Look and Listen to the following 19 words. See how many you can remember.
NURSE
SICK
LAWYER
ILL
MEDICINE
HEALTH
HOSPITAL
ILL
DENTIST
PHYSICIAN
ILL
PATIENT
OFFICE
VISIT
CORVETTE
STETHOSCOPE
SURGEON
CLINIC
CURE
Write down as many words from the list as you can remember.
How many of you recalled the beginning of the list well? Primacy Effect
How many of you remembered the end of the list well? Recency Effect
How many remember the word CORVETTE? Semantic Distinctiveness – it has nothing to do with medicine.
How many of you remember the word ILL? Maintenance Rehearsal - repeated
How many of you remembered the words OFFICE VISIT? Chunking – you chunked these together to remember them.
How many of you remember the word DOCTOR? It was NOT there! This is memory construction. Your brain “filled” in the gaps in your memory with a word it thought would most likely be there based on the other words. This is how we misremember – because memory is a reconstruction!
Creating False Memories Current Research Watch True or False? (9 min.) from Scientific American Frontiers Segment 17 to view Dan Schacter’s tests on false memories and the parts of the brain involved. What has researcher Dan Schacter discovered regarding the accuracy of LTM? How does the brain store a memory? How is it recalled? How does the brain differentiate between actual and false memories? How did Schacter discover this?