Human Memory

23) Explain how Hindsight bias and overconfidence contribute to frequent inaccuracy of eye witness memory

Hindsight Bias- knowing outcome of event slants what your recall on the event actually was. Ie- two people were told of a couple that went on a date. One ended with rape, and the other did not. In the version that ended up with rape, the person who recalled it started to recall the story with more stereotypes of rape rather than how the other person did.

17) Distinguish between two types of amnesia

Retrograde- trouble remembering things prior to amnesia Anterograde- troubling remembering things after onset of amnesia Ie- things they just learned, short term memories

2) Role of Attention

When people are forced to divide their attention between memory encoding and some other task, large reductions in memory processes are proven. Cocktail Party Effect- involved deeply in a conversation, hearing your name or something that pertains to you...and loosing your attention abruptly and shortly focusing back on the conversation.

1) Three Basic Human Memory Processes

Encoding- getting information into memory Storage- maintaining memory Retrieval- pulling information back out of memory

19) Explain distinction between Episodic, Semantic, Retrospective, and Prospective Memory

Episodic- Personal Experiences; Ie- 9th grade play, family vacation to grand canyon Semantic- knowledge, information, encyclopedia Prospective-remembering to do things in the future Retrospective- trying to recall events from past. Ie- who won superbowl last year, what your professor said to you last week

21) Explain how Deep Processing can help every day memory

Fully comprehend Make it personal Acronyms/Acrostics Make it deeper/connect to yourself Think about meaning

12) Describe Ebbingau's Forgetting Curve and Three measures of Retention

Graphs retention over time, states that most forgetting occurs rapidly after retention. Recall- reproduce info without any cues Recognition- think multiple choice, right answer is infront of you but you just have to choose it Relearning- enforcing it once again

10) Discuss the Misinformation Effect and Imagination Inflation

Misinformation Effect- recall of events/information is altered by misleading information. Ie- witnesses to a car accident. When asked about what happened, when certain witnesses were asked about what happened when the two cars "smashed" together, they recalled their story with more gory detail. When asked about what happened when the two cars "hit" each other, the emphasize on the gore was more futile. Imagination Inflation- imposing and making one believe they had a certain experience when in reality they did not. Ie- exposing you to a throwback video of you at disney world, makes you believe that "Oh I must have shook hands with Mickey", but in reality, you did not.

20) Discuss the importance of rehearsal, distributed practice, and interference in effort to improve every day memory

Overlearning- continuous rehearsal.. you can never be too sure Distributing- spread out the work, don't just cram 8 hours the night before Interference- information you study from one course can interfere and confuse you with information you learned in another. The night before an exam/test, just study for that test only.

15) Describe Motivated Forgetting

Tendency to forget things we subconsciously/consciously do not want to do Ie- forgetting a term paper due, or to clean you room

9) Describe how Retrieval Cues and Context Cues enhance Retrieval

Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon- exactly what is sounds like. Having the feeling that something is on the tip of your tongue, and you simply cannot recall it. Context Cues- exactly what it sounds like. Trying to figure out why you are doing something, trying to recall something based on the information or settings around you. Ie- walking up the stairs and then realizing you completely forgot what you were doing and you try to trace back to what you were doing before and think.

7) Describe what is meant by Flashbulb Memory

An unusually vivid recollection of a particular experience, Ie- remembering where you were at a given time or place and exactly what you were doing. Studies show that Flashbulb memories are never 100% correct, and there will almost always be discrepencies between what people remember and what actually happened

8) Discuss Conceptual Hierarchies and Schemas

Conceptual Hierarchy- classifying different subjects under a main category, organizing items into groups. Ie- Social Studies- USH1, USH2, Euro, Pscych, all fall under the conceptual hierarchy of "Social Studies" Schemas- a stereotype of what we assume from a certain situation. We come up with schemas to help us remember certain things. However, we are more likely to remember things consistent with our schemas. We are also likely to remember a particular object that violates our schema. For example, we will be more likely to remember a giant guerilla in a professor's office.

14) Compare and Contrast Decay and Interference as a cause of forgetting

Decay- memory fades with time, but memory fades according to the quality of information and complexity of it. Interference- people forget information because of competition with other material. Ie- getting New Hampshire and Vermont mixed up because they look so similar. The less similar information is, the less likely they are to be interfered with one another. Retroactive Inference- new information gets mixed up with the past info Proactive Interference- old information gets mixed up with the new info

18) Distinguish Between Nondeclarative and Declarative Information

Declarative- factual information Ie- words, definitions names Nondeclarative- actions, motor skills, Ie- riding a bike

13) Explain how forgetting may be due to ineffective encoding

Pseudoforgetting- cannot forget knowledge you never learned, due to lack of attention Ineffective encoding- being distracted. Ie- if you are distracted while reading a textbook, you are doing little to nothing than just reading the words to yourself. This is phonemic encoding, which is inferior to semantic encoding, which is what you should be doing in order to have the most successful encoding possible.

6) Discuss the role of short-term memory

STM- limited capacity to hold memory only 20 seconds after information presented Rehearsal- process to maintain what is in STM often by repetition Interference- effects how STM is maintained, there are many interferences "The Magical Number Seven plus or minus Two"- George Miller, asserts that within our STM span (10-20 seconds), we can only remember between 5<9 items. Chunking- grouping information into small, digestive bites, rather than trying to learn something all at once Allan Balledy- Working memory capacity correlates with higher cognitive abilities. Phonological Loop- Reciting things verbally, one of the ways we can attain a language Visuospatial Sketchpad- mentally going over something in your mind, Ie- visually mapping out a diagram of your room in your mind and envisioning where you want specific items to go Central Executive System- controls division of attention. Ie- responsible for you being able to watch a T.V. show and simultaneously talk to a friend Episodic Buffer- capacity store that allows working memory and long term memory to intergrate

5) Describe Sensory memory and the sensory memory store

Sensory Memory- what we have recalled from the original presentation of information. What is recalled is exactly what has been presented to us. Sensory Memory Store- we only recall what is in the sensory memory for 1/4 of a second, after that whatever is encoded becomes less accurate, almost as a distant echo eventually.

11) Discuss evidence on Source Monitoring and Reality Monitoring

Source Monitoring- trying to remember things from a specific source. Ie- "Oh I remember Mrs. Weber telling me that" Source Monitoring Error- attributing information to the wrong source. Ie- believing something your roomate said was something that your professor said. Often, people are confidence with their source monitoring. Reality Monitoring- deciding whether memories are based on external or internal forces. Ie- "Did I take my morning pill, or did I only intend to do so?" When you can more easily feel or see yourself doing a specific thing with little effort, it is more likely believable that it actually happened. When someone is skeptical that an event did not happen, it is more likely they could not see themselves doing it.

3) Three Different Types of Encoding and how they relate to deeper levels of processing

Structural Encoding- getting information into the memory based off of structure- memorizing a word by it's vowels, consonants, letters etc. Phonemic Encoding- sounds Semantic Encoding- information by encoding the meaning of information. Ie- a dog barks, a bird chirps, etc. Structural encoding is associated with the shallowest level of processing, and the lowest retention rates, phonemic in intermediate, and semantic with the deepest level of processing.

4) Describe three methods for enriching encoding and research on each

Visual Imagery Dual encoding- linking information with different stimuli to improve retention Self referent encoding- applying information into personal experiments to improve retention Paivo Study- Asked subjects to learn a pair of 16 words, some were high imagery words (easily imagined) and low imagery words (more abstract words such as honest, dignity, integrity). Words that were higher in imagery and easier to visualize were more easily remembered.

22) Describe Visual and Mnemonic Devices that improve every day memory

Visual images Link Method- group things trying to remember together Method of Loci- imagine yourself doing a task and incorporating all the things you need to remember with it

16) Summarize evidence for and against recovered Childhood sex abuse memories

Williams Study- 129 female children were rushed to hospital for treatment after sexual abuse. When they were interviewed 38 years later, 17% only recalled the incident. Williams attributed this to amnesia in the hospital for the incidence. Psychiatric Patient Study- 1/3 patients hospitalized for PTSD reported they had experienced some form of amnesia. Frey'ds Theory- people block out the horrible experience and put it in the unconscious because we don't want it to effect our normal attachment process Embarassed Repression- hiding the memory subsconsciously rather than not being able to remember it Misinformation effect to get therapists to hear what they want to hear. Hypnosis, Dream Interpretations Events that happened to us when we were 2 or 3 are very hard to remember to begin with