Starter

1. Starter Answer all 6 questions on your white board – you must get 6 points otherwise there will be trouble !!

2. Question 1 What are the two types of cue in the cue-dependent theory of forgetting? Bonus point What is another way of describing this theory? R………. F…………..

3. Question 2 Name two psychologists who have studied memory and say which theory/topic it relates to. Bonus point Which psychologist do we associate with the ‘encoding specificity principle’

4. Question 3 Give one fact about the participants in Loftus and Palmer’s study. Bonus point How may ppts were used in the first and second experiments?

5. Question 4 Explain in your own words, what a memory trace is.

6. Question 5 Give two features of the short-term memory store.

7. Question 6 Name three of the verbs used in Loftus and Palmer’s study. Bonus point Which word was associated with the lowest speed estimate?

8. Answers: 1. Internal and external – context and state Retrieval failure 2. Loftus = EWT Baddeley = STM Tulving 3. All psychology students 45 150 4. Memory trace = path laid down when a memory is created / engram 5. Capacity = 7 +/- 2 Duration = max 30secs encoding = visual / semantic / acoustic 6. Smashed / collided / hit / bumped / contacted What was your score?

9. Other Factors that influence EWT Anxiety

10. Spec check: Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: • misleading information, including leading questions and post-event discussion; anxiety. misleading information anxiety leading questions post-event discussion Previous lesson Today’s lesson

11. Looking at the pictures in front of you… Rank the pictures from those that make you feel the most anxious to those that make you feel the least anxious

12. Anxiety • Depending on the incident you may have been scared and this may affect your recall. • Additionally research suggests that frightening situations may affect recall because attention is diverted to e.g. weapons.

13. Fight or Flight When we are in a state of alarm or extreme fear the body releases adrenaline which prepares the body for a flight or fight response

14. Stress Response

15. EWT & Anxiety • The Yekes-Dodson law says that performance (e.g....recall) is best in moderately arousing conditions. Best Performance Terrible High Low Medium But does the evidence support this ? AROUSAL

16. However ….. • A study by Yuille & Cutshall (1986) assessed the level of arousal and accuracy of testimonies from 13 witnesses to a real life crime. A gun-shop owner was shot dead by a thief. • The general finding was the that witnesses were still very accurate after 5 months. • Witnesses who rated themselves as most stressed had the most accurate recall!

17. Weapon Focus Effect If a weapon is used to threaten a victim, their attention is likely to focus on it. Consequently, their recall of other information is likely to be poor.

21. Weapon Focus Anxiety elicited by the weapon in an event can narrow the focus of attention away from the perpetrator’s face.

22. Weapons focus evidence • You will have hopefully already read about Johnson and Scott’s research into the negative effect anxiety has on memory • On the next slide are pictures to help trigger your memory • Write down a brief description of the procedure

23. Supporting Evidence Johnson and Scott

24. AnxietyThe Weapon Effect Participants were asked to wait outside the lab and they then ‘accidently over heard’ what they thought was a genuine exchange going on inside the room. Condition 1 – Heard an amicable discussion about equipment failure and then a man came out with greasy hands holding a pen.

25. Condition 2 – Heard a hostile exchange and the sound of breaking glass and then a man came out holding a bloody knife and covered in blood. Should be a paper knife

26. Results 49% in low anxiety condition were able to do this Only 33% in high anxiety could do this Ppts had to pick out the man with the knife/pen from 50 photos

27. Arousal Effects • Memory is most effective at moderate arousal levels • If the witness was in a state of extremely low or high arousal then recall may be poor performance arousal This effect was supported by the research of Deffenbacher who did a meta analysis of 18 studies (1983) Yerkes-Dodson Law inverted U theory

28. Counter argument Yuille & Cutshall (1986) Found that witnesses who were the moststressed were also the mostaccurate This has been supported by a study by Christianson & Hubinette (1993) where victims of a bank robbery who had been subjected to the most stress, were actually the most accurate witnesses. Perhaps because their lives depended on it?

29. Limitation of Weapons focus research read about the Pickel study It could be surprise rather than fear that alters the witnesses focus of attention

30. Assessment time Next week I will be checking your understanding of the Memory topic Do ensure you have revisited your notes and that you have a good knowledge of key terms. I will be giving you a couple of ‘Apply it’ questions to do from the chapter. See rest of power point for revision material and practice exam questions together with mark schemes 

31. Practice Question Explain why it might be better to carry out research into eyewitness testimony in the real world, rather than in a laboratory. (3 marks)

32. Mark Scheme Research in real life settings has higher ecological validity because the findings can be generalised to other similar situations. It is therefore more likely to be relevant e.g. to eyewitness testimony in court cases. There are often real consequences/emotional impact in real life which do not occur in laboratory investigations. In a laboratory participants may show demand characteristics because they know they are in an experiment. This is less likely in real world settings. Demand characteristics reduce the validity of the findings Credit examples given from research

33. Examiners Comments Most candidates focused on the higher ecological validity provided by real-world studies. Weaker answers simply made this point without any elaboration. Better answers explained why a real-world setting would provide more ecological validity – usually in terms of heightened anxiety and/or consequentiality associated with real-life events. The best answers made reference to EWT studies rather than simply stating the general advantages of real-life studies over laboratory studies.

34. Practice question 2 An American space shuttle exploded soon after it was launched. All of the astronauts on board were killed. Crowds of people were watching, including friends and relatives of the astronauts. Six months after the explosion, a student decided to investigate the accuracy of some of the eyewitnesses’ memory of this event. Explain how anxiety might have affected eyewitness testimony of this event. Refer to psychological research in your answer. (6 marks)

35. Mark Scheme Candidates must refer to research where the anxiety component is clear. Candidates might refer to the Yerkes-Dodson law which suggests moderate anxiety is associated with better recall than very high or very low anxiety. In this case friends and relatives might show worse recall than other people in the crowd. Laboratory based research has generally shown impaired recall in high anxiety conditions. In Johnson and Scott’s weapon focus experiment more participants correctly identified a person when they were holding a pen (49%) than when they were holding a knife covered in blood (33%). Loftus and Burns (1982) found participants who saw a violent version of a crime where a boy was shot in the face had impaired recall for events leading up to the incident. However, in a real life study Yuille and Cutshill (1986) found witnesses who had been most distressed at the time of a shooting gave the most accurate account five months later. Also Christianson and Hubinette (1993) found victims of genuine bank robberies were more accurate in their recall than bystanders. There is a range of acceptable answers to this question and marks should be given for effective use of the material. Answers which do not make explicit reference to this event should be awarded a maximum of 4 marks.

36. Can You? Understand how anxiety affects recall of EWT. Understand how the validity of lab based EWT studies can be questioned. Answer exam based questions If you would like to go through this again here is a revision video • invisible gorilla - remember ?

37. Consolidation … Check your own understanding using your GHG digital text book