1. Forgetting

2. Agenda 1. Bell Ringer: What are the types of Memory?
2. Notes: Forgetting (25)
3. What is on a Penny? Activity (10)
4. Deception, can you describe him? (10)
5. The Seven Sins of Memory, Group Explanation (20)

3. An inability to retrieve information due to:
Forgetting
An inability to retrieve information due to:
Encoding failure
Storage decay
Retrieval failure
Motivated forgetting

4. Forgetting
Encoding failure

6. If you don’t use what you learn you will forget it.
Ex. 2nd languages need to be practiced or you will forget a lot of it.
Forgetting curve: after a while you what is left in your memory for that 2nd language will be remembered.

7. Storage Decay

8. Storage Decay
OBJECTIVE 20| Discuss the concept of storage decay, and describe Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve. 8

9. Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon
Retrieval Failure
Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon

10. Cues:
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: can’t quite put your finger on it. Can’t retrieve.
Interference: learning sometimes may prevent retrieving information especially when the information is similar.
Proactive interference: something we learned earlier disrupts recall of something experienced later (ex. You have a new phone number but you keep remembering the old one)
Retroactive interference: disruptive effect of new learning on recall of old info. (ex. Try and remember an old address)

12. Retrieval Failure
Interference
Retro Pro
Old New

13. Sleep prevents retroactive interference
Sleep prevents retroactive interference. Therefore, it leads to better recall.

14. Schacter’s 7 Sins of Memory
Three Sins of Forgetting
Absent-mindedness: inattention to details leads to encoding failure
Transience: storage decay over time
Blocking: inaccessibility of stored info (tip-of-the-tongue)

15. Schacter’s 7 Sins of Memory
Three Sins of Distortion
Misattribution: confusing the source of information learned. (putting words in someone else’s mouth, confusing a movie with a personal memory)
Suggestibility: leading questions/suggestions from others.
Bias: beliefs that impact our memories

16. Example of misinformation

17. Schacter’s 7 Sins of Memory
Intrusion
Persistence: haunted by memories

19. Motivated Forgetting
Motivated Forgetting: People unknowingly revise their memories.
Repression: A defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.
OBJECTIVE 22| Summarize Freud's concept of repression, and state whether this view is reflected in current memory research.
Sigmund Freud 19

20. Confabulation – by Elizabeth Loftus
Filling in the gaps of memory by combining or substituting memories from other events.

21. Elizabeth Loftus
Misinfo & Imagination
Misinformation Effect: incorporating misleading information into one’s memory of an event.
Imagination: creating false memories through nonexistent actions.

22. Elizabeth Loftus
Misinformation
Group A: How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other? Group B: How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?

23. Memory Construction Confabulation
A week later they were asked: Was there any broken glass? Group B (smashed into) reported more broken glass than Group A (hit).

24. (AKA: Source Misattribution or Misattribution Error)
Source Amnesia
Attributing an event to the wrong source that we experienced, heard, read, or imagined.
(AKA: Source Misattribution or Misattribution Error)
OBJECTIVE 24| Describe source amnesia’s contributions to false memories.

25. True & False Memories
False Memory Syndrome
A condition in which a person’s identity and relationships center around a false but strongly believed memory of a traumatic experience, which is sometimes induced by well-meaning therapists.
OBJECTIVE 24| Describe source amnesia’s contributions to false memories. 25

26. Children’s Eyewitness Recall
Children’s eyewitness recall can be unreliable if leading questions are posed. However, if cognitive interviews are neutrally worded, the accuracy of their recall increases. In cases of sexual abuse, this usually suggests a lower percentage of abuse.
OBJECTIVE 26| Give arguments supporting and rejecting the position that very young children's reports are reliable.

27. Are memories of abuse repressed or constructed?
Many psychotherapists believe that early childhood sexual abuse results in repressed memories.
However, other psychologists question such beliefs and think that such memories may be constructed.
OBJECTIVE 27| Discuss the controversy over reports of repressed and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.

28. Consensus on Childhood Abuse
Leading psychological associations of the world agree
on the following concerning childhood sexual abuse:
Injustice happens.
Incest and other sexual abuse happens.
People may forget.
Recovered memories are commonplace.
Recovered memories under hypnosis or drugs are unreliable.
Memories of things happening before 3 years of age are unreliable.
Memories, whether real or false, are emotionally upsetting.

29. Improving Memory Study repeatedly to boost long-term recall.
Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the material.
Make material personally meaningful.
Use mnemonic devices:
associate with peg words — something already stored
make up a story
chunk — acronyms
OBJECTIVE 28| Explain how an understanding of memory can contribute to effective study techniques.

30. Improving Memory
Activate retrieval cues — mentally recreate the situation and mood.
Recall events while they are fresh — before you encounter misinformation.
Minimize interference:
Test your own knowledge.
Rehearse and then determine what you do not yet know.