Reconstructive Memory and Eyewitness Testimony (Video Notes)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts and studies on reconstructive memory, eyewitness testimony, and related terms from the notes.

Reconstructive memory

Memory is not a perfect recording; it is an active reconstruction using schemas, beliefs, past experience, and context, which can distort recall.

Schema

A mental framework that organizes knowledge and guides encoding and retrieval; shapes what we remember and can distort memory by filling gaps.

Eyewitness testimony

A witness's account of events; influential in court but vulnerable to distortions from memory reconstruction and questioning.

Leading questions

Questions that suggest a desired answer by form or content, which can bias memory recall and produce false memories.

Bartlett

British psychologist who proposed memory is an imaginative reconstruction, not a verbatim record; demonstrated in War of Ghosts.

War of Ghosts

Bartlett's study showing recall becomes culturally plausible and distorted as people 'reconstruct' past events.

Loftus

Researcher on eyewitness memory showing that suggestion and leading questions can alter memories; known for car crash studies and false memories.

Lost in the Mall

Loftus study where participants developed a false memory of being lost in a mall, illustrating implanted memories.

Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

Field study at a real crime scene showing eyewitness memory can be highly accurate under stress; few leading questions reduced accuracy.

Bahrick et al. (1975)

Study on long-term autobiographical memory for names and faces; recognition remains relatively good over decades; recall declines.

Free recall

Task requiring retrieval without cues; generally less accurate over time than recognition.

Recognition

Identifying previously learned information from cues; typically more accurate than free recall.

Ecological validity

The extent to which research conditions resemble real-life situations; Loftus studies criticized as artificial, affecting generalizability.

Reliability

Consistency of memory or measurement over time; not the same as validity.

Validity

Truthfulness or accuracy of memory; a memory can be reliable (consistent) but not necessarily valid; reliability does not guarantee validity.

Office schema

Brewer and Tyrens' office schema; schemas about an office influence encoding and retrieval in everyday memory.

Distortion

Change in memory due to schemas, expectations, or misleading questions; memories are not perfect replicas.