Lecture 5: Memory in the Real World

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Lecture 5 Memory in the Real World

• Outline
• The everyday memory movement
• Improving memory
• Eye witness testimony
• Recovered memories / FMS
• By the end of the lecture you should have
  learned
• The advantages and disadvantages of
  ecologically valid research.
• Some key findings of experiments into eye
  witness testimony
• How experimental psychologists have contributed
  to the debate over FMS

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Background
If X is an important or interesting feature of
human behavior, then X has rarely been studied
by psychologists Neisser, 1978
Neisser argued that much of the last 100 years of
memory research was misguided and
worthless. Memory research should have
ecological validity - it should apply to
naturally occurring behaviour in the natural
context of the real world. Above all,
remembering is a form of purposeful
action Neissers comments influenced a new
generation of memory researchers. However, not
all memory researchers agreed that taking
psychology out of the laboratory is a good idea
(e.g. Banaji Crowder, 1989)
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Background
Advantages and limitations of ecologically valid
research
Advantages
Disadvantages
1. Relevance to real world
1. Lack of experimental control
2. Practical predictions
2. Memory accuracy difficult to assess
3. Acknowledges Individual Differences
3. Lack of theoretical frameworks
4. Raises new questions

• Key concepts Representativeness and
  Generalisability
• Debate currently less active
• Because issues overstated in the first place
• Because more relevant aspects of memory
  function are now studied more often.

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Improving Memory
Despite the claims of newspaper adverts, our
ability to improve our memory performance is
relatively modest. Memory as a Muscle
analogy Not good - can lead to unrealistic
expectations (and rehabilitation programs) for
patients with memory problems. Some useful
techniques Pay attention - attention is
required in order to encode the information - and
for elaboration. Practice / Rehearse - Leads to
distributed traces / more contextual
cues. Organisation - Learning any set of facts is
easier if links can be established between them.
The more you know, the easier it gets. Enables
chunking. The organisational strategies most
often used involve imagery and mnemonics
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Imagery and Mnemonics

• Episodic memories often involve images.
  Professional mnemonists use this to their
  advantage, and may have naturally vivid imagery
  (or even synaesthesia - e.g. Lurias S.).
• Wilding Valentine (1994) Evidence for
  strategists and naturals
• Unusual and interactive images are best for
  associating two items (Bower, 1970).
• Simonides - The Method of Loci Use imagery to
  pair individual items with specific locations in
  a room. Look around the room to recall.
• Peg words - One is a bun, two is a shoe etc.
  Use imagery to pair item one with a bun, item two
  with a shoe etc.
• Face-Name pairing - Choose prominent facial
  feature, select imagable word(s) which are
  similar to name. Create image pairing feature
  with words. (Lorayne Lucas, 1975).

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Practice
Repetition influences the likelihood of an item
being transferred from the STS to the LTS. Is
practice most effective when concentrated or
distributed?
Madigan (1969) varied the interval between
repetition of a long list of to-be-learned words.
Research suggests gradually increasing interval
is most efficient
Spacing and lag effects are robust, but not easy
to explain. Encoding variability may play a role
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Revising for exams

• Revising (in the A level sense) is no longer
  enough
• A deep understanding of the topic is required
  - reflecting information gained in lectures,
  general reading, and personal research (for
  essays / presentations).
• So, throughout term
• Read textbook chapter before lecture
• Reread last weeks notes before each lecture
• Try to engage with the information - ask
  questions, make links with other material, be
  critical.
• Examiners want to see
• Understanding - answer the question
• Relevance - no marks for irrelevant information
• Analytical Ability - organised and well argued
  answer
• Expression - write clearly and concisely

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Revising for exams
1. Look at past papers to identify common
reoccurring questions and themes 2. Identify
possible thematic structures for these topics
(look at textbooks / review articles / essays
etc) 3. Represent this structure using key
topic / argument sentences and key experimental
data within colour circles
4. Write outlines to essay questions and
condense in the same way 5. Revise with
friends 6. Plan an outline of the second essay
before writing the first - and amend it 7.
Mention relevant authors whenever you can. 8.
Write quickly (but clearly)...
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Eye witness testimony

• Actively researched since turn of century. Much
  recent work done by Loftus and colleagues.
• The results of this research can have big
  implications for legal systems, there are several
  journals dedicated to issues concerning
  psychology and the law.
• Eye witness research has tended to involve
  reasonably ecologically valid paradigms. Subjects
  typically view pictures, or a video, or even an
  enacted crime, and their memory for details of
  the the event are subsequently assessed.

Two key questions are 1. What are the effects
of misleading information? 2. What is the fate
of the original memory? /
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The effects of misleading information
A typical paradigm contains 3 phases.
Phase 1 Ss view an event
Phase 2 Ss are exposed to post-event
information. For 50 of subjects this information
is consistent with what they saw.
Phase 3 Ss memory for event assessed.
Loftus - 1975 Subjects viewed film of car
accident. In phase 2, subjects filled out a
questionnaire.
Group A How fast was the car going when it
passed the barn
Group B How fast was the car going when it
passed the stop sign
1 Week later, Ss asked Did you see a barn?
(There was no barn).
20 of Group A respond Yes respond Yes
Misleading post-event information can lead to
false memories
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The effects of misleading information
Misleading post-event information can also
replace elements of an original memory.
In phase 1 Group A see slide A, Group B see slide
B.
Ss asked questions in phase 2 50 in each group
asked Did another car pass the Datsun when it
was at the Yield sign. 50 in each group asked
Did another car pass the Datsun when it was at
the Stop sign.
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The effects of misleading information
So 50 of subjects in each group received
inconsistent post-event information.
At subsequent phase 3 forced choice recognition
(pairs of slides) 75 of consistent Ss made
correct choice compared to 41 of inconsistent Ss
Researchers staged a robbery in front of students
An actor pretends to steal something from a
stooge students bag and conceal it in his coat
Student cries Hes taken my tape recorder!
Witnesses subsequently phoned by insurance agent
50 of witnesses claimed they saw the tape
recorder, and most of those provided reasonably
detailed descriptions...
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Misleading questions
Subtle differences in the wording of questions
can lead to very different responses.
Loftus (1974) Ss watched film of crash.
Group A asked Did you see a broken
headlight? Group B asked Did you see the broken
headlight?
Group B gave significantly more positive answers
Loftus Palmer (1974) Ss watched film of
crash. Ss given questionnaire asking How fast
were the cars going when they XXXX each other?
1 Week Later, Ss asked Did you see any broken
Glass? Smash Hit Yes 16 7 No 34 43
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Resistance to distortion
1. Public commitment made before misleading
information is presented reduces its influence.
Does the act of commitment strengthen the
original memory trace (by rehearsal) or are
subjects unwilling to contradict themselves?
2. Blatant misinformation does not work, and also
leads to mistrust of more subtle attempts
3. Time - if misinformation is presented
immediately after viewing the event, around 50
of subjects are able to resist its influence.
This figure drops to 20 one week later.
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The fate of the original memory
Cohen (1988) considered several alternative
hypotheses
1. Vacant slot - the original event was not
remembered at all
Unlikely as 90 of subjects tested immediately
after the event who are not exposed to misleading
information make correct responses.
2. Coexistence - both the original version and
the false version exist together as competing
alternatives
The false version is more likely to be recalled
as it was presented more recently than the
original version.
3. Demand Characteristics - both original and
false memories exist and are equally accessible.
Subjects recall misleading information because
that is what the experiment demands.
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The fate of the original memory
4. Substitution - the misinformation replaces the
earlier information which is then irretrievably
lost. This interpretation is favoured by Loftus.
(integration in schema theory)
The substitution hypothesis predicts that the
original information should not be recoverable.
Green, Flynn Loftus (1982) informed Ss after
phase 2 that the information was in fact
misleading.
Ss who had been warned made as many false
responses as subjects who had not been warned.
They appeared to be unable to disregard the
discredited false information and recover the
original memory.
Second guesses no more likely to be correct
than chance.
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Retrieval Failure?
Bekerian Bowers (1983) Original event
information not lost, just not retrieved due to
retrieval failure.
In Loftus expts, slides are presented for
recognition in random order. Therefore temporal
/ thematic overlap between encoding and retrieval
is not good - retrieval failure more likely
Repeated expt, but included a group who had
sequential recognition.
Lack of relevant retrieval context in random
condition leads to most recent memory being
retrieved (misleading info from questionnaire).
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False Memory Syndrome
Psychotherapists attribute recovered memories to
a specialised mechanism of repression which
keeps traumatic events outside consciousness.
These memories can be recovered through
therapy Experimental psychologists argue that
false memories can easily arise from normal
reconstructive memory processes, and that these
processes are manipulated during therapy
For key issues for the experimental psychologist
1. Can memories of abuse be forgotten? 2. If so,
can they later be remembered accurately? 3. Can
false memories for abuse occur? 4. Can false and
veridical memories be differentiated?
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False Memory Syndrome

• 60 of victims of sexual abuse claim there are
  periods of their life when they had no memory of
  the abuse. (Briere et al, 1993)
• But, unclear what was understood by no memory
  also no corroborative evidence that abuse had
  occurred.
• Wiliams. 1994 12 of women who had been
  admitted to ES for sexual abuse as children
  reported no memory of any abuse.
• But - some children as young as 10 months at
  time of abuse. Also may have been unwilling to
  disclose to researcher. Also, those worst abused
  most likely to remember
• Children exposed to other traumatic experiences
  (e.g. murder of a parent) have intrusive memories
  - not amnesia.
• But - sexual abuse occurs repeatedly, abusive
  nature of acts may be unclear to a child - maybe
  a special repression occurs.

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False Memory Syndrome
Can memories be recovered? There are (some)
documented cases where recovered memories of
abuse have been corroborated. (e.g. Williams,
1995)
These probably reflect the same mechanisms
whereby appropriate retrieval cues can recover
other forgotten non traumatic memories.
Is recovery of memories of abuse a therapeutic
process?
Loftus (1997). Selected 30 sexual abuse cases at
random from local Victims Compensation Program
Memory for abuse had been recovered in therapy
for 26
All 30 in therapy for at least 3 years (half for
5 years)
20 suicidal - 3 before therapy
11 hospitalised - 2 before therapy
8 self-mutilating - 1 before therapy
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False Memory Syndrome

• Can false memories be created?
• Many recovered memories occur during the period
  of infantile amnesia, and are therefore unlikely
  to be veridical.
• Many therapists believe that current
  psychological problems may stem from forgotten
  abuse in childhood.
• If you identify with five or more symptoms,
  yet have no memory of incest, you might try an
  exercise. Accept the theory that you were abused,
  live consciously with the idea for six months
• These beliefs may lead them to implicitly or
  explicitly introduce the possibility that the
  client was abused as a child.
• Hypnosis often used. Memories recalled under
  hypnosis are no longer admissable as legal
  testimony.
• Hypnosis increases the confidence with which
  the memory is held, but reduces reliability of
  memory being veridical

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False Memory Syndrome
Creating false memories in the laboratory Ceci,
1995. Children thought about real and fictitious
events for 10 weeks. 60 of the children
confused fictitious with real events by the end.
Professional psychologists unable to distinguish
true from false stories. Loftus Pickrel, 1995
Young adults asked to try and recall 4 childhood
events reported by a relative (1 event was
false) 25 recalled the false event at two
follow-up interviews. Hyman 1995 Repeatedly
thinking about a non-occurring childhood event
increases the belief that it actually
happened Repetition, use of imagery increase
feelings of familiarity which are then
misinterpreted as past experience.
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False Memory Syndrome
DRM Paradigm Ss hear a series of word lists. Each
list composed of associates of non-presented
theme word e.g. TIRED, BED, AWAKE, SLUMBER,
SNORE, PILLOW, YAWN, DROWSY (Associates of SLEEP)
In retrieval tests, Ss often falsely recognise or
recall critical non-presented words. (Explicit
warnings do not help) Research suggests that
manipulations which increase the likelihood of
contextual information being encoded reduce the
false positives (e.g. showing words with
pictures) Changing recall procedure also reduces
false positivesKoustaal et al (1999) At
recognition subjects decide whether an item is
Old and identical, New but related, or New
and unrelated With OLD vs NEW Ss respond on
basis of familiarity New cateogories cued
retrieval of more specific information
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False Memory Syndrome
Can real/false memories be differentiated?
Using DRM paradigm, Ss rate memory for false
positives as being very similar to true
recognition judgements on a number of dimensions.
But - contain fewer details about feelings and
reactions at the time of encoding.
Loftus, 1995 without corroboration, there is
little that can be done to help even the most
experienced evaluator to differentiate true
memories from ones that were suggestively
implanted
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Summary

• The last 20 years have seen an increase in
  attempts to make memory research more relevant to
  everyday experience
• Memory can be improved by use of various
  mnemonic techniques - but is not like a muscle.
• Memories can easily be distorted by misleading
  post-event information
• There are competing theories as to what happens
  to the original memory
• Psychologists have attempted to provide some
  emperical evidence relevant to the debate about
  recovered memories
• Other topics that could have been covered
• Autobiographical Memory, Flashbulb Memories,
  Prospective Memory