Human Memoryproblems Seven Sins of Memory Memory Failures

Human Memoryproblems Seven Sins of Memory

Memory Failures Long history of trying to understand how memory works based on when it fails The Seven Sins of Memory How the Mind Forgets and Remembers Schacter (2001)

The Seven Sins of Memory (1) Transience (2) Absent-mindedness (3) Blocking (4) Misattribution (5) Suggestibility (6) Bias (7) Persistence Sins of ommission/forgetting Sins of commission (errors)

Sins of Omission (1) Transience • memory loss over time - normal forgetting What were you doing 2 hours ago? What about 2 weeks ago at 12: 30 PM? Forgetting Curve • Relatively early (minutes, hours, even days) – detailed record of the past • With passing of time – particulars fade, opportunities for interference, greater reliance on gist or what usually happens “Transience involves a gradual switch from reproductive and specific recollections to reconstructive and more general descriptions. ” Schacter (2001, pg 16)

Sins of Omission (2) Absent-mindedness • lack of encoding due to distraction or automaticity Dr. Cutting: “Where are my glasses? ” Son: “Dad, they’re on top of your head” Tatiana Cooley – 3 time American Memory Champion: uses lots of elaboration encoding techniques, but also claims to live with To-do lists and post-it note reminders Two ways of remembering experiences: Requires 1)Recollection: calling to mind specific details of Attention events Automatic 1)Familiarity: more primitive sense of knowing that Attention “free” something happened previously Inattentional Blindness video with extended explanation

Sins of Omission (3) Blocking • failure to retrieve information that is in memory Tip-of-the-tongue What is the name of the sacred Egyptian beetle? Tip-of-the-tongue video Baker/baker paradox Learn to associate pictures with a word Later presented pictures and asked to recall the associated word Paired with Names “Baker” Paired with Occupations “baker” Recalled higher proportion of occupations than names (even if they were identical sounding words)

Sins of Commission (4) Misattribution • mistaking the source of a memory Oklahoma City bombing in 1995: The search for John Doe 2 Interviews: 1 suspect tall and fair with short blond hair & a 2 nd man, stockier, dark-haired, blue and white cap and tattoo Turns out: 1 day after Mc. Veigh rented the van, 2 different men came in and rented a van, 1 was tall and fair with short blond hair & a 2 nd man, stockier, dark-haired, blue and white cap and tattoo The second interviewee had correctly remembered the features but misattributed them to the wrong episode

Sins of Commission (5) Suggestibility • memories implanted by others’ suggestions Eyewitness testimony, leading questions can lead to false memories of things that never happened Alan Alda and Dan Schacter video

Sins of Commission (6) Bias • changing of a memory based on our experiences Several major types: • Consistency bias – memories change to be consistent with things now (“even as a young boy I was fascinated with memory”) • Change bias – memories change to be different than now (the past is often remembered as a “Golden Age”) • Hindsight bias – “I knew that the Packers weren’t as good as everybody said” • Egocentric bias – more credence given to our own memories than those of others (“Daughter: you never told me to clean my room. Me “Yes, I did! I remember telling you, you must be forgetting. ”) • Stereotypic bias – memories fit your schema

Sins of Commission (7) Persistence • repeated recall of unwanted information Can range for major emotional events to relatively minor events. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder – can’t stop recalling the event over and over again “Sweat Caroline. . bop baa… This song is stuck in my head!” Probably related to factors like: Impact of emotion, highly focused attention, and high levels of elaboration and rehearsal

Memory errors have adaptive value: Sometimes “Less is More” • More useful to remember meaning of something than the details (like source) • If we never forgot any experiences, we’d be overwhelmed with information • Important to remember events that have survival value