Cognition Midterm 1 part 2

Constructive Nature of Memory

The idea that memories are constructed using actual events plus expectations, experiences, and schemas.

Reconstructive Memory Errors (Brewer, 1977)

When people remember logical implications of a sentence rather than the exact words heard.

Schemas and Memory (Brewer & Treyens, 1981)

People often mistakenly recall typical items from a setting (like an office) that weren't actually present.

DRM False Memory Paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995)

Studying word lists leads to high rates of false recognition for unstudied critical lures.

Critical Lure

An unstudied word that is a strong semantic associate of a studied list and gets falsely remembered.

Bartlett's Repeated Recall (1932)

Over time, repeatedly recalled stories undergo normalizations, omissions, and loss of unusual details.

Misinformation Effect

The incorporation of misleading postevent information (MPI) into one's memory for an event.

Loftus and Palmer (1974) Car Crash Study

Demonstrated that leading verbs like 'smashed' alter speed estimates and create false memories of broken glass.

Misleading Postevent Information (MPI)

False information presented after an event that can merge into a person's memory.

Creating False Memories (Hyman et al., 1995)

Using false suggestions over multiple days to induce complete false memories of childhood events.

Role of Imagery in False Memories (Hyman & Pentland, 1996)

Visual imagery is a powerful driver of false memories because people forget they generated the images.

Memory Recovery Techniques

Practices like hypnosis, guided imagery, and dream interpretation that risk creating false traumatic memories.

Ross et al. (1994) Bystander Study

Eyewitnesses frequently misidentify innocent bystanders as criminals due to source confusion.

Wells and Bradfield (1998) Feedback Effect

Confirming feedback after a lineup choice artificially inflates an eyewitness's confidence in an incorrect identification.

Improved Eyewitness Lineup Procedures

Using blind administrators, warning suspects may be absent, and recording immediate confidence ratings.

Materialism vs. Dualism Debate

The debate in cognitive psychology over whether cognition arises from physical entities or the soul.

Behaviorism Capabilities

Behaviorism can successfully explain our ability to learn a series of complex actions, such as tying shoelaces.

Rationalism

The philosophical perspective which claims that all knowledge is innate.

Limitations of Behaviorism

It denies mental representations, has difficulty explaining language and delayed behavior, but does have a strong empiricist foundation.

Sperling's 1960 Study

Highlighted the rapid decay of information in visual sensory memory by asking subjects to recall 12 characters.

Sperling's Partial-Report Condition

Participants were prompted to recall items from a specific row based on a cue given after the array disappeared.

Duration of Visual Sensory Memory

Information typically lasts less than a second.

Brown-Peterson Task

Uses a distractor task (like counting backwards) to prevent rehearsal and test the capacity of short-term memory.

Waugh & Norman (1965) Probe-Digit Task

Tested whether working memory loss is due to decay (varying speed) or proactive interference (repeating digits).

Luck & Vogel's Change Detection (1997)

Performance decreased after four squares, suggesting working memory capacity may be lower than 7 +/- 2.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

The principle that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to an optimal point.

Stereotype Threat and Working Memory (Beilock et al., 2007)

Anxiety induced by reminding subjects of a negative stereotype 'steals' working memory capacity, reducing performance on high-demand tasks.

High vs. Low Demand Modular Arithmetic

High demand problems (X - Y involves borrowing and double digits) place a heavier load on working memory than low demand problems.

Alleviating Anxiety via Writing (Ramirez & Beilock, 2011)

Expressing anxious feelings in writing for 10 minutes before a test slightly increases test performance under pressure.

Vocabulary Learning and Working Memory

The phonological loop is specifically important for learning new vocabulary.

Serial Position Effects in Recall

Immediate recall shows both primacy and recency effects, while delayed recall shows a diminished recency effect but preserved primacy.

Conrad's 1964 Letter Confusion Study

The target letter 'M' is most likely to be mis-recalled as phonologically similar letters like 'N'.

Word Length Effect (Baddeley et al., 1975)

Subjects recall fewer multisyllabic words because they struggle to hold longer words in the phonological loop.

Spacing Effect

The phenomenon that long-term memory performance is better when study sessions are distributed over time.

Bahrick's 1979/1987 Spacing Studies

Found that separating study sessions by 30 days resulted in the best vocabulary retention even 8 years later.

Ideal Gap for Spacing

Research indicates that the optimal gap between study sessions is approximately 10 to 20 percent of the retention interval.

Encoding Variability Explanation

Studying an item in multiple contexts creates diverse memory traces, providing more potential retrieval cues.

Consolidation Explanation of Spacing

Information studied over several days benefits from repeated bouts of memory consolidation that occur during sleep.

Reconsolidation and Spacing Gaps

Larger gaps allow more prior consolidation, increasing the strengthening effect of memory reconsolidation.