Memory

1. Memory

2. Memory Confabulation • Seinfeld 1 • Seinfeld 2 • Seinfeld 3

3. Reconstructing the Past • Memory- The capacity to retain and retrieve information, as well as the structures that account for this capacity • How does our memory work? • Memory is selective, we do not remember everything we experience • Memory is not like watching a movie, it is like taking split frames and piecing them together • Frederic Bartlett (1932)-Memory a reconstructive process • We alter complex information to help us make sense of material • When recollecting an event we often times incorporate multiple basic concepts from various sources and construct them into our interpretation of what happened • Our inability to distinguish what was added to the story from what actually happened is often referred to as source amnesia. • Damage to Hippocampus can lead to inability to form lasting memories (Memento)

4. The Fading Flashbulb • Some memories of unusual, shocking, or tragic events hold a special place in memory if we ar personally involved • Coined as flashbulb memories by Brown and Kulik (1977) • Memories often grow dimmer with time • Does not matter whether flashbulb memories are of positive or negative events • Proves that reconstructing occurs over time even with such emotional events.

5. Conditions of Confabulation • Memory is subject to bias • We often times remember info that supports a choice and dump info that would have led us to an alternative • Often occurs under 4 circumstances: • You have thought about the imagined event many times • The image of the event contains a lot of details • The event is easy to imagine • You focus on your emotional reactions to the event rather than on what actually happened

6. Memory and the Power of Suggestion • Due to reconstruction memory is very open to suggestion • 3 areas where suggestion has a strong influence on memory are: • Eyewitness Testimony • Children’s Testimony • Hypnotic Recall of Events

7. Eyewitness Testimony • 90 percent of 40 cases where DNA evidence overturned a conviction had convictions established on eyewitness testimony (Wells et al., 1998) • Roughly 4,500 people go to prison on wrongful prosecutions due to eyewitness testimony a year • Much of this has to do with the way in which questions are asked or comments are made during an interrogation or interview • Loftus and Palmer demonstrated this in their 1974 study depicting car collisions • Further demonstrated in 1976 study by Loftus and Zanni asking witness if they saw “ a” or “the” broken headlight • Studies have also shown that we can be asked to recall events that have never actually happened to us at all. • The Bunny Effect

8. Children’s Testimony • Ceci and Bruck (1995) • Asked: Under what conditions are children apt to be suggestible? • Gets away from dealing in absolutes • Preschoolers more vulnerable to suggestive questions then school aged children • Also more likely to have source amnesia • Boundary between fantasy and reality may blur for young children • Children often conform to interviewer’s expectations and look to please interviewer • Garven et al. (1998) looked at techniques used in McMartin Pre-School Case and found that they greatly increased false allegations from 15% to 80% (Big statement: Other Kids said this happened) • In 2000 Garven, Wood, and Malpass did a similar study using positive reinforcers to reporting false allegations and found the allegations increased to 52% from 5 % for the control group.

9. Memory Under Hypnosis • Hypnosis is not a trancelike state in which the subject has no control over their behavior or feelings • Instead it is a procedure in which a practitioner suggests changes in sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, or behavior of the subject , who cooperates by altering their cognitive functioning accordingly • Does not increase the accuracy of memory • Instead increases natural tendency to confuse fact and speculation because of a desire to please the hypnotist and the hypnotists encouragement of fantasy and detailed images • Can increase recall, but also increases errors • Spanos et al. (1991) proved the errors that come with hypnosis by asking for specifics

10. Measuring Memory • Explicit Memory-conscious recollection of an event or an item of information • Can be tested in two ways: • Recall-retrieve and reproduce information • Essay, Fill in Blank, Memory Games • Recognition-identify information • Multiple Choice, True False • Recognition is stronger than recall particularly with visual images • Bahrick, Bahrick, and Whitaker (1975) demonstrated this with former classmates

11. Implicit memory-unconscious retention in memory, as evidenced by the effect of previous experience or previously encountered information on current thoughts or actions • Priming- a method for measuring implicit memory in which a person reads or listens to information and is later tested to see whether the information effects performance on another type of task. • Relearning memory- a method of measuring retention that compares the time required to relearn material with the time used in the initial learning of material

12. Models for Memory • Usually takes the form of an information processing model • 3 interacting memory systems used • Sensory Memory-Takes memory form senses and holds it for a second or two • Short Term Memory-Holds a limited amount of information for a brief period of time • Long-Term Memory-Accounts for the long term storage of information • Called 3 box model and has dominated research memory since 1960’s • Criticisms- • Some believe only 1 system exists with different mental processes for different tasks • Brain does not operate like average computer (non-sequential) • These people tend to favor a parallel distributive processing model (connectionist) • Processes take place among a vast network of interacting processing units

13. The 3 Box Model of Memory

14. Process • Info taken via sensory is either forgotten or transferred to STM • Pattern Recognition takes place here • Process of identifying stimulus based on info contained in LTM • STM either forgets this info or transfers it to LTM • Many believe at this phase info is converted into some encoding form (word or phrase) • Considered Working Memory • Can hold limited number of items (Most accepted number is George Miller’s 7 +/- 2) • We combat the limitation of retention in Short Term by chunking info • In LTM info is stored and can be returned to STM • Information is highly organized • Network models-like inspiration organizers • Visual and auditory groupings of words • Familiarity • Relevance • Association with other info

15. Contents of Long Term Memory • Procedural Memories- knowing how to do something • Implicit- not much conscious processing required • Declarative Memories-knowing something is true • Explicit-conscious processing required • 2 classes • Semantic Memories-internal representations of the world, independent of any context • Include facts, rules and concepts • Episodic Memories-internal representations of personally experienced events

16. Serial-Position Effect • When given a list to remember we often remember the first items on the list as well as the last items • Due to Primacy effect and Recency Effect • Primacy-Items committed to LTM • Recency-Items still in STM

17. How We Remember • Effective Encoding-sensory info summarized and encoded • 2 types • Automatic Encoding-location in space and time • Effortful Encoding-requires selection of main points, labeling concepts, making personal associations for info • Rehearsal- Keeping info in STM by review in hopes of transferring to LTM • Most often done verbally, which leads to confusing items that sound similar • 2 types • Maintenance-rote repetition • Elaborative-associating info with material already stored in LTM • Deep processing-processing the meaning rather than the physical or sensory features of a stimulus

18. Mnemonics • Formal strategies and tricks for encoding, storing and retaining information • MCEG (Methods, Culture, Ethics, Gender) • Best ones force you to encode material actively and thoroughly • Best also reduce via chunking

19. Why We Forget • Required for our survival and sanity • 5 mechanisms account for forgetting: • Decay-memory traces fade with time if they are not accessed every now and then • Replacement-new information entering memory can replace old information • Interference-similar items of information interfere with one another in storage or retrieval • 2 types • Retroactive-new info interferes with ability to remember old info • Proactive-old info interferes with ability to remember new info • Cue-dependent Forgetting-inability to retrieve info because of insufficient cues for recall • State-dependent memory can act as a retrieval cue if we are in the same physical or mental state • Psychogenic Amnesia-partial or complete loss of info of traumatic experience • Repression not believed to be the likely culprit

20. Autobiographical Memories • Memories we have of ourselves • Childhood Amnesia-inability to remember events and experiences from first 2-3 years of life • We do maintain procedural memories • Children have difficulty carrying their episodic memories even though in early childhood they can remember events from early stages • May have to do with development of prefrontal cortex • Other possibilities being explored: • Lack of a sense of self • Impoverished encoding • Focus on the routine • Different ways of thinking about the world

21. Memory and Narratives • The words we use to convey emotions about an event may lead to us “spinning” the story • Can change our perception of people later down the line • The elderly experience a thing called the reminiscence bump which causes them to recollect on adolescence and early adulthood more than midlife. (Events may be perceived as more significant: milestones, etc.) • Much of what we remember is distorted in some way, so we our always rewriting the past as we recollect on it

22. Memories and Myths • Intense suggestions and therapies such as hypnosis can cause false memories • Best evidence for recovered memory exists when in occurred spontaneously, elicited an emotional response, and medical records can corroborate the evidence.