories | They lists were recalled with associated items called after each other | | | Murdock1962 | Investigate if there are separate memory stores e.g. STM,LTM etc. | Pps were given a list at 1 word a sec. Immediately after they had to recite in an order(free recall) so It is not long enough to put into STM. | Words presented early or the ends are remembered more.(Recency and Primary effect)** | | |