GROUP 4:

CHAPTER 8:
EVERYDAY MEMORY &
MEMORY ERRORS
 GISHENSHIO STRLIN RAJEEBA RAJU

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY (AM):

Recollected events that belong to a person’s past
 Mental time travel: placing ourself back in the day
of event
 AM of a birthday party contains:
Episodic memory: cake, games, people
Semantic memory: when, where and what
happened
 MULTIDIMENTIONAL NATURE OF AM:
 Contains: sensory, emotional and spatial
components
 Sensory component: Brain damage in visual cortex-
ability to recognize object is lost, although they didn’t go
blind; also AM is lost
 Emotional component: AM elicits emotions:
activates Amygdala
 Spatial component: Experiment conducted with 12
Duke University students by Roberto Cabeza
 Stimulus:
 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PHOTOS: Pictures
of 40 specific campus location are taken by the
12 participants, in 10 days
 LABORATORY PHOTOS: Pictures of those
places are taken by some other people
Process:
 A photos and L photos were shown to the participants
 Brain activity was measured by MRI scanner
 Conclusion:
 Parietal cortex: activation by A & L photos were
same
 Hippocampus: activation by A photos were more
than L photos
 AM activates Visual space in brain: Recall the
events that took place when taking A photos

MEMORY OVER THE LIFESPAN:

What makes an event to be remembered years later?
EMOTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE of events
 REMINISCENCE REMINISCENCE RELATED
HYPOTHESES:
BUMP:
Self-image hypothesis: Events
 Mostly people occurring for the formation of
remember things that self-image are remembered
happened only some more
Cognitive hypothesis: Periods
years back
of rapid change is followed by
 People above 40 have stability, causing stronger
high memory of encoding of memory
events that happened Cultural life script hypothesis:
in recent, early Memories of love, marriage, etc
adulthood and are remembered after 40s as
adolescence they are culturally scripted
Basic Characteristics
Self- Period of assuming
image person’s self-image
Cognitive Encoding is better during
periods of rapid change
Cultural Culturally shared
life expectations structure
script recall
MEMORY FOR “EXCEPTIONAL” EVENTS:
Memory and Emotion:
 Apart from love and marriage,
we remember times of
embarrassment and failure too
which are exceptional events
which are different for different
people
 Exceptional events are associated
with emotions, associated with
amygdala
Flashbulb Memories: (by
Brown and Kulik)
 Accurate remembrance of when
and where you heard about a
shocking event
 Ex: 9/11 terrorist attack
 Experiment was flawed due to
assumption of loss in details due
to the collection of data after
many years
 REPEATED RECALL: WHAT

 In laboratory, memories collected immediately after an

event is compared to memories collected after years
 Data can be slightly modified due to time gap between
event and the collection of data WHEN

2 characteristics:
Involves high emotions
Added rehearsal: When an event happens its all over
media, we hear it often so our brain stores the event but WHERE
after years there is a decrease in clarity of data
 RASHMITHA SUBRAMANI
THE CONSTRUCTIVE NATURE OF MEMORY
 Memories are constructed by the person based on what
actually happened like persons knowledge, experiences and
expectations
BARTLETT’S “WAR OF THE GHOSTS” EXPERIMENT
 Used technique of repeated reproduction
 Remembered stories- tended to reflect the
participants’ own culture
 Participants created their memories from two sources
SOURCE MONITORING AND SOURCE
MONITORING ERRORS
■ Process of determining the origins of our
memories, knowledge or beliefs- Source
monitoring
■ Source monitoring errors are also- Source
misattributions
■ Often unaware of them
■ Mechanisms responsible for them are also
involved in creating memories
“BECOMING FAMOUS OVERNIGHT”
EXPERIMENT
■ Larry Jacoby and coworkers- effect of source monitoring errors by
testing participants
■ Ability to distinguish b/w famous and non-famous names

Acquisition Immediate test Wait 24 Delayed test

Read non- Read non-famous names hours Same as
famous names. from acquisition plus new immediate test.
non-famous names.
Q: Which are famous?
Results: Most non-famous names
correctly identified as non-famous

■ Richard Marsh and coworkers- people’s performance on a source

monitoring task influenced by gender stereotypes 
HOW REAL- WORLD KNOWLEDGE
AFFECTS MEMORY
■ Memory reports influences that
people make choices based on their
experiences and knowledge
■ Pragmatic inference- occurs when
reading a sentence; leads to expect
something that is not explicitly stated
or necessarily implied by the sentence
■ Based on knowledge gained through
experience
 BRANSFORD AND JOHNSON’S EXPERIMENT
Acquisition Test
Read “pounding Have you seen this Result
Experimental nails” sentence sentence (refers to 57% (percent of
and 5 others. “hammer”) before? sentences
erroneously
Read “looking for Have you seen identified as
Control nail” sentence this sentence 20% seen
and 5 others. (refers to before)
“hammer”) before?
SCHEMA AND SCRIPT
 Schema: Knowledge about some aspects of the environment
Ex: a person’s schema of a post office building is usually looks (like from
the outside)
 Script: Our conception of the sequence of actions that usually occur
during a particular experience
Ex: scripts can influence our memory by setting up expectation about
what usually happens in particular situations
TAKING STOCK:
THE PLUSES AND MINUSES OF CONSTRUCTION:
 Constructive property of memory: reflects the
creative nature of our mental processes
 Although this creativity serves a good purpose, it
sometimes results in errors of memory
 Fact: We forget many of the things we have
experienced
 Russian memory expert Shereshevskii:
Almost perfect memory may not be advantageous
after all
 ELNA SAJU
MEMORY CAN BE MODIFIED/ CREATED BY
SUGGESTION:
■ People are suggestible
THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT/ MPI:
Memory modified by things happening after event
■ Method- Present misleading post event information
■ Present stimulus to be remembered
■ MPI presented to one group before memory is tested
■16 Effect in MPI is determined by comparing reports
Experiment by Elizabeth Loftus and
coworkers (1978)-
■ Car stop at stop sign, turn and hit pedestrian,
asked if another car passed at stop sign
■ For MPI group, “stop sign” replaced by
“yield sign”
■ Showed slides of yield sign and MPI group said STOP
yes
YIELD
Loftus and Palmer (1974): films of car crash
■ How fast were cars going when they ‘smashed’ or
‘hit’ each other?
■ ‘Smashed’- 41 miles/ hour and ‘hit’- 34 miles/
hour
■ For broken glass wasn’t there, 32% of
smashed said yes as to 14% of hit

18
MPI as Replacing the Old Memory
■ Loftus: memory trace replacement
hypothesis- MPI replaces original memory,
reconsolidation could provide mechanism for
replacement
MPI as Causing Interference
■ Original information forgotten because of
retroactive interference
■ Here, old info isn’t eliminated
19
MPI as Causing Source Monitoring Errors
Source of memory for incorrect event is slide show,
not experimenter’s statement
Stephen Lindsay (1990)- showed maintenance man
stealing money described by female speaker. Later,
given same info by same speaker but with changes.
Result: 27% incorrect responses as to 9% in control Misled items Control items
30
group 27
20
■ Male voice told 2 story- 13% as to 10%
nd
for
control group: lack occurred- easier to 10
9
13
10

20
distinguish between voices 0
Female voice Male voice
CREATING FALSE MEMORIES FOR
EARLY EVENTS IN PEOPLE’S LIVES
■ Ira Hyman Jr. and coworkers (1995): created
false memories; initially, said no recollection, later
added details due to familiarity
■ Stephen Lindsay & coworkers (2004): added a
false story- placing Slime in teachers’ desk, while
viewing 1st and 2nd class pic; nearly twice as many
false memories
 WHY DO PEOPLE MAKE ERRORS IN EYE
WITNESS TESTIMONY?
ERRORS OF EYE WITNESS IDENTIFICATION
 Our memory is fallible
Ex- David Webb- 50 years of imprisonment based on
eyewitness testimony released as someone confessed
 Ronald Cotton- raping Jennifer Thompson after she
believed he was attacker
In an exp, security tape of gunman for 8 seconds and
shown photospread, all picked but he was excluded

22
THE CRIME SCENE AND AFTERWARD
ERRORS ASSOCIATED WITH ATTENTION:
■ Weapon focus effect: visual attention eyewitnesses give to
perpetrator’s weapon during crime
■ Claudia Stanny and Thomas Johnson(2000):
presence of fired weapon decreases memory Shoot No Shoot
about perpetrator, victim and weapon 100

80
■ Kerri Pickel (2009)- people’s ability to describe
60
perp affected more if a woman
40

20

23 0
Perpetrator Victim Weapon
 A c t u a l r o b b e r in
ERRORS ASSOCIATED WITH photospread

FAMILIARITY: 80
Experimental Control

60
■ Bystanders mistaken as perps due to
40
familiarity
20

■ Ex. Donald Thompson- rape since 0 saw him

on T.V. A ticket agent, robbed; identified a sailor who lived
nearby and had bought tickets

Exp group shown male teacher reading to students and A C T U A L R O B B E R N OT I N

female teacher for control group. Both shown a female P H OT OS P R E A D

Experimental Control
teacher being robbed 80
60
Robber’s pic excluded- exp group 3 times likely to pick male
40
teacher. Included- 18% as to 10% in control group 20
24
0
ERRORS DUE TO SUGGESTION:
■ Eyewitness saw lineup; asked, “Which one of them did it?” -
perp is present; compares lineup to perp
■ “Good, you identified the suspect”, Gary Wells
& Amy Bradfield, 1998- actual crime
video, pick perp from photospread, without actual
perp
■ Given confirming/ no/ disconfirming
feedbacks. Received confirming feedback
were confident: post-identification feedback effect
25
THE EFFECT OF POST-EVENT QUESTIONING:
■ Jason Chan and coworkers (2009)- viewed show 24, one took test
and both given tasks; given misinformation audio and both took
same cue test. Results- 50% test group said ‘yes’ to incorrect
information: reverse testing effect
Test group
Take cue Cued recall
recall test
Misinformation
test
50%
View 24
tape
Play
Misinformation Cued recall test 30%
Tetris
No test ‘yes’ response to
group incorrect item

 Reconsolidation effect- reactivating memory increased

26 vulnerability
WHAT IS BEING DONE? Pe rpe tra tor i n l ineup

■ Asking witness to pick perp 1

Low
from High

lineup: inform actual perp

0.5 may not
be there 0

■ Constructing lineup: use “fillers” similar to

suspect; Lindsay and Gary Wells, 1980 showed
similarity caused decrease in incorrect
Perpetrator not in lineup
identification from 0.70 to 0.31
Low High
■ Present lineup: use sequential than simultaneous 1

presentation. Lindsay and Wells, 1985- incorrect

identification reduce to 17% from 43% 0.5

27 0
WHAT IS BEING DONE?
■ Use ‘blind’ lineup, get immediate confidence
rating; eliminates post-event feedback effect
■ Improve interviewing techniques: Cognitive
interview- witness talk with minimal
interruption; 25-60% more helpful
■ Included in 1999, Eyewitness Evidence: A
Guide for Law Enforcement
SOMETHING TO CONSIDER:
MEMORIES OF CHILD ABUSE
■ Eileen Lipsker, 1989, remembered red-haired friend raped
and murdered by father 20 years ago as
watched her red-haired daughter drawing
■ Ex. Therapist (‘trauma-memory oriented therapists’)
suggests: childhood sexual abuse causes anxiety
and eating disorder- look at old pictures,
visualizations, could create false memories
■ No procedure can accurately differentiate false and real memories
29
 THANK YOU
GROUP MEMBERS:

. Rashmitha Subramani .Gishenshio Strlin Rajeeba Raju

Elna Saju
Thavasimariselvam Nagaraj . Sandeep Dudyala