The sins of memory

Question 1

Memory failures

Answer 1

1. Forgetting your password or PIN versus
2. Telling a joke to the person you heard it from
3. Accidentally presenting someone else’s ideas as your own

‘Sins of commission’ as well as sins of ‘omission’ – Schacter (1999)

HUGE legal implications in eyewitness testimony!

Question 2

Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) memory illusion

Answer 2

• Participants study lists of words (they were all associate with sleep but sleep was not one of the words)
• Strong tendency to falsely recognise critical lure as having been presented.

— critical lure- can recall without a prompt of cue

• Vivid memory - people even recall the critical lures!

Medial PFC- knowledge

Question 3

Schacter et al. (2011)
1- what in study phase
2- what are studied words associated with?
3- what is gist memory
4- memory is?
5- what does gist mean?

Answer 3

1- Gist activation in study phase
2- Studied words are associated in knowledge base with the ‘critical lure’, so they activate the lure in memory
3- Stored memory includes semantically related unstudied content = gist memory
4- memory is both general and specific
5- something that is rather general in its meaning

Question 4

Explain the critical lure

Answer 4

Because all the words are associated with the critical lure, if you present people with the list of words, then the critical lure will get activated. In this case it’s cold.

People form a memory for the concept that was activated as well as the words that were actually present.

Question 5

DRM memory illusion:
1- what type of effect?
2- what do errors depend on in people with amnesia?
3- what also reduces this error?
4- what increases the illusion?
5- familiarity of?

Answer 5

1- Strong effect - lures can be recalled as often as studied items!
2- In amnesia, reduced false memory, so errors depend on normal hippocampal function. People with amnesia (where memory is impaired, are less likely to make this mistake. This suggests the hippocampus (which is damaged in patients with amnesia) is necessary in order for these errors to occur).
3- Medial prefrontal cortex damage also reduces this error – consistent with semantic knowledge schemas’ role in errors
4- Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex damage and old age increase the illusion because intact memory control helps avoid it
5- Familiarity of non-presented words – but also FALSE RECOLLECTION

Question 6

Gist memory for pictures
1- what will you get in the test phase?
2- for categorised pictures, how many false alarms?
3- also called ____?

Answer 6

1- In the test phase, you’ll get some items you’ve seen before, some new items and some lures (relate to the previous item)
2- For categorised pictures, about 20% false alarms on recognition test
3- Also called mnemonic discrimination (discriminating in memory between similar things) and is impaired in ageing and Alzheimer’s

Question 7

Gist memory for pictures:
1- what are lures?
2- general semantic categories likeness?
3- what is pneumonic discrimination?

Answer 7

1- Lure- related to previous items

2- General semantic categories likeness- more likely to recognise

3- Pneumonic discrimination- discriminating in memory between similar things

Question 8

Bartlett’s (1932) War of the Ghosts study

Answer 8

Bartlett- Got people to listen to and later recall unfamiliar material. People missed information (omissions) and they changed a lot of the information). He came up with this concept of memory schemas

Bartlett’s memory schemas “the past operates as an organised mass” (1932, p.197)

Memory distortion when to-be-remembered information does not fit our schemas

People recalled unfamiliar stories shorter and distorted – elements changed as well as omitted

Weight of prior knowledge leads you to making mistakes

Methods were not well controlled, no statistics

Question 9

What were the downsides to Bartlett’s methods?

Answer 9

• Not well controlled
• E.g. deliberate guessing
• NO statistics! (and we need these)

We need more evidence

Avoided separation of memory from meaning used by Ebbinghaus’ (1885)

Ebbinghaus tried to separate memory from meaning – extreme example of how control in the lab may remove the very thing you are interested in

Question 10

Explain Brewer and Treyens (1981) study on memory for objects in a graduate office

Answer 10

Items rated how well they fit in the office
Objects rated schema-expectancy

Schema-expectancy helped recall of objects
BUT more false recognition of high-schema objects in recognition memory test

Schema expectancy helped people recall objects but it made them have more false recognition (eg. if you had not seen laptop on desk and then asked if you had seen laptop on desk, you were more likely to say you had)

Question 11

Name a positive about memory and prior knowledge

Answer 11

Prior knowledge can support episodic memory when people process for meaning and when to-be-remembered information fits memory schemas.

NOTE: for clarity, we use ‘gist’ to include ‘associative’ memory errors. The term ‘associative’ also has a different meaning from lecture 1. Here, it is used to refer to the associations between words in semantic memory, and the DRM task specifically.

Question 12

Name one way that false memories might differ from true memories

Answer 12

If they are based on a vague sense of familiarity

False memories would contain less specific information

Question 13

Explain Garoff-Eaton, Slotnick & Schacter, 2006
study which looked at true and false memories.
Testing

Answer 13

People had a go at telling the difference between true and false memories

People were asked to study abstract shapes in a scanner

(same as categorised pictures task but with abstract shapes)

Participants scanned during retrieval (a recognition test)

View abstract shapes – distinguish lures from studied

Question 14

Explain Garoff-Eaton, Slotnick & Schacter, 2006
study which looked at true and false memories.

Results

Answer 14

fMRI activity at retrieval indistinguishable for true vs. false recognition

Suggests that even when we don’t check if false memories are vivid, they might not differ from true memories

BUT we cannot just accept a null finding
ALSO, stimuli were abstract images so no semantic gist

Question 15

Dennis, Bowman & Vandekar (2012)
Study

Answer 15

fMRI scanning again during retrieval

Focus on subjectively vivid true vs. false recollections

Categorised pictures task that could elicit a memory based on semantic gist – e.g. “yes I saw a cat”

Asked whether the memory was vivid or not

Question 16

Dennis, Bowman & Vandekar (2012)
Results

Answer 16

Here, they found the true and the false memories did differ significantly

Right hippocampus and early visual cortex both more activated during true recollection than false recollection.

Evidence that true recollection can be different: perhaps more detailed, and containing more sensory information

Differed significantly in visual cortex and hippocampus

Expected there to be less detail in false recollection

These results were inline with the authors prediction because they expected there to be less detail in false recollection

Question 17

Meta-analysis of studies of false memory retrieval:
1- what regions are commonly activated over studies?
2- what is the bilateral ventrolateral PFC involved in?
3- BUT…
4- no consistent differences in…

Answer 17

1- Several PFC regions commonly activated over studies
2- Included: bilateral ventrolateral PFC – involved in semantic processing so they thought this was connected to semantic gist
3- BUT not all activations differed from true recognition
4- no consistent differences in hippocampus or sensory cortex

Question 18

What did Kurkela and Dennis (2016) find when they looked at false memory retrieval alone?

Answer 18

They found there were several PFC regions activated

Question 19

Memory bias and stereotypes:
What did Allport & Postman (1947) and Kleider et al. (2008) show?

Answer 19

Allport & Postman (1947) – version of ‘telephone game’ showing racial memory bias against Black character

Kleider et al. (2008) – gender stereotype errors increased with delay

Question 20

Creating & modifying bias
Tran, Hertel & Joorman (2011)

Explain study and results

Answer 20

• Training to interpret neutral prose passages - positively or negatively
• After training, participants were also asked to recall details from these novel scenarios.
• Encode ambiguous novel scenarios
• Recall of details from scenarios was biased to trained direction
• Biases can be induced, and affect memory
• Biases may also be modified e.g. in depression/ anxiety
• More errors in in positive scenarios that are positive
• More errors in negative scenario that fit with negative
• Bias induced by training

Training was effective in inducing the intended group differences in interpretive bias. Importantly, participants exhibited memory biases that corresponded to their training condition. These results suggest that manipulating interpretive biases can result in corresponding changes in memory. Findings from this study highlight the importance of future research on the relation among cognitive biases and on the possibility of modifying cognitive biases in emotional disorders.

Question 21

Fake news and bias study
Murphy et al. (2019)

Answer 21

• Memory for real and fake stories just prior to Ireland’s May 2018 abortion referendum
• N=3140 online study
• Shown headlines + images relating to stories relating to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns
• For fake stories 48% either “I remember seeing/hearing this” or “I don’t remember seeing/hearing this but I remember it happening” (63% if include false belief!)
• People 10-20% more likely to remember fake news consistent with their own views (group differences: 58% vs. 38% for ‘no’ poster and 40% vs. 30% for ‘yes’ poster)

Question 22

1- what can bias airse from?
2- what refer to prior knowledge effects?
3- what is memory?

Answer 22

1- prior knowledge, including emotional states

2- Schemas and gist both refer to prior knowledge effects

3- Memory is biased and constructive

Question 23

Reality (source) monitoring
When and where? The ‘source’ of a memory
Johnson et al. (1993), Source Monitoring theory

Answer 23

• Location on a screen, voice of speaker
• When/ where you met someone
• Where you put your keys
• Imagined vs. real experience (reality monitoring)
• The “ability to specify contextual information surrounding memory traces” (so source ~= context)
• Not just recollecting context, but evaluating what is remembered – this requires control

Question 24

Reality (source) monitoring
- activation-monitoring theory
- fuzzy trace theory
- what can imagination lead to

Answer 24

Activation-monitoring theory (Roediger) – semantic activation of lure connects it with the study episode. Monitoring retrieval helps but may not prevent.

Fuzzy trace theory - memory for semantic gist different from memory for detail, and if strong gives ‘phantom recollection’ (Brainerd & Reyna)

Imagination can lead us to making convincing memory errors

Question 25

control before vs after retrieval

Answer 25

Control before retrieval (search) includes mental reinstatement

Control after retrieval (monitoring)

Question 26

‘Content borrowing’
1- what do false recognitions include?
2- thinking aloud in?
3- words?
4- content borrowing from?

Answer 26

1- actual physical features (colour, shape) of similar seen objects

2- Thinking aloud in DRM task (Lampinen et al., 2006)

3- While studying word SUGAR: “It is fattening, but it is good.” While falsely recognising SWEET: “Sweet—old, and remember, cause I remember liking sweets but thinking they are gonna make me fat.”

4- Content borrowing from true memories

Question 27

What did lyle & Johnson study?

Answer 27

Studied black and white line drawings in certain screen locations

Question 28

What is content borrowing?

Answer 28

Having the same response to a word that wasn’t the original word e.g. thinking about fattening for sweet when really the word was sugar

(Content borrowing sounds a bit like plagiarising someone else’s essay doesn’t it…. And in fact it isn’t that far off the mark)

Question 29

Cryptomnesia

Answer 29

Unconscious plagiarism as a reality monitoring error
e.g. did you tell your idea to someone or did they tell it to you?

Question 30

Imagination inflation

Answer 30

Everyday errors e.g. answering email versus thinking about it

Imagining has a larger effect than just reading about something - and this applies to both common, feasible events and unfeasible events

We have vivid imaginations! Imagining has a larger effect

Thinking you’ve replied when you haven’t

Question 31

In the field: complex errors-
1- how can distortion by a memory schema be exacerbated? + example
2- what did experts do?
3- when did this occur?
4- number of mechanisms?

Answer 31

1- Distortion due to a memory schema can often be exacerbated by misattribution i.e. control failure. E.g. clinical psychologists vs. students read case study vignettes, coherent vs. incoherent with prior knowledge

2- Experts recalled more detail AND falsely recalled more details that had NOT been present!

3-Particularly where schema and reality conflicted
(NB groups differed in age… potentially serious confound!)

4- More than one mechanism even in lab-based DRM and other gist memory tasks

Question 32

In the field: the Cognitive Interview
Stages

Answer 32

Stage 1: Reinstate the context

Stage 2: Recall events in reverse order (tries to reduce schema use)

Stage 3: Report everything (maximise memory monitoring and to cue further recall)

Stage 4: Describe events from someone else’s perspective

Question 33

In the field: Misinformation effect
1- influence of?
2- how can influenced memory be accounted for?

Answer 33

1- Strong influence of post-event questioning on memory – potential for misleading information

2- Can be accounted for well by Multiple Memory Trace Theory which also addresses temporal gradient in amnesia

Question 34

Loftus & Palmer (1974) car crash study

Answer 34

Information introduced in questions about an event is incorporated as part of memory for original event

The way question was asked in car crash study (bumped or smashed) influence the answer

Questions asked post-event gets entangled with the actual event

Question 35

In the field: Eyewitness Testimony
1- how many wrongful convictions in USA involve eyewitness errors
2- what evidence for wrongful convictions
3- what is critical and can change memory

Answer 35

1- About 75%
2- DNA evidence
3- Police questioning

Question 36

Bartlett’s (1932) War of the Ghosts:
What were the 2 groups

Answer 36

Experimental group: recall at 15 min, 1 week and 6 months

Control group: no 15 min recall test

Question 37

Bartlett’s (1932) War of the Ghosts
Results

Answer 37

Major distortions were an increasing proportion of memories with repeated retrieval

Control group showed less distorted as well as less accurate recall in absolute terms – although don’t report proportion.

Early test is a ‘double-edged sword’, i.e., errors in immediate recall are remembered later

In the experimental group people remembered more but it was a higher proportion of decorative memories, the repeated retrieval.

So the major distortions need to be maintained more than the accurate information. And this is thought to be because the information was schema in Congress, but also because it was tested on multiple occasions.

The early testing therefore has mixed benefits

A single early test may be worse than none

Major distortions maintained

AND accurate recall drops over time

Major distortions and accurate recall both drop over time

Question 38

Graesser et al. (1980) - how can recalled text become distorted by prior knowledge?

Answer 38

• Chance of recalling a text item that was studied
• Probability of freely generating it when nothing studied
• Not correlated after 30 min
• After 1 week, r = 0.45 (20% of variance)
  BUT: is this representative of ‘real-life’ memory?

Question 39

Students’ event memory:
what did Wynn & Logie (1998) find

Answer 39

Tested students’ memories for their first week at university every few weeks

• Accurate & stable over a year despite initial memory test
• AND: accuracy verified by lecturers’/ porters’ notes at time
• BUT: the initial memory test was not for 2-3 weeks
• Memory distortion may be less common in ‘naturalistic conditions’
• schema-induced memory distortions may be less common in naturalistic conditions than in the lab.
• But students’ own memories – familiar style and familiar material – didn’t change much over a year
• Initial test was in November so 2-3 weeks not immediate

Question 40

Unconscious plagiarism

Answer 40

• Discussing your own and other people’s ideas may make them harder to tell them apart
• People made up novel uses for objects (ideas) and experimenter contributed additional uses (Stark & Perfect 2006)
• Elaboration on all the ideas boosted later recall
• BUT participants more likely to recall all ideas as their own!
• i.e., memory updating with memory ‘blending’

NOTE this goes beyond content borrowing because there is an interim memory test after initial encoding

Discussions as may happen in group work

Note only 1 experiment in 32 undergraduates - this could do with replicating…

Question 41

What kind of information does a recollection (episodic memory) typically contain that is different from a semantic memory?

Answer 41

Context/ contextual information

Information about a specific event / learning episode

Question 42

What is a mechanism by which an external cue such as a photo can trigger recollection of a previously experienced event?

Answer 42

Context reinstatement

It matches the content of the memory

Match with the memory trace

Pattern completion

Question 43

What theory explains how processing during memory encoding is related to processing during memory retrieval?

Answer 43

Transfer-appropriate processing

Encoding specificity