Memory

1
Memory and Thoughts About the Past

• Memory
• From a cognitive perspective
• Flashbulb memories and the paleontologist
  metaphor
• Effects of the present on recall of the past
• Source memory
• Thoughts about the past
• Hindsight bias
• Counterfactuals
• Regret

2

• From the cognitive perspective...
• ..let us hear a list of words

3
Memory Performance

• Recognition (e.g., Did you hear thread on the
  list?) is easier than recall (e.g., write down
  all the words you can remember)
• People remember more information when it is more
  easily organized into categories or structure is
  easily created (e.g., when words related to each
  other are grouped together in a list), at least
  when their explicit memory is tested...

4
Implicit vs. Explicit Memory

• Explicit Memory involves awareness of previous
  exposure, e.g. I know that the word thread was
  on the list.
• Implicit Memory influence of previous exposure
  of experience, without conscious recollection
  priming
• e.g., Word stem completion task
• TH_ _ _

5
Implicit vs. Explicit Memory Evidence

• AmnesiacsRecall and Recognition Amnesiacs lt
  ControlsWord stem completion, i.e., TH _ _ _
  Amnesiacs Controls

6
Implicit vs. Explicit Memory Evidence

• Becoming famous overnight (Jacoby et al.,
  1989)...
• Part 1 pronounce 40 non-famous names (e.g.,
  Sebastian Weisdorf)
• Part 2 test either immediately or 24 hours later
• moderately famous names and non-famous names
  (some old--e.g., Sebastian Weisdorf--and some
  new--e.g., Frank Chandler)
• Is this person famous?

7
Implicit vs. Explicit Memory Evidence

• Becoming famous overnight (Jacoby et al.,
  1989)...
• Results
• Immediate test Mistakes LESS common for old
  non-famous names (e.g., Sebastian Weisdorf) than
  new ones (e.g., Frank Chandler)
• 24 hours later Mistakes MORE common for old
  non-famous names (e.g., Sebastian Weisdorf) than
  new ones (Frank Chandler)

8
Semantic vs. Episodic Memory

• Semantic Memory Knowledge (e.g., water freezes
  at 0 degrees, the order of the planets, what
  dissonance reduction means, that your roommate
  is irresponsible)
• Episodic Memory Memory of a particular episode
  in your life e.g., memory of the specific
  occasion on which you acquired a piece of
  knowledge
• I remember the day when I learned that water
  freezes at 0. I was sitting in at my desk in my
  third-grade classroom and Mrs. Hopkins was
  standing in front of the class, and she said...
• I remember my first day at university. I arrived
  on campus at about 11 am. We were in my moms old
  car and all of my stuff was piled in the back...

9
Flashbulb Memories(Brown Kulik, 1977)
Vivid and detailed memory of hearing about an
important news event

• "You remember exactly where you were when you
  heard the news. You can probably tell us where
  you were, with whom, and very likely whether you
  were sitting, standing, or walking--almost which
  foot was forward when your awareness became
  manifest" (Livingston, 1967, p. 576)

10
Flashbulb Memories
U.S. President Lincolns Assassination (Colgrove,
1899)

• My father and I were on the road to Augusta in
  the State of Maine to purchase the fixings
  needed for my graduation. When we were driving
  down a steep hill into the city we felt that
  something was wrong. Everybody looked so sad, and
  there was such terrible excitement that my father
  stopped his horse, and learning from the carriage
  called What is it my friends? What has
  happened? Havent you heard? was their
  reply--Lincoln has been assassinated. The lines
  fell from my fathers limp hands, and with tears
  streaming from his eyes he sat as one bereft of
  motion. We were far from home, and much must be
  done, so he rallied after a time, and we finished
  our work as well as our heavy hearts would allow.

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Flashbulb Memories

• 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (Neisser,
  1982, 1986 Thompson Cowan, 1986)
• 1963 Assassination of US President John Kennedy
  (Winograd Killinger, 1983 Yarmey Bull, 1978)
• 1986 Assassination of Swedish Prime Minister
  Olaf Palme (Christiansson, 1989 Larsen, 1992)
• 1989 Hillsborough Soccer Riot (Wright, 1993)
• 1990 Resignation of British Prime Minister
  Margaret Thatcher (Cohen, Conway Maylor, 1994)
• 2001 September 11 attacks (Talarico Rubin,
  2003)
• 2002 April 11 ?

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Flashbulb Memories The 1986 Challenger
Explosion (Neisser Harsch, 1992)
"When I first heard about the explosion I was
sitting in my freshman dorm room with my roommate
and we were watching TV. It came on a news flash
and we were both totally shocked. I was really
upset and I went upstairs to talk to a friend of
mine and then I called my parents."
"I was in religion class and some people walked
in and started talking about it. I didn't know
any details except that it had exploded and the
schoolteacher's students had all been watching
which I thought was so sad. Then after class I
went to my room and watched the TV program
talking about it and I got all the details from
that."
Flashbulb?
13
Flashbulb Memories The 1986 Challenger
Explosion (Neisser Harsch, 1992)
Confidence...
Mean 4.17 on a scale of 1 - 5
14
Phantom Flashbulbs The 1986 Challenger
Explosion (Neisser Harsch, 1992)
Accuracy....
M 2.95 out of 7 25 were wrong about
everything 50 were wrong about 2/3 of what they
recalled only 7 received perfect scores no
significant correlation between confidence and
accuracy
15
The Paleontologist Metaphor(Neisser, 1967)

• The process of remembering is like a
  paleontologist trying to construct a dinosaur
  from a a few fossilized bones (i.e., memory
  traces) and theories of paleontology (i.e.,
  general knowledge structures and other
  factors...).
• In other words.....Memory is reconstructive.
• So, what you recall can be influenced by factors
  in the present.

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Schema

• A concept or framework, built up from experience,
  about any object, event, person or group.
  Schemata influence the way we interpret,
  organize, communicate, and remember information.

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T.V. PrioritySchemata in the Challenger Study

• Only 21 of subjects had actually first heard
  about the news on TV
• BUT, two years later, 45 believed they had first
  heard about the news on TV

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Schemata and Memory (Anderson Pichert, 1978)

• Subjects asked to adopt a particular identity
• Home-buyer
• Burglar
• Then read a passage about two boys playing hooky
  from school...

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Schemata and Memory(Anderson Pichert, 1978)
Coding Burglar items (18) Homebuyer items
(18) There are three color TV sets in the
house. One is in the large master bedroom (which
has a three piece bathroom en suite), one is in
the main floor family room, and one is in Tom's
bedroom. The house contains four bedrooms in
all, plus an office, family room, and three
washrooms. In addition to the TV, the family
room contains a new stereo outfit , a
microcomputer, a VCR, and a rare coin collection.
The boys enter the master bedroom. Beside the
jewelry case in the closet they find Tom's
father's collection of pornographic video tapes.
They select their favorite (an encounter between
a guy and 12 women in a park in downtown
Kitchener) and go to the family room to watch it.
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Schemata and Memory (Anderson Pichert, 1978)
Recall 1
Proportion Recalled
Items
21
Schemata and Memory (Anderson Prichert, 1978)
Distracter task....then....switch perspectives
and try to recall again
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Other influences of the Present on reconstruction
of the past

• Mood
• Mood-congruent memory
• Goals/Motivation
• Information that fits with desired conclusion is
  more likely to be recalled (e.g., Sanitioso,
  Kunda, Fong, 1990 if told that extraversion
  leads to success recall more examples of your own
  extraverted behavior opposite if told that
  introversion leads to success)
• Cognitive biases
• positive-test strategy

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• Its not just what you recall that matters, but
  also how you think you encountered that
  information in the first place...

24
Eyewitness

• Loftus and Palmer (1974)
• Film of car accident
• How fast were the two cars going when they hit
  each other?
• smashed, collided, bumped, contacted

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Eyewitness

• Hit 34
• Smashed 41
• Collided 39
• Bumped 38
• Contacted 32

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Follow up

• One hundred and fifty
• Smashed
• Hit
• Not asked
• 1 week later Did you see broken glass?

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Follow up

• 1 week later Did you see broken glass?
• Smashed 32
• Hit 14
• Not asked 12

28
One more

• Loftus and Zanni (1975)
• Did you see a broken headlight?
• Did you see the broken headlight?

29
One more

• Loftus and Zanni (1975)
• Did you see a broken headlight?
• Did you see the broken headlight? YES
• But there was no broken headlight

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Yearkes-Dawdson Law
recall
arousal
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Other factors

• Age young children and older males more likely
  misled
• Stress
• Expectations
• Exposure time (lofus (1987) 30 second bank
  robbery)
• Detail salience (loftus 1987) gun or none gun
  tended to focus on the weapon and not other
  details
• Loftus and Burns (1982) violent shock will mess
  up recall

32
Problems with Loftus

• Misinformation effect (McCloskey and Zaragoza,
  1985)
• Loftus 1975-video in which 8 demonstrators
  interuppted a lecture. Half were asked was the
  leader of the 12 demonstrators male? Others was
  the leader of the 4 demonstrators male?
• A week later
• 12 demos Average 8.9 demonstrators
• 4 demos Averaged 6.4

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Implications

• Geiselman (1984) Basic cognitive interview
• May be a number of retrieval paths therefore
  different cues
• Memory trace has several features
• Improved by fisher in 1987
• 1990-45 more correct responses
• Miami 93 more data collected
• Wilkinson (1988) EWT of kids could be raised to
  adults.

34
Face recognition

• Standing 1973
• 10,000 faces over 5 days
• Paired pictures-one they had seen, one they had
  not
• Right 98 of the time.
• Bahrick (1975) Yearbook
• 15 year later one in five the had graduated with
• Right 90 of time
• Even 40 years, they were right 75

35
Source Monitoring Framework(Johnson, Hashtroudi,
Lindsay, 1993)

• Some source monitoring dilemmas...
• Did Susan tell me that, or did George?
  (distinguishing between two external sources)
• Did I say that, or only think it? (reality
  monitoring distinguishing between something
  that actually occurred vs. something you only
  imagined)
• According to the Source Monitoring Framework
• Memories are NOT tagged with labels indicating
  their source
• Source is judged online in the present, based
  on....

36
Source Monitoring Framework (Johnson, Hashtroudi,
Lindsay, 1993)

• Source is judged online in the present, based
  on....
• Memory Characteristics
• amount of perceptual, temporal, and spatial
  detail (generally more for real than for imagined
  events)
• type of perceptual details (e.g., auditory memory
  of voice)
• information about cognitive operations (generally
  more for imagined than for real events)
• General knowledge
• money doesnt grow on trees
• stereotypes

37
Influence of memory characteristics on source
monitoring(Johnson, Raye, Wang, Taylor, 1979)

• Procedure
• Subjects viewed 36 pictures 2, 5, or 8 times each
  and also imagined those pictures 2, 5, or 8 times
  each
• Later they were asked to estimate how many times
  they had seen each picture.

38
Influence of memory characteristics on source
monitoring (Johnson, Raye, Wang, Taylor, 1979)

• The more times they had imagined the picture, the
  more frequently they thought they had actually
  seen it
• Effect was stronger for good imagers than poor
  imagers

39
Influence of general knowledge on source
monitoring (Johnson, Raye, Wang, Taylor, 1979)

• Stereotypes (Sherman Bessenoff, 1999)
• Attribute information in stereotype consistent
  manner, especially when under cognitive load
• Beliefs about choice I chose the better option
• Misremembrance of options past Blind dates and
  Job candidates (Mather, Shafir, Johnson, 2000)

40
Source Errors inReal Life?

• Marge Hurry up, Homer. Its time to go to the
  reunion
• Homer Yeah, it will be great to see the old gang
  again--Potsy, Ralph Malph, The Fonze...
• Marge Homer, that wasnt high school, that was
  Happy Days!
• Homer No, they werent all happy days--like that
  time Pinky Tuscadero crashed her motor bike and
  that time I lost all that money to those
  cardsharps and my dad, Tom Bosley had to bail me
  out...

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Evaluate your memoryDid you recall these words?
Web Spider Crawl
Thread Knitting Needle
42

• Thread
• Pin
• Eye
• Sewing
• Sharp
• Point
• Prick
• Thimble
• Haystack
• Thorn
• Hurt
• Injection
• Syringe
• Cloth
• Knitting

Web Insect Bug Fright Fly Arachnid Crawl Tarantula
Poison Bite Creepy Animal Ugly Feelers Small
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(No Transcript)
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Creating your own false memory

• Study for exam in Psych
• You focus on"positive reinforcement" and
  "schedules of reinforcement,"
• you may well falsely recognize the term "negative
  reinforcement"

45
Implanting memories of whole events?

• It happens in the movies....

46
Memory Implantation Total Recall (1990)
Truman show Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
47
How researchers implant memories...(Hyman,
Husband, Billings, 1995)

• Contact parents to get 2 - 4 real childhood
  events, verify that 1 target false event did not
  occur
• Interview subjects 3 times each, with one day
  between each interview
• At each interview, ask for information regarding
  3 - 5 childhood events 1 event is the target
  false event (e.g., knocked over the punch bowl at
  a wedding)
• Subjects told that parents reported all events to
  have happened
• How likely are subjects to report to actually
  remember the false event?

48
How researchers implant memories... (Hyman,
Husband, Billings, 1995)
49
How researchers implant memories... (Hyman,
Husband, Billings, 1995)
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Imagination Inflation(Garry, Manning, Loftus,
Sherman, 1996)

• Session 1
• Fill out Life Events Inventory (LEI) where rate
  how certain that 40 events happened in own
  childhood
• Session 2 Two weeks later, participate in
  experiment on imagination
• Guided through imagining 4 events from LEI (e.g.,
  broke a window with your hand, found a 10 bill
  in parking lot, got in trouble for calling 911)
• At the end experimenter says that original LEI
  ratings were lost and could they please fill out
  the form again
• Question Among subjects who initially rated
  target events as unlikely, how does imagining
  events affect certainty ratings?

51
Imagination Inflation (Garry, Manning, Loftus,
Sherman, 1996)
52
Relevance Recovered Memories of Child Abuse

• Incidences of people recovering memories of
  childhood abuse that they claim had not been
  aware of before, repressed memories
• Childhood abuse is not infrequent (estimates
  range from 10 to 50 of children Loftus, 1993)
• There are documented cases of recovered
  memories being true
• HOWEVER, when recovered in the context of
  therapy, recovered memories of abuse may be
  suspect...

53
Therapy Imagining What Might Have Happened

• "Using all the details you do know, create your
  own story. Ground the experience or event in as
  much knowledge as you have and then let yourself
  imagine what actually might have happened."
• Bass Davis, Courage to Heal"Whether what is
  remembered is made up or real is of no concern at
  the beginning of the process that can be decided
  at a later date."Renee Fredrickson, Repressed
  memories A journey to recovery from sexual abuse

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Therapy Influencing Beliefs and General
Knowledge

• SYMPTOM CHECKLISTSDo you have trouble knowing
  what you want?Are you afraid to try new
  experiences?If someone gives you a suggestion,
  do you feel you ought to follow it?Do you follow
  other people's suggestions as if they were orders
  to be observed?Do you feel different from other
  people?Do you have trouble feeling motivated?Do
  you feel you have to be perfect?Do you use work
  or achievements to compensate for inadequate
  feelings in other parts of your life?"We have
  found that the Aftereffects Checklist can serve
  as a diagnostic device for suggesting sexual
  victimization when none is remembered."E. S.
  Blume, Secret survivors
• Uncovering incest and its after-effects in women

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Hindsight Bias

• A projection of new knowledge into the past
  accompanied by a denial that the outcome
  information has influenced judgment.(Hawkins
  Hastie, 1990)
• The US government should have known the
  September 11 attacks were coming
• Wasnt it obvious that Arnie would become the
  next governor of California?
• That woman should have known that if she walked
  home by that route she was bound to get
  assaulted.

56
Hindsight Bias and Causal Thinking

• Outcome seems obvious after the fact because we
  can reinterpret prior events in light of the
  outcome and create a causal chain overlook the
  fact that these particular elements did not stand
  out before you knew the outcome...
• What we dont hear about is all the other people
  whom American intelligence had under
  surveillance, how many other warnings they
  received, and how many other tips came in that
  seemed promising at the time but led nowhere. The
  central challenge of intelligence gathering has
  always been the problem of noise the fact that
  useless information is vastly more plentiful than
  useful information.... the F.B.I.s
  counterterrorism division has sixty-eight
  thousand outstanding and unassigned leads dating
  back to 1995. And, of those, probably no more
  than a few hundred are useful.
• Malcom Gladwell, on 1998 Kenyan Embassy bombing,
• in The New Yorker (2003)

57
Hindsight Bias and Causal Thinking

• Thinking about alternate outcomes,
  counterfactuals, can reduce hindsight bias, but
  not always...

58
Counterfactual ThinkingWhat might have been

• Counterfactuals Mental representations of
  alternatives to the past
• Upward counterfactuals alternative pasts that
  are better than reality, e.g. , It could have
  been a brilliant career
• Downward counterfactuals alternative pasts that
  are worse than reality, e.g., At least I didnt
  fail.
• Three aspects of counterfactual thinking
• Emotional impact
• Clues to causality
• Functionality

59
Counterfactual Thinking Emotional
impact (Medvec, Madey, Gilovich, 1995)

• Silver and Bronze medal winners Who is happier?
• Silver is objectively better of, but
  counterfactuals predict the opposite
• Silver upward counterfactual, I almost won.
• Bronze downward counterfactual, At least I
  didnt lose!
• Reactions of 1992 Olympic athletes show that
  Bronze medal winners are happier