GROUP 4:
CHAPTER 8:
EVERYDAY MEMORY &
MEMORY ERRORS
GISHENSHIO STRLIN RAJEEBA RAJU
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY (AM):
Recollected events that belong to a person’s past
Mental time travel: placing ourself back in the day
of event
AM of a birthday party contains:
Episodic memory: cake, games, people
Semantic memory: when, where and what
happened
MULTIDIMENTIONAL NATURE OF AM:
Contains: sensory, emotional and spatial
components
Sensory component: Brain damage in visual cortex-
ability to recognize object is lost, although they didn’t go
blind; also AM is lost
Emotional component: AM elicits emotions:
activates Amygdala
Spatial component: Experiment conducted with 12
Duke University students by Roberto Cabeza
Stimulus:
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PHOTOS: Pictures
of 40 specific campus location are taken by the
12 participants, in 10 days
LABORATORY PHOTOS: Pictures of those
places are taken by some other people
Process:
A photos and L photos were shown to the participants
Brain activity was measured by MRI scanner
Conclusion:
Parietal cortex: activation by A & L photos were
same
Hippocampus: activation by A photos were more
than L photos
AM activates Visual space in brain: Recall the
events that took place when taking A photos
MEMORY OVER THE LIFESPAN:
What makes an event to be remembered years later?
EMOTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE of events
REMINISCENCE REMINISCENCE RELATED
HYPOTHESES:
BUMP:
Self-image hypothesis: Events
Mostly people occurring for the formation of
remember things that self-image are remembered
happened only some more
Cognitive hypothesis: Periods
years back
of rapid change is followed by
People above 40 have stability, causing stronger
high memory of encoding of memory
events that happened Cultural life script hypothesis:
in recent, early Memories of love, marriage, etc
adulthood and are remembered after 40s as
adolescence they are culturally scripted
Basic Characteristics
Self- Period of assuming
image person’s self-image
Cognitive Encoding is better during
periods of rapid change
Cultural Culturally shared
life expectations structure
script recall
MEMORY FOR “EXCEPTIONAL” EVENTS:
Memory and Emotion: Flashbulb Memories: (by
Apart from love and marriage, Brown and Kulik)
we remember times of Accurate remembrance of when
embarrassment and failure too and where you heard about a
which are exceptional events shocking event
which are different for different Ex: 9/11 terrorist attack
people Experiment was flawed due to
Exceptional events are associated assumption of loss in details due
with emotions, associated with to the collection of data after
amygdala many years
REPEATED RECALL: WHAT
In laboratory, memories collected immediately after an
event is compared to memories collected after years
Data can be slightly modified due to time gap between
event and the collection of data WHEN
2 characteristics:
Involves high emotions
Added rehearsal: When an event happens its all over
media, we hear it often so our brain stores the event but WHERE
after years there is a decrease in clarity of data
RASHMITHA SUBRAMANI
THE CONSTRUCTIVE NATURE OF MEMORY
Memories are constructed by the person based on what
actually happened like persons knowledge, experiences and
expectations
BARTLETT’S “WAR OF THE GHOSTS” EXPERIMENT
Used technique of repeated reproduction
Remembered stories- tended to reflect the
participants’ own culture
Participants created their memories from two sources
SOURCE MONITORING AND SOURCE
MONITORING ERRORS
■ Process of determining the origins of our
memories, knowledge or beliefs- Source
monitoring
■ Source monitoring errors are also- Source
misattributions
■ Often unaware of them
■ Mechanisms responsible for them are also
involved in creating memories
“BECOMING FAMOUS OVERNIGHT”
EXPERIMENT
■ Larry Jacoby and coworkers- effect of source monitoring errors by
testing participants
■ Ability to distinguish b/w famous and non-famous names
Acquisition Immediate test Wait 24 Delayed test
Read non- Read non-famous names hours Same as
famous names. from acquisition plus new immediate test.
non-famous names.
Q: Which are famous?
Results: Most non-famous names
correctly identified as non-famous
■ Richard Marsh and coworkers- people’s performance on a source
monitoring task influenced by gender stereotypes
HOW REAL- WORLD KNOWLEDGE
AFFECTS MEMORY
■ Memory reports influences that
people make choices based on their
experiences and knowledge
■ Pragmatic inference- occurs when
reading a sentence; leads to expect
something that is not explicitly stated
or necessarily implied by the sentence
■ Based on knowledge gained through
experience
BRANSFORD AND JOHNSON’S EXPERIMENT
Acquisition Test
Read “pounding Have you seen this Result
Experimental nails” sentence sentence (refers to 57% (percent of
and 5 others. “hammer”) before? sentences
erroneously
Read “looking for Have you seen identified as
Control nail” sentence this sentence 20% seen
and 5 others. (refers to before)
“hammer”) before?
SCHEMA AND SCRIPT
Schema: Knowledge about some aspects of the environment
Ex: a person’s schema of a post office building is usually looks (like from
the outside)
Script: Our conception of the sequence of actions that usually occur
during a particular experience
Ex: scripts can influence our memory by setting up expectation about
what usually happens in particular situations
TAKING STOCK:
THE PLUSES AND MINUSES OF CONSTRUCTION:
Constructive property of memory: reflects the
creative nature of our mental processes
Although this creativity serves a good purpose, it
sometimes results in errors of memory
Fact: We forget many of the things we have
experienced
Russian memory expert Shereshevskii:
Almost perfect memory may not be advantageous
after all
ELNA SAJU
MEMORY CAN BE MODIFIED/ CREATED BY
SUGGESTION:
■ People are suggestible
THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT/ MPI:
Memory modified by things happening after event
■ Method- Present misleading post event information
■ Present stimulus to be remembered
■ MPI presented to one group before memory is tested
■16 Effect in MPI is determined by comparing reports
Experiment by Elizabeth Loftus and
coworkers (1978)-
■ Car stop at stop sign, turn and hit pedestrian,
asked if another car passed at stop sign
■ For MPI group, “stop sign” replaced by
“yield sign”
■ Showed slides of yield sign and MPI group said STOP
yes
YIELD
Loftus and Palmer (1974): films of car crash
■ How fast were cars going when they ‘smashed’ or
‘hit’ each other?
■ ‘Smashed’- 41 miles/ hour and ‘hit’- 34 miles/
hour
■ For broken glass wasn’t there, 32% of
smashed said yes as to 14% of hit
18
MPI as Replacing the Old Memory
■ Loftus: memory trace replacement
hypothesis- MPI replaces original memory,
reconsolidation could provide mechanism for
replacement
MPI as Causing Interference
■ Original information forgotten because of
retroactive interference
■ Here, old info isn’t eliminated
19
MPI as Causing Source Monitoring Errors
Source of memory for incorrect event is slide show,
not experimenter’s statement
Stephen Lindsay (1990)- showed maintenance man
stealing money described by female speaker. Later,
given same info by same speaker but with changes.
Result: 27% incorrect responses as to 9% in control Misled items Control items
30
group 27
20
■ Male voice told 2 story- 13% as to 10%
nd
for
control group: lack occurred- easier to 10
9
13
10
20
distinguish between voices 0
Female voice Male voice
CREATING FALSE MEMORIES FOR
EARLY EVENTS IN PEOPLE’S LIVES
■ Ira Hyman Jr. and coworkers (1995): created
false memories; initially, said no recollection, later
added details due to familiarity
■ Stephen Lindsay & coworkers (2004): added a
false story- placing Slime in teachers’ desk, while
viewing 1st and 2nd class pic; nearly twice as many
false memories
WHY DO PEOPLE MAKE ERRORS IN EYE
WITNESS TESTIMONY?
ERRORS OF EYE WITNESS IDENTIFICATION
Our memory is fallible
Ex- David Webb- 50 years of imprisonment based on
eyewitness testimony released as someone confessed
Ronald Cotton- raping Jennifer Thompson after she
believed he was attacker
In an exp, security tape of gunman for 8 seconds and
shown photospread, all picked but he was excluded
22
THE CRIME SCENE AND AFTERWARD
ERRORS ASSOCIATED WITH ATTENTION:
■ Weapon focus effect: visual attention eyewitnesses give to
perpetrator’s weapon during crime
■ Claudia Stanny and Thomas Johnson(2000):
presence of fired weapon decreases memory Shoot No Shoot
about perpetrator, victim and weapon 100
80
■ Kerri Pickel (2009)- people’s ability to describe
60
perp affected more if a woman
40
20
23 0
Perpetrator Victim Weapon
A c t u a l r o b b e r in
ERRORS ASSOCIATED WITH photospread
FAMILIARITY: 80
Experimental Control
60
■ Bystanders mistaken as perps due to
40
familiarity
20
■ Ex. Donald Thompson- rape since 0 saw him
on T.V. A ticket agent, robbed; identified a sailor who lived
nearby and had bought tickets
Exp group shown male teacher reading to students and A C T U A L R O B B E R N OT I N
female teacher for control group. Both shown a female P H OT OS P R E A D
Experimental Control
teacher being robbed 80
60
Robber’s pic excluded- exp group 3 times likely to pick male
40
teacher. Included- 18% as to 10% in control group 20
24
0
ERRORS DUE TO SUGGESTION:
■ Eyewitness saw lineup; asked, “Which one of them did it?” -
perp is present; compares lineup to perp
■ “Good, you identified the suspect”, Gary Wells
& Amy Bradfield, 1998- actual crime
video, pick perp from photospread, without actual
perp
■ Given confirming/ no/ disconfirming
feedbacks. Received confirming feedback
were confident: post-identification feedback effect
25
THE EFFECT OF POST-EVENT QUESTIONING:
■ Jason Chan and coworkers (2009)- viewed show 24, one took test
and both given tasks; given misinformation audio and both took
same cue test. Results- 50% test group said ‘yes’ to incorrect
information: reverse testing effect
Test group
Take cue Cued recall
recall test
Misinformation
test
50%
View 24
tape
Play
Misinformation Cued recall test 30%
Tetris
No test ‘yes’ response to
group incorrect item
Reconsolidation effect- reactivating memory increased
26 vulnerability
WHAT IS BEING DONE? Pe rpe tra tor i n l ineup
■ Asking witness to pick perp 1
Low
from High
lineup: inform actual perp
0.5 may not
be there 0
■ Constructing lineup: use “fillers” similar to
suspect; Lindsay and Gary Wells, 1980 showed
similarity caused decrease in incorrect
Perpetrator not in lineup
identification from 0.70 to 0.31
Low High
■ Present lineup: use sequential than simultaneous 1
presentation. Lindsay and Wells, 1985- incorrect
identification reduce to 17% from 43% 0.5
27 0
WHAT IS BEING DONE?
■ Use ‘blind’ lineup, get immediate confidence
rating; eliminates post-event feedback effect
■ Improve interviewing techniques: Cognitive
interview- witness talk with minimal
interruption; 25-60% more helpful
■ Included in 1999, Eyewitness Evidence: A
Guide for Law Enforcement
SOMETHING TO CONSIDER:
MEMORIES OF CHILD ABUSE
■ Eileen Lipsker, 1989, remembered red-haired friend raped
and murdered by father 20 years ago as
watched her red-haired daughter drawing
■ Ex. Therapist (‘trauma-memory oriented therapists’)
suggests: childhood sexual abuse causes anxiety
and eating disorder- look at old pictures,
visualizations, could create false memories
■ No procedure can accurately differentiate false and real memories
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THANK YOU
GROUP MEMBERS:
. Rashmitha Subramani .Gishenshio Strlin Rajeeba Raju
Elna Saju
Thavasimariselvam Nagaraj . Sandeep Dudyala
