6. Everyday Memory

Question 1

What are the 2 key differences between everyday memory and traditional memory? (hint: learning and goals)

Answer 1

learning: incidental learning in everyday memory vs intentional learning in traditional memory
goals: to be agreeable in social settings; focus on what interests us VS to be accurate

Question 2

What are the 4 types of everyday memory?

Answer 2

1) Autobiographical memory (events of one’s life)
2) Memorable memories (long-lasting memories; permastore - long term stable memories)
3) Eyewitness testimony (how reliable is it?)
4) Prospective memory (“I’ll do this later”)

Question 3

What is autobiographical memory?

Answer 3

A form of declarative memory involving memory for personal events across the lifespan. Relate to our major life goals, our most powerful emotions, and to our personal meanings. Related to, but not identical to, episodic memory

Question 4

How does our personality type influence the kinds of emotional autobiographical memories we can recall?

Answer 4

Agentic personality type – emphasis on independence, achievement, and personal power
Communal personality type – emphasis on interdependence and similarity to others.
Students with an agentic personality recalled more autobiographical memories concerned with agency. (eg. success, failure) Students with a communal personality recalled more memories concerned with communion. (eg. love, friendship, betrayal of trust)

Question 5

What is hyperthysmestic syndrome?

Answer 5

People who can recall detailed information about almost every day of their life over the past several decades.

Question 6

What are the possible reasons for people with outstanding autobiographical memory?

Answer 6

1) obsessional tendencies - obsessed with thinking about their lives
2) poor inhibitory processes - can’t switch off personal memories
3) Makes the passage of time more concrete by representing it in spatial form
4) Large temporal lobe - stores events and dates.

Question 7

What are the 2 main components of the autobiographical memory system? (hierarchical structure)

Answer 7

1) autobiographical knowledge base - contains personal information at 3 levels of specificity (lifetime periods, general events, event-specific knowledge)
2) working self - goals (influence what is stored and recalled) Most autobiographical memories recalled in response to emotional cues were consistent with people’s major goals.

Question 8

Autobiographical memories can be assessed via ______ and ______ retrieval.

Answer 8

generative (voluntary) - involves working self; more effortful.
direct (involuntary) - triggered by specific cues. provide us with a sense of personal continuity over time

Question 9

What are the 2 goals of autobiographical memories?

Answer 9

Coherence - consistency with our current goals and beliefs
Correspondence - being accurate
Coherence > correspondence over time

Question 10

What is a limitation of the theory for explaining autobiographical memories?

Answer 10

Doesn’t address the fact that autobiographical memories vary in the extent to which they contain episodic information (eg. contextual details) and semantic information (eg. schema based information)

Question 11

What are flashbulb memories?

Answer 11

Especially good memory for dramatic events.
Much more vivid and long lasting than ordinary memories. But accuracy/consistency of the memory over time is the same as ordinary memories.
Argued that dramatic events activate a special neural mechanism if events are surprising and have real consequences for the individual. Mechanism “prints” the details permanently in the memory system.

Question 12

What factors are involved in strengthening a flashbulb memory? (4)

Answer 12

Prior relevant knowledge
Personal importance
Surprise and emotional state
Rehearsal (optional)

Question 13

What is the likely conclusion for flashbulb memories?

Answer 13

Flashbulb memories are probably ordinary memories which are very well-encoded. Probably same underlying processes as other autobiographical memories, just that events associated with flashbulb memories have greater distinctiveness and significance, making them more memorable.

Question 14

What are recovered/repressed memories?

Answer 14

traumatic memories remain stored in LTM over many years that are so traumatic they can’t gain access to conscious awareness.

Question 15

What did Loftus claim about “recovered memories”?

Answer 15

Loftus & Davis claim that many of these “recovered memories” are false memories (ie. events and experiences that never actually happened)
Controversy - hard to obtain direct evidence for recovered memories. No independent witnesses.

Question 16

Recovered memories recovered inside therapy are more likely to be _____ than those recovered outside therapy.

Answer 16

false
Those recalled inside therapy are likely to be false memories produced by patients under the therapists’ influence. Some spontaneous memories may not have been retrieved previously due to a lack of relevant retrieval cues.

Question 17

What are the 2 key phenomena for memories across the lifespan?

Answer 17

1) childhood amnesia - Almost total lack of memories from first 3 years of life
2) reminiscence bump - Older people show a tendency to recall numerous memories from adolescence and early adulthood.

Question 18

What are 2 possible reasons for the reminiscence bump?

Answer 18

1) Early adulthood is a period which many important novel events occur, and that novel events are easier to remember. Early adulthood is a period of stability, during which adult identity forms.
2) Memory processes may function better in adolescence and early adulthood than in childhood or middle age.

Question 19

Why is the reminiscnence bump mainly for positive memories and less for negative ones?

Answer 19

Notion of a life script - consists of cultural expectations concerning the major life events in a typical person’s life. (eg. falling in love, marriage, children) most of these events are emotionally positive and generally occur between the ages of 15-30.

Question 20

Reminiscence bump is usually associated with what kind of memories?

Answer 20

consists mostly of autobiographical memories associated with a real sense of development and progress in our lives.

Question 21

What did Loftus and Palmer argue about eyewitness testimony?

Answer 21

Argued that eyewitness memories are fragile and can be distorted by what happens after observing the crime.

Question 22

What is the post-event misinformation effect?

Answer 22

Misleading information provided after an event can produce distorted memories

Question 23

Memory distortions were much more common following misinformation about what features of the event?

Answer 23

peripheral features. (as opposed to central features)

Question 24

How does source misattribution explain the post-event misinformation effect and memory distortions?

Answer 24

People mistakenly attribute the source or origin of a retrieved memory. Source misattribution is likely when memories from two sources resemble each other.
Activation monitoring theory - Concepts are automatically activated in our minds, but we lose track of why they were activated (activation -> source monitoring) Memories for imagined events are attributed to wrong source

Question 25

Besides source misattribution, which other explanations are there in explaining post-event misinformation effect?

Answer 25

1) Misinformation is likely to be accepted when related information from the original event wasn’t stored in memory. Post-event information and information from the original event are often combined in memory.
2) How a study is conducted may bias eyewitnesses towards reporting the misinformation rather than original information

Question 26

In terms of our memory for faces, what is the unconscious transference effect?

Answer 26

A face is correctly recognised as having been that of someone seen before but incorrectly judged to be responsible for the crime. Eyewitnesses sometimes remember a face but fail to remember the precise circumstances in which they saw it. In a lineup containing the bystander but NOT the culprit, eyewitnesses were 3 times more likely to select the bystander than someone else they haven’t seen before.

Question 27

In terms of our memory for faces, what is the cross-race effect?

Answer 27

Same-race faces are recognised better than cross-race faces

Question 28

What are 2 possible explanations for the cross-race effect?

Answer 28

Expertise: eyewitnesses having the most experience with members of another race show a smaller cross-race effect than others
Ingroup identification: We may process the faces of our ingroup more thoroughly than individuals belonging to outgroups. Doesn’t just apply to race but other aspects like socio-economic status as well.

Question 29

How can confirmation bias cause memory distortions?

Answer 29

Event memory is influenced by the observer’s expectations.
Both Swedish and immigrant participants were twice as likely to select an innocent immigrant to be the robber because immigrants are overrepresented in Swedish crime statistics. Influenced their expectations about the likely ethnicity of the criminal. (schema driven error)

Question 30

How can schemas produce memory distortions?

Answer 30

Schemas in LTM can lead us to form certain expectations and distort our memory by causing us to reconstruct an event’s details based on “what must have been true”. Hence eyewitnesses recalled relevant information to the bank-robbery schema (eg. race of robber) better than irrelevant information of the scene (eg. colour of getaway car).

Question 31

How does the weapon focus effect impede one’s ability to remember faces?

Answer 31

Eyewitnesses attend to the criminal’s weapon, which reduces their memory for other information such as the murderer’s face. People often attend to stimuli that are unexpected in a current situation. Stress and anxiety also generally impairs a person’s memory.

Question 32

How does the effect of stress and anxiety cause a difference in memory deficiencies found in lab and real life conditions?

Answer 32

Errors in eyewitness memory obtained under laboratory conditions underestimate memory deficiencies for real life events.

Question 33

Cognitive interview is based on 4 retrieval rules, what are they?

Answer 33

1) Mental reinstatement of environment and personal contact experienced during the crime
2) Encouraging reporting of every detail, including apparently minor details
3) Describing the incident in several different orders
4) Reporting the incident from different viewpoints, including those of other eyewitnesses.

Question 34

How does recalling with eyes closed help in reducing memory distortions?

Answer 34

Can recall more visual and auditory details with no increase in false recall when eyes were closed. Effective because it reduced distraction from the immediate environment.

Question 35

What are 3 limitations of cognitive interviews?

Answer 35

1) Less effective at enhancing recall when used at longer retention intervals
2) Increases amount of incorrect information recalled, which can lead detectives to misinterpret evidence
3) Doesn’t prevent post-event misinformation effect)

Question 36

What is the difference between retrospective memory and prospective memory?

Answer 36

Retrospective memory - remembering events, words, etc. Involves what we know about something. Often high in information content
Prospective memory - remembering to carry out intended actions without being instructed to do so.
Typically focuses on when to do something. Low information content

Question 37

What is the effect of age on retrospective and prospective memory?

Answer 37

Both decline with age. Decline in prospective memory was especially great when there were large demands on processing resources. Prospective memory was best among teenagers. Steady decline after that

Question 38

How to reduce negative effects of interruptions on prospective memory? (2)

Answer 38

1) have a few seconds to form a new plan when an unexpected interruption changes the situation
2) have a few seconds at the end an interruption to recall the intention of returning to the interrupted task

Question 39

What are the 5 stages of prospective memory?

Answer 39

1) Encoding - storing away information about what action needs to be performed, when the action needs to be performed, and the intention to act
2) Retention - retaining stored information over time
3) Retrieval - intention retrieved from LTM at approrpiate time/circumstances
4) Execution - acting upon the intention
5) Evaluation - evaluate outcome of action. If prospective memory has failed, there is replanning.

Question 40

What is the difference between time-based prospective memory and event-based prospective memory?

Answer 40

Time-based prospective memory - Involves remembering to perform a given action at a given time
Event-based prospective memory - Involves remembering to perform an action in the right circumstances

Question 41

Prospective memory is better on which type of task? Time-based or event-based? Why?

Answer 41

event-based task
Time-based tasks often lack external cues to perform the required action, and are thus often harder. Hence, people who need to perform time-based tasks would be more likely to use deliberate self-initiated processes to rehearse intended actions.

Question 42

Is prospective memory better in naturalistic or laboratory setting?

Answer 42

Better under naturalistic conditions, probably because participants were more motivated to remember intentions under such conditions.

Question 43

How does specificity of prospective memory task affect performance?

Answer 43

Better performance for well-specified tasks.

For both event-based and time-based tasks, more processing resources were required when the target was poorly specified.

Question 44

Why is monitoring central to the preparatory attentional and memory processes (PAM) theory?

Answer 44

During prospective memory tasks, we monitor (pay attention to) the passing of time to maximise the chance that we execute the task at the right time.
Monitoring process starts when an individual forms an intention and ends when required action is performed. Monitoring is demanding because it involves capacity-consuming processes.

Question 45

Describe one study to show how demanding monitoring in prospective memory task is.

Answer 45

Condition 1 - lexical decision task (word vs non word)
Condition 2 - lexical decision task + prospective memory task (press button when u see a word that starts with G)
Lexical decision was much slower for participants in condition 2. Even when prospective memory task was changed to something much simpler (eg. press “P” when pink stimulus is presented), this task still had disruptive effect on performance speed of central task.

Question 46

What does the multiprocess theory propose?

Answer 46

Proposes that monitoring is needed on prospective memory tasks when the central task doesn’t direct attention to the target for prospective memory task. Spontaneous retrieval (absence of monitoring) occurs when the ongoing task directs attention to the target. (automatic)

Question 47

What are 3 ways we can improve our prospective memory?

Answer 47

1) Use external memory aids (eg. post-its, iphone reminders)
2) Take steps to prevent unexpected interruptions from causing you to forget to carry out an unintended action. Take a few seconds to produce a new action plan.
3) Think of the context in which an intended action is likely to be carried out when you form the intention

Question 48

What is synesthesia?

Answer 48

The capacity for a stimulus in one sense modality to evoke an image in another. (eg. can feel the colour green)

Question 49

What are mnemonics?

Answer 49

techniques used to improve memory

Question 50

What are 2 visual imagery mnemonics?

Answer 50

1) method of loci (memory palace) - involves complex and elaborate processes
2) pegword system

Question 51

What is one factor that influences the effectiveness of the memory palace method?

Answer 51

Location - Better recall when based on a route to work rather than a route in the participant’s house. An individual’s route to work is generally more constant than the ways they move around their own house.

Question 52

What are 2 limitations of the method of loci/memory palace?

Answer 52

1) Hard to recall any given item without working your way through the list until you come to it
2) When used with several lists of items, and if you use the same locations, there is a danger of proactive interference.

Question 53

Describe the pegword system as a mnemonic.

Answer 53

Relies on visual imagery and allows you to remember sequences of 10 unrelated items.
Take the first pegword (bun) and form an image of a bun interacting with a ‘battleship’.
Take the second pegword (shoe) and form an image of a shoe interacting with a ‘pig’.
and so on…

Question 54

What are 2 limitations of the pegword system.

Answer 54

1) Requires extensive training

2) Easier to use with concrete than with abstract material

Question 55

Which is the best way to remember people’s names?

1) imagery mnemonic (“eye sink”) OR
2) expanded retrieval practice; retrieve names at increasing intervals after hearing them.

Answer 55

2. Students in expanded retrieval practice group recalled 50% more names than those in control group
   Imagery mnemonic was even less effective than no specific memorising strategy. It only works well in the lab but not in real life.

Question 56

Describe one verbal technique used to memorise a series of unrelated words.

Answer 56

Story method - Used to remember a series of unrelated words in the correct order by linking them together within the context of a story. Involves use of visual imagery as well as producing sentences (phonological loop).

Question 57

What are 2 limitations of the story method in memorising?

Answer 57

1) Require fairly extensive training

2) Have to work your way through the list if you want to find a given item.

Question 58

What are 3 requirements to achieve very high memory skills?

Answer 58

1) Meaningful encoding (encoding principle) - information should be processed meaningfully, relating it to pre-existing knowledge.
2) Retrieval structure (retrieval principle) - Cues stored with the information to aid subsequent retrieval.
3) Speed-up - Extensive practice

Question 59

What is evidence to show that excellent memory is due more to training than to natural ability?

Answer 59

Most impressive memory performance was obtained by strategists on strategic tasks.

Question 60

What is a key characteristic of memory experts?

Answer 60

Devote much time to developing effective memory strategies

Question 61

Describe the 3-stage approach to memorising huge numbers of digits. (eg. pi)

Answer 61

1) Adjacent digits formed into small groups or chunks
2) Visual image or word is used to represent each chunk
3) Language is used to combine and integrate the information into successive chunks