Everyday Memory Flashcards
what does memory allow for?
storing, retaining, reconstructing, and future planning
what is memory intertwined with?
other cognitive functions such as perception, language, learning, and attention
learning
a change in organism’s behaviour as a result of experience
memory
the ability to recall or recognise previous experience
memory trace
a mental representation of a previous experience
maguire et al. (2006) found…
the greater spatial knowledge of taxi drivers resulted in
- greater grey matter volume in posterior hippocampus
- and less volume in anterior hippocampus
what does everyday memory refer to?
the memories experienced by people in their everyday life
what is a subset of everyday memory?
autobiographical memories
what does traditional memory research focus on?
accuracy
what does everyday memory research focus on?
content
accuracy
ability to remember something
content
whether crucial information is remembered
why is everyday memory not completely distinct from traditional memory research?
as it is related to episodic memory and semantic memory
what are schemas?
an integrated knowledge structure for situations
what do schemas determine?
how information is processed, remembered, and whether it is changed/updated over time
what is memory an interaction between?
events (general world knowledge) and pre-existing schema (memory traces)
schematic processing principle
schema-relevant information is better memory
- schema-congruent can provide retrieval cues
- schema-incongruent is elaborated attention
schema-irrelevant information does not provide good memory
remembering
reproduction or reconstruction of an event
what does remembering involve?
- making schema-based inferences to produce a coherent story
- rationalisations which make this in line with cultural expectations
autobiographical memory
consists of memory for events in one’s own life
infantile amnesia
lack of autobiographical memories before age of 3
reminiscence bump
increased autobiographical memories at 15-25 years old
recency effect
better autobiographical retention for recent events
childhood amnesia can be explained by: freud
sexual repression of feelings towards parent
childhood amnesia can be explained by: neurological
hippocampus and frontal lobes under development
childhood amnesia can be explained by: memory
underdeveloped schemas and semantic memory
childhood amnesia can be explained by: language
language development is not finished
childhood amnesia can be explained by: cognition
cognitive self is still emerging
cross-cultural differences in memory
average age of first memories is earlier in the US than china
how can the reminiscence bump be explained?
- neurological view
- identity formation view
- cognitive view
neurological view
brain peak as it neither matures nor declines
identity formation view
the time of important decisions, as adult identity is being developed.
this provides a stable organisation structure to cue events
cognitive view
primary effect believes there is better memory for first time events which are experienced around this age
what does the cognitive view relate to?
less proactive interference and is supported by immigrant studies, where people who emigrated later had a reminiscence bump at older ages
flashbulb memories (FM)
highly detailed memories for surprising events that are relatively resistant to forgetting
what does research show about FM?
same rate of forgetting between FM and recent memories, however FM tend to feel special and people believe more strongly these are accurate
what do false memories involve?
remembering situations that did not happen, or remembering things different from the way they really were
loftus conducted studies on how wording can influence memory and found…
- leading questions can cause retroactive interference
- eyewitnesses can show response bias
- eyewitnesses can show source misattribution
- leading questions can influence memory retrieval
retroactive interference
new information interferes with ability to recall past information
proactive interference
previously learned information interrupts the storage and retrieval of new information
