Lecture 4 - ABM Flashcards

1
Q

Define ABM

A

Memories of ourselves, our experiences and our observations

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2
Q

Define concious vs automatic memories

A
  • Concious = we regularly attempt to recall, as part of life

- Automatic = ‘pop’ into our head – prompted by trigger

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3
Q

Define false memories

A

In accurate or entriely fabricated memories

Experienced as true – due to the instrospective illusion

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4
Q

Define confabulation

A
  • Act of unintentionally, unconciously distorting facts
  • Fills in gaps in memory
  • includes: invented memories, misinterpreted details, misattribution of details, and jumnling of events
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5
Q

Who did the study entitled ‘remembering’ (1932)

A

Bartlett (1932)

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6
Q

OUtline Bartlett (1932)

A

Found:
- memory is entirely reconstructive
- Reconsolidation
- Memories confabulated to fit existing schemas
Told British p’s the story of ‘War of the Ghosts’
- Asked them to recall the story over many years
- All P’s changed the story
- Story got shorter, simpler and details disappeared
- Story altered to fit british, cultural schemas
- Changed names to british names, the ‘seal hunters’ were changed to fisherman’ and ‘supernatural aspects were rationalised

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7
Q

What were Bartlett (1932)s conclusion

A

Reconstructive memory =
- No fixed memory to draw upon
- Act of remembering is to reconstruct (remake) the remembered thing
Reconsolidation =
- Change over time in memory
- Memories reorganised to be more stable and fit schemas
Schemas
- we know consistent structures for events, peoples and things
- More robust to change than memories

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8
Q

Define childhood amnesia

A
  • inability to remember early events
    • remembered events have errors, holes – only snippets
  • Adults have few memories earlier than age 10
  • Few if any before 7
  • Typically none before 2
  • Average earliest memore = 3.5
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9
Q

What are memories like during childhood?

A
  • fragmented (gists)
  • Poor description of events (not ordered)
  • Reduced content (little introspective content)
  • Similar to issues describing the self
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10
Q

How do childrens memories develop over time?

A
Up to age 8:
- mixed bag of episodic memories
- Single events, poorly related
Up to age 12:
- sequential/ temporal aspects develops
- Transition points in story noted
Teenagers:
- Memories become part of life story
- Self-defining moments are noted with greater detail
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11
Q

Who did that study about remembering and language vocab?

A

Simcock & Hayne (2002)

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12
Q

outline Simcock & Hayne (2002)

A
  • if you lack correct language skills at the time of encoding, you struggle to recall it later, even if you have since acquired the vocab to describe the word
  • when P’s were young, they played with a red ball – but at that time, they didn’t have the vocab to describe it
  • When they did it later, when they’re older, the couldn’t remember it, even though they now had the word for red ball – still couldn’t retrieve it
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13
Q

Whats it called when memory peaks at a certain age? Desribe it

A

Reminiscence bump
- Memory performance peaks at 1—30 years old
Adolescence/ early adulthood is a time for thinking a lot about the self
In western culture, most transition points in life narrative occur 1—40 years old
- school/ graduations/ jobs/ marriage/ kids/ career goalposts

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14
Q

What are the functions of ABM>

A

1) identity function

2) Social function

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15
Q

Outline the identity functionn of ABM

A
  • Maintain self concept
    • Keeps track of who we are
    • narrative explains how we arrived at current time
  • Maintain positive self-concept/ self-esteem
    • Fading affect bias: We remember positive events better
    • Bernsten & Rubin (2002) – better grades are more readily recalled
    • Bahrick et al (1996) – also found that worse school grades are less likely to be remembered
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16
Q

Who did the study that found better grades are more readily recalled?

A

Bernsten & Rubin (2002)

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17
Q

Who found that we are less likely to remember worse grades?

A

bahrick et al (1996)

18
Q

Outline the social function of ABM

A
  • Maintain social relationships
  • necessary to remember:
    • facts
    • who we are
    • Who others are
    • how we relate
  • Lack of remembering leads to
    • distress
    • inability to maintain relationships
  • part of relational self-awareness
19
Q

Briefly define amnesia

A

The inability to remember

20
Q

What are the two types of amnesia and define them

A
  • Anterograde - cant form new memories

- Retrograde - cant remember past

21
Q

What are the causes of Amnesia?

A
  • physical trauma – electric shock, injury, insufficient 02 or hormones
  • emotional/ psychological trauma – PTSD, abuse
  • Epilepsy
  • Dissociative states
  • Hypnosis
  • Drugs, Alcohol
22
Q

What is dementia?

A

An umbrella term for a set of brain diseases/ symptoms

23
Q

What are the symptoms of dementia?

A

Memory loss
- Difficulty thinking + problem solving
- impairment in speech
- mood changes/ swings
- impairments in visual-spatial recognition and organisation (get lost)
All these symptoms lead to:
- Progressive reduction in ability to care for self

24
Q

What can dementia lead to?

A

Cognitive difficulties
- Disorientation – lost, lose track of time
- impaired judgement – poor choices, cooking, weather clothing
- problems w/ abstract thinking
Memory loss
- procedural – difficulty doing habitual taks
- semantic – difficulty finding/using correct words
- episodic – cant remember recent events
Clock test – cant draw a clock face, and don’t know
why they cant!
From 5-0 (getting worse

25
Q

What is Alzheimers disease?

A

A cause of dementia
Eventually fatal
Brain changes
- Plaques and tangles (reduces connections beteween neurons) of fibers occur in brain
- Connections between neurons no longer supported – connections die
- begins in hippocampus

26
Q

What is hyperthymesia?

A

Opposite – remember too much
Extreme ability to remember past events
Not the same as eidetic memory
- eidetic = highly precise memory after only brief exposure, usually to facts/ images

27
Q

What are the symptoms of hypthermesia?

A

Symptoms:
- Spend large amount of time thinking about the past
- Unusual awareness of/ concern for dates
- Past events rememberd without concious effot (can be distressing)
- Can cause overload – social dysfunction
- Often comorbid with OCD
See Price and Davis (2008)

28
Q

Describe intrusive thought

A
  • occur unwilliginly, sometimes with only distantly connected triggers
  • insiginificant stimulus set off a sequence of triggers that lead to remembering a traumatic event
29
Q

Outline PTSD

A
  • Involuntary, uncontrollable recall of past events
  • recalling trauma
  • experienced as flashbacks, highly vivid
  • often temporary loss of self-awareness in current time
  • Lose focus on task/ social interaction
  • Causes social dysfunction and extreme distress
30
Q

Describe flashbulb memories

A

Enduring, vivid, detailed memories
Usually memories of highly charged emotional events
Include:
- main content (focal event)
- Tangential info (peripheral details) e.g. what happened just before/ after, nearby people, evironment, objects
Experience and treated as highly accurate – but just as subject to error
E.g. remembering exactly where you were when 9/11 happened

31
Q

What are the 2 examples of flashbulb memories>

A

Ulric Neisser (cognitive scientist)
- listenging to baseball on the radio, December 1941, when they announced pearl harbour
- Turned out to be a false memory, there was no baseball in Decemebr
Jean Piaget (developmental psychologist)
- He remembered being in a pram when he nearly got kidnapped and his nanny fended off the attacker
- But the nanny confirmed it never happened!

32
Q

What are the criticisms of flashbulb?

A

X - False memory
- Flashbulb detailes do not mean accuracy
X – Confabulation
- What makes the memory vivid, is our brain confabulating details?
X – Introspective illusion
- We’re convinced of veracity of flasbulb memories

33
Q

Who did the leading words study?

A

Loftus & Palmer (1974)

34
Q

Who proved that EWT isnt accurate?

A

Buckhout (1974)

35
Q

OUtline Buckhout (1974)

A
Staged an assault on a professor in an Undergraduate class
7 weeks later, students shown 6 photos
23% identified someone not present
36% identified bystander
40% identified attacker
36
Q

Who did the remembering items study, can you remember some/ any more?

A

Hofstetter (2016)

37
Q

OUtline Hofstetter (2016)

A

Showed p’s box of 20 items
20 seconds to memorise the items
Had to immediately repeat back what is remembered – verbally to experimentor – who didn’t respond
The script varied, when p had finished recalling items, the experimentor would either say:
- Can you remember any more?
- Can you remember some more?

38
Q

Who did the Gp study, any vs some concerns?

A

Heritage et al (2007)

39
Q

OUtline Heritage et al (2007)

A
  • At end of a GP consultation, the doctor asked if the patient had some or any concerns?
  • Any: 36% said yes
  • Some: 74%
    Wording of question illicits different responses
40
Q

Who did the study into which characteristic is most commonly reported?

A

Fahsing et al (2004)

41
Q

Outline Fahsing et al (2004)

A

% of those who reported that characterist, vs % accurate. As it gets more specific, its harder to be accurate.

42
Q

What did Edwards & Potter argue?

A
  • Cannt give 100% objective truth in EWT

- All recollections are constructions and perspectives