When Memory Sins

1. When Memory Sins Daniel L. Schacter Presented by Tonya Slager

2. Preview • Cognitive neuroscience vs. social neuroscience • “Seven sins of memory” • Research- examining errors and illusions of memory

3. Cognitive Neuroscience & Social Neuroscience • Both seek to link levels of analysis- psychological and biological • Techniques used: • Cognitive and behavioral analysis • Studies of brain-damaged patients • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

4. Differences • Cognitive neuroscience focus: • Language • Memory • Thought regardless of social contexts

5. Social neuroscience focus on the same areas as well as basic psychological processes • Attempts to explain the psychological and neural basis of social and emotional behaviors in humans and animals • New multi-level integrative analysis approach, rather than solely biological or social.

6. “Seven Sins of Memory” • First 3: sins of omission • Next 3: memory is present, but wrong • Final sin: unwanted memories

7. 1st Sin Transcience • Memories become decreasingly accessible over time • Ex. No longer remember 3rd grade teachers name at age 50

8. 2nd SinAbsentmindedness • Lapses of attention that result in forgetting to do things • Ex. Husband “forgets” to do the dishes, walk the dog, wash the car, buy milk, pick the kids up from school, or buy you a card on your anniversary

9. 3rd SinBlocking • Information that has not faded out of memory but is temporarily inaccessible • Ex. That word on the tip of your tongue you just can not remember to save your life

10. 4th SinMisattribution • Remember that something happened to us and attribute the memory to an incorrect source • Ex. Remember that Joe broke up with you in a post-it note but it was really Bob

11. 5th SinSuggestibility • Implanted memories that are produced by leading questions or suggestions • Ex. “Didn’t Joe break up with you with a post-it note?” • Rare cases people will recall traumatic events that never happened to them

12. 6th SinBias • Current knowledge and beliefs can skew our memories • “I DID NOT vote Bush for President!”

13. 7th SinPersistence • Unwanted memories of difficult or traumatic experiences that can not be forgotten • In extreme cases it changes the perception of their world- i.e. war veterans

14. Amnesic Syndrome • Inability to retain new memories that can later be recollected • Results from damage to the inner or medial aspects of the temporal lobes • hippocampus

15. Research on Amnesic Patients • Lower levels of false recognition to critical attractive words then healthy participants • Lower levels of false recognition to attractive items that are related to previously studied shapes and objects compared to healthy participants • Again: damage to the medial temporal lobe

16. Implications • Regions within the medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus, are involved in storing and retrieving associative information that attribute to false recognition of critical lures or attractive words/objects

17. Research on Transcience • Previously focused on amnesic patients and those with medial temporal lobe damage • Recently fMRI’s and healthy volunteers • Focus: initial encoding of information into memory

18. Results • At the time of encoding, significant activation in the left medial temporal lobe and several left prefrontal regions • Level of activity during encoding determined ability or inability to retain information • Transcience is more likely to occur when those areas are not strongly engaged

19. Research on Misattribution • Large focus placed on false recognition- mistakenly claim they have already previously experienced something • Patient B.G.: • Falsely recognized words, sounds, etc. • Lesion to the right frontal lobe

20. Further Research • FMR study examined memory for previously encountered words • Remember an item and its source • Small differences in familiar items • Right frontal regions

21. QUESTIONS