Module 6 Flashcards
Autobiographical Memory
Memory about ourselves; hard to test and verify accuracy. Can guide current action (directive), increase social bonds in those with shared experiences (social), and help maintain a stable identity (self-representation)
HSAM (Highly superior autobiographical memory)
Experience hyper-realistic episodic memories about every day of their life. Limited to personal recollections, not general memory or cognitive function
Methods of verifying autobiographical memory
Test memory of public events (not frequent), confirm with family (possible misinformation), Diary studies (tedious, writing is elaborative and can increase memory)
Strength in emotional memory
Emotional memories draw more attention, have stronger consolidation, and stronger encoding; related to the amygdala
Infantile amnesia
Inability to remember episodic memories from before 2 years old; ‘adult’ episodic memory forms at age 4; childhood memories are hard to date and verify
Studying early life memories
Free-recall tasks or use target events/words to cue recall
Brain maturation and infantile amnesia (old view)
Prefrontal cortex is not mature enough to retrieve memory
Issue: hippocampus IS mature and prefrontal doesn’t fully mature until adulthood
Brain maturation and infantile amnesia (new view)
Hippocampal area has pruned old neurons that contain early memories (based on discovery of adult neurogenesis)
Language and infantile amnesia
Early memories are non-language based, and thus not encoded in autobiographical memory which needs verbal coding
Evidence: women have earlier memories and earlier development of language
Shrinking machine experiment (Simcock and Hayne)
Children asked to label the object they put into the machine to shrink it. If they labeled it, they could remember it a year later. Supports that language is a key factor in encoding memories
Reminiscence Bump
Memory of life events peak in adolescence/early adulthood (~13-21 years old); tends to be focused on good events
Cognitive hypothesis of reminiscence bump
The most interesting events happen during this time, and are thus elaborated on the most. There are fewer distinct memories in the calm period after to overwrite these memories
Evidence: immigration bump shift
Immigration bump shift
People who immigrated to another country experience a shift in the reminiscence bump to when they moved countries
Self image hypothesis of reminiscence bump
This time of early adulthood is linked to self identity, and thus memories are stronger because they are also linked to the self
Cannot explain immigration bump shift
Maturational account of reminiscence bump
The evolutionary cognitive peak occurs during this period, where we are at the highest level of functioning
Cant explain immigration shift
Cultural life script view of reminiscence bump
Culturally educated on this time period the most, so we elaborate on it more in expectation.
Cant explain immigration shift
Evidence: kids think they’ll remember it most; we remember this period about other people the most
Flashbulb memory
Highly detailed memory formed for surprising or emotional events. Difficult to study due to infrequency. Believed to be more accurate due to vividness
Flashbulb vs regular memory
Experience the same decay curve in accuracy, little difference in day to day. Flashbulb can be more vivid, but it varies from person to person depending on how close they were to the event
Schema
knowledge structure about an event or situation; heuristics that help us know how to act so we can reduce memory load during tasks
Script
Schema for a specific event (ex: dentist or dinner party)
Bartlett’s repeated reproduction task
Participants shown a drawing and asked to replicate it over multiple days. Incoherent blob will eventually turn into an image matching an existing schema. Proved that memory is reconstructive and schematic
Deese-Reodiger-McDermott procedure (DRM)
A semantically related list of words will lead people to falsely remember other semantically related words. Supports activation monitoring theory and source monitoring error (we know the info but we forget if it came from us or the list)
Activation monitoring theory
Hearing semantically similar words will activate a schema, which can lead to false memories. We encode information in a semantic or categorical fashion. Supported by DRM procedure
Source-monitoring error
Hearing the correct information but misremembering or incorrectly assuming the source
Misinformation effect
Remember things we have been told after an event as if we were there/they were our memories
Loftus car accident experiment
Participants watched a video of a car crash occur off screen. Participants were asked misleading questions and then misremembered information during a recognition task. Supports the misinformation effect
Implanted memories
False autobiographical memories; misinformation about ourselves
Loftus shopping mall study
Researchers present participants with multiple real stories and one fake lost in the mall story. Ask them to add any missing details. Can successfully convince people that the story really happened just of their own additions to the story. Supports that implanted memories exist and are easy to create
Issues in eye-witness testimony
General attentional issues (we are not paying attention to non-salient objects and thus do not have strong memory about it), misinformation and leading questions, source monitoring errors, confirmation bias (if you are told your memory is correct you’re more likely to believe it)
Danger of reconsolidation
Every time a memory is remembered it is subject to more suggestion and vulnerable to change, and new or perceived correct information can rewrite true information
