Week 7: False Memories

Question 1

What are everyday memories?

Answer 1

Behaviour designed to fufil specific goes and influenced by

Past experiances
Culture
Motivation
Personality

Question 2

What is episodic memory?

Answer 2

Memories of personally experianced events including flashbulb memories

Question 3

What kind of memories are flashbulb memories?

Answer 3

Episodic

Question 4

What factors can affect everyday memories?

Answer 4

Past experiences, history and culture
Current motives and emotions
Intelligence and personality traits
Future goals and plans

Question 5

What factors can affect episodic memories?

Answer 5

The context we remember them in
The cognitive state of the person
How deeply the original memory was processed

Question 6

What are autobiographical memories?

Answer 6

Somewhere between semantic and episodic memory including facts about your life such as your age or where you used to live.

Question 7

How can our autobiographical memory be inaccurate?

Answer 7

Some events can distract our memories from other events

We make errors on the details but generally remember the gist of the event

Question 8

What are flashbulb memories?

Answer 8

These are a type of autobiographical memory that is exceptionally vivid and detailed. They occur when the event is surprising and important for the person receiving the news.

Question 9

What parts of the brain are involved in flashbulb memories?

Answer 9

Hippocampus and amygdala

Question 10

What was the Brown and Kulik study into flashbulb memory?

Answer 10

Participants were asked what they remembered about major events. 79/80 remembered where they were when they learnt about the assassination of JFK. 73/80 also reported experiencing a flashbulb memory for a personal event.

Question 11

How did Brown and Kulik demonstrate the importance of personal relevance in flashbulb memories?

Answer 11

The presence of flashbulb memories also depends on personal relevance. 30/40 african americans had flashbulb memroies of where they were when they heard about the assassination of MLK compared to 13/40 white americans

Question 12

How did Neisser and Harsch demonstrate the inaccuracy of flashbulb memories? (Challenger)

Answer 12

Over time, accurate recall can decrease. Participants were given a questionnaire the day after the Challenger shuttle exploded, and then another 32 months later. Only 7% were completely accurate. Confidence in their own memories still remained high.

Question 13

What is the effect of delayed questioning after an incident?

Answer 13

Participants are given more time to consolidate memories so less suseptable to memory alteration

Although they showed less recall overall

Question 14

Are flashbulb memories consisant over time when compared to everyday memories?

Answer 14

Everyday memories were more conssitant but flashbulb memories were more accurate and vivid

Question 15

What is imagination inflation?

Answer 15

False memories can be strengthened through repeated retrieval

Question 16

What was the ‘lost in the mall’ study by Loftus and Pickrell?

Answer 16

Participants read short narratives of childhood events provided by family members including the false one about the mall
They were then asked to recall their own memories of the events
25% of the participants ‘remembered’ being lost in the mall

Question 17

What is the misinformation effect?

Answer 17

Misleading information can replace true information which then leads to inaccurate information being retrieved

Question 18

What is the difference in brain activities between real and false memories?

Answer 18

True memories show more activation in the visual processing areas

Question 19

How can we criticize research into flashbulb memories?

Answer 19

Participants aren’t generalisable

Lab stories aren’t ecologically valid

Question 20

What is an eyewitness testimony?

Answer 20

An account given by people relating to a crime they have witnessed

Question 21

How accurate is our recognition of faces in CCTV images?

Answer 21

65%

35% false positives when the target is not present

Question 22

What percentage of prosecutors think a confident witness is more accurate?

Answer 22

75%

Question 23

How does eyewitness testimony relate to wrongful convictions?

Answer 23

It’s the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the US

After looking at DNA evidence, over 350 people have been exonerated

Question 24

Why do witnesses make mistakes when recalling crimes?

Answer 24

Wepon focus
Stress
Anxiety

Question 25

What is wepon focus?

Answer 25

The focus of witnesses during a crime is drawn to the wepon

They are less likely to remember details about the criminal as they’re looking at the wepon

Question 26

How is violence related to eye witness accuracy?

Answer 26

More violence = less accurate

Question 27

What explanations have been proposed for why violence makes eye witnesses less accurate?

Answer 27

Violence draws the attention away from peripheral details

Higher autominic arousal reduces memory encoding

Question 28

What factors can increase recall in eyewitness testimony?

Answer 28

They go back to the scene and are given contextual cues
They were exposed to the offender’s face for a long time
Give their testimony soon after the crime
They attend those surroundings regularly and are able to form stronger mental images
The other person looks dishonest (schemas)

Question 29

What factors mediate the effects of leading questions?

Answer 29

The witness beliefs the person questioning them knows what happened
The witness is unaware that they are being mislead
The information relates to the peripheral facts rather than the central details

Question 30

What is the familiarity effect?

Answer 30

They’re more likely to pick out someone from the line up that they’ve seen before, even if this person was only a bystander

Question 31

How does age affect eyewitness testimony?

Answer 31

Older adults are more likely to produce false memories after being given misleading information

Question 32

What techniques are used in cognitive interviews to increase accurate recall?

Answer 32

Mentally reinstating the environment and the personal context at the time of the crime
Reporting everything regardless of importance
Recounting events in a variety of different orders
Reporting events in a variety of different perspectives to reduce bias