Eyewitness testimony Flashcards
1
Q
Ribot’s law
A
Gradual and spontaneous recovery of pre-injury memory:
- Only applies to medial temporal lobe injury, not frontal lobe!
Theory of memory consolidation = Consolidation of memory takes a few minutes, it is therefore unlikely that moments very close before the traumatic experience will be recovered since consolidation was interrupted by brain damage
2
Q
Source-monitoring errors
A
People mistakenly believe that self-generated images are genuine memories
Predisposition if frontal lobe injury
3
Q
Other errors
A
- Distortion = Events are remembered but slightly differently
- Pseudo/false memory = Events are completely fabricated
4
Q
Why do we create wrong memories?
A
- Post-hoc misinformation paradigm Exposure due to post-hoc misinformation
- Imagination-inflation paradigm People fantasize about event and thereby increase their confidence that the event did actually take place
- Semantic relatedness paradigm Exposure to cues referring to a critical item will lead people to falsely recognizing that item
5
Q
How do we retrieve memories?
A
- Medial temporal lobe is the switchboard which links the different brain regions which have the information (visual, auditory, sensory…) = Deals with encoding and retrieval of recent experiences
- Prefrontal cortex monitors and inhibits irrelevant information for retrieval of past experiences:
- Left = Organises in the most efficient way
- Right = Guides retrieval of autobiographical memories
- Orbital = Sense of rightness, damage can lead to confabulation
- Right DLPFC = Time orientation
- vmPFC = Can distinguish between real and pseudo memories
6
Q
Individual differences
A
- Dissociation, suggestibility and imagery vividness
- Poorer cognitive inhibition
- Poorer executive functioning
- Older age Because poorer frontal lobe function + Potential disruptions in PFC (Alzheimer) + reduced working memory capacity
- Poorer working memory
