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Other Memory Distinctions and Phenomena
Other Memory distinctions and phenomena Voluntary/Involuntary retention Prospective/Retrospective memory Flashbulb memories and memory for
traumatic events The reconstructive nature of memory Remembering the source False memories Metamemory
Voluntary/Involuntary retention
Covers much of the same ground as conscious/nonconscious memory
Some memories are actively ‘searched’ for Other times there is recollection without effort
Voluntary/Involuntary retention Voluntary
Deliberate willful retention May reflect automatic processes
Trying to remember some event but doing so because of some priming from the environment
Example trying to remember the name of the candy store you used to go to as a kid, but doing so because you passed by a similar looking one walking down the street (though wasn’t consciously aware of doing so)
Involuntary May have conscious recollection of automatically retrieved
information Unaware of source (though may determine later)
Example: Stupid 80s song gets stuck in your head seemingly out of
nowhere
Retrospective/Prospective memory
Retrospective memory Memory for the past Everything we’ve been talking about up until this point
Prospective memory Memory for future events, or how we remember to do
things at a later time Memory for the execution of delayed intentions Everyday memory
Example: Pick up groceries on the way home after work
Prospective memory
Basic lab paradigm (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990) When one sees a target word displayed in
some task (e.g. pleasantness rating) perform some action
Press a key
Event-based vs. Time-based cues
The cue and action
How reminders can help Guynn, McDaniel, Einstein (1998)
Reminded of cue Reminded of action to be performed Reminded of both
Best performance
Suggests binding the cue to the action may be most important part of PM process (Guynn, McDaniel, Einstein 2001)
Retrospective/Prospective memory
Is the distinction necessary? Descriptively, the distinction denotes two very
different memory experiences Remains to be seen if it involves different
processes
Flashbulb Memories
Highly vivid memory for the details of an event and the setting
Evolutionarily adaptive Good to remember important events that could
ensure survival later Is it a special type of memory? How accurate?
Flashbulb Memories
Special mechanism Seem so much better than other memories
Brown & Kulik (1977) JFK Vivid and detailed recall 13 years later
Lead to a now-print order and permanent registration
No special mechanism Distinctiveness, rehearsal, relevance can
explain special status in memory
Flashbulb Memories
Compromise Conway et al. (1994) Affective intensity &
perceived importance will contribute to the flashbulb effect
But are they accurate? Not really Neisser & Harsch (1992)
Challenger explosion 25% provided outright
inconsistencies the next day vs. ~3 years later
Schmolck, Buffalo, Squire 2000O.J. verdict
Memory for traumatic events
Accurate for the most part but not immune to forgetting
Two questions: Can they be forgotten completely? Can they be recovered?
Memory for traumatic events
Retrospective survey studies Questionnaires given to those who’ve
experienced some traumatic event A number of respondents claim a time period
when they did not remember their trauma ’Nuff said? Problem
No independent corroboration of the trauma People can unknowingly exaggerate their prior
degree of forgetting
Memory for traumatic events
Retrospective case studies Similar evidence (and easier to corroborate),
but also similar problem of exaggerated forgetting
Schooler Individuals reported they’d forgotten it at a
time when they’d reported it to others Forgot-it-all-along effect
Underestimate prior knowledge
Memory for traumatic events
Prospective studies Identify individuals on the basis of known trauma
histories (so no false memories) and test current recollections of abuse
Again some individuals report no memory of event Limitations
Asked to report on individual instances of abuse, however one of many repeated instances may be forgotten
May forget one but remember other instances of abuse
Memory for traumatic events
Can traumatic memories that have been ‘recovered’ be authentic? Some suggest the term ‘discovered’ memories to remain
neutral whether memory is true/false or event occurred Studies have shown that:
Individuals can remember, even with great detail, things that did not happen (alien abductions, satanic ritual)
Participants can be induced to recall things that never happened to them (e.g. lost in the mall [Loftus & Pickrell])
A variety of psychotherapeutic techniques can produce false memories (repeated retrieval attempts, hypnosis, dream interpretation)
Therapists that use such techniques are more likely to induce ‘discovered’ memories and have patients that ultimately retract
Memory for traumatic events
Despite all that, some memories have seemingly been discovered, and then corroborated independently in some fashion Ross Cheit (molested by choir counselor,
taped confession of counselor) Frank Fitzpatrick (abused by priest,
corroborated by others) So how might it happen?
Repressed memories
Anderson & Green 2001 Paired-associate task Presented cue, told to respond with its associate, or
suppress all thought of it Ordeal - Roach Ordeal - _____ Respond roach Don’t respond roach (suppression pair)
Phase 2 Recall given cue (or independent probe, or various
other conditions) Will attempted suppression hinder later recall?
Repressed memories
With more suppression practice, later recall suffered
The findings show a controllable inhibition process that can be flexibly targeted to a specific memory
Does not support the popular idea that attempting to suppress an unwanted thought makes it hyperaccessible
Reconstructive Nature of Memory
Memory is reconstructive Influenced by retrieval context and purpose of retrieval. Decision based on available information
Allows for “filling-in” Leads to distortions
Meaning is a function of both the input and activated knowledge
Understanding consists of constructing an integrated representation Understand when the pieces of info come together and
make sense. How might meaning and understanding come about?
Use of Background Knowledge
So far, memory has had little organization Some relations among concepts
A network model
Concepts themselves are structured We know a lot about events How is that knowledge organized?
A knowledge structure
Schema General knowledge structure that organizes objects,
attributes, and actions into a cohesive representation. Allows for interpretation Guides retrieval
Script A knowledge structure (type of schema) containing
information about the sequence of events in routine or stereotypical situations.
Headers Phrases or words that activate a script.
Frames Details about specific events within the script.
Default Value The common, typical value that occupies a frame.
Using a script
A frame with causal information
Each component also needs a representation
Example John went to the store,
picked up some pasta and went home.
Did he pay? Did he pay before or
after selecting the pasta?
Grocery_Shopping eventType: Shopping purpose: GettingGroceries location: GroceryStore actors: buyer, manager, checkout person subEvents: gettingCart (A), selectingItems (B), paying (C) temporalRelations: precedes(A,B), precedes(B,C)
Grocery_Shopping eventType: Shopping purpose: GettingGroceries location: GroceryStore actors: buyer, manager, checkout person subEvents: gettingCart (A), selectingItems (B), paying (C) temporalRelations: precedes(A,B), precedes(B,C)
Interpretation
Jane heard the jingling of the ice cream truck and she ran to get her piggy bank and started to shake it. Finally, some money came out.
How old is Jane? Why did she get the money? Did she turn the piggy bank upside down? Was the money coins or bills? How big was the bank? What time of the year was it?
Guiding Retrieval
Bransford & Johnson Ambiguous passages Title of the passage allowed people to interpret the
ambiguous sentences. “The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things
into different groups. Of course one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else, due to lack of facilities, that is the next step; otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things…”
Washing Clothes Schematic knowledge helps generate retrieval cues.
Using a script
Memory We use scripts/schemas to organize memories We tend to fit events into our existing schemas Allow us to have expectations and therefore
predict events. Allow us to assume unstated (shared) details. No need to store multiple examples of similar
events.
Bartlett (1932)The War of the Ghosts
One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals, and while they were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war-cries, and they thought: "Maybe this is a war-party." They escaped to the shore, and hid behind a log. Now canoes came up, and they heard the noise of paddles, and saw one canoe coming up to them. There were five men in the canoe, and they said: "What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people."
One of the young men said, "I have no arrows.""Arrows are in the canoe," they said."I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone. But you,"
he said turning to the other, "may go with them."So one of the young men went, but the other returned home.And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The people
came down to the water, and they began to fight, and many were killed. But presently the young man heard one of the warriors say: "Quick, let us go home: that Indian has been hit." Now he thought: "Oh, they are ghosts." He did not feel sick, but they said he had been shot.
So the canoes went back to Egulac, and the young man went ashore to his house, and made a fire. And he told everybody and said "Behold I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed. They said I was hit, and I did not feel sick."
He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose he fell down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and cried.
He was dead.
Bartlett (1932)
This story would be perfectly reasonable to the people from whom it was taken.
It was part of the oral literary tradition of Native Americans on the west cost of Canada more than a century ago.
It fit in very well with their schemas for how the world worked.
It does not fit in well with most of today’s cultural schemas nor with those of Bartlett's subjects (English) in those days.
Bartlett (1932)Representative version given 20 hours after hearing the story:
Two men from Edulac went fishing. While thus occupied by the river they heard a noise in the distance.
"It sounds like a cry," said one, and presently there appeared some in canoes who invited them to join the party on their adventure. One of the young men refused to go, on the ground of family ties but the other offered to go.
"But there are not arrows," he said."The arrows are in the boat," was the reply.He thereupon took his place, while his friend
returned home. The party paddled up the river to Kalama, and began to land on the banks of the river. The enemy came rushing upon them, and some sharp fighting ensued. Presently someone was injured, and the cry was raised that the enemy were ghosts.
The party returned down the stream, and the young man arrived home feeling none the worse for his experience. The next morning at dawn he endeavoured to recount his adventures. While he was talking something black issued from his mouth. Suddenly he uttered a cry and fell down. His friends gathered around him. But he was dead.
Another version
Two men hunt seals at Egulack. They hear shots at a
distance and hide behind a rock. A canoe comes by the river. A man in the canoe says
"Come with us we are fighting a battle."
"I cannot come because my family does not know where I am. But you can go." He told the other.
At the battle they shouted, "The Indian is wounded we must return."
At home the Indian said "We fought a battle many on our side perished, many on their side perished. I was wounded but did not feel the pain.'
When the sun went down, he fell back. Something black came out of his mouth. He was dead.
Bartlett (1932)
What did participants do? omitted parts of the story changed facts imported new information distorted the story to fit with their own cultural
stereotypes (e.g. hunting seals vs. fishing) omitted the hard to interpret aspects of the
battle role of the ghosts incorrect
People use schemas to aid their inferential recall of studied material.
Reconstructive Memory
Bartlett distinguished between reproductive and reconstructive memory
Reproductive memory: A highly accurate, verbatim recording of an event
Reconstructive Memory: Remembering by combining elements of experience with existing knowledge
Bartlett used the concept of schemas to explain subject alterations when re-telling the War of the Ghosts story
In Bartlett’s study participants normalized and rationalized occurrences across several retellings
Interesting aside: Ost & Costall (2002). Misremembering Bartlett.
Problems with schemas
Not exactly clear on how schemas would be implemented computationally/physically Perhaps PDP models will have more to say
Relevance Some situations may involve a mixture of
schemas Meeting doctor at a restaurant (don’t stick out
tongue, disrobe)
Please study these words carefully.
THREADPINEYESEWINGSHARPPOINTPRICKTHIMBLEHAYSTACKTHORNHURTINJECTIONSYRINGECLOTHKNITTING
Memory Distortions
Interpolation of information may lead to memory distortions. Consequence of organization and congruity Cognitive economy
Can arise from misuse of information that is consistent with retrieval plan (purpose of retrieval). General (categorical) Knowledge. Secondary (contextual) sources.
Distortions Based on General Knowledge
Deese/ Roediger & McDermott (DRM) paradigm
List learning task Study a list of items for short-term recall Mental arithmetic (distractor) Recall
Read 1996
Example of how powerful the effect is Exp. 1 Method
12 word list 5 minute interval Free recall Also report confidence ratings, remember-
know judgment, anything unusual, position of each word recalled (1-12)
Read 1996 Results
7.68/12 recalled (64%) Though not presented, 66% recalled the word “sleep” (intrusion)
In other words, sleep as likely to be called as any particular item word Experiment 2: 62.5% assigned it to an earlier position
It was ‘activated’ with initial words and continued to be elicited with subsequent presentations, thus making it seem as though it was with other words (earlier ones) on the list that would have received the same sort of repeated activation
Now…
Recall! As you do so give a confidence rating each Do so for the following also plus remember/know
judgments (specifically remember or just know it was in there somewhere): THREAD NEEDLE POINT THIMBLE THORN
“False” Memory
What causes the intrusions? Encoding
Implicit-Associative Response Spreading Activation
Retrieval Selection effect
Distortion Based on Secondary Sources Loftus and Palmer
Showed a film of a car accident
Loftus and Palmer
How fast were the cars moving when they X into each other? Participants rated speed.
Rated speed depended on the verb used for (X)
Smashed = 41 m.p.h. Collided into = 39 m.p.h. Bumped = 37 m.p.h. Hit = 34 m.p.h. Contacted = 32 m.p.h.
Actual Speed = 30 m.p.h.
Loftus and Palmer
Also On a retest 1 wk later, those Ss who received
the verb ‘smashed’ were more likely to say "yes" to the question, "Did you see any broken glass?", even though broken glass was not present in the film
The retrieval context influences the reconstruction of memory Information from the retrieval context can be
included in the “memory.”
Misinformation Effect
People include (erroneous) information that originates from secondary sources in their descriptions of episodes. Eyewitness Testimony & Police and/or lawyers
Three phases Encounter information Elaborate on event
Retelling/remembering Additional information from a secondary source
Remember event
Misinformation Effect
Possible explanations Overwriting
Memory ‘trace’ is altered with misleading information Source confusion
Original memory not impaired, but competing information may lead to a lack of knowledge about where original memory came from
Not a memory problem Just assume the misleading information is true Misinformation acceptance
Fuzzy Trace Theory
Another explanation for false memory Brainerd & Reyna Subjects develop two separate memory
representations: Verbatim memory:
Trace that supports accurate recall of studied material. Gist representation:
Stores the semantic content of the material. Recall may be based on an attempt to recover the
general theme or gist of material studied. Items consistent with this theme will be recalled, and some of these items will be false recalls.
Fuzzy Trace Theory
Common theme: Inaccurate recall
related to maintaining the ‘gist’
Fuzzy Trace Theory
FTT Parallel storage of verbatim and gist traces
V: episodically instantiated representations of the surface forms of experienced items
G: episodic interpretations of concepts (meanings, relations, patterns) that have been retrieved as a result of encoding items’ surface forms.
Dissociated retrieval of verbatim and gist traces Recall is mixture of verbatim and gist retrieval Both aid in true memory recall Regarding false memory: specifically experienced cues call on verbatim
trace and make false recall less likely, nonexperienced that preserve the meaning call on gist and false recall is more likely
Brainerd and Reyna suggest FTT can account for a number of phenomena such as the dissociation and association of true and false memory, phantom recollection, mere testing (simply asking can alter memory) etc.
Source Monitoring
Paradigm Present items from different modalities
Visual or auditory Incidental memory task
Test with a forced-choice recognition test Picture Heard Not Presented
Source Monitoring
Origin
Res
pons
e
P
P
H
H
N
N
Hit
Hit
HitMissMiss
Source Confusion
Source Confusion
False Alarm
False Alarm
Compare memory for the different sources. Analyses of mean responses using an Origin X
Response contingency table. 3x3…with 2 original sources
Source Monitoring
Factors that affect accuracy and misattributions Distinctiveness of sources
The farther “apart” sources are the less likely there will be confusions
Male vs Female voice Seen vs Heard
Order of presentation Blocked vs Intermixed
Test Modality Like TAP, overlap in test modality increases accuracy Additional retrieval cues
Source Misattributions
Memory fails in systematic ways Patterns of misattributions indicate decision
process.
Source confusions Based on source “strength” Based on beliefs about “diagnosticity” of source
information. Asymmetry in false alarms as a function of source
strength, diagnosticity, or decision process.
Judgments of Memory Ability
Metacognition Monitor and control of the processes of memory. ‘Metacogito ergo sum’
Metacognitive Model Nelson Multiple levels of cognitive processing Some processes operate on the task at hand directly (Object
Level) Some processes monitor the processing of Object Level
(Meta Level) Has access to the processes of the Object Level
Meta Level also controls what Object Level processes are used.
Metacognitive Model
Metalevel
Object level
MonitoringControl
Object level includes basic cognitive operations Metalevel represents schema-like knowledge
Contains degraded model of object level Makes assessments based on information it gets from object
level, and returns control signals (strategies) that may influence the object level operations
Measuring Metamemory
Prospective judgments Made prior to attempts to retrieve information Based on knowledge of “problem” and
assessment of encoding context Rate (on a response scale) the degree to
which items are learned. Judgment-of-Learning (JOL)
Assess the difficulty of encoding
Metacognitive Model
Measuring Metamemory
Three-phase paradigm Prospective
Present-Judge-Recall Blocked or individual trials
DOG
GLASS
SPOON
HOUSE
JOL? JOL?
Jol?
Jol?
Jol?
Jol?
RECALL
Measuring Metamemory
Retrospective Judgments Made after retrieval attempt. Based on “availability” of information at
retrieval.
Confidence Ratings After successful retrieval
Feeling-of-Knowing For retrieval failures How well do you think you could recognize…
Metacognitive Model
Metamemory Paradigms
Retrospective Recall-Judge-Recognize (RJR)
General knowledge questions Confidence
Rate for each response (recognition) FOK
Who was the first person to walk on the moon?Answer -> confidence ratingNo Answer -> FOKWhat is your Feeling of Knowing?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The First person to walk on the moon was _____.
a) Aldrin
b) Glenn
c) Armstrong
d) Jamison
Relation of Metamemory Judgments and Performance Correlate Metamemory judgment with performance.
Pearson’s r or Gamma coefficient (ordinal data) Prospective judgments and memory performance
Higher FOK/JOL does not necessarily yield better recall Dissociation between information used to make judgment and process used
to retrieve Presence of distractors Question familiarity
Retrospective judgments and memory performance Confidence ratings usually correlate positively
Again, not always Overconfidence
Correlation between prospective judgments and study/retrieval time. High negative
The lower the JOL the more time used studying the item The lower the FOK the longer time spent in retrieval attempt
Metacognitive Model
Metamemory
Theories Target Retrievability hypothesis Cue Familiarity hypothesis Accessibility Account
Target Retrievability
If and when people are able to make accurate judgments about their future knowledge (FOK), they are able to because even though accessible knowledge is insufficient to allow articulation, people nevertheless know some answer or part of it
Hart (1965) Suggested that recall better than recognition as it takes
more to reach threshold (FOK threshold hits somewhere in between recall and recognition)
But we now know that’s not the case so it’s not just a simple threshold difference
Burke, Mackay, Worthley & Wade Semantic knowledge may be there but some breakdown
may occur at the articulatory level Tip of the Tongue
Cue Familiarity hypothesis
FOK judgments based on familiarity of cue present at time judgment is made
Reder Fast assessment of existence in memory FOK
judgment High cue familiarity: probably in memory Low cue familiarity: probably not
Metcalfe (CHARM) A monitor assesses familiarity of info being processed
and sends feedback signal that controls weighting of info coming into memory
FOK based on info available, which in RJR situations only the cue is present
Accessibility Account
Koriat Accessibility heuristic
FOK based on all retrieved info, not just familiarity of cue
Do not know whether info is correct or not, but info may be weighted by strength and speed of access
Quantity of information retrieved FOK
Memory Egg
Perceptual Detail
Cognitive Operations
Contextual Detail
Affectiv
e Info.
Metacognitive Model
Metalevel
Object level
MonitoringControl
