week 10 false memory

Question 1

what do normal people think about memory error

Answer 1

Simons and Chabris (2011): surveyed the general public
-2/3 of people think that memory works like a “video camera”
* Probably the single greatest consensus among memory researchers…
* This is simply not true
* Memory errors can accumulate over time

Question 2

memory error cause

Answer 2

-We are more likely to confuse things that were studied nearby in time. Drewnowski & Murdock (1980) found that most intrusion errors come from the immediately preceding list – with intrusions from distant lists being much less likely.
-Learned content that is similar leads to greater memory errors

Question 3

Underwood and study on similar content on memory error

Answer 3

Underwood (1965) found higher levels of false alarms (erroneously saying ‘yes’ to novel items) if the novel items were associates of studied items. For example, if ‘dog’ was a studied word, then there are higher false alarm rates to words such as ‘canine’ or ‘cat’. There were lower false alarm rates for words such as ‘couch’ or ‘groom’
o Underwood argued that these results were due to implicit associative responses – when you learn a word, you might think of other related words.
o For example, when studying ‘boy’, you might think of the word ‘girl’. ‘Girl’ then gets associated to the current situation, which makes you more likely to false alarm to it when presented with it later. Even events that we imagine or are reminded of can be a source of false memories.

Question 4

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm (Roediger & McDermott, 1995)

Answer 4

• Participants study a list of words that are all associates of a given word
• “robber”, “crook”, “burglar” are all associates of the non-presented word thief
• “door”, “glass”, and “pane” are all associates of the word non-presented word window
• At test, participants had high rates of falsely remembering the non-presented words
• This applied to both recall and recognition
• Recognition of the critical lure was often recognize with very high confidence despite the fact
  that participants are very good at rejecting unrelated words

Question 5

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm (Roediger & McDermott, 1995) on perceptual error

Answer 5

Sommers and Lewis (1999): DRM lists where participants study phonologically similar words
* Studied “fat”, “that”, ”cab” – all similar to the non-presented word cat (critical lure)
* Studied “buff”, “put”, “bet” - all similar to the non-presented word but (critical lure)
* Findings resemble those from semantic false memory
* Very high levels of false recall and recognition of the criticial non-presented words!

Question 6

What happens if you warn participants about false memories before DRM task?

Answer 6

Gallo, Roberts, and Seamon (1997): inclusion of a forewarning condition
* Participants were told that the lists were specifically designed to induce false memories and given examples of the effect
* False memories were reduced but not eliminated

Question 7

What moderates the effects of false memory?

Answer 7

Note: DRM lists often contain a large number of associates of the critical word
* What happens if you study less of them?
* Robinson and Roediger (1997): manipulated the number of associates on study lists
* False recognition increases rapidly as the number of studied associates is increased
* In other words: the more similar content we learn, the easier it is to falsely remember something that is similar to what we experienced

Question 8

Why do false memories in the DRM paradigm occur

Answer 8

• Generation of the critical lure during learning. implicit associative idea: when you see words like
  ‘sheets’, ‘dream’, ‘slumber’ you might be reminded of the word ‘sleep’. This makes it more likely that you will falsely recall or recognize the word later. This is referred to as a source monitoring error – false memory occurs because we are unable to distinguish between a real event (a presented word on a list) and an imagined one (generating the word ourselves in our own minds)
• other possibility of false memory occurs because we use the “gist” of a learning episode in conjunction with real memories to reconstruct the event. Fuzzy trace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002)
  -the critical lure gets activated via a process of spreading activation
  -A number of computational models have been developed where retrieval is determined by the similarity to all memories (Global similarity accounts)

Question 9

experiment to prove the Generation of the critical lure during study

Answer 9

• Overt rehearsal procedure: have participants rehearse the words out loud as they’re studying the words
• Subjects often rehearse words to preserve their memory for the material
• If the critical lure is generated during study, it should appear in their rehearsals
• As it turns out, participants do rehearse the critical lure during study!
• …but false memory is still present even when they don’t rehearse the critical words (Marsh & Bower, 2004; Seamon et al., 2002)

Question 10

Fuzzy trace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002)

Answer 10

• “Verbatim” traces – real memories that are incomplete or have encoding errors
• “Gist” traces – an overall sense of what was learned in an event or study list

Question 11

Why doesn’t forewarning reduce false memory

Answer 11

Fuzzy trace theory: Gist is still a useful or necessary cue to reconstruct an event
-spreading activation:Activation spreads through the network involuntarily
-Global Similarity:False memory is an involuntary consequence of the similarity between the memories and the cues – forewarning won’t change this!

Question 12

Why does increasing the number of associates increase false
memory

Answer 12

-Fuzzy trace theory: Stronger extraction of gist traces due to more associate
-spreading activation: Each associate activates the critical lure, so studying more associates increases the activation of the critical lure even more
-Global Similarity: More similar items in memory = greater global similarity, and greater levels of false memory!

Question 13

Why do false memories still occur even if they are not generated at study

Answer 13

-Fuzzy trace theory: Gist is used at retrieval
-spreading activation :Activation may not be high enough for the words to be rehearsed at study, but high enough at retrieval to generate false memory
-Global Similarity: Rehearsal is completely unnecessary for false memories – it falls directly from the similarity between the items

Question 14

Candidate theory: the critical lure gets activated via a process of spreading activation

Answer 14

basis of activation monitoring theory
* Words we learn become activated – this makes it easier to retrieve them later
* Words associated with what we learn are also activated
* This activation of associated memories leads to false memory at retrieval

Question 15

Global similarity accounts

Answer 15

number of computational models developed where retrieval is determined by the similarity to all memories (essentially a parallel search). For recognition memory, similarity is calculated to each item in memory. These similarity values are summed together to produce an index of global similarity – indicating how similar a probe item is to the entire contents of memory. If this value is sufficiently high, then the probe word is endorsed.
According to global similarity accounts:
o Forewarning doesn’t reduce false memory as false memory is an involuntary consequence of the similarity between the memories and the cues.
o Increasing the number of associates on the list increases false memory as the more similar items you have in your memory, the greater the global similarity and therefore the greater the levels of false memory.
o False memories still occur even if they are not generated at study, as rehearsal is completely unnecessary for false memories - it falls directly from the similarity between the items

Question 16

Reconstructive memory study : Barlett (war of the ghost)

Answer 16

-Barlett make participant (war of the ghost) recall the story across longer intervals. As the time between reading the story and recall of the story increased, errors increased. While there were omissions of details, there were also intrusions of other details. Participants were more likely to intrude with details from their own cultural life stories. As such, Bartlett described memory as a reconstructive process, not just like a recording we can view. Memory is reconstructed every time we remember

Question 17

How do we reconstruct our memory

Answer 17

• Memory isn’t like a recording we can view
• Instead, memory is actively reconstructed every time we remember
• Similar in spirit to fuzzy trace theory

Question 18

Reconstructive memory study Kintsch et al. (1990)

Answer 18

found different rates of forgetting for content in memory from sentences. Memory for the underlying meaning of the sentence was unaffected by the delay interval (immediate to four days), but memory for surface form and text(e.g. What the words were in the sentences, passive versus active voice) declines rapidly. This means that even as we forget the specific words or phrases, we can still use our memory for the meaning to reconstruct a sentence or story

Question 19

Memory is subject to misinformation –the misinformation effect

Answer 19

• “What you get out of memory depends on the question you ask”
• What happens if you ask a misleading question? (Loftus & Palmer, 1974)
• Subjects saw a video of a car stop at a stop sign, then drive ahead and hit a car
• Two groups:
• Control group asked: “How fast was the car going when it hit the other car?”
• Experimental group asked: “How fast was the car going when it smashed the other car?”
• Experimental group gave higher speed estimates, also were more likely to claim they saw something they didn’t (broken glass)

Question 20

How does the timing or context of misinformation impact memory?

Answer 20

• Lindsay (1990): Subjects watched slides of a maintenance person stealing a computer and some money, two days later tested on memory
• Difficult condition: Same narrator immediately gives misinformation
• Easy condition: Different narrator gives misinformation two days later
• Less misinformation in reports in the easy condition
• Misinformation presented long after the event is easier to disregard, or possibly not part of the memory

Question 21

False childhood memories lost in a mall

Answer 21

• Loftus and Pickerell (1995): “Lost in the mall” study
• Participants were asked about a number of actual childhood memories
• Told to describe a story in which subjects were “lost in a shopping mall”
• Many participants described a story in detail even though it may never have occurred

Question 22

False childhood memories!
* Wade et al. (2002): Hot air balloon study

Answer 22

• Researchers solicited photos from the participants’ families and stories about what the participants did as children
• Received confirmation that the participants had never been in a hot air balloon
• Subjects presented with photos, along with a photoshopped picture of the participant as a child in a hot air balloon
• For each picture they were told to remember the event, and if they couldn’t remember it, to picture the event
• Most subjects did not initially remember the event, but after repeated interviews, as many as 50% of participants described the event

Question 23

Implications of the misinformation effect

Answer 23

• Wells and Bradfield (1998): when witnesses pick a suspect from a lineup, post-identification feedback from police can influence their confidence
• Positive feedback example: “Good – you picked the right person”
• Witness’s confidence increases significantly relative to no feedback

Question 24

Are memory immune to error?

Answer 24

• “Flashbulb” memories (Brown & Kulik, 1977)
• Possible exception to erroneous normal memories
• Highly confident and vivid recollections of major life events, such as:
• Assassination of John F Kennedy
• The Challenger explosion
• The September 11 attacks on the World Trace Center
• People often report that they remember where they were, who they were with, and are highly confident
• Brown and Kulik argued that these memories are preserved due to the high level of emotional content

Question 25

Are flashbulb memories really more accurate?

Answer 25

Critical limitation of the Brown and Kulik work: they could not verify the accuracy of the reports
* Neisser and Harsch (1973): longitudinal study on flashbulb memories
* Recruited participants the day after the Challenger explosion and collected reports of what they had done
* Participants given surveys up to 3 years after the event
* Huge changes in the details of the reports as time progressed!
*replicable

Question 26

Direct memory vs flashbub memory

Answer 26

• Talarico and Rubin (2003): direct comparison between ordinary memories and flashbulb memories
• Accuracy is similar for both types of memories!
• Vividness and confidence is much higher for flashbulb memories

Question 27

Why are flashbulb memories inaccurate

Answer 27

• When we retell events, we embellish details to others and these become part of the memory. we forget that some detail are made-up and is then incorporated into memory
• We incorporate other people’s retellings/other sources into our own memories

Question 28

Final conclusion on flashbub memory

Answer 28

• They honestly might not be any more accurate than any other kinds of memories!
• These are subject to reconstruction in the same way as other memories
  -Similar mechanisms of interference can be at work with flashbulb memories

Question 29

The ”memory wars”

Answer 29

• Began with the question of whether memories are repressed
• Sigmund Freud argued that traumatic memories that are too troubling for the conscious mind are repressed in the mind
• These memories are unable to be consciously accessed, but still cause anxiety
• Freud claimed that many people who have psychological difficulties but don’t know the causes have repressed memories AND that clinicians can unlock/uncover these memories
• Even today, many clinicians and therapists believe that memories can be repressed and that these memories can be recovered by a trained clinician

Question 30

Controversial on memory wars

Answer 30

• Memory repression became a controversial topic because there were a number of abuse cases entering the courtroom where the victim made the allegations on the basis of recovered memories assisted by a therapist
• Beth Loftus and others were skeptical of these memories for a number of reasons:
• Traumatic memories tend to be well remembered – even *over—remembered
• People with PTSD report that memories of trauma are intrusive and distracting
• The types of suggestion that therapists use has been demonstrated to produce false memories
• Therapists often continue to probe about memories of abuse even if the patient cannot remember any
• This resembles the techniques used in the “lost in the mall” study

Question 31

But are there cases of recovered
memories of abuse?

Answer 31

• Yes, actually
• Schooler (2001) discussed seven cases of individuals who recovered memories of abuse decades later where there was independent evidence that the abuse had occurred
• However, these were not in therapy – often this was in response to an event or trigger

Question 32

Why is there recover memory of abuse

Answer 32

• In some cases, the victims had actually discussed the events previously – in other words, the event was not totally forgotten
• It is possible that this was an emotional revelation, finally grappling with the emotional significance of what happened to them
• Memory recovery is nonetheless still possible
• In some instances, the victims were very young and did not classify the event as sexual abuse
• Young children do not always have a category or understanding of “sexual abuse”
• These instances can be painful or uncomfortable, but they do not have a category for the event
• Reminders of event details or perpetrators may prompt retrieval of the event

Question 33

is this recovery due to memory repression

Answer 33

Not necessarily
* In each case, there was no evidence that the memory was blocked by the unconscious mind to protect the conscious mind
* Memories were not “unlocked” by a therapist
* This type of memory recovery can occur even for non-traumatic memories (going back to childhood home)

Question 34

So what is happening with recovered
memories of trauma

Answer 34

Some recovered memories may be false
* Otgaar et al. (2017): DRM study with emotional lists, such as associates of “sad”
* Individuals with depression or PTSD had higher false memory rates for these lists
* Some recovered memories may be genuine, but were recovered with the correct retrieval cues
* Roediger and Bergman (1998): we know from lab studies that the correct retrieval cues can recover forgotten memories
* Tulving and Pearlstone (1966): providing the names of categories of studied lists can dramatically improve recall rates
* If somebody did not categorize an event as sexual abuse, they may say “no” when asked about whether this happened to them
* Still no evidence of active memory repression

Question 35

Can we trust our memories

Answer 35

Recent evidence, however, has generally found that memories endorsed with high confidence can be highly accurate
* Mickes et al. (2011): accuracy in lab-based item recognition tasks is virtually perfect for high confidence identifications
Wixted and Wells (2017) re-analyzed several datasets and found that high confidence identifications are associated with extremely high accuracy

Question 36

Diamond, Armson, and Levine (2020):

Answer 36

• Long-term recall (2 years later) and recognition of two major events: a guided tour around a university campus, and a training protocol
• Overall frequency of details recalled declined with time
• However, the accuracy of the recalled details was extremely high – close to perfect!

Question 37

If flashbulb memories are so inaccurate, how can memories for a
training procedure and a guided tour be so accurate

Answer 37

Flashbulb memories are often memories which we retell in groups
* Very easy for other people’s recollections to intrude into our own
* The events in the Diamond et al. study are less likely to be events that we share or revisit with time
* Less contamination from other events
* There was still considerable forgetting evident, ~20% of details were recalled from the original event

Question 38

eyewitness memory accuracy

Answer 38

• John Wixted has a similar take on eyewitness memory
• Highly confident memories can be accurate under a limited set of circumstances
• When confidence is recorded at the initial identification, not after feedback has been given
• When the suspects are presented to the witnesses before they have heard descriptions of the event or recollected it to others
• When the police officers do not provide feedback on their identification