Everyday Memory and Memory Errors Flashcards
Cabeza experiment
comparing brain activation caused by autobiographical memory and lab memory, patients viewed photographs they took, and photographs taken by someone else. Demonstrated richness of autobiographical memories.
Results: Both types of photos activated medial temporal lobe for episodic and parietal cortex for processing of scenes. Own photos activated prefrontal cortex for information about self, and hippocampus for recollection.
autobiographical memory
memory for specific experiences from our life, which can include both episodic and semantic components.
mental time travel
hippocampus is involved in recollection – memory is associated with mental time travel.
multidimensional
memories are multidimensional with each dimension playing its own role in memory. Spatial, emotional, and sensory components.
self-imagery
memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person’s self-image is being formed.
Greenberg and Rubin
patients who cannot recognize objects also experience loss of autobiographical memory. Visual experience plays a role in forming and retrieving AM.
reminiscence bump
participants over age 40 were asked to recall events in their lives, memory is high for recent events and for events that occurred in adolescence and early adulthood (age 10-30).
self-image - reminiscence bump
Memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person’s self-image or life identity is being formed. People assume identities during adolescence and young adulthood.
cognitive explanation for reminiscence bump
encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability. Evidence from those who emigrated to the US after young adulthood indicates reminiscence bump is shifted.
cultural life script
culturally shared expectations structure recall. Each person has a personal life story and an understanding of culturally expected events. Personal events are easier to recall when they fit the cultural life script.
flashbulb memories
memory for the circumstances surrounding shocking, highly charged important events like 9/11 attack, or Kennedy assassination. Remember where you were, what you were doing, it’s highly emotional, vivid, and very detailed.
Neisser and Harsch experiment
repeated recall experiment, results suggest that these memories can be inaccurate or lacking in detail even though participants claim confidence and that memories seem very vivid.
Talaric and Rubin experiment
details remembered decreased for both flashbulb and everyday memories, belief in accuracy and vividness also decreased for everyday memories but remained high for flashbulb memories.
narrative rehearsal hypothesis
repeated viewing/hearing of event, like on TV, newspaper, radio, can introduce errors in own memory.
Bartlett’s war on ghosts’ experiment
had participants attempt to remember a story from a different culture, repeated reproduction. Results showed over time reproduction became shorter, contained omissions and inaccuracies, and changed to make the story more consistent with their own culture.
source memory
process of determining origins of our memories
source monitoring error
misidentifying source of memory, also called source misattributions.
cryptoamnesia
unconscious plagiarism of another’s works due to a lack of recognition of its original source.
Jacoby Becoming Famous overnight experiment
after 24 hours, some non-famous names were misidentified as famous, this was because some non-famous named were familiar, and the participants misattributed the source of the familiarity. People failed to identify the source as the list had been read the previous day.
Lindsay experiment
participants heard a story and 2 days later they heard the story again with some details changed. They were told to ignore the changes, and the same voice was used for both stories which created source monitoring errors. Changing the voice though did not create as many errors.
schema
knowledge about some aspect of the environment
script
conception of sequence of actions that usually occurs during a particular experience.
how schemas and scripts influence memory
Memory can include info not actually experienced but inferred because it is expected and consistent with the schema.
misinformation effect
misleading information presented after someone witnesses an event can change how that person later describes the event.
Loftus experiment
introduced misleading post-event information – yield sign, and participants remember what they heard (yield sign) and now what they saw (stop sign). Participants would hear “smashed” or “hit” in the description of a car accident, and those who heard “smashed” said the cars were going much faster than those who heard “hit”.
source monitoring error
failure to distinguish the source of the information, MPI is misattributed to the original source.
pros of constructive nature of memory
allows us to fill in the blanks, cognitive creation – understand language, solve problems, and make decisions.
cons of constructive nature of memory
sometimes we make errors, and sometimes we misattribute the source of information.
errors in eyewitness testimony
testimony by a witness to a crime about what he or she saw during a crime, people assume that others see and remember things accurately, but people can mistake identity due to constructive nature of memory.
Hyman experiment - false memories
participants’ parent gave a description of childhood experiences, and participants had a conversation about the experiences with an experimenter. When discussing it later, participants “remembered” new events as actually happening when they didn’t.
illusory truth effect
enhanced probability of evaluating a statement is true after repeated presentation, occurs due to fluency or familiarity with the information, related to the propaganda effect.
