A-Level Psychology: Memory — Key Studies and Evaluation

Memory is a compulsory Paper 1 topic in A-level Psychology, and evaluation marks depend on using named research precisely: what the participants did, what was found and what the study does and does not show. This material concentrates on that evidence for the memory content of current specifications (for example AQA's A-level Psychology for first teaching from September 2025, which covers the multi-store and working memory models, explanations for forgetting and factors affecting eyewitness testimony, including the cognitive interview).

The first questions deal with the features of the stores. You interpret Baddeley's word-list study on acoustic and semantic coding, evaluate Jacobs' digit span procedure, explain why Peterson and Peterson's participants counted backwards, draw conclusions from Bahrick's yearbook study of very long-term memory and recognise chunking as the reason a string of letters fits into short-term memory. Two case studies test the models themselves: HM's intact short-term memory with no new long-term memories supports separate stores, while KF's selective short-term memory damage challenges the idea of a single short-term store.

The forgetting questions use McGeoch and McDonald to show that retroactive interference grows with similarity, and Godden and Baddeley's divers to show context-dependent forgetting, with the question of how far such extreme contexts reflect everyday life.

The eyewitness questions cover Gabbert's memory conformity findings after post-event discussion, Johnson and Scott's weapon focus study with its ethical problems and alternative explanation, and Christianson and Hubinette's real bank-robbery witnesses, used to question the ecological validity of laboratory research on anxiety.

The material offers four formats. The 12-question quiz gives an explanation after every answer, with the key figures of each study. The 16 flashcards summarise every study in a line, including Yuille and Cutshall, dual-task evidence and research on the cognitive interview. The printable written work sets eight open questions that ask you to describe and evaluate studies, with ruled space for handwritten answers that are then checked. In the oral exam an examiner asks one question at a time about the evidence and gives precise feedback at the end.

It complements the category's materials on memory models and on forgetting and eyewitness testimony, which focus on the concepts, by supplying the evidence that essays need.

• Describe the procedures and findings of key studies of coding, capacity and duration in memory
• Use the HM and KF case studies to evaluate the multi-store and working memory models
• Explain interference and context-dependent forgetting with reference to research
• Describe research on post-event discussion and anxiety in eyewitness testimony
• Evaluate memory research in terms of control, ecological validity and ethics

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the Memory topic of A-level Psychology specifications (for example AQA A-level Psychology 7182, specification for first teaching from September 2025, section 4.1.2).