Unit 7 Part Ia: Memory (Cognition) CHS AP Psychology Unit 7 Part Ia: Memory (Cognition) Essential Task 7.4: Describe special topics in memory with specific attention to eidetic memories, and eye-witness testimony. Logo Green is R=8 G=138 B=76 Blue is R= 0 G=110 B=184 Border Grey is R=74 G=69 B=64

Childhood Amnesia Generally poor memory for events prior to age 2-3 May occur because brain is not fully developed at birth Hippocampus not fully formed until age 2 May be due to a lack of a clear sense-of-self in young children May be the absence of language

Autobiographical memory Recollection of events in our life More recent events are easier to recall Hyperthymesia is the condition of possessing an extremely detailed autobiographical memory. Hyperthymesiacs remember an abnormally vast number of their life experiences.

Eidetic Memory Pop culture calls this a photographic memory Usually due to well developed memory techniques

Eyewitness testimony Shown to be unreliable People’s recall for events may be influenced by what they heard or constructed after the incident Memory is reconstructed Memories are not stored like snapshots, but are instead like sketches that are altered and added to every time they are called up

Eyewitness testimony cont’d Elizabeth Loftus has shown subjects who are given false information about an event or scene tend to incorporate it into their memories, and "recall" the false information as a part of their original memory even two weeks later. Loftus gives the example of the sniper attacks in the fall of 2002. "Everybody was looking for a white van even though the bad guys ended up having a dark Chevy Caprice." That's because some people reported seeing a white van at the scene of the crime. "Witnesses overhear each other," says Loftus, and police may also unintentionally influence people's memories when they talk about a crime. 1956 Air Show Disaster in England 1-10 Fighter Jet Broke apart in Mid-Air killing 12. Witnessed by 100,000 avid fans watching the event. They had the wreckage and photos and asked the people to write in. Got a few 1000 people to respond. Fewer than 6 gave info that was consistent with the evidence they had We can plant false memories (Elizabeth Loftus) Did an experiment with on of her graduate student’s 14 yr old younger brother. Said here are four stories from your past (only three actually happened – one of them, being lost in the mall – was planted) Over the next two weeks whenever you remember something about one of these, write it down. Chris rate each of the 4 for clarity, he gave the false on 8 of 11. He picked a real memory as being fake.

Eyewitness testimony Study after study has shown that there is no correlation between the subjective feeling of certainty one has about a memory, and the memory’s accuracy http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/theeyewitnesstest.html

Recovered memories Involved the recall of long-forgotten dramatic event May be the result of suggestion Some evidence that memories can be repressed and recalled later