Textbook Notes
7.1 The Seven “Sins” of Memory
Error #1: Transience
Transience → normal forgetting of information over time
Forgetting Curve: most information is forgotten very quickly after it is encoded, but over time, less and less information is forgotten. High rate of forgetting right after encoding, decreases over time
Interference → A cause of forgetting where some information is blocked by other information in memory;
Interrupted Consolidation → the strengthening of memories through neural cell processes
Passive decay vs Interference/Interrupted consolidation: most memory researchers reject the idea of passive decay over time as the primary cause of forgetting, rather active processes of interference (from older or more recently encoded information) and interrupted consolidation
More forgetting occurs with: more interference and less consolidation
Evidence for memory being better with intervening sleep: Very little interference occurs while one is sleeping, and consolidation seems to work more effectively during sleep
Error #2 Absentmindedness
Absentmindedness → A lack of attention during encoding or retrieval
Car key example: Not remembering where you placed your keys because you didn’t pay attention to their location when you put them down (unless you put them in a place you always do)
Forgetting intention example: Not remembering why you went into another room because your attention has already wandered off to something else
Prospective memory → Memory for future intentions (remembering to complete a future task)
Error #3 Blocking
Blocking → Knowing that you know information but being unable to retrieve it
Tip-of-the-tongue → Inability to fully retrieve a word or concept despite knowing that the information is stored in memory
More often with: proper names and unusual words because the terms are somewhat arbitrary: no meaningful connection to help associate
Error #4 Source Misattribution
Source misattribution → the phenomenon that occurs when we remember learning something from a different source than from the one we actually learned it from
e.g., remembering there was a pop quiz for biology but it was actually for psychology
e.g., thinking that you had an original idea, but you actually heard it from someone else
e.g., remembering you washed your clothes already when you only did it in your dreams
How does source misattribution play a role in eye witness testimony? → A person may identify a person’s face not as the attacker, but from a previous face in a photo lineup
Error #5 Suggestibility
Suggestibility → Change in memory from others’ suggestions of statements
Hearing about and imagining an event multiple times can create a memory for the event that seems as real to us as something we experienced
Error #6 Bias
Bias → When our current experiences or knowledge alter our memory of a past experience.
e.g., after a breakup, you remember a memory that was once a positive memory as a lot more negative
Our current experiences and knowledge bias the way we remember past experiences
Error #7 Persistence
Persistence → Experiencing unwanted memories over and over
Not a type of memory failure, actually an excess of memories
7.2 The Reconstructive Nature of Memory
Reconstructive Nature of Memory → Encoding and storing the pieces of an experience and then attempt to put the pieces back together when we retrieve our memory
Missing/Replaced Pieces: Some of those pieces may be missing or replaced with incorrect pieces of other experiences or from our imaginations
Automatic process
Barlett’s Studies → Studies on participants’ ability to reproduce simple stories, passages, and figures
Results: Participants made errors that showed they relied on their own experiences and knowledge to fill in the details (e.g., participants were students in the UK, so canoes became boats and paddling became rowing in their memory)
Finding: Only some could remember verbatim, but nearly all could comprehend, usually by attaching their own knowledge to fill in details
Bransford and Johnson, 1972 → A study that showed the importance of one’s perspective in reducing memory
Schema → The general knowledge structure for an event or situation
e.g., after visiting some of your professors’ offices, you may have developed a schema for what a professors’ office looks like
We rely on our schemas to reconstruct memories of events and experiences that have familiar elements
Brewer and Treyens, 1981 → A study that showed that our memory relies on our schemas with an experimental task
Results: Participants were able to recall many of the objects from the office they waited in (their schema for a university office likely contributed), but they also falsely recalled objects that were not in the office (many were consistent with a schema of a university office, such as books or a filing cabinet
Scripts → A type of schema that stores the order of events or procedures in a specific situation; provide a general structure for a familiar event in an ordered set of actions
e.g., you may have a script for walking in the central library, go through the left door, pull out your card, swipe, walk to the elevator/stairs
Scripts are sometimes used in routine procedures
7.3 Memory Errors in the Laboratory
DRM (Deese-Roediger-McDermott) Procedure → Research methodology that experimentally creates false memories for theme items that are not presented as part of a list of related items
Study: Participants studied lists, then tested using recall (i.e., write down all the words you remember) and recognition (i.e., decide if each word shown was in the list).
Results: False memories were high in both types of tests
Results: Participants were a given a passage to read and remembered about 15-23 percent of the ideas, but when participants were told before that the passage was about doing laundry, they remembered 32-40 percent of the ideas.
Finding: Just knowing the topic ahead of time allowed participants to apply their own knowledge and experience to the passage, which increased their ability to recall
PROS: Helped us better understand memory errors by allowing researchers to easily and harmlessly create false memories.
CONS: Real-world creation of memory may be very different from this procedure.
DRM Processes: processes at play in the creation of false memories in the DRM procedure
Spreading Activation → Process used in retrieval of LTM memories based on associations among stored information in a network. Activation of related items in memory; items in LTM are organized into networks by association between the concepts, when concepts are presented, those concepts become activated in the network organization in LTM. That activation spreads to other related concepts in the network
Source Monitoring → The process of attempting to determine the where, when, and who details about stored memories; helps us accurately identify studied list items. During recall or recognition, we try to determine the source of the item to decide if it was studied or not
Activation-monitoring framework → A theory to explain false memories by combining both activation and source monitoring work together to produce false memories in the DRM procedure
Fuzzy Trace Theory → A theory of false memory that suggests that when the themed lists are presented for study in the DRM procedure, gist representation of the list is created and stored in memory.
When items are retrieved in a later memory test, the gist of the list is easily available, whereas the verbatim trace (i.e., details) are lost
Post-event Information → What someone is exposed to after they witness an event
Loftus and Palmer, 1974 → A studied on post-event information where they asked participants to watch videos of car accidents, and asked how fast were they going after they ___ each other? The specific verb used impacted the answers given (e.g., bumped, smashed, collided). After a while, they were asked if they remember any broken glass, a larger percentage of people said they saw broken glass if they had originally been asked the speed question with the verb “smashed”
Misinformation Effect → A memory result where subjects have false memories for an event based on suggestive information provided by others
Suggestive Question → Question posed to a witness in such a way that leads them to a specific answer, which can lead to an alteration of their memory for an event
Cognitive Interview → A procedure for interviewing a witness that is designed to encourage accurate retrieval of the details of an event
Four Techniques of Cognitive Interview: 1) the original context is reinstated in the witness’ mind; 2) the witness reports everything he or she remembers, even if it’s incomplete; 3) the witness takes different perspectives of the event in their retrieval; 4) the witness retrieves events in different temporal order.
7.4 Clinical Memory Failures—Amnesia
Amnesia → A memory deficit due to a brain lesion or deterioration
Hippocampus → A brain structure located in the medial temporal lobes that is important for long-term memory
Anterograde Amnesia → A memory deficit for information learned or experiences encountered AFTER a brain lesion
Retrograde Amnesia → A memory deficit for information learned or experience BEFORE a brain lesion
Most common after a head injury, but is typically short lived and limited to events that occurred shortly before the damage
H.M. reported that he could tell you that an event occurred but could not relive the event; as if his episodic memories from before his hippocampus was damaged had become semantic memories, suggesting that the hippocampus plays a role in retrieving memories as well as storing them
Amnesics like H.M. have shown the ability to use implicit memory, as measured by improvement on skills tasks performed over a series of days that they had no memory of having performed in the past
When they were intentionally retrieving studied items, the amnesic participants performed poorly, but when they were simply asked to complete a related task without any reference to the studied itesm, the amnesic participant showed performance indicating typical implicit memory → This suggests that amnesics have not lost the ability to make new memories, instead it seems they may have lost the ability to intentionally retrieve memories
Plaques → Bundles of protein that develop in the synapse, characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease; develop in the synapse, disrupting communication between neurons.
As plaque spreads through the brain, neuron communication deteriorates causing more severe dementia
Tangles → Protein fibers that develop in a neuron’s nucleus, characteristics of Alzheimer’s; decreasing the cell’s ability to function properly
As more tangles spread throughout the neurons in the brain, less cognitive functioning occurs, resulting in dementia
Some research has shown that the hippocampus is one of the first brain areas to be affected by the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, in fact it is one of the few brain areas where new neurons are formed throughout adulthood → Alzheimer’s degradates hippocampal neurons fasters than new neurons can form
Textbook Notes
7.1 The Seven “Sins” of Memory
Error #1: Transience
Transience → normal forgetting of information over time
Forgetting Curve: most information is forgotten very quickly after it is encoded, but over time, less and less information is forgotten. High rate of forgetting right after encoding, decreases over time
Interference → A cause of forgetting where some information is blocked by other information in memory;
Interrupted Consolidation → the strengthening of memories through neural cell processes
Passive decay vs Interference/Interrupted consolidation: most memory researchers reject the idea of passive decay over time as the primary cause of forgetting, rather active processes of interference (from older or more recently encoded information) and interrupted consolidation
More forgetting occurs with: more interference and less consolidation
Evidence for memory being better with intervening sleep: Very little interference occurs while one is sleeping, and consolidation seems to work more effectively during sleep
Error #2 Absentmindedness
Absentmindedness → A lack of attention during encoding or retrieval
Car key example: Not remembering where you placed your keys because you didn’t pay attention to their location when you put them down (unless you put them in a place you always do)
Forgetting intention example: Not remembering why you went into another room because your attention has already wandered off to something else
Prospective memory → Memory for future intentions (remembering to complete a future task)
Error #3 Blocking
Blocking → Knowing that you know information but being unable to retrieve it
Tip-of-the-tongue → Inability to fully retrieve a word or concept despite knowing that the information is stored in memory
More often with: proper names and unusual words because the terms are somewhat arbitrary: no meaningful connection to help associate
Error #4 Source Misattribution
Source misattribution → the phenomenon that occurs when we remember learning something from a different source than from the one we actually learned it from
e.g., remembering there was a pop quiz for biology but it was actually for psychology
e.g., thinking that you had an original idea, but you actually heard it from someone else
e.g., remembering you washed your clothes already when you only did it in your dreams
How does source misattribution play a role in eye witness testimony? → A person may identify a person’s face not as the attacker, but from a previous face in a photo lineup
Error #5 Suggestibility
Suggestibility → Change in memory from others’ suggestions of statements
Hearing about and imagining an event multiple times can create a memory for the event that seems as real to us as something we experienced
Error #6 Bias
Bias → When our current experiences or knowledge alter our memory of a past experience.
e.g., after a breakup, you remember a memory that was once a positive memory as a lot more negative
Our current experiences and knowledge bias the way we remember past experiences
Error #7 Persistence
Persistence → Experiencing unwanted memories over and over
Not a type of memory failure, actually an excess of memories
7.2 The Reconstructive Nature of Memory
Reconstructive Nature of Memory → Encoding and storing the pieces of an experience and then attempt to put the pieces back together when we retrieve our memory
Missing/Replaced Pieces: Some of those pieces may be missing or replaced with incorrect pieces of other experiences or from our imaginations
Automatic process
Barlett’s Studies → Studies on participants’ ability to reproduce simple stories, passages, and figures
Results: Participants made errors that showed they relied on their own experiences and knowledge to fill in the details (e.g., participants were students in the UK, so canoes became boats and paddling became rowing in their memory)
Finding: Only some could remember verbatim, but nearly all could comprehend, usually by attaching their own knowledge to fill in details
Bransford and Johnson, 1972 → A study that showed the importance of one’s perspective in reducing memory
Schema → The general knowledge structure for an event or situation
e.g., after visiting some of your professors’ offices, you may have developed a schema for what a professors’ office looks like
We rely on our schemas to reconstruct memories of events and experiences that have familiar elements
Brewer and Treyens, 1981 → A study that showed that our memory relies on our schemas with an experimental task
Results: Participants were able to recall many of the objects from the office they waited in (their schema for a university office likely contributed), but they also falsely recalled objects that were not in the office (many were consistent with a schema of a university office, such as books or a filing cabinet
Scripts → A type of schema that stores the order of events or procedures in a specific situation; provide a general structure for a familiar event in an ordered set of actions
e.g., you may have a script for walking in the central library, go through the left door, pull out your card, swipe, walk to the elevator/stairs
Scripts are sometimes used in routine procedures
7.3 Memory Errors in the Laboratory
DRM (Deese-Roediger-McDermott) Procedure → Research methodology that experimentally creates false memories for theme items that are not presented as part of a list of related items
Study: Participants studied lists, then tested using recall (i.e., write down all the words you remember) and recognition (i.e., decide if each word shown was in the list).
Results: False memories were high in both types of tests
Results: Participants were a given a passage to read and remembered about 15-23 percent of the ideas, but when participants were told before that the passage was about doing laundry, they remembered 32-40 percent of the ideas.
Finding: Just knowing the topic ahead of time allowed participants to apply their own knowledge and experience to the passage, which increased their ability to recall
PROS: Helped us better understand memory errors by allowing researchers to easily and harmlessly create false memories.
CONS: Real-world creation of memory may be very different from this procedure.
DRM Processes: processes at play in the creation of false memories in the DRM procedure
Spreading Activation → Process used in retrieval of LTM memories based on associations among stored information in a network. Activation of related items in memory; items in LTM are organized into networks by association between the concepts, when concepts are presented, those concepts become activated in the network organization in LTM. That activation spreads to other related concepts in the network
Source Monitoring → The process of attempting to determine the where, when, and who details about stored memories; helps us accurately identify studied list items. During recall or recognition, we try to determine the source of the item to decide if it was studied or not
Activation-monitoring framework → A theory to explain false memories by combining both activation and source monitoring work together to produce false memories in the DRM procedure
Fuzzy Trace Theory → A theory of false memory that suggests that when the themed lists are presented for study in the DRM procedure, gist representation of the list is created and stored in memory.
When items are retrieved in a later memory test, the gist of the list is easily available, whereas the verbatim trace (i.e., details) are lost
Post-event Information → What someone is exposed to after they witness an event
Loftus and Palmer, 1974 → A studied on post-event information where they asked participants to watch videos of car accidents, and asked how fast were they going after they ___ each other? The specific verb used impacted the answers given (e.g., bumped, smashed, collided). After a while, they were asked if they remember any broken glass, a larger percentage of people said they saw broken glass if they had originally been asked the speed question with the verb “smashed”
Misinformation Effect → A memory result where subjects have false memories for an event based on suggestive information provided by others
Suggestive Question → Question posed to a witness in such a way that leads them to a specific answer, which can lead to an alteration of their memory for an event
Cognitive Interview → A procedure for interviewing a witness that is designed to encourage accurate retrieval of the details of an event
Four Techniques of Cognitive Interview: 1) the original context is reinstated in the witness’ mind; 2) the witness reports everything he or she remembers, even if it’s incomplete; 3) the witness takes different perspectives of the event in their retrieval; 4) the witness retrieves events in different temporal order.
7.4 Clinical Memory Failures—Amnesia
Amnesia → A memory deficit due to a brain lesion or deterioration
Hippocampus → A brain structure located in the medial temporal lobes that is important for long-term memory
Anterograde Amnesia → A memory deficit for information learned or experiences encountered AFTER a brain lesion
Retrograde Amnesia → A memory deficit for information learned or experience BEFORE a brain lesion
Most common after a head injury, but is typically short lived and limited to events that occurred shortly before the damage
H.M. reported that he could tell you that an event occurred but could not relive the event; as if his episodic memories from before his hippocampus was damaged had become semantic memories, suggesting that the hippocampus plays a role in retrieving memories as well as storing them
Amnesics like H.M. have shown the ability to use implicit memory, as measured by improvement on skills tasks performed over a series of days that they had no memory of having performed in the past
When they were intentionally retrieving studied items, the amnesic participants performed poorly, but when they were simply asked to complete a related task without any reference to the studied itesm, the amnesic participant showed performance indicating typical implicit memory → This suggests that amnesics have not lost the ability to make new memories, instead it seems they may have lost the ability to intentionally retrieve memories
Plaques → Bundles of protein that develop in the synapse, characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease; develop in the synapse, disrupting communication between neurons.
As plaque spreads through the brain, neuron communication deteriorates causing more severe dementia
Tangles → Protein fibers that develop in a neuron’s nucleus, characteristics of Alzheimer’s; decreasing the cell’s ability to function properly
As more tangles spread throughout the neurons in the brain, less cognitive functioning occurs, resulting in dementia
Some research has shown that the hippocampus is one of the first brain areas to be affected by the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, in fact it is one of the few brain areas where new neurons are formed throughout adulthood → Alzheimer’s degradates hippocampal neurons fasters than new neurons can form
