everyday memory (week 7)

Question 1

what is everyday memory?

Answer 1

memory phenomena people experience in normal life

Question 2

Bransford & Johnson (1972) schema example:

Answer 2

‘doing the laundry’ story as an example of a schema

Question 3

what is a schema?

Answer 3

integrated knowledge structure for things and concepts, captures commonly encountered aspects in life
- allows us to form expectations, helps us to draw inferences, and go beyond the explicit information provided based on knowledge of the world

Question 4

schema inferences

Answer 4

may heard the ice-cream van - she remembered the pocket money - she rushed inside the house
inferences: she wants an ice-cream, buying one costs money, she had some pocket money in the house, she ran into her own house, had to be fast…

Question 5

what is childhood amnesia?

Answer 5

the almost lack of autobiographical memories from the first years of life

Question 6

what are some explanations for childhood amnesia?

Answer 6

1. freudian - repression of sexual feelings towards parents
2. neurological - hippocampus and frontal lobe are still developing
3. underdeveloped schemas/semantic memory
4. language development
5. emergent cognitive self - unique and identifiable entity, self-recognition around 18 months
6. multi-component

Question 7

what are the cross-cultural differences surrounding research on childhood amnesia?

Answer 7

the average age of 1st memory is 3.8 in the US, but 5.4 in China - related to how mothers talk to children, and more individual emphasis in the US

Question 8

what is a reminiscence bump?

Answer 8

the large amount of memories from the age of 15-25

Question 9

what is the neurological view of the reminiscence bump?

Answer 9

this period is the brains “peak”, where the brain is neither maturing or declining

Question 10

what is the identity formation view of the reminiscence bump?

Answer 10

this period is the time of important decisions - life script of life narrative: coherent, integrated account of who we are now and how we became like this - sense of adult identity

Question 11

what is the cognitive explanation for the reminiscence bump?

Answer 11

primacy effect: better memory for first time events, less proactive interference - should be apparent at other times hern there is a great deal of change and experience with ‘first’ immigrant study

Question 12

what is the accuracy of autobiographical memory?

Answer 12

1. truthful to the gist of actual experiences
2. tendency to place ourselves centre-stage
3. tendency for fortable view of present self
4. tendency to create a coherent memory

Question 13

what are flashbulb memories

Answer 13

highly detailed and vivid memories for surprising events that are relatively resistant to forgetting, 9/11 etc.

Question 14

evidence against flashbulb memories (talarico & rubin, 2003)

Answer 14

1. no differences between normal and flashbulb memories - same rate of forgetting
2. number of consistent details went down over time
3. believed more strongly that the FM were accurate and said more often that it felt as if reliving experience