07. use of memory07. use of memory

Cognitive Psychology 1

Dept. of Psychology, Ajou Univ.Dept. of Psychology, Ajou Univ.Dept. of Psychology, Ajou Univ.

Kyungil KimE-mail: [email protected]

URL: http://ajou.ac.kr/~tetross

07. Use of Memory07. Use of Memory

PSY 221


Dept. of Psychology, Ajou Univ.

Uses of memory

Eyewitness testimony

Metacognition and source memory

Flashbulb memories



The seven sins of memory

Convention award-winner Daniel Schacter explained the ways that memory tricks us.http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct03/sins.html

http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct03/sins.html



Fallibility of memory

Memory is often a side-effect of comprehensionRemembering something for later is not the goal

Some situations assume accuracyEyewitness testimonyPeople testify about their episodic memory

Is episodic memory just a fuzzy readout of the memory encoded during the event?

Perhaps some details are lost?



Reconstructive memory

The influence of scripts on memory suggests notThere may be intrusions based on comprehension of a situation.

There are also effects of misleading informationElizabeth Loftus

http://www.seweb.uci.edu/cls/faculty/loftus.uci



Eyewitness testimony

First, people see a sequence of pictures leading to anaccident.Later, they get a series of questions:

How fast was the car going when it ran the yield sign?

Finally, they describe the sceneSometimes they select the picture they saw.Sometimes they are asked about key objects.



Misinformation effect

People will misremember key aspects of a scene based on intervening information.

There was a stop sign in the original.The yield sign was mentioned in the question.



How does this happen?

The question with the misinformation is asked in a funny way.

How fast was the car going when it ran the yield sign

Given-new convention (we’ll come back to this)

The presence of a yield sign is presupposedThe question is asking about speed

If the information from the question and the picture are mixed, the misinformation effect can occur.



Confusion of sources?

It seems strange to think that we could confuse a question with a witnessed event.How do we know the source of memories?Source monitoring (Johnson)

A type of metacognition①Metacognition: thinking about thinking

Types of sources① See something② Read something③Hear about something

We often remember the sources of our memories



Source memory is fallible

What cues could we use to determine the source of a memory?

Is there a visual image along with it?① Could be a sign that we saw it.②We might have had a strong mental image during comprehension

Is there an episodic memory of the event when the information was presented?

Sometimes, we misremember sources.This can lead to faulty reconstruction



Metacognition

Source memory is one kind of metacognitionMetacognitive judgments about memory

How do we know whether we know something?Who is the President of

Korea? the United States? Egypt? France?

How do you know whether you know?Obviously, if you retrieve an answer, you know.You might retrieve a partial answer.You might think the question is familiar.



Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT)

Sometimes we know we know somethingWe cannot quite access the informationOften it is a word that will not come to mind

The feeling you get when there's a word that you need to say, but you just can't come up with it.

This is caused when you have a perfect grasp of the contextual information about the word, but the phonological information is missing. That is, you know exactly what you want to say, but your brain isn't cooperating in actually letting you figure out how to say it.

Characteristics of Tip of the tongue statesCan often guess the first letterCan often tell the shape of the word (such as the number of syllables)TOT states can be frustrating



Familiarity and feeling of knowing

We can often judge quickly whether we will know the answer to a question

This judgment can be influenced by familiarity

Game show paradigm (Reder & Ritter)See complex addition and multiplication problems① 23 * 15 or 47 + 18

Then, new problems are shown, with two options① Respond quickly that the answer is known--high reward② Respond slowly--low reward (low risk)

Fast responses are more likely to be made when the problem is familiar (even with a different operator)



Flashbulb memories

People often have vivid memories of traumatic events.



What is a flashbulb memory

Brown & KulikMemories have vivid perceptual detailThey are emotionally powerfulStrong episodic content

Where you wereWhat you were doingWho you talked to

Possibly the result of a “now print” mechanism



But, are they real?

The initial studies assumed they were realVividness was taken as a sign of veracity

Later work disputes this conclusion Neisser & HarschHad students write where they were when they heard about the Challenger explosion①Wrote the day after the event

Asked for the account again 6 months later①Many discrepancies were found② Even for people who felt their memories were very vivid

Suggests confidence may not indicate veracity



Jury is still out, though

Challenger explosion may not have been traumatic enough to trigger a flashbulb memoryIn a study with an event more traumatic for the subjects, the memories were more accurate

Conway and colleagues.

Suggests that more work remains to be doneIt is difficult to do this work, because a public traumatic event is required.



Summary

Eyewitness testimonyEpisodic memory may be influenced by intervening eventsSource memory may be a problem

MetacognitionSource memory is one kind of metacognitionFeeling of knowing helps us determine what we are likely to retrieve from memory.

Flashbulb memoriesVivid memories of traumatic events.



Appendix A. Eyewitness memories: Jennifer Thompson’s case (1)

Thompson is a North Carolina rape victim whose eyewitness identification of a suspect put the wrong man in prison for life. Twice. Ronald Cotton is the innocent man who spent 11 years of his life in prison because of Thompson's mistake. And he might still be behind bars today if he hadn't been watching the O.J. Simpson trial on television in prison in 1995 and heard about a test for DNA. Thompson, now the 38-year-old mother of triplets, was a 22-year-old college student in 1984 when someone broke into her apartment, put a knife to her throat and raped her. Several days later, she went to the police station and picked Cotton's photo out of a lineup. She also picked him out of a physical lineup and identified him as her assailant at his 1985 trial. "I was absolutely, positively, without-a-doubt certain he was the man who raped me when I got on that witness stand and testified against him,"

Thompson recalls now. "And nobody was going to tell me any different.” Two years later, though, Cotton won a new trial where there was testimony about another man, a fellow inmate who had reportedly told other prisoners he had committed the rape for which Cotton had been convicted. But the man denied it on the witness stand. And Thompson testified that she had never seen the other man before in her life. Nine years later, Cotton was watching the Simpson trial unfold on TV when he heard about a miraculous new test that could prove his innocence. So he asked to be tested. And when the results came back, Thompson got the shock of her life. Cotton was innocent. It was his fellow inmate, the man she swore she had never seen before, who had raped her.

"I felt like my whole world had been turned upside down, like I had betrayed everybody, including myself," Thompson says. But experts say they aren't surprised by her story. Mistaken eyewitness identification is the No. 1 cause of wrongful convictions, they say. Cotton isn't angry. In fact, he and Thompson have since become friends. "You can't forget, but you can forgive," he says. But he also counts his blessings every day. And thanks God for DNA. "If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be where I am today,“ he says

http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~malavet/evidence/notes/thompson_cotton.htm



Appendix A. Eyewitness memories: Jennifer Thompson’s case (2)

There are many factors which can influence eyewitness testimonyThe police should let the victim know that the suspect may “or” may not in the line-upOne by one recognition rather than line-up: judgment based on absolute criteria than on relative comparion?Knife? Gun? →makes victims focus more on the weapons with increased “fear”But, these are just a few among numerous other factors.



Appendix B. Prospective Memory

Defined as remembering to remember (Winograd, 1988). It differs from retrospective memory, where passed actions, events, or knowledge are remembered.

Consists of recalling an action or an intention. This recall is triggered by either a stimulus or cue or a time. Example 1: Meeting a friend (the cue) might remind you to pass on a message (the intention)Example 2: Remembering to watch TV at 8pm, or recalling a meeting or appointment at a certain time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrospective_memory

07. use of memory07. use of memory

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