Tag Archives: Memory

Flashbulb memories, misinformation effect

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When I was in fourth grade, my family and I took a trip to Florida. We visited the Everglades where you can take a bike ride through them and tour the whole area. Along the bike path, there were swamps where live alligators would be. There were even some alligators lying outside of the swamps just inches way from the bike path. They weren’t dangerous unless you taunted them, in fact they hardly even moved. If you didn’t look closely enough you would probably think they were statues. Also along the bike path there were occasionally tour buses that would come that were available for people if they did not want to bike the whole path. Whenever a bus was coming close, all bikers had to pull off the side of the path and make room for the bus to get by. My family and I were only about three miles away from getting back to the car when a bus started coming towards us. The rest of my family pulled off to the side just fine, however, I was the youngest and was struggling a little with my bike. I tried my best to pull over without falling but I just couldn’t balance myself. Before I knew it I was soaking wet with swamp water all over me. Of course I was mad I fell into the water, but I was more concerned about an alligator being in the water with me. Quickly, my mom pulled me out of the water and I was back on land, safe and sound.

To me, this is a flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memories are when an “unexpected event has strong emotional associations for the person remembering it.” Because it has such a strong association, the memory seems to have much more vivid details and I feel like it just happened yesterday. Since it has such a high emotional effect on me that memory also went through automatic encoding which is when information requires less or almost no rehearsing for it to fully be encoded.

Since I’m the youngest in my family, they like to pick on my a lot and of course this story is always everyone’s favorite. Because of that, I have heard this story be told countless times. A possible reason behind me thinking I remember every single detail of this incident is because of the misinformation effect, which is when information heard after the event influence a person’s actual memory of the event. I will hear my mom tell the story and think I am recalling my memory, but really I am just being influenced by her recall of the incident.

*Definitions from Psychology textbook.

Implantation of a Memory in a Friend

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Memory is a tricky thing. It can be hard to know what memories are real, which ones are put in your head from an outside source, and which ones are blatantly false events that never happened. If a person is told a false event happened, they may initially deny it, but after a few days they may claim to remember said event as their imagination creates memories based on what was told to them. As Hyman and Billings showed us, it can be relatively easy to implant memories into a person’s head, especially when they are a trusted source, like a close friend. Or a childhood friend who was a deceptive and sassy little girl who didn’t like to be made fun of, such as myself with my friend April, whom I’ve known since before my memory developed enough to remember.

In sixth grade, I had my first kiss (scandalous, I know) from my first boyfriend in the bus loop at my middle school. April, who still was in the “boys have cooties” stage, saw the whole thing from the bus and I didn’t hear the end of it the whole bus ride home, about how boys were gross and how she couldn’t believe we had already kissed and what that meant for my ‘lip-virginity’… Oh sixth grade, such good times. So before the twenty minute bus ride was half over, I was bored of the questions and, being my sassy self, I quickly came up with a story to come back at her with. “You can’t talk, you kissed a boy in kindergarten.” A blatant lie that caused a confused and concerned look from April, who stuttered out “what – what are you talking about? I never kissed a boy in my whole life, nor do I ever want to.” So, amused by her blank look, I went on to tell her the story of how in kindergarten, Austin, an old mutual friend of ours, was playing at recess with her and dared her to kiss him, so she did; everyone knows you can’t pass up a dare, especially a double dog dare! After I described in great detail my completely made up story, she denied having any recollection of the event, as much as I insisted.

A few days passed until Monday came around, and once again I received a peck goodbye at the bus loop, and once again I got a look of disgust from my best friend. So again I brought up her kiss with Austin, adding even more details, until finally she got quiet and admitted the ultimate defeat. “Wait, oh my God, I think you’re right. I remember now, I was so nervous he would tell everyone! I made him go to the corner of the playground…” From that day on, I never got another judgmental look or eye roll for my scandalous sharing of cooties, and still to this day she believes that was her first kiss. Am I a bad friend? Of course not, I was simply performing a psychology study. I’ll tell her the truth one day. Maybe on her wedding day, in my maid of honor speech…

Hindsight Bias

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Today, as I walked in the door of my apartment from class, my roommate was singing a song that she had stuck in her head. The lyrics sang, “You’re just what I need” and after singing a few verses she promptly quizzed me to see if I could remember what movie it was from. She tried to give me a few subtle hints such as telling me that it was something I have seen a few times and that I would be mad once I hear what the answer is. Finally after going to my other roommate for help and having both of us stumped, she told us the answer, “Bring it On!”. As soon as she said this, I was instantly saying to her, “Oh my gosh how didn’t I know that!”. Immediately after saying this, I realized I had experienced hindsight bias that we had just talked about in class.

Hindsight bias is a false conviction that the result of an event was predictable. To further this idea, it essentially means that once you know something, it is really hard to imagine your life before you knew that information. In my example with my roommate, once she told me what movie the song she was singing was from, I found it impossible to see how I did not know the movie before she said it. My immediate thought after she told me was that I should have known that, yet this was just an effect of hindsight bias and the reality is I probably would not have ever known where the song was from unless she told me. Hindsight bias has a big impact on our memories and how we construct them. The next time you think to yourself, “I should have known that”, try to remember this concept and realize that maybe you actually should not have.

Blog #2 Infantile Amnesia

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Blog Assignment #2
In class, we discussed the different types of memory. There’s sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. When we learned about long-term memory, we learned that the capacity for it is relatively unlimited. However, when we learned about infant memory, we saw that it is hard to trace back every single memory before the age of three. There are memories from before that age, however, it is just very difficult to retrieve. Another term to describe this is infantile amnesia. Between the ages of one and two our brain structures that are involved in memory storage are not fully developed.
I was born in New York City and lived in an apartment until I was around the age of two. We moved to New Jersey and have lived there ever since. A lot of times, my family will bring up moments from the old apartment we used to live in, but I have no memory of it at all. To me, the house I lived in when we decided to move is the only place I am familiar with. This is because I was far too young to be able to recall any memories from living in New York City. If my parents told me about a specific event from when we lived there, I would have to believe that it actually happened because I do not know otherwise. When we go into the city and walk around the old neighborhood, I would be shown the building I used to live in and the park I used to play in and the nearby restaurants my family would go to. To me, it all seemed new and unfamiliar even though I had been to all my places my parents told me about. My brother, on the other hand, is older than me and might have a better memory of the old apartment. He was around the age of three or four when we moved. His memory at the time was more developed that mine so he might be able to remember certain events from living in New York City, although he might not remember all of it. My earliest memory comes from living in New Jersey and going to preschool in my town. My brother’s earliest memory could have come from living in the old apartment. As we have learned, the average person’s earliest memory is from when they are about three years old. I will never be able to remember the early year or so of my life and living in the apartment in New York City.