Everyday Memory and Memory Errors

Question 1

Two important characteristics of autobiographical memory

Answer 1

1) They are multidimensional

2) We remember some events in our lives better than others

Question 2

Visual experience plays an important role in autobiographical memory. Patients with visual damage are unable to…

Answer 2

Remember autobiographical memories as well. Whether they are visual or not

Question 3

Reminiscence bump

Answer 3

Empirical finding that people over 40 years old have enhanced memory for events that occurred in adolescence and early adulthood

Question 4

When does the reminiscence bump occur?

Answer 4

Between age 10 and 30

Question 5

What are the three hypotheses based on the idea that special events occur during the reminiscence bump?

Answer 5

1) Self-image hypothesis
2) Cognitive hypothesis
3) Cultural life script hypothesis

Question 6

Self-Image Hypothesis

Answer 6

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

Memorable events associated with the development of self-image: giving birth, graduating from University, staring a career

Question 7

Cognitive Hypothesis

Answer 7

Encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability.

Going away to school, emigrating, staring a career, are followed by a relative stability of adult life

People who experience rapid changes that occurred later mean that their reminiscence bump also occurs later

Question 8

Cultural Life Script Hypothesis

Answer 8

Events in a person’s life story that become easier to recall when they fit their cultural life script

Youth bias: tendency for the most notable events in a person’s life to be perceived as occurring when the person is young (getting a job, married, having a kid)

Question 9

Emotions may trigger events in the amygdala that help us remember…

Answer 9

events associated with emotion

Question 10

Experiment with rats and humans led to the finding that stress hormones released after an emotional experience…

Answer 10

increase consolidation of memory for that experience

Question 11

Flashbulb memories

Answer 11

Memory for the circumstances that surround hearing (not experiencing) about shocking events

Question 12

Narrative rehearsal hypothesis

Answer 12

We remember some life events better than others because we rehearse them

Question 13

If the narrative hypothesis is correct than the flashbulb analogy is…

Answer 13

misleading

Question 14

People’s memory for flashbulb events remain more ____ than everyday memories but that does not mean they remain ______

Answer 14

vivid, accurate

Question 15

The constructive nature of memory

Answer 15

People’s memories are constructed based on what actually happened AND additional factors such as expectations, knowledge, and life experience

Question 16

Aspects of the constructive nature of memory are illustrated by…

Answer 16

Source monitoring errors

Illusory truth effect

Knowledge

Inferences

Schemas and scripts

False recall and recognition

Question 17

Source monitoring errors

Answer 17

Misidentifying the source of a memory

Question 18

Illusory truth effect

Answer 18

Related to the propaganda effect.

Believing a statement to be true because of its repetition

Question 19

Participants tend to let their own _____ influence stories they hear. This is shown when they are asked to recall a story.

Answer 19

culture

Question 20

Pragmatic inference

Answer 20

When reading a sentence leads a person to expect something that is not explicitly stated or implied

Question 21

Schema

Answer 21

A person’s knowledge about what is involved in a particular experience

Ex; what things make up an office?

Question 22

Script

Answer 22

Our conception of the sequence of actions that usually occur during a particular experience

Question 23

Schema and script influence our memory by…

Answer 23

setting up expectations about what usually happens in a certain situation

Question 24

False recall and recognition

Answer 24

Being presented a list of words such as “bed, rest, awake, tired, dream” and then having to recall them and saying “sleep” even though it was not there

Remembering “sleep” is a false memory. This occurs because the word is associated with other words on the list

Similar to schemas

Question 25

Misinformation effect

Answer 25

Misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event can change how the person later describes that event

Question 26

Experiment on creating false childhood memories

Answer 26

Participants were asked to remember a fake childhood event. Participants dais they did not remember this event but then a second time they did.

Could be explained by familiarity