every day memory lecture

Question 1

What distinguishes traditional memory research from everyday memory research?

Answer 1

Traditional = lists, no social or context factors considered, intentional memory, accuracy-focused.
Everyday = remote events, incidental learning, social context, storytelling motives. Motivation- accuracy not so focused but rather to entertain or impress others.

Question 2

What is the “Saying-is-believing” effect?

Answer 2

People remember what they said to someone, even if inaccurate, because memory aligns with social communication.

Question 3

What is autobiographical memory (AM)?

Answer 3

Memory for personally meaningful events involving episodic details, semantic self-knowledge, and mentalising. It often involves mentalising (the ability to think about own and other peoples mental states)

Question 4

What are the differences between Am and EM

Answer 4

■ Personal significance ,Organised information about one’s life
■ Long-lasting memories,Some semantic memory involvement such as general knowledge about oneself (Eustace et al., 2016) , Many brain areas activated in comparison to EM which often overlap with other brain areas for mentalising
■ Involves mentalising .Serves specific function

■ EM-Often trivial events , Simpler memories , Often short-lasting memories ,Little semantic memory involvement
■ Relatively few brain
areas activated

Question 5

What are similarities between autobiographical and episodic memories

Answer 5

Personally experienced
Susceptible to proactive and retroactive influence

Question 6

What is Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM)?

Answer 6

Individuals recall daily-life events with extreme accuracy across years; normal IQ; likely due to habitual rehearsal (LePort et al., 2016).

Question 7

What does HSAM tell us about AM and what is a case study for HSAM

Answer 7

Superior AM does not require superior episodic memory; retrieval and rehearsal practices matter.
Jean Price- large number of details from each data of her life from a diary.

Question 8

What is the Self Function of AM

Answer 8

AM maintains identity, continuity, and understanding of personal change.

Question 9

What is the Social Function of AM?

Answer 9

AM helps create bonds, share stories, increase intimacy, and support empathy.

Question 10

What is the Directive Function of AM?

Answer 10

Using past experiences to solve current problems or guide future decisions

Question 11

What are flashbulb memrories ?

Answer 11

They are not bery special , as they are subject to ordinary forgetting and distortion, but they are strong memories with high emotion and amagdala activation at memory formation. It includes info about informat, ongoing activity ( emotional state) consequences for the individual , long-lasting memories

Question 12

What is the self-enhancement bias in AM?

Answer 12

Tendency to recall more positive than negative memories to maintain well-being.

Question 13

What is the reminiscence bump?

Answer 13

peak in memories from ages 10–30; due to novel experiences and culturally expected life events. Word cued memories maybe linked to distinctive or novel events- we experience a lot of “firsts” in that period of life.
* ONLY important memories reflect life script – cultural expectations that key events (e.g., falling in love, marriage) – occur between ages of 15 and 30

Question 14

. What is a cultural life script?

Answer 14

Social expectations for when major life events occur; helps organise AM retrieval

Question 15

What is infantile amnesia

Answer 15

Scarcity of AMs before age 3 due to immature brain systems and developing self-concept.

Question 16

. What is the Self-Memory System (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000)?

Answer 16

we posses a self-memory system.
-AM knowledge base : personal info @ three levels :
- Lifetime periods- major ongoing events over long periods of time . Can overlap
-general events- repeated or single events
- specific -events- images feelings and details relating to specific knowledge organised temporarily.

2)Working self- what we want to become or goals we want to acheive . Influences what information we retrieve from AMKB

2 types of retrieval : generative retrieval: contructing AM by applying ws to info in am

deliberate retrieval: automatic and spontaneous retrieval of AM

Question 17

Evaluate Conway and Pleudell-Pearce, 2000

Answer 17

The autobiographical memory system is organised hierarchically, with memories stored at different levels of specificity allowing an organisation/ efficiency

Neuroimaging research suggests that the model may be too simplistic. The processes involved in autobiographical memory are more complex than a simple direct/generative distinction

It’s unclear how contextual/episodic details (specific events) and semantic information (general self-knowledge) are integrated within autobiographical memories.

Question 18

What is generative retrieval

Answer 18

• Search and access- ventral frontal to temporal-parietal network
   Elaborative processing  occipital-parietal and dorsal fronto-parietal regions

Question 19

. Where are autobiographical memories located

Answer 19

Four neural networks in AM- retrieval is linked to the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobess

Question 20

How does depression affect AM

Answer 20

More negative, overgeneral memories that lack detail, poor self-integration, and biases reinforcing depressive symptoms.

Question 21

Why is eyewitness testimony unreliable?

Answer 21

reconstructive and vulnerable to distortion at encoding, storage, and retrieval. Many factors—such as limited attention, stress, interference, bias, and suggestibility—can further compromise accuracy

Question 22

Why do jurors overestimate eyewitness accuracy?

Answer 22

They misunderstand memory, confuse confidence with accuracy, believe stress improves memory, unaware of bias

Question 23

Why do police officers misjudge witness accuracy?

Answer 23

They over-trust details and assume witnesses are generally correct.

Question 24

Why is perception considered reconstructive?

Answer 24

Brain fills gaps and interprets incomplete signals, making perception prone to illusions and errors.

Question 25

What factors affect encoding in crimes?

Answer 25

Short viewing time, divided attention, fast events, poor lighting, movement, and stress.

Question 26

What is the relationship between arousal and memory?

Answer 26

Moderate arousal = best memory; too high or too low reduces accuracy (inverted-U).

Question 27

what affects memory to in terms of retrieval and in

Answer 27

Presence of cues or context of retrieval can influence recall. Interference: Longer retention periods lead to lost or faded memories (time increases forgetting). Contextual details are lost faster than the gist of an event. Misinformation (from witnesses, news, or interviews) can reduce memory accuracy.

Question 28

What did Morgan et al. (2013) show about high-stress memory?

Answer 28

High stress/anxiety can impair memory accuracy. In Morgan et al. (2013), 53% of military personnel falsely identified their interrogator after a stressful survival school interrogation, despite having spent 30 minutes with them under close observation.

Question 29

What is the weapon focus effect?

Answer 29

Attention narrows to weapon → poorer memory for faces and other details.

Question 30

What factors increase weapon focus effects?

Answer 30

Unexpected weapons or unexpected carriers (e.g., female with gun) increase memory distortion

Question 31

How does age affect eyewitness accuracy?

Answer 31

Children and elderly are more suggestible, less accurate when targets absent, and more vulnerable to misleading information.

Question 32

What is the misinformation effect?

Answer 32

Post-event information (discussion, media, police questions) alters original memory. E.g Loftus and Palmer

Question 33

What is source misattribution?

Answer 33

Misremembering where information came from (e.g., mixing real event details with suggestions).

Question 34

. When is misinformation most likely

Answer 34

For peripheral details, when memory is weak or gap-filled.

Question 35

What reduces misinformation effects?

Answer 35

Source monitoring tests and warnings that some info may be incorrect

Question 36

What are major face-recognition biases?

Answer 36

Own-race bias-The bias is strongest with neutral expressions but can be reduced when faces display emotions like anger. , own-age bias-people have more experience and perceptual expertise with faces from their own age group , own-gender bias (females only)-greater familiarity and perceptual expertise with faces of the same gender, often due to more frequent social interactions

Question 37

What did Wilmer (2017) find about face recognition ability?

Answer 37

It is highly heritable, not related to IQ, not easily trainable.

Question 38

37. Why are single-photo identifications poor?

Answer 38

Faces vary greatly across images; multiple synthesised images improve recognition (Jones et al., 2017).

Question 39

What is a double-blind lineup?

Answer 39

Neither the administrator nor the witness knows who the suspect is → prevents unintentional cues.

Question 40

Why are sequential lineups better than simultaneous?

Answer 40

Reduce relative judgment(comparing all faces at once ); witnesses judge each face individually instead of comparing

Question 41

What is essential to tell witnesses before a lineup

Answer 41

That the suspect may not be present; reduces false identifications.

Question 42

What is the Cognitive Interview (CI)?

Answer 42

An EWT technique using context reinstatement, varied retrieval orders, detailed reporting, and rapport building. - context reinstatement -call in reverse -call from different perspective -recall everything

Question 43

Strengths of the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 43

Significantly increases recall details; especially beneficial for older adults which may be more difficult to access

Question 44

Weaknesses of the Cognitive Interview?

Answer 44

Increases some incorrect details; less effective after delays or highly arousing events; does not remove misinformation effects.

Question 45

What is prospective memory?

Answer 45

Prospective memory refers to when an individualremembers to carry out a plan or action in the future without being cued. It has low info content and usually leads to flaky – forgetful

Question 46

. How is PM different from retrospective memory?

Answer 46

Event – simpler – better performance- external cues- remember to perform an action when the appropriate circumstacnes arise.

Question 47

. What are event-based PM tasks?

Answer 47

Event – simpler – better performance- external cues- remember to perform an action when the appropriate circumstacnes arise.

Question 48

What are time-based PM tasks?

Answer 48

■ Time-Remembering to perform a given action at a particular time. Fewer external cues; greater reliance on self-generated cues  Results in more time spent thinking about the future task ■ More likely to be forgotten ■ “Difficult”

Question 49

What are the stages of PM Zogg et al 2012

Answer 49

Intention formation: the individual forms or encodes an intention linked to a specific cue. Retention interval : there is a delay between intention formation and intention execution. Cue detection and intention retrieval: individual detects and recognises the relevant cue Intention recall: individual retrieves the intention from retrospective memory . May be an issue due to the complexity of intention. Its relationship to other stored intentions or the presence of competing intentions. Intention execution- carrying out a planned action or intentioautomatic and undemanding. Retrieval is triggered by the cue, starting the process. Recall is the actual remembering of the intended action,

Question 50

What did Dismukes and Nowinski 2006 state

Answer 50

74 out of 75 memory failures by pilots leading to accidents were caused by prospective memory failures .trong knowledge base, pilots typically rely on cues to guide their actions, but distractions and interruptions—especially during well-practised routines—can disrupt these cues, making prospective memory failures more likely (Latorella, 1998), and sometimes resulting in pilots not forming a carefully considered revised plan. Hard to continue

Question 51

What is the Dual-Pathways Model (McDaniel et al., 2015)?

Answer 51

The model proposes two main pathways for prospective memory retrieval, depending on the nature of the ongoing task: 1. Spontaneous Retrieval Pathway Bottom-up, automatic processing in prospective memory occurs when a cue naturally captures attention without conscious effort or monitoring, and is most common during focal tasks where the ongoing activity directly relates to the PM cue. 2. Strategic Monitoring Pathway Top-down, effortful processing in prospective memory involves consciously maintaining an intention and actively searching for cues, requiring attentional control and mental effort, and is most often used in non-focal tasks where cues are not highlighted by ongoing activity.

Question 52

evaluate pm

Answer 52

Theoretical models, such as the dual-pathways model, have advanced our knowledge of how PM operates. PM processes with different brain areas is a major strength of current research, as it provides a biological basis for understanding how we remember and act on our intentions e.g periatal cortext for external cues. Monitoring is not always used with non-focal tasks (as shown by Anderson et al., 2018), suggesting that our understanding of strategic monitoring is incomplete. Laboratory studies differ from real-world situations: intentions often need to be maintained for longer periods, the context is more varied, and there are usually stronger incentives to remember in everyday life compared to experiments.

Question 53

How did Conway 2005 develop/ refine his theory from Conway Playdel-pearce 2000

Answer 53

- different knoweledge structures withing autobiographical memories whcih are divided into conceptual self and epsidodic memory top : life srory which includes themes, life time periods and general events., major life events. bottom- episodic memories. want coherance and correspondance for rertieval of AM, but we proritise correspondance. AM recall by navigating through structure.