II: Memory Flashcards
Memory in Practice
As a human endeavor, psychotherapy is fundamentally dependent on memory (childhood & yesterday)
However, reliance on and impact of memory is often overlooked by practitioners*
Tend to think of ourselves and others in our lives in absolute ways (2):
1) Stable personalities with specific characteristics
2) Consistent and immutable histories
**However, research suggests historical recollections are always influenced by current context
Priming (in memory)
- One thought influences the likelihood of similar ones
- (In practice) priming is how we ask questions, leading (what happened next vs. how did you feel–>deepen emotion or proceed through story, dep on client, remaining time, etc.)
Items stored in memory are linked or associated with other items (3 ways):
- Semantically (by meaning)
- Contextually (by location or timeframe)
- Perceptually (by appearance or sound)
What determines strength of association in memory recall?
Strength of associations depends on how frequently they have been connected in thought
How do you find information (in recall using association)?
Finding information starts with retrieval cue and follows associations until target information is found
Memory Cues
- Cues activate the search for connections in all directions at once
- Stronger or better established links tend to carry activation more efficiently
Implications on Therapy: Cues
- Clients (and sometimes therapists) assume that if a particular vivid memory is recalled frequently that it is of great clinical importance, but it may just be a memory that is being cued more frequently
- Not the strength of the memory itself but the strength of the connections between the memory and the cue
Autobiographical Memory
- central to therapy because memory is core to our identities and sense of self
- used to regulate mood: Pos to improve mood for a bit if you have pos self esteem (attribution)
- episodic, indiv plays role directly or indirectly, less interested in implicit or semantic memory
Three aspects of autobiographical memory
Lifetime period knowledge
General event knowledge
Event-specific detail knowledge
What memories do we want in therapy?
All of them.
How do we attempt to cue those memories?
- Tend to cue in 1:1 cueing; e.g. ask a questions, takes you to a certain memory/answer
- More often, 1:many cueing goes to the most frequently accessed
Narrative Structure of Memory
Organize events into stories in thinking and memory
Four components of narrative reasoning influence the ability to recall
- Temporal coherence—events are ordered in time line
- Causal coherence—logical sequencing
- Thematic coherence—organized around a theme
- Cultural biography—includes the type of events our culture considers important in a life story
**Org first via time, second causal
Dreams don’t need temporal sig, or causal
What kind of events disrupt the narrative structre?
Traumatic experience will “throw off” memory
Autobiographical Retrieval
- Direct Retrieval
- Automatic and rapid with little cognitive effort
- Sensory experience (sound, smell) spurs retrieval (i.e. flashback)
- Takes you to event-specific
- Trigger clear in retrospect - Intentional Retrieval
- Effortful process that starts with lifetime period or general event knowledge
- More reconstructive than direct retrieval
- Specific question asked, trying to remember for self Lifetime period knowledge
How do we use concepts of Direct/Intentional Retrieval in therapy?
Direct Retrieval in therapy: gestalt psych have people sit with emotion, “what just happened right there?” or “let’s just sit with that for a moment”
Memories stored associatively: happy mem linked to happy mem; sad mem linked to sad mem
Overgeneral memory effect
- Associated with deficits in problem solving and planning for/imagining the future
- Associated with depression, spend more time in lifetime and
- Abort before detailed level of memories avoid sad part of memory
Why is reliance/impact of memory overlooked by practitioners?
- Ppl tend to assume that memories are basically accurate, not question how people remember or conclude, explain
- Just accept not consider ways memories are constructed
- Memories are always reconstructed, everytime recalling piece of information because Gestalt softening, leveling, etc.
EG game of telephone;
Perceptual Recall
Perceptually e.g. son’s harmonica/Hanukah mistake
Broadest pathways e.g. freeways to get to school versus sidestreets
Some pathways stronger than others
Semantically Recall
By meaning
Contextually Recall
By location or timeframe
Beck cog triad of depression
Beck cog triad of depression makes depression worse because it cues deeper depression
Negative view on world>neg view on future>neg view on self
Reminiscence Bump
Observed in pleasant memories but not unpleasant
Use “the bump” to recall positive emotional states but not so useful for negative emotional events
Phenom happens to people over 35late teens/early 20s dep on educational attainment; “first time” things
Autobiographical Errors
- Recollections are some combination of fact, perception, and distorted retrieval processes
- Memory errors are typically not a result of personality or psychopathology
Confidence/Overconfidence In Recall
Tend to be overconfident in our recollections
Not completely inaccurate: confidence and accuracy correlate when measured within individuals.
Confidence in false memories can be high
Schematic Knowledge Errors
- Rely on previous knowledge to make sense of new information (accommodation/assimilation)
- -Good news: makes for more efficient interactions with the world, helps locate information, fill in gaps
- -Bad news: creates possibility of error because we perceive world as we expect it to be
Schematic Use In Memory
Use schemas to speed up process of memory retrieval
How do we see Schematic Knowledge Errors in family and couples therapy?
Tend to fill in expected details and notice unusual details.
Social Influences on Memory
When people have related information in autobiographical knowledge base, they incorporate suggested information into their own memories
How might Social Influences on Memory manifest in therapy?
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Compare/Contrast Social influences on memory from the positive aspects of Social Learning Theory?
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Prospective Memory in Practice
Much of modern therapy relies on clients acting on goals set in therapy but enacted in every day life
-practice coping skill at onset of anxiety symptoms
How do therapists conceptualize client failure to do homework?
Poor/indistinguishable cue? forgot?
