Remembering Complex Events

1. Remembering Complex Events

2. Remembering Complex Events • In this chapter we consider some of the errors that can arise when people try to remember episodes that are related to other things they know and have experienced

3. Memory errors may occur due to failure at any of the three stages. • Encoding • Storage • Retrieval

4. Memory Errors • An example of a memory error • El Al airplane lost power to two engines • Crashed into side of building in Amsterdam • 193 Dutch participants interviewed 10 months later • Asked if they saw a film of the crash on TV (but really no cameras had recorded the crash) • More than half of the participants (107) reported seeing the crash on TV

5. Memory Errors (Brewer & Treyens, 1981) • Participants told to wait in office • Then told the experiment was a memory test of what they could recall • Participants often report seeing books or other typical items in an office when there were no books in the room

6. Memory Errors • Nancy arrived at the cocktail party. She looked around the room to see who was there. She went to talk with her professor. She felt she had to talk to him but was a little nervous about just what to say. A group of people started to play charades. Nancy went over and had some refreshments. The hors d’oeuvres were good but she was not interested in talking to the rest of the people at the party. After a while she decided she had had enough and left the party.

7. Memory Errors Nancy woke up feeling sick again, and she wondered if she really were pregnant. How would she tell the professor she had been seeing? And the money was another problem.

8. Memory Errors Better memory, more intrusions Worse memory, fewer intrusions

9. Memory Errors • Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) procedure. • Read the list “bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze…” • Participants recall “sleep” even though it was not on the list • Illustrates intrusion errors

10. Memory Errors Very good memory Intrusions

11. Memory Errors Highway Schema Palm tree breaks schema

12. Memory Errors • Schemata can help us when remembering an event • What was the first thing that happened • The last time you went to a restaurant • The last time you went to your favorite restaurant • The last time you went to a restaurant on vacation

13. Memory Errors • However, schemata can also cause us to make errors when remembering an event • For example, you might remember seeing magazines in a dentist’s office even if there were none • Brewer & Treyens, 1981 • Memories are regularized • Makes world seem more regular and normal

14. Memory Errors • A classic demonstration of the effects of schemata on memory was provided by Frederick Bartlett (1932) • The War of the Ghosts

15. Memory Errors • One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals, and while they were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war cries, and they thought; “Maybe this is a war party.” They escaped to the shore and hid behind a log. Now canoes came up, and they heard the noise of paddles and saw one canoe coming to them. There were five men in the canoe, and they said: “What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people.” One of the young men said: “I have no arrows.”“Arrows are in the canoe,” they said. “I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone. But you,” he said, turning to the other, “may go with them.” So one of the young men went, but the other returned home. And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The people came down to the water and they began to fight, and many were killed. But presently the young man heard one of the warriors say: “Quick, let us go home; that Indian has been hit.” Now he thought, “Oh, they are ghosts.” He did not feel sick, but they said he had been shot. So the canoes went back to Egulac, and the young man went ashore to his house and made a fire. And he told everybody and said: “Behold I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed. They said I was hit, and I did not feel sick.” He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose, he fell down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and cried. He was dead. (Bartlett, 1932, p. 65)

16. Memory Errors • Native American stories presented to British participants • The gist of the stories was recalled but details were altered • Shows how memory is malleable and reconstructed

17. Memory Errors • Another line of research has investigated the • misinformation effect Misleading information becomes part of event Time Event Misleading information

18. Memory Errors • Loftus and Palmer, 1974 • View a series of slides depicting a car accident How fast were the cars going when they _____ each other? One week later: Do you remember seeing broken glass? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ_OEHuA2uw

19. Plausible memories easier than implausible • Implausible still possible • Bugs Bunny • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZlPzSeUDDw • Imagination Inflation • Lost in shopping mall • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il0u2s_WGXA

20. Memory Errors • Misinformation Effect • All sorts of memory errors can be implanted • Having been hospitalized overnight for a high fever. • Having spilt a bowl of punch at a wedding. • Having been lost in a shopping mall. • Having taken a hot-air balloon ride. • Having been attacked by a vicious animal. • Entire events can be implanted into memory • Imagery can be very compelling

21. Memory Errors • Other studies have shown that false autobiographical memories can be implanted, such as participants believing they had become ill eating egg salad as children http://chedd-angier.com/frontiers/season14.html

22. Pragmatic implications • Change eating habits • Accuse abuse that never occurred • Confess to crimes never committed

23. Memory Errors • Memory confidence • People believe it indicates accuracy, but • There is little relationship between our confidence in our memories and their accuracy

24. Activity 4 • http://www.youramazingbrain.org/testyourself/eyewitness.htm

25. Eyewitness Test • Are you ready? • How reliable/accurate will you be??

26. A man went into the shop up the road. How was he dressed? • Dark clothes • Light clothes • Jeans • I'm not sure

27. A woman parked her car in the street shortly before the crime took place, did you notice her car? Was it one of these?

28. What color hair did the woman have? • Blonde hair • Dark hair • Red hair • I'm not sure

29. Here are some mug shots. Can you pick the first man you saw run out of the shop?

30. Response speed • Accurate  faster • These links are weak • No reliable indicator of accuracy of memory

31. Avoiding Memory Errors • Forgetting • Why memories may weaken with time • Decay—memories may fade or erode • Interference—newer learning may disrupt older memories • Retrieval failure—the memory is intact but cannot be accessed

32. Avoiding Memory Errors • Hypnosis • Does not help people recover lost memories • Hypnosis makes people more open to suggestion and misinformation effects • Memories are not recovered, they are created

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

34. Avoiding Memory Errors • Cognitive interview • 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

35. Cognitive Interview • Interviewer tries to mentally reinstate the environmental and personal context at the time of crime • Report incident from different perspective, maybe a different witness • Report every single detail • Recount incident in a different narrative order

36. 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

37. Avoiding Memory Errors • Other studies have demonstrated cases in which memories were surprisingly accurate • What factors determine whether a memory will be accurate or subject to errors?

38. Autobiographical Memory • Autobiographical memory refers to memory of episodes and events in a person’s own life • hyperthymesia = “superior autobiographical memory" • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-uFDhJPKOc

39. 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 • People recall their past attitudes, the past status of their romantic relationships, and their health in a fashion that emphasizes consistency and thereby makes the past look more like the present than it really was.

40. Autobiographical Memory • Our autobiographical memories are also biased to emphasize consistency and positive traits • Bahrick, Hall, & Berger (1996) • Recall high school grades • 89% of A’s correctly remembered • 29% of D’s correctly recalled

41. Autobiographical Memory • Emotion and memory • At a biological level, emotional events trigger a response in the amygdala that promotes consolidation Emotional events Amygdala Better consolidation

42. Autobiographical Memory • Flashbulb memories – memories of extraordinary clarity, typically for highly emotional events • Are they accurate?

43. 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

44. Autobiographical Memory • Other flashbulb memories are well remembered • Consequentiality—whether it matters to a person’s life • Increases rehearsal and thus memory • Neisser et al., 1991 • Quake of ‘89

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

46. 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, especially if there are leading questions

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

48. 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