Retrieval of memory is influenced by perception, beliefs, experience, cultural factors, and context in which we are recalling

Know that such memory is subject to distortion or changes

Understand the implications of relying on reconstructive memory

Realize that memory may not be as reliable as previously thought

Schema influences what is encoded and retrieved from memory Some information might be dropped to streamline memory processing

Based on the idea that memories are not saved as complete, coherent wholes Instead it is points of data about the object or event

Bartlett argued that we try to make sense of the past by adding our interpretations of events and deductions of what happened

memory is an imaginative reconstruction of experience

determine if false memories of autobiographical events can be created through the power of suggestion

Reasoning for the false memories is thought to be because of the schema or stereotype of being lost in a mall (data points of being lost in a mall)

Could you recall three childhood memories of the participant

Do you remember a time when the participant was lost in a mall

Participants were interviewed twice over a period of 4 weeks. They were asked to recall as much information as they could about the events

They were then asked to rate their level of confidence about the event from 1 - 10

3 are real events

if they do not remember the event, write “I do not remember this”

After the second interview, they were debriefed and asked to guess which memory was fake

ranked this memory as less confident than other memories

The study does not tell us why some participants were more susceptible than others

It was possible to verify the memories through the involvement of parents and siblings

Although this is often seen as strong evidence of the power of suggestion, only 25% had them

high ecological validity as people were talking about childhood memories

The research was applied in areas of eyewitness testimony and therapy

It’s difficult to know whether this is “true” false memory or distortion of another

Ethical concerns about deception about making the participant believe in a false memory

The questionnaire could be contaminated as it was filled at home

There could be demand characteristics, such as social desirability

Investigate whether the use of leading questions would affect estimation of speed.

Questions were based on the assumption “hit” and “smashed” have different connotations and schemas

Researchers predicted the word “smash” would result in higher estimation
IV were the words and DV was the estimation of speed

Participants were asked about the speed of the car in different ways
(ex. How fast were the cars when they smashed/hit/collided with each other?)

Students were divided into 5 groups of 9 students each.

Participants watched a total of 7 films of traffic incidents taken from the driver's education films with lengths ranging from 5-30 seconds.

Participants were asked to give an account of the accident and answer a questionnaire with different questions, with a critical question being to estimate the speed

The critical questions had different words depending on the group
The words were “hit”, “collided”, “smashed”, “bumped”, “contacted”

Most people would have a problem estimating the speed of a car

Students are a small sample size, and were most likely young and inexperienced drivers, which may have affected their estimation.

Confounding variables are controlled so only the effect of the independent variable is measured.

Films were made for teaching purposes and therefore participants did not receive the same emotions they would have for a real accident.

Experiment was a lab experiment and participants were students, variables were controlled but a low ecological validity

Investigate if participants who estimated high in experiment 1 would say the saw broken glass in the second experiment (expected result)

Participants watched one minute of film containing clips of car accidents all about 4 seconds each.

Participants were asked to describe the accidents in their own words and answer a few questions about the film they just watched.

students were divided into 3 groups of 50 students each.

Group 1 was asked “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”

Group 2 was asked the same but replaced smashed with hit

Group 3 was not asked this question and became the control group

A week later the participants came back to answer 10 questions about the film.

A critical question was “Did you see any broken glass?” with a yes or no answer

There was no broken glass in the video, but researchers assumed broken glass was associated with high speed

Results supported the hypothesis of the researchers