Chapter 8.3

Psychologists involved in the study of memories of abuse tend to disagree with each other about which of the following statements?

We tend to repress extremely upsetting memories

reconsolidation

a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past

Children can be accurate eyewitnesses if

neutral person asks nonleading questions soon after the event

The hour before sleep is a good time to memorize information, because going to sleep after learning new material minimizes (________) interference.

retroactive

source amnesia

attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined

repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories

Ebbinghaus' "forgetting curve" shows that after an initial decline, memory for novel information tends to

level out

When forgetting is due to encoding failure, information has not been transferred from

short-term memory into long-term memory.

We may recognize a face at a social gathering but be unable to remember how we know that person. This is an example of

source amnesia

déjà vu

that eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

retroactive interference

the backward-acting disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

proactive interference

the forward-acting disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information

One reason false memories form is our tendency to fill in memory gaps with our reasonable guesses and assumptions, sometimes based on misleading information. This tendency is an example of

the misinformation effect

What are three ways we forget, and how does each of these happen?

1) Encoding failure: Unattended information never entered our memory system. (2) Storage decay: Information fades from our memory. (3) Retrieval failure: We cannot access stored information accurately, sometimes due to interference or motivated forgetting.

Why do we forget?

Anterograde amnesia is an inability to form new memories. Retrograde amnesia is an inability to retrieve old memories. Normal forgetting can happen because we have never encoded information (encoding failure); because the physical trace has decayed (storage decay); or because we cannot retrieve what we have encoded and stored (retrieval failure). Retrieval problems may result from proactive (forward-acting) interference, as prior learning interferes with recall of new information, or from retroactive (backward-acting) interference, as new learning disrupts recall of old information. Some believe that motivated forgetting occurs, but researchers have found little evidence of repression.

How reliable are young children's eyewitness descriptions?

Children are susceptible to the misinformation effect, but if questioned in neutral words they understand, they can accurately recall events and people involved in them.

Eliza's family loves to tell the story of how she "stole the show" as a 2-year-old, dancing at her aunt's wedding reception. Even though she was so young, Eliza says she can recall the event clearly. How is this possible?

Eliza's immature hippocampus and lack of verbal skills would have prevented her from encoding an explicit memory of the wedding reception at the age of two. It's more likely that Eliza learned information (from hearing the story repeatedly) that she eventually constructed into a memory that feels very real.

Imagine being a jury member in a trial for a parent accused of sexual abuse based on a recovered memory. What insights from memory research should you offer the jury?

It will be important to remember the key points agreed upon by most researchers and professional associations: Sexual abuse, injustice, forgetting, and memory construction all happen; recovered memories are common; memories from before age 3 are unreliable; memories claimed to be recovered through hypnosis or drug influence are especially unreliable; and memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting.

What are the six memory strategies that can help you study and retain information

Make the material meaningful. Activate retrieval cue Use mnemonic devices. Associate items with peg words. Make up a story that incorporates vivid images of the items. Minimize interference. Sleep more. During sleep, the brain reorganizes and consolidates information for long-term memory. Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to find out what you don't yet know

How do misinformation, imagination, and source amnesia influence our memory construction? How do we decide whether a memory is real or false?

Memories can be continually revised when retrieved, a process memory researchers call reconsolidation. In experiments demonstrating the misinformation effect, people have formed false memories, incorporating misleading details after receiving the wrong information after an event or after repeatedly imagining and rehearsing something that never happened. When we reassemble a memory during retrieval, we may attribute it to the wrong source (source amnesia). Source amnesia may help explain déjà vu. False memories feel like real memories and can be persistent but are usually limited to the gist of the event.

How can you use memory research findings to do better in this and other courses?

Memory research findings suggest the following strategies for improving memory: Study repeatedly, make material meaningful, activate retrieval cues, use mnemonic devices, minimize interference, sleep more, and test yourself to be sure you can retrieve, as well as recognize, material.

Freud proposed that painful or unacceptable memories are blocked from consciousness through a mechanism called

Repression

Why are reports of repressed and recovered memories so hotly debated?

The debate (between memory researchers and some well-meaning therapists) focuses on whether most memories of early childhood abuse are repressed and can be recovered during therapy using "memory work" techniques often involving leading questions or hypnosis. Psychologists now agree that (1) sexual abuse happens; (2) injustice happens; (3) forgetting happens; (4) recovered memories are commonplace; (5) memories of things that happened before age 3 are unreliable; (6) memories "recovered" under hypnosis or the influence of drugs are especially unreliable; and (7) memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting.

Memories "recovered" under hypnosis or the influence of drugs are especially unreliable. True or False

True

Memories of events before age 3 are unreliable. True or False

True

When a situation triggers the feeling that "I've been here before," you are experiencing

deja vu

misinformation effect

when misleading information has corrupted one's memory of an event