Social Effects on Memory

Question 1

Social context: memories have a personal and social significance

Answer 1

Remembering is a social process - cultural transmission of memories involves repeated retelling

Question 2

Memories can be constructed and reconstructed both by individuals and by larger groups

Answer 2

Subject to SAME SOCIAL PRESSURE as other behaviours, beliefs or decisions

Question 3

Terminology for social effects on memory

Answer 3

Memory conformity
Social contagion of memory
Effects of co-witness information

Question 4

Story telling tradition

Answer 4

Share stories with each other telling and retelling of a story - we introduce changes and distortions

Question 5

Process of construction and reconstruction at level of individual can be generalised to larger groups

Answer 5

“CLASSIC ASCH EXPERIMENT” 1951 - HIGH LEVEL OF CONFORMITY
1 line and 3 lines (A, B, C) - Experiment introduced it as a “vision test”
Experiment in “groups” made up of 1 ppt and 3 confederates

Some confeds gave correct answer, some gave wrong answer
If all 4 confeds give wrong answer, ppts were seen to conform and also give wrong answer - PUBLIC CONFORMITY

Question 6

The conformity effect (example 1)

Answer 6

Study - view scenes with high expectancy items and low expectancy items (e.g. kitchen)
Two conditions; 15 seconds and 60 seconds

Collaborative recall: in conformity studies, give out intermediate test with confederate - take turns recalling information for some scenes, confed starts introducing CONTAGION ITEMS (never studied items)

Final recall - do test individually - no-one to bias own answers

see conformity here - ppt has accepted answers that were given as contagion items by confederate

Question 7

More contagion in which items?

Answer 7

HIGH expectancy items especially in FAST (15 second) trials

Question 8

Why is this?

Answer 8

Participants are going to trust memories of someone else when they have had a shorter amount of time to look

Question 9

Conformity depends on

Answer 9

Our own beliefs of the strength of the memory trace that . we have

Question 10

Example 2 (same outcome as 1)

Answer 10

If you are going to tell participants to pay attention as you might be hearing incorrect information presented to you at some point during the experiment

Question 11

Warning participants of recall errors potentially made by confederates - effect on social contagion

Answer 11

Warnings reduce but DON’T ELIMINATE social contagion

Question 12

Example 3 (same procedure with exposure to confederate’s written responses)

Answer 12

Test: initial recall test

Contagion phase: participants asked to compare their recall to that of other participants

Final test

Experiment written protocols had 1-4 of protocols containing contagion items

Question 13

Outcome of example 3

Answer 13

MORE FALSE CONTAGION
MORE EXPOSURE
STRONGER EFFECT

Question 14

What is a remember judgement?

Answer 14

When participants can explicitly remember the exact time/moment where they acquired to knowledge (encoded item in study phase)

Question 15

What is a know judgement?

Answer 15

Lower judgement - think you studied it but can’t recall exact moment - aren’t sure how they got this information but have a sense it was studied –> POWERFUL EFFECT

Question 16

Adding/removing detail to memory

Answer 16

Is it possible to have participants ‘forget items’ they studied as well as falsely remember items that were never studied? YES
NO - easier to implant false memory than make them forget real memory

Question 17

Study about adding/removing detail - take it in turns - different types of stimuli

Answer 17

Participants get a chance to follow different types of stimuli
words/pictures of cars/pictures of faces

Ex 1: study words and tested in presence of another person (or without person)
If you had a confed with you, they had a chance to recall a word and your turn to say whether a word had been . studied or not
Confed always went first - they had to say whether the given word had been studied previously or not

Question 18

Results for this study adding/removing detail to memory

Answer 18

13% difference in recall if confederate said that the old word was new - if confederate said this was a new word, participant was likely to say it was a new word

27.57% difference in recall of new words when confeds said the new words had in fact been studied (old)

Question 19

Conclusion of this study

Answer 19

EASIER to ADD than REMOVE memories
Easier to report new false memory than to omit a true memory (say a new word was an old word - pretend they’d seen it before)
Especially if there is a remember judgement - can’t dissuade you of the accuracy of the memory

Question 20

Why do we look at these conformity errors?

Answer 20

BLAME CONFORMITY - in the real world, when people have to recall real events for eyewitness testimonies

Question 21

Blame conformity phenomenon

Answer 21

Your opinions of who is to blame can be influenced by opinions of another person - a co-witness

Question 22

Attributions of blame are malleable - study - 2 men bumping into each other

Answer 22

Watch a video of the two men bumping into each other

Listen to another EYE-WITNESS describing event - at the end, they blame one man or neither

Question 23

Post study question

Answer 23

Who was at fault?
Control condition: only you making a judgement
Experimental condition: 1/3 ppts tended to blame man eyewitness indicated was to blame (and these results were checked to see if variable was ppts poor memory of event - it was not)

We trust judgement of another person - influenced by opinion of another eyewitness

Question 24

Who do we tend to believe?

Are all sources equal?

Answer 24

No - MORE credible sources produce a stronger misinformation effect

Question 25

Factors influencing credibility and misinformation

Answer 25

Role in the event - innocent bystanders vs. guilty party Identity/status/competence of co-rememberer - Partner > stranger - Psychologist > child - - Careers enhance credibility - Young > old witness - People who have MORE time studying event /accident - better memory trace - more believable - Confidence levels

Question 26

Confidence

Answer 26

CONCERNING - Human memory is unreliable and social context of recall information influences info itself and confidence attached Belief is very sensitive to perceived confidence

Question 27

Confidence bias

Answer 27

We tend to believe believe people who sound more confident - if they are CONVINCED they saw something It is not a good measure/poor predictor of accuracy Studies have shown POOR correlation between people's accuracy of recall and level of confidence

Question 28

Confidence is malleable

Answer 28

We can boost our own confidence by repeating stuff to ourselves over and over again --> with no change in accuracy --> but FEEL more confident - manipulate confidence in answers

Question 29

How can we see evidence of confidence malleability in mock police line up

Answer 29

by manipulating what other co-witnesses say

Question 30

Confidence inflation

Answer 30

If co-witnesses identifies the same suspect as you - or has improbable/unlikely different response --> your confidence in own recall/response increases

Question 31

Confidence deflation

Answer 31

If co-witness identifies different suspect/no suspect | You question your own recall

Question 32

Study (Wells & Bradfield, 1998)

Answer 32

Demonstrated ease at which you can manipulate confidence via FEEDBACK GIVEN

Question 33

Conditions of study (manipulating confidence)

Answer 33

1. No feedback 2. Confirming feedback (inflation) 3. Disconfirming feedback (deflation)

Question 34

Study instructions (manipulating confidence)

Answer 34

Participants watched a video showing store robbery Blurry picture (by design) Hard to identify subject The robber wasn't actually in police line up of mugshots Ppts had to identify who it was Correct answer: none of them Also had to rate their confidence in their answer

Question 35

Results of study (manipulating confidence)

Answer 35

``` If they are told to pick out a suspect and given no feedback/confirming/disconfirming feedback 1-7 confidence rating scale: NO feedback = 4 DISCONFIRMING = 3.5 CONFIRMING = 5.4 Shows that confidence on response is influenced by - CO-WITNESS - EXPERIMENTER - LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ```

Question 36

Outcome of Wells & Bradfield

Answer 36

Feedback with disconfirming statement makes ppt less confident on response and thus on trial maybe less believable (lack social contagion) than a more confident (but not necessarily more accurate co-witness)

Question 37

Collaborative memory (second phenomena after social contagion) 2 papers

Answer 37

Shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity

Question 38

Collaborative inhibition

Answer 38

If we try to remember information with other people - Presence of those does not benefit recall of more information accurately We have a belief that doing things in groups/sharing opinions/brainstorming AIDS memory/productivity - but not necessarily

Question 39

General method for studying collaborative inhibition

Answer 39

Study separately Complete memory test together - collaborative groups Pool individual task answers together - nominal groups (potential performance)

Question 40

Typical result of studies in collaborative inhibition

Answer 40

Normally find COLLABORATIVE INHIBITION or SUBOPTIMAL GROUP RECALL On average, people show poorer memory in groups when tested individually

Question 41

Study 1 (collab inhibition)

Answer 41

Studying and recalling The War of the Ghosts individually and in groups

Question 42

Results of study 1 (collab inhibition) - quiz on facts of book (bit like a pub quiz)

Answer 42

1. Each individual remembers fewer items than all individuals do together 2. Collaborative recall is lower than nominal groups

Question 43

Why does collaborative inhibition happen?

Answer 43

1. SOCIAL LOAFING - diffusion of responsibility, Steiner's model of group productivity, less effort/motivation 2. Cognitive explanation - RETRIEVAL DISRUPTION HYPOTHESIS

Question 44

What is the Retrieval Disruption Hypothesis?

Answer 44

Each individual when you try to remember something, store memory and try retrieve it Different people rely on DIFFERENT STRATEGIES/retrieval cues

Question 45

Different people rely on different strategies and retrieval cues

Answer 45

Retrieval cues are not all compatible - retrieval strategies brought up by other people are going to INTERFERE with your own --> RESULT: RECALL LESS THAN ACTUALLY REMEMBER

Question 46

Collaborate inhibition - influencing factors

Answer 46

1. Organisation of stimuli - if we give you something to study that lends itself to MULTIPLE retrieval strategies - see MORE collaborative inhibition 2. Test type - if test RELIES on retrieval strategies e.g. plain recall - then MORE inhibition Recognition tasks rely on fewer retrieval strategies and thus less inhibition on performance 3. Group size - more inhibition with larger group

Question 47

Consolidation and false memory - do false memory rates increase or decrease in groups?

Answer 47

MORE memory distortion in groups 1. Study DRM lists (words created from a particular concept/critical word) separately 2. Complete perceived group recall (PGR) test 3. Complete individual recall tests Results: PGR with critical word mentioned (confeds): 79% intrusion rate in individual tests without critical word mentioned: 39% intrusion rate (due to similarity) without a PGR test at all: 30% intrusion rate --> FALSE MEMORIES CAN BE TRANSMITTED

Question 48

If the critical word (which DRM list is based off) is mentioned by confederates in PGR test

Answer 48

Highly likely to intrude word into own recall

Question 49

Socially-shared retrieval induced forgetting (RIF) study

Answer 49

``` Two people (a "speaker" and "listener" study new information and practice selected parts of that information The speaker engages in OVERT (open) recall Is the listener a "passive" addressee? Or do they engage in COVERT/discrete recall? ```

Question 50

Socially shared RIF results

Answer 50

Expected result; see a RIF effect in speaker - does it have effect on listener? Speaker recall: RIF effect present - better memory for items practiced - poorer memory for items related to the ones they practiced Listener recall: also had RIF effect - socially shared

Question 51

Study 2 - speaker and listener encode information from :

Answer 51

Ex 1 - word pairs Ex 2 - story Ex 3 - same story recalled jointly - flowing conversation

Question 52

Ex 1 retrieval practice

Answer 52

Speakers complete cue-target pairs while listener monitors speaker's responses for - ACCURACY (errors/correct answer etc) - FLUENCY (superficial listening condition) - not judging semantics

Question 53

Ex 1 test (socially shared RIF)

Answer 53

Compare recall of - Practiced items (Rp+) - Unpracticed related items (Rp-) - Unpracticed unrelated items (NRp) Inhibition/RIF effect - difference between NRp - Rp- NRp being a control/baseline condition

Question 54

The listener monitoring for accuracy

Answer 54

showed RIF effect

Question 55

Listener monitoring for fluency

Answer 55

Speaker has RIF Listener has NO RIF!! - no inhibition/no difference in recall of unpractised related/unrelated items Due to not engaging with what (content/semantics) speaker was saying but how they said it

Question 56

Stories and conversations (and listener there to check speaker accuracy)

Answer 56

Saw listener RIF effect

Question 57

Conversational setting - difference in results compared to story/cue-word pairs

Answer 57

Engaged with task MORE - more interesting Stronger learning effects (more practiced items recalled) Stronger inhibition effects (less unpracticed related items recalled)

Question 58

Conclusion of socially-shared RIF

Answer 58

People remember what the speaker remembers and tends to forget what the speaker does not mention