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Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

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Page 1: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Encoding Specificity

• Memory is improvedwhen information available at encoding is also available atretrieval

Page 2: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Tulving (1983)

• People encode the context with the target

• material

• Physical match (class, diving, smell)

• Emotional match (happy, depressed)

• Understanding match (childhood amnesia,

• under the influence of drugs match)

Page 3: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Improving Memory

• Use mnemonics• Use elaboration to make the material

meaningful• Activate retrieval cues• Minimize interference• Sleep more• Test your knowledge, both to rehearse it

and to determine what you do not yet know.

Page 4: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

• Overlearning: newly acquired skills should be practiced well beyond the point of initial mastery, leading to automaticity.

• Massed v. Distributive Practice:– Ebbinghaus: "with any considerable number

of repetitions a suitable distribution of them over a space of time is decidedly more advantageous than the massing of them at a single time"

Page 5: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

The problems with eyewitness

identification

Page 6: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Remember this person!

Page 7: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Simultaneous lineupand Relative judgment

Page 8: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

The option? Sequential Lineup•Number of possible photos unknown.•Decision: Yes or No to each photo.•Witness may NOT return to previous photo.•Absolute Judgment Process provides better protection of innocents .

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This is the person

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• Perception interpretation of information

• Attention & Memory as a By-Product

• Post-event Distortion

Some problematic features of the

human perceiver and eyewitness.

Page 16: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Post-event Distortion– Factors Arising Before ID

• Heuristics: Availability, Causal scenarios, Vividness

• Composites and artist’s sketches • Information from others• Prior observations or photos of

lineup members

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Factors Arising Between ID and

Testimony• Feedback about ID from investigators and media

• Additional information from others and media

• Compliance & conformity to others

Page 18: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Can we distinguish accurate from inaccurate identifiers?

• State of the “trace” should be revealed in aspects of the decision process;

• There are a number of “identification behaviors” that, from a statistical point of view, do predict accuracy.

• For example;– Decision speed (RT): The faster the choice, the more likely

the ID is correct BUT no rule of thumb (e.g. 10-12 s)– Confidence: While accuracy & confidence are not well

correlated, decisions accompanied by the very highest rating (taken at the time of ID) are often more likely to be correct.

Page 19: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Eyewitness testimony

• Loftus -- subjects watched a video of a car accident and then were asked “how fast was the car going when it”

• Smashed 40.8

• Collided 39.3

• Bumped 38.1

• Hit 34.0

• Contacted 31.8

Page 20: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

• Leading questions may bias the estimates the questions may literally change the way people remember the event

• Exp 2: Subjects saw the video and were asked “Smashed” or “hit”

• Smashed est'd mph > Hit estd mph

Page 21: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

• 1 Week subjects were later asked “did you see any broken glass”?

• Most answered “no” correctly, but– 32% said yes if asked “Smashed”– 14% said yes if asked “hit”– 12% said yes in control group

• The memory of the video and the question were fused together into one memory

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Page 23: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

• As time increased the memory was integrated so that subjects couldn’t distinguish the event from effects of questioning

• Typical eyewitness testimony:– Occurs after long interval from event– After repeated questioning– After repeated retellings

Page 24: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

Q: How reliable is eyewitness testimony?

A: Difficult to know for sure, but people can’t distinguish between “real events” and “reconstructed memories”– Implications for “recovered memories” & legal

system– Should eyewitness testimony by itself be

considered sufficient to establish guilt?

Page 25: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

More to consider…

• Bias - The tendency for knowledge, beliefs, and feelings to distort recollection of previous experiences and to affect current and future judgments and memory.

• Source amnesia (source misattribution):

Page 26: Encoding Specificity Memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval

• The Innocence Project reports that 25% of wrongful convictions involve faulty eyewitness testimony, as distinguished from identification error.

• The strengths and weaknesses of human observers extend to many other types of testimony about events and people:– Recollection of contexts, times, and dates, voices,

conversations, inferences, and personal interactions,– Recollection of other physical features, actions and their

order, and patterns of movement among people.• To date, few guidelines (e.g. interviewing) have been drawn up as

to how best to assess these kinds of testimony.

Not all false eyewitness testimony is about person identification…