Lecture 17 Flashcards
Compare the experimental approach and the everyday memory approach in terms of exploring memory
Koriat.
The traditional approach believes in the storehouse metaphor, it believes learning is intentional and motivated by arbitrary instructions and it focuses on the accuracy of memory.
The everyday memory approach believes in the correspondence metaphor, it believes learning is incidental and motivated by personal goals and it focuses on the relevance of memory. It’s interested in memory that’s influenced by personality and situational demands.
However, it’s actually a cross fertilisation of both.
What is episodic memory?
What is autobiographical memory?
What is the similarity and differences between them?
Episodic memory; memory for past events, it’s only present in humans. It’s when one is travelling back in time but also has autonoetic awareness (knowing you are doing so). There’s a distinction between this and semantic memory.
Autobiographical memory is that that defines identity by linking one’s personal history with their public history. This is distinct from episodic but a mixture of semantic and episodic.
Similarity: Both are related to personal experience, however, episodic is more trivial and more limited, for example you can only travel back a number of hours. In contrast, autobiographical relates to significant events to help support personal goals and can extend years with complex memories.
What is the self-memory system?
It’s the idea that autobiographical memory has a knowledge base that holds 3 different kinds of memory specificity: lifetime (thematic knowledge, major ongoing situations), general (repeated/single events), event-specific (images, feelings and details related to general events).
Discuss the working self
The working self is a complex set of goals through which information is filtered. It’s made up of self knowledge, personal details and professional aims, with family, education and stereotypes also playing a role. The working self is effective when it’s coherent and grounded in reality.
How do we access autobiographical memories?
There are two ways in which we can do this; generative retrieval and direct retrieval. Generative retrieval is when you deliberately construct autobiographical memories by combining information from your working self and from your knowledge base. Also, the memories produced are related to personal goals. However, direct retrieval is triggered by specific cues which demands a lot less effort. Direct retrieval doesn’t use the working self in any way either.
Discuss the transition theory
This is when you organise your memory using historically significant events. This can help you remember personal events and serve as temporal landmarks. However, the historic event must change the fabric of your normal daily life by making you feel/do something different. They can be personally historic like before/after university.
Can you have amnesia with no other loss of function?
Yes
Discuss olfaction and memory
There has been evidence to find that odours can lead participants to generate more autobiographical memories and this ability peaks at 6-10 years. This could happen because olfactory memories are quite scarce and therefore more distinctive or because there is less interference of other memories.
Discuss flashbulb memories
Vivid, long lasting autobiographical memories about important, dramatic public events like terrorist attacks. Brown has found a special neural mechanism for this, that provides information about your location, emotions, activities etc. Also, it was found that these memories depend on surprise, relevant previous knowledge, personal importance and the novelty of the event. Flashbulb memories are extremely common among the public however, they tend to be very inaccurate. The memories aren’t fully formed during the event, they change considerably in the first few days and then they become consistent, however, they remain just as vivid. Many studies have also shown that memory can be distorted when you retell the event to someone in an entertaining way. Most of the memories are false and are reconstructed to what is likely to have been experienced/to fit with personal goals. They’re distinctive and do not suffer interference from other memories and they’re long lasting. They aren’t momentary snapshots, like the name suggests, they are enduring benchmarks.
What periods of your lifetime do most/least memories occur?
Least memories occur in the first 3 years of life, this is called infantile amnesia. This occurs because infants don’t develop a sense of self until 2 years of age, which is essential for autobiographical memories. Self recognisers have better memories for personal events. Additionally, language and culture are also essential for autobiographical memories so it’s hard to form them when one is pre-linguistic. Also, when one is taught an elaborative reminiscing style, childhood memories are more vivid as they have been rehearsed.
Most memories occur between 10-30 years, however, mainly between the ages of 15 and 30, this is called the reminiscence bump. This happens because new important things are happening, producing novel memories. It’s also a stable period of life, providing cognitive structure when remembering. Also, many of the things in the life script (an account of who we are and how we got there) occur during this time frame, e.g. marriage, identity, university. The life narrative hypothesis suggests that only the positive events are remembered vividly when there’s a high sense of control. Evidence has also shown that cultural life scripts are important; when children narrated their personal futures, it led to a reminiscent bump in their early adulthood when these goals were achieved.
These findings have been found cross-culturally.
Discuss cultural influences on remembering
People with an autonomous self construct are more sensitive to unique events, however people who focus of relational aspects of self are more sensitive to events involving social interactions. Autonomous self construct people develop memories at an earlier age, for example Caucasian Americans develop memories 6 months earlier than the Chinese. Also the memories were self focused and emotionally elaborate compared to the chinese memories which involved collective activities and were emotionally neutral. Some people believe that memory is a social process and accuracy is somewhat redundant. Bartlett not only claimed that memory was reconstructed but also said that it was a social process. Therefore, people are exploring this more and how context is important for memory, e.g. conformity, group conversations etc. which rejects the storehouse viewpoint.
Is memory always influenced by talking/discussing past events?
A lot of the time it is as the language we use can mould the memory. However, we still have private memories that aren’t discussed socially.
Discuss upbringing and memory
Parents discuss the emotional parts of memories more when with daughters. The children learn from this, which guides their narrative devices later in life. If parents talk about memories at the time, then children can remember autobiographical events from the age of 2-3. Children are more likely to disclose traumatic events later in life if there’s maternal discussion at the time.
Discuss highly superior autobiographical memory
This is when one is able to remember specific details about what they were doing a long time ago. It’s domain specific, so their semantic memory is the same as everyone else for example and they aren’t immune to other memory errors. It’s only autobiographical memories.
Discuss being bias with your own memories
There is the temporal self appraisal theory that our past memories are influenced by our current beliefs. However, evidence has also shown that our current views are influenced by past events and our memories serve to create a favourable opinion of our present selves.
