Chapter 9 Memory pt. 3:
Motivated Forgetting and
Memory Reconstruction
Warm Up-page 10
1.
2.
3.
Which is easier recall or recognition?
Why?
What are the 7 sins of memory?
How do proactive interference and
retroactive interference differ?
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/g
wells/homepage.htm
Motivated Forgetting
Motivated
Forgetting is the idea
that people unknowingly revise
their history.
What purpose might motivated
forgetting serve?
Motivated Forgetting
 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.
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
pre-existing schemas and involve
information filtering and interpretations.
Memory Construction
Depiction of actual accident
Leading question:
 Eyewitnesses
reconstruct
memories
when
questioned
“About how fast were the cars
going when they smashed into
each other?”
Memory
constructio
n
Memory Construction Affected
By:
 Misinformation Effect: incorporating
misleading information into one's
memory of an event
Coke
Vs. Peanuts
Challenger
Imagined events are more familiar,
and familiar things are more real
Memory Construction
Affected By:
 Source Amnesia: attributing to
the wrong source an event that
we experienced, heard about,
read about, or imagined
(misattribution)
 Reagan
and the movie, A Wing and
a Prayer
Memory Construction Overview
People fill in memory gaps with plausible
guesses and assumptions
 Imagining events can create false memories
 Persistence and confidence does not mean
accuracy
 Children's eyewitness recall
 Child sexual abuse does occur
 Some innocent people suffer false
accusations
 Some guilty cast doubt on true testimony

 Children
are fairly accurate when their
memories are not tampered with
Memory Construction
 Roediger
Study
and McDermott Brain
False
and true memories registered in
the hippocampus
True memories only registered in the
left Temporal Lobe
 Processes
speech sounds
Memory Construction and Abuse
 Memories
of Abuse
 Repressed or Constructed?
Child sexual abuse does occur
Some adults do actually forget
such episodes
Recovered
memories are
common
Memories before age 3 are
unreliable
Infantile amnesia
Memory Construction and
Abuse
 False
Memory Syndrome
 condition in which a person’s
identity and relationships center
around a false but strongly believed
memory of traumatic experience
 sometimes induced by wellmeaning therapists
How Can Chapter 9 Concepts
Help You Study
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2.
3.
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6.
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8.
Study repeatedly
Rehearse
Make it meaningful
Use mnemonics
Use retrieval Codes
Recall before interference takes place
Minimize interference
Test Yourself