CHP. 8 - Remembering Complex Events Flashcards
Highly superior autobiographical memory
superior ability to recall specific detail of autobiographical events
* extremely rare (<100 cases)
ex. rembering buying a coffee 50 yrs. ago
Eidetic memory
ability to see an object for a few minuts after it’s no longer present
ex. mental image/lingering trace
Photographic memory
ability to recall pages of text/numbers (or something similar) in great detail
* lasts for a long time
ex. pages of a script
Memory errors
tendency to misplace details in wrong memory
ex. recalling things in a pic that were never there (prof office ex.)
Schema
one’s generalized mental representation/concept of any given class of objects/scenes/events
* try to keep them consistent, reject “inconsistencies”
Script
schemas that involve the organization of events in time rather than objects in space
* try to keep them consistent, reject “inconsistencies”
Threat superiority effect
tendency to quickly identify threatening vs. non-threatening objects
ex. gun v. stapler v. stuffed animal
Weapon bias effect
tendency to misidentify harmless objects are weapons when paired with black faces
Misinformation effect
recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate b/c of misleading post-event info
Information inflation
when people increase their confidence that an event actually happened after imagining the details
* start to believe exaggeration, don’t know they’re doing it
Retention interval
amount of time that elapsed between intial learning & subsequent retrieval
Decay theory of forgetting
memories may fade or erode over time
Interference theory
newer learning may disrupt older memories (& vice versa)
Retrieval failure
memory is intact but can’t be accessed
ex. can be partial, tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
Proactive interference
earlier learning impairs memory for info acquired later
Old info wins!
