Psychology and Memory

IB Psychology - Schema and Reconstructive Memory

By Tanya HS]

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Quick Review:

Describe the following study:

Cohen (1981) study (aim, procedure, results)

• Aim: To investigate the effect of schematic processing on memory

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• Procedure: - 96 undergraduate college students watched a video of a woman with her husband having dinner and then an informal party celebration- The video was designed so that the woman displayed equal numbers of characteristics that was consistent with a stereotype of a waitress or a librarian- After watching the video, they were asked to recollect details of the video​

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• Results: Participants were more likely to remember schema-consistent information better than inconsistent information- If they were told she was a librarian, they tended to remember information that was more consistent with a stereotype of a librarian​

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• Conclusion: - If we have a schema activated, we process new information as it relates to the existing schema and its easier to remember because we've focused more on the schema - consistent information​

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Quick Review:

Describe the following study:

Stone et al. (2010) (aim, procedure, results)

• Aim: To investigate the effect of stereotypes (type of schema) on judgements made of basketball players

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• ​Procedure: college aged participants. (background: common stereotype in American basketball that black athletes are more athletic and white athletes are more technical) Randomly allocated into different groups. One group was told that they were listening to a radio broadcast of a white athlete, and the other of a black athlete.

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• Results: The condition that listened to the white athlete was more likely to say the player played a 'smarter' game, whereas the black athlete condition was said to have more hustle and athletic skills

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• ​Conclusions: Exhibits how the bias in thinking and decision making, confirmation bias, utilizes stereotypes to to make judgements → schema uses confirmation bias that affects how new information is processed --> system 1 processing as it relies on schema to make quick judgments

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Quick Review:

Describe the following study:

Bransford & Johnson's (1972) (aim, procedure, results)

• Aim: to test idea that schema activation can improve comprehension and memory recall of new info

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• Procedure: First the participants heard a passage. After hearing the passage there was a 2-minute delay. Then they had to indicate how comprehensible they found the passage on a scale of 1-7 and asked to write down what they remembered from the passage for 7 minutes. There were 5 conditions, one group heard the passage once, one group heard the passage twice, one group was presented an appropriate picture after hearing the passage, one group was presented with an appropriate picture before hearing the passage and one group was presented with a partially relevant picture before the passage.

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• Results: The participant without context recalled 3.6 ideas out of 14, the participants without context hearing it twice recalled 3.8, context after 3.6, partial context 4.0 and context before 8.0. Comprehension rating was also the highest in the picture before condition.

• Conclusion: The study concluded that the results found were because of schemas, as they help give context to the information. It also concludes that schemas are most efficient when they are formed before information is processed.

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Quick Review:

What memory model is this:

Proposed by Baddeley and Hitch and is an explanation of how one aspect of memory (LTM) is organized and how it functions. The WMM is concerned with the part of the mind that is active when temporarily storing and manipulating information

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Quick Review:

What part of the working memory model is this?

It acts as a filter to determine which information received by the sense organs is and isn't attended to. It possesses information in all sensory forms, directs information to the other memory systems and collects responses. ​The central executive directs attention to particular tasks​.It determines how the brains slave systems are allocated to tasks​.It has a limited capacity and can only effectively cope with one strand of information at a time. Therefore it selectively attends to particular types of information, attaining a balance between tasks when attention needs to be divided between them. For example, when talking whilst driving, the central executive permits attention to be spilt between different types of information.​

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Quick Review:

What part of the working memory model is this?

It temporarily stores visual and/or spatial information. For example if you are asked to work out how many windows there are on your house you visualize it. ​Visual information is what things look like. Spatial information is the physical relationship between these things​. It has a limited capacity, which according to Baddeley is about three or four objects​. Subdivided the VSS into:- The visual cache, which stores visual data- The inner scribe, which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field

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Quick Review:

What part of the working memory model is this?

This was added by Baddeley (2000)​. It is a temporary store for information, integrates information from the central executive, phonological loop, visual-spatial sketch pad. ​It maintains a sense of time sequencing: basically recording events (episodes) that are happening. ​The episodic buffer holds information in all modalities. ​It has a limited capacity of about four chunks.​This part sends information to LTM​

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Quick Review:

What part of the working memory model is this?

Deals with the auditorily info and preserves the order in which the information arrives. It is subdivided into:- The phonological store, which stores the words you hear- The articulatory process, which allows maintenance rehearsal. The capacity is 2 seconds.

• Robbins et a. 1996

• This study provides evidence for the claim that there are different slave systems that control processes of different modalities of information. 20 male chess players from Cambridge UK, ranging in abilities, participated in this study. There were two conditions. In both conditions, the participants had to view an arrangement of chess pieces and then recreate this arrangement on a new board.

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• In one condition (verbal interference), they had to repeat the word "the" while viewing the first chess set and also while recreating it on a new board.

• In the second condition (visual/spatial interference), they had to tap a particular sequence into a keypad in the laps while viewing the first board and recreating the second. Verbal interference resulted in an average score of 16/25 (64%) correct, while the visual/spatial interference was only 4/25 (16%) correct.

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• The verbal condition has a higher score because "the" is using the phonological loop and recreating the chess board is the visual/spatial sketchpad, so both systems are working independently of each other and there is limited interference.

• The scores drop to 16% correct in the second condition because both tasks are using the one slave system and the capacity is limited.

• If working memory was all one system, this difference wouldn't be observed.​

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Quick Review:

What memory model is this:

Proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Memory model consisting of three stores: a sensory register, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM). Information passes from store to store in a linear way

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Quick Review:

A type of storage that holds sensory information for a few seconds or less is called _______ memory

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the relatively permanent and limitless storage of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences is called _______ memory

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activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten is called _________ memory

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Quick Review:

How does the sensory register encode information?

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Quick Review:

How does information pass from the sensory register to the short-term memory?

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How does information pass from the short-term to the long-term memory?

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Quick Review:

What is the capacity of the short-term memory? (items - not time)

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Quick Review:

What is the capacity of the short-term memory? (items - not time)

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Quick Review:

What is the duration of the short-term memory? (time - how long)

​Primacy and Recency Effects (Glanzer and Cunitz 1966)

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46 Participants heard 15 words and were asked to remember them. The researchers used a repeated measures design by testing subjects individually and randomizing the order they experienced these three conditions....​

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1. Immediate Free Recall Condition (IFR): wrote words down immediately after hearing them.

2. Delayed Free Recall Condition (DFR): waited 10 seconds and then wrote the words down

3. Delayed Free Recall Condition (DFR): waited 30 seconds and then wrote the words down

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Participants had a distraction task during the delay and had to count backwards in 3s to prevent further rehearsal.​

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1. The results showed that when there was no delay in recall (IFR), the primacy and recency effect was demonstrated as per usual (participants remember about 70% of the first and last words).

2. In the DFR-30 group, only the primacy effect was present and the recency effect was gone (only 30% words remembered)

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This is further support for the Memory Store Model because it showed that the rehearsal has not changed the transfer to the Long Term Store (because the primacy effect still exists). The recency effect has gone because there was no time for rehearsal (because of the distraction task) and the 30 second delay was long than the short term store's capacity - so memories were lost.

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Schema

A cognitive schema is a cluster of knowledge or memory that is stored in the mind, or "organized packets of information about the world, events, or

people stored in long-term memory." (Eysenck and Keane, 2010). They're also referred to as "cognitive frameworks" as they are a system for categorizing and

organizing information and memory.

Along with the very existence of schema, another central claim of schema theory is that their function is to help us make sense of the complex world of information that we live in. In doing this, schemas can affect our cognition and behavior.​

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One proposed function of schemas is that they save our cognitive energy and they make processing information easier. Another way schemas can

influence cognition is that they can affect our ability to comprehend new information. When we're exposed to new information, we relate it to our existing knowledge​ (our schemas) and this can affect our comprehension

of that information (as seen in Bransford and Johnson's study). In this way, we learn by making connections between new information and existing schema.​

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Unlike other theories in psychology, schema theory isn't attributable to a single psychologist but has had many contributions from various psychologists across almost 100 years of research. Some of the most notable

contributors include Bartlett, Piaget and Vygotsky.​

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• Schema theory can be applied to understanding stereotypes and social interactions. For instance, schema theorists could explain the formation of stereotypes by saying there are too many individual people in the world

for us to consider. Thus, in order to save our cognitive energy, we think about groups of people and make generalizations about them.

• In this way, stereotypes are examples of social schemas because they are a generalized cluster of ideas about a particular group of people. Having a set schema for a group of people could then affect how we think about people based on the group that they belong to.​

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• The process of relating new information to existing schema can also influence our processing of new information and can lead to confirmation bias a cognitive bias whereby we are more likely to focus on (and remember) information that is consistent with our existing beliefs.

• For instance, we may fall victim to confirmation bias and focus on people's characteristics and behavior that are consistent with our stereotypes (schemas) and ignore contradictory details. This could have the effect of

strengthening our existing stereotypes. This can be seen in Cohen and Stone's studies.

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Rationalization is adapting information during recall in a way that makes the information more consistent with our existing schemas.​

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Fun Fact Trivia:

What year was the first crossword puzzle published?

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Fun Fact Trivia:

On average, how many Tic Tags come in a 1 ounce container?

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Fun Fact Trivia:

How many publishers rejected the first Harry Potter manuscript before it was accepted?

Reconstructive Memory

Misinformation Effect

How does the misinformation effect demonstrate the reconstructive nature of memory?

Decades of research have shown that our memory does not work like a tape recorder. Instead, memory is a reconstructive process and, during this process, our memories can be distorted. This has had significant implications for the field of eyewitness testimony in court cases.​

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It was previously believed that our memory was like a tape recorder and, when we recalled details of events and facts, they would be reliable. However, there is a large body of research that shows our memory can be distorted. Elizabeth Loftus is the most prominent researcher in this field. She gives the analogy of memory as being more like a Wikipedia page that anyone can change and edit​.

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False memory

is a psychological phenomenon whereby an individual recalls an event that never happened, or an actual occurrence substantially differently from the way it transpired. In other words, a false memory could either be an entirely imaginary fabrication, or a distorted recollection of an actual event.​

Confabulation

is a type of memory error in which gaps in a person's memory are unconsciously filled with fabricated, misinterpreted, or distorted information.1 When someone confabulates, they are confusing things they have imagined with real memories.​

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• One way our memory can be distorted is through having false information introduced after an event has happened. Many studies have shown that false information can be recalled by someone as if it was real.

• This creation of false memories because of inaccurate​ information is a phenomenon known as the misinformation effect.

• The misinformation effect may be due to the fact that memory is reconstructive: this means we don't encode and record information and store it accurately when it happens we actually reconstruct (rebuild) memories when we're in the process of remembering them. This is how information we are introduced to after an event can implant itself and be recalled incorrectly.​

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Leading questions and memory reliability (Loftus and Palmer, 1974)

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Experiment one: In this first experiment, 45 participants were asked to watch several clips of car crashes, ranging from about 5 to 30 seconds long. After they watched the films, they were given series of questions to answer, including one about how fast the car was going. The independent variable was the verb used in the question.

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The results showed that the stronger the verb, the higher the speed estimate (with

the verb "contacted" having a mean of 32, "hit" having a mean of 34, "bumped" having a mean of 38, "collided" having a mean of 39, and "smashed" having a mean of 40). One explanation is that the verb was a leading question and directed students who weren't sure towards a particular guess. Another possible explanation is that the verb activated a different schema, which actually

changed the way the participants were recollecting the event. To gather more evidence for the second explanation, the second experiment was conducted.

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​Leading questions and the misinformation effect (Loftus and Palmer, 1974)

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Experiment two: This second experiment tested the hypotheses that the type

of question asked after an event can actually change the memory of the event. The procedures were similar to the first experiment, except this time there were only two verbs (hit or smashed) and one control group (not asked anything). Another procedure was added: after one week, the participants were asked another question: did they see any broken glass?

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The results showed that 32% of the smashed condition said they saw broken glass (there was no broken glass in the clip), compared with only 14% in the hit condition and 12% in the control condition. This second study provides more solid evidence for the misinformation effect occurring: the smashed verb introduced after the video led participants to actually recall the crash with a greater impact and to produce a false memory of something that didn't happen (glass breaking).

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​Eyewitness testimony: Before the decades of research on memory un-reliability, eyewitness testimony was previously enough to prove someone was guilty of

committing a crime. With new DNA testing techniques, hundreds of innocent men have been released and acquitted of crimes they never committed, with some

of these men being released after having been in prison for over 30 years. In most of these cases, eyewitness testimony played a significant role in their trials and "proving" their guilt. Because of the research of Loftus and others, there are major changes being made to many parts of the legal process, including how witnesses and the accused are interviewed.​

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Lost in the mall (Loftus and Pickrell, 1995):

In this study, Pickrell and Loftus used 24 participants who were led to believe they were taking memory tests. They asked family members to provide details of three stories from when the participants were 4 6 years old. They also asked about details that could be plausibly added to a fictional story being lost in the mall. For instance, the family members might give details like the name of the mall, or when they might have been shopping there. The family members also validated that the participant was never actually lost in the mall as a child. The participants read the descriptions of the four events that had been prepared by the researchers with the help of descriptions from the family members. The participants were interviewed soon after they read the descriptions of the events and then again in one week. The results showed that 5/24 (i.e. 21%) of the participants recalled being lost in the mall, sometimes in great detail. They did, however, rate the memories as being less clear than the other memories.​

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How might leading questions influence memory?

One was is that the leading question influences the recall of the crash and during the recall, because of the leading question, they actually recall it differently to people who heard other questions. So people who wee asked about a car that "smashed" might actually be remembering the car going faster than those who had the verb "contacted" in the guided reading questions.

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How does Loftus and Palmer's second experiment demonstrate the misinformation effect?

It shows that participants who were given the leading question with the word smashed were far more likely to recall a false memory, broken glass, than those in the other conditions. This suggests that they're actually recreating the memory differently and as more severe as a result of the leading question. That is to say, the leading question is acting as the misinformation and the effect of the false memory.

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How does the misinformation effect demonstrate the reconstructive nature of memory?

Is shows that our memory is not like a tape recorder and that is susceptible to being manipulated by false information. If our memory wasn't reconstructive, the misinformation effect wouldn't occur because our memories would reliably recall what we witnessed, regardless of what information we were exposed to afterwards.

Multiple Choice

Which definition best describes the term 'reconstructive memory'?

• Misleading information that can cause inaccuracies in recall of events.

• Information about an event provided after the event already occurred.

• A form of retrieval that involves identifying an object as previously seen.

• Memory is an active process of recreation of past events.

Homework

Read pages 178-186 (highlight and write in margins)

Workbook pgs: 15-16​

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Multiple Choice

In Loftus and Palmer's (1974) study, which verb provided the highest estimate of speed?

• Collided

• Smashed

• Hit

• Bumped

Multiple Choice

'The tendency to focus on information that supports a pre-existing belief' is an example of...?

• Cognitive Bias

• Framing Effect

• Confirmation Bias

• Heuristics

Multiple Choice

In Loftus & Palmer's 1974 study on memory, how was the dependent variable measured?

• Questionnaires asking the participants to estimate the speed of the cars

• Verbal interviews where participants estimated the speed of the cars

• Brain Scans measuring amygdala activity in response to the car crash footage

• Participants played through the Iowa Gambling Task to measure decision-making

Multiple Choice

Phenomenon of incorrect information being integrated into a memory of an event

• Distortion

• Misinformation Effect

• False Memories

• Confabulation

Multiple Choice

a particular type of distortion where a false memory is created of something that never happened

• Reconstruction

• Code Switching

• Confabulation

• Eyewitness Testimony