Final exam Flashcards
what is autobiographical memory
memory for the experiences that comprise a persons life story
differentiate between autobiographical memories and autobiographical facts
AM- consdiered episoidc memories, essentially relived personal experiences rich in contextual detail
Autobiographical facts- considered semantic memories, refer to simple context free knowledge of ones personal word
three reasons why AM reseachs differs from typical memory reseach
- no event is presented,, the memories being assesed happened prior to the experiment and are always out of control of the experimenter
-accuracy of AM is difficult to asses
-researches must focus on aspects that can be assesed (age vividness, detail, emotional intensity)
since AM is so hard to investigate, what are some factors researchs will focus on
age, vividness, detail, emotional intensity
what are 3 events that are remembered well
-significant events in persons life (graduating , marriage)
- Highly emotional events (car acident)
- Transition points (moving out, starting carrer)
3 components of the Am Retention Function
-Childhood Amnesia
-reminiscence bump
-forgetting
what is childhood amnesia and what are the methodological problems often associated
- almost no memories of life prior to being 3
emmergence of AM= offset of childhood amnesia
methodological problems
- no guarantee that participants are truly remembering the events or if they are remembering what someone told them
explain the dependancy of children’s age on rehearsal and what are the 3 explinations for the offset
- maybe 2-3 year olds memory is still fragile and is easily confused with stories and pictures
-since a 4-5 year olds memory may be less tenuous, the rehearsals are probably beneficial
explanations
-brain development
-language development
-development of the self
AM deveoples pretty much in lock-step with ______
language development
- children begin to remember events from their lives as soon as they are capable of describing these events with langauge
*non verbal children dont seem to have an AM for this reason
two types of parents narritive styles that influence the quality of childhood memories
elaborative style- more detailed descriptions of past events
- often used with female children
Pragmatic style- succint with less detail
-often used with MALE children
What is the female superiority effect in AM
females report in terms of detail, males can still recall but dont necessarily report with as much detail.
- this relates to the parents narrivtive style (elaborative) that they often use with female children
reminiscence bump
memory is high for events that occured in adolescence and early adulthood (ages 10-30)
three hypothesis to the reminiscence bump
-self image hypothesis
-cognitive hypothesis
-cultural life-script hypotheis
explain the self image hypothesis
one of the hypothesis that relates to the reminiscence bump
- memory is enhanced for events that occur as a persons self image or life identity is being formed
-people often assume identies during adolescence and early adulthood as their is many transional periods
explain the cognitive hypothesis
one of the hypothesis that relates to the reminiscence bump
- encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability
ex) people who imigrated to US after early adulthood indicates that bump is shifted
explain the cultural life-script hypothesis
one of the hypothesis that relates to the reminiscence bump
-each person has their own personal life story and an understanding of culturally expected events
-personal events are easier to recall when they fit the cutural life script
youth bias
tendency for the most notable public events in a persons life to be perceived to occur when the person is young
explain (3 reasons) why memory drops from 75% correct to 33% correct over four years — very simialr to Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
-lack of rehearsal
-interference from multiple events (none stand out)
-many events similar and routine
nostaligia
a memory that involves a sentimental affection of the past
ex) many people believe life was better 50 years ago,, this fits the reminiscence bump
MEAMS
music elicited Autobiographical memories
- music can create a feeling of nostalgia
MEAMS are often experienced as being involentary memories because they occur as an automatic repsonse to stimulus
proust effect
taste and smell can unlock memories that they have not had in years
ex) smelly markers
why are emotional events remembered more easily and vividly?
emotion improves memory, becomes greater with time (may enhance consolidation)
brain activity- amygdala
- helps memory with emotional events
-release cortisol may increase consolidation
flashbulb memories
refers to a persons memory for circumstances sourounding HEARING about shocking events
- snapshot in time, where were you and what were you doing
can flashbulb memories be inaccurate and what hypothesis is does this relate too?
yes, these memories can be inaccurate or lacking detail even if the participant is very confident
Narrative rehearsal hypothesis: repeated viewing/hearing of event (TV, or sharing stories)
- this can introduce erros
2 reasons for accounting for phantom flashbulbs
TV priority- many of the mistaken recollections included having heard about the event on TV ( watching something has a bigger imapct)
Time Slice Errors- remembering the wrong slice of time
- this is an error in the source monitoring
-why our generation may not have flashbulb memories because there is SUCH a large amount of sources we get info from
what are the 3 sins of ommision
-transience , a memory fades with time
-absentmindedness, general forgetfulness
-blocking, failure to reteive from LTM
what are the 4 sins of commission
-misattribution, memory is attributed to the wrong source
-suggestibility, led to a false recollection
-bias, influence of who we are (beliefs, expectations, desires)
-persistence, continued unwanted retrival of a memory you would rather have forgot
differentiate between omission and commission
omission is the forgetting or events
commision is the remembering of details that didnt happen
what are the 7 sins of memory
-transience
-absentmindedness
-blocking
-misattribution
-suggestibility
-bais
-persistence
deja vu, and the brain activity to make it happen
the feeling that you have previously experienced something before
temporal lobe sends a message to decision-making regions that something has been experiences borfore, then the prefrontal cortex tries to correct it which then reulst in confusion
deja vecu
feeling like you have already lived this life
- deja vu all the time
-can happen with dementia and drug use
jamais vu
never seen
-not recgonizing that you have previously experienced something
-fatigue and stress can cause this
ex) seeing a simple word and questioning if that is the correct spelling or if it is a word at all
what is the constructive nature of memory
what actually happens + persons knowlege/experiences
- ex) the ghost story and when asked to repeate it, people changed the story to be more consistent with their own culture
pragmatic inferences
based on knowlege gained through experience
ex) when told the story about someone fixing a bird house and banging the nail, people then inferred that he was using a hammer
schema
knowledge about what is involved in a particular experience
ex) ball game, classroom
script
conception of sequences of actions that occur during a particular expereience
ex) going to resturant
four types of encoding errors that influence eyewitness memory
perceptual factors
- viewing conditions
emotions and stress
-narrows ones focus
-weapon focus effect
cross racial identification
-own race bias
unconcsious transference
-failure to distingush between a target person and someone other than the person that they may just view as familiar
ex) howard haupt in vagas
what is the weapons focus effect
when giving eyewitness statment the person struggles to remember the person if they were holding a weapon because that is where their attention was
what is an error due to familiary
source monitoring- not remember exactly where you remember the person from, but they look familair
photo bias
increased probability of recognition due to previous exposure
misinformation effect
misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event can change how that person describes the event later
- misleading postevent information (MPI)
what are the three theories the misinformation effect
- memory trace replacement view
-retroactive interference
-source monitoring error
what is memory trace replacement view
one theory to the misinformation effect
-strong view= the orginal memory trace is overwritten by the suggested information
-weak view= the orginal memory is altered by the presentation of the suggested information
retroactive interference
one theory to the misinformation effect
-more recent learning interfers with memory for something in the past
- important to note that the orginal memory is not replaced, just interfered with
source monitoring error
one theory to the misinformation effect
-misidentifying the source of the memory
-often unaware of them
ex) becoming famous over night
cryptomnesia
unconscious plagerism
factors that affect Missinformation effect
-plausibility (how likley it is)
-event from long ago more likely
-imagnation infltion— thinking about an event can lead to an increase in the belief that the event may have actually occured
low-moderate-high errors to attention and arousal
low- attend to irrelevant information
high- focus too narrowly (weapons focus effect)
moderate - best for being aware of relevent information
what are some ways investigators are trying to limit the misinformation efefct
-inform that perp might not be in the line up
-use fillers in lineup that are simialr to suspect
seweiential presentation, not simulaneous
-blind amdminstrator, limits bias
-
concenptual knoweldge
knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events and to make inferences about their properties
concept
an idea about something that gives us some understanding of the world
- can be a single word, or it can relate to other concepts
what do we use concepts for
make inferences - dont need to provide unnecessary details
combine to form complex thoughts – schemas
for communicatons
organized concepts are ______
categories
- incudes all possible examples of a particular concept
ex) apple can be a category, honeycrips, gala, granny smith
or apple can be a item within a catagory of fruit
name the four types of categories
natural
artifact
ad hoc
nominal kind
natural categories
occur naturally
ex) trees, dogs
artifact categorie
created by humans
ex) tools, computers
ad hoc categories
created individually to suit a need
ex)things that need to be happy
** very subjetive and differs from person to person
nominal kind
arbitrary assignment of label to an entirely that meets a set of conditions
ex)triangle ( 3 sides with 3 points closed angles)
** no subjectivity
why are categories useful
help us understand individual cases not previously encountered
definitional approach to categorization
- involves disasembling a concept into a set of feature components
- a defining feature is a necessary attribute
- to belong to category X, the object must have that feature
ex) birds- wings, feathers, beak, etc
what is some problems with definitional approach to categroization
some categories dont fit well with defining featires
- and difficult to define necessary features
ex) what are the defining features of a monster
prototype approach to categorization
categories formed on the basis of a prototyoical (average ) model of the category
-typical member of a category
- supports the idea of charcteristic features, features that are typical but not necessary
– contains most salient features and true for most instances within that category
high prototypicalilty vs low with the prototype appraoch to categorization
high prototypicality- category member closely resembles category prototype
“typical” member= bird, robin
low prototypicality- category member does not closley resember category prototype
bird, penguin
for the protoype approach, high overlap= _____-
high family resemblance
- when items have a large amount of overlap with charcteristics of other items in the category, the family resemblance of these items is high
typicality effect
protoypical objects are processed preferentially
-highly prototypical objects are judged more rapidly
-prototypical category members are more affected by a priming stimulus
ex) hearing the word green primes the high prototypical green (not sage or dark, but the typical green)
exemplar apprach to categorization
concept is represented by multiple examples, rather than a single prototype
- examples are actual category members
- based on experience
similar to prototype view as its representing a category, not defining it
different as representation is not abstract, descriptions are specific examples
with the exemplar approach explain the speed in which things are categorized
the more similar a specific exemplar is to a known category member, the faster it will be categorized
differentiate between prototypes and exemplars
may use both
but prototypes early in learning
exemplars later as we learn about excpetions
exemplars work best for small categories
ex) canadian prime minister
prototypes work best for large categories
ex) birds
what are the three levels of categories (Rosch)
global (suberordinate) ex) furniture
basic ex) table
specific (subordinate) ex) kitchen table
why is basic level special with categories
-people almost only exlusivly use it
-quicker to identoify basic level
-children learn basic level sooner than other levels
-different cultures tend to use the same basic level categories
“special” level can differ depending on ______
experience and knowldge of category
- great experience = greater specificiy in categories
node
category/ concept
cognitive economy and inherirance
shared properties are only stored at higher level nodes
exceptions are stored at lower nodes
inheritance- lower level items share properties of higher level items
spreading activation regarding semantic networks
collins and quillian model
activation is the arousal level of a node
- when a node is activated, activity speads out along all connected links
- concepts that receive activation are primed and more easily accessed from memory
mental imagery and visual imergy
mental imagery: experience a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input
visual imagery: “seeing” in the absence of a visual stimulusw
what is the cognitive revolution regarding imagery
thought exists without imagery, but imagery facilitates cognitive processing
describe the results of paivio with imagery
memory for words that evoke mental images ( concreate nouns) is better for those that do not (abstract nouns)
conceptual-peg hypothesis
concreate nouns create images that other words can “hang onto”
duel coding hypothesis
paivio
two distinct coding systems : verbal and imagery
concrete nouns- verbal lables and visual images
abstract words- verbal label
easier to remember words in sequence, but pictures easier to remember overall
- the two codes are linked
spatial representation is an _____
epiphenomenon
- accompanies real mechanisms but is not actually a part of it
proposition relating to imagery
meaning underlyng a particular relationship among concepts ( relation/ subject/ object
aphantasia
inability to form imagery
- not considered a disability, medical condition, or a disorder
difference between imagery and perception when looking at objects vs faces
single cell recordings showed activity in neuron for both perception and imagery of objects but not faces
differentiate the areas in the brain as it relates to imagery and perception
frontal lobe= same
further back= sae
occipital lobe= activation for perception than imagery
– this is where you can tell the difference
removing part of _____ reduced the size of visual field
occipital lobe
explain R.M and their experience with imagery and perception
damage to both occipital and parietal lobes
- could draw accurate pictures of objects in front of him (perception) but not from memory (imagery)
- also had difficulity with sentence verification related to size
ex) a grapefruit is bigger than an orange
explain C.K and their experience with imagery and perception
inability to name pictures of objects, even his own drawings in front of him
– but could draw objects in great detail from meory (using imagery)
difference in experience between perception and imagery
perception is automatic and stable
imagery takes effort and is fragile
ex) difficult to flip from one perception to another while holding mental image of ambiguous figure
