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Key points for lecture 4

Key points for lecture 4. Forgetting: good or bad? How does the Deese / Roediger / McDermott (DRM) paradigm work? Which factors increase or decrease false memory? What are the actual underlying (cognitive) causes of false memory? Reisberg, Chapter 7. When Memories Go Wrong.

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Key points for lecture 4

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  1. Key points for lecture 4 • Forgetting: good or bad? • How does the Deese / Roediger / McDermott (DRM) paradigm work? • Which factors increase or decrease false memory? • What are the actual underlying (cognitive) causes of false memory? • Reisberg, Chapter 7.

  2. When Memories Go Wrong • What happens when your memory of an event does not correspond to what actually happened? • In what ways can our decisions get warped by an inaccurate memory? • Are we always aware when this happens?

  3. Forgetting • Is Normal! • And desirable! • The Case of “S” (Luria, 1968)

  4. The Case of “S” • “S” did not benefit a great deal from having a ‘perfect’ memory. • Impaired ability to abstract general knowledge from his experiences. • Related to his inability to forget specific details of each event? • Almost the opposite of Varga-Khadem’s amnesic children.

  5. Episodic vs. Semantic Memory • Baddeley’s Metaphor • Our general knowledge is represented in a distinct ‘semantic’ Memory

  6. Episodic & Semantic Components of Autobiographical Memory • Parker et al. (2006), Neurocase 12: pages 35-39. (pdf available via my webpages) • Case A.J. : ‘…highly superior semantic autobiographical memory’

  7. Sources of Error in Normal Memory • Forgetting. • A natural feature of our memory? • Recollection and familiarity may have to trade off against one another all the time. • How might their interaction distort our memory of the past, and mislead our judgement?

  8. The Weight of Eyewitness Evidence • An estimated 77,000 people annually in the USA are charged solely on the basis of eye witness evidence. • Around three quarters of English cases result in conviction due to eye witness testimony (of which half were based on a single eye witness).

  9. Introducing Distortions into Memory • Force subjects to experience very similar kinds of episodes, which become hard to discriminate from one another • Manipulating the familiarity of retrieval cues

  10. The Deese (1959) Recall Task • SOUR • CANDY • SUGAR • BITTER • GOOD • TASTE • TOOTH • NICE • HONEY • SODA • CHOCOLATE • HEART • CAKE • TART • PIE • QUEEN • ENGLAND • CROWN • PRINCE • GEORGE • DICTATOR • PALACE • THRONE • CHESS • RULE • SUBJECTS • MONARCH • ROYAL • LEADER • REIGN

  11. The Deese (1959) Recall Task • Deese constructed his lists using word association norms. • Each item in a list is a strong associate of a particular TARGET word. • Deese found high levels of recall intrusions by these unpresented TARGET items.

  12. Roediger and McDermott (1995) • Modified and extended Deese’s basic result. • Employing recall and recognition tasks • Use of the Remember / Know (R/K) procedure.

  13. The Remember / Know Procedure • Ask subjects to report on their experiences while recognising. • Do they ‘Remember’ any episodic details? • Or do they just ‘know’ the information was encountered at study?

  14. Recognition Test List • PLACE • SWEET • TABLE • PARTY • GENERAL • MEMORY • CONSENSUS • KING • COMPUTER • TREE • FERRET • BURGLAR • BOTTLE

  15. Roediger and McDermott (1995) • Percent Recognition

  16. Some Factors that increase or decrease DRM False Memory • Increase: the number of associates presented for study • Increase: the strength of association between study list items and their TARGET • Decrease: (in young people) multiple study-test cycle. • Decrease: the ‘distinctiveness heuristic’

  17. ‘Distinctiveness Heuristic’ • Two study conditions • Words from the DRM lists • Words from the DRM lists paired with a picture • False recognition was almost absent when words had been paired with pictures • The ability to recollect picture information was ‘diagnostic’ for studied items.

  18. A triple whammy!3 Reasons for ‘DRM’ False Memory (1) Implicit associative responses • subjects themselves generate the target items while studying each list. • Then experience ‘source confusions’ at test (2) Familiarity of ‘lure’ items • But what about the ‘Remember’ responses? (3) A loss of encoding specificity

  19. The puzzle raised by false memory • Within the consensus view, how is it possible to recollect events that never took place? • That is, what might cause Source errors? Familiarity-based confusions? Loss of encoding specificity?

  20. CMF Explanations for DRM False Memory • The hippocampal formation • Pattern separation failure at encoding • Pattern completion failures at retrieval • Therefore: source errors, & loss of encoding specificity • The frontal lobes • Strategic control over memory • Failure to adequately focus on cues and/or monitor retrieval • The entire ‘association’ neocortex • Represents very similar content across a succession of episodes

  21. Summary • Judgements are most accurate when they are made on the basis of information whose source has been recollected. • But if retrieval instructions allow it, judgements may be based, by default, upon potentially less accurate familiarity.

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