Review for test 2 Avoiding Memory Errors Autobiographical Memory Self-reference effect

2. Review for test 2 • Avoiding Memory Errors • Autobiographical Memory • Self-reference effect • Flashbulb Memories • Traumatic Memories • Very long-term Memory • Permastore • Childhood Amnesia

3. Nagasaki two weeks after bombingBombing occurred August 9, 1945

4. Acquisition, storage, and retrieval • Information Processing model (Atkinson & Shiffrin) (sensory store, working memory, long term memory, control process) (Modal Model) be prepared to describe the characteristics of each level in the model • Visuospatial buffer, articulatory rehearsal loop, executive control • Primacy, recency, and serial position curve • Free recall, cued recall, and recognition memory • Digit-span task, reading span, operation span • Chunking and organization • Central executive, visuo-spatial buffer, and articulatory loop • Maintenance and elaborative rehearsal • Incidental and Intentional learning • Depth (levels) of processing • Memory connections, meaning, and elaborate encoding • Memory strategies and mnemonics • Unattended exposure

5. Mnemonics, not only the specific mnemonics (eg, peg lists) but also be able to discuss why mnemonics are effective • Retrieval path • Retrieval cues • Spreading activation • Free recall • State-dependent learning, context reinstatement • Encoding specificity • Source memory, familiarity, source confusion • Remember/know distinction • Implicit and explicit memory (be able to talk about double dissociation as evidence for the distinction as a real distinction) • Amnesia, retrograde and anterograde • Inferences in reading (or in listening as in our Brandsford and Franks demonstration in class) • Cross race identification • Iconic memory

6. Brown-Peterson paradigm • Memory errors & memory gaps • Intrusion errors, Deese-Roediger-McDermitt procedure (DRM) • Bartlett (sharpening, flattening, rationalization) • Bransford & Franks, memory for sentences and visual stimuli • Schemata and scripts • False memories, misinformation effect • Source monitoring • Decay, interference, retrieval failure • Very long-term memory • Hypnosis, sodium amytal, etc. and attempts to improve memory • Memory confidence • Forgetting and undoing forgetting • Trying to detect false memories • Autobiographical memory, self reference effect, self schema • Emotions and memory, flashbulb memories, traumatic memories

7. Childhood amnesia • Long-term remembering, permastore • Networks and memory, spreading activation, searching networks • Hints, context reinstatement, priming • Sentence verification task • Priming • Fan effect • Tip of the tongue (TOT) phenomena, active memory search

8. Nagasaki two weeks after bombingBombing occurred August 9, 1945

9. Avoiding Memory Errors • Hypnosis makes people more open to misinformation • Memories are not recovered, they are created

10. Avoiding Memory Errors Rather than regressing, the adult draws what he or she thinks a 6-year -ld would draw

11. Avoiding Memory Errors • Instead, the method of recovering “lost” memories that is the most grounded in research is to provide a diverse set of retrieval cues • Context reinstatement • Visualization

12. Avoiding Memory Errors • Summary of memory errors • People can confidently remember things that never happened • Memories become embedded in schematic knowledge • Schemata provide organization and retrieval paths • Forgetting may be a consequence of how our general knowledge is formed: Specific episodes merge in memory to form schemata

13. Autobiographical Memory • Autobiographical memory refers to memory of episodes and events in a person’s own life

14. Autobiographical Memory • The self-reference effect—better memory for information relevant to oneself • The self-schema is a set of beliefs and memories about oneself

15. Autobiographical Memory • As with general memories, memories about oneself are subject to errors • Memories about ourselves are a mix of genuine recall and schema-based reconstruction • Our autobiographical memories are also biased to emphasize consistency and positive traits

16. Autobiographical Memory • Emotion and memory Emotional events Amygdala Better consolidation

17. Autobiographical Memory • Causes of better memory for emotional events • Narrowing of attention • More rehearsal

18. Autobiographical Memory • Flashbulb memories • Are they accurate?

19. Autobiographical Memory • Some flashbulb memories contain large-scale errors • A group of college students were interviewed one day after the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion (Neisser & Harsch, 1992) • Five years later, confidence was high but there were may inaccuracies in their reports

20. Autobiographical Memory • Other flashbulb memories are well remembered • Consequentiality—whether it matters to a person’s life • Increases rehearsal and thus memory

21. Autobiographical Memory • Traumatic memories • Physiological arousal increases consolidation • Can be lost • Head injuries, sleep deprivation, drugs/alcohol, and—controversially—“repression”

22. Autobiographical Memory • Repression • Traumatic memories, can be “lost” and then “recovered” • Lost memories could be lost voluntarily or due to ordinary retrieval failure • However, memories may be due to misinformation

23. Autobiographical Memory Very stable memories

24. Autobiographical Memory • Memory for cognitive psychology class (Conway et al., 1991) Then fairly stable memory Considerable Loss for three years

25. Autobiographical Memory • Permastore • Permanent memories • May be aided by rehearsal and continuing to learn

26. Autobiographical Memory Most memorable period of life = high school through early college

27. Autobiographical Memory • Certain principles of autobiographical memory reflect more general memory principles • The importance of rehearsal • The formation of generalized schemata from individual memory episodes • The potential for intrusion errors and susceptibility to misinformation • Other principles of autobiographical memory may be distinct • The role of emotion in shaping autobiographical memory may be less applicable to other kinds of memory