Autobiographical and Eyewitness Memory Insights

Autobiographical memory

Our memories of who we are and what we have done

Diary study method

Memories are recorded in a diary over a long period of time then used them as stimuli

Memory probe method

Participants are given a word, and asked to recall a relevant memory

Flashbulb memory

Memories of extraordinary events that carry emotional significance

Biases in Recollection

All types of memories are not equally represented when ABM is probed

Positivity bias

It is easier to recall positive events than negative events

Fading affect bias

Emotions associated with negative events tend to fade

Reminiscence bump

Memories from ages 15-30 tend to be produced more often in participants who are 40 or older

Unusual ABM

ABM shows evidence of individual differences, and may be affected by some psychological disorders

Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM)

Remembers past events in great detail , episodic memory is unremarkable

Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM)

Inability to remember or re-experience ABM

Psychogenic amnesia

Amnesia which is not caused by a neurological cause

Fugue state

Loss of identity and all ABM; majority resolve quickly (stress)

Focal retrograde amnesia

Sudden loss of ABM (stress)

Fugue-to-FRA

Identity is recovered, but memories remain lost

Gaps in memory

Memories are intact except for a specific period

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Occurs after a traumatic event or other extreme stressors

Flashback

Re-experiencing a memory vividly and involuntarily

Eyewitness memory

Recollections about a crime or other incident, plays a central role in investigation and prosecution

Change blindness

Failing to notice changes to an object or scene (door study when person changed)

Inattentional blindness

Failing to attend to an unexpected object (gorilla study)

Change blindness blindness

Humans also tend to overestimate their ability to detect these changes

Confirmation bias

Memory for events is changed by a viewer's expectations and beliefs

Misinformation effect

Distorting effect on eyewitness memory of misleading information presented after a crime or other event

Effects of stress

Face identification is consistently less accurate

reduced ability to perceive details and encode context

Reduce the misinformation effect

Weapon focus

When a weapon is present, it becomes the focus of attention and other details become peripheral

Own age bias

It is easier to recognize faces which are similar in age to your own

Other-race effect/cross-race effect

We are worse recognizing faces from other races compared to our own race

Unconscious transference

Participants may misjudge familiarity with a face as coming from a crime rather than another source

Verbal overshadowing

Describing a face can make it more difficult to recognize later

Cognitive interviewing Dud effect

When lineups contain individuals who are very different from each other, people are more confident in their mistaken identifications

Simultaneous

All pictures shown at once

Sequential

Pictures are shown one at a time

Cross-sectional design

Study different people of many different ages

Pros of Cross-sectional design

Cheaper and faster to conduct, less affected by attrition

Cons of Cross-sectional design

Susceptible to cohort effects

Longitudinal design

Study the same group of people over time

Pros of Longitudinal design

Can examine true developmental effects

Cons of Longitudinal design

More susceptible to attrition, still affected by cohort effects

Cohort effect

Occur when one group has had a significantly different experience than the others

Flynn effect

The finding that cognitive test scores seem to be increasing over time

Episodic memory

Requires attention to encode and retrieve items and ability to create new associations

Implicit memory

Relies on intact representations and requires updating processes

Value-directed remembering

Assigns different numbers of 'points' to items, participants attempt to score the most points possible

Associations

Relationships between two items (dog-bone)

Context

Relationships between items and where they were learned

Deficit Hypothesis of Aging

Older adults have deficits in episodic memory, but these do not lead to worse performance

Spot-the-word task

Find the real word in pairs like 'rabbit-flotter'

Speed of comprehension task

Verify statements like 'Snakes crawl along the ground'

Amnesia

A specific, sudden loss of memory functions that may not include other significant cognitive deficits

Anterograde amnesia

Difficulty creating new memories

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of access to events that occurred in the past

Post-traumatic Amnesia

Difficulty forming memories after a head injury

Dementia

A slow loss of cognitive skills due to a disease process, which includes loss of memory

Alzheimer's Disease

Typically begins in the medial temporal lobes, and then progresses to the rest of the brain

Fronto-temporal dementia

Deterioration begins in frontal lobes, leads to impulsivity and difficulty sequencing events

Semantic dementia

Specific deterioration of temporal areas responsible for semantic memory

Temporally-graded

When someone with retrograde amnesia can remember details from their childhood but struggles to recall events from the weeks or months leading up to the injury

Consolidation

When a student repeatedly studies information for an upcoming exam over several days, causing the neural pathways related to that information to strengthen, making it more likely they will remember it long-term

What does Autobiographical memory contain?

Both semantic and episodic information

Why is Autobiographical memory so hard to study?

It varies so widely between individuals

Pros of the diary study method?

Allows the unique events of a person's life to be test stimuli

Cons of the diary study method?

Encourages unusually deep levels of processing; writing memories down may improve memory

What does the memory probe method allow for?

General knowledge about who we are

Example of a memory probe?

Seeing the word horse and recalling a memory of riding a horse

Why are flashbulb memories different than normal memories?

How long they remain vivid and are regarded as highly accurate

Are we biases in our ABM due to?

Its function

What is the reminiscence bump likely due to?

The number of events which are important to our life narrative

Severely deficient autobiographical memory difficulties?

Difficulty with remembering complex visual images and show differences in brain activation during retrieval suggesting difficulty in using visual info as cues

What causes highly superior autobiographical memory

better connectivity between prefrontal cortex and hippocampus

Possess atypical calendric abilities, which may provide additional retrieval cues

Cause of PTSD

likely a combination of life experience and individual differences in brain anatomy and cognitive processes

What factors influence eyewitness memory?

Change blindness

Expectations and schemas= Our expectations and knowledge about how the world "usually" works affects our memory

Misinformation

Why is own age bias a thing?

Likely due to expertise with faces in our peer group

What is the problem with verbal overshadowing?

Witnesses are often asked for a verbal description

Pros of cross-sectional design?

Cheaper and faster to conduct, less affected by attrition

Cons of cross-sectional design?

Susceptible to cohort effects

Pros of longitudinal design?

Can examine true developmental effects

Cons of longitudinal design?

More susceptible to attrition, still affected by cohort effects

Example of cohort effects?

Increased education levels, better health, events like COVID-19

What does recent work suggest about the Flynn effect?

It may be slowing down or even reversing

What causes amnesia?

A brain injury, surgery, or a part of some disease

What is preserved in amnesia?

Cognitive functions such as short-term memory and semantic knowledge

T/F Retrograde amnesia is often temporally graded

True

What is recovered first in post-traumatic amnesia?

Personal knowledge

What % of all dementia cases are Alzheimer's?

50%

Symptoms of dementia?

Episodic memory= Getting lost, repeating questions, memory loss

Semantic memory= Impaired word retrieval

Working memory= Difficulty with multi-step processes