7- Malleability of Memory Flashcards
What type of memories are harder to test?
Episodic memories
Why do episodic memories feel stronger when being recalled?
Due to the emotional attachment
Who were the participants in McNally et al’s (2004) study?
A group who reported being alien abductees vs a control group (non-abducted)
What did McNally et al find?
A greater emotional physiological reaction to abduction and stressful scripts than positive and neutral scripts in ‘abductees’
What were the physiological responses elicited by memories of implausible experiences similar to?
Those elicited by traumatic memory experiences
What do physiological reactions indicate when remembering implausible experiences?
Emotions during memory recollection cannot be taken as evidence of memory authenticity
What did individuals reporting recovered memories of alien abduction show compared to controls in semantic associate word tasks? (Clancy et al)
More false recall/recognition responses
What are Clancy et al’s finding consistent with?
Hypothesis that individuals who are prone to false memories in a lab are also prone to false memories in reality
What does confusion of the memory source lead to?
Distorted memories
When do source monitoring errors occur?
When we are trying to misattribute the information to the wrong source
What does the mental model theory of reasoning suggest we imagine?
Possibilities of different situations described by facts
What do causal mental models suggest we combine information with and why?
With logical/possible information to create plausible models
What did Loftus work on?
Eyewitness testimony
What is memory distortion by linguistic presuppositions?
The way questions are asked after an event can cause a reconstruction of memory for that event
Who suggested leading questions?
Loftus and Palmer, 1974
What are leading questions?
Questions suggesting an answer/leading a respondent to an answer by the way the question is phrased or content
How did Loftus and Palmer investigate leading questions?
Participants were shown films of traffic accidents and asked about speed of vehicles
What was the key word in Loftus and Palmer’s leading question?
Hit/smashed
What did Loftus and Palmer find?
A change in a single word can bias a witness’ answer to a question
2 possible explanations for Loftus and Palmer’s finding
Response bias or memory distorted
How might a response bias influence Loftus and Palmer’s finding?
Verb makes participants choose the higher speed if they are undecided between 2 responses
How might memory distortion influence Loftus and Palmer’s finding?
Verb changes participant’s memory so the accident seemed more serious than it was
What did Loftus and Palmer conclude their results were due to?
Memory distortion
What elements are participants more likely to remember when a question included a verb?
Elements compatible with a more serious accident, but were not there
What can a linguistic presupposition in the question lead to?
People to recall non-existent objects
What is the misinformation effect?
Memory changes after the receipt of misleading post-event information
How did people show the misinformation effect in a memory task?
Worse memory performance of participants exposed to the post-event misinformation than controls
What is the effect of inducing temporary states?
Make people less likely to notice the discrepancy between the misinformation and their original memory of the event
What is the problem with gaps in our memory?
Increased chance that we’ll fill these gaps with incorrect information
3 factors of descriptions of ‘unreal’ memories differing from real memories
- Longer
- More verbal hedges
- More cognitive (but not sensory) information
Who showed that it is possible to implant a memory of something that never happened?
Loftus & Pickrell, 1995
What is the “lost in the mall method”?
Causing people to believe they had been lost in the mall as a child even though that never happened
What may rich false memories reflect?
True experiences that misinformation made emerge
How many people falsely remembered after being given a fake ad?
16%
What is a key feature of memory?
It is malleable
What events can individuals develop false memories for?
Implausible/impossible events
What is the memory system prone to do?
Absorb misinformation
