Module 6

Question 1

Autobiographical Memory

Answer 1

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)

Question 2

HSAM (Highly superior autobiographical memory)

Answer 2

Experience hyper-realistic episodic memories about every day of their life. Limited to personal recollections, not general memory or cognitive function

Question 3

Methods of verifying autobiographical memory

Answer 3

Test memory of public events (not frequent), confirm with family (possible misinformation), Diary studies (tedious, writing is elaborative and can increase memory)

Question 4

Strength in emotional memory

Answer 4

Emotional memories draw more attention, have stronger consolidation, and stronger encoding; related to the amygdala

Question 5

Infantile amnesia

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Studying early life memories

Answer 6

Free-recall tasks or use target events/words to cue recall

Question 7

Brain maturation and infantile amnesia (old view)

Answer 7

Prefrontal cortex is not mature enough to retrieve memory
Issue: hippocampus IS mature and prefrontal doesn’t fully mature until adulthood

Question 8

Brain maturation and infantile amnesia (new view)

Answer 8

Hippocampal area has pruned old neurons that contain early memories (based on discovery of adult neurogenesis)

Question 9

Language and infantile amnesia

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Shrinking machine experiment (Simcock and Hayne)

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Reminiscence Bump

Answer 11

Memory of life events peak in adolescence/early adulthood (~13-21 years old); tends to be focused on good events

Question 12

Cognitive hypothesis of reminiscence bump

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Immigration bump shift

Answer 13

People who immigrated to another country experience a shift in the reminiscence bump to when they moved countries

Question 14

Self image hypothesis of reminiscence bump

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Maturational account of reminiscence bump

Answer 15

The evolutionary cognitive peak occurs during this period, where we are at the highest level of functioning
Cant explain immigration shift

Question 16

Cultural life script view of reminiscence bump

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Flashbulb memory

Answer 17

Highly detailed memory formed for surprising or emotional events. Difficult to study due to infrequency. Believed to be more accurate due to vividness

Question 18

Flashbulb vs regular memory

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Schema

Answer 19

knowledge structure about an event or situation; heuristics that help us know how to act so we can reduce memory load during tasks

Question 20

Script

Answer 20

Schema for a specific event (ex: dentist or dinner party)

Question 21

Bartlett’s repeated reproduction task

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Deese-Reodiger-McDermott procedure (DRM)

Answer 22

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)

Question 23

Activation monitoring theory

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Source-monitoring error

Answer 24

Hearing the correct information but misremembering or incorrectly assuming the source

Question 25

Misinformation effect

Answer 25

Remember things we have been told after an event as if we were there/they were our memories

Question 26

Loftus car accident experiment

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Implanted memories

Answer 27

False autobiographical memories; misinformation about ourselves

Question 28

Loftus shopping mall study

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Issues in eye-witness testimony

Answer 29

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)

Question 30

Danger of reconsolidation

Answer 30

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