Ch.8, Everyday Memory/Errors Flashcards
Reminiscence Bump
enhanced memory for adolescence and young adulthood found in people over 4 is called the reminiscence bump
Self-image hypothesis
proposes that memory is enhanced for events that occur as person’s self image or life identity is being formed, argues this is why young adulthood/adolescence is important for encoding memories
Youth Bias
tendency for most noticeable public events in a person’s life to be perceived to occur when the person is young
Constructive Nature of Memory
what people report as memories are constructed based on what actually happened plus additional factors such as knowledge, experiences and expectations
Cryptoamnesia
unconscious plagiarism
Suggestibility
leading questions can contaminate the memory
Music enhanced autiobiographical memory
when music brings back a memory
Proust effect
taste and olfaction can unlock memories
Autobiographical Memory
Recollections about our life: INCLUDES EPISODIC AND SEMANTIC MEMORY
Remember your 18th birthday, who was there, what you did (episodic) and you remember what city you were living in on that day
Cabeza Self-Reference Memory Task
Had participants go to different locations and take photos and compare them to the standard google images of those places: showed each of these photos to participants in an FMRI scanner, found that medial prefrontal cortex (self-referential area) lit up when seeing own photos and hippocampus lit up (mental time travel)
CONCLUSION: MEDIAL PREFRONTAL IS RECRUITED DURING SELF-REFERENTIAL PROCESSING, and hippocampus is involved in “mental time travel” when thinking about past or future
Flashbulb memories
“SEEM” VERY VIVID AND CLEAR, THEY ARE like a snapshot of a moment in time
Tend to be very distinctive, have a very strong emotional component
USUALLY A SHARED MOMENT BETWEEN LOTS OF PEOPLE
ABOUT YOUR MEMORY OF LEARNING ABOUT THE EVENT; WHEN YOU SPECIFICALLY LEARNED THE EVENTS
^^^Talarico and Rubin, 9/11 Attacks, Flashbulb Memories, Repeated Recall Task
Asked people what they were doing when they heard about it
Asked control questions as well
NUMBER OF DETAILS REMEMBERED CORRECTLY, accuracy of flashbulb memories is no different from regular memories: both types of control and flashbulb are relatively accurate over time
CONCLUSION: confidence in flashbulb memories goes up with time, confidence in other types of memories goes down with time
Therefore, number of accurately remembered details in flashbulb memories is the same, but we THINK WE REMEMBER MORE: BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE MORE LIKELY TO REMEMBER SOMETHING ABOUT THE EVENT BECAUSE THESE EVENTS GET REHEARSED MORE AND WE TALK ABOUT THEM MORE OFTEN
Rimmele et al, Emotional Memories Study, CONFIDENCE VS. ACCURACY
Asks whether emotional memories are remembered better
Encoding: showed participants 30 neutral photos (landscapes), an 30 negative images like car crashes
Asked whether they specifically remember the picture, or they know they saw it before, or if the image was new
FOR SPECIFICALLY REMEMBER RESPONSES: they were asked to report the color of the border surrounding the pictures
CONCLUSION: people were more likely to SAY that they remember emotional images, suggesting that they are more confident when it is emotional
But emotion did not actually enhance memory for details: PARTICIPANTS WERE BETTER AT REMEMBERING DETAILS FOR NEUTRAL PICTURES THAN THE EMOTIONAL
Why is memory not a recording device and visual perception isn’t a camera
Visual perception is NOT LIKE A CAMERA: influenced by factors like organization, context, attention and culture
These factors enable us to make inferences about what is important
Memory is NOT like a recording device: memory is a constructive process; TOP DOWN PROCESS; AND INVOLVES MAKING INFERENCES
Source Misattributions/Monitoring Error:
WE ATTRIBUTE INFO OR MEMORY TO THE WRONG SOURCE
Internal Sources: what you said vs what you thought (thought you asked someone to hangout but you didn’t)
External: external source A vs source B, don’t remember who told you something was good
What does source monitoring error depend on
DEPENDS ON SIMILARITY: THE MORE SIMILIAR THE SOURCES, LESS LIKELY YOU CAN DIFFERENTIATE IT
Jacoby, Famous Overnight Experiment
Subjects read a bunch of non famous names
After reading, they were told that all names were non famous
1) IMMEDIATE TEST PHASE: given the random names, plus actual names of famous people, then pick out who you think is famous (they always correctly picked out the famous people)
2) 24 HRS LATER, DELAYED TEST PHASE: they still correctly picked out the famous names, but now the names were more likely to be misidentified as famous
^^By mere exposure, we think that these names are famous but they’re not, occurred due to exposure from it the day before
FAKE NEWS, ADVERTISING ^^^ rely on this (more likely to buy things that are familiar)
Fake news: source mi
Pragmatic Inference:
draw a likely conclusion even if it is not implied (fill in a story or something based on what is most likely)
Deese-Roedigher-Mcdermmot Paradigm: inferences made when trying to recall the sentences
Source Monitoring Task Using Inferences, Marsh
Participants told to read statements, and were then tested on them
Same statements were stereotypically male or female
Later participants were told that the people who had said these statements were females or males
CONCLUSION: MEMORY WAS INFLUENCED BY WHAT THEY THOUGHT WAS MORE STEREOTYPICALLY MALE OR FEMALE, PEOPLE USED STEREOTYPES TO REMEMBER
Script:
mental conception of the sequence of actions that typically occur in a given situation (script for studying for exams, going shopping etc.)
Brewer and Treyen’s Office Study, Schemas
participants waited in office for study to begin, 30% remembered objects like books that were not actually there, but because of schemas they believed there was
Inferences and schemas can mislead us and “Construct” memories that aren’t fully true
Misinformation Effect, Loftus and Palmer:
showed participants videos of a simulated car crash,
Asked participants based on whether they said cars “contacted, bumped, smashed etc.”, then asked to estimate speed the cars were traveling at when there was the incident
Speed estimates went up as verbs became more aggressive and implied more damage
Wording of the questions alone can change people’s “memory” for the speed of the car
Memory Replacement and Misinformation
HAS SCIENTIFIC VALIDITY
When told something second time around, later info overwrites the original
RECONSOLIDATION: every time we retrieve a memory, it returns to a “moldable”/ fragile state
Later the NEW (altered) memory is consolidated
Doesn’t happen every time we retrieve a memory, but it is possible
Brunet, PTSD and Proponalol
Used drug propranolol to block stress hormone receptors in the amygdala: responsible for emotional content of the memory
Drug group had much lower stress response later when asked to relive their traumatic experiences
Drugs therefore lessened the stress every time the trauma was remembered
^^Over time, the stress response is no longer associated with the trauma and remembering the memory is no longer traumatic
