Motivated forgetting Flashcards
WHat is positivity bias in relation to memeory?
Outline the positivity bias experiement
What is the link to positivity bias, age and why?
Tendency to remember pleasent memories to unpleasent ones
48 young, middle and old age partcipants and tested them on a study phase and then a recall test, which ones they rememebered
As we get older, memories get worse, older people also have more of a positivity bias than young or middle aged adults – Charles, Mather and Carstensen (2003)
Because older you are the more you focus from future orientated goals to maintaining well-being e.g. emotion regulation- focus less on negative things, monitor, evaluate and alter gate.
Explain the links between motivated forgetting and Freud
- introduced the idea of defence mechanisms
Repression and motivated forgetting ideas link up
Repressed memories- influence behaviour, dream content and emotional reactions
“return of the repressed”- the memory popping up through later life via dreams or behaviours
Freud used repression and suppression interchangeably
Anna Freud made the distinction between the two- repression is unconscious and automatic process suppression is a conscious, intentional and goal-directed.
What are the 3 types of forgetting?
Intentional forgetting: conscious goal to forget.
Psychogenic amnesia: profound forgetting of the events of one’s life.
Other forgetting: not accidental, but not consciously intended.
WHat is signal detection theory?
it is a theory about the ways choices are made- McNichol 1970
-the more you move to the right of the bottom axis the stronger the memory signal
Left hand distribution= noise= anything that creates uncertainty about the decision e.g. innocent suspect in line up
Right hand distribution = signal= the target = shifted to right because strength is stronger = guilty suspect in line up
-red dash line called “criteria” if an item exceeds memory strength criteria than you will say it’s an old memory but if an item doesn’t reach this line than it is considered a “new” memory
Lower distribution= false alarm rate
Higher distribution= hit rate
what arre the 3 types of criteria?
Criterion in middle of 2 distributions maximises hits and minimises false alarms= neural response bias
Libral= criterion further left
Conservative= criterion going right
Response bias therefore effects amount of hits and false alarms
In each case accuracy is the same because the same disnace in the means of each distribution
Outline discriminability using Signal detection theory and ROC analyis
Accuracy= discriminability because it’s a meausure of howyou can discriminate accuracy from noise
Outline how you discriminate
D’ is a measure of discriminabilty
The mean of signal distrbution= the mean of the noise distribution
d’ = μTargets-μLures
d’ = .99 –(-.99) d’ = 1.99
d’ = 0 –(-.67) d’ = .67
Low discriminability= lots of overlap between noise and signal distributions
= d’ be low
What does ROC mean
Reciever operator characteristic
outline the boxed ROC analysis
ROC: dashed line in box
Dashed line= chance performance
D’= 0 no chance to distinguish signal from noise
D’ of 1 the line curves from chance performance so some ability ot distnigusih chance from noise
D’ of 3 or 4 is high
Higher discriminability= higher into the left hand corner the ROC curve goes
What are Lures?
Things not on the study phase (not targets)
WHat is directed forgetting and what are the two types?
tendency for instruction to forget items to induce memory impairment for those items:
- Item-method directed forgetting
- List-method directed forgetting
Outline Item-method directed forgetting
item by item instructed to either remember them or not remember them.
Outline list-method directed forgetting
name all items from a list you remember
Outline 3 explnations for Item-method directed forgetting
Differential encoding strategies
Encoding strategies different for remembered items and non-=remember conditions
Selective rehearsal hypothesis
Only remembered items will use elaborative memory processes and forget items are just released out of STM Whilst using elaborative memory you have less attentional capacity
Encoding suppression hypothesis
Forget items are supressed
Takes effort to recall
Outline Fawcett and Taylors (2008) experiment into the encoding suppression hyptothsis
Items on list, told to remember or forget, after an asterisk appeared, as soon as it did, the ppt had to push a button- this tested attention
D’ the bigger it is- the better they are performance wise
Forget items- slower to respond, therefore evidence for encoding suppression hypothesis because it is taking longer to recall as the mem is suppressed.
Outline the theories behind the list method of directed forgetting
List method:
2 conditions:
Forget and remember
List condition: list 2 had less for remember condition opposite pattern found for forget condition, more items recalled from list 2 than list 1 (for forget condition)
Item method of directed forgetting: to do with encoding
List method: explanations have to do with retrieval
Retrieval inhibition hypothesis:
Forget instruction inhibit lost 1 items: reduces activation of unwanted memories – remain unavailable
-re-presenting forgotten items restores there activation levels- explains why items are recognised but not recalled.
Context shift hypothesis:
Forget instructions separate List 1 from List 2 items –mental context shifts between the lists –List 2 context lingers into the final test –New context is a poor retrieval cue for List 1 items
May involve inhibition of the unwanted context
Joslyn & Oakes (2005)
