AP PSYCH Unit 7A.4 Memory Construction copy...AP PSYCH Unit 7A.4 Memory Construction A TWA Boeing 747 had just taken off from Miami International Airport for LA when a passenger near

AP PSYCH Unit 7A.4Memory Construction

� Some people need to leave the room!


� A TWA Boeing 747 had just taken off from Miami International Airport for LA when a passenger near the rear of the aircraft announced that the plane was being taken over by the People’s Revolutionary Army for the Liberation of the Oppressed. The hijacker then held a 357 magnum gun to the head of Jack Swanson, a flight attendant, and forced him to open the cockpit door. There, the hijacker confronted the pilot, Jane Randall, and ordered her to change course for Cuba. The pilot radioed the Miami air traffic control center to report the situation, but then suddenly hurled the microphone at the hijacker, who was thrust backward through the open cockpit door and onto the floor, where angry passengers took over from there. The plane landed in Miami a few minutes later and the hijacker was arrested.


� We will bring in a few people at a time and play the Rumor Chain.

� Others will write observations.


� Original story:� A TWA Boeing 747 had just taken off from Miami International

Airport for LA when a passenger near the rear of the aircraft announced that the plane was being taken over by the People’s Revolutionary Army for the Liberation of the Oppressed. The hijacker then held a 357 magnum gun to the head of Jack Swanson, a flight attendant, and forced him to open the cockpit door. There, the hijacker confronted the pilot, Jane Randall, and ordered her to change course for Cuba. The pilot radioed the Miami air traffic control center to report the situation, but then suddenly hurled the microphone at the hijacker, who was thrust backward through the open cockpit door and onto the floor, where angry passengers took over from there. The plane landed in Miami a few minutes later and the hijacker was arrested. ◦ Write, Pair, Share:◦ Which terms and phenomena from AP PSYCH did we notice? WHY?


� We often construct our memories as we encode them, and we alter them during retrieval, we reweave them, just like an anthropologist studying history

Misinformation & Imagination Effects� Elizabeth Loftus – leading

memory construction experimenter

� In an experiment, asked eyewitnesses◦ A: “How fast were the cars going

when they hit each other?◦ B: “How fast were the cars going

when they smashed into each other?” � Many reported seeing broken glass

when they didn’t� (Leading question)

Misinformation Effect

� Misinformation Effect: After exposure to subtle misinformation, many people misremember

� Recalling an experience and filling in the memory gaps with stuff you made up just to help the story make sense

Misinformation Effect� Experiment: Photoshopped pics

of you in a hot air balloon ride shown repeatedly, you eventually believe that as your reality

� Are we lying to others, to ourselves? Are we aware that we’re lying or do we believe the lies??

� Imagination inflation –implanting false memories and we believe them

Misinformation Effect� Visualizing or imagining

something uses similar brain areas and functions as actual perception

� The more vivid we can make imaginary memories, the more likely we are to inflate them into real memories

� Piaget even experienced false memory construction

Source Amnesia

� You remember things pretty accurately, but attribute the memory to a wrong source

� Maybe you think it happened to you when it happened to a friend

� The memory of the event is real, but the context we create is false

� Trouble remembering when, where, when or from who we got the memory, but we remember the “what”◦ We remember the semantic meaning but not the episodic

Discerning True & False Memories

� Unreal memories feel like real memories� Memories from real experience contain

more details� Memories from imagination contain the gist – associated meanings and feelings, the big picture, main idea◦ Sleep – remember this gist word?

� Gist memories last longer� Researcher mistakes: risk of getting false

memories from eyewitness when only asking gist questions


� EX: Eyewitnesses make many mistakes, but get the gist correct

� EX: When dating – you exaggerate and overestimate your initial contact when you are still in love, you underestimate the relationship when it’s over

� “It is all too common for caterpillars to become butterflies and to maintain that in their youth they had been little butterflies. Maturation makes liars of us all”


� EX: Australian psychologist Donald Thompson◦ Matched eyewitness testimony and brought in for

questioning about a rape◦ But he had an alibi – he was on TV◦ The victim was watching the interview on TV

during the rape, causing source amnesia

� The police must compensate for misinformation & source amnesia – ask Q’s that elicit specific details, then ask follow-up Q’s

Lying….?

1. Is it difficult to coerce children to lie?◦ Teens? ◦ Adults?

2. Could you be an unbiased member of a jury in a trial of a parent accused of sexual abuse based on a recovered memory?

3. After reading this chapter, how can our new understanding of memory contribute to more effective study techniques?

Children’s Eyewitness Recall

� Child abuse is horrible, but could some of those memories be false?

� Leading Q’s plant false memories, many examples in the text

� Children must be questioned w/ neutral words they understand; nonleading Q’s

� Children are most accurate when they have not talked to involved adults before the interview

Repressed or Constructed Memories of Abuse?

� Are psychologists creating false memories of abuse and having people blame other innocent people?

� Or are they uncovering the truth of a repressed memory?

� Over 10% of us have repressed memories of sexual abuse

� Hypnosis, drugs, dream analysis have all created false memories and blamed innocent people


To protect abused children AND protect innocent adults, we must agree on:1. Sexual abuse happens2. Injustice happens3. Forgetting happens4. Recovered memories are commonplace – more reliable if

surfaced naturally rather than w/ therapist help5. Memories of things happening before age 3 are unreliable6. Memories recovered through hypnosis or drugs are

unreliable7. Memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally

unsettling


� Loftus & her experiments of implanting false memories – it works

� What if someone tells you they were abducted by aliens? Have talked to God?

� Loftus was the victim of a false memory implanted by her uncle and she was molested – is that why she is the leading expert on this?

� Are repressed memories a fake phenomenon? Don’t we remember the most traumatic events instead of repressing them??

Improving Memory

It’s embarrassing to forget! Here are some memory improvement techniques:1. Study repeatedly, spaced practice, constant

rehearsal, 2. Make the material meaningful, take class notes in

your own words, don’t just copy, apply to your life, draw images in notes, relate to stuff you already know, think critically about it, form associations

3. Activate retrieval cues, mentally recreate the mood and situation you learned it in

Improving Memory

4. Use mnemonic devices, use chunking, peg-words, create acronyms, rhythmic rhymes

5. Minimize interference, study before sleeping, don’t try to study for 2 totally different subjects back to back

6. Sleep more, so brain can organize and consolidate your learning, sleep debt hurts this process

7. Test yourself, rehearse, go over stuff you don’t know

Documents

AP PSYCH Unit 7A.4 Memory Construction copy...AP PSYCH Unit 7A.4 Memory Construction A TWA Boeing 747 had just taken off from Miami International Airport for LA when a passenger near