Humans have an incredible capability for thinking and memory. We can remember events from our past, for our future, and of things that have no relative meaning to ourselves. These memories can be traced back to different systems of our brains through a process of encoding, storage, and retrieval. As part of the retrieval process, memories can be remembered with or without their sources. As research has found, our memories are not labeled or tagged with their origin (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay 1993). Because of this, our memory has developed a process called source monitoring. This is how we link our memories to the source that they developed from, usually using specific characteristics and general knowledge of the memory. For example, source monitoring includes identifying who told you something, whether or not you saw an event in real life, the time of the event and whether you told something to your friend or only thought about telling it. The source-monitoring framework for the process involved in pinpointing the origin of information by Johnson and colleagues, explains both vertical and distorted memory with a common set of principles. First, a specific memory consists of specific characteristics including spatial, temporal, and perceptual details. Secondly, the memories can differ in characteristics that can be used to find the origin. More extensive source monitoring can involve beliefs about memory and cognition as well as retrieving more information from memory and finding the source of the memory given these beliefs, other specific characteristics or general knowledge (Johnson et al. 1993). Sometimes these beliefs aren't always accurate. Because some people may be influenced by their personal ideologies during retriev...
... middle of paper ...
...imental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15(3), 432-442.
Gordon, R., Franklin, N., & Beck, J. (2005). Wishful thinking and source monitoring. Memory & Cognition, 33 (3), 418-429.
Johnson, M. K., Hashtroudi, S. & Lindsay, D. S. 1993 Source monitoring. Psychol. Bull. 114, 3-28.
Marsh, R. L., Cook, G. I., & Hicks, J. L. (2006). The effect of context variability on source memory. Memory & Cognition (Pre-2011), 34(8), 1578-86.
Marsh, R.L., Landau, J.D., & Hicks, J.L. (1997). Contributions of inadequate source monitoring to unconscious plagiarism during idea generation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23(4), 886-897.
Vinogradov, S., Willis-Shore, J., Poole, J.H., Marten, E., Ober, B., & Shenaut, G. (1997). Clinical and neurocognitive aspects of source monitoring errors in schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry, 154, 1530-1537.
Over the years, memory have been researched and debated, however there are two theories that have explained extensively and are highly recognised by psychologist in the cognitive field of psychology and scientist alike, on how we process experiences and turn them into memories. These theories include the Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) Multi-store Model of Memory and Baddeley and Hitch (1974) Phonological Loop Model of Memory. This essay aims to compare, contrast and evaluate these models of memory, with supporting evidence and empirical research.
Roediger III, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating False Memories: Remembering Words Not Presented in Lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cogntion, 21, 803-814.
Human memory is flexible and prone to suggestion. “Human memory, while remarkable in many ways, does not operate like a video camera” (Walker, 2013). In fact, human memory is quite the opposite of a video camera; it can be greatly influenced and even often distorted by interactions with its surroundings (Walker, 2013). Memory is separated into three different phases. The first phase is acquisition, which is when information is first entered into memory or the perception of an event (Samaha, 2011). The next phase is retention. Retention is the process of storing information during the period of time between the event and the recollection of a piece of information from that event (Samaha, 2011). The last stage is retrieval. Retrieval is recalling stored information about an event with the purpose of making an identification of a person in that event (Samaha, 2011).
In the field of cognitive neuroscience a memory study usually involves a combination of behavioral tasks and a machine that permits t...
Watson, J. M., Bunting, M. F., Poole, B. J., & Conway, A. R. (2005). Individual differences in susceptibility to false memory in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 31(1), 76-85.
During the retrieval process, memories are susceptible to influence and volatility by numerous other cognitive processes such as speculation, imagination, and other personal or outside beliefs. According to Myers and DeWall (2016), there is also a significant positive correlation between the frequency in retrieving the memory to the amount of change a memory may potentially sustain. For example, when an eyewitness is required to retrieve the memory of a crime numerous times, the story’s details are highly subject to change due to the numerous variables that oftentimes fill in the gaps of the fallible memory. In a study conducted by researcher Elizabeth Loftus, different faces were presented to a sample of individuals on a platform similar to that of a police lineup (Myers & DeWall, 2016). After mildly familiarizing her audience to the suspect’s face, Loftus then added two novel faces with similar characteristics. Upon seeing the actual suspect moments earlier, the majority of individuals had chosen the wrong picture (Myers & DeWall, 2016), thus reinforcing the substantial effect of reconstructed
Humans are susceptible to memory distortion because of our mind’s natural need to make sense of uncertain events and ideas. When forming any memory, we filter in and out information to make the construction understandable - our memory construction process forces us to ignore contradictory information so we can have a clearer image to rely on. Our minds are easily influenced by external sources, often leaving them victim to manipulation. In “Memories of Things Unseen,” written by Elizabeth Loftus, the author examines the role of suggestion in memory distortion and construction. She presents anecdotes of real life circumstances where manipulation of the memory has played a detrimental role in individuals’ lives. Additionally, she explains the
Furthermore this article expands upon this subcategory of memory by describing the two types of tasks involved with it: verbal-production ta...
In recent years there has been a hot debate between "repressed" vs. "false" memories. Neurobiological studies show that both suppression and recall and the creation of false memories are possible. This paper evaluates the evidence but forth by both sides of the controversy and concludes that both are feasible and separate phenomenon, which occur at significant rates in our society.
People fail to notice when they are presented with something different from what they originally chose and tend to come up with explanations as to why they picked that specific choice. In this research paper, Cochran, Greenspan, Bogart, and Loftus discuss how choice blindness can lead to distorted eyewitness memories. In their experiment, the studied if the participants in their research realized modifications to their memory reports and if these changes could possibly effect the participants’ memory. Cochran, Greenspan, Bogart, and Loftus conducted two different experiments. Experiment 1 was constructed on two self-sourced vs. other-sourced between participants and two misinformation vs. control within participants. They had participants watch a slideshow that showed a woman intermingling with three other characters and one of them steals her wallet. Then they completed a personality measure in 15 minute retention interval which was followed by questions about their memories from the slideshow. After, they were given another 15 minute retention interval and then shown their responses to the memory question, but three of their responses were revised. According to Cochran, Greenspan, Bogart, and Loftus (2016), “experiment 1 demonstrated that when witnesses were exposed to altered versions of their own memory reports for episodic details of an event, their memories changed to be consistent with
Schacter, D. L., Gilbert, D. T., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Psychology. (2nd ed., p. 600). New York: Worth Pub.
The human mind has an extraordinary capacity for storing multiple different types of memories, whether they are sensory, short-term, or long-term as proposed by the Atkinson-Shriffin Multi-Store Model of Memory. Within the category of long-term memories, the brain may store procedural, semantic, or episodic memories related to specific events. Certain events are more memorable than others for a combination of these reasons, but events that are truly more salient than others are typically emotional events that leave a lasting impact. Interestingly, many individuals find that their memories for when they heard about major emotional events, like assassinations and September 11th, are extremely vibrant, and they believe their accounts for hearing about these events are true depictions.
Atkinson, R.C. & Shiffrin, R.M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control process.
Human memory is highly susceptible to modifications due to the compelling nature of false memories. This causes the recollection of events to be different from the way they happened or to be non-existent. (Roediger, Jacoby and McDermott, 1996). The first study by Loftus and Pickrell (1995) was to understand and determine if human’s episodic memory, which is the recollection of past events in their thoughts and feelings at that point of time, could be modified by suggestive information. (Wheeler, Stuss and Tulving, 1997). The independent variables were the types of information (3 true and 1 false) given...
Weiner, I. Healy, A. Freedheim, D. Proctor,R.W., Schinka,J.A. (2003) Handbook of Psychology: Experimental psychology,18, pp 500