M2 Flashcards
Why is eyewitness testimony considered compelling in legal cases?
It is one of the most persuasive types of evidence in court.
What are the risks of relying on eyewitness testimony?
It can lead to mistaken identity, wrongful convictions, and has been implicated in ~70% of DNA-exonerated cases.
Why do we make errors as eyewitnesses?
Memory is constructive, meaning it fills in gaps, is influenced by expectations, and is susceptible to errors.
What are the pros of a constructive memory?
- Allows us to fill in the blanks
- Helps with creativity, understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions
What are the cons of a constructive memory?
- Leads to false beliefs
- Susceptibility to misinformation
What is a schema in memory?
A schema is knowledge about some aspect of the environment (e.g., what happens at a restaurant).
How do schemas and scripts influence memory?
They cause us to infer information that was not actually experienced but fits our expectations.
What is source monitoring error?
A memory error where we misidentify the source of a memory.
What was the “Becoming Famous Overnight” study?
Participants mistakenly identified previously seen non-famous names as famous due to familiarity.
What is the weapon focus effect?
Attention is narrowed to a weapon, making it harder to recall peripheral details.
What is the misinformation effect?
Misleading information presented after an event can change how it is remembered.
What did the “smashed vs. hit” study demonstrate?
People reported higher speeds and broken glass when the word “smashed” was used instead of “hit.”
How can false memories be implanted?
Through repeated discussion, imagination, and social manipulation.
What was Julia Shaw’s 2015 study on false memories?
She convinced 70% of participants they had committed a crime through social manipulation.
What are some ways to mitigate memory errors in legal settings?
- Improve interview techniques
- Avoid leading questions
- Teach about memory science
Why do people have misconceptions about memory?
They believe memory is effortless and works like an archive, rather than being reconstructive and malleable.
How does public perception of memory compare to scientific understanding?
Most people underestimate how easily memory can be distorted, including judges and law enforcement.
Can we trust an eyewitness?
It depends—factors like familiarity, attention, and confidence levels must be considered.
How does memory differ from a tape recorder?
Memory is not a perfect playback of events; it is a reconstruction influenced by knowledge, experiences, and expectations.
What are the two main types of memory errors?
Omissions (leaving things out) and commissions (adding new content).
What is crime blindness?
An extreme form of weapon focus, where a person fails to notice a crime occurring due to focused attention elsewhere.
What are some real-world examples of errors due to suggestion?
- Confirming feedback leading to false confessions
- Police presenting false evidence to suspects
- False memories implanted in therapy contexts
How does social influence affect false memories?
- People are more likely to be misled by partners than strangers
- Socially attractive people are more persuasive than unattractive ones
- High-power individuals have more influence than low-power individuals
How does obtaining confidence ratings early help prevent memory distortions?
It reduces the effects of confirmation bias and rehearsal inflation, which can make people more confident in inaccurate memories over time.
How do most people underestimate memory malleability?
They believe their recollections are more accurate and resistant to change than they really are.
Why should memory scientists be careful with blanket statements?
Because memory phenomena are nuanced, and people differ in how they experience memory distortions.
What is a thought experiment you might see on a test?
You are a juror on a murder case. How does your knowledge of memory errors affect how you evaluate eyewitness testimony?
What are the two types of future thinking?
Semantic future thinking (knowing general facts about the future) and episodic future thinking (imagining oneself in future scenarios).
How frequently do we engage in future thinking?
- 30% of spontaneous cognition involves future thinking.
- 10% of spontaneous thoughts involve thinking about stimuli.
What happened to patient K.C. and how did his memory change?
After a motorcycle accident, he suffered hippocampal damage, leading to severe amnesia. He retained semantic memory (e.g., knowing how to change a tire) but lost the ability to imagine his future.
What was the main goal of Elizabeth Race’s study on medial temporal lobe (MTL) damage?
To investigate whether the MTL is necessary for future thinking by testing amnesic patients’ ability to construct narratives about past and future events.
What tasks were given in the study on MTL damage and future thinking?
- Describe past events
- Describe future events
- Describe a picture (control task)
What did the study find about amnesic patients’ ability to imagine the future?
- They could not recall past events or imagine future ones.
- They could still describe pictures, indicating their ability to construct narratives when descriptive elements were provided.
- This suggests future thinking and episodic memory are linked.
What did the neuroimaging results show about future thinking and memory?
Similar brain areas are active when remembering past events and imagining future ones, suggesting overlap between the two processes.
How do scrub jays demonstrate future-oriented thinking?
- Scrub jays protect their food caches by storing food out of sight.
- If they’ve experienced food theft, they later re-cache food in hidden locations, showing foresight.
What are the adaptive functions of episodic future thinking?
- Far-sighted decision making
- Emotion regulation
- Prospective memory (remembering to do things in the future)
- Spatial navigation
How does future thinking influence decision-making?
imagine future rewards = more likely to delay gratification in intertemporal choice tasks (e.g., choosing more money later over less money now).
What were the results of the intertemporal choice task in amnesic patients?
- Amnesic patients performed similarly to controls in the baseline condition.
- In the imagined future condition, amnesic patients showed little change, whereas controls were more likely to delay gratification.
- This suggests future thinking plays a crucial role in decision-making for healthy individuals.
How does the medial temporal lobe (MTL) contribute to future thinking?
The MTL is critical for constructing detailed and specific future event representations, especially when descriptive elements are not readily available.
What evidence supports the idea that episodic memory and future thinking are linked?
Future thinking was correlated with memory but not with picture description, indicating that episodic memory is necessary for constructing detailed future scenarios.
What did the study on amnesic patients reveal about their ability to generate imagined future scenarios?
- Amnesic patients could describe facts about their future (semantic thinking).
- However, they could not generate detailed imagined future scenes.
How do amnesic patients differ from healthy individuals in their ability to imagine future events?
- Healthy individuals can construct detailed and specific imagined future scenarios.
- Amnesic patients can only generate fragmented or factual future ideas, lacking vivid details.
What was the purpose of the picture description task in the study on future thinking?
It tested whether amnesic patients could construct narratives. Since they performed well, it showed their narrative abilities were intact despite deficits in episodic future thinking.
How does hippocampal damage affect future thinking?
- smaller hippocampi = greater impairments in imagining the future.
- This confirms the hippocampus plays a key role in future event simulation.
How do changes in perceptual details relate to future thinking performance?
In healthy individuals, perceptual details were correlated with changes in rank order scores, showing that richer mental simulations are tied to better decision-making.
What was the new version of the imagined future thinking task?
Participants were asked to imagine an event in a specific spatial location before making a financial decision.
What were the key results from the imagined future condition in amnesic patients?
- Baseline condition: Amnesic patients performed similarly to controls.
- Imagined future condition: Future thinking priming had no effect on amnesic patients, but helped controls make better decisions.
What does the imagined future condition suggest about the role of episodic memory in decision-making?
When episodic memory is important for a decision, it significantly affects future thinking. Amnesic patients struggled because they could not generate detailed future scenarios.
What did the London taxi drivers study show?
They had a bigger hippocampus than bus drivers, correlated with years of experience.
What are two possible explanations for London taxi drivers having a bigger hippocampus?
(1) Using that part of the brain strengthens it, or (2) people with good spatial navigation (and bigger hippocampi) stay in the job longer.
What does research suggest about lifetime GPS use and cognition?
Greater lifetime GPS use is associated with poorer spatial navigation and memory.
What is the potential cognitive risk of losing navigational skills?
It may lead to cognitive decline and even dementia.
How does orienteering impact memory and navigation?
Participants report better spatial navigation and memory.
What did the daily diary study reveal about social media use and memory?
Higher social media use = associated with more memory failures.
How does media multitasking in live university classes affect performance?
Students who multitasked more often did worse on quizzes and tests.
What is the relationship between chronic media multitasking and memory?
It is associated with poorer memory performance, even when media is not in use.
How does reviewing photos affect memory?
It strengthens memory for reviewed events but weakens memory for non-reviewed events (retrieval-induced forgetting).
What is the implication of taking pictures on special occasions?
The actual encoded experience may be replaced by the memory of the photo instead.
What is HippoCamera, and how does it affect memory?
A video technology designed to record life events in a special way, improving memory retention (47% increase) and evoking more positive emotions.
How long did the effects of HippoCamera last in studies?
Over three months.
What impact did HippoCamera have on hippocampal activity?
It sharpened hippocampal activity and reduced overlap between non-reviewed memories.
What is the mixed evidence regarding photo-taking and memory?
Some studies suggest it impairs memory (due to distraction or cognitive offloading), while others show benefits if people actively choose what to photograph.
What is cognitive offloading in photo-taking?
Relying on external devices (e.g., photos) instead of encoding events in memory.
How does sharing memories on social media affect memory?
It can enhance memory for shared content but may harm memory for non-shared, related events (retrieval-induced forgetting).
Why does selecting and posting photos strengthen memory?
People rehearse the memory while choosing pictures and reviewing notifications.
What is a potential confound in studying the effects of photo sharing?
People selectively share important moments, which could bias results.
What is cognitive augmentation?
The use of external sources to extend biological memory capabilities instead of replacing them.
How does technology assist in prospective memory?
It helps people remember tasks like taking medication, which becomes harder with age.
How might digital externalization of memories impact emotion regulation?
Revisiting autobiographical memories helps regulate emotions, though this is not well explored digitally.
How might subtle photo edits (e.g., appearance improvement) affect memory?
They can influence self-worth and how we remember the emotional tone of an event.
What is the difference between domain-general and domain-specific effects of technology?
- Domain general: Technology influences cognition broadly.
- Domain specific: Technology affects cognition in task-specific ways.
What is an example of a domain-specific effect of technology?
Using a GPS instead of a map weakens memory for the route compared to someone who navigates manually.
Which type of effect has more supporting evidence?
Domain-specific effects.
What is the main concern about technology’s impact on memory?
It may be reshaping cognitive processes rather than simply improving or harming memory.
How does technology affect attention in memory encoding?
Dividing attention while encoding (e.g., due to smartphone use) reduces memory retention.
What was a key finding about aging and GPS use?
Older adults who rely on GPS show greater declines in spatial navigation than those who navigate manually.
What specific aspect of navigation does GPS use impair?
It weakens the ability to build and retain cognitive maps of environments.
cognitive costs of media multitasking
- Reduced working memory capacity
- increased distractibility
- weaker sustained attention.
What role does working memory play in media multitasking?
Frequent multitaskers tend to have lower working memory capacity, making them more prone to distractions.
What is cognitive offloading?
Using external tools (like digital notes or photos) to store information rather than relying on memory.
What is a potential downside of cognitive offloading?
It may reduce the motivation to encode information deeply into long-term memory.
How can cognitive offloading be beneficial?
It allows for better memory efficiency by freeing cognitive resources for more complex tasks.
What is the “Google Effect” in memory research?
The tendency to forget information that can be easily retrieved from the internet.
How can photo reviewing create false memories?
If people edit or enhance photos, they may later recall an altered version of the event.
What effect does taking too many photos have on experience?
It can reduce engagement with the moment, leading to weaker memory formation.
Undergraduate students who learned about replication for 1 hour
- Showed high endorsement that media attention was not an accurate indication of study reliability
- Showed high agreement with suggestions about transparency and replication
○ Publishing null findings
○ Making data open - Understood the problems with flexible decision making in statistics
- Showed slightly less trust in psychological findings
- Showed greater appreciation for study design
- Showed high agreement with suggestions about transparency and replication
- Showed no decline in the desire to pursue graduate school
What is non-declarative (implicit) memory?
Memory without conscious effort or awareness; learning without being able to explicitly declare knowledge.
What is an example of non-declarative memory?
Learning to dance salsa—gaining motor memory without explicitly recalling how.
What distinguishes non-declarative from declarative memory in amnesia patients?
Amnesia patients can still learn procedural tasks (e.g., playing an instrument) despite losing declarative memory.
What is non-associative learning?
Learning that occurs in response to repeated exposure to a single stimulus, without associating it with another stimulus.
What are the three types of non-associative learning?
- Habituation
- Sensitization
- Perceptual Learning
What is habituation?
Decreasing response strength to a frequent but neutral stimulus over time.
Why is habituation adaptive?
It filters out unimportant information, allowing focus on more relevant stimuli.
Give an example of habituation.
A baby stops responding to a repeatedly shown toy.
What are key characteristics of habituation?
- Dishabituation: A novel stimulus temporarily restores response.
- Stimulus specificity: Only occurs for the repeated stimulus.
- Spontaneous recovery: Response returns after a break.
- Weak stimuli work better: Strong stimuli don’t habituate easily.
What is sensitization?
Increasing response strength to an intense or arousing stimulus.
Why is sensitization adaptive?
Enhances reaction to potentially harmful stimuli.
Give an example of sensitization.
Becoming more startled by noises after experiencing a traumatic event.
What are key characteristics of sensitization?
- Spontaneous recovery: Fades over time.
- Long-term form: Involves neuroplasticity.
- Strong stimuli work better: Weak stimuli do not induce sensitization.
- Less stimulus specificity: Responses generalize to similar stimuli.
What is perceptual learning?
Improved ability to recognize and differentiate frequently encountered stimuli.
Give an example of perceptual learning.
Learning to distinguish similar-sounding words in a foreign language.
What enhances perceptual learning?
Discrimination training—with feedback, one can distinguish even subtle differences.
What is classical conditioning?
Learning that one stimulus predicts an important event.
What are key concepts in classical conditioning?
- Unconditioned stimulus (US) → Naturally elicits a response (e.g., food).
- Unconditioned response (UR) → Natural reaction to US (e.g., salivation).
- Conditioned stimulus (CS) → Initially neutral but predicts the US (e.g., bell).
- Conditioned response (CR) → Learned response to the CS (e.g., salivating to bell).
What are the two types of classical conditioning?
- Appetitive conditioning → US is desirable (e.g., food).
- Aversive conditioning → US is unpleasant (e.g., shock).
Can classical conditioning be undone?
Yes, through extinction, where the CS is presented without the US, weakening the CR.
What is operant conditioning?
Learning to associate a behavior with its consequences.
What is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?
Behaviors followed by positive outcomes are strengthened; behaviors followed by negative outcomes are weakened.
What is Skinner’s three-part formulation for operant conditioning?
Stimulus (S) → Response (R) → Outcome (O)
What are the four types of operant conditioning?
- Positive reinforcement → Adding a pleasant stimulus to increase behavior.
- Negative reinforcement → Removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase behavior.
- Positive punishment → Adding an unpleasant stimulus to decrease behavior.
- Negative punishment → Removing a pleasant stimulus to decrease behavior.
Why is punishment less effective than reinforcement?
- Increases behavioral variability.
- Can backfire by reinforcing attention-seeking.
- Often delayed, making learning unclear.
What is skill learning?
Learning motor or cognitive procedures without conscious awareness.
How does skill learning relate to procedural memory?
Procedural memories are implicit and involve learning actions over time.
What case study illustrates skill learning in amnesia?
H.M. case → Could learn motor tasks (mirror drawing) without remembering prior practice.
