Memory

What is Memory?
• Psychologists consider memory to be the process by which we
encode, store, and retrieve information
Three Key Processes
Encoding
• Encoding involves forming a memory code.
• For example, when you form a memory code for a word, you might
emphasize how it looks, how it sounds, or what it means.
• Encoding usually requires attention, which is why you may not be
able to recall exactly what a penny looks like—most people don’t pay
much attention to the appearance of a penny.
• Memory is largely an active process. For the most part, you’re
unlikely to remember something unless you make a conscious effort to
do so.
Storage
• Storage involves maintaining encoded information in memory over
time.
• Psychologists have focused much of their memory research on trying
to identify just what factors help or hinder memory storage.
• But, as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon shows, information
storage isn’t enough to guarantee that you’ll remember
something.
• You need to be able to get information out of storage.
Retrieval
• Retrieval involves recovering information from memory stores.
• Research issues concerned with retrieval include the study of how
people search memory and why some retrieval strategies are more
effective than others.
Brain and Memory
 The anatomy of memory (Weitan)
• Cases of amnesia (extensive memory loss) resulting from head injury are a
useful source of clues about the anatomical bases of memory.
• There are two basic types of amnesia: retrograde and anterograde
• In retrograde amnesia, a person loses memories for events that occurred prior
to the injury. For example, a 25-yearold gymnast who sustains a head trauma
might find 3 years, 7 years, or perhaps her entire lifetime erased.
• In anterograde amnesia, a person loses memories for events that occur after the
injury. For instance, after her accident, the injured gymnast might suffer
impaired ability to remember people she meets, where she has parked her car,
and so on.
• The two types of amnesia are not mutually exclusive; many patients display
both types.
 H.M’s Case
• One well-known case, that of a man referred to as H.M., was followed from 1953 until his death in 2008.
• H.M. had surgery to relieve debilitating epileptic seizures that occurred up to ten times a day.
• The surgery greatly reduced his seizures.
• Unfortunately, however, the surgery inadvertently wiped out most of his ability to form long-term memories.
• H.M.’s short-term memory remained fine, but he had no recollection of anything that had happened since 1953
(other than about the most recent 20 seconds of his life).
• He did not recognize the doctors treating him, he couldn’t remember routes to and from places, and he didn’t
know his own age.
• H.M. was unable to remember what he ate a few minutes ago, let alone what he had done in the years since his
surgery.
• At age 66, after he’d had gray hair for years, he could not remember whether he had gray hair when asked, even
though he looked in the mirror every day.
• Although he could not form new long-term memories, H.M.’s intelligence remained intact. He could care for
himself (around his own home), carry on complicated conversations, and solve crossword puzzles. This man’s
misfortune provided a golden opportunity for memory researchers.
• In the decades after his surgery, over 100 researchers studied various aspects of H.M.’s
memory performance, leading to several major discoveries about the nature of memory
• As one scientist put it in commenting on the case,
• “More was learned about memory by research with just one patient than was learned in the previous 100
years of research on memory”.
• More than 15 years prior to his death, Suzanne Corkin arranged for H.M.’s brain to be
donated to Massachusetts General Hospital, where it was immediately subjected to extensive
brain imaging after he passed away in 2008.
• His brain was subsequently moved to a lab at the University of California, San Diego, where
one year after H.M.’s death, it was cut into 2401 extremely thin slices for further study by
scientists all over the world
• H.M.’s memory losses were originally attributed to the removal of his hippocampus although
theorists now understand that other nearby structures that were removed also contributed
to H.M.’s dramatic memory deficits
• Based on decades of additional research, scientists now believe that the entire hippocampal
region and adjacent areas in the cortex are critical for many types of long-term memory
• Many scientists now refer to this broader memory complex as the medial temporal lobe
memory system
 Information Processing Theories (Weitan)
• In their efforts to understand memory storage, theorists have historically
related it to the technologies of their age.
• Modern theories reflect the technological advances of the 20th century.
• For example, many theories formulated at the dawn of the computer age drew an
analogy between information storage by computers and information storage in human
memory
• The main contribution of these information-processing theories was to
subdivide memory into three separate memory stores.
• According to the most influential model (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968,
1971), incoming information passes through two temporary storage
buffers—the sensory store and short-term store—before it is
transferred into a long-term store
• The information-processing model of memory is a metaphor; the three
memory stores are not viewed as anatomical structures in the brain, but
rather as functionally distinct types of memory
Three Memory Stores (Feldman)
 Sensory Memory
• A momentary flash of lightning, the sound of a twig snapping, and the sting of
a pinprick all represent stimulation of exceedingly brief duration, but they
may nonetheless provide important information that can require a response.
• Such stimuli are initially—and fleetingly—stored in sensory memory.
• Although the three types of memory are discussed as separate memory stores,
these are not mini-warehouses located in specific areas of the brain.
• Instead, they represent three different types of memory systems with different
characteristics
• Sensory memory is the first storehouse of the information the world
presents to us.
• Actually, we have several types of sensory memories, each related to a
different source of sensory information.
• For instance, iconic memory reflects information from the visual system.
• Echoic memory stores auditory information coming from the ears.
• In addition, there are corresponding memories for each of the other
senses.
• Sensory memory can store information for only a very short time.
• If information does not pass into short-term memory, it is lost for good.
• For instance, iconic memory seems to last less than a second, and
echoic memory typically fades within 2 or 3 seconds.

• However, despite the brief duration of sensory memory, its precision is

high: Sensory memory can store an almost exact replica of each
stimulus to which it is exposed
• Psychologist George Sperling (1960) demonstrated the existence of sensory
memory in a series of clever and now-classic studies. He briefly exposed
people to a series of 12 letters arranged in the following pattern:
FTYC
KDNL
YWBM
• When exposed to this pattern of letters for just one twentieth of a second,
most people could recall only four or five of the letters accurately.
• Although they knew that they had seen more, the memory of those
letters had faded by the time they reported the first few letters.
• It was possible, then, that the information had initially been accurately
stored in sensory memory. But during the time it took to verbalize the first
four or five letters, the memory of the other letters faded.
• In sum, sensory memory operates as a kind of snapshot that stores
information—which may be of a visual, auditory, or other sensory
nature—for a brief moment in time.

• But it is as if each snapshot, immediately after being taken, is

destroyed and replaced with a new one. Unless the information in the
snapshot is transferred to some other type of memory, it is lost.
 Short-Term Memory
• Because the information that is stored briefly in sensory memory consists of
representations of raw sensory stimuli, it is not meaningful to us.
• If we are to make sense of it and possibly retain it, the information must
be transferred to the next stage of memory: short-term memory.
• Short-term memory is the memory store in which information first has
meaning, although the maximum length of retention there is relatively short.
• The specific process by which sensory memories are transformed
into short-term memories is not clear.
• Some theorists suggest that the information is first translated into
graphical representations or images, and others hypothesize that the
transfer occurs when the sensory stimuli are changed to words
• What is clear, however, is that unlike sensory memory, which holds a
relatively full and detailed—if short-lived—representation of the world,
short-term memory has incomplete representational capabilities.
 Chunks and STM: Class exercise
• In fact, researchers have identified the specific amount of information we
can hold in short-term memory: 7 items, or “chunks,” of information,
with variations up to plus or minus 2 chunks (remember it this way: 7 ± 2).
• A chunk is a group of separate pieces of information stored as a single unit
in short-term memory.
• For example, telephone numbers are typically depicted in three chunks of
information in order to make them easier to remember: (201) 226-4610, rather than a
string of the separate numbers 2012264610.
• Chunks also may consist of categories as words or other meaningful
units.
• For example, consider the following list of 21 letters:
PBSFO X CN NABCCBSMTVN BC
• Because the list of individual letters exceeds seven items, it is difficult to
recall the letters after one exposure. But suppose they were presented as
follows:
PBS FOX CNN ABC CBS MTV NBC
• In this case, even though there are still 21 letters, you’d be able to store them
in short-term memory since they represent only seven chunks.
• Chunks can vary in size from single letters or numbers to categories that
are far more complicated.
• The specific nature of what constitutes a chunk varies according to one’s past
experience
• The chunks of information in short-term memory do not last very long.
• Just how brief is short-term memory?
• Most psychologists believe that information in short-term memory is
lost after 15 to 25 seconds—unless it is transferred to long-term
memory.
 REHEARSAL
• The transfer of material from short- to long-term memory proceeds largely on the basis
of rehearsal, the repetition of information that has entered short-term memory.
• Rehearsal accomplishes two things.
• First, as long as the information is repeated, it is maintained in short-term memory.
• More important, however, rehearsal allows us to transfer the information into long-term
memory
• Whether the transfer is made from short- to long-term memory seems to depend largely
on the kind of rehearsal that is carried out.
• If the information is simply repeated over and over again it is kept current in short-term
memory, but it will not necessarily be placed in long-term memory.
• In contrast, if the information in short-term memory is rehearsed using a process called
elaborative rehearsal, it is much more likely to be transferred into long-term memory.
• Elaborative rehearsal occurs when the information is considered and
organized in some fashion.
• The organization might include
• Expanding the information to make it fit into a logical framework,
• Linking it to another memory,
• Turning it into an image, or
• Transforming it in some other way.
• We can vastly improve our retention of information using such
organizational strategies, which are known as mnemonics.
• Mnemonics (pronounced “neh MON ix”) are strategies for organizing
information in a way that makes the information more likely to be
remembered.
 Working Memory
• Working memory is the memory system that holds information
temporarily while actively manipulating and rehearsing that
information.
• Researchers now assume that working memory is made up of several
parts.
• First, it contains a central executive processor that is involved in
reasoning, decision making, and planning.
• The central executive integrates and coordinates information from three
distinct subsystems, and it determines what we pay attention to and what we
ignore.
• The three subsystems of working memory serve as storage-and-rehearsal
systems:
• the visual store, the verbal store, and the episodic buffer.
• The visual store specializes in visual and spatial information.
• In contrast, the verbal store holds and manipulates material relating to language,
including speech, words, and numbers.
• Finally, the episodic buffer contains information that represents events and
occurrences—things that happen to us
• Working memory permits us to keep information in an active state briefly
so that we can do something with the information.
• As working memory processes information, it uses a significant amount
of cognitive resources during its operation.
• Furthermore, the amount of information that can be held and processed in
working memory seems to be just three to four chunks, depending on the
nature of the chunks
• The cognitive effort in the processing of information in working memory
also can make us less aware of our surroundings—something that has
implications for why it’s unsafe to use cell phones while driving.
• Furthermore, stress can reduce the effectiveness of working memory by
reducing its capacity.
 Long-Term Memory
• Material that makes its way from short-term memory to long-term memory enters a
storehouse of almost unlimited capacity.
• Like a new file we save on a hard drive, the information in long-term memory is filed
and coded so that we can retrieve it when we need it.
• Evidence of the existence of long-term memory, as distinct from short-term memory,
comes from a number of sources.
• For example, people with certain kinds of brain damage have no lasting recall of new
information received after the damage occurred, although people and events stored in
memory before the injury remain intact
• Because information that was encoded and stored before the injury can be recalled and
because short-term memory after the injury appears to be operational—new material can
be recalled for a very brief period—we can infer that there are two distinct types of
memory: one for short-term and one for long-term storage.
• The distinction between short- and long-term memory is also demonstrated
by the fact that ability to recall information in a list depends on where in the
list an item appears.
• For instance, in some cases, a primacy effect occurs, in which items
presented early in a list are remembered better.
• In other cases, a recency effect is seen, in which items presented late in a
list are remembered best
 LONG-TERM MEMORY MODULES
• Just as short-term memory is often conceptualized in terms of working
memory, many contemporary researchers now regard long-term memory
as having several components, or memory modules.
• Each of these modules represents a separate memory system in the brain.
One major distinction within long-term memory is that between declarative
and procedural memory.
• Declarative memory is memory for factual information: names, faces,
dates, and facts, such as “a bike has two wheels.”
• The information stored in declarative memory can be verbally
communicated to others and is sometimes called “explicit memory.”
• In contrast, procedural memory (sometimes called nondeclarative
memory or implicit memory) refers to memory for skills and habits, such
as how to ride a bike or hit a baseball.
• For example, procedural memory allows us to ice skate, even if we
haven’t done it for a long time.
• You can remember the difference between declarative and procedural
memory this way: Information about things is stored in declarative
memory; information about how to do things (procedures) is stored
in procedural memory
• Declarative memory can be subdivided into semantic memory and episodic
memory.
• Semantic memory is memory for general knowledge and facts about the
world, as well as memory for the rules of logic that are used to deduce other
facts. Because of semantic memory, we remember that the ZIP code for
Beverly Hills is 90210, that Mumbai is on the Arabian Sea, and that
memoree is the incorrect spelling of memory.
• In contrast, episodic memory is memory for events that occur in a
particular time, place, or context.
• For example, recall of learning to hit a baseball, or arranging a surprise 21st
birthday party for our brother is based on episodic memories.
• . For example, remembering when and how we learned that 2 × Episodic
memories relate to particular contexts2 = 4 would be an episodic memory;
the fact itself (that 2 × 2 = 4) is a semantic memory.
• Episodic memories can be surprisingly detailed.
• Episodic memory, then, can provide information about events that
happened long in the past.
• But semantic memory is no less impressive, permitting us to dredge up
tens of thousands of facts ranging from the date of our birthday to the
knowledge that $1 is less than $5.
 SEMANTIC NETWORKS
• Try to recall, for a moment, as many things as you can think of that are the color red.
• Now pull from your memory the names of as many fruits as you can recall.
• Did the same item appear when you did both tasks?
• For many people, an apple comes to mind in both cases since it fits equally well in each category.
• And the fact that you might have thought of an apple when doing the first task makes it even more likely that
you’ll think of it when doing the second task.
• According to some memory researchers, one key organizational tool that allows us to recall detailed
information from long-term memory is the associations that we build between different pieces of information.
• Knowledge is stored in semantic networks, mental representations of clusters of interconnected information
• Thinking about a particular concept leads to recall of related concepts.
• For example, seeing a fire engine may activate our recollections of other kinds of emergency vehicles, such as
an ambulance, which in turn may activate recall of the related concept of a vehicle. And thinking of a vehicle
may lead us to think about a bus that we’ve seen in the past.
• Activating one memory triggers the activation of related memories in a process known as spreading
activation
 Recalling LTMs and Forgetting
• Have you ever tried to remember someone’s name, convinced that you
knew it but unable to recall it no matter how hard you tried? This
common occurrence—known as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon—
exemplifies how difficult it can be to retrieve information stored in long-
term memory
 Difference between recall and recognition
• In recall, a specific piece of information must be retrieved—such as that needed
to answer a fill-in-the-blank question or to write an essay on a test.
• In contrast, recognition occurs when people are presented with a stimulus and
asked whether they have been exposed to it previously or are asked to identify it
from a list of alternatives.
• Recognition is generally a much easier task than recall
• Recall is more difficult because it consists of a series of processes: a search
through memory, retrieval of potentially relevant information, and then a
decision regarding whether the information you have found is accurate.
• If the information appears to be correct, the search is over, but if it is not, the
search must continue. In contrast, recognition is simpler because it involves fewer
steps
 Retrieval Cues
• How do we sort through vast array of material and retrieve specific information
at the appropriate time? One way is through retrieval cues.
• A retrieval cue is a stimulus that allows us to recall more easily
information that is in long-term memory.
• It may be a word, an emotion, or a sound; whatever the specific cue, a
memory will suddenly come to mind when the retrieval cue is present.
• For example, the smell of roasting turkey may evoke memories of Thanksgiving or
family gatherings.
• Retrieval cues guide people through the information stored in long-term
memory
• They are particularly important when we are making an effort to recall
information, as opposed to being asked to recognize material stored in memory.
 Levels of Processing Theory
• One determinant of how well memories are recalled is the way in which
material is first perceived, processed, and understood.
• The levels-of-processing theory emphasizes the degree to which new material is
mentally analyzed.
• According to this approach, the depth of information processing during
exposure to material—meaning the degree to which it is analyzed and
considered—is critical; the greater the intensity of its initial processing, the
more likely we are to remember it
• Therefore, it enters memory at a deeper level—and is less apt to be forgotten
than is information processed at shallower levels.
• The theory suggest that there are differences in the ways in which information is
processed at various levels of memory.
• At shallow levels, information is processed merely in terms of its physical and
sensory aspects.
• For example, we may pay attention only to the shapes that make up the letters in the word
dog.
• At an intermediate level of processing, the shapes are translated into
meaningful units—in this case, letters of the alphabet. Those letters are considered
in the context of words, and specific phonetic sounds may be attached to the letters.
• At the deepest level of processing, information is analyzed in terms of its
meaning.
• We may see it in a wider context and draw associations between the meaning of
the information and broader networks of knowledge.
• For instance, we may think of dogs not merely as animals with four legs and a tail but also in
terms of their relationship to cats and other mammals. We may form an image of our own
dog, thereby relating the concept to our own lives.
• According to the levels-of-processing approach, the deeper the initial level of
processing of specific information, the longer the information will be retained.
 Implicit & Explicit Memory

• The discovery that people have memories about which they are unaware has been an
important one.
• It has led to speculation that two forms of memory, explicit and implicit, may exist
side by side.
• Explicit memory refers to intentional or conscious recollection of information.
• When we try to remember a name or date we have encountered or learned about previously, we
are searching our explicit memory.
• In contrast, implicit memory refers to memories of which people are not
consciously aware but that can affect subsequent performance and behavior.
• Skills that operate automatically and without thinking, such as jumping out of the path of an
automobile coming toward us as we walk down the side of a road, are stored in implicit memory.
• Similarly, a feeling of vague dislike for an acquaintance, without knowing why we
have that feeling, may be a reflection of implicit memories.
 Forgetting
• People tend to view forgetting as a failure, weakness, or deficiency in cognitive
processing.
• Some memory theorists argue that forgetting is actually adaptive.
• How so? Imagine how cluttered your memory would be if you never forgot
anything.
• According to some theorists people need to forget information that is no longer
relevant, such as out-of-date phone numbers, discarded passwords, and lines that
were memorized for a tenth-grade play.
• Forgetting can reduce competition among memories that can cause confusion.
• Imagine what would happen if all your many memories of parking your car at a nearby
shopping mall were equally vivid? Good luck finding your car! It is highly functional if
your memory of where you parked at a mall today is much stronger than your memory of
where you parked at the same mall 5 days or 2 weeks ago.
How Quickly We Forget: Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting
Curve
• The first person to conduct scientific studies of forgetting was Hermann
Ebbinghaus. Ebbinghaus studied only one subject—himself.
• To give himself lots of new material to memorize, he invented nonsense
syllables—consonant-vowel-consonant arrangements that do not correspond
to words (such as BAF, XOF, VIR, and MEQ).
• He wanted to work with meaningless materials that would be uncontaminated
by his previous learning.
• He tested his memory of these lists after various time intervals.
• Figure 7.12 shows what he found. This diagram, called a forgetting curve,
graphs retention and forgetting over time.
• Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve shows a sharp drop in retention during the
first few hours after the nonsense syllables were memorized.
• He forgot more than 60% of the syllables in less than 9 hours!
• Thus, he concluded that most forgetting occurs very rapidly after learning
something.

• Fortunately, subsequent research showed that Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve

was unusually steep.
• One problem was that he was working with such meaningless material.
• When participants memorize more meaningful material, such as prose or
poetry, forgetting curves aren’t nearly as steep.
• Studies of how well people recall their high school classmates suggest that
forgetting curves for autobiographical information are much shallower
Forgotten Baby Syndrome
• Prospective memory failures are also largely responsible for “forgotten baby
syndrome,” the tragic event in which a child dies of exposure after being left
unattended in a car.
• In a typical case, the father was asked to take the child to day care one morning, a
task usually performed by the mother.
• During the commute, it began raining heavily, and the child apparently fell asleep.
• The father, rather than turning toward the day care facility at the end of the
commute, drove his usual route to work. The child did not awaken as the father
exited the vehicle in the rain.
• Several hours later the father realized what he had done, but the damage was done.
• The rain had ended, the Texas sun had returned, and the child died of exposure
Why We Forget
• Measuring forgetting is only the first step in the long journey toward
explaining why forgetting occurs. In this section, we explore the
possible causes of forgetting, looking at factors that may affect
encoding, storage, and retrieval processes.
 Ineffective Encoding
• A great deal of forgetting may only appear to be forgetting. The information in
question may never have been inserted into memory in the first place.
• Since you can’t really forget something you never learned, this phenomenon is
sometimes called pseudo-forgetting.
• People usually assume that they know what a penny looks like. However, most
people have actually failed to encode this information.
• Pseudo-forgetting is usually attributable to lack of attention.
• The research on levels of processing shows that some approaches to encoding
lead to more forgetting than others.
• For example, if you’re distracted while you read your textbooks, you may be doing
little more than saying the words to yourself. This is an example of phonemic
encoding, which is inferior to semantic encoding for retention of verbal material.
 Decay
• Decay theory attributes forgetting to the impermanence of memory storage.
• Decay theory proposes that forgetting occurs because memory traces fade with time.
• The implicit assumption is that decay occurs in the physiological mechanisms
responsible for memories.
• According to decay theory, the mere passage of time produces forgetting.
• Researchers have not been successful in providing clear demonstrations that decay
causes long-term memory forgetting.
• Decay processes contribute to the selective removal of some memories.
• Decay weakens the neurobiological substrate of selected memories, and that this
process unfolds primarily during sleep.
• Research has shown that forgetting depends not on the amount of time that has
passed since learning, but on the amount, complexity, and type of information
that subjects have had to absorb during that period of time.
 Interference
• Interference theory proposes that people forget information because of
competition from other material.
• Researchers have controlled interference by varying the similarity
between the original material given to subjects (the test material) and the
material studied in the intervening period.
• Interference is assumed to be greatest when intervening material is most
similar to the test material.
• Decreasing the similarity should reduce interference and cause less
forgetting.
 Types of Interference
• Retroactive interference occurs when new information impairs the retention of
previously learned information and occurs between the original learning and the
retest on that learning
• Learning to play a new musical instrument (e.g., guitar) may interfere with your ability to
remember how to play songs on a previously learned instrument (e.g., piano).
• In contrast, proactive interference occurs when previously learned information
interferes with the retention of new information.
• For example, when you get a new phone number, your old number (previous learning) may
create proactive interference that hampers your recall of your new number.
• Suppose, as a student of foreign languages, you first learned French in the 10th grade, and
then in the 11th grade you took Spanish. When in the 12th grade you take a college subject
achievement test in Spanish, you may find you have difficulty recalling the Spanish
translation of a word because all you can think of is its French equivalent.
• The evidence indicates that both types of interference can have powerful effects on
how much you forget.
Difference between the two
• One way to remember the difference between proactive and retroactive
interference is to keep in mind that proactive interference progresses
in time—the past interferes with the present.
• In contrast, retroactive interference retrogresses in time, working
backward as the present interferes with the past
Inhibition as a cause of forgetting
• Our mental lives are replete with examples in which it is helpful or
adaptive to forget.
• Often, for example, people need to efficiently access past events or
facts, despite potentially relevant but distracting memories elicited by
a retrieval cue.
• Interference during memory retrieval can lead to retrieval failure, or to
the retrieval of similar, but incorrect memories
• Theoretically, inhibition refers to a cognitive mechanism that operates on
a memory trace or a process to induce a potentially reversible and
graded change in its state, making it less accessible
• When applied to memory, the term inhibition implies a mechanism,
external from the trace itself, that acts upon the memory to render it less
accessible.
1. Inhibition during selective retrieval
• Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF)
• Anderson and Spellman's model of retrieval-induced forgetting
suggests that when items compete during retrieval, an inhibitory
process will serve to suppress those competitors.
• For instance, retrieval of one meaning for a word (e.g. the verb meaning of the
word sock) will tend to inhibit the dominant meaning of that word (e.g. the
noun meaning of sock)
• Anderson and Spellman conducted a three-phase study using their
retrieval-induced forgetting model to demonstrate unlearning as
inhibition.
Memory and Law
Eyewitness Testimony
• Eyewitnesses can provide very compelling legal testimony, but rather
than recording experiences flawlessly, their memories are susceptible
to a variety of errors and biases. They (like the rest of us) can make
errors in remembering specific details and can even remember whole
events that did not actually happen.
• Eyewitness testimony is what happens when a person witnesses a
crime (or accident, or other legally important event) and later gets up
on the stand and recalls for the court all the details of the witnessed
event.
• It includes what happens during the actual crime to facilitate or
hamper witnessing, as well as everything that happens from the time
the event is over to the later courtroom appearance.
The fallibility of eyewitness memory
• There is now a wealth of evidence, from research conducted over
several decades, suggesting that eyewitness testimony is probably the
most persuasive form of evidence presented in court, but in many
cases, its accuracy is dubious.
• Faulty eyewitness testimony has been implicated in at least 75% of
DNA exoneration cases—more than any other cause (Garrett, 2011)
Misinformation
• Cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has conducted extensive
research on memory.
• Loftus developed the misinformation effect paradigm, which holds
that after exposure to incorrect information, a person may
misremember the original event.
• According to Loftus, an eyewitness’s memory of an event is very flexible
due to the misinformation effect.
• To test this theory, Loftus and John Palmer (1974) asked 45 U.S. college
students to estimate the speed of cars using different forms of questions.
• The participants were shown films of car accidents and were asked to play
the role of the eyewitness and describe what happened.
• They were asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed,
collided, bumped, hit, contacted) each other?” The participants estimated the
speed of the cars based on the verb used.
• Participants who heard the word “smashed” estimated that the cars were traveling
at a much higher speed than participants who heard the word “contacted.”
• The implied information about speed, based on the verb they heard, had an effect
on the participants’ memory of the accident.
• In a follow-up one week later, participants were asked if they saw any broken glass
(none was shown in the accident pictures).
• Participants who had been in the “smashed” group were more than twice as likely
to indicate that they did remember seeing glass.
• Loftus and Palmer demonstrated that a leading question encouraged them to not
only remember the cars were going faster, but to also falsely remember that they
saw broken glass.
Misinformation Effect and Social Situations
• Other studies have shown that misinformation can corrupt memory even more
easily when it is encountered in social
• This is a problem particularly in cases where more than one person witnesses
a crime.
• In these cases, witnesses tend to talk to one another in the immediate aftermath of
the crime, including as they wait for police to arrive.
• But because different witnesses are different people with different perspectives,
they are likely to see or notice different things, and thus remember different things,
even when they witness the same event.
• So when they communicate about the crime later, they not only reinforce common
memories for the event, they also contaminate each other’s memories for the event
Thompson-Cannino V Cotton
• In 1984, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, a college student at the time, was raped at knifepoint in
her apartment in Burlington, North Carolina. During the attack, she made a concerted effort to
memorize details about her assailant's face and features.
• After the assault, Thompson-Cannino worked with police to create a composite sketch of the
perpetrator. Later, she positively identified Ronald Cotton, a local man with a criminal record,
as the man who had raped her. Cotton was arrested and charged with the crime.
• At Cotton's trial in 1985, Thompson-Cannino testified confidently that Cotton was the rapist.
Cotton was convicted based largely on her eyewitness testimony and sentenced to life in
prison.
• In 1995, however, new DNA testing technology became available, and Cotton requested DNA
testing on evidence from the crime scene. The results excluded Cotton as the perpetrator and
instead matched Bobby Poole, another man with a history of sexual assaults in the area.
• In 1995, Cotton was exonerated and released from prison after serving over 10 years for a
crime he did not commit.
Misinformation effect and Gestures: The
power of non verbal communication
• Participants first watched footage of a crime scene, followed by a
questioning phase on video, where an actor portraying a police
interviewer asked participants questions about the crime.
• Presenting the questioning phase on video enabled us to ensure that the
verbal questions were identical for all groups; careful video editing
allowed manipulation of the interviewer’s gestures while keeping the
verbal questions constant.
• During questioning, participants saw the interviewer accompany the
questions with a gesture that conveyed either accurate information about
the scene (an accurate gesture) or inaccurate information (a misleading
gesture).
• The first critical question was, “You may have noticed some jewelry worn by the victim. Please
write down what jewelry you think he was wearing,” spoken directly to camera.
• For the two corresponding overshoulder videos, the interviewer either gestured to a finger on
his opposing hand (to depict a ring) or grasped his wrist (to depict a watch).
• These two overshoulder shots of the gesture were each edited into the video sequence in full
screen (during the word jewelry) to produce two versions of the video for the two experimental
conditions.
• Participants wrote down their responses to the interviewer’s critical question about the man’s
jewelry. “Ring” and “watch” were the target responses for each of the “ring” and “watch”
categories, although other items of jewelry worn on the wrist (such as a bracelet) were also
counted as valid responses to the watch gesture.
• More correct (“ring”) responses were given by participants who saw the accurate (ring) gesture
(95%, n = 19) than by those in the misleading (watch) (67%, n = 12) gesture and control (no
gesture) (63%, n = 10) groups.
• Sensitivity to misleading information in gestures has been
demonstrated in children. In the study by Broaders and Goldin-
Meadow (2010), 39 children were asked open-ended questions,
accompanied by the interviewer gesturing specific information (e.g.,
asking “What else did he do?” while gesturing playing a whistle).
They found that conveying misleading information in this way altered
the children’s representation of the event and led them to give
inaccurate information that was consistent with the gesture.
Conclusion
• These results provide preliminary support for the gestural
misinformation effect and suggest that nonverbal, as well as verbal,
information can influence what an eyewitness remembers.
False and True Memory
• Courts’ decision rely on, and receive strong support from, decades of
research from cognitive psychology showing that human memory does
not work like a video recording; it is prone to various kinds of errors,
distortions and illusions
• Such cognitive studies have established that eyewitnesses sometimes
report confident but inaccurate memories and that post-event
suggestions or misinformation can easily taint eyewitness memory.
• There is also evidence that identifying members of a different race is
typically more difficult than identifying members of the same race and
that high levels of stress can impair the accuracy of eyewitness
memory
What are true and false memories?
• True memory is the real retrieval of an event of any nature, be it visual,
verbal, or otherwise.
• True memories are constantly being rewritten (re-encoding).
• On the other hand, false memory is defined as the recollection of an event
that did not happen or a distortion of an event that indeed occurred.
• Otherwise, confabulation is the formation of false memories, perceptions, or
beliefs about yourself or the environment because of neurological or
psychological dysfunction.
• During this process, confusion between imagination and memory or even
confusion between true memories may occur.
What factors might lead to retrieval of false
memories?
• Some studies have indicated that certain psychotherapeutic
techniques which are based on the retrieval of emotional
memories in children can produce vivid memories of events that
have not really occurred, for example, alleged cases of sexual
violence suffered during childhood
• The memory of these children can be reconfigured in the wrong way.
• In the legal area, the impact of emotion on the functioning of
memory may compromise the exercise of justice, since the person
who has witnessed some crime, violation, and/or suffer if any kind
of violence may be subject to distortion of their memories.
How are false memories formed?
Suggestion-based
• Alternatively, false memories that are elicited by the use of external factors
frequently use some sort of suggestive pressure.
• For example, the misinformation paradigm is one of the most well-known
methods to induce suggestion-based false memories.
• In this paradigm, participants are presented with some stimuli (e.g., video of
car crash).
• Following this, participants receive misinformation in the form of suggestive
questions or narratives (e.g., an eyewitness testimony erroneously stating that
an ambulance appeared while that was not the case). On a final memory test,
some participants claim to remember having seen the misinformation during
the encoding of the experience, an effect called the misinformation effect
Deese-Roediger/McDermott (DRM) paradigm
• For example, in the Deese-Roediger/McDermott (DRM) paradigm, participants learn lists of
associatively related words (e.g., tired, bed, dream, pillow, night, and slumber).
• These words are connected to a non-presented theme word called the critical lure (i.e., sleep).
• A common finding is that participants falsely recall/recognize the critical lure with rates
sometimes as high as true memory rates [16].
• False memories evoked by the DRM paradigm constitute spontaneous false memories as no
external pressure is needed to foment them
• The Deese-Roediger/McDermott (DRM) paradigm is a psychological phenomenon related to
memory and false memory. It involves presenting participants with a list of words (e.g., "bed,"
"rest," "awake," "tired") that are all related to a non-presented critical lure (e.g., "sleep").
• After studying the list, participants are asked to recall or recognize the words they were shown.
Many participants falsely remember the critical lure as being on the original list, even though it
was never presented. This demonstrates how memory can be influenced by semantic
associations, leading to the creation of false memories.
Implantation Paradigm
• Another paradigm used to study suggestion-based false memories is
the false memory implantation paradigm.
• In this paradigm, participants are typically told that they experienced a
false event (e.g., hot air balloon ride) in their childhood.
• During several suggestive interviews, about 30% of participants form
false autobiographical memories for the event.
• Because these false memories concern autobiographical experiences,
findings from this paradigm have been influential in discussions on
therapy-induced false memories of sexual abuse
 Motivated Forgetting/Repression
• Over a century ago, Sigmund Freud (1901) came up with an entirely different
explanation for retrieval failures.
• Freud asserted that people often keep embarrassing, unpleasant, or painful
memories buried in their unconscious.
• For example, a person who was deeply wounded by perceived slights at a childhood
birthday party might suppress all recollection of that party.
• In his therapeutic work with patients, Freud recovered many such buried
memories.
• He theorized that the memories were there all along, but their retrieval was
blocked by unconscious avoidance tendencies.
• The tendency to forget things one doesn’t want to think about is called
motivated forgetting, or to use Freud’s terminology, repression.
• In Freudian theory, repression refers to keeping distressing thoughts and
feelings buried in the unconscious.
• A number of experiments suggest that people don’t remember anxiety-
laden material as readily as emotionally neutral material, just as Freud
proposed.
• Thus, when you forget unpleasant things—such as a dental appointment,
a promise to help a friend move, or a term paper deadline—motivated
forgetting may be at work.
• The idea that memories of traumatic events could be repressed has
been a theme in the field of psychology, beginning with Sigmund Freud,
and the controversy surrounding the idea continues today.
• This syndrome has received a lot of publicity, particularly as it relates to
memories of events that do not have independent witnesses—often the
only witnesses to the abuse are the perpetrator and the victim (e.g.,
sexual abuse).
• On one side of the debate are those who have recovered memories of
childhood abuse years after it occurred.
• These researchers argue that some children’s experiences have been so
traumatizing and distressing that they must lock those memories away
in order to lead some semblance of a normal life. They believe that
repressed memories can be locked away for decades and later recalled
intact through hypnosis and guided imagery techniques
Clinical cases of repressed memory
• The case of “Claudia.”
• Recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse by her older brother, corroborated by documentary
evidence.
• After losing more than 100 pounds in a hospital weight-reduction program she had entered to battle
severe obesity, Claudia experienced flashbacks of sexual abuse committed by her older brother. She
joined a therapy group for incest survivors, and memories of abuse flooded back. Claudia told group
members that from the time she was 4 years old to her brother’s enlistment in the Army three years
later, he had regularly handcuffed her, burned her with cigarettes, and forced her to submit to a
variety of sexual acts.
• Claudia’s brother had died in combat in Vietnam more than 15 years before her horrifying memories
surfaced. Yet Claudia’s parents had left his room and his belongings untouched since then. Returning
home from the hospital, Claudia searched the room. Inside a closet she found a large pornography
collection, handcuffs, and a diary in which her brother had extensively planned and recorded what he
called sexual ‘experiments’ with his sister. (Bruce Bower, “Sudden recall: adult memories of child
abuse spark a heated debate.” Science News (September 18, 1993), Vol. 144 , No. 12: pp. 184-86.)
The case of George Franklin
• On January 1989, Eileen Franklin-Lipsker was playing with her young
daughter, Jessica, and as the child turned toward her, a memory of
another girl in just such a pose sprang into Franklin-Lipsker's mind.
• The memory was of her childhood best friend, eight-year-old Susan
Nason, being raped and killed by Franklin-Lipsker's father nearly 20
years earlier.
• Until that moment in 1989, Franklin-Lipsker had had no recollection of
being a witness to this horrible scene. Now, suddenly, it came flooding
back in graphic and gruesome detail. "Her hands flew up to her head,"
she later said. "The next thing I heard was two blows. It sounded
terrible."
• After taking a statement from her, the police arrested her father, George
Franklin, on November 29, 1989, for the murder. At his home they found a
number of pornographic magazines and pictures, including those of young
children.
• Twenty years earlier, in September 1969, young Susan Nason disappeared
from her town of Foster City, California. Her body was discovered outdoors a
few months later, showing signs of a violent death, including a crushed skull
and a smashed ring that seemed to indicate she was warding off a blow. A
bloodstained rock was found nearby.
• The press reported these and other facts, but police never made an arrest for
her murder. Franklin and others were questioned at the time, and Franklin
went to visit Susan's graveside on the first anniversary of her death.
• Ten years later, Franklin's wife asked him if he had murdered Susan. During their
divorce proceedings Franklin-Lipsker's mother said that Franklin had abused his own
children, including Eileen, both verbally and physically.
• Now, 20 years after Susan's death, Franklin-Lipsker claimed that she remembered being
with her father and Susan on the day of the murder. She said that she had watched her
father rape and kill Susan, and that he had threatened her, too.

• "He said that if I told anyone," she testified, "he would have to kill me. I believed him."
Because of the shock of what she had witnessed and her total belief in her father,
according to several psychiatrists who were questioned, she had repressed her memories
of that day for years. Not until she saw her own daughter in a pose similar to Susan's two
decades later, she said, did they resurface
• The trial opened in late October 1990, and Franklin-Lipsker became
the star wit-.-ness. The prosecution's case revolved almost totally on
her account based on the resurfacing of her repressed memories.
Leading psychiatrists and psychologists testified on behalf of both the
prosecution and defense
• The defense also argued that all of the facts to which Franklin-Lipsker
testified had been reported in the papers; she therefore could have
known what had happened without being an eye-witness to the
murder.
• Trial judge Thomas McGinn Smith prevented the defense from
introducing newspaper accounts that mentioned the facts that Franklin-
Lipsker revealed.
• However, he did allow the admission of what some would call
circumstantial evidence.
• When Franklin-Lipsker went to visit her father in prison before the trial
and asked him to tell the truth, Franklin had said nothing, instead
pointing to a prison sign that warned inmates that officials might monitor
their conversations. Franklin's silence, said prosecutor Elaine Tipton, in
the face of this accusation, was "worth its weight in gold" as an implied
admission of guilt