chapter 8 memory

Eidetic (or "Photographic") Memory

The ability to hold a complete visual representation in short-term memory

Sensory Memory/ Duration

Very brief (a few seconds max)

Sperling (1960): Results

-Sensory memory is processed automatically without attention or conscious effort -Information is available just long enough for us to pay attention to specific elements that are important to us in that moment -Paying attention to something moves it to short-term memory

Causes of Wrongful Conviction

75% of wrongful convictions involved mistaken eyewitness identification (#1 cause)

Roediger & Karpicke (2006)

After a delay, the participants who were tested the most recalled the most

Autobiographical memories/Episodic Memory (Explicit)

Autobiographical memories of specific events or episodes, including the time and place they occurred What did you do last Saturday night? Memories of your first kiss Memories of your first day of work

Implications for Forensic Interviewing

Avoid suggestion (introducing new information into the memory report

Loftus & Palmer (1974)

Stronger verbs ("smashed") led to higher estimates of speed Semantic meaning of "smashed" different than "hit" Participants asked the following question after one week: Did you see any broken glass? Smashed 34% Hit 14% There was no broken glass in the film The higher speed estimate that they gave, the more likely they were to report seeing broken glass

PSTD

Symptoms Flashbacks, involuntary intrusive thoughts, nightmares Hass been used as a counterargument against repression PTSD: Difficult to forget trauma

To retrieve information:

Take a "mental walk" through the location

Source Confusion:

Telling a "new" story to your friend only to discover that he was the one who originally told you the story

Recency effect

Tendency to recall the final few items in a list Words at the end of the list are still "online" in short-term memory

Primacy effect

Tendency to recall the first items in a list Use rehearsal to get first few items into long-term memory

Visual codes

Tends to fade quickly for verbal information Becomes more important when trying to store nonverbal items (e.g., pictures) These codes are more difficult to store phonologically

Natural forgetting (i.e., memory decay)

Tends to occur when people do not think about prior events Ex. What was the name of your 2nd grade teacher? 4th grade? Little controversy here Generally accepted that forgetting does occur for any number of things

Motivated Forgetting

The idea that we forget because we are motivated to forget, usually because a memory is unpleasant or disturbing

What is memory?

The mental processes that enable us to retain and use information over time Any indication that learning has persisted over time

Serial Position Effect

The tendency to remember items at the beginning and end of a list better than items in the middle

transferring appropriate processing

The way in which we expect to retrieve information influences how we encode it If you expect to have your midterm be a multiple-choice exam, you will encode the information you study differently than if you expected an essay exam

Organization of Memory/Long-term memory (LTM) is very organized

Trying naming the months of the year alphabetically This is difficult to do because the months of the year are organized in a certain way in our LTM, to recall them out of order takes much longer

Eidetic (or "Photographic") Memory

Unlike an image in sensory (iconic) memory, the image does not fade in less than 500 ms

implications for Forensic Interviewing

Use closed-ended, (yes-no, forced-choice) specific questions only after free recall has been exhausted

Mnemonic Devices

Using mental images can be particularly useful for connecting pairs of unrelated items

Eidetic (or "Photographic") Memory

Very few people have eidetic memory

How does one create a false memory

Very similar procedures

Commit to memory an ordered sequence of locations

Walking through your home

To determine how much information was forgotten after different lengths of time

Wanted to test himself on completely new material Created his own non-sense syllables ROH, LEZ, SUW, QOV, XAR, KUF, WEP, BIW Conducted research on himself

Automatic Encoding: Unconscious processing

What was the last thing you ate? The last time you studied, was it light or dark outside? What shirt did you wear yesterday?

Roediger & Karpicke (2006)

What's the point? Testing yourself is key to retrieving information from long-term memory Exams do not test encoding or storage of information; they test retrieval

Phonological codes (acoustic)

When given a string of letters to remember, people most often confuse those that sound similar phonologically Ex. RLTKSJ (The "T" may be replaced with "B") Ex. Trying to remember a phone number

Current mood influences the kinds of memories you recall

When in a positive & happy mood, you are more likely to remember positive things When in a negative & sad mood, you are more likely to recall negative or unpleasant memories

Levels of Processing

When it comes to memory, it matters how deeply you process the information

Implicit Memory;Some sub-systems:Classical Conditioning

You develop associations that affect your behavior without being aware of it

Why are these procedural memories implicit

You don't have to consciously remember the steps involved in these actions to perform them

Retrieval

You have the information, but are unable to connect the question on the test with the information in your brain

Memory: Forgetting

You see a question on the test, you remember studying it, but can't remember the answer, it could be due to failure at:

Retrieval involves

active reconstruction -We filter or fill in missing pieces of information to make our recall more coherent

Lost in the Mall" study (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995)

contacted relatives for three stories from their childhood Inserted one false memory Being lost in the mall

Braun, Ellis & Loftus (2002)

have you been to Disneyland? Have you met any of the characters? Did you take a picture with any of the characters? Of the three most popular, who did you have pictures with: Mickey Mouse Bugs Bunny Goofy

Non-declarative memory

influences your thoughts or behavior without you being consciously aware of it Processed by cerebellum and basal ganglia

Working Memory

information is coded in working memory via

Sensory memory because it holds information from our

senses

nformation needs to be attended to in order for it to be transferred into

short-term memory

, optimal performance varies with

task difficulty

How does one recover a repressed memory

therapy Cue-dependent retrieval Guided imagery Hypnosis Detailed dream analysis Sodium amytal ("truth serum")

forgetting curve

two distinct patterns in the relationship between forgetting and the passage of time 1.Much of what we forget is lost relatively soon after we originally learned it 2.The amount of forgetting eventually levels off

Explicit (Declarative) Memory

Episodic memory Semantic memory

Form an image (of the word/phrase to be remembered) and associate it with a specific location

Grocery list: Bread nailed to door of bedroom

Long-Term Memory- Function: Organizes and stores memory

More passive than working memory

Elizabeth Loftus:

More than 200 experiments involving over 20,000 individuals document misinformation effect

Elaboration Enhances Memory

Within deep processing, the more extensive the processing, the better the memory Vivid examples

-Memories are not perfect -Memories can change over time Details can be added, subtracted, exaggerated, downplayed or even be completely wrong

true

People remembered more words under the influence of marijuana if they learned them under the influence

true

A memory distortion that occurs when

true source of the memory is forgotten

Repressed Memory

"Lost" but not forgotten Memory is in storage, but is unavailable for retrieval

short term/working memory/Function: Temporary store of information currently in use

-Conscious processing of information -Enables you to have rapid access to this information -Where information is actively worked on

Short-Term (Working) Memory

-Information can be prevented from decay if rehearsed - if process information well enough might get into LTM Maintenance vs. Elaborative Rehearsal

Organization of Memory

-Organization during encoding improves subsequent recall Thus, try to organize related concepts into clumps as you study

Loftus & Pickrell (1995)

25% came to believe they had been lost in the mall as children "That day I was so scared that I would never see my family again." Visualized a flannel shirt, bald head, and glasses of the old man who supposedly had found him. "I thought I remembered being lost...and lookin around for the guys. I do remember that, and then crying, and Mom coming up and saying, 'Where were you? Don't you ... ever do that again."

The Innocence Project

375 post-conviction DNA exonerations in U.S. history (as of 9/1/2020) Average sentence served: 14 years 21 of the 375 (6%) had served time on death row 165 of the 375 (44%) identified alternative assailants Convicted of 154 additional violent crimes while innocent person was serving time for their earlier offenses 83 sexual assaults, 36 murders, and 35 other violent crimes) Disproportionately affects Black and African Americans

Scripts

A kind of schema that involves the typical sequence of actions and behaviors at a common event Ex. Eating at a restaurant

False memory (i.e., pseudomemory)

A memory for an event that never occurred

Recovered Memory

A repressed memory that has once again become consciously accessible

Chunking

Allows more information to be in STM Capacity of STM is best expressed in chunks, not in individual items 7 +/- 2 chunks

Connected with our own identities

Amnesia; Alzheimer's disease

Visible Persistence

As the interval between the frames increases, detection decreases As the first frame's iconic memory decreases over time, it becomes less visible and is less easily integrated with the image of the second frame

Using a funnel approach reduces memory error

Ask open-ended questions "What happened?

Method of Loci

Associate items with an ordered sequence of places

Why are these explicit memories?

Because you consciously search your memory and declare your answer

Echoic memory (auditory)

Brief memory of a sound or echo Lasts ~3 - 4 seconds Ex. Answering a question you didn't "hear"

Iconic memory (visual)

Brief memory of an image or an icon Lasts ~.25 - .50 seconds Ex. Movies; driving home without "memory" of going through a part of a city

Short-Term (Working) Memory/Duration:

Brief storage (about 20 - 30 seconds) -Can "refresh" information by repeating it to keep in STM longer

Sensory Memory

Briefly holds information long enough to be processed for basic physical characteristics

Attributing a memory for one event to the wrong source

Can help to explain the misinformation effect

Explicit Memory

Can use explicit memory to directly respond to a question "Who was the first president of the USA?" "What did you do for your 18th birthday?"

Inverted U-shaped function

Cognitive resources that may otherwise be used for attending to an event may be reallocated to emotion-regulating systems, thereby reducing accurate memory performance

Sperling (1960)

Conducted a classic experiment on visual sensory memory Briefly showed a display of digits to participants Task: Report as many letters as you can from the entire display

Role of Memories

Connect historical time periods

Can take on several forms:

Context-dependent memory State-dependent memory Transfer appropriate processing

Video: The Case of Clive Wearing

Contracted encephalitis Hippocampus severely impaired Implicated in forming new memories Anterograde amnesia Moment to moment memory

Encoding

Did not properly store the information

Conducted one of the most famous studies of memory in psychology

Displayed the Ebbinghaus curve (Forgetting curve)

Long-Term Memory

Duration: Relatively permanent (minutes to years)

Stress & Memory Performance

During an emotional experience, our autonomic nervous system mobilizes energy in the body that arouses us

Two sub-types of explicit memory

Episodic Memory Semantic Memory

Rhyming

Ex. In 1400 and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue Make up a story using key words

Acrostics

Ex. North East South West = Never Eat Soggy Wheatie

Acronyms

Ex. ROY G BIV = Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet

In order to encode information, you must first pay attention to it

Ex. Selective attention

Eyewitness Memory

Eyewitnesses are given a tremendous amount of weight in our judicial system -Yet, as we have seen memory is not perfect Often, a single eyewitness (with no corroborating evidence) is enough for a conviction

Tip for studying:

Focus attention, minimize distractions

Storage

Forgot the information between study and test

Encoding

Getting information into memory May be thought of as the culmination of perception Translation of environmental information into a mental representation

Retrieval

Getting items out of memory

Eich et al. (1975)

Had people learn lists and later recall them either under the influence of marijuana or not

Hyperthymesia

Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) Tend to remember an unusually vast number of distant past life experiences (typically starting from mid-childhood) with extreme detail

Hyperthymesia

Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) Tend to remember an unusually vast number of distant past life experiences (typically starting from mid-childhood) with extreme detail -people with HSAM are just as susceptible to creating false memories as control subjects (Patihis et al., 2013) Reconstructive processes are basic mechanisms for all humans

Other examples/Semantic Memory (Explicit)

How many tires are on a car? What is a cloud? What color is a banana? You do not have to recall the last time you ate a banana to say that they are yellow

False Memories

However, it's also possible to create memories that never actually occurred The formation of false memories

Recognition

Identifying the correct information out of several possible choices (e.g. multiple-choice)

Anterograde Amnesia

Inability to form new memories H.M. amnesia Memento amnesia Finding Dory amnesia "Pimento Memento" from Brooklyn 99

Memory: Forgetting

Inability to recall information that was previously available Can occur at any memory stage

Retrograde Amnesia

Inability to remember events that occurred prior to the injury or disease The Bourne Identity movies

Misinformation Effect

Incorporating new and misleading information into one's memory of an event Mere exposure to misleading information can lead to memory distortion

Long-Term Memory

Information enters it via elaborative processes from STM

Long-Term Memory

Information is retrieved from LTM and placed back into STM where it can be manipulated

Priming

Involves the activation of information that people already have in storage to help them remember and process new information better and faster

Retrieval failure

Involves the sensation of knowing that specific information is stored in LTM, but being unable to retrieve it

How large are chunks?

It depends on the person and the kind of information. Experts have large chunks in their area of expertise Novices have small chunks

Levels of Processing

Items that are processed at a deeper level will result in better memory

Sensory Memory capacity

Large -Can hold many items at once (everything from our senses!)

Distributed Learning

Learning a little bit over a longer period of time

Massed Learning

Learning a lot in a short period of time (cramming) Less effective If students cram, they learn less and retain less than if they study regularly each day

Short-Term (Working) Memory/Capacity :

Limited (7 +/- 2 chunks)

Storage

Maintaining items in memory

Declarative or conscious memory/Explicit Memory

Memory consciously recalled or declared Processed by hippocampus and frontal lobes

Semantic memory/ General facts and knowledge about the world

Memory is not tied to personal events and history What is the capital of California? When and where did you learn that?

Memory Storage/Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of Memory

Memory storage involves three separate systems that differ in function, capacity and duration

procedural memory

Memory that enables you to perform specific learned motor or cognitive skills, habitual responses Examples Riding a bike, tying your shoes, driving a stick-shift, typing

General Study Tips

Minimize distractions Get a good night's sleep Distribute your learning (don't cram) Organize the material Test yourself on the material instead of just reviewing it Use mnemonics Use elaborative rehearsal -Apply your knowledge Relate it to something in your own life State in your own words Match the context where you will be taking the test as closely as possible

source confusion

Misattributing a story to your friend that you heard on TV

false memories

Misinformation and source confusion can alter details for memories that already exist

Source Confusion

Mistakenly remembering doing something that you actually only imagined doing

Short-term memory intact

Moment to moment consciousness (only lasts about 20 seconds without rehearsal)

Suppression

Motivated forgetting that occurs consciously Ex. After witnessing a crime, you consciously avoid thinking about it, and attend to other things -Associated with overgeneralized autobiographical memories Episodic memories that are devoid of reference to a time or place

Repression

Motivated forgetting that occurs unconsciously (rooted in Freudian and psychoanalytic theory) Some memories are so horrible that our mind automatically pushes them into our unconscious mind

Memories are distributed across the cortex

One of the frailest parts of a memory is its source Retain the image, but not the context in which we acquired it

Chunking

Organizing items in short-term memory into meaningful groups of information (chunks)

H.M., After the surgery:

Part of long-term memory impaired - Unable to store new, explicit information Implicit memory intact; Explicit memory impaired Had difficulty forming new explicit long-term memories But, could remember events before the surgery

Roediger & Karpicke (2006)

Participants studied one of two passages, either one about "The Sun" or about "Sea Otters" Phase 1 (three conditions) SSSS (study the passage four times) SSST (study it three times, tested once) STTT (study it once, tested three times) Phase 2 Tested on passage

Brewer & Treyens (1981) What items do you remember being in the office?

People often recall things that were not in the office Ex. Books, telephone, lamp, pens, pencils, coffee cup

inverted U-shaped function

Performance peaks at medium levels of arousal

State-Dependent Memory

Phenomenon in which a given mood tends to evoke memories that are consistent with that mood

Long-Term Memory/ capacity

Potentially unlimited

Implicit (Non-Declarative) Memory

Procedural memory Classical conditioning Priming

Elaborative Rehearsal

Processing things at a deeper and more extensive level Ex. 49 is 7^2

examples of chunking

RUOYYLERECNIS Sincerely Yours 149 - 291 - 120 - 101 - 776 1492 - 911 - 2010 - 1776 O LDH ARO LDAN DYO UNGB EN Old Harold and Young Ben

flashbulb memories

Recall of very specific images or details surrounding a vivid, emotional, rare, or significant personal event Events that are "burned" into your memory

Encoding: The Role of Attention

Remember that dividing our attention can lead to interference

Cued-Recall

Remembering an item of information in response to a retrieval cue (e.g. fill-in-the-blank, matching)

H.M., Had severe epileptic seizures

Removal of portion of hippocampus Important for memory storage and processing explicit memories

Maintenance Rehearsal

Repetition, repetition, repetition Ex. 4972, 4972, 4972, 4972, 4972 This works, but it is not very effective or efficient

Repression is not the same as natural forgetting

Repression: Special memory mechanisms for trauma?

Effortful Encoding

Requires attention & effort Studying for upcoming exams Remembering the names of 6 people you just met Memorizing your new work phone number

Self-referencing effect

Restate in your own words Generate your own examples Associate with your own life

Encoding Specificity

Retrieval is more likely to be successful when the conditions of retrieval are similar to the conditions of encoding

Retrieval

Retrieving information without the aid of retrieval cues; also called free recall (e.g. essay tests)

Why do people remember things that were not there?

Schema for professor's office We can fill in the gaps of memories with things we would "expect" to be there Room was specifically designed not to have these things that we'd typically expect

Memory storage involves three separate systems

Sensory memory Short-term memory Long-term memory

Connect social relationships

Shared experiences, concepts, and ideas