Are memories permanent and unalterable?
Are memories permanent and unalterable? There has been a large debate over the recent years on whether information stored in long-term memory is permanent and unalterable. There are many people who agree with this assumption either because of personal experiences or scientific findings supporting it. An obvious example would be the sort of cued recall that occurs in contextual situations. Details of a place visited might not be remembered until a time of revisiting, or instances where experiences during school life might have been forgotten and a photograph of a classmate might trigger memories. Also there are several occasions where certain smells evoke certain memories. Several studies over the years indicated that memories become less available as the interval increases between the time of the information's initial acquisition and the time of its attempted retrieval. This phenomenon is named 'forgetting' (Loftus 1980). Despite the agreement on the existence of this phenomenon, the factors that underlie its functioning are shown to be indefinable. The main differentiation on beliefs lies on whether forgetting results in a complete lost of stored information, or consists of a loss to access of that information which was once stored and will always be available. Many theorists and psychologists have opposed on the complete loss of stored information referring to examples of
Trace Decay Theory
Theory of Availability - Trace Decay Theory a) The trace decay theory argues that memories become less available over time as our brains create a path or 'trace' to each memory which, if we don't rehearse it, will fade away and we will no longer be able to remember it anymore. It argues that once the trace has faded, that particular memory is gone forever. To keep memories available we must constantly revisit and rehearse them. This theory explains the reasons why we remember interesting or meaningful information; however, this theory does not really apply to procedural memories, for example riding a bike, swimming, as once we have learned how to do these processes we rarely forget them. Ebbinghaus in 1985 carried out an experiment on himself by making himself learn a list of nonsense syllables and then tested his recall over time intervals. The intervals ranged from 10 minutes up to 30 days, and he found that the longer the duration, the less words he could recall. Ebbinghaus concluded that over time, the trace faded and the list of syllables was lost. However, there are some criticisms of this experiment, one being that he was the only participant so it is hard to make a generalisation from such a small sample. A further criticism of his experiment was using himself as a participant which could lead to experimenter bias. He knew what his aims and results were, so there
A study by Loftus and Palmer (1974) into the accuracy of Eye Witness Testimony aimed to find out if changing the wording of a question could distort ones ability to recall from memory an event.
The accuracy of Eye Witness Testimony has been tested by many different approaches in psychological research of memory. A study by Loftus and Palmer (1974) into the accuracy of Eye Witness Testimony aimed to find out if changing the wording of a question could distort one's ability to recall from memory an event. They showed their participants a series of car crash videos before asking them to fill out a questionnaire. One of the most important questions included asking the participants what speed the cars were travelling at. They used an independent measures design to divide the participants into 5 conditions: 'Smashed', 'Collided', 'Bumped', 'Hit', 'Contacted'. The results from this experiment provide good research into accuracy of eyewitness testimony because it found that by changing the wording of a question, it significantly influenced the speeds given by the participants. For example, those in the 'smashed' condition provided the highest average of speed of 40.8mph, whilst those in the 'contacted' condition's average were merely 31.8mph. Similarly, when called back a week later and asked if any broken glass was seen, they found that although there wasn't any present, 32% in the 'smashed' condition said they had seen broken glass. Loftus and Palmer therefore concluded that by using the word 'smash' it gives suggestions of strong impact and thus shows that leading
Two attributional biases with evidence
Discuss at least two attributional biases, refer to evidence in your answer (10) Attribution is judging the causes of behaviour, the decision is made that behaviour is caused by internal factors OR external factors. A dispositional attribution is made when we can decide that someone's behaviour is due to their personality or an internal cause. This means that the behaviour is seen as an outward manifestation of an inward quality. A situational attribution is made when we decide that someone's behaviour is the result of the situation or the circumstances which they find themselves in. This means that the cause is external or beyond the control of the person. In social psychology, the actor is the person producing the behaviour and the observer is the watcher of the behaviour. The Fundamental Attribution Error is the general tendency observers have to decide that an actor's behaviour has an internal cause. We have the general belief that a person's behaviour and actions are due to their own personality traits. It is likely that this is because of an expectation that our behaviour and personality match or fit each other. A real life example is "He dropped the jug because he is clumsy" Nisbett et al (1973) wanted to see if people tend to attribute the cause of a person's behaviour as due to an internal cause rather than external cause. Participants were asked to explain
Outline and evaluate research relating to the linguistic relativity hypothesis
Outline and evaluate research relating to the linguistic relativity hypothesis The linguistic relativity hypothesis was put forward by Whorf, and states that language determines, or directly influences, thinking. This theory was further developed by Sapir, and again by Miller & McNeill, giving rise to three different hypotheses: the 'strong' hypothesis is that of Whorf, which suggests that language completely determines the way in which we think about the world. Sapir's 'weak' hypothesis suggests that language only has an influence on thought, therefore giving a more cautious approach. The 'weakest' hypothesis was proposed by Miller & McNeill, suggesting that language differences affect processing on certain tasks where linguistic encoding is particularly important (such as memories and certain schemata). Much support for the linguistic relativity hypothesis has come from the study of differences between the thought processes of speakers of different languages. One type of such study is one which investigates colour words and the ability to discriminate between colours, as this is a factor that varies widely from one language to another. Brown & Lenneberg studied Zuni speakers in New Mexico, whose language had no separate word to describe yellow and orange, and found that they had difficulty in a task that required them to distinguish the two. This appears to support the
'To what extent does psychological research support Atkinson and Shiffrin's model of memory?'
'Rehearsal is the key to understanding human memory.' 'To what extent does psychological research support Atkinson and Shiffrin's model of memory?' 'Learning is the acquisition of knowledge and memory is the storage of an internal representation of that knowledge.' Blackemore (1988) The multi-store model consists of three main stores - the sensory memory store, the short-term memory (STM) store and the long-term memory (LTM). The sensory memory transfers information to STM. It is made up of five stores, one for each sense. The model sees STM as a crucial part of the memory system as without it information cannot get into or out of the LTM. Information can only be stored into LTM by passing through STM and can only be retrieved from LTM by entering STM. Rehearsal is the repetition of information in order to retain it in the STM. The multi-store model states that the longer information is in the STM and the more it is rehearsed, the more likely it is to be transferred to LTM. There is some evidence to support this view. In one particular experiment, participants were asked to rehearse a list of items out loud. In general, the more frequently an item was rehearsed the more likely it was to be recalled from LTM (Rundus, 1971). However, evidence from everyday situations implies that rehearsal is a lot less important than the multi-store model suggests. Eysenck & Keane (1995)
The cognitive perspective in psychology is often used to explain behaviour. Discuss the cognitive perspective in psychology. In your answer, refer to at least two topics that you have studied in psychology.
The cognitive perspective in psychology is often used to explain behaviour. Discuss the cognitive perspective in psychology. In your answer, refer to at least two topics that you have studied in psychology The cognitive approach focuses on the cognitive processes between the stimulus and response. It see's humans as information processors, much like computers, as information is received, processed and then used to guide behaviour. In 1973, Mischel distinguished five variables that influence the response to a stimulus. These variables are competencies, encodings, expectancies, values and plans. Together, they influence the attribution process and so affect behaviour. Unlike behaviourists, cognitive psychologists include the internal cognitive processes between stimulus and response and so when compared to the behaviourist approach, cognitive psychologists argue that humans make sense of the stimulus before responding, rather than simply responding in an unthinking way to a stimulus. However, the cognitive approach is often criticised for being too mechanistic and reductionist. This is because it reduces complex human processes and behaviour to those of a computer and ignores the fact that humans are biological organisms and are not machines. One topic that the cognitive approach applies to is anxiety disorders, and more specifically, phobias. Cognitive psychologists
