Everyday memory Flashcards

Question

Explain what prospective memory is

Answer 1

■Remembering to carry out some intended actions without any explicit reminder ■Focuses on when to do something ■Usually has low info content ■Relevant to plans and goals we form for our daily lives ■ Forgetting=“flaky person”

Answer 2

■Remembering to perform an action when the appropriate circumstances arise e.g., passing along a message when you see someone ■Triggered by external cues (so less thought is given to the future task) ■Yields better performance ■“Simple”

Answer 3

■Remembering to perform a given action at a particular time e.g., meeting a friend at a coffee shop at 4 pm ■Fewer external cues; greater reliance on self-generated cues (results in more time spent thinking about the future task) ■More likely to be forgotten ■“Difficult”

Answer 4

–74/75 memory failures by pilots leading to accidents caused by prospective memory failures  Pilot training builds up a strong knowledge base to prevent retrospective memory failures –Pilots rely on prompts/cues to guide their actions (distractions and deviations interrupt cues) –Most likely to have a prospective memory failure when interrupted (Latorella, 1998) Pilots occasionally fail to form a carefully considered revised plan Interruptions most likely to cause prospective memory errors when they interrupt well-practised routines (Loft & Remington, 2010)

Answer 5

–Ongoing task + prospective memory (PM) task at same time –PM task easier if ongoing task facilitates processing of target(s) on PM task. For example:  Ongoing task: does letter string form a word? (acts as external cue) PM task: respond when word “sleep” is presented Here ongoing task is a focal task –PM task harder if ongoing task does not facilitate processing of target(s) on PM task. For example: Ongoing task: does letter string form a word? PM task: respond to words starting with r Here ongoing task is a non-focal task

Answer 6

Processing differs depending on whether ongoing task is focal or non-focal task Strategic monitoring (top-down control process to monitor PM intention and search for relevant cues) used more often with non-focal tasks Retrieval on PM tasks occurs in two ways: Intentional retrieval=uses top-down processing + requires prior monitoring and used with non-focal tasks Spontaneous retrieval=uses bottom-up processes triggered by relevant stimulus and used with focal tasks ■ Meta-cognition

Answer 7

–More processing with non-focal than focal tasks also leading to impaired performance on non-focal tasks (Moyes et al., 2019) –Model predicts top-down processes associated with anterior prefrontal cortex (BA 10) used more with non-focal tasks than focal ones (McDaniel et al. 2013) –More generally, different brain areas should be associated with focal and non-focal tasks; confirmed by Cona et al. (2016) (e.g., areas associated with bottom-up processes more activated with focal tasks)

Answer 8

■Several PM processes have been identified ■Brain areas associated with each process have been identified ■Failures in prospective memory has been explained ■Much theoretical progress (e.g., dual-pathways model)

Answer 9

■Monitoring is NOT always used with non-focal tasks (Anderson et al., 2018) ■Interactions between prospective and retrospective memory are complex Lab differences to the real world: Intentions need to be maintained for longer Context is varied in real world More incentives in real world

Answer 10

Account of an event by a third party

Answer 11

1.Jurors don't understand memory in general (no knowledge on interference and reconstruction) 2.Don't understand the ‘weapon focus’ effect 3.Wrongly assumes that violence or stress=memory for details more reliable 4.Jurors don't know that time estimates are biased (thus the time to see and encode a face might not be as long as the witness states) 5.Confuse confidence with accuracy 6.Aren't aware of cross-racial impairment

Answer 12

■159 UK police officers were surveyed ■Collected perceptions of – eyewitnesses and – eyewitness performance. ■Police officers said that EWT provide the central leads (expectedly) but believe the descriptions to be correct!

Answer 13

■Basic assumption of lay men=if someone sees something occurring (or someone else doing something) then it must be true. But psychology tells another story: –What is seen isn't necessarily there –And what we remember didn't necessarily occur

Answer 14

■We can see things that don't exist ■It is normal: the illusion results from the automatic processing of neural brain signals ■Even when you know that your perception isn't correct, the illusion persists

Answer 15

The tendency to recognise patterns with things that may look like objects even if not.

Answer 16

the reconstruction of an experience sampled from reality (what we've seen) encoding=consolidation=retrieval

Answer 17

■The more time you have to observe a fact=the better the encoding ■BUT most events occur very quickly=distorted encoding

Answer 18

■Effect on recognition: children over 4 are as accurate as adults when the target is in the line-up BUT children and the elderly less accurate than adults when target is not in the line-up ■Hard to distinguish accurate from inaccurate statement in children Children are also suggestible: –Neutral interviewers=Accurate report –Accusatory interviewers=Biased in favour of guilt –Exonerating interviewers=Biased in favour of innocence ■Similar patterns are found with aged witnesses.

Answer 19

■The Outreau trials upon the testimony of Myriam Badaoui: –Finger pointing + confabulating –Confabulation is a fabricated memory (some might be true). The person believes that it is true. – A bit of both to minimize her level of responsibility therefore witnesses can be unreliable

Answer 20

■Emotions drive attention to the most relevant stimuli in the scene ■In a violent event some victims remember only the weapon (sometimes that is was cold) as their emotional system has driven them to consider only the immediate danger ■They did not see much of the perpetrator's face

Answer 21

■Severity of the crime (directly relates to the emotion felt at the time) ■Emotions have a huge effect on memory storage (flashbulb) ■Arousal too low --- poor recall ■Arousal too high --- poor recall ■Keep in mind that the jury pays the same attention to the EW

Answer 22

–P's saw a single photo of an individual OR 7 photographs of the same individual at 7 different orientations OR 7 computer-synthesised images of the same individual at 7 different orientations *Identification performance best with synthesised images and worst with the single photo *Findings important because police can generate synthesised face images from a single photograph

Answer 23

■There is a wide variability in the ability to recognise faces ■But some people are particularly poor at it

Answer 24

■Based on Loftus’ works on the influence of Q's on the inferred car speed ■Implanting memories/details in witness retrieving info can occur if: –Questions might be biased –Repeated info might be taken as correct ■Approval by verbal or non-verbal feedback will comfort the witness that the erroneous information is correct (even worse with children).

Answer 25

1)Mental reinstatement of the environment 2)Encouraging reporting of every detail 3)Describing the event in various orders 4)Reporting the event from different viewpoints

Answer 26

–Large increase in details recalled compared to standard police interview (Memon et al., 2010) –Small increase in incorrect details recalled – varying order/viewpoints of events ineffective (Colomb & Ginet, 2012) –Less effective with long retention interval between event and interview and with highly arousing events –Could be improved by taking account of eyewitness level of confidence in their recall (Paulo et al., 2016)