A-Level Psychology · Topic 1
Memory, attachment and research methods: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
16 flashcard terms for A-Level Psychology Topic 1, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 8-question quiz — free, no account needed.
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Multi-store model Memory as three stores — sensory register, short-term and long-term — with attention and rehearsal moving information between them.
Working memory model Replaces a single short-term store with a central executive directing the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and episodic buffer.
Proactive interference Older memories disrupt the recall of newer ones. Retroactive interference is the reverse, and both are worse when material is similar.
Retrieval failure Forgetting caused by absent cues rather than lost information — the encoding specificity principle predicts context and state effects.
Misleading information Leading questions and post-event discussion distort eyewitness recall, a central finding in eyewitness testimony research.
Cognitive interview Improves recall using context reinstatement, reporting everything, changing order and changing perspective, rather than closed questioning.
Attachment An enduring, reciprocal emotional bond. Assessed through reciprocity, interactional synchrony and separation and stranger anxiety.
Strange Situation A structured observation classifying attachment as secure, insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistant from behaviour on reunion.
Internal working model An early template of relationships formed with the primary caregiver, used to predict continuity into adult relationships.
Independent variable What the researcher manipulates. The dependent variable is what is measured; everything else should be controlled.
Operationalisation Defining a variable so it can actually be measured, turning a vague construct such as aggression into a countable behaviour.
Demand characteristics Cues that lead participants to guess the aim and change their behaviour, threatening internal validity.
Counterbalancing Alternating the order of conditions across participants in a repeated measures design to cancel out order effects.
Type I error Rejecting a true null hypothesis — a false positive. A Type II error is failing to reject a false null hypothesis.
Peer review Independent scrutiny of research before publication, checking validity, originality and significance, and allocating funding.
Ecological validity Whether findings generalise beyond the setting studied. Often traded against the control that a laboratory gives.
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