Everyday Memory and Memory Errors

Question 1

Cabeza experiment

Answer 1

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.

Question 1

autobiographical memory

Answer 1

memory for specific experiences from our life, which can include both episodic and semantic components.

Question 2

mental time travel

Answer 2

hippocampus is involved in recollection – memory is associated with mental time travel.

Question 3

multidimensional

Answer 3

memories are multidimensional with each dimension playing its own role in memory. Spatial, emotional, and sensory components.

Question 4

self-imagery

Answer 4

memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person’s self-image is being formed.

Question 5

Greenberg and Rubin

Answer 5

patients who cannot recognize objects also experience loss of autobiographical memory. Visual experience plays a role in forming and retrieving AM.

Question 6

reminiscence bump

Answer 6

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).

Question 7

self-image - reminiscence bump

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

cognitive explanation for reminiscence bump

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

cultural life script

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

flashbulb memories

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

Neisser and Harsch experiment

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

Talaric and Rubin experiment

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

narrative rehearsal hypothesis

Answer 13

repeated viewing/hearing of event, like on TV, newspaper, radio, can introduce errors in own memory.

Question 14

Bartlett’s war on ghosts’ experiment

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

source memory

Answer 15

process of determining origins of our memories

Question 16

source monitoring error

Answer 16

misidentifying source of memory, also called source misattributions.

Question 17

cryptoamnesia

Answer 17

unconscious plagiarism of another’s works due to a lack of recognition of its original source.

Question 18

Jacoby Becoming Famous overnight experiment

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

Lindsay experiment

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

schema

Answer 20

knowledge about some aspect of the environment

Question 21

script

Answer 21

conception of sequence of actions that usually occurs during a particular experience.

Question 22

how schemas and scripts influence memory

Answer 22

Memory can include info not actually experienced but inferred because it is expected and consistent with the schema.

Question 23

misinformation effect

Answer 23

misleading information presented after someone witnesses an event can change how that person later describes the event.

Question 24

Loftus experiment

Answer 24

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”.

Question 25

source monitoring error

Answer 25

failure to distinguish the source of the information, MPI is misattributed to the original source.

Question 26

pros of constructive nature of memory

Answer 26

allows us to fill in the blanks, cognitive creation – understand language, solve problems, and make decisions.

Question 27

cons of constructive nature of memory

Answer 27

sometimes we make errors, and sometimes we misattribute the source of information.

Question 28

errors in eyewitness testimony

Answer 28

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.

Question 29

Hyman experiment - false memories

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

illusory truth effect

Answer 30

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.