Chapter 7 Memory

1
Chapter 7Memory
2
Memory

• Memory is a general term for the storage,
  retention and recall of events, information and
  procedures.
• The quality of an individuals memory may vary
  based upon the nature of the information being
  retained and recalled, the level of interest in
  it, and its significance to that individual.

3
Module 7.1

• Types of Memory

4
Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Hermann Ebbinghaus studied his own ability to
  memorize new material
• He invented over 2300 nonsense syllables and put
  them into random lists.
• Over 6 years he memorized thousands of lists of
  nonsense syllables.
• Generally he found that delay between
  memorization and recall resulted in the
  forgetting of a large portion of the material.

5

• Figure 7.1
• Hermann Ebbinghaus pioneered the scientific study
  of memory by observing his own capacity for
  memorizing lists of nonsense syllables.

6
Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Role of Interference
• Part of the difficulty for Ebbinghaus may have
  been the fact that he memorized so many lists of
  nonsense syllables.
• If an individual learns several sets of related
  materials, the retention of the old material
  makes it harder to retain new material, and the
  learning of the new materials makes it harder to
  retain the old.
• This phenomenon is known as interference.

7
Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Role of Interference
• When retaining old material makes it hard to
  retain new material, this is called proactive
  interference.
• When learning new material makes it hard to
  retain old material, this is called retroactive
  interference.
• The problem for Ebbinghaus was that he had
  memorized so many lists of nonsense syllabus that
  he experienced a strong effect from proactive
  interference.

8

• Figure 7.4
• When someone learns two similar sets of
  materials, each interferes with the other. The
  old interferes with the new by proactive
  interference the new interferes with the old by
  retroactive interference.

9
Concept Check

• You answer the telephone at your new receptionist
  job with the name of the your former employers
  firm. What kind of interference caused this
  embarrassing slip-up?

Proactive Interference
10
Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Meaningfulness
• Another feature of the pioneering work of
  Ebbinghaus is that he memorized nonsense
  syllables.
• It is clear from studies of memory that
  meaningful materials are easier to remember.
• It is also true that distinctive or unusual
  information is easier to retain.
• The tendency of people to remember unusual items
  better than more common items is called the von
  Restorff effect

11
Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Dependence of Memory on the Method of Testing
• It is possible that since Ebbinghaus required
  himself to repeat the syllables in correct order
  after memorizing them, he underestimated his
  actual retention of the information.
• How well one appears to remember something
  depends in part on how one is tested after
  learning.

12
Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Dependence of Memory on the Method of Testing
• Recall (or free recall) is the simplest method
  for the tester but the most difficult for the
  person being tested. To recall something is to
  produce it, as is done on essay and short-answer
  tests.
• Cued recall gives the person being tested
  significant hints about the correct answer. A
  fill-in-the-blank test uses this method.

13

• Table 7.1
• The Difference Between Recall and Cued Recall

14
Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Dependence of Memory on the Method of Testing
• Recognition is the method that requires the
  person being tested to identify the correct item
  from a list of several choices. Multiple-choice
  tests use the recognition method.
• The savings, or relearning method compares the
  rate at which someone relearns material as
  opposed to learning something new. The amount of
  time saved between the original learning and the
  relearning is a measure of memory.

15
Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• We are indebted to Ebbinghaus for initiating the
  scientific study of memory.
• We have also learned important facts about the
  nature of memory from his difficulties with
  interference

16
Concept Check

• The bonus question on your Introductory
  Psychology test asks you to name the stages of
  the human sleep cycle.

Recall
17

• You are on a game show and the question that you
  must answer is _________ is the city that is
  home to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the
  Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Cued Recall
18

• You answer more questions on the subject of
  molecular biology correctly on the comprehensive
  semester final than you did on the chapter test
  two months earlier.

Relearning or Savings
19

• While at a hardware store, you are looking at
  several shades of light green paint in hopes of
  repainting the walls of your home in that exact
  shade.

Recognition memory
20
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• The information-processing model of memory draws
  an analogy between a computer and the workings of
  memory in the human brain.
• According to this view, information enters the
  system, is processed and coded in various ways,
  and is then stored.

21

• Figure 7.6
• The information-processing model of memory
  resembles a computers memory system, including
  temporary and permanent memory.

22
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• The computer has a buffer a temporary storage
  place for letters that you type faster than it
  can display them.
• This is akin to our sensory memory store

23
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• The computer has RAM, or random-access memory,
  for temporary storage of information that has not
  yet been written to the hard drive. This
  information is still vulnerable to damage or
  loss.
• This is analogous to our short-term, or working
  memory.

24
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• The computer has a hard drive, in which
  information that you are writing or entering can
  be permanently stored.
• This is like our long-term memory.

25
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• The Sensory Store
• Although it is probably more accurately described
  as a combination of memory and perception, the
  sensory store is considered to be the first stage
  of memory processing.
• It is a very brief (less than a second) stage
  that registers everything that is perceived in
  the moment that we call now.

26

• Figure 7.7
• George Sperling (1960) flashed arrays like this
  on a screen for 50 milliseconds. After the
  display went off, a signal told the viewer which
  row to recite.

27
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Short-Term and Long-Term Memory
• Temporary storage of information that someone has
  just encountered is short-term memory.
• Long-term memory is a relatively permanent
  storage of mostly meaningful information.
• Reminders or hints that help us to retrieve
  information from long-term memory are referred to
  as retrieval cues.

28
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Short-Term Memory
• If a friend asks you what he or she just said,
  and you were paying attention, you could probably
  repeat their words or something close to them.
• This is because you are being asked to recall
  something from short-term memory.
• If you were not paying attention, you would not
  recall it at all. Attention is the process that
  moves information from the sensory store to
  short-term memory.

29

• Figure 7.8
• After about 1 second, you can no longer recall
  information from the sensory store. Short-term
  memories can be recalled up to about 20 seconds
  without rehearsalmuch longer if you continually
  rehearse them. Long-term memories decline
  somewhat, especially at first, but you may be
  able to retrieve them for a lifetime. Your
  address from years ago is probably in your
  long-term memory and will continue to be for the
  rest of your life.

30
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Long-Term Memory
• If your psychology instructor asks you to name
  the function of the thalamus, your first reaction
  might be to panic because you have no idea.
• The instructor says, It has something to do with
  sensory information, right?

31
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Long-Term Memory
• Then it begins to come back to you the thalamus
  is a relay and integration station for sensory
  information on its way to the cerebral cortex.
• The instructor gave you a hint that functioned as
  an effective retrieval cue. These cues can be
  generated internally or be suggested by others.

32
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Capacities of Short and Long-Term Memory
• Most normal adults can immediately repeat a list
  of about seven bits or pieces of information,
  with expected variations in range from five to
  nine items.
• This magic range of 7 /- 2 bits is a
  well-replicated finding regarding the capacity of
  short-term memory.
• It can be expanded through techniques such as
  chunking into larger, meaningful units.

33

• Figure 7.10
• We overcome the limits of short-term memory
  through chunking. You probably could not remember
  the 26-digit number in (a), but by breaking it up
  into a series of chunks, you can remember it and
  dial the number correctly.

34
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Capacities of Short and Long-Term Memory
• The capacity of long-term memory cannot easily be
  measured.
• Unlike a computer, we are not dealing with a
  physical limit of size.
• Humans are constantly dumping or removing some of
  their stored information through disuse.

35
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Decay of Short and Long-Term Memory
• Information that has been stored in long-term
  memory may be vulnerable to the aforementioned
  effects of interference, but it generally does
  not decay due to the effects of time alone.
• Information being held in short-term memory is
  vulnerable immediately to the effects of the
  passage of time.
• Forgetting tends to begin in seconds unless
  rehearsal is permitted.

36

• Figure 7.13 In a study by Peterson and Peterson
  (1959), people remembered a set of letters well
  after a short delay, but their memory faded
  greatly over 20 seconds if they were prevented
  from rehearsing during that time.

37
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Capacities of Short and Long-Term Memory
• How long one is able to hold information in
  short-term memory has little relationship to how
  well it will be stored in long-term memory.
• If the information being held in short-term
  memory is meaningful, it will be transferred
  easily to long-term memory and be less subject to
  decay.
• Up until recently, cognitive psychologists
  referred to this transfer process as
  consolidation, the formation of a long-term
  memory.

38

• Figure 7.14
• According to the original conception of the
  relationship between short-term and long-term
  memory, if a short-term memory is rehearsed long
  enough, it becomes a long-term memory without
  consolidation it is lost. This view is now
  considered oversimplified.

39
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Capacities of Short and Long-Term Memory
• It is now thought that how easily information is
  consolidated depends on its meaningfulness to the
  individual, and this idea implies that perhaps
  the division between the short and long-term
  memory stages is at least in part an artificial
  one.
• If the information is meaningful, the groundwork
  for storing that information has already been
  done.

40
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Working Memory
• Working memory is a revised concept of the
  intermediate stage between our first encounter
  with new information and its eventual storage.
• Working memory is a system for processing or
  working with current information.
• Working memory is conceptualized as having three
  major components.

41
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Working Memory
• A phonological loop that stores and rehearses
  information, similar to the 7 /- 2 idea from the
  traditional concept of short-term memory.
• A visuospatial sketchpad that stores and
  manipulates visual and spatial information.
• A central executive that governs shifts of
  attention. Good working memory is able to handle
  shifts between two or more tasks or multiple
  aspects of complex tasks.

42
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Other Memory Distinctions
• Declarative memory is the ability to state a
  fact.
• Procedural memory is the memory of how to do
  something.
• Long-term declarative memory is classified as
  either semantic (dealing with principles of
  knowledge) or episodic (containing events and
  details of life history.)
• Your memory of a recent piano lesson is
  declarative and episodic your memory of how to
  read music is semantic your memory of how to
  play the piano is procedural.

43
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Other Memory Distinctions
• A normal type of forgetting is source amnesia.
• This involves a combination of episodic and
  semantic memory. We remember a statement or
  knowledge related (semantic) fact but we forget
  the context in which we learned it.

44
The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Other Memory Distinctions
• The context in which one learns information is
  episodic.
• It can be inferred from the occurrence of this
  phenomenon that episodic memory is more fragile
  than semantic knowledge.

45
Varieties of Memory

• Although there is still much disagreement about
  the nature of memory, there is general agreement
  that memory is not a single store into which we
  dump the sum of our knowledge and experiences.

46
Varieties of Memory

• Memory is a complex combination of many
  processes, and its properties depend on a number
  of factors
• The type of material memorized
• The individuals experience with similar
  materials
• The method of testing
• The length of time since the material was
  encountered

47
Module 7.2

• Memory Improvement

48
Memory Improvement

• To improve memory, one must improve the
  strategies used to originally store the material.

49
The Influence of Emotional Arousal

• It is well understood that the greater the
  emotional arousal associated with an event, the
  greater the likelihood that the event will be
  remembered.
• Although the event itself may be remembered, the
  emotion associated with the event does not
  guarantee the formation of an accurate memory for
  the details of the event.

50
The Influence of Emotional Arousal

• During stressful or emotional events, the
  sympathetic nervous system works to boost
  production of the hormones cortisol and
  adrenaline.
• This is usually accompanied by increase
  stimulation of the amygdala.
• The net effect of these processes is to enhance
  memory storage of information associated with
  emotional or stressful events.

51
Concept Check

• A Vietnam War Veteran who was involved in several
  very intense and violent campaigns has been
  medically monitored for years. He has lower the
  normal level of cortisol. How would this affect
  his memory?

He should report frequent memory lapses.
52
Meaningful Storage and Levels of Processing

• The levels-of-processing principle
• The levels-of-processing principle states that
  the ease with which we can retrieve a memory
  depends on the number and types of associations
  that we form with that memory
• The more ways in which you think about the
  material, the deeper your processing will be and
  the more easily you will remember the material
  later.

53

• Table 7.3
• Levels-of-Processing Model of Memory

54
Meaningful Storage and Levels of Processing

• The levels-of-processing principle
• Ways to think about the material would include
  asking questions such as
• Can I think of similar concepts in another
  subject area?
• How do these apply to me?
• What experiences do I have that are related to
  this information?

55
Meaningful Storage and Levels of Processing

• The levels-of-processing principle
• To improve your level-of-processing
• Think about each individual item in a set that
  you are trying to learn.
• See if you can determine whether or not
  relationships exist among the items.

56
Meaningful Storage and Levels of Processing

• The levels-of-processing principle
• The levels of processing are
• Superficial processing simply repeating the
  material that you are trying to memorize.
• Deeper processing think about each item or
  parts of the material individually.
• Still deeper processing note the associations
  between the items or parts of the material.

57
Concept Check

• Who do you think tends to get better grades in a
  course, students who read the book quickly or
  those who read the book slowly?

The slow pokes
58

• How would level-of-processing be useful to
  aspiring actors?

It would help them memorize their lines more
effectively.
59
Timing of Study Sessions

• The Serial-Order Effect
• The serial-order effect states that we tend to
  remember the beginning and end of a list better
  than the middle.
• The primacy effect is the tendency to remember
  the beginning.
• It is partly due to the lack of proactive
  interference while you rehearse the first few
  items.
• The recency effect is the tendency to remember
  the end.
• The last few items are not subject to as much
  retroactive interference.

60
Timing of Study Sessions

• Because of these effects, the best strategy for
  anyone who needs to learn a lot of material is to
  space out the study sessions
• Study the material
• Wait for awhile
• Return to the material and test yourself on it

61
Timing of Study Sessions

• The SPAR method
• If you want to remember something for the
  long-term, study and review it under varying
  conditions with substantial intervals between
  sessions
• One systematic way to accomplish this is to use
  the SPAR method.

62
Timing of Study Sessions

• The SPAR method
• Survey get an overview of the material.
• Process meaningfully read the material
  carefully and think about how it relates to your
  other knowledge and experiences.
• Ask questions use the review questions included
  with the material, or create your own and answer
  them.
• Review wait a day or so, and retest yourself.

63
Concept Check

• In order to ace your comprehensive Introductory
  Psychology final exam, should you immediately
  review this chapter, or should you schedule some
  review of the first two or three chapters?

Start reviewing the earlier material
64
Use of Special Coding Strategies

• Retrieval Cues
• Retrieval cues are bits of associated information
  that help you to regain complex memories for
  later use. Many factors associated with learning
  can act as retrieval cues.
• The encoding specificity principle states that
  the associations formed at the time of learning
  are typically the most effective retrieval cues.
• State-dependent memory is our tendency to
  remember something better if your physical
  condition is the same at the time of recall as it
  was at the time of learning.

65

• Figure 7.16
• According to the principle of encoding
  specificity, the way we code a word during
  original learning determines which cues will
  remind us of that word later. For example, when
  you hear the word queen, you may think of that
  word in any of several ways. If you think of
  queen bee, then the cue playing card will not
  remind you of it later. If you think of the queen
  of England, then chess piece will not be a good
  reminder.

66

• Table 7.4a

67
Table 7.b
68
Use of Special Coding Strategies

• Mnemonic Devices
• A mnemonic device is any memory aid that is based
  on encoding each item in a special way. There are
  many types of mnemonic devices.
• The method of loci involves memorizing a series
  of places. Using a vivid image, you associate
  each of these locations with something you want
  to remember.
• The peg method involves memorizing a list of
  objects (pegs) and forming mental images to
  link the information that you wish to memorize
  using these pegs.

69

• Figure 7.17
• A simple mnemonic device is to think of a short
  story or image that will remind you of what you
  need to remember. Here you might think of images
  to help remember functions of different brain
  areas.

70

• Figure 7.19 The method of loci is one of the
  oldest mnemonic devices. First, learn a list of
  places, such as my desk, the door of my room,
  the corridor, . . . Then link each of these
  places to the items on a list of words or names,
  such as a list of the names of Nobel Peace Prize
  winners.

71
Improving Our Memory

• We refer to our memories as stored and
  retrieved as if they were items on a shelf in a
  warehouse. But this analogy is only partially
  useful.
• The more you know about a topic, the more
  interested you are in it, the easier it is to
  establish and retain new information related to
  the topic.

72
Module 7.3

• Memory Loss

73
Normal Forgetting

• There are many plausible reasons to account for
  the forgetting of information
• Interference
• Decay the memory is subject to the combined
  effects of time and interference
• Loss of retrieval cues
• Source amnesia

74
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Amnesia is a severe loss or deterioration of
  memory.
• We can learn a lot about the different forms of
  memory by studying these cases.

75
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• H.M.
• In 1953, H.M. had his hippocampus and
  surrounding areas of the temporal lobes removed
  to control his intractable seizures.
• Although his seizures did decrease dramatically,
  he experienced such dramatic memory impairment
  that such a surgery would never be attempted
  again.

76

• Figure 7.20 (a) The hippocampus is a large
  subcortical structure of the brain.

77
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• H.M.
• He experienced massive anterograde amnesia. He
  was unable to store any new memories. (It was
  1953 for the rest of his life.)
• He had moderate retrograde amnesia. He could not
  remember many events that occurred between 1 and
  3 years before his surgery.
• He did retain normal short-term memory functions.
• His procedural memory was retained intact.

78

• Figure 7.21
• Retrograde amnesia is loss of memory for events
  in a certain period before brain damage or
  another trauma. Anterograde amnesia is difficulty
  forming new memories after some trauma.

79

• Figure 7.22
• In the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, the task is to
  transfer all the disks to another peg, while
  moving only one at a time and never placing a
  larger disk onto a smaller disk. Patient H. M.
  learned the correct strategy and retained it from
  one test period to another, although he did not
  remember ever seeing the task before. That is, he
  showed procedural memory but not declarative
  memory.

80
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• H.M.
• What has been learned about the hippocampus from
  H.M.s tragic story?
• All things being equal, the more difficult a
  memory task is, the more it depends on the proper
  functioning of the hippocampus.
• The hippocampus is important for remembering
  details.

81
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Frontal-Lobe Damage
• The frontal lobes receive a great deal of input
  from hippocampus. Damage to the frontal lobes
  causes some problems that are similar to
  hippocampal damage, and some unique problems as
  well.
• Frontal lobe damage can occur as a result of
  stroke, head trauma, or Korsakoffs syndrome, a
  dementia that results from a deficiency of
  vitamin B1, brought on by chronic alcoholism.

82
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Frontal-Lobe Damage
• The deficiency leads to loss and shrinkage of
  neurons in many parts of the brain, especially
  the thalamus and prefrontal cortex.
• Multiple impairments of memory can result from
  this deterioration.

83
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Frontal-Lobe Damage
• Typical symptoms of Korsakoffs syndrome include
  
• Apathy
• Confusion
• Retrograde amnesia usually dating back to about
  15 years before the onset of the syndrome
• Anterograde amnesia
• Confabulation wild guessing mixed in with
  correct information, generated in an effort to
  hide gaps in memory.

84
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Implicit Memory in Amnesiac Patients
• Recall these two divisions of long-term memory
• Explicit memory involves the recall of knowledge
  and events in which a person deliberately
  retrieves the answer and recognizes it as a
  correct one.
• Your instructor asks you to name two
  psychologists associated with the principles of
  operant conditioning.

85
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Implicit Memory in Amnesiac Patients
• Implicit memory does not require recognition.
  The recall of activities stored in implicit
  memory seems effortless and unconscious.
• You drive your car to school everyday but dont
  remember any details of the activities associated
  with driving.

86

• Table 7.5
• Several Ways to Test Memory

87
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Implicit Memory in Amnesiac Patients
• Amnesiac patients such as H.M. show normal
  ability to use and store new implicit memory, but
  have impaired functioning of the factual memory
  activities of explicit memory.

88
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Implicit Memory in Amnesiac Patients
• NOR____
• DET____
• COR____
• FRO____
• Complete the words listed above.

89
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Implicit Memory in Amnesiac Patients
• If you wrote any of the following normal,
  detail, correct or cortex, frontal, there is a
  good chance that you were recalling words that
  appeared in the slides that preceded the task. It
  will be easy for you to remember this now that
  you know what happened.
• Amnesiac patients will perform similarly on this
  task called priming they will complete the
  words in a similar manner, but they will never
  remember having read them previously.

90
Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Implicit Memory in Amnesic Patients
• It is not uncommon for such a patient to learn a
  video game or other procedural task perfectly.
  However, the patient will never remember the
  event of being taught the game, or any individual
  session of playing it, even if that patient
  becomes highly skilled at the actual playing!

91
Concept Check

• You have learned to play the guitar. What type of
  memory is involved in playing a song for your
  friends?

Implicit memory
92

• You play guitar at a party for your friends.
  Later you remember the good time you had playing
  for them. What type of memory is involved in
  remembering this?

Explicit memory
93

• Which of the following is an example of implicit
  memory?
• a. There is a soap opera on TV at home. You
  dont get to watch it often, so you can never
  tell your friends the names of the characters.
  Two days later you are watching a late night TV
  program and you recognize one of the leading men
  as a guest.
• b. You are sitting behind a couple at the movies
  who are having an animated discussion about
  skydiving. You are not paying attention to the
  content of their discussion. Later you
  spontaneously comment to your friends about how
  much fun it would be to learn to skydive.

b is implicit memory
94

• What kinds of memory are most impaired in frontal
  lobe dementia patients and patients like H.M.?
  What kinds are least impaired?

Declarative or explicit memories are most
impaired. Procedural or implicit memories are
least impaired.
95
Infant Amnesia

• Few people can remember events earlier than age 5
  or 6. Though children younger than this can
  describe earlier events in their own lives, these
  memories tend to fade.
• The scarcity of early declarative memory is
  called infant amnesia or childhood amnesia. Why
  does this happen?

96
Infant Amnesia

• Freud believed that this was a result of
  repression due to the emotional traumas of
  infancy. He offered no evidence for this theory.
• Some cognitive psychologists believe that this is
  because early memories are nonverbal and later
  memories are verbal.
• A biological explanation is that the hippocampus
  is not fully developed and doesnt store memories
  as completely.

97
Infant Amnesia

• Another cognitive explanation is that lasting
  memories require a sense of self, and this
  typically doesnt develop until between 3 and 4
  years of age.
• The theory of encoding specificity suggests that
  our retrieval cues in later life may not be
  adequate to recall early memories.
• We are still trying to understand why these
  memories are not accessible.

98
Amnesia of Old Age

• Some older people suffer from Alzheimers and
  other dementias that impair attention and memory.
• Up until recently, scientists have typically
  overstated the vulnerability of healthy older
  people to memory loss.

99
Amnesia of Old Age

• Most healthy people show little decline of memory
  in old age
• Older adults show mild deficits on simple memory
  tasks.
• Older adults show greater deficits on more
  complex tasks.
• The attentional aspects of their working memory
  appear to be weaker older adults have more
  difficulty handling two tasks at once.

100
Amnesia of Old Age

• People would like to know how to increase the
  chance of having good memory function later in
  life.
• A healthy lifestyle with regular exercise, good
  diet and limited use of alcohol.
• An intellectually stimulating life may be related
  to good memory function as well.

101
Why do we forget?

• Catastrophic loss of memory can only result from
  brain damage or disease.
• Normal forgetting is a product of mechanisms
  that are usually adaptive.
• It is probably true that remembering everything
  that happened would be overwhelming and
  debilitating for human beings.

102
Module 7.4

• Memory as Reconstruction

103
Reconstructing Past Events

• When you try to remember an event, you usually
  start with details you remember clearly, and fill
  in the gaps.
• This is the process of reconstruction. During an
  event, we construct a memory. When we try to
  retrieve the memory, we reconstruct an account
  based partly on surviving memories and partly on
  expectations of what must have happened.

104
Reconstructing Past Events

• Your memory for activities that are routine
  your breakfast, lunch or dinner for example
  from the past week can be reconstructed with
  little effort. But these will fade rapidly
  unless something unusual happened.

105
Reconstructing Past Events

• If your family all got sick after one meal, you
  will probably remember that meal in better detail
  for much longer than is usual.
• If you met a new love interest when you were out
  to dinner with friends, this event will also be
  more memorable and easily reconstructed.
• However, you may fill in missing details with
  typical activities associated in your memory with
  routine meals at home or dining out.

106
Reconstructing Past Events

• We will add words to lists that weve heard or
  read depending on what content we believe would
  have been on the list, based on its apparent
  theme.
• The less certain of our memories that we are, the
  more we will rely on our expectations.

107

• Figure 7.25
• People who followed the news and regularly
  watched the television program 60 Minutes could
  estimate the time of various news events but
  guessed almost randomly about when they saw
  various 60 Minutes episodes, except those from
  the most recent 2 months. (From Friedman
  Huttenlocher, 1997)

108
Reconstructing Past Events

• Hindsight bias
• Hindsight bias is the tendency to mold our
  recollection of the past to how events later
  turned out.
• We say I knew that was going to happen! after
  the event has occurred.
• Our memories are tailored as we reconstruct the
  event to fit that outcome.

109

• Figure 7.26
• Mean estimates of the likelihood of four outcomes
  varied depending on what each group was told
  about the actual outcome. Those who thought the
  British had won said that under the circumstances
  the British had a very high probability of
  victory. Those who thought the Gurkas had won
  said that was the most likely outcome under the
  circumstances, and so forth. (Based on data of
  Fischhoff, 1975)

110
Reconstructing Past Events

• The False Memory Controversy
• Reports of long-lost memories, prompted by
  clinical techniques, are known as recovered
  memories. Often these are memories of abuse that
  took place in early childhood.
• There have been examples of accurate and
  inaccurate memories constructed through clinical
  techniques.
• Psychological researchers want to know if it is
  likely that people will forget abusive
  experiences.

111
Reconstructing Past Events

• Memory for Traumatic Events
• Sigmund Freud believed that it was possible to
  repress a painful memory, motivation or emotion,
  to move it from the conscious to the unconscious
  mind.
• This idea is not well supported in research on
  memory and forgetting.

112
Reconstructing Past Events

• Memory for Traumatic Events
• Research indicates that it is possible to forget
  a traumatic event, but whether this happens
  depends on a number of factors age at the time
  of the event, reaction of family, and type of
  event.
• Most people do not forget traumatic events if
  they happen later than age 3.

113
Reconstructing Past Events

• Memory for Traumatic Events
• Whether this happens because of repression or
  normal forgetting is unclear. People forget many
  pleasant and joyful events from early childhood
  as well.
• Repression of traumatic events does not fit well
  with our understanding of the biological process
  of storing memory.
• Emotional stimulation releases cortisol and the
  net effect is to improve the storage of memory.

114
Reconstructing Past Events

• Suggestion and False Memory
• A false memory is a report that an individual
  believes to be a memory but that does not
  correspond to actual events.
• Various studies have shown that it is possible by
  suggestion to implant memories for events that
  did not occur.
• About a quarter of subjects in several studies
  were convinced that they had been lost as
  children after a researcher suggested it to them.

115
Reconstructing Past Events

• Suggestion and False Memory
• Plausible events were more likely to be
  remembered, and the memories were somewhat vague,
  but these results were achieved after a single,
  brief suggestion.
• Similarly, memory for details after watching a
  videotaped event can be altered or distorted by
  the use of leading questions.

116
Reconstructing Past Events

• Children as Eyewitnesses
• Research with children can be ethically difficult
  because of their vulnerability.
• We know that children forget rapidly and
  sometimes confuse fantasy and reality. Sometimes
  children witness crimes or other events about
  which we need information.
• How do we work with children to tap their
  memories accurately? Can we do this?

117
Reconstructing Past Events

• Children as Eyewitnesses
• Under proper conditions, children as young as
  three are able to make accurate reports of events
  that they have witnessed.
• Young children can answer specific questions
  accurately.
• If there is a delay between the event and the
  questioning, a child is more likely to give
  incorrect information.
• If the question is not understandable, the child
  may give incorrect information.

118
Reconstructing Past Events

• Children as Eyewitnesses
• Repetition of the question in the same interview
  session may yield two different answers.
• Repetition of the question between spaced
  interview sessions may help the child remember
  better, which is important in court testimony.
• Dolls and props may seem like helpful tools, but
  actually do not increase the accuracy of a
  childs recall or testimony.

119
Reconstructing Past Events

• Children as Eyewitnesses
• The most effective strategies in interviewing
  young children are
• Use of simple questions
• Maintenance of a non-threatening atmosphere
  during the interview
• Avoidance of suggestions or pressure
• Schedule the interview as soon as is reasonable
  after the event

120
True, False, Maybe

• Memories may or may not be reliable.
• There is much evidence of forgetting and
  distortion. We use adaptive strategies for
  filling in the gaps reason and logic.
• It is prudent to always consider the possibility
  that a seemingly clear memory is distorted or
  false.