Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

260 CHAPTER 6 MemoryTable 6.3Factors Contributing to False MemoriesFactorMisinformation effectSource confusionSchema distortionImagination inflationFalse familiarityBlending fact and fictionSuggestionDescriptionWhen erroneous information received after an event leads todistorted or false memories of the eventForgetting or misremembering the true source of a memoryFalse or distorted memories caused by the tendency to fill inmissing memory details with information that is consistent withexisting knowledge about a topicUnfounded confidence in a false or distorted memory causedby vividly imagining the pseudoeventIncreased feelings of familiarity due to repeatedly imagining aneventUsing vivid, authentic details to add to the legitimacy andbelievability of a pseudoeventHypnosis, guided imagery, or other highly suggestive techniquesthat can inadvertently or intentionally create vivid false memoriesFinally, we don’t want to leave you with the impression that it’s astonishing thatanybody remembers anything accurately. In reality, people’s memories tend to bequite accurate for the gist of what occurred. When memory distortions occur spontaneouslyin everyday life, they usually involve limited bits of information.Still, the surprising ease with which memory details can become distorted is unnerving.Distorted memories can ring true and feel just as real as accurate memories(Clifasefi & others, 2007). In the chapter Prologue, you saw how easily Elizabeth Loftuscreated a false memory. You also saw how quickly she became convinced of the falsememory’s authenticity and the strong emotional impact it had on her. Rather thanbeing set in stone, human memories are more like clay: They can change shape withjust a little bit of pressure.The Search for the Biological Basis of MemoryThe New Yorker Collection © 1990 by Jack Ziegler fromThe Cartoonbank.com. All Right Reserved.“And here I am at two years of age.Remember? Mom? Pop? No? Or how aboutthis one. My first day of school. Anyone?”memory trace or engramThe hypothetical brain changes associatedwith a particular stored memory.Key Theme• Early researchers believed that memory was associated with physicalchanges in the brain, but these changes were discovered only in the pastfew decades.Key Questions• How are memories both localized and distributed in the brain?• How do neurons change when a memory is formed?Does the name Ivan Pavlov ring a bell? We hope so. As you should recall fromChapter 5, Pavlov was the Russian physiologist who classically conditioned dogs tosalivate to the sound of a bell and other neutral stimuli. Without question, learningand memory are intimately connected. Learning an adaptive response depends onour ability to form new memories in which we associate environmental stimuli,behaviors, and consequences.Pavlov (1927) believed that the memory involved in learning a classically conditionedresponse would ultimately be explained as a matter of changes in the brain.However, Pavlov only speculated about the kinds of brain changes that would producethe memories needed for classical conditioning to occur. Other researchers