L4: False Memories + Recollection
False Memories
Autobiographical Memory
- Autobiographical Memories: These are memories of personal experiences and events in one's life.
- Endel Tulving's perspective: You can know many things without mental time travel (chronesthesia), but you can't remember events from your past or anticipate your future without it.
- Many theorists describe Autobiographical memory as reliving the original experience.
- Sensory details play a large role in autobiographical memories for most people.
- Recollection offers more "evidence" of the past than a mere feeling of familiarity, enhancing trust in the memory.
Varieties of Episodic Memory
- Familiarity:
- A feeling of recognition without specific details.
- Recollection:
- Recall of specific episodic details or associations.
False Familiarity
- A feeling of having done or experienced something before.
- Example: Deja vu
Remembering and Recalling Details
- Remembering the past is usually about recalling details.
Accuracy of Recollection
- Recollection is not simply retrieval; it is a reconstruction.
- Memory is often fragmented and incomplete.
- The reconstructive process involves:
- Putting together pieces in ways that make sense.
- Filling in missing information.
- This process leads to a subjectively realistic and complete experience of the past, which feels real but may not be accurate.
- Nickerson & Adams (1979) found that only 1 in 6 people could correctly identify the drawing of a US penny.
False Recollection
- False Recollection: Inaccurate reconstruction of a past event.
- Contributing Factors:
- Source monitoring errors
- Influence of post-event information
- Beliefs and stereotypes
Source Monitoring Errors
- Source Monitoring: Placing a memory in its proper context.
- False recollection can result from source monitoring errors, which involve mistakes or confusion about:
- Context
- Place
- Time, etc.
- Example: Confusing the day on which salad was eaten for lunch.
- Errors are more likely when potential sources are similar.
- More likely: Confusing which of the two shorter girls wore a red shirt.
- Less likely: Confusing whether a gorilla wore a red shirt.
Levy-Gigi & Vakil (2014) Study
- Studied two stories, each containing 15 different critical objects.
- Perceptual match of Story 2 to Story 1 was similar or dissimilar.
- Example: “There was a jeans jacket hanging on the wall”
* Story 1: “House”
* Story 2: “Office” - Results:
- Higher false recognition in similar compared to dissimilar source
- .30 similar compared to .20 dissimilar % false recognition “jean jacket in Story 1”
Post-Event Information
- Information encountered after an event can influence or distort memory for that event.
Lindsay, Allen, Chan, Dahl (2004) Study
- Participants saw an illustrated story of a man searching a house for a gold coin (and encountering various objects).
- Later read another story about the same man searching the house.
- The 2nd story contained objects not seen in the 1st story.
- % false recall = recall seeing objects in the 1st story that were only mentioned in 2nd story
- Objects mentioned only in the 2nd story (the post-event information) were falsely recalled as shown in the initial slides.
- .15 object 2nd story only
- .10 similar
- .05 control object (not mentioned at all)
- In another condition, participants read a post-event narrative unrelated to the first story.
- Misleading post-event narrative:
- (similar) Described same man searching for gold coin
- (dissimilar) Described girl cleaning different house
- Misleading post-event narrative:
- Higher false recall in similar compared to dissimilar source
*. 15 object 2nd story only
*. 10 similar
*. 05 dissimilar - This could be due to source monitoring errors confusing where was the cotton ball encountered (1st story or 2nd story).
Beliefs and Stereotypes
Allport & Postman (1947) Study
- Described scene to another (who described scene to another, etc).
- Half of the people at the end of the chain described the black man as holding a razor.
- Stereotypes, beliefs, and expectations can encourage false elaboration or recollection of false details.
Ganske & Helb (2001) Study
(Sylvia/John) received a letter in the mail notifying him that he had lost the Texas State Achievement in Math Competition. He had wanted to win and was unhappy with the results. He had been the best student in his math class last year. Losing really hurt his self-esteem. He found out that Terry Browning had done better than him. He hated Terry Browning for that. To make himself feel better he cried, baked cookies, beat pillows, kicked something, took a long bath, and talked to his best friend. After that, he went to the mall where he shopped and played video games in the arcade until he had beaten all the records. He then went running and came home to watch The Princess Bride.
Recall by 3rd person:
- Sylvia’s Story:
- 54% had false recall of female-stereotypic actions: “hugged her teddy bear,” “complained and pouted,” “shopped all day long,” and “worried about her weight.”
- John’s Story:
- 44% had false recall of female-stereotypic actions: “played violent video games,” “became very aggressive,” “worked out,” “broke things,” “beat his head against the wall,” and “drank a beer.”
- Sylvia’s Story:
Inferences are more likely when memory is degraded (e.g., due to the passage of time) or when time and attention are in short supply.
Sherman & Bessenoff (1999) Study
Studied two lists of behaviours
- List 1: Created by Experimenter
- List 2: Self-descriptive behaviours created by either:
- A) Skinhead (negative stereotype)
- B) Priest (positive stereotype)
Example behaviours
- Neutral: Bought a new shirt
- Negative: Shoved his way to seat in cinema
- Positive: Gave a stranger money
Source Misattributions influenced by consistency with stereotype (skinhead - negative) (priest - positive):
* Behaviours consistent with stereotype of a source more likely to be misattributed to that source. * Only in condition where memory task concurrent with secondary task