7.3 the error prone nature of human memory Flashcards
rapid forgetting doesnt
threaten the value of learning
what ppl consciously remember is not a great representation of what they actually know
Mnemonics
methods for making info memorable
- the method of loci
- acronyms
- the first letter technique
the method of loci
imagining a familiar landscape with locations placed along a path
ex grocery shopping
after you have a path picked out you mentally place items you want to get along the path
placement of location and items should make them interesting enough to be memorable
acronyms
Potus President Of The United States
the first letter technique
butter Busy milk Monkeys dogfood Don't pizza Prefer oranges Ordered lightbulbs Lists
long term remembering is
hard work
the basic principle is :
elaborative rehearsal
the more ways you think about anything, the more likely you will be to remember it
forgetting is irritating but remembering isn’t always a picnic either
memory isn’t 100 percent accurate
remembering can become distorted
can have false memories
guided imagery
a technique meant to help individuals remember an event from earlier in their life by having them imaging what that type of event might be been like
unfortunately it results in a number of people having false memories of things like child abuse
imagination inflation
the more a person imagines what an event would be like, the more likely they will be to become convinced that the imaging event actually happened to them
ex. in one study participants were asked to imagine nurse taking a skin sample from their finger, those participants began to believe they did experience that some point in their life
ex. doctoring photographs is a good way to fool people into thinking that they had an experience that they never actually had, people then can create a memory/story for an event that never actually occurred, which they believe
we are great at remembering the theme or gist of an experience but …
not as good at remembering all of the minor details
hermann ebbinghaus
exclusively studied his own ability to remember materials
created a long list of nonsense syllables
DAX ZIL WOP TOC
pronounceable but not meaning
learned a long list of pairings DAX-WOP
he would say DAX and see if he could remember its partner WOP
after he would repeat this procedure after different time delays which is now the forgetting curve
forgetting is rapid after a time delay
what he had perfected before was forgotten only after a couple of hours
but he could remember a small portion after quite long delays
schemas
general knowledge in memory about what features are typical for certain types of situations
ex ppl are given a passage but do not know what its about, no schema about it, so when asked to repeat the passage they are not able to because there is nothing to relate it too, but after they are told what its about and they are given the schema which makes it a lot easier to remember because they can relate it to experiences they have had
bc schemas are based on what is generally true, we can make mistakes when we rely on them for the specifics for a certain type of event, if a person paraglides on most of the trips you go on, then when they think back for ex their trip to cuba three years ago they might think they spent some time paragliding even though that might have been one of the few trips they didnt do any paragliding
deese-roediger-mcdermott or DRM effect
given people word lists, all of the lists consisted of related words
each list was based on a theme word call the critical lure, ppl think that they saw the critical lure on the list, even though it wasn’t presented
fights can happen when one persons memory differes from another
ex. one person remembers an event differently than the other
Elizabeth loftus
showed that people are capable of producing error in memory of events
investigated false memories
ppl have been falsely convicted of crimes because of eyewitness false memories
she did a study where she showed participants a video of a car accident
later asked, about how fast were the cars going when they ______ each other ? each group was given a different word to fill in the blank
each group had different answers
so the way we word questions can determine how we remember that event
smashed is more dramatic then hit so naturally they said a higher speed
misinformation effect
when biasing questions alter an eyewitness’s memory for the event that they witnessed
ex. shown a video where someone sped through a stop sign
later she asked how fast was the car going when it sped through the yield sign
later asked did the video have a yield sign or stop sign and most participants remembered a yield sign
bruck and ceci study
had an actor present himself as a janitor at a preschool
in one room he was responsibly cleaning
in another he was playing with the toys
5 and 6 yr old kids reported the janitors behaviour in a way that was consistent with the leading questions provided by the interviewer rather than the janitors actual behaviour
