Storage Failures

Question 1

What percentage of psychologists believe we never forget anything? What about non-psychologists?

Answer 1

Psychologists - 84%
Non-psychologists - 69%

Question 2

What percentage of psychologists believe we do forget things? What about non-psychologists?

Answer 2

Psychologists - 14%
Non-psychologists - 23%

Question 3

What are 3 reasons why it is a common belief that we never forget anything?

Answer 3

1. Psychoanalysis
2. Hypnosis
3. Brain stimulation

Question 4

What is psychoanalysis?

Answer 4

During analysis, patients may recover memories for traumatic or unpleasant events which seemed to have been lost.

Question 5

What are 3 issues of psychoanalysis?

Answer 5

1. False Memories.
2. Repression.
3. Does this only apply to some specific events?

Question 6

What is hypnosis?

Answer 6

Under hypnosis, people may be age regressed to recall lost details of their lives, or details from crime scenes.

Question 7

What are 2 issues with hypnosis?

Answer 7

1. Suggestibility
2. Does hypnosis add anything to Interviewing?

Question 8

What did Wilder Penfield find through his research on epileptics?

Answer 8

Direct stimulation of the temporal lobes often
resulted in patients spontaneously reporting
memory-like events.

Question 9

What % of patients in Penfield’s epileptic study reported things that could only be identified as being past experiences?

Answer 9

Less than 3% (12).

Question 10

What are mechanisms for forgetting in encoding/storage/retrieval?

Answer 10

Encoding
- Failure to encode

Storage
- Decay
- Interference
- Repression

Retrieval
- Retrieval failure

Question 11

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 11

New learning causes forgetting of old material.

Question 12

What is proactive interference?

Answer 12

Old learning causes forgetting of new material.

Question 13

What do Keppel & Underwood (1962) demonstrate?

Answer 13

That Brown-Peterson forgetting is at least partly caused by Proactive Interference rather than decay.

Question 14

What did Loftus & Palmer (1974) find from their study on interference from misinformation?

Answer 14

32% of the “smashed” group said yes.
14% of the “hit” group said yes.

Question 15

What did Loftus et al. (1978) find in their study?

Answer 15

When question was consistent, performance was 75%.
When question was misleading, performance was 51%.

Question 16

How is the misinformation effect influenced by:
Delay
Forewarning
Incentives ($25)

Answer 16

Delay - increased
Forewarning - reduced
Incentives - unaffected