Module 7 - Lesson

1
CHAPTER 8 SUMMARY

HOW IS MEMORY ORGANIZED? p.120

• There are three different types of memory: sensory

memory, working memory, and long term memory.
• According to the information-processing model, our brains
encode information, store it as a memory, and retrieve it
when we need to remember it.

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SENSORY,

WORKING, AND LONG-TERM MEMORY? p.121

• Sensory memory consists of sights, sounds, smells, and

other information that the senses transmit to the
corresponding sensory cortices in the brain. Sensory
memories last for no more than a few seconds. The parts of
the brain that help us receive and encode information from
the five sensory systems are called the sensory registers.
• Working memory contains memories that we can access
immediately. Images, sounds, and meanings can all be
encoded in working memory.
• Long-term memory includes both implicit and explicit
memories. Meaningful or emotional information is often
encoded into long-term memory. Long-term memories can
last a lifetime but can be difficult to retrieve.

HOW ARE MEMORIES ENCODED, STORED, AND

RETRIEVED? p.122

• Attention enables us to consciously or unconsciously

encode memories. • We use rehearsal, mnemonics, and
other organizational strategies to store memories.
• The frontal lobe, hippocampus, basal ganglia, and
cerebellum are active in memory encoding and storage.
• Retrieval cues such as the context effect help us move
long-term memories into working memory, where stored
information is “at the ready.”

WHAT ARE THE WEAKNESSES AND LIMITATIONS OF

MEMORY? p.129

• Stress can inhibit memory storage and recall.

• Brain damage can lead to retrograde and anterograde
amnesia.
• Memories are easily forgotten and prone to distortion, and
they can persist even when we try to forget them.

CHAPTER 9 SUMMARY

WHAT IS COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY? p.136

• Cognition comprises the mental activities associated with

thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
• Cognitive scientists assess the attention and steps
associated with mental processes.

WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE, AND HOW CAN WE MEASURE

IT? p.137

• Intelligence is the capacity to reason, solve problems, and

acquire new knowledge.
• Intelligence tests, such as the Weschler Adult Intelligence
Scale, measure aptitude rather than achievement.
• Genetics are believed to influence intelligence levels more
than environmental factors do.
• Many psychologists believe there are multiple types of
intelligence.

HOW DO WE REASON, SOLVE PROBLEMS, AND MAKE

DECISIONS? p.140

• We use current and remembered information to find a

solution to a task. We can use specific strategies (such as
algorithms) to solve problems, and we occasionally
experience insight.
• Reasoning is the process of organizing information into a
series of steps to reach conclusions. Overconfidence, belief
bias, confirmation bias, and the conjunction fallacy may all
lead to errors in reasoning.
• Decision making is the process of selecting and rejecting
available options. Rational choice theory and prospect
theory both explain aspects of human decision making.

HOW DOES ATTENTION HELP US PROCESS

INFORMATION? p.145

• Attention—the way the brain selectively processes

important information—is either endogenous (goal-directed)
or exogenous (stimulus-driven).
• Our attention is limited to a few stimuli at any one given
time.

HOW ARE VERBAL AND VISUAL COGNITION RELATED?

p.147

• According to the linguistic relativity hypothesis, the

language we speak influences the way in which we perceive
the world.
• According to dual-coding theory, we process words for
concrete concepts both visually and verbally, but we only
code words for abstract concepts verbally.
 Module 7 - Lesson
2
Lecture/Discussion: Talented, Prodigious, Autistic, and Idiot
Savants

What to call someone of clearly impaired abilities who

nonetheless exhibits remarkable memory skills? There are
many choices, but they all describe a fascinating aspect of
memory.

Savant syndrome, as it is commonly called, refers to people

with very low general intelligence who show prodigious
abilities in one or a few areas of functioning. Originally called
idiot savants (through a combination of what were once
scientifically acceptable terms), such people were thought to
be mentally retarded. However, savants are found at a rate
of about 1 in 2000 among the mentally retarded, compared
to estimates of about 10 percent among the autistic
population (Rimland & Fein, 1988). In fact, the term autistic
savant is used to describe just these cases: Someone who is
autistic, yet shows extraordinary skill in a particular area.
Contrast this with the term talented savant (used to describe
someone mentally retarded but able to perform a task at a
comparatively high level, given the degree of retardation) or
prodigious savant (used to describe a mentally retarded
person capable of feats that would be remarkable by any
standards).

Autistic savants are usually limited to a narrow range of

talents. For example, many show fantastic abilities in art or
music, or can perform arithmetic or calendar calculations
quickly and accurately. Beyond these areas of expertise,
however, their abilities are clearly below average. This
observation is just one of many curiosities surrounding
savant syndrome. For example, it is not at all clear how or
why these abilities develop. Explanations invoking left
hemisphere damage, heredity, compensatory development,
and just plain practice have all been advanced. What is clear
is that more research into the abilities of these remarkable
individuals is needed.
Module 7 - Lesson
4
Lecture/Discussion: Amnesia and Implicit Memory

Implicit memory effects occur when there is improvement on

a task, in which participants are not asked to consciously
remember prior information. Instead, increases in
performance on implicit memory tasks demonstrate priming
effects. Implicit memory effects have been found in amnesic
individuals who perform poorly on explicit memory tasks of
recall and recognition, relative to normal controls.
Interestingly, individuals with amnesia perform at the same
level as normal controls with implicit memory tests,
suggesting that previously learned information is available in
memory but not accessible with traditional memory
measures of recall and recognition.

H.M. suffered from anterograde amnesia due to removal of

several brain areas associated with memory, including the
segments of the hippocampus. While H.M. could not
explicitly remember newly experienced events, such as
solving the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, he showed improved
performance on such tasks on later trials, indicating an
implicit memory effect. H.M. died December, 2008. See
more in Lecture/Discussion: The Case of Mr. M.

References:

Schacter, D. L. (1998). Memory and awareness. Science,

280, 59–60.
Warrington, E. K., & Weiskrantz, L. (1970). Amnesic
syndrome: Consolidation or retrieval? Nature, 228, 629–630.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05hm.html?_r=2

Lecture/Discussion: Memory Anomalies: Beyond Déjà Vu

The déjà vu experience is perhaps the best known anomaly

of memory, but it is by no means the only one. Like déjà vu,
these anomalies are relatively harmless (unless they occur
quite frequently) and may occur in most people’s lives at
some point.

Jamais vu. The opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu refers to

experiencing a lack of familiarity in a particular situation
when this should clearly not be the case. For example,
someone who insists that they have never before met a fairly
well-known acquaintance might be having a jamais vu
experience. Clearly, jamais vu needs to be distinguished
from the memory disruptions found among Alzheimer’s
patients (who often fail to recognize familiar objects, people,
or settings), from the effects of amnesia (whether physical or
psychogenic in origin), or from simply a faulty memory (such
as not encoding information about a person in the first
place). A defining quality of jamais vu, then, is the feeling of
astonishment or incredulity at encountering the object (“Are
you sure we’ve met before?!”).
Time-gap experience. “I left work, and then I arrived at
home. I’m not sure what happened in between.” Most of us
have shared the experience of doing a fairly complicated
task (such as driving a car) and upon completion realizing
that we have no recollection of the task at all (such as which
turns were made, when we stopped, the route we took, and
so on). This time-gap experience can be explained using the
distinction between automatic and effortful processing. An
effortful task, such as one that is new or unfamiliar, demands
our cognitive resources for its completion. Even a fairly
intricate task, however, once it has become automatic, can
be performed outside of conscious awareness.

Cryptomnesia. Cryptomnesia can be thought of as

unintended plagiarism: A person honestly believes that some
thought, publication, composition, or other work is an original
creation when in fact it is not. Many musicians, for example,
seem to fall prey to this memory anomaly. The most
celebrated case involved George Harrison’s song “My Sweet
Lord,” which a court ruled was unintentionally based (quite
closely, actually) on the Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine” (Brown &
Murphy, 1989). A song by Huey Lewis and the News, “I
Want A New Drug,” also came under scrutiny as a too-close
variant of Ray Parker’s “Ghostbusters,” and Aerosmith
recently came under fire for lifting the line “Mister, you’re a
better man than I” from the Yardbirds song of the same
name. In each case the similarities were determined to be
unintentional, suggesting that cryptomnesia was at work.

References:

Brown, A. S., & Murphy, D. R. (1989). Cryptomnesia:

Delineating inadvertent plagiarism. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, andCognition, 15, 432–442.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a

broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.
5
Lecture/Discussion: Eyewitness Testimony

What about the effect of incorrect information given after the

fact? In this experiment, Loftus showed subjects a three-
minute video clip taken from the movie Diary of a Student
Revolution. In this clip, eight demonstrators disrupt a
classroom and eventually leave after interrupting the
professor’s lecture in a noisy confrontation. At the end of the
video, two questionnaires were distributed containing one
key question and ninety “filler” questions. The key question
for half of the subjects was, “Was the leader of the four
demonstrators who entered the classroom a male?” The
other half was asked, “Was the leader of the twelve
demonstrators who entered the classroom a male?” One
week later, a new set of questions was given to all subjects
in which the key question was, “How many demonstrators
did you see entering the classroom?” Subjects who were
previously asked the “four” question stated an average recall
of 6.4 people, while those who read the “twelve” question
recalled an average of 8.9 people. Loftus concluded that
subjects were trying to compromise the memory of what they
had actually seen—eight demonstrators—with later
information.

Reference:

A Second Study: Loftus, E.F. (1975, April 4). “Eyewitness

testimony: Does the malleable human memory interfere with
legal justice?” The Daily, University of Washington.

Lecture/Discussion: The Fallibility of Eyewitness Testimony

A number of studies have shown that eyewitness testimony

is not very trustworthy. How do you account for this?

People have difficulty in distinguishing members of other

races.

To get the original identification of the accused, the police

use a line up that includes the accused and several
“distractors.” The distractors may be much different from the
accused, so the eyewitness chooses the only Hispanic, the
only tall person, or the only person with a beard.

The eyewitness has a desire to please the police and

prosecutor, and lets them slant the testimony.

Police and lawyers can make subtle suggestions to the

eyewitness in the language they use. For example, they
might say “when the murderer was beating the victim”
instead of “when the murderer and the victim were
struggling.”
When eyewitnesses are the victims, as might occur in the
case of rape, the eyewitnesses are angry and humiliated and
the desire for revenge may cause them to be more certain of
an identification than is justified by their memory of the
event.

People tend to remember only some aspects of an event. To

make their account of the event coherent, they construct the
event, filling in with material that is created by the mind to
make sense of the event.
Module 7 - Lesson
6
Lecture/Discussion: Musical Memories

Most students can relate to the power of music to evoke

emotions and memories. Music is often a powerful retrieval
cue for a variety of other memories. In a 2005 study (Nature,
March 10, 2005), researchers at Dartmouth University
discovered that if individuals are listening to familiar music,
they mentally retrieve auditory imagery, or memories to fill in
the gaps if the music stops playing. By studying the brains of
participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI), it was shown that participants were able to mentally
fill in the spaces if a familiar song was missing short
segments. The auditory cortex remained active even when
the music had stopped. The investigators report that this
finding expands earlier studies that demonstrate that
sensory-specific memories are stored in the brain areas that
created those events. Researchers also discovered that
lyrics influence the different auditory brain areas that are
utilized when musical memories are reconstructed.

Reference:

http://www.medinews.com/GMEDTS32olcgi/ts.cgi?tsurl=0.54
.15082.0.0

Lecture/Discussion: The Chowchilla Kidnapping

In the summer of 1976, a busload of children, together with

their bus driver, Ed Ray, were kidnapped—bus and all—from
a country road in Madera County in California. The
abductors ditched the bus, hiding it in a drainage ditch nine
miles west of Chowchilla. They drove the kidnap victims (19
girls, 7 boys, and Ray) around for eleven hours in two vans,
finally putting all of the children and the driver into a moving
van that was buried in a rock quarry. The moving van was 8
feet by 16 feet.

After 16 hours underground, they dug their way out and were
eventually found and returned to their homes in Chowchilla.
Ed Ray was hypnotized and eventually was able to
remember five of the six numbers on the license plate of one
of the vans used in the abduction, which led to the arrest of
three young men who were tried and found guilty. A draft of
a ransom note had been found in the home of one of the
young men along with other evidence tying them to the crime
(Terr, 1981, 1983).

This case marked the increased interest of law enforcement

personnel in the use of hypnosis as a tool for helping
witnesses to remember crime details. Unfortunately, this
case is the exception to the rule: memories recovered under
hypnosis cannot be assumed to be accurate without some
other kind of evidence that the memories are real. In the
Chowchilla case, the ransom note and other things found in
one of the kidnapper’s homes were that evidence, but those
things might not have been found if not for Ray’s hypnotically
aided recall. (In this instance, hypnosis helped Ray relax
enough to recall the memory of the number that he had
actually tried to memorize. If he hadn’t made that initial effort
to remember the number, hypnosis would not have helped
his recall.)

Questions for Further Discussion:

1. What is the danger in using hypnosis to enhance memory

in court cases?
2. How might hypnosis have been used to help the children
who were kidnapped recover from their ordeal?

References:

Terr, L. C. (1981). Psychic trauma in children: Observations

following the Chowchilla bus kidnapping. American Journal
of Psychiatry, 138, 14–19.

Terr, L. C. (1983). Chowchilla revisited: The effects of

trauma four years after the school bus kidnapping. American
Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 1543–1550.
Lecture/Discussion: How False Memories are Formed

Researchers at Northwestern University have used MRI

technology to study how people form false memories. The
purpose of the study was to create laboratory conditions that
set up a circumstance in which people would remember
something that did not happen. Participants were asked to
look at pictures of objects and to imagine other objects while
their brain activity was being measured. Researchers found
that the brain areas associated with generating visual
images were highly activated when people imagine images.
Many of the images that the participants were asked to
imagine were incorrectly identified as actually having been
seen. According to Kenneth Paller, co-investigator of the
study, parts of the involved in perceiving an object and those
involved in imagining an object appear to overlap. This
would allow a vividly imagined event to leave a memory
trace in the brain that is similar to a real event.

Three brain areas (precutaneous, right inferior parietal

cortex, and anterior cingulate) showed greater responses in
the study phase to words that would later be falsely
remembered as having been presented with photos. Brain
activity during the study phase could predict which objects
would subsequently be falsely remembered as having been
seen as a photograph. The false memories appeared to be
associated with more vivid visual imagery that left a trace in
the brain that was mistaken for a true memory.

References:

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2004/10/ke
nneth.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-10/nu-
nrp101404.php