Chapter 8 - Manipulation and Improvement of Memory Flashcards
What did Bartlett (1932) conclude about the nature of human memory?
Bartlett concluded that we tend to only remember a few key details of an experience, and that during recall we reconstruct the memory, drawing on our personal values, beliefs and expectations to make up and add missing bits in ways that complete the memory in a logical or plausible way.
What did Elizabeth Loftus’ studies involve and what did she find?
Elizabeth Loftus studied eyewitness testimony, and found that eyewitnesses similarly reconstruct their memories during recall and therefore their testimony is not always accurate.
What can be used to manipulate memory according to Loftus?
Leading questions can be used to manipulate memory. They contain presuppositions, information that should or must be true in order for the question to make sense.
What are leading questions?
Questions that have content or are phrased in such a way as to suggest what answer is desired or to lead to the desired answer.
What did the study by Loftus & Palmer (1974) involve?
Their study consisted of two laboratory experiments that investigated the influence of question wording on memory and how information supplied after an event can distort witness memory for that event.
Why were the participants’ memories distorted in the first experiment by Loftus & Palmer (1974)
They were distorted by the verbal label in the critical question that had been used to characterise the intensity of the car crash.
What was revealed in Loftus & Palmer’s (1974) second experiment?
The participants were unable to tell that key information in their memory had come from different sources, with the leading question in the first experiment influencing participants to reconstruct a distorted memory about the presence of broken glass.
When does source confusion occur?
Source confusion arises when the true source of the memory is forgotten or when a memory is attributed to the wrong source.
What is an effective way of enhancing retrieval from LTM?
Re-create the conditions under which the required information was originally learned. More information will be likely to be recalled.
What are context-dependent cues?
Environmental cues in the specific situation (‘context’) where a memory was formed, which act as retrieval cues to help access the memories formed in that context (e.g. sights, sounds, smells).
What are state-dependent cues?
Cues associated with an individual’s internal physiological and/or psychological state at the time the memory was formed, which act as retrieval cues to help access those memories (e.g. mood, arousal, physiological state).
What are mnemonic devices and why are they useful?
They are techniques from enhancing or improving memory, making use of information already in LTM and making it more elaborate, organising new information into a cohesive whole.
What are five mnemonic devices?
Acronyms, rhymes, acrostics, the peg-word method and narrative chaining.
What does narrative chaining involve?
Narrative chaining involves otherwise unrelated items to one another to form a meaningful sentence or story.
