Reliability of Memory Ms. Carmelitano

Listen to the story Just sit quietly, and listen to the story Do not write anything down Do not talk to anyone around you

Reliability of Memory The legal system uses eye-witness memory all the time. It now appears that memory can be reconstructed: due to the way the brain makes sense of the world

Recovered Memories Sigmund Freud was convinced that when we forgot something, we were repressing it, in order to keep our conscious self from knowing things we cannot cope with. He argued that a therapist was needed to recover these memories. However, it soon became clear that the memories that were recovered were false memories

Loftus Loftus began to study false memories in 2002 when eye-witnesses of the DC sniper attacks told authorities the van he was driving was white It was actually green One person had come forward saying it was white After that, the other witnesses believed that is what they saw based on post-event information

Loftus and Palmer 1974 Claims the nature of questions can influence eyewitness memory Showed 45 students film of a car accident Asked students to estimate the speed of the car Independent Variable: “Hit” “Smashed” “Collided” “Bumped” “Contacted” Found average speed was dependant on the word that was used

Word Used Mean Speed Estimate Smashed 40.8 Collided 39.3 Bumped 38.1 Hit 34.0 Contacted 31.8

Loftus and Palmer Part II 150 participants in three groups shown film of a car accident Used word, “hit” or “smash” and a control Wanted to see if memory was changed when it was retrieved A week later participants were asked if they remembered seeing broken glass

Findings There was no broken glass 32% of the smashed group reported seeing glass 14% of the hit group reported seeing broken glass 6% of the control group reported seeing broken glass

SO what? Loftus concludes that a false memory may be created using post- event information Criticism: Lab – no ecological validity All US participants – may be a cultural bias Yuille and Cutshall 1986 replicated in a natural setting Interviewed people who had witnessed a real robbery Wording did not seem to effect the recall

Reproduce the Story

Loftus and Pickrell Lost in the Mall Participants, who had agreed to be in the study, were sent a five page booklet in the mail The booklet contained instructions for the experiment, and 4 short events which their relative had described about their childhood 3 males and 21 females age 18 to 53

Procedure Three of the events in the booklet were real, one was fake (it had never occurred) The fake memory was about being lost in a mall The participants read the events, and wrote down what they remembered about the events, or if they did not remember it, and sent the book back

Procedure The subjects were interviewed 2 weeks later, and then another two weeks later The subjects were asked to recall as many details as possible from the 4 events, then rate clarity and confidence Results: Out of the 72 true events, 49 were remembered Out of the 24 false events, 7 claimed they clearly remembered 19/24 recognized the mall memory was false Even though only a small percent created false memories, this shows that it is possible

Bartlett Remembering 1932 Schemas may influence recall and culture may influence schemas Schemas are used to encode events into memory We encode events into schemas we have already created These schemas fill in information that we may have forgotten

Bartlett used serial reproduction One person produces the original story, a second person must reproduce the first and so on (telephone) If a person misunderstands something they hear, their schemas will fill-in the gap with something else that logically makes sense to them Shows how rumors and gossip spread

Bartlett – War of Ghosts Native American Legend Participants read the story twice After 15 minutes they had to reproduce it from memory Then asked to reproduce a few more times Found that the story changed each time it was reproduced

Findings Harder for people in western cultures to reproduce the story because of its unfamiliar style and content Similar reproductions Story became shorter – by about 180 words Remained a coherent story Became more conventional – the reader only retained details that could be assimilated into shared past cultural experiences, or schemas

The right side of the room , close your eyes

Who did you see?

Who did you see?

Loftus et al (1987): The weapon focus effect Participants were asked to wait in a waiting room, where they heard a discussion in the room next door. There were 2 conditions: No weapon condition (man with greasy hands emerged from another room holding a pen) And weapon condition (a man came from another room with a bloody paperknife). Participants were later asked to identify the man from a selection of 50 people. Results: Results showed that participants from the no-weapon condition were more accurate in recall. Conclusion: Loftus concluded that the weapon drew more attention than the pen, so their attention was allocated to the weapon than the face.