Long Term Memory Errors

Normal memory problems

we fail to retrieve info when we want to, retrieve inaccurate info, and fail to forget things we might want to

Explicit measures

asks people to make overt references to their memory

Recall

what can you remember

Cued recall

what does this cue remind you of?

Recognition

Which of these items have you seen before?

Recollection

I remember this exact thing

Familiarity

I feel like I’ve seen this before but I don’t know anything else

Examples of explicit memory

recall, cued recall, recognition, recollection, and familiarity

Implicit measures

does NOT ask people to reference their own memory

Examples of implicit measures

Performance measures (reaction time or accuracy) (priming and word completion), and physiological measures (eye movements and ERPs)

Reasons to use different measures

different measures allow different results

Implicit measures sometimes show evidence for

memory that can’t be found with explicit measures

Famous Overnight experiment

ppl were more likely to mistaken a non-famous person as famous during the second phase

People can misattribute

familiarity

Implicit memory is more rigidly linked to the original

stimulus and contexts and sometimes cares about specific details

Eyewitness situation

person in a line-up looks familiar to the actual criminal

Explicit recognition in eyewitness situation

“face is close enough!” = wrongful conviction

Implicit measures (eye movements, ERPs) in eyewitness situations

“face isn’t exactly the same”

Explicit memory doesn’t care about

modality change

Test perceptual ID

little effect of prior exposure

Implicit memory depends on

modality and other perceptual characteristics

Blocking

failure to be able to retrieve information that we KNOW is stored in the system

Transient failure

can recall that info at a later time

Transient failure example (1)

tip of the tongue state

Transient failure example (2)

Can often get some partial info about the word (meaning, initial sound, approximate length)

Baker/baker paradox

Name (e.g. “Mr. Baker) vs. occupation (e.g. the baker)

Why is it harder to retrieve a name than an occupation?

proper names don’t tell you anything about the person and learning names is to associate them with conceptual info

Possible cause for blocking

calling to mind info can inhibit other related info

Coming up with the info yourself is better compared to

someone giving info that might not even be right, is more likely going to throw you off

Impact of blocking from retrieval

being asked about some aspects of crime can make it more difficult for the witness to bring to mind other aspects

It could be better to have people study a crime scene, asking them about details and then test memory bc

better recall for details that were queried and worse recall for those that weren’t

Blocking is transient and

usually lifts after a short period of time

Memories are stored in pieces and are

RECONSTRUCTED

A single memory has 3 parts that must be brought together at retrieval

content, source of memory, and fluency (how easily info comes to mind)

Failure to remember the 3 parts in the memory can cause

misattributions

Misattribution of fluency

tendency to misattribute fluency (ease of processing) with memory before exposure

The tendency to misattribute fluency with actual memory has been suggested as

an explanation for deja vu

Misattribution and eyewitness (1)

Witness knows the person is familiar but doesn’t know why and assumes relation to the crime

Misattribution and eyewitness (2)

might have seen the person walk by the scene but wasn’t actually a part of the crime

Familiarity attribution

Oklahoma City Bombing, John Doe 2 mechanic memory mix up

Source memory

memory for contextual elements (where you learned smth and who told you smth)

Failures in source memory

Can’t tell similar instances apart and differentiate having done something and imagining/heard about it

Source memory and aging

older ppl have more difficulty with less distinct sources

Flashbulb memories

particular traumatic incidents are immune from forgetting source info and are assumed to be stored as a whole, like snapshots

Inaccuracy in flashbulb memories

ppl tend to be very confident in their memories but many recollections are very inaccurate (but will be more accurate if the events happened to them)

Memory conjunction errors

Not just context info: can usually blend objects together in memory

Example of memory conjunction error

ppl need to learn “spaniel” and “varnish” separately but end up recalling “Spanish” bc it’s more common

We try to avoid blending things together through our

error-checking (“monitoring”) processes that try to verify but this process decreases with age

Memories are reconstructed when they’re recalled

as opposed to simply “retrieving” them

Implications of reconstruction

we “will in” missing details

Famous office experiment

“what did you see in the professors office?” ppl filled info using their schemas

Deese/Roediger-McDonald (DRM) paradigm (creating false memories)

give participants a list of words that are highly related to another word (e.g. sleep and pillow)

DRM paradigm showed that we can

fill in our memories with slight errors and remember event we never saw

Misinformation effect

car crash event wording effects memory

Every word counts

“did you see A tree” vs. “did you see THE tree”

Consequences of suggestibility

how we’re questioned changes the memories itself and we tend to incorporate misleading info about external sources into our personal recollections

Cognitive interviewing

“tell me what you saw”, encouraging the reporting of every detail, recounting the events in different order and different points, focusing on different sensory modalities and telling

You’re more likely to generate false memories if

you have GOOD visual imagery abilities, poor source memory, THINK you have a good memory, under hypnosis or have social pressure

False confessions

through repeated questioning, people come to have false memories of a crime they didn’t commit

False memories of childhood sexual abuse

very suggestive interviewing and memories are often recovered or made under hyponosis

We can’t distinguish true memories from false ones by a person’s overt behavior bc

ppl behave as if they have in fact experienced those things

MIGHT be able to distinguish true from false memories by

eye movement patterns, ERPs, and fMRI