Download Fall 2015 Chapter 8 Pt 2

 Memory
0%
Chapter 8
 Memory
Forgetting
If we remembered
everything, we should
on most occasions be
as ill off as if we
remembered nothing.
- William James
Credit: Monika Suteski
 Memory
Forgetting
Whenever I see a date flash
on the television…I
automatically go back to that
day and remember where I
was, what I was doing, what
day it fell on, and on and on
and on and on. It is nonstop, uncontrollable, and
totally exhausting.
Credit: Robert Hanashiro/USA Today
- Jill Price
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=SoxsMMV538U&vq=medium
 Memory
Forgetting
Encoding Failure
Encoding Failure
Test your memory:
Which one of these
pennies is the real
thing?
Encoding Failure
The answer is A.
Most people get this
question wrong,
indicating that much of
what we sense, we fail
to encode, and what we
fail to encode, we will
never remember.
Encoding Failure
 Memory
Forgetting
Storage Decay
Even after encoding something well, we sometimes later
forget it. Hermann Ebbinghaus, who you learned about
earlier, learned lists of non-sense syllables and then
attempted to re-learn them.
Credit: Andrew Holbrooke/Corbis
This same forgetting curve is found for other types of
material: The course of forgetting is initially rapid and levels
off with time. This could be because of decay of the
physical memory trace.
 Memory
Forgetting
Retrieval Failure
Interference
Credit: heartbeaz
Credit: LWA-Dann Tardiff/Corbis
Proactive interference occurs when something you
learned earlier disrupts your recall of something you
experience later. Retroactive interference occurs when
new information makes it harder to recall something you
learned earlier.
Interference
Interference
Sleep may provide some protection against retroactive
interference.
The bottom-line is that
forgetting can occur at
any memory stage. As
we process information,
we filter, alter, or lose
much of it.
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/theeyewitnesstest.html
 Memory
Memory Construction
Misinformation and Imagination
Effects
A trial at the Old Bailey in London, as drawn by Thomas
Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin for Ackermann's
Microcosm of London (1808-11).
In over two thirds of the first 138 postconviction
DNA exonerations, mistaken eyewitness
identification played a major part in the
wrongful conviction. Modern technology is
proving what scientists, psychologists, and
legal scholars have noted for years:
eyewitness identification is often faulty and
is the major cause of wrongful convictions.
Identifications are even more problematic
when they are based on observations made
under stress or in less than ideal
conditions(e.g. darkness, from a distance).
Source: The Innocence Project
Source: InnocenceProject.org
Year of incident—1982 (Virginia)
Sentence—210 years
Charges—Rape, Abduction, Sodomy, Robbery
Year of Conviction—1982
Year of Exoneration—2001
Sentence Served—15 years
Real Perpetrator Found? Yes
Marvin Anderson
Because Anderson had no criminal record, the officer went to Anderson's employer
and obtained a color employment photo identification card. The victim was shown
the color identification card and a half dozen black-and-white mug shots and then
asked to pick the perpetrator. The victim identified Anderson as her assailant.
Within an hour of the photo spread, she was asked to identify her assailant from a
lineup…She identified him in the lineup as well.
Source: InnocenceProject.org
Year of incident—1984 (North Carolina)
Sentence: Life, plus 54 years
Charges—Rape
Year of Conviction—1987
Year of Exoneration—1995
Sentence Served—10.5 years
Real Perpetrator Found? Yes
Ronald Cotton
Arising from this case is the incredible story of Jennifer Thompson, the victim who
had identified Cotton. An aspiring college student at the time of the crime, she
made it her purpose to study the assailant's face so that he would be brought to
justice. She identified the wrong man. Today, Ms. Thompson speaks out about
her experiences and the dangers of relying solely upon single eyewitness testimony
to convict.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SBTRLoPuo&feature=fvsr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFRiDtUbeAQ&feature=fvsr
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=101469307&m=101501138
How fast were the cars going when they ___ each other?
[smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted]
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Rg5bBJQOL74&vq=medium
40.8 mph
31.8 mph
45
40
Speed Estimate (mph)
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Smashed
Collided
Bumped
Verb
Hit
Contacted
0%
Participants who were asked a leading question (with
“smashed”) were much more likely to remember broken
glass two weeks later than were other participants.
Misinformation effect—after exposure to misinformation,
many people misremember.
Source of Figure: InnocenceProject.org
The innovation: the
sequential police lineup
procedure, in which a
witness is shown suspects
one at a time instead of all
at once (simultaneously).
The rationale:
psychologist Gary Wells’
discovery that when shown
sequential lineups, people
make absolute judgments,
which lead to much lower
rates of misidentification.
The result: sequential
lineups cut eyewitness
misidentification in half
compared to simultaneous
lineups. Fewer innocent
people go to jail.
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=137652142&m=137656136
 Memory
Broader Implications
 Memory
Memory Construction
Repressed or Constructed
Memories of Abuse?
Sigmund Freud
proposed that we
repress painful
memories to protect
our self-concept and
minimize anxiety.
Sigmund Freud, by Max Halberstadt, 1921
More recently, people have been accused, and sometimes
convicted, of sexual abuse based on repressed
memories.
Credit: Don Shrubshell
I find myself at the center of an increasingly
bitter and fractious controversy. On one side
are the “True Believers” who insist that the
mind is capable of repressing memories and
who accept without reservation or question
the authenticity of recovered memories. On
the other side are the “Skeptics” who
argue that the notion of repression is purely
hypothetical and essentially untestable,
based as it is on unsubstantiated
speculation and anecdotes that are
impossible to confirm or deny.
- Elizabeth Loftus
Credit: Jongleur100
In one study by Loftus and colleagues, participants were
asked questions about three events that had actually
happened to them as children, and questions about one
event that had not happened: getting lost in a shopping
mall.
Credit: Jongleur100
By the third interview, approximately 25% of participants
remembered the false event as a real event. Thus, it
seems to be possible to “implant” false memories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=PQr_IJvYzbA&vq=small#t=14
 Chapter Review
What is memory, and how is it
understood from an information
processing perspective?
What are encoding, storage, and
retrieval processes, and what are
some factors that influence them?
What are some explanations for
forgetting?
 Chapter Review
What does it mean to say that memory
is “reconstructive” and what are some
consequences of this in the realworld?