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1

Everyday memory& Memory errors

Part I

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Everyday memory memory

Is not just a “ stamp pad of experience ” Is a place where information comes in Is automatically stored for future reference

Experiences become encoded Manipulated by a short-term process called working

memory Admitted or not admitted to LTM Solidified over a period of time through the process of

consolidation Transferred back to working memory when needed

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Memory errors

Why what we remember sometimes does not correspond to what actually happened

Studying the errors we make when remembering leads to the conclusion that what we remember is determined by creative mental

processes This creativity is a gift that helps us determine what

happened when we have incomplete information This creativity can affect the accuracy of our memory

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Chapter summery 1

To truly understand memory we need to consider how memory operates in the environment.

When have we do this, we find that we make many errors in memory and that these errors have something to tell us about the basic mechanisms of memory.

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Prospective memory

Remember to perform intended action

“To do” list สิ่��งทั��ต้�องทั�าในวันน��

Going to class Taking your books to school Keeping an evening appointment Taking medications

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Prospective memory

Regular events : easier Brushing your teeth in the morning

Occasional events : harder Task of delivering a message to your friend

Ralph cue to remind

Seeing Ralph later in a day

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Prospective memory :what I’m going to do later

Prospective memory : How to success…..

1. Remembering what you want to do

2. Remembering to do it at the right time

Giles Einstein and Mark McDaniel hypothesis Distinctive cues are more effective than

familiar cues

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Cues to remind

Remembering to deliver the message to Ralph might be harder than to stranger

Distinctive cue (unfamiliar cue) Stranger

Familiar cue : harder Ralph Seeing Ralph might trigger associations

Talking about the movie your saw last night Which could distract you from remembering to deliver

the message

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Prospective memory

Einstein and McDaniel’s experiment Study the effect of cue familiarity on

prospective memory Participants see a list of words on a computer

screen They should press a key when a cue word

was presented Familiar cues : rake , method Unfamiliar cues : sone , monad

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Correct responses were three times more likely for unfamiliar cue words than for familiar cue words

Unfamiliar cues result in better prospective memory

Fig. 7-2, p. 237

Results of Einstein and McDaniel study

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Event – based task

Task is triggered when an external event occurs

Task : pushing a button Delivering a message when seeing Ralph

External event : presentation of the cue word Talking with Ralph

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Time – based task

Task is to remember to do something at a particular time

Your doctor tells you that you need to take a pill every morning for the next 2 weeks

This task more difficult than event – based task

Because there is no cue

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Time – based task

Daniel Schacter 2001 Suggests (make it easier) : create cues that

turn time – based task into event – based task

One way to remember to take a pill in the morning would be to place the medication next to your toothbrush , so when you brush your teeth in the morning you will remember to take a pill

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Chapter summery 2

Prospective memory is remembering to perform intended actions.

Einstein and McDaniel showed that prospective memory is better when cues for remembering are distinctive.

Time-based prospective memory tasks are more difficult to remember than event-based tasks.

A solution is to turn a time-based task into an event-based task.

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Autobiographical memory :what has happened in my life

Rubin 2005

Autobiographical (episodic) memory

= recollected events that belong to a person’s past อต้ถ์�ชี�วัประวัต้�

Field perspective

= you remember the event as you would see it Observer perspective

= seeing yourself in the event

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Fig. 7-3, p. 238

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Autobiographical memory

Recent memory Field perspective > observer perspective

Remote memory Observer perspective > field perspective

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Autobiographic memory

Usually considered to be episodic memories Episodic memories for events in our lives

Can have semantic components as well Personal semantic memories of facts about our

lives (remember without reexperiencing events) Where we lived at various times The schools we went to The name of a childhood friend

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Chapter summery 3

Autobiographical memory has been defined as recollected events that belong to a person’s past.

It can also be defined as episodic memory for events in our lives plus personal semantic memories of facts about our lives.

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The multidimensional nature of Autobiographical memory

Autobiographical memory Spatial component Emotional component Sensory component

Damage visual area of cortex Visual memory loss (ability to recognize visualize object) Without blindness Loss visual retrieval cues Loss of autobiographical memory

blind people Auditory experience plays a role in forming autobiographical

memories

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Roberto Cabeza and coworkers 2004 Brain – scanning study that illustrates a

difference between autobiographical memory and laboratory memory

Measured the brain activation caused by two sets of stimulus photographs A-photos : photos taken by participant L-photos : photos taken by someone else

The multidimensional nature of Autobiographical memory

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Roberto Cabeza and coworkers 2004 A-photos (Autobiographical photos)

By 12 Duke University students digital cameras Take pictures of 40 specified campus locations Over a 10-day period

L-photos (Laboratory photos) Seen before testing (a few days later) Unseen before testing

The multidimensional nature of Autobiographical memory

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Roberto Cabeza and coworkers 2004 Testing + brain scan

A-photos L-photos (seen) L-photos (unseen)

Color plate 7.2 a : parietal cortex activity Same response of A & L-photos

Color plate 7.2 b : hippocampal activity Response of A-photos more than L-photos

The multidimensional nature of Autobiographical memory

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Roberto Cabeza and coworkers 2004 Response in brain

Color plate 7.2 a

A & L-photos both activated many of the same structures in the brain

MTL : episodic memory Parietal cortex : processing scenes

The multidimensional nature of Autobiographical memory

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Roberto Cabeza and coworkers 2004 Response in brain

Color plate 7.2 b Greater A-photos activation compared to L-photos

activation in hippocampus A-photos

Richness of experiencing autobiographical memories Memories associated with taking the picture

L-photos

The multidimensional nature of Autobiographical memory

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Chapter summery 4

The multidimensional nature of autobiographical memory has been studied by showing that people who have lost their memory due to brain damage experience a loss of autobiographical memory.

Also supporting the multidimensional nature of autobiographical memory is Cabeza’s experiment, which showed that a person’s brain is more extensively activated when viewing photographs he or she took him- or herself than when viewing photographs taken by another person.

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Memory over the life span

Which particular life events we will remember years later?

Transition point in people’s lives Graduating from college Receiving a marriage

Highly emotional events Surviving a car accident

Reminiscence bump Enhanced memory for adolescence and young

adulthood in people over 40 years old

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Chapter summery 5

When people are asked to remember events over their lifetime, transition points are particularly memorable.

Also, people over 40 tend to have good memory for events they experienced from adolescence to early adulthood.

This is called the reminiscence bump.

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Fig. 7-4, p. 241

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Reminiscence bump

Participants over 40 are asked to remember events in their lives. Memory is high for recent events and

reminiscence bump

Why are adolescence and young adulthood special times for encoding memories ? Life-narrative hypothesis Cognitive hypothesis Cultural life script hypothesis

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Table 7-1, p. 242

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Reminiscence bump :life-narrative hypothesis

People assume their life identities during that time

It is time when lots of “first” occur Going to college Committing to a partner Starting a career

It is time of “Our” generation It is time that people return to when they

become nostalgic for the “good old days”

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Reminiscence bump :cognitive hypothesis

Encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability

Adolescence and young adulthood fit this description

Memory of immigrants Robert Schrauf and David Rubin 1998 Shows the memory curves for two groups of

immigrants Reminiscence bumb occurs at normal age for people who

emigrated early But is shifted to 15 years later for those who emigrated

later

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Fig. 7-5, p. 242

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Events in a person’s life story become easier to recall when they fit the cultural life script for that person’s culture

Person’s life story : all of events that have occurred in a

person’s life

Reminiscence bump :cultural life script hypothesis

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Reminiscence bump :cultural life script hypothesis

Cultural life script : The events that commonly occur in a particular

culture Most occur during reminiscence bump

Dorthe Berntsen and David Rubin 2004 Asked people to list when important events in a typical

person’s life usually occur Falling in love (16 years) College (22 years) Marriage (27 years) Having children (28 years)

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Chapter summery 6

The following hypotheses have been proposed to explain the reminiscence bump

1. Life-narrative

2. Cognitive

3. Cultural life script

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Flashbulb memories

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov.22,1963

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

Do you remember when you first heard about the attacks ?

How you found out ? Where you were ? Your initial reaction ? What you did next ?

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Fig. 7-6, p. 243

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I remember walking into the psychology department office and hearing from a secretary that someone had crashed a plane into the World trade center. At the time , I picture a small private plane that had gone off course , but a short while later , when I called my wife from a pay phone near my classroom , she told me that the first tower of the World Trade Center had just collapsed. Shortly after that , in class , my students and I discussed what we knew about the situation and decided to cancel class for the day.

Flashbulb memories

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A person’s memory for the circumstances surrounding hearing about shocking , highly charged important events.

Not memory for the event itself Remember for long periods of time + more

details

Likened the process of forming a memory to the taking of a photograph

Flashbulb memories :Roger Brown and James Kulik 1977

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Chapter summery 7

Brown and Kulik proposed the term flashbulb memory to refer to a person’s memory for the circumstances surrounding hearing about shocking , highly charged , important events.

They proposed that these flashbulb memories are vivid and detailed like photographs.

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Flashbulb memory

Brown and Kulik’s idea

The mechanism responsible for these vivid

and detailed memories as a “Now Print” mechanism , as if these memories are created like a photograph that resists fading.

Problem : Accuracy ???

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Check for accuracy

Compare the persons memory to reports collected immediately after the event.

This technique called repeated recall

Flashbulb memories

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Repeated recall

Idea : memory changes over timeTest : compare baseline reports with

later reports Baseline report

The person’s memory is first measured immediately after a stimulus is presented or something happens

Later reportDays , months , or years later , when

participants are asked to remember what had happened

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Repeated recall

Shown that flashbulb memories are not like photographs

Flashbulb memories change over time Main finding : people report that memories

surrounding flashbulb events are Especially vivid Often inaccurate Lacking in detail

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Repeated recall

Ulric Neisser and N. Harsch 1992 Asked participants how they heard about the

explosion of the space shuttle Challenger that occurred in 1986

Participants filled out a questionnaire within a day after the explosion

Then filled out the same questionnaire 2 ½ to 3 years later

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Fig. 7-7, p. 245

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A day after explosion

I was in my religion class and some people walked in and started talking about (it).

I didn’t know any details except that it had exploded and the schoolteacher’s students had all been watching , which I thought was so sad.

Then after class I went to my room and watched the TV program talking about it.

I got all details from that

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2 ½ years later

When I first heard about the explosion I was sitting in my freshman dorm room with my roommate , and we were watching TV.

It came on a news flash , and we were both totally shocked.

I was really upset , and I went upstairs to talk to a friend of mine.

And then I called my parents

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Challenger explosion

Right after explosion 21 % indicated that they first heard about it on TV

2 ½ years later 45 % indicated that they first heard about it on TV

Reasons for increase TV memories TV reports become more memorable through

repetition TV is a major source of news

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The announcement of the O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict on Oct 3,1995

Heike Schmolck and coworkers 2000 Determine accuracy of memories for an event can

be influenced by other experiences Comparing participants’ report (3-day & 32-day)

Response 3-day : I was in the commuter lounge at college and saw it on TV

as 10.00 approached , more people came into the room Response 32-day :

I first heard it while I was watching TV at home in my living room. My sister and father were with me …..

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Chapter summery 8

A number of experiments indicate that it is not accurate to equate flashbulb memories with photographs because , as time passes , people make many errors when reporting flashbulb memories

Studies of memories for hearing about both the Challenger explosion and the announcement of the O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict showed that people’s responses became more inaccurate with increasing time after the event.

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Flashbulb memory

Inaccurate response in Challenger and O.J. Simpson :

Flashbulb memories may decay just like regular memories

This idea support by : Talarico & Rubin 2003

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Talarico & Rubin 2003

Experiment in a group of college students

Asked a number of questions on Sep 12 , 2001 Questions were about the terrorist attacks

When did you first hear the news ? Questions were about everyday event

Participants created a two- or three-word description that could serve as a cue for that event in the future

Retested later (1 week , 6 weeks , 32 weeks)

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Results ( figure 7.8 a )

Participants remembered fewer details and made more errors at longer intervals after the events

Little difference between the results for the flashbulb and everyday memories

Talarico & Rubin 2003

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Figure 7.8 b

People’s belief that their memories were accurate stayed high over the entire 32-week period for flashbulb memories , but dropped for the everyday memories.

Belief : have a difference between flashbulb and everyday memories

Talarico & Rubin 2003

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Fig. 7-8, p. 247

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Flashbulb memory :Talarico and Rubin’s results

People think the memories are stronger and more accurate

Reality This study found that there was little or no

difference between flashbulb and everyday memories in terms of the amount remembered and the accuracy of what is remembered

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Patrick Davidson and coworkers 2006

Found that memories for events associated with hearing about 9/11

were more resistant to fading than memories for other events that took place at that time.

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Asked participants questions

shortly after 9/11 attack

& 1 year later (given a cue : party or movie)

Question about flashbulb events How did you hear the news ? Where were you when you heard about the attack ? Who was present ?

Question about everyday events

Patrick Davidson and coworkers 2006

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“Congruence score”0 points : couldn’t remember ,or inaccurately

1 points : partially correct or less specific than original memory

2 points : very similar to their original report

Adding the points for all of the questions and scaling the total so that 1.0 was maximum

Patrick Davidson and coworkers 2006

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Figure 7.9 a

Congruence for 9/11 were fairly high 1 year later ( 0.77 )

Congruence for everyday events was much lower ( 0.33 )

Patrick Davidson and coworkers 2006

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Figure 7.9 b

All of participants had no trouble remembering 9/11

Only 65 % of the participants were able to remember what the everyday event was , even after being prompted with a cue

Patrick Davidson and coworkers 2006

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Fig. 7-9, p. 248

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More difficult to remember their everyday event

Participants were not aware that they would be tested later (the 1-year test was a surprise)

The retrieval cue they were given may not have been as effective as Talarico and Rubin’s

Patrick Davidson and coworkers 2006

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Timo Mantyla’s Retrieval cues are more effective when they

are created by the participant than when they are created by someone else

Talarico and Rubin’s Participants created their own retrieval cues

Davidson’s Participants did not created retrieval cues

Retrieval cues

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Patrick Davidson :why better flashbulb memory

Two characteristics of flashbulb memories

Involve high emotions Surprise , Disbelief , Anger , Fear High emotions trigger Amygdala better memory

Narrative rehearsal hypothesis How many times did you see the planes crashing into the

World Trade Center replayed on TV ? How much did you read about events surrounding 9/11 or

talk about them with other people ?

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Chapter summery 9 Talarico and Rubin’s study of people’s memory for when

they first heard about the 9/11 terrorist attack indicates that memory errors increased with time , just as for other memories , but that people remained more confident of the accuracy of their 9/11 memory.

Another 9/11 study , by Davidson and coworkers , also showed that memory for 9/11 declined with time , but that people had better memory for the events surrounding 9/11 than for another more ordinary event that had occurred at the same time.

The difference in these results might be explained by differences in the procedure in these two experiments

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Constructive nature of memory

Memories are constructed by the person(may distort or change things that happened) Based on :

What actually happened

Plus additional factors : experiences , person’s knowledge , expectations

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The War of the GhostsOne night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals , and while

they were there it became foggy and clam. Then they heard war cries , and they thought : “Maybe this is a war party.” They escaped to the shore and hid behind a log. Now canoes came up , and they heard the noise of paddles and saw one canoe coming up to them. There were five men in the canoe , and they said :

“What do you think ? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people.”

One of the young men said : “I have no arrows” “Arrows are in the canoe,” they said. “I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone. But you,” he said, turning to the other, “may go with them.”

So one of the young men went, but the other returned home. And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the outer side of Kalama. The people came down to the water , and they began to fight , and many were killed. But presently the young man heard one of the warriors say : “Quick, let us go home; that Indian has been hit.” Now he thought: “Oh, they are ghosts.” He did not feel sick , but they said he had been shot.

So the canoes went back to Egulac, and the young man went ashore to his house and made a fire. And he told everybody and said : “Behold I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed. They said I was hit, and I did not feel sick.”

He told it all , and then he became quiet. When the sun rose, he fell down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and cried. He was dead.

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Bartlett’s “ War of the ghosts ” experiment

British psychologist Fredrick Bartlett Participants read the following story from

Canadian Indian Folklore Bartlett asked them to recall it as accurately

as possible

Repeated reproduction (similar to repeated recall) The same participants came back a number

of times to try to remember the story at longer and longer intervals after they first read it.

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Bartlett’s “ War of the ghosts ” experiment

The errors Bartlett’s participants made

Forgot much of the information in the story

Most participants’ reproductions of the story

were shorter than the original contained many omissions inaccuracies

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Bartlett’s “ War of the ghosts ” experiment

Interpreted these errors

The strangeness of the story

(Myth from an unfamiliar culture)

Story : Canadian folklore Participants : Edwardian England

Canoes Boats

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The changes that occurred in the remembered stories tended to reflect the participants’ own culture

Constructive memory Constructive processes that influence memory

during encoding Reconstructive memory

….During retrieval

Bartlett’s “ War of the ghosts ” experiment

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Educated guesses about high school grades

College students were asked to remember their high school grades

Checking the students’ report against their high school transcripts Accurately remembered A grades 89% Accurately remembered D grades 29% 79 of 99 students inflated their grades by

remembering some of them as being higher than what they actually received

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Educated guesses about high school grades

Reasons of errors People tend to remember “positive events”

more readily than negative events A or B would be remembered better than C or D

Take a “best guess” approach Participants constructed their memory based on

their general experience of receiving grades in the part

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Chapter summery 10

According to the constructive approach to memory , what people 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.

Bartlett’s “War of the Ghosts” experiment and the experiment in which students were asked to remember their high school grades both resulted in many memory errors.

These errors can be explained in terms of the constructive process of memory.

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Source monitoring and source monitoring errors

Source memory : The process of determining the origins of our

memories , knowledge , or beliefs

Source monitoring error

(source misattributions) : Misidentifying the source of a memory

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Source misattributions

“Did you hear about the new movie Brokeback mountain that opened last week?”

“Yes, I read about it in the times.”

“Really? Sam told me about it, or maybe it was Bernita. I can’t remember.”

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Larry Jacoby and coworkers 1989 :Becoming famous overnight

Demonstrates an effect of source monitoring errors Testing participants’ ability to distinguish between

famous and non famous names Made-up nonfamous name :

Sebastian Weissdorf , Valerie Marsh Participants read a number of nonfamous names Immediate test Delayed test

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Immediate test Right after the participants saw the list of nonfamous

names Just before this test, participants were told that all of the

names they had just seen were nonfamous Participants were told to pick out the names of

famous people from a list A list containing

The ( just seen ) nonfamous names The ( never seen ) nonfamous names Famous names

Larry Jacoby and coworkers 1989 :Becoming famous overnight

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Fig. 7-10, p. 253

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Results :

Immediate test Most nonfamous names correctly identified

as nonfamous

Delayed test ( 24 hours later ) Some nonfamous names misidentified as

famous

Larry Jacoby and coworkers 1989 :Becoming famous overnight

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How did Sebastian Weissdorf become famous overnight ?

24 hours since you first saw the names You now have to decide whether Sebastian

Weissdorf is famous or not You ask yourself the question : Why is this

name familiar ? If you decide that the familiarity was caused

by fame (Source monitoring errors) So Sebastian Weissdorf become famous

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Chapter summery 11

Source memory is the process of determining the origins of our memories , knowledge , or beliefs.

A source monitoring error occurs when the source of a memory is misidentified.

Jacoby’s “becoming famous overnight” experiment illustrates an effect of source monitoring errors.

89

Everyday memory& Memory errors

Part II

พญ. กาญจนา พ�ทักษ์�วัฒนานนทั�

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Demonstration :Reading sentences

Read the following sentences The new baby stayed awake all night

Fill-in-the-blank exercise The new baby ____ all night

Errors 3/5 : pragmatic inference Stayed awake became cried

91

Making inferences

Memory reports can be created by inferences based on a person’s experiences and knowledge

A baby stayed awake all night does not include any information about crying, knowledge about babies might lead a person to infer that the baby was crying.

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Fig. 7-11, p. 255

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Schemas and Scripts

Schemas : knowledge about what is involved in particular experience Although there were no books in the office, 30

percent of the participants reported that they saw books.

Script : conception of the sequence of actions that usually occur during a particular experience Bill checked in with the dentist’s receptionist

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Fig. 7-12, p. 257

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Remembering a list of words: false memory

Memory for a list Bed , rest , awake , tired , dream , wake , night ,

blanket , doze , slumber , snore , pillow , peach, yawn , drowsy

Remembering “sleep” is a false memory because it isn’t on the list

Effect of schemas : constructive processes have created an error in memory.

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The advantages and disadvantages of construction

Creativity helps us “fill in the blanks” when there is incomplete information.

Survival value

Erroneous perception

Memory errors in courtroom

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Fig. 7-13, p. 260

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Memory can be modified or created by suggestion

Misinformation effect

Suggestion Advertisements Political arguments Opinion makers

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The misinformation effect

Misleading postevent information (MPI)

Misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event can change how that person describes that event later

Smashed : 41 miles/hour , 32% see broken glass Hit : 34miles/hour , 14% see broken glass

100

Fig. 7-14, p. 262

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Presenting misleading postevent information

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Fig. 7-15, p. 263

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Table 7-2, p. 264

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Creating false memories for early events in people’s lives

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Fig. 7-16, p. 266

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Why do people make errors in eyewitness testimony ?

107

Errors of eyewitness identification

108

The crime scene and afterward

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Errors associated with attention

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Fig. 7-17, p. 269

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Errors due to familiarity

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Fig. 7-18, p. 270

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Fig. 7-18a, p. 270

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Fig. 7-18bc, p. 270

115

Errors due to suggestion

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Fig. 7-19, p. 272

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Increasing confidence due to postevent questioning

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What is being done ?

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Fig. 7-20, p. 273

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Fig. 7-21, p. 274

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Memories of childhood abuse

122

Chapter summery 12

Inference is one of the mechanisms of the constructive process of memory.

The following experiments show that inference can cause memory errors Pragmatic inference Bransford and Johnson’s “pounding nail” The baseball story

123

Chapter summery 13

Our knowledge about what is involved in a particular experience is a schema for that experience

The experiment in which participants were asked to remember what was in an office illustrates how schemas can cause errors in memory reports

124

Chapter summery 14

A script is our conception of the sequence of actions that usually occur during a particular experience.

The “dentist experiment” in which a participant is asked to remember a paragraph about going to the dentist , illustrates how scripts can result in memory errors.

125

Chapter summery 15

The experiment in which people were asked to recall a list of words related to sleep illustrates how our knowledge about things that belongs together (for example , that sleep belongs with bed) can result in reporting words that were not on the original list.

126

Chapter summery 16

Although people often think that it would be an advantage to have a photographic memory , the case of the memory expert S shows that it may not be an advantage to be able to remember everything perfectly.

The fact that our memory system does not store everything may even add to the survival value of the system

127

Chapter summery 17 Experiments in which misleading post event information is

presented to participants in memory experiments indicate that memory can be influenced by suggestion.

An example of such an experiment is Loftus’s traffic-accident experiment

The following explanations have been proposed to explain the errors caused by misleading post event information Memory-trace hypothesis Effect of retroactive interference information Effect of source monitoring errors

Lindsay’s experiment provides support for the source monitoring explanation , but the reasons for the effect of MPI are still being debated by memory researchers

128

Chapter summery 18

An experiment by Hyman showed that it is possible to create false memories for early events in a person’s life

A similar experiment by Lindsay showed that this false-memory effect for early events can be made stronger by showing the participants a picture of their first- or second-grade class.

DuBreuil was able to show that false memories can be created for events that supposedly occurred early in infancy

129

Chapter summery 19

There is great deal of evidence that eyewitness testimony about crimes can be prone to memory errors.

Some of the reasons for errors in eyewitness testimony are Not paying attention to all relevant details , due to the emotional

situation during a crime (weapons focus is one example of such an attentional effect)

Errors due to familiarity , which can result in misidentification of an innocent person due to source monitoring error

Errors due to suggestion during questioning about a crime (the “Good , you identified the suspect” experiment illustrates how a police officer’s responses can cause memory errors)

Increased confidence due to post event questioning

130

Chapter summery 20

Cognitive psychologists have made a number of suggestions of ways to decrease errors in eyewitness testimony

131

Chapter summery 21 The problem of childhood sexual abuse is serious

and widespread There is the potential , however , that false

memories for abuse could be created by some of the techniques used by therapists to try to help their patients remember events in their past

The problem of differentiating between accurate memories of abuse and false memories created in the therapy situation is a serious one because there is no test or procedure that can accurately differentiate between real memories and false memories

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