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Memory 1

The document discusses different types of memory such as short-term, long-term, working and episodic memory. It also examines methods of testing memory like free recall, cued recall and recognition. Eyewitness testimony is discussed, noting factors that can influence the accuracy of children's reports as eyewitnesses.

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Numaan Tanwar
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26 views

Memory 1

The document discusses different types of memory such as short-term, long-term, working and episodic memory. It also examines methods of testing memory like free recall, cued recall and recognition. Eyewitness testimony is discussed, noting factors that can influence the accuracy of children's reports as eyewitnesses.

Uploaded by

Numaan Tanwar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Memory

Week 7 – Based on the Main


Textbook & other Resources
Objectives
After studying this module, you should be able to:
 Differentiate among ways of testing memory.
 Describe ways to minimize errors in eyewitness testimony and suspect lineups.
 Distinguish types of memory and describe their main features: short-term, long-
term, working, semantic, episodic, declarative, procedural, and probabilistic.
Exam Feelings
Memory
 Memory is the retention of information. It includes skills such as riding a bicycle or
tying your shoelaces. It also includes facts that never change (your birthday), facts
that seldom change (your mailing address), and facts that frequently change (where
you left your keys).
 You remember your most important experiences and some of your unimportant
ones, many useful facts and much trivia that you cannot imagine ever using (Kalat,
p. 239)
Methods of Testing Memories
 Nearly everyone occasionally has a tip-of-the tongue experience (Brown &
McNeill, 1966).
 You want to remember a word or a name, and all you can think of is something
similar that you know isn’t right.
 In other words, memory is not an all-or-none thing. You might or might not
remember something depending on how someone tests you.
Methods of Testing Memories
Free Recall
 To recall something is to produce a response, as you do on essay tests or short-
answer tests. For instance, “Tell me what you did today.”
 Most people will respond with a very brief synopsis, although they could elaborate
in detail to follow-up questions. Free recall almost always understates the actual
amount you know.
 Interview – (Structured, Unstructured and Semi-Structured)
Methods of Testing Memories
Cued Recall
 Your accuracy improves with cued recall, in which you receive significant hints
about the material.
 For example, a photograph of the children in your second-grade class or a list of
their initials will help you remember.
 How can we apply this in an examination or interview situation?
Methods of Testing Memories
Recognition
 With recognition, a third method of testing memory, someone chooses the correct
item among several options.
 People usually recognize more items than they recall. For example, someone might
give you a list of 60 names and ask you to check off the correct names of children
in your second-grade class.
 Multiple-choice tests use the recognition method.
Methods of Testing Memories
Savings
• The savings method (also known as the relearning method), detects weak memories
by comparing the speed of original learning to the speed of relearning.
• Suppose you cannot name the children in your second-grade class and cannot even
pick out their names from a list of choices. You would nevertheless learn a correct
list of names faster than a list of people you had never met. That is, you save time
when you relearn something. The amount of time saved (time needed for original
learning minus the time for relearning) is a measure of memory
Explicit & Implicit Memory
 Free recall, cued recall, recognition, and savings are tests of explicit (or direct)
memory. That is, someone who states an answer regards it as a product of memory.
 In implicit memory (or indirect memory), an experience influences what you say or
do even though you might not be aware of the influence.
 If you find that definition unsatisfactory, you are not alone (Frensch & Rünger,
2003). Defining something in terms of a vague concept like “awareness” is not a
good practice. This definition is tentative until we develop a better one.
Exercise
For each of these examples, identify the type of memory test—free recall, cued recall, recognition, savings, or
implicit. a.
1. Although you thought you had forgotten your high school French, you do better in your college French
course than your roommate, who never studied French before.
2. You are trying to remember the phone number of the local pizza parlor without looking it up in the phone
directory.
3. You hear a song on the radio without paying much attention to it. Later, you find yourself humming a
melody, but you don’t know what it is or where you heard it.
4. You forget where you parked your car, so you scan the parking lot hoping to find your car among all the
others.
Application: Suspect Lineups as Recognition
Memory
Psychologists have proposed ways to improve suspect lineups:
1. Instruct the witness that the guilty person may or may not be in the lineup. The
witness doesn’t have to identify someone.
2. The officer supervising the lineup should be a “blind” observer—that is,
someone who doesn’t know which person the investigators suspect. Otherwise
the officer might unintentionally bias the witness.
3. And many more as can be seen in the main textbook
Children as Eyewitnesses
 While on the topic of eyewitness memory, let’s consider young children. How much
should we trust their reports when they are witnesses or victims of a crime? How could
we measure their accuracy?
 One research approach is to ask a child to recall an event in which the facts are known,
such as a medical or dental examination. How well can the child report those events?
 Researchers find that children as young as 3 years old report with reasonable accuracy
even 6 weeks later (Baker-Ward, Gordon, Ornstein, Larus, & Clubb, 1993).
Children as Eyewitnesses
Several factors influence the accuracy of young children’s reports:
• Delay of questioning. After a traumatic experience such as an injury
• Repeating the question.
• Type of question.
• Hearing other children – lead to repetition of ideas/influence response
• Using physical representations.
• Understanding a question.

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