intrusions, distortions and illusory memories the “fundamental attribution error” in memory...
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: INTRUSIONS, DISTORTIONS AND ILLUSORY MEMORIES The “fundamental attribution error” in memory –When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022082713/5697c0241a28abf838cd49f6/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
INTRUSIONS, DISTORTIONS AND ILLUSORY MEMORIES
• The “fundamental attribution error” in memory
– When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.- Mark Twain's Autobiography
– It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
- Shel Silverstein, author of Where the Sidewalk Ends
– How do you know a memory is real?
![Page 2: INTRUSIONS, DISTORTIONS AND ILLUSORY MEMORIES The “fundamental attribution error” in memory –When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022082713/5697c0241a28abf838cd49f6/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
• Intrusions, False alarms and misidentification– Similarity-based errors in recall and
recognition (typically meaning-based)– Cases of false identification
• Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible (Wagenaar, 1988)
• Demand characteristics of lineups• Consulting on an EW case
• Distortion and confabulation– Event (at encoding) or Cue (at retrieval)
activates related semantic and episodic information that gets integrated into episode• War of the Ghosts (Bartlett, 1932)• Nancy & the Doctor (Owens et al. 1979)
• Historical vs. Narrative Truth (Spence, 1984)
![Page 3: INTRUSIONS, DISTORTIONS AND ILLUSORY MEMORIES The “fundamental attribution error” in memory –When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022082713/5697c0241a28abf838cd49f6/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
• Increasing vulnerability over time
– Reder (1982): Ss read short stories:
• [hamburger heir]– Speed of “studied” versus “plausible”
decisions shifts over time:
– “Fuzzy trace theory” (Brainerd & Reyna)• Encoding includes both verbatim and
“gist” information• Verbatim, as “superficial,” is less
distinctive and more vulnerable to forgetting
2
2.2
2.4
2.6
2.8
3
3.2
3.4
Immediate 20 Minutes 2 Days
Study-test delay
dec
isio
n t
ime
exact
plausible
![Page 4: INTRUSIONS, DISTORTIONS AND ILLUSORY MEMORIES The “fundamental attribution error” in memory –When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022082713/5697c0241a28abf838cd49f6/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
• Source amnesia– Cue activates correct target, wrong
context• the misinformation effect (Loftus, 1985)• The famous-overnight effect (Jacoby,
1989)• Verbal overshadowing (Schooler ’90)
– Failure to distinguish experienced from imagined events
• Failures of reality monitoring (Johnson, 1985)
• The false memory studies– Roediger & McDermott : How sweet
it is (1995)– Loftus & Ketcham: Lost in a shopping
mall (1994)• Hypnosis and confabulation
– Evidence that hypnosis changes bias, not sensitivity
– Increases in confidence– Accepting of sometimes bizarre
“memories” as fact
![Page 5: INTRUSIONS, DISTORTIONS AND ILLUSORY MEMORIES The “fundamental attribution error” in memory –When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022082713/5697c0241a28abf838cd49f6/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Delusions and confabulations in memory disorders
• Etiology– Often associated with frontal lobe damage
• Rupture of anterior arteries• Korsakoff’s syndrome• Frontal degenerative diseases
• Symptoms– Intensity, frequency, plausibility of
confabulations vary widely
– Content is often based on “real” episodes
– Not an obligatory “gap filling”
– May be believed obsessively despite acknowledged contradictions
• Theory– Loss of “executive control” over memory and
metamemory functions
– Impairment of memory for temporal order and context
– Loss of “reality monitoring” and increase in source amnesia
– Consolidation of false memories with rehearsal
• Some case studies
![Page 6: INTRUSIONS, DISTORTIONS AND ILLUSORY MEMORIES The “fundamental attribution error” in memory –When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022082713/5697c0241a28abf838cd49f6/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
• The case of John Demjanjuk– Ukranian immigrant, auto worker in
Cleveland– On KGB list of German “war criminals” – Exported and convicted in Israel of being
“Ivan the Terrible” of Treblinka, 1988– Survivors confidently identified him as
Ivan – Fall of USSR, KGB docs forgeries, 1991– Acquitted and released, 1993– Charged with similar crimes at other
camps, 1999– stripped of U.S. Citizenship and slated for
deportation to Ukraine, 2005
![Page 7: INTRUSIONS, DISTORTIONS AND ILLUSORY MEMORIES The “fundamental attribution error” in memory –When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022082713/5697c0241a28abf838cd49f6/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
“I said the photo was not particularly sharp. It was older than the Ivan I knew, but it was still him. The frame, the round face, the short neck, the wide shoulders and the protruding ears. I told them this is the Ivan I remember,” Epstein said. (Reuters, 23 February 1987.)