Are You A Good Eyewitness?
Picking Cotton Activity
Are you a Good Eyewitness
Picking Cotton on 60 Minutes
Forgetting

1.
2.
3.
Forgetting is a result of
either:
Encoding Failure
Storage Decay OR
Retrieval Failure
Forgetting As Encoding Failure
 Information
never enters the memory
system
 Attention is selective
 we cannot attend to everything in
our environment
 William James said that we would be as
bad off if we remembered everything as
we would be if we remembered nothing
Encoding Failure: Which Penny is the
Real Deal?

Forgetting As Storage Decay

Ebbinghaus’s study concluded that
forgetting occurs rapidly at first and then
levels off over time. His famous forgetting
curve is below.
Forgetting As Interference

Learning some items may disrupt retrieval of
other information
 Proactive(forward
acting) Interference
disruptive effect of prior learning on recall
of new information
 Retroactive (backwards acting)
Interference
disruptive effect of new learning on recall
of old information
Self Quiz: Retroactive or Proactive?
 Time
Warner cable changes the channel
numbers on your TV and you keep
clicking the old channel numbers when
trying to turn the channels instead of new
ones.
Self Quiz: Retroactive or Proactive?
 Get
a new cell phone number and
your old one keeps getting in the way
of you remembering your new one.
Self Quiz: Retroactive or Proactive?
 Teacher
learning names of current
students makes them forget the
names of last years’ students.
Self Quiz: Retroactive or Proactive?
 Keep
putting in locker combination
from last year when trying to open
this year’s locker?
Self Quiz: Retroactive or Proactive?
 You
were an expert skier but after learning
to snowboard, you have had trouble
getting used to skiing again.
Self Quiz: Retroactive or Proactive?
 Mom
reorganizes kitchen and you look for
a plate in the place it used to be.
Revisiting Terms: Retrieval
Failure
 Tip
of the Tongue phenomenon: when
we are certain we know something yet we
are unable to recall it.
 Relates to retrieval failure, usually priming
or external cues will help you recall the
information you are looking for.
I
am going to show you a list of words.
 Your
task is to memorize the list.
 When
I am finished I will ask you to
recall the words by writing them down
on a half sheet of paper.
Bed
Clock
Dream
Night
Turn
Doze
Mattress
Snooze
Nod
Tired
Night
Artichoke
Insomnia
Rest
Toss
Night
Yawn
Alarm
Nap
Snore
Pillow
Remember as many words
as you can. Write them
down on your half sheet of
paper.
Recall as many words as you can.
Primacy effect
Von Restorff Effect
(Distinctiveness)
Recency effect
Semantic Organization
Repetition /Rehearsal
1.
Bed
8.
Snooze
15. Toss
2.
Clock
9.
Nod
16. Night
3.
Dream
10. Tired
17. Yawn
4.
Night
11. Night
18. Alarm
5.
Turn
12. Artichoke
19. Nap
6.
Doze
13. Insomnia
20. Snore
7.
Mattress
14. Rest
21. Pillow
Did you remember the word sleep?
FALSE MEMORY!!!!
Motivated Forgetting
 Motivated Forgetting is the idea that
people unknowingly revise their
history. Ex: I broke up with her; she
didn’t break up with me.
 What purpose might motivated
forgetting serve?
Motivated Forgetting As A Freudian
Concept

Repression: idea put forth by
psychoanalytic theorists like
Freud which states anxiety
arousing thoughts, feelings, and
memories can be banished from
consciousness.

Ex: child abuse, rape, incest
may be repressed and not be
able to be actively recalled.
Freud believed Repression was a
Defense Mechanism

Freud argued individuals often “forgot”
traumatic incidents to protect their self concepts
and to minimize external anxiety.

Freud argued “Forgotten” incidents are
banished the “unconscious.”

The incidents may cause you to have
unexplained phobias or problems, that won’t be
helped until you uncover the incident.
Repression and Controversy of Child
Abuse

In the late 1980’s a book came out called “The
Courage to Heal” which encouraged people to
recover memories of abuse.

Following the book, “Recover Memory
Therapists” arose in great numbers and many
people began reporting incidents of
“repressed” abuse.

Sometimes “repressed memories” were used
as evidence against individuals in court cases.
Controversy of Repressed Memories

Although there have been documented cases
of forgotten trauma, many psychologists
argued that some repressed memories may
have been constructed by therapists.

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation:
argues it is possible for individual’s
relationships to center around a false belief.

Some psychologists have argued against the
very existence of repressed memories since
most memories that take place during
stressful events are remembered more vividly.
Defining Memory Construction

Memory Construction refers to the idea that
memories are NOT objective recordings of the
actual events we experience.

Our memories are often affected by our preexisting schemas and involve information
filtering and interpretations.

We can have real memories of events that
never took place or that are filled with
inaccuracy because we fill in memory gaps with
plausible guesses.
Elizabeth Loftus’ Research on
Eyewitness Testimony
Depiction of actual accident
Memory
construction
 Loftus
had
individuals
watch car
accidents and
then recorded
results based
on questioning
procedures.
Loftus’s Research
Subjects were asked to reveal how fast they
thought the cars were going.
 Question consisted of “How fast were the cars
going when they _______________ each other.
 Loftus filled in the blanks with different words
including: bumped, collided, contacted, hit, or
smash.
 Speed was elevated to great degree when
“smashed” was used as key verb and subjects
were likely to remember broken glass when
there was none.

Loftus Videos
The Bunny Effect
 Lost in a Mall

Misinformation Effect and Memory
Construction
 Misinformation
Effect:
incorporating misleading
information into one's
memory of an event.
 Children are most
susceptible to the
misinformation effect.
Memory Construction Continued

Source Amnesia:
attributing to the wrong
source an event that we
experienced, heard about,
read about, or imagined
(misattribution)
 Ex:
Reagan’s story about
WWII gunner was actually
from a movie he saw.
Memory Construction Overview

People fill in memory gaps with plausible
guesses and assumptions

Imagining events can create false memories

Children's eyewitness recall
 Child sexual abuse does occur
 Some innocent people suffer false
accusations
 Some guilty cast doubt on true testimony
Random Memory Info: Would You Want
Photographic Memory?
The technical term for photographic memory is
eidetic imagery: which refers to an especially
clear and persistent form of memory that is
quite rare.
 Examples Include:

 Being
able to re-read a book in your mind after
having read it once.
 Mental images appear “outside” and can last up to
several minutes.
Random Memory Info
Levels of Processing Theory: the
explanation for the fact that information that is
more thoroughly connected to meaningful items
in long-term memory (more “deeply
processed”) will be remembered better.
 Ex: Learn new information best when you are
able relate new terms to what you already
know. Encoding for meaning also causes the
“deepest” processing. I.E. “Bear Experiment”

Review: How Can Chapter 9
Concepts Help You Study?