Cognitive Psychology Chapter 8

autobiographical memory (AM)

defined as recollected events that belong to a person's past

reminiscence bump

enhanced memory for adolescence and young adulthood found in people over 40

self-image hypothesis

an explanation for the reminiscence bump; the idea proposed by Rathbone and coworkers, that proposes that memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person's self-image or life identity is being formed

cognitive hypothesis

an explanation for the reminiscence bump; proposes that periods of rapid change that are followed by stability cause stronger encoding of memories

cultural life script hypothesis

an explanation for the reminiscence bump; distinguishes between a person's life story and a cultural life script

cultural life script

culturally expected events that occur at a particular time in the life span

amygdala

important in memory and emotion

flashbulb memory

refers to a persons memory for the circumstances surrounding hearing about shocking, highly charged events

repeated recall

the technique of comparing later memories to memories collected immediately after an event

narrative rehearsal hypothesis

the idea that has to do with flashbulb memory that states that we remember shocking or highly charged events not because of a special mechanism, but because we rehearse these events after they occur

constructive nature of memory

what people report as report as memories are constructed by the person based on what actually happened plus additional factors such as the person's knowledge, experiences, and expectations

repeated reproduction

technique in which the same participants came back a number of times to try to remember a story at longer and longer intervals after they first read it

source monitoring

the process of determining the origins of our memories, knowledge, or beliefs

source monitoring error

misidentifying the source of a memory

source misattributions

source monitoring errors, called this because the memory is attributed to the wrong source

cryptomnesia

some of the more sensational examples of source monitoring errors; unconscious plagiarism of the work of others

pragmatic inference

a process that occur when reading a sentence leads a person to expect something that is not explicitly stated or necessarily implied by the sentence

schema

a person's knowledge about some aspect of the environment

script

our conception of the sequence of actions that usually occur during a particular experience

misinformation effect

misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event can change how the person describes the event later

misleading postevent information (MPI)

the misleading information in the misinformation effect

memory trace replacement hypothesis

states that MPI impairs or replaces memories that were formed during the original experiencing of an event

retroactive interference

occurs when more recent learning interferes with memory for something that happened in the past

eyewitness testimony

testimony by an eyewitness to a crime about what he or she saw during commission of the crime

weapons focus

the tendency to focus attention on a weapon results in narrowing of attention, so witnesses might miss seeing relevant information such as the perpetrator's face

post-identification feedback effect

increase in confidence in the choice of identification due to confirming feedback after making an identification

reverse testing effect

shows that taking a recall test right after seeing a program increased participants' sensitivity to the misinformation

cognition interview

interview procedure based on what is known about memory retrieval