Chapter 8 Everyday Memory and Memory Errors

Question 1

Amygdala

Answer 1

A subcortical structure that is involved in processing emotional aspects of experience, including memory for emotional events.

Question 2

Autobiographical memory

Answer 2

Memory for specific events from a person’s life, which can include both episodic and semantic components.

Question 3

Cognitive hypothesis

Answer 3

An explanation for the reminiscence bump, which states that memories are better for adolescence and early adulthood because encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability.

Question 4

Cognitive interview

Answer 4

A procedure used for interviewing crime scene witnesses that involves letting witnesses talk with a minimum of interruption. It also uses techniques that help witnesses recreate the situation present at the crime scene by having them place themselves back in the scene and recreate emotions they were feeling, where they were looking, and how the scene may have appeared when viewed from different perspectives.

Question 5

Constructive nature of memory

Answer 5

The idea that what people report as memories are constructed based on what actually happened plus additional factors, such as expectations, other knowledge, and other life experiences.

Question 6

Cryptomnesia

Answer 6

Unconscious plagiarism of the work of others. This has been associated with errors in source monitoring.

Question 7

Cultural life script hypothesis

Answer 7

The idea that events in a person’s life story become easier to recall when they fit the cultural life script for that person’s culture. This has been cited to explain the reminiscence bump.

Question 8

Cultural life script

Answer 8

Life events that commonly occur in a particular culture.

Question 9

Eyewitness testimony

Answer 9

Testimony by someone who has wit-nessed a crime.

Question 10

Flashbulb memory

Answer 10

Memory for the circumstances that surround hearing about shocking, highly charged events. It has been claimed that such memories are particularly vivid and accurate.

Question 11

Fluency

Answer 11

The ease with which a statement can be remembered.

Question 12

Highly superior autobiographical memory

Answer 12

Autobiographical memory capacity possessed by some people who can remember personal experiences that occurred on any specific day from their past.

Question 13

Illusory truth effect

Answer 13

Enhanced probability of evaluating a statement as being true upon repeated presentation.

Question 14

Misinformation effect

Answer 14

Misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event that changes how the person describes that event later.

Question 15

Misleading postevent information (MPI)

Answer 15

The misleading information that causes the misinformation effect.

Question 16

Music-enhanced autobiographical memories (MEAMS),

Answer 16

Autobiographical memories elicited by hearing music.

Question 17

Narrative rehearsal hypothesis

Answer 17

The idea that we remember some life events better because we rehearse them. This idea was proposed by Neisser as an explanation for “flashbulb” memories.

Question 18

Nostalgia

Answer 18

A memory that involves a sentimental affection for the past.

Question 19

Post-identification feedback effect

Answer 19

An increase in confidence of memory recall due to confirming feedback after making an identification, as in a police lineup.

Question 20

Pragmatic inference

Answer 20

Inference that occurs when reading or hearing a statement leads a person to expect something that is not explicitly stated or necessarily implied by the statement.

Question 21

Proust effect

Answer 21

Proust’s description of how taste and olfaction unlocked memories he hadn’t thought of for years, now called the Proust effect, is not an uncommon experience, and it has also been observed in the laboratory.

Question 22

Reminiscence bump

Answer 22

he empirical finding that people over 40 years old have enhanced memory for events from adolescence and early adulthood, compared to other periods of their lives.

Question 23

Repeated recall

Answer 23

Recall that is tested immediately after an event and then retested at various times after the event.

Question 24

Repeated reproduction

Answer 24

A method of measuring memory in which a person is asked to reproduce a stimulus on repeated occasions at longer and longer intervals after the original presentation of the material to be remembered.

Question 25

Repressed childhood memory

Answer 25

Memories that have been pushed out of a person’s consciousness.

Question 26

Schema

Answer 26

A person’s knowledge about what is involved in a particular experience.

Question 27

Script

Answer 27

A type of schema. The conception of the sequence of actions that describe a particular activity. For example, the sequence of events that are associated with going to class would be a “going to class” script.

Question 28

Self-image hypothesis

Answer 28

The idea that memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person’s self-image or life identity is being formed. This is one of the explanations for the reminiscence bump.

Question 29

Source misattribution

Answer 29

Occurs when the source of a memory is misidentified.

Question 30

Source monitoring error

Answer 30

Misidentifying the source of a memory.

Question 31

Source monitoring

Answer 31

The process by which people determine the origins of memories, knowledge, or beliefs. Remembering that you heard about something from a particular person would be an example of source monitoring.

Question 32

Weapons focus

Answer 32

The tendency for eyewitnesses to a crime to focus attention on a weapon, which causes poorer memory for other things that are happening.

Question 33

Youth bias

Answer 33

Tendency for the most notable public events in a person’s life to be perceived to occur when the person is young.