CHAPTER 8 - Everyday Memory and Memory Errors the parahippocampal gyrus that were activated by the A-photos ○ Memory

he A-photos ○ Memory is enhanced for events that occur as

and the L-photos. The graph indicates that in this area of the a person’s self-image or life identity is being
Autobiographical Memory (AM) brain, activation was greater for the A-photos. formed
● Recollected events that belong to a person’s past Memory Over the Lifespan ○ People assume identities during adolescence
● Mental time travel ● What events are remembered well? and young adulthood
● Multidimensional ○ Significant events in a person’s life ■ Many transitions occur between
○ Spatial, emotional, and sensory components ○ Highly emotional events ages 10 and 30
● Sensory component ○ Transition points ● Cognitive hypothesis
● Greenberg and Rubin (2003) Reminiscence Bump ○ Encoding is better during periods of rapid
○ Patients who cannot recognize objects also ● Participants over the age of 40 asked to recall events in change that are followed by stability
experience loss of autobiographical memory their lives ○ Evidence from those who emigrated to the
○ Visual experience plays a role in forming and ● Memory is high for recent events and for events that US after young adulthood indicates
retrieving AM occurred in adolescence and early adulthood (between reminiscence bump is shifted
● Cabeza and coworkers (2004) 10 and 30 years of age)
○ Comparing brain activation caused by
autobiographical memory and laboratory
memory
○ Participants viewed
■ Photographs they took (A-photos)
■ Photographs taken by someone
else
● Both types of photos activated brain structures
associated with
○ Episodic memory
○ Processing scenes
Caption: The reminiscence bump for people who emigrated at
● A-photos also activated brain structures associated Caption: Percentage of memories from different ages, recalled by age 34 to 35 is shifted toward older ages, compared to the bump
with a 55-year-old, showing the reminiscence bump. (Reprinted from for people who emigrated between the ages of 20 to 24.
○ Processing info about the self Journal of Memory and Language, 39, R.W. Schrauf & D.C. (Reprinted from Journal of Memory and Language, 39, R.W.
○ Memory for visual space Rubin, “Bilingual Autobiographical Memory in Older Adult Schrauf & D.C. Rubin, “Bilingual Autobiographical Memory in
○ Mental time travel memory Immigrants: A Test of Cognitive Explanations of the Older Adult Immigrants: A Test of Cognitive Explanations of the
● Very rich memories Reminiscence Bump and the Linguistic Encoding of Memories,” Reminiscence Bump and the Linguistic Encoding of Memories,”
pp. 437-457, Fig. 1, Copyright © 1998 with permission from pp. 437-457, Fig. 2, Copyright © 1998 with permission from
Elsevier. Elsevier.
● Cultural life-script hypothesis
● Hypotheses about the reminiscence bump ● Each person has
○ A personal life story
○ An understanding of culturally expected
events
● Personal events are easier to recall when they fit the
cultural life script

Memory for Emotional Stimuli

Caption: (a) fMRI response of an area in the parietal cortex Caption: Explanations for the reminiscence bump ● Emotional events remembered more easily and vividly
showing areas activated by both the A-photos and the L-photos ● Emotion improves memory, becomes greater with time
during the memory test. The graph on the right indicates that ● Self-image hypothesis (may enhance consolidation)
activation was the same for A-photos and L-photos. (b) Areas in ● Brain activity: amygdala
 ● Narrative rehearsal hypothesis ○ Failed to identify the source as the list that
Flashbulb Memories ○ Repeated viewing/hearing of event had been read the previous day
● Memory for circumstances surrounding shocking, ■ TV, talking with others
highly charged important events ■ Could introduce errors in own Making Inferences
○ 9/11/01 memory ● Memory can be influenced by inferences that people
○ Kennedy assassination make based on their experiences and knowledge
○ Challenger explosion The Constructive Nature of Memory ● Memory often includes information that is implied by or
● Where you were, and what you were doing? ● What actually happens + person’s knowledge, is consistent with the to-be-remembered information
● Highly emotional experiences, and expectations but was not explicitly stated
● Vivid ● Bartlett’s “war of the ghosts” experiment ○ Pragmatic inferences: based on knowledge
● Very detailed ○ Had participants attempt to remember a story gained through experience
● Repeated recall from a different culture
○ Initial description: baseline ○ Repeated reproduction
○ Later reports compared to baseline ● Results
● Results suggest that these memories can be ○ Over time, reproduction became shorter,
inaccurate or lacking in detail contained omissions and inaccuracies
● Even though participants report that they are very ○ Changed to make the story more consistent
confident and that the memories seem very vivid with their own culture

Source Monitoring
● Source memory: process of determining origins of our
memories
Caption: Design and results of Bransford and Johnson’s (1973)
● Source monitoring error: misidentifying source of
experiment that tested people’s memory for the wording of action
memory
statements. More errors were made by participants in the
○ Also called “source misattributions”
experimental group because they identified more sentences as
being originally presented, even though they were not.

Schemas and Scripts

● Schema: knowledge about what is involved in a
Caption: Results of Talarico and Rubin’s (2003) flashbulb particular experience
memory experiment. (a) The decrease in the number of details ○ Post office, ball game, classroom
remembered was similar for memories of 9/11 and for memories ● Script: conception of sequence of actions that occur
of an everyday event. (b) Participants’ belief that their memory during a particular experience
was accurate remained high for 9/11, but decreased for ○ Going to a restaurant; to the dentist
memories of the everyday event. (Extracted from “Consistency ● Schemas and scripts influence memory
and Key properties of Flashbulb and Everyday Memories,” by Caption: Design of Jacoby et al.’s (1989) “becoming famous ○ Memory can include information not actually
J.M. Talarico & D.C. Rubin, Psychological Science, 14, 5, Fig. 1. overnight” experiment. experienced but inferred because it is
Copyright © 2003 with permission from the American expected and consistent with the schema
Psychological Society. ● Jacoby et al. (1989) ○ Office waiting room: books not present but
● After 24 hours, some non-famous names were mentioned in memory task
● Davidson and coworkers (2006) misidentified as famous ○ The constructive nature of memory can lead
○ Memories for 9/11/01 more resistant to fading ● Explanation: some non-famous names were familiar, to errors or “false memories”
than memory for other events around that and the participants misattributed the source of the
time familiarity Construction of Memories
■ Cues helped 9/11/01 memories ● Advantages
more ○ Allows us to “fill in the blanks”
 ○ Cognition is creative ● Lindsey (1990)
■ Understand language ○ Heard a story; two days later again with
■ Solve problems some details changed
■ Make decisions ○ Told to ignore changes
● Disadvantages ○ Same voice for both stories created source
○ Sometimes we make errors monitoring errors
○ Sometimes we misattribute the source of ○ Changing voice (male to female) did not
information create as many errors
■ Was it actually presented, or did we
infer it? False Memories
● Hyman and coworkers (1995) Caption: Results of Stanny and Johnson’s (2000) weapons-focus
Power of Suggestion ○ Participants’ parents gave descriptions of experiment. Presence of a weapon that was fired is associated
● Misinformation effect: misleading information presented childhood experiences with a decrease in memory about the perpetrator, the victim, and
after a person witnesses an event can change how that ○ Participant had conversation about the weapon.
person describes the event later experiences with experimenter; experimenter
○ Misleading postevent information (MPI) added new events ● Errors due to familiarity
● Loftus and coworkers (1975) ○ When discussing it later, participant ○ Source monitoring
○ See slides of traffic accident with stop sign “remembered” the new events as actually
○ Introduce MPI: yield sign happening
○ Participants remember what they heard (yield
sign) not what they saw (stop sign) Errors in Eyewitness Testimony
● Loftus and Palmer (1974) ● Testimony by an eyewitness to a crime about what he
○ Hear “smashed” or “hit” in description of car or she saw during the crime
accident ● One of the most convincing types of evidence to a jury
○ Those hearing “smashed” said the cars were ○ Assume that people see and remember
going much faster than those who heard “hit” accurately
● Hypotheses about the misinformation effect ● But, like other memory, eyewitness testimony can be
Caption: (a) Design of Ross et al.’s (1994) experiment on the
inaccurate
effect of familiarity on eyewitness testimony. (b) When the actual
○ Mistaken identity
robber was not in the photospread, the male teacher was
○ Constructive nature of memory
erroneously identified as the robber 60 percent of the time. (c)
● Wells & Bradfield (1998)
When the actual robber was in the photospread, the male
○ Participants view security videotape with
teacher was erroneously identified less than 20 percent of the
gunman in view for 8 seconds
time.
○ Everyone identified someone as the gunman
Caption: Explanations for the misinformation effect
from photographs afterwards
● Errors due to suggestion
○ The actual gunman’s picture was not
● Memory-trace replacement hypothesis ○ Suggestive questioning
presented
○ MPI impairs or replaces memories that were ■ Misinformation effect
● Errors due to attention and arousal
formed during original event ○ Confirming feedback
○ Low: attend to irrelevant information
● Retroactive interference
○ High: focus too narrowly
○ More recent learning interferes with memory
○ Moderate: best for being aware of relevant
for something in the past
information
○ Original memory trace is not replaced
● Source monitoring error
○ Failure to distinguish the source of the
information
○ MPI is misattributed to the original source
Caption: Design and results of Wells and Bradfield’s (1998)
“Good, you identified the suspect” experiment. The type of
feedback from the experimenter influenced the participants’
confidence in their identification, with confirming feedback
resulting in the highest confidence.
● Confidence in one’s memories may be increased by
postevent questioning
● May make memories easier to retrieve

What Is Being Done?

● Inform witness perpetrator might not be in lineup
● Use “fillers” in lineup similar to suspect
● Use sequential presentation (not simultaneous)
● Improve interviewing techniques
○ Cognitive interview