Week 7

Question 1

hyperthymesia

Answer 1

a rare condition in which a person has exceptionally accurate episodic memory for events of personal relevance

people with hyperthymesia show typical patterns of recall for generic memories (like facts), this suggests that episodic memory is somehow distinct from other types of long-term memory

Question 2

episodic memory

Answer 2

a type of long-term memory comprised of memories of specific situations, experiences, or events

Question 3

Episodic Memories have 3 distinct features:

Answer 3

a subjective sense of time: recalls a feeling that the event took place at a certain point in time

a connection to the self: one connects oneself to the event either as a viewer or as a participant.

the presence of autonoetic consciousness: being conscious of one’s conscious experiences at another point in time reflects

Question 4

generic memory/semantic memory

Answer 4

memory for facts, concepts, and meanings that is context free and not associated with a particular point in time

remembering the name for a loonie

Question 5

Conway expanded on Tulving’s ideas and defined a total of nine characteristics of episodic memory (2009).

Answer 5

1. contains summary records of sensory-perceptual-conceptual-affective processing
2. retains patterns of activation/inhibition in the form of (visual) images
3. is often represented in the form of (visual) images
4. always has a perspective (field or observer)
   represents short time slices of experience.
5. is represented on a temporal dimension roughly in order of occurrence
6. is subject to rapid forgetting
7. makes autobiographical remembering specific

is recollectively experienced when accessed

Question 6

What type of memory does episodic memory fall under?

what is the definition

Answer 6

Episodic memory is an example of explicit memory.

a memory system that evolved so that animals could be consciously aware of previous experiences and could use consciousness to deliberately recall information. This system operates within consciousness

Question 7

most important difference between episodic memory and generic memory

Answer 7

episodic memories are accompanied by a sense of remembering and feeling that does not accompany the retrieval of generic memories.

feeling of remembering is separate from the memories themselves and occasionally occurs when retrieval has not taken place; when it does we experience déjà vu

Question 8

Episodic memories are formed in the

Answer 8

hippocampus.

Question 9

The prefrontal cortex is also essential for the formation of

Answer 9

cohesive episodic memories

Question 10

damage to the prefrontal cortex results in

Answer 10

somewhat disorganized memories where the individual may be able to learn new information but is unable to link that learning to a specific episode

Question 11

According to John Lisman, two important pieces of information are processed by the hippocampus when episodic memories are encoded. They are

Answer 11

temporal and contextual

Question 12

cue-driven principle

Answer 12

a principle of memory that states that all memories are retrieved through cues

The cue used to probe memory will determine what memory is retrieved.

Question 13

how are episodic memories retrieved using cues

Answer 13

Episodic memories are retrieved when the cue probing memory activates episodic information, often because the cue specifies some sort of contextual information such as a specific place, event, or experience.

Question 14

Two different types of contextual cues can probe for episodic memories

Answer 14

environmental cues: cues in the external world such as people, places, or things

internal cues: cues that come from within a person, such as thoughts or other memories

Question 15

Environmental cues give rise to a phenomenon known as

Answer 15

encoding/retrieval specificity - a common experimental finding that participants more easily recall episodic memories when asked to retrieve them in the same context in which they originally learned the material

Question 16

internal memory cues give rise to

Answer 16

state-dependent memory effects: an experimental finding in which congruence between mood at the time of encoding and mood at the time of retrieval predicts a greater probability of memory retrieval

more likely to remember happy memories when in a good mood

Question 17

encoding/retrieval specificity

Answer 17

memory performance is best when the context at the time of retrieval matches the context at the time of learning

Tulving and Thomson

COLD learned with strong cue HOT or weak cue GROUND

provided with either a cue they had seen during encoding (same context) or the other cue (different context)

Better recall for congruent cues even in the weak cue condition

Question 18

Godden and Alan Baddeley - SCUBA

Answer 18

had participants learn a list of 36 words either on land or under water while scuba diving and then presented participants with 72 words either on land or while scuba diving and asked them to indicate whether each word was on the to-be-remembered list or not.

encoding and retrieval context was the same, either land–land or water–water, memory was better compared to when the context changed (land–water or water–land).

evidence that contextual cues help memory

Question 19

State-dependent memory

Answer 19

a phenomenon in which memory is enhanced when the individual is in the same state of consciousness at the time of learning and the time of retrieval

a person who experiences an episode when intoxicated will be able to better remember the events of that episode when intoxicated than when sober

Question 20

Alcohol has long been known to have state-dependent effects on people.

Answer 20

when people learn material when they are intoxicated and their recall for the material is tested later, they are better able to recall that material when they are intoxicated than when they are sober.

Question 21

pain is also a state that can affect memory.

Answer 21

Pearce induced pain in participants by having them submerge their hands in ice water. Pearce found that memory recall for the words was better when the pain condition at learning and recall was congruent

Question 22

There are significant implications for state-dependent memory.

Answer 22

success of a person asked to recall any information from a given episode will be affected by how closely their current state matches the state at the time of learning,

State-dependent memory has also been shown to affect the treatment of phobias; individuals with a similar caffeine level in their systems during each treatment session have been found to show improvement more rapidly

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who are taking methylphenidate (better known as Ritalin) show better recall when both learning and recall occur when Ritalin is in their system—Ritalin changes consciousness in children with ADHD in a way that promotes learning and has been used to justify the prescription of this medication for more than 40 years.

Question 23

self-reference effect

Answer 23

people are better able to recall information when thinking of that information in terms of themselves

Question 24

Hyperthymesia cannot be attributed simply to superior memory because

Answer 24

people with hyperthymesia do not excel at recalling non-episodic information, such as facts from generic memory.

sometimes labelled as exceptional autobiographical memory; however, this definition is incorrect.

autobiographical memory includes much more than just events that have been personally experienced

facts and a sense of identity, which is information that people with hyperthymesia do not remember any better than the rest of the population.

Many people with hyperthymesia find the condition a burden - plagued by memories

before the nature and extent of hyperthymesia can be fully understood, a systematic study of people with hyperthymesia that tests the accuracy and source of memories is needed.

Question 25

conditioned responses and learning do not need to have an explicit episodic component to them.

Answer 25

Molaison recoiled from the shock. A few hours later the researcher returned and extended his hand to Molaison, who refused to shake it, although he could not explain why. He did not recognize the researcher nor remember the episode where he had been shocked, yet he had learned from the aversive handshake not to shake hands with that researcher again. remembering the event is not necessary for learning.

Question 26

Autobiographical memory

Answer 26

Autobiographical memory is a collection of episodic and generic information that tells the story of a person’s life. scrapbook where meaningful events and facts are recorded. contains both events and factual information, whereas episodic memory consists only of events. not all autobiographical memories are episodic - birth date, not all episodic memories are considered autobiographical (such as what you ate for dinner last night) changes as life changes, ever-changing nature of autobiographical memory.

Question 27

Conway’s Model of Autobiographical Memory

Answer 27

autobiographical memory is constructed within a self-memory system (SMS) that is comprised of an autobiographical knowledge base and the working self. knowledge of the self that can be used by the individual to determine what the self is, what the self was, and what the self can be working self is a set of personal goals and self-images that are organized in a hierarchy

Question 28

information in the autobiographical knowledge base is categorized into three areas:

Answer 28

lifetime periods, general events, and event-specific knowledge.

Question 29

autobiographical knowledge base - Lifetime periods

Answer 29

Lifetime periods contain thematic knowledge about specific periods of life, such that a person may have a school theme, a looking-for-work theme, a work theme, a parenting theme, etc. Lifetime periods contain information about activities, relationships, locations, and timeframes associated with each theme. *Have a distinct beginning and ending, but they are often fuzzy and overlap *Contain thematic knowledge about the features of that period, such as the activities, relationships, and locations involved, as well as temporal knowledge about the duration of the period

Question 30

autobiographical knowledge base - general events

Answer 30

General events are more specific than lifetime periods and are comprised of either multiple representations of repeated events or a sequence of related events. clustered around themes related to achieving personal goals or failing to achieve personal goals “buying my first car” or “getting fired from my job at the mall.”

Question 31

autobiographical knowledge base - Event-specific knowledge

Answer 31

highly detailed information about specific events gleaned from episodic memories. *In the form of sensory-perceptual features Most ESK fades quickly, however events that mark a new beginning, events related to turning points in life, anchoring events that affirm a person’s beliefs, and analogous events that impact future behaviour all may resist memory decay *The sensory-perceptual details are a key component in distinguishing memory for experienced events from imagined events *In the majority of cases, it is found that the more ESK a memory contains, the more likely the recalled event has actually been experienced

Question 32

lifetime periods, general events, and ESK form a hierarchy within the autobiographical knowledge base.

Answer 32

nowledge stored in lifetime periods contains cues for general events, and general events contain cues for ESK. According to the model, when a cue activates material in the autobiographical knowledge base that is linked to a lifetime period, a general event, and ESK, an autobiographical memory is retrieved.

Question 33

mental time travel

Answer 33

a sense of one’s self in the past that is typically accompanied by imagery featuring perceptual details related to the recollections

Question 34

autonoetic consciousness that accompanies the recollection of personally relevant episodic memory results from

Answer 34

the integration of parts of the autobiographical knowledge base and the working self. The relationship between the autobiographical knowledge base and the working self is reciprocal. working self manipulates the cues that activate the material in the autobiographical knowledge base while the autobiographical knowledge base determines the goals and self-images of the working self

Question 35

according to the SMS theory, autobiographical memory is constructed based not as a series of personally experienced episodes in chronological order, but

Answer 35

rather based on a person’s current self-image and goals. Because a person’s self-image and goals change over time, autobiographical memory also changes over time.

Question 36

episodic and generic autobiographical information activated the

Answer 36

anterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex associated with self-reference but episodic information activated this area to a greater degree

Question 37

episodic autobiographical memories activated the

Answer 37

right temporo-parietal and parietal-frontal systems (which are associated with the reconstruction of spatial information)

Question 38

the generic autobiographical information activated the

Answer 38

left temporo-parietal and parieto-frontal systems associated with egocentric spatial processing.

Question 39

episodic autobiographical information also seemed to suppress processing

Answer 39

in the emotion centres of the brain. Levine notes that these experimental findings are consistent with the finding from amnesic patients, who show different patterns of loss of episodic and generic autobiographical information depending on which area of the brain is damaged.

Question 40

evidence that episodic autobiographical memory is distinct from generic autobiographical memory.

Answer 40

retrograde amnesia - who in some cases lose access to episodic autobiographical memories but not generic autobiographical memories or vice versa neuroimaging studies of neurotypical individuals (i.e., individuals with no brain damage) and established different neurological correlates for episodic and generic autobiographical memory ---neurotypical controls reported about twice as many episodic autobiographical memories as generic autobiographical memories during a well-structured interview damage to the ventral prefrontal regions reported fewer episodic autobiographical memories with no effect on the number of generic autobiographical memories damage to the dorsolateral prefrontal regions, on the other hand, reported the same number of episodic autobiographical memories and more generic autobiographical memories; individuals with frontal temporal dementia reported significantly fewer episodic autobiographical memories and significantly more generic autobiographical memories than controls.

Question 41

Episodic autobiographical memory relies on the ________ whereas generic autobiographical memory does not.

Answer 41

frontal lobes

Question 42

flashbulb memory

Answer 42

a highly detailed memory of a surprising event of personal significance an individual may have an especially vivid memory of when they heard that their father had had a heart attack or when they heard that terrorists had attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.

Question 43

Martin Conway identified six criteria that determine whether a memory can be labelled as a flashbulb memory.

Answer 43

1. info about where they were 2. how they were going 3. who told you 4. the impact of the news 5. how they responded emotionally to the news 6. what happened after they heard the news - highly emotional personal or national event

Question 44

are flashlight memories better remembered?

Answer 44

Talarico and Rubin (2003) found that there was no difference between flashbulb memories and everyday memories for their measure of recall consistency. mean number of consistent and inconsistent details was similar for both memories Memory was less consistent at longer delays for both the flashbulb memory of September 11 and the other event. However, participants tended to believe their flashbulb memory for September 11 was more accurate than their everyday memory. flashbulb memories are not immune to forgetting, nor is it uncommon for them to be inconsistent over time; however, people have an exaggerated belief in the accuracy of the memory after long delays.

Question 45

are flashlight memories better remembered?

Answer 45

Talarico and Rubin (2003) found that there was no difference between flashbulb memories and everyday memories for their measure of recall consistency. mean number of consistent and inconsistent details was similar for both memories Memory was less consistent at longer delays for both the flashbulb memory of September 11 and the other event. However, participants tended to believe their flashbulb memory for September 11 was more accurate than their everyday memory. flashbulb memories are not immune to forgetting, nor is it uncommon for them to be inconsistent over time; however, people have an exaggerated belief in the accuracy of the memory after long delays.

Question 46

Conway et al. suggested that flashbulb memories are formed almost immediately after the event and are the result of three interacting factors

Answer 46

a person’s interest in a subject, the impact of the event, and the emotions evoked by the event. When interest, impact, and emotion are all high, recall of the event takes on flashbulb-memory characteristics; otherwise, the event is recalled without excessive detail.

Question 47

Self-Concept - autobiographical memory

Answer 47

Lisa Libby and Richard Eibach - emonstrate that the nature of a person’s episodic autobiographical memory recall is tied to self-concept and whether the event being recalled is consistent or inconsistent with that current sense of self. list things about themselves that had changed since they started university and then list several events that occurred in high school indicate whether their episodic recall of the past high school events was in the first person (i.e., they felt that they saw the event through their own eyes) or from the third person more likely to report feeling like they saw the event from the third-person perspective if the event was related to an aspect of their selves that they felt had changed since high school. supports Conway’s assertion that autobiographical memory changes as one’s working self changes.

Question 48

recency effect

Answer 48

recently acquired memories are more likely to be recalled than memories from further in the past

Question 49

reminiscence bump

Answer 49

the tendency for older adults to recall autobiographical events from adolescence and early adulthood found across cultures and, while the specific content of what is recalled differs, in all cultures there is a bias toward recalling positive life events closely associative with autobiographical memory than episodic memory. women remember more positive life events from their twenties while men remember more positive life events from their thirties.

Question 50

reminiscence bump across cultures

Answer 50

age of the reminiscence bump changes to reflect the age at which that culture considers a person an adult. Conway found that in Asian societies including China and Japan, where a person may not be considered an adult until they are established in a stable interdependent social network at about age 30, the reminiscence bump occurs later than in western cultures where adulthood is achieved earlier

Question 51

cultural factors can shift the age range for the reminiscence bump

Answer 51

Cultural values also influence the autobiographical memories recalled; in individualistic cultures such as Canada, memories comprised within the reminiscence bump usually put the individual at the centre In collectivistic cultures such as those of many parts of Asia, memories that form the reminiscence bump are less self-centred and more related to a person’s affiliation within a group.

Question 52

biological account of the reminiscence bump

Answer 52

more memories are recalled from adolescence and early adulthood because biological mechanisms make those memories easier to retrieve than other memories evolutionary advantage for having memories from this era dominate autobiographical recall, while others argue that cognitive performance peaks during this age period and that this results in better encoded events. accounts predict that the reminiscence bump will be similar across all people regardless of gender or culture; however, the finding that the reminiscence bump occurs earlier for women than men, and contains different types of material depending on a person’s culture, do not support the biological account

Question 53

cognitive explanations for the reminiscence bump.

Answer 53

events from adolescence and early adulthood are recalled more readily by older adults because events from this time period are more novel than events from other time periods and that this novelty leads to more elaborative rehearsal consistent with the principle of relative distinctiveness in which unusual events are better recalled this effect is magnified by the fact that events in this time period are followed by a period of stability, which increases the stability of the cues for recalling these events, and increases the probability of recall weakness of this account, however, is that it cannot fully explain why the reminiscence bump tends to be comprised of positive but not negative life events, as many negative events can also be novel

Question 54

Berntsen and David Rubin propose a life-script account of the reminiscence bump

Answer 54

each person’s culture imposes a life script, which includes important transitional events that are viewed as positive, such as marriage, having a child, or buying a house Events that deviate from the life script, such as divorce, infertility, or being unable to buy a house, are generally seen as negative. when recalling past life events, an individual uses the life script from her or his culture and the timing of the reminiscence bump will reflect the timing of transitional events in a given culture; thus, this model can account for differences in reminiscence bumps in men and women and across individualistic and collectivistic cultures. events that are consistent with the life script are viewed as positive and those that are not consistent are viewed as negative, this account can better explain the bias toward positive memories in the reminiscence bump

Question 55

Nostalgia

Answer 55

a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past Nostalgia is inextricably linked to autobiographical memory; our memories both provide the motivation for being nostalgic and are the product of nostalgic reminiscing

Question 56

characteristics that typify nostalgia.

Answer 56

First, the researchers found that people engaging in nostalgia typically remember people who are close to them and personally treasured life events. Second, the researchers found that people tend to place themselves in the centre of these nostalgic events and rarely report events where the self is an observer or bystander. Third, the narratives follow a predictable sequence in which negative feelings give way to positive outcomes. Finally, the narratives include indicators of positive emotions with far greater frequency than indicators of negative emotions.

Question 57

frequency of nostalgic recollections

Answer 57

79 per cent of respondents experience nostalgia at least once a week

Question 58

nostalgia serves a purpose.

Answer 58

When Wildschut et al. (2006) interviewed participants about what sorts of situations lead to feelings of nostalgia, the most commonly reported cause was negative mood associated with loneliness. experiment to test the notion that nostalgia is triggered by negative affect. induced various mood states in participants (positive, negative, and neutral) by manipulating the news story they read and then measured nostalgia in all participants using two scales. nostalgia inventory, devised by Batcho (1995), where participants rate the extent to which they miss different parts of their past (friends, family, the way things were). participants who felt the loneliest also reported the most feelings of nostalgia. In addition, Routledge et al. (2011) found that feeling meaningless could also induce feeling of nostalgia.

Question 59

nostalgia serves at least three functions

Answer 59

First, nostalgia heightens positive mood. Second, nostalgia increases self-regard. Finally, nostalgia fosters a sense of connection to other people of importance to the person.

Question 60

Greenwald (1980) is one of many researchers to argue that autobiographical memory recall is subject to a variety of cognitive biases

Answer 60

egocentricity, beneffectance, and conservatism.

Question 61

autobiographical memory recall is subject to a variety of cognitive biases - Egocentricity

Answer 61

Egocentricity describes the tendency to view ourselves as being more important than we really are. experimental findings demonstrate how egocentricity can affect episodic autobiographical memory. people are better able to remember information when it relates directly to themselves or when they have played an active role during the event episodic autobiographical memory is biased for events in which individuals played an active role even though they may experience many important events in which their role was less active.

Question 62

autobiographical memory recall is subject to a variety of cognitive biases - Beneffectance

Answer 62

tendency to assign responsibility for favourable events and deny responsibility for events that turned out poorly; beneffectance is also known as the self-serving bias. may affect whether a person recalls being involved in an event based on the outcome of that event, and not on really being involved. can also shape whether a person assesses a prior experience as fair or unfair; one well-known experiment showed that students who received high scores on a test were more likely to indicate that they thought the test was fair than students who received low scores person may develop memories of events that were “fair” or “unfair” based not on the event itself, but based on a bias that causes people to only take responsibility for events with good outcomes.

Question 63

autobiographical memory recall is subject to a variety of cognitive biases - conservatism

Answer 63

tendency to only seek information that supports existing belief systems If people only look for information that is consistent with their beliefs, it is reasonable to assume they will tend to recall memories from their life that confirm their worldview and not those that conflict with it.

Question 64

negative memory bias

Answer 64

the tendency to better recall events that are associated with negative emotions than those associated with positive emotions mood-congruency for free recall; that is, people experiencing a positive mood are more likely to recall positive words and events while people in a negative mood are more likely to recall negative words and events.

Question 65

positive memory bias

Answer 65

the tendency to better recall events that are associated with positive emotions than those associated with negative emotions

Question 66

Déjà Vu

Answer 66

*Fleeting experience Familiar enough to something we have seen before *Remembering something that hasn’t actually happened before *The feeling of remembering can sometimes be activated without an accompanying memory *The impairment in people with disrupted episodic memory suggests that a primary purpose of episodic memory is to allow people to track experiences and to distinguish then from daydreams and fantasies

Question 67

Cognitive Interview (Enhanced)

Answer 67

1)Guided imagery 2)Temporal order 3)Report any related matter 4)Recall using different perspectives 5)Rapport

Question 68

Episodic Memory Is Linked to Taste Aversion

Answer 68

*Link between the brain area responsible for taste memory and the brain area responsible for recording time and place (episodic context). *Mice breed with and without normal brain areas *Food that caused illness vs food that did not

Question 69

False Memories for Food Preferences

Answer 69

*False memories for food-related experiences (e.g., becoming ill after eating egg salad) can lead to attitudinal and behavioral consequences *Lowered self-reported preference for and decreased consumption of egg salad

Question 70

*Four main categories for the types of autobiographical memories:

Answer 70

*Biographical or Personal *Copies vs. Reconstructions *Specific vs. Generic *Field vs. Observer

Question 71

Biographical or Personal

Answer 71

*Contain biographical information *Where you were born *Names of your parents

Question 72

Copies vs. Reconstructions

Answer 72

*Copies are vivid autobiographical memories of an experience with a considerable amount of visual and sensory-perceptual detail *Reconstructions are not reflections of raw experiences *They are rebuilt to incorporate new information or interpretations

Question 73

Specific vs. Generic

Answer 73

*Specific contain a detailed memory of a certain event (event-specific knowledge) *Generic are vague and hold little detail other than the type of event that occurred.

Question 74

Field vs. Observer

Answer 74

*Field memories are memories recollected in the original perspective, from a first-person point of view. *Observer memories are memories recollected from a perspective outside ourselves, a third-person point of view

Question 75

Function of Autobiographical Memories

Answer 75

*Autobiographical memory serves three broad functions: directive, social, adaptive, and self-representative Directive *Uses past experiences as a reference for solving current problems and a guide for our actions in the present and the future Social *Develops and maintains social bonds by providing material for people to converse about. *Sharing personal memories with others is a way to facilitate social interaction Adaptive *Recalling positive personal experiences can be used to maintain desirable moods or alter undesirable moods Self-Representative *Use of personal memories to create and maintain a coherent self-identity over time a self-continuity