Lecture 22 - Reconstructive Memory in the Real World

Question 1

real world memory

Answer 1

real world context outside the lab with more importance on what your remembering and the accuracy

Question 2

Eyewitness testimony is a type of

Answer 2

episodic memory

Question 3

misinformation effect

Answer 3

how episodic memory can be affected when you’re integrating incorrect info

Question 4

flashbulb

Answer 4

things you feel are very accurate and “burned into your memory”

Question 5

Which of the following best describes the relationship

between schemas and scripts:

Answer 5

Schemas are less structured than scripts and provide general information about a type of event.

contain many slots for values to be entered for a particular type of event

Question 6

A schema is a….

Answer 6

….a general knowledge structure used for

understanding complex situations.

Question 7

A schema is general for a ____ of situation, and helps give

______ to an specific event.

Answer 7

type

organizational structure

Question 8

Schemas are more than a bunch of facts –

Answer 8

– they are structured to include the relationships between facts

Question 9

scripts

Answer 9

much more detail

specific order of events within a schema

gives you causal (order) links: tells you how to move onto the next step in the script

Question 10

Last time: Problems with schemas/scripts

Just as we use schemas to understand (encode) events, we
also use them later during recall.

Answer 10

• Source monitoring
• Sometimes we use stereotypes (a schema for a person) to reconstruct a memory.

• This can be very useful – as with all schemas you don’t need to
recall every detail, but can fill-in with defaults.

• However, this can (and does) lead to many errors.

Question 11

source monitoring

Answer 11

when you try to ID where did that memory come from: is that what happened last time or the time before that? what is the source of the specific memory that has popped into my head?

is the process of determining the origin of some memory or belief.

Question 12

stereotypes

Answer 12

systematic errors based on previous episodic info

Question 13

source monitoring error.

Answer 13

When we attribute a remembered item to the wrong source

memory that popped into your head isn’t from last week it’s from 2 weeks ago

Question 14

Marsh, Cook, & Hicks (2006) examined the
role of gender stereotypes on source
attributions.

Answer 14

• Subjects read statements (e.g. “I like
baseball.” or “I designed a center piece.”), that
were attributed to one of two people: Chris or
Pat.

• Sentences were masculine, feminine, or neutral.

• Subjects were given a puzzle (delay) and later
told the gender of the people (Chris is a
heterosexual male, Pat is a heterosexual
female).

• They then re-read the statements, and asked
the source (who had said them).

• People were more accurate when the
statements matched the stereotypes for masculine or feminine (schemas).
     => 83% of masculine statements were
correctly attributed to the male name,
but only 65% were correctly attributed
to the female name.

Question 15

Reconstructive memory

When recalling an event, we sometimes…

Answer 15

…. add elements that were not originally present.

Question 16

• The more complex the original event (i.e. the more it taxed short-term or working memory during encoding), the greater
the…

Answer 16

…. difficulty in recalling exact information.

fill them with a default or something plausable

Question 17

what determines adding not originally present elements?

Answer 17

• The more complex the original event (i.e. the more it taxed short-term or working memory during encoding), the greater the difficulty in recalling exact information.
• If you later use a cue to probe part of a memory, you may rely on default values when you can’t remember precise detail.
• This use of what was likely, given the schemas, is reconstructive memory.

Question 18

If you later use a cue to probe part of a memory,

Answer 18

you may rely on default values when you can’t remember precise detail.

facts consistent with the schema but not necessarily with the events as they occurred

Question 19

reconstructive memory

Answer 19

you’re predicting or estimating what’s most likely based on schemas and scripts

reconstructing the memory based on what makes sense

Question 20

The schema you use to recall an event may act as a set of cues (i.e. the slots to be filled) for your memory. Anderson & Pichert (1978) asked participants to read a story from the
perspective of a burglar or home buyer.

Answer 20

• The story contained many descriptions of rooms and the valuables located in them.
• When asked to recall details from the story, 64% of perspective–relevant details (e.g. burglar) were remembered, compared to 46% that had to do with the other perspective (home buyer).
• However, if asked to then switch perspectives (e.g. from burglar to home buyer), participants remembered 10% more detail.
  • they didn’t re-read the story they just thought about it differently!!
  • new 10% comes from new perspective

*the schema you already had in your head, you’re able to adapt that and use a whole different set of cues to pull up new info from LTM to reconstruct working memory - what you’re consciously aware of changes based on schema

• Your working memory for the story was reconstructed based on the schema activated.

—–> within that script all those slots have diff cues and you fill those place holders with diff things from LTM

Question 21

Eyewitness testimony (episodic memory!!) in a criminal case is convincing in a courtroom because it is largely assumed to be accurate.

The greater the confidence of the testimony, the greater the implied accuracy.

Answer 21

• 75,000 – 80,000 suspects are identified by eyewitnesses each year.
• Witnesses are examined for credibility, internal consistency (do they contradict themselves?), and confidence.

Question 22

Loftus, Burns & Miller (1978) examined how

misinformation may alter eyewitness memory.

Answer 22

• Subjects were shown slides of a car accident. Half saw slide A (with stop sign).
• Later asked, “Did another car pass the red car while it was stopped at the (yield sign/intersection)?”
• Then given a recognition test: “Did you see slide A or slide B originally?”
• If given neutral information (intersection), they chose A 85% of the time (accurate).
• If given misleading information (yield sign), they chose A 38% of the time (wrong).
• they went with what they were told

• This is called the misinformation effect.

Question 23

the problem with eyewitness testimony

Answer 23

• it is very difficult to determine the individual accuracy of a witness unless there are other witnesses.
• Because memory is reconstructive, eyewitness accounts can be systematically distorted.

!!you can change memory on the fly if you change perspective - it is very easy to distort memory with misleading information

Question 24

the misinformation effect

Answer 24

effect on memory where you take something you remember and replace it with new misinformation

Question 25

Three main exaplanations have been suggested for the misinformation effect.

Answer 25

Overwriting

Source confusion

Misinformation acceptance

Question 26

Overwriting

Answer 26

The new information erases and replaces the original memory.

(This was the Loftus et al. interpretation.)

Question 27

Source confusion

Answer 27

The new information competes with the original memory during retrieval - both active in LTM and you just go with the most recently brought up thing.

    − Both are present in memory, but difficult to choose.

Question 28

Misinformation acceptance

Answer 28

You don’t notice the difference between
the two episodic memories or recall the sign at all; you just assume the misleading information is correct (or equally valid).

  − Why would you be misled when trying to get to the truth? Assume the second thing (most recent) is true.

Question 29

McCloskey & Zaragoza (1985) tested the misinformation acceptance hypothesis with a modification of the Loftus et al. (1978) experiment.

Answer 29

• Participants SAW slides of a worker stealing $20 and calculator. The items were placed in a toolbox, under a hammer.
• Later READ a narrative saying the stolen items were placed under a tool (neutral control - could refer to the hammer) or a screwdriver (misleading because there was no screwdriver).
• If later asked which was seen “hammer or screwdriver”, you would expect:
  * If read “tool” (neutral) => respond “hammer” more often.
  * If read “screwdriver” (misleading) => respond “screwdriver” more often.

===> YES that’s what they found

• MODIFICATION: Did the same thing BUT were asked “Did you see hammer or wrench”?
  * If misleading information ‘overwrote’ original memory (hammer), then both responses would be equally likely (chance).

      => “Hammer” was the more frequent response, indicating it hadn’t been erased or overwritten.
  
    => Evidence for misinformation acceptance hypothesis.

Question 30

Lindsay (1990) tested the effect of awareness on misleading information. If you can discount the misleading information, does it
still have an effect?

acceptance hypothesis suggests people aren’t aware of the difference between the actual info and misleading info.

what happens if people are made explicitly aware? will there still be errors?

Answer 30

• Subjects watched slides of a man stealing a computer.
• They then read a narrative with misleading information.

• 48 hours later, they are given recall questions, but were first warned to
disregard the narrative because it was wrong.

• Under the misinformation acceptance hypothesis, participants should not report anything from the narrative.

  ==> However, subjects still reported items from the narrative. This is consistent with the source confusion hypothesis (you come up with a memory and can't tell where it came from: slides or narrative?).
  - reconstructive nature of memory, whatever is cued the best is what you recall

Question 31

So which is it? misinformation acceptance hypothesis or source confusion hypothesis?

not clear

Answer 31

• While the basic effect (the misinformation effect) is not questioned, there isn’t an accepted explanation.
• Overwriting is less likely, as many experiments demonstrate access to the original memory when using the right cues.
• Source confusion and misinformation acceptance (if the misinformation is plausible) are likely both parts of the explanation.==> Note that they both take advantage of schemas and scripts = schemas act as a cue