1. Unit 2: Memory (Cognition)
WHS AP Psychology
Unit 2: Memory (Cognition)
Essential Task 2-4:Describe specific retrieval problems (anterograde and retrograde amnesia, decay theory, proactive and retroactive interference) and memory construction errors (misinformation effect, eyewitness testimonies, and source amnesia)
Logo Green is R=8 G=138 B= Blue is R= 0 G=110 B=184
Border Grey is R=74 G=69 B=64

2. Essential Task 2-4: Retrieval problems Memory construction errors
Outline
Retrieval problems
Anterograde amnesia
Retrograde amnesia
Decay theory
Proactive and retroactive interference
Memory construction errors
misinformation effect
eyewitness testimonies
source amnesia

3. Information Processing Model
Attention
All the rest
External Stimuli
Sensory Registers
gone
Short Term Memory
Long Term
Memory
Retrieval
1. Encoding
3. Retrieval
2. Storage
Information Processing Model

4. Retrieval Problems

5. Amnesia
Anterograde Amnesia – you can recall the past but cannot form new memories
However H.M. and Jimmie could recall things they’ve learned through automatic processing.
Most common for a short period with concussions
Retrograde Amnesia is when you can’t recall past memories stored in LTM

6. Decay Theory
The decay theory argues that the passage of time causes forgetting.
The longer information is not accessed, increases the chances of forgetting it.
Outline

7. Interference Retroactive interference
Occurs when you are being tested on old information (hint retro means old) and new information interferes proper retrieval.
I know this seems reversed. To get this correct you must first ask yourself. . . “What is being tested?”
If the answer is old information the term you use is RETROactive Interference
Outline

8. Try remembering the following number
Ok that was easy because nothing interfered with you.
Outline

9. Now let’s try some interference
First, consistent with cognitive dissonance theories, we are able to induce optimism or pessimism with the initial (random) wage assignment. With respect to the first-stage task, this implies that we can successfully manipulate one’s ability-beliefs in the lab. Secondly, subjects who received this low piece-rate in stage one were willing to accept significantly lower offers in a second-stage ultimatum game. This finding is striking, demonstrating the presence of both belief manipulation and spillovers of those beliefs into behavioral outcomes in an unrelated and distinct experimental environment.
Outline

10. Try remembering the following number
Outline

11. Retro-active Interference
The last two were examples of retro-active interference
In each one, it was the OLD (retro) information that was being tested.
The last trial was the hardest because it overloaded your modality.
What type of music should you listen to when you write an essay?
Outline

12. Retroactive Interference
Sleep helps prevent retroactive interference. Therefore, it leads to better recall.
Outline

13. Proactive interference
Occurs when you are being tested on NEW information (Latin route for pro meaning in front of as in proceed ) and old information interferes proper retrieval.
I know this seems reversed. To get this correct you must first ask yourself. . . “What is being tested?”
If the answer is NEW information the term you use is PROactive Interference
Psychologists have found that recall of later items can be improved by making them distinctive from early items. For example, people being fed groups of numbers to remember did much better when they were suddenly fed a group of words instead. This is called release from proactive interference
Outline

14. Which is which?
You are trying to type in your new password, but instead you accidently type in the old password.
You are writing an essay about WWI on your final exam but all you can remember is information about WWII.

15. I need a volunteer that knows their colors.
Don’t read the words, just say the colors they’re printed in and as fast as you can
This is called the stroop effect
Outline

16. Red
Yellow
Green
Blue

17. Interference
When you look at the words you see both its color and meaning.
When they are in conflict you must make a choice
Experience has taught you that word meaning is more important than color so you retrieve that information.
You are not always in complete control of what you pay attention to.
Outline

18. Childhood Amnesia Generally poor memory for events prior to age 2-3
May occur because brain is not fully developed at birth
Hippocampus not fully formed until age 2
May be due to a lack of a clear sense-of-self in young children
May be the absence of language

19. Memory Construction

20. Memory is a construct!
When we remember something, we're taking bits and pieces of experience - sometimes from different times and places - and bringing it all together to construct what might feel like a recollection but is actually a construction. The process of calling it into conscious awareness can change it, and now you're storing something that's different. We all do this, for example, by inadvertently adopting a story we've heard.” E Loftus

21. Eyewitness testimony Shown to be unreliable
People’s recall for events may be influenced by what they heard or constructed after the incident
Memory is reconstructed
Memories are not stored like snapshots, but are instead like sketches that are altered and added to every time they are called up

22. Eyewitness testimony cont’d
Elizabeth Loftus has shown subjects who are given false information about an event or scene tend to incorporate it into their memories, and "recall" the false information as a part of their original memory even two weeks later.
Loftus gives the example of the sniper attacks in the fall of "Everybody was looking for a white van even though the bad guys ended up having a dark Chevy Caprice." That's because some people reported seeing a white van at the scene of the crime. "Witnesses overhear each other," says Loftus, and police may also unintentionally influence people's memories when they talk about a crime.
1956 Air Show Disaster in England 1-10 Fighter Jet Broke apart in Mid-Air killing 12. Witnessed by 100,000 avid fans watching the event. They had the wreckage and photos and asked the people to write in. Got a few 1000 people to respond. Fewer than 6 gave info that was consistent with the evidence they had
We can plant false memories (Elizabeth Loftus) Did an experiment with on of her graduate student’s 14 yr old younger brother. Said here are four stories from your past (only three actually happened – one of them, being lost in the mall – was planted) Over the next two weeks whenever you remember something about one of these, write it down. Chris rate each of the 4 for clarity, he gave the false on 8 of 11. He picked a real memory as being fake.

24. Misinformation Effect
Critics protested that Loftus still hadn't proved the memories were fake. So she raised the ante. She persuaded 16 percent of a study population that they had met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. In a follow-up experiment, researchers sold the same memory to 36 percent of subjects.   This was impossible, since Bugs belonged to Warner Bros., not Disney. When critics complained that the Bugs memory wasn't abusive, Loftus obliged them again. Her team convinced 30 percent of another group of subjects that on a visit to Disneyland, a drug-addled Pluto character had licked their ears.

25. Eyewitness testimony
Study after study has shown that there is no correlation between the subjective feeling of certainty one has about a memory, and the memory’s accuracy

26. Source Amnesia When we attribute a memory to the wrong source.
Thinking that something happened to you instead of reading it in a story.
Thinking that something you imagined really happened.
déjà vu – When your temporal lobe identifies familiarity but our hippocampus and frontal lobe can’t come up with specific source.

27. Autobiographical memory
Recollection of events in our life
More recent events are easier to recall
Hyperthymesia is the condition of possessing an extremely detailed autobiographical memory. Hyperthymesiacs remember an abnormally vast number of their life experiences.

28. Eidetic Memory Pop culture calls this a photographic memory
Usually due to well developed memory techniques

29. Flashbulb Memories Flashbulb memories Vivid memories of dramatic event
May occur because of strong emotional content

30. Recovered memories
Involved the recall of long-forgotten dramatic event
May be the result of suggestion
Some evidence that memories can be repressed and recalled later