Invitation To Psychology
Carol Wade and Carol Tavris
PowerPoint Presentation by
H. Lynn Bradman
Metropolitan Community College-Omaha
Wade and Tavris © 2005
Prentice Hall
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Memory
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Prentice Hall
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Memory
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Reconstructing the Past
Memory and the Power of Suggestion
In Pursuit of Memory
The Three-Box Model of Memory
How We Remember
Why We Forget
Autobiographical Memories
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Reconstructing the Past
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Reconstructing the Past
• The Manufacture of Memory
• The Fading Flashbulb
• The Conditions of Confabulation
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The Manufacture of Memory
• Memory is selective.
• Recovering a memory is not playing a
videotape
– Memory involves inferences that fill in gaps
in recall.
– We are often unaware we have made such
inferences.
• Source Amnesia: The inability to distinguish
what you originally experienced from what you
heard or were told later about an event.
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The Fading Flashbulb
• Even flashbulb memories, emotionally
powerful memories that seem
particularly vivid, are often embellished
or distorted and tend to become less
accurate over time.
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The Conditions of
Confabulation
• Confabulation: Confusion of an event that happened to
someone else with one that happened to you, or a belief
that you remember something when it never actually
happened.
• Confabulation is most likely when:
– you have thought about the event many times;
– the image of the event contains many details;
– the event is easy to imagine;
– you focus on emotional reactions to the event rather
than what actually happened.
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Memory and the Power of
Suggestion
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Memory and the Power of
Suggestion
• The Eyewitness on Trial
• Children’s Testimony
• Memory Under Hypnosis
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The Eyewitness on Trial
• The reconstructive nature of memory makes
memory vulnerable to suggestion.
• Eyewitness testimony is especially vulnerable to
error when:
– the suspects ethnicity differs from that of the
witness;
– when leading questions are put to witnesses;
– when the witnesses are given misleading
information.
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Misleading Information Study
• Misleading information from other
sources can alter what witnesses
report.
• Students were shown a picture of a
man with straight hair, but heard a
description that mentioned curly
hair.
• When the students were asked to
reconstruct the face, a third added
curly hair.
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Children’s Testimony
• If asked if a visitor
committed acts that had
not occurred, few 4-6
year olds said yes.
– 30% of 3-year olds
said yes
• When investigators used
techniques taken from
real child-abuse
investigations, most
children said yes.
Social Pressure, False Allegations
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Memory Under Hypnosis
• Hypnosis: A procedure in which the practitioner
suggests changes in sensations, perceptions,
thoughts, feelings, or behavior of the subject,
who cooperates by altering his or her normal
cognitive functioning.
• Errors and pseudomemories are so common
under hypnosis that the APA opposes use of
hypnosis-based testimony in courts of law; few
courts allow it.
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In Pursuit of Memory
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In Pursuit of Memory
• Measuring Memory
• Models of Memory
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Measuring Memory
• Explicit Memory: Conscious, intentional
recollection of an event or of an item of
information.
• Implicit Memory: Unconscious retention
in memory, as evidenced by the effect of
a previous experience or previously
encountered information on current
thoughts or actions.
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Explicit Memory
• Recall: The ability to retrieve and
reproduce from memory previously
encountered material.
• Recognition: The ability to identify
previously encountered material.
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Implicit Memory
• Priming: A method for measuring implicit
memory in which a person reads or listens to
information and is later tested to see whether
the information affects performance on another
type of task.
• Relearning: A method for measuring retention
that compares the time required to relearn
material with the time used in the initial
learning of the material.
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The Three-Box Model
of Memory
Sensory Memory: Fleeting Impressions
Short-term Memory: Memory’s Scratch Pad
Long-term Memory: Final Destination
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Three-Box Model of Memory
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Sensory Memory:
Fleeting Impressions
• Sensory Memory: A memory system that
momentarily preserves extremely
accurate images of sensory information.
• Pattern Recognition: The identification of
a stimulus on the basis of information
already contained in long-term memory.
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Short-term Memory:
Memory’s Scratch Pad
• Short-Term Memory (STM): In the three-box
model of memory, a limited capacity memory
system involved in the retention of information
for brief periods; it is also used to hold
information retrieved from long-term memory
for temporary use.
• Chunk: A meaningful unit of information; it
may be composed of smaller units.
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The Value of Chunking
• You have 5 seconds
to memorize as much
as you can
• Then, draw an empty
chess board and
reproduce the
arrangement of
pieces
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Long-term Memory:
Final Destination
• Procedural memories:
– Memories for
performance of actions
or skills.
– “Knowing how”
• Declarative memories:
– Memories of facts, rules,
concepts, and events;
includes semantic and
episodic memory.
– “Knowing that”
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Long-term Memory:
Final Destination
• Semantic memories:
– General knowledge,
including facts, rules,
concepts, and
propositions.
• Episodic memories:
– Personally experienced
events and the contexts
in which they occurred.
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Conceptual Grid
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Serial-Position Effect
• The tendency for
recall of first and last
items on a list to
surpass recall of
items in the middle
of the list.
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How We Remember
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How We Remember
• Effective Encoding
• Rehearsal
• Mnemonics
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Encoding
• In order to remember
material well, we
must encode it
accurately in the first
place.
• Some kinds of
information, such as
material in a college
course, require
effortful, as opposed
to automatic,
encoding.
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Rehearsal
• Rehearsal of information keeps it in
short-term memory and increases the
chances of long-term retention.
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Rehearsal
• Maintenance Rehearsal: Rote repetition
of material in order to maintain its
availability in memory.
• Elaborative Rehearsal: Association of
new information with already stored
knowledge and analysis of the new
information to make it memorable.
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Mnemonics
• Mnemonics can also enhance retention
by promoting elaborative encoding and
making material meaningful.
• However, for ordinary memory tasks,
complex memory tricks are often
ineffective or even counterproductive.
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Why We Forget
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Why We Forget
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Decay
Interference
Cue-dependent Forgetting
Psychogenic Amnesia
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Decay
• Decay Theory: The theory that
information in memory eventually
disappears if it is not accessed; it applies
more to short-term than to long-term
memory.
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Forgetting Curve
• Herman Ebbinghaus
tested his own
memory for nonsense
syllables.
• Forgetting was rapid
at first and then
tapered off.
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Remembering Over Years
• Marigold Linton tested her
own memory for personal
events over a period of
several years.
• Retention fell at a gradual
but steady rate.
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Interference
• Retroactive Interference:
Forgetting that occurs
when recently learned
material interferes with
the ability to remember
similar material stored
previously.
• Proactive Interference:
Forgetting that occurs
when previously stored
material interferes with
the ability to remember
similar, more recently
learned material.
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Cue-dependent Forgetting
• Cue-Dependent Forgetting: The inability
to retrieve information stored in memory
because of insufficient cues for recall.
• State-Dependent Memory: The tendency
to remember something when the
rememberer is in the same physical or
mental state as during the original
learning or experience.
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Psychogenic Amnesia
• The partial or complete loss of memory
(due to non-organic causes) for
threatening information or traumatic
experiences.
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Autobiographical Memories
Childhood Amnesia: The Missing Years
Memory and Narrative: The Stories of
Our Lives
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Childhood Amnesia:
The Missing Years
• Childhood Amnesia: The inability to remember
events and experiences that occurred during
the first two or three years of life.
• Cognitive explanations:
– Lack of sense of self
– Impoverished encoding
– A focus on the routine
– Different ways of thinking about the world
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Memory and Narrative: The
Stories of Our Lives
• A person's narrative 'life story' organizes the
events of his or her life and gives them
meaning.
• Narratives change as people build up a store of
episodic memories, and life stories are, to some
degree, works of interpretation and
imagination.
• The central themes of our stories can guide
recall and influence our judgments of people
and events.
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