Flashbulb memory

Shockingly and emotionally charged events tend to be remembered more vividly and in more detail than other events.

Brown and Kulik (1977) Said that flashbulb memories are accurate and are immune from being forgotten. They said that this is because there is an activation of a special neural mechanism that 'prints' details permanently in the memory. For this to happen, there must be high emotionality and consequentiality. There is some evidence for this 'special mechanism'. Conway et al. in 1994 found that flashbulb memories are not simple stronger versions of normal memories. They tested this by looking at the resignation of Margaret Thatcher, and seeing how many brits and non brits remembered it after 11 months. A higher proportion of brits remembered as it had high consequentiality for them. Wright, Gaskell and Muircheartaigh however found that only 12% remembered the event vividly after 18 months.

Difficulties with the 'special mechanism'

• Winningham, Hyman and Dinnel (2000). They tested the memory for the O.J. Simpson acquittal. People were tested both immediately, after 1 week and then 8 weeks later. Those who showed high consistency should be regarded as having flashback memories.
• Memories change over the first few days. Forgetting is initially rapid, then there is further learning post-event.
• Talarico and Rubin (2003). Few studies have assessed the retention for both flashback and everyday memories. On the 12th september 2001, students memories of september 11th and of a recent everyday event was tested. This was repeated 3 times: 7, 42 and 224 days later. Vividness of flashback memories was retained for 32 weeks. This was measured on a 7 point scale. Flashback memories showed no more consistency than everyday memories with regard to the number of details recalled however.
• There is therefore some discrepancy between beliefs in strength of flashback memories and accuracy.

Prospective memory

Most of the research into memory had been focussed in retrospective memory. Prospective however is the memory which allows you to remember to carry out intended actions. This can be time or event based. The attentional demand depends upon the importance and complexity of the task or memory, and involves the activation of the frontal lobes.

Studies:

1. Marsh, Hicks and Landau (1998). People reported an average of 15 plans for the week, 25% f which were not completed. Reasons were given for most of these, only 3% was due to forgetting.
2. McDaniel et al. (1998). Prospective Memory is under full or divided attention. Performance is much better however when full attention is used.
3. Hermann & Gruneberg (1993) said that people are most likely to forget to do something when they are distracted or preoccupied.

Attention and Prospective Memory

1. Marsh and Hicks (1998). Tasks involving the central executive impaired event based prospective memory performance relative to the control condition. Tasks involving the phonological loop or the visuo-spatial sketchpad however did not impair performance.
2. McDaniel and Einstein (2000). The performance of an additional ongoing task was impaired by the prospective memory task being carried out at the same time.

Frontal Lobes and prospective memory.

The prospective memory attentional system is located in the frontal lobes.

Burgess et al. (2000) looked at 65 brain damaged patients with prospective memory problems and found that there is an association between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the activity of planning and creating intentions. He also associated the Brodman's area 10 with maintaining intentions. By contrast with this, retrospective memory tasks involve anterior and posterior cingulates. Burgess et al. did another study in 2001 using PET on prospective memory in intact individuals which supported these findings. They also found evidence for different processes and structures being involved in retrospective and prospective memory.

False Memories

These can be created in the laboratory.

Loftus and Pickrel (1995) asked young adults to recall four childhood experiences that were reported by a relative. One of these was false. 25% of participants recalled false events at two follow up interviews.

Ceci (1995) asked children to think about both real and fictitious events for 10 weeks. Approximately 60% of them confused the fictitious and real events by the end of the study.

Eyewitness Testimony and the misinformation effect.

Confirmation bias and the eyewitness testimony are event memories that are influenced by the observers expectations. This was tested by Valentine et al. in 2003, who studied identity parades.

The misinformation effect is when memories are modified by post-event information which can be misleading. This was shown by Loftus and Palmer in 1974 by people a video of a multiple car accident.

Autobiographical Memory

There are two forms of autobiographical memory proposed by Williams in 1999. These are:

1. Personal Semantic Memory: These are the facts one knows about oneself
2. Episodic Memory: These are memories of the event from ones life. Episodic memory includes information about the emotional experience as well as the factual details of the event.

Hierachical Structure of the autobiographical memory self-memory system:

(Conway 2000; Conway and Pleydell-Pearce, 2000)

1. General: These are about lifetime periods, for example 'when i was a t university'
2. Intermediate: This refers to general events and can include extended or single events such as a specific holiday, or categorical or repeated events such as shopping.
3. Specific: This relates to event specific knowledge including images, feelings. These are in temporal order.

Routes of retrieval of autobiographical memories - Berntsen, 1998

There are two routes of retrieval for autobiographical memories. These are

1. Direct. These are involuntary recalls of memories and can be assessed by diary records. Some cues may spontaneously lead to the direct activation of specific event memories.
2. General. This is a voluntary process which can be assessed by presenting cues. It is a strategic process that is mediated by the central executive. Williams (1996) suggested the process by which this happens:

a. An intermediate Description is created that describes the information that is to be recalled.

b. The ID/intermediate description is used to search for a specific autobiographical memory.

c. Contextual Information is added to the memory search. This requires the inhibition of the intermediate description.

d. This voluntary retrieval is disrupted by depression.

Lifetime memories

These are types of memory from different life stages:

• Retention function: this is for memories up to 20 years old. Older memories are less likely to be recalled than recent ones.
• Infantile amnesia: These is almost a total lack of memories from the first 3 years of life.
• Reminiscence Bump: This describes memories from age 10 to 30. There is a particularly large amount of these, especially from age 15 to 25

Infantile Amnesia

Howe and Courage (1997) related infantile amnesia to the emergence of a 'cognitive self'. They said that advances in cognitive development occur at around 20 to 24 months. This is when visual self recognition takes place through touching and smiling, as well as the use of personal pronouns. This is when there is an emergence in autobiographical memory, and signals the end of infantile amnesia. This also assumes that there are very few autobiographical memories between age 2 and 5, as rehearsal must take place.

Rubin, in 2000, supported this theory, and found that only 22% of the autobiographical memories from the first 10 years, came from ages 2-5

Reminiscence Bump

Rubin et al., in 1998 identified novelty and stability as being important factors in determining the strength of memories

• Novelty - first time experiences. These are often distinctive and accessible memories. They have less or lowered proactive interference.
• Stability - These memories are usually from early adulthood and stable periods.

Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) said that 'the reminiscence bump reflects the preferential retention of events from a period of consolidation of the self'. They considered that the self and personal goals do not change very much after age 30.

Everyday memory overview

Areas of research:

• Autobiographical Memory
• Eyewitness testimony, misinformation effect and false memory
• Prospective memory (time and event based)
• Flashbulb memory
• Links with remaining lectures and cognition on cognition and emotion.

How do we study everyday memory?

• Everyday experiences
• Real-life applicability; importance of ecological validity
• should it be studied only in naturalistic settings?

Ecological validity is the extent to which experimental findings are applicable to everyday settings.

There are three assumptions proposed by Neisser in 1996 about everyday memory. These are that it is:

• Purposeful
• personal
• influenced by situational demands and motivations

This approach to memory understands the differences between traditional memory research which encouraged accuracy, and everyday memory research which is more purposeful and focusses on personal interpretations of memories.

Types of Problem solving

There are two types of transfer, positive and negative.

1. Positive: This is when performance is improved based on previous experience
2. Negative: This is when performance is impaired due to previous experience

Isomorphs and Homomorphs.

These describe the type of task that might be carried out.

1. Isomorph: this describes tasks with identical underlying states or problem spaces, but no superficial similarities. (They have difference physical details). A Move in one task is functionally identical to a move in another task.
2. Homomorph: This is when tasks have similar but not identical underlying states or problem spaces. Some of the moves are prohibited in one of the tasks.

Two examples of these tasks are missionaries and cannibals, and the Jealous husbands which is a homomorph of the m & c, as is follows a similar structure but has different rules.

Analogical Problem Solving

This is learning by analogy, when there are similarities between current and previous problems. These similarities have been defined by Chen (2002):

1. Superficial similarities (eg objects)
2. Structural Similarities (casual relations)
3. Procedural Similarities (concrete operations)

Dunker's Radiation Problem (1945)

• a ray of sufficient strength to destroy a tumour will also destroy healthy tissue.
• a ray that will not destroy healthy tissue will be too weak to destroy tumour.
• when given the problem on its own, only 10% people solved it.

Gick and Holyoak (1980;1983)

• They gave participants a story that was structurally similar. When they were told that it was relevant to the radiation problem, 80% solved the problem.
• In this example, they were unlikely to make use of analogy because there was no superficial similarity between the story and the problem. (Keane, 1987)
•