Can someone makes this essay more cohesive and involve ways ofknowing.
Myth Busters: Analyzing the Science of Memories
The study of psychology is a very controversial and debatablefield. Thus, it is no surprise that over the years, various mythshave come into the psychology world which may seem completelyplausible, and sometimes difficult to discredit. One of these mythsis that memory works like a video camera and accurately recordsevents we’ve experienced. The human brain is a very intricateorgan. Exploration of the mind has been on going. The storage andretrieval of information in the brain is called memory. Memoriesare essential for learning and incorporating our experiences intobehavior and parcel to our consciousness. In truth our recording ofmemories is through a biased lens, what we do record is ofteninterpreted through our perceptions which can be defined as ourrecognition and interpretation of sensory stimulus and when recallwhat we have stored any incomplete sections are substituted withgeneric knowledge from a suitable schema. A schema is an organizedknowledge structure or mental model stored in memory, which areacquired through past learning and experiences, and the shape ourperception. Bartlett and Loftus, two prominent key theorists showgreat insight into the workings of human memory and provideexplanations for the errors we encounter during both encoding andremembering.
The common myth that human memory works like a tape recordermostly represents the layman's view of how memory works. The truthis far more complex, memory is highly pliable and certainly notinfallible. There are many types of memory. Memory is essential forfunctioning in everyday life, without it you could not operate as ahuman being. Our memory of an event is influenced by a range offactors, especially personal bias. Information that is supplied tous after the fact can dramatically influence how we reconstruct anevent when calling on it from memory. Our memory does not provide aperfect and factual recollection of events, our imagination andschema for how a certain event should be executed can dramaticallyinfluence our recollection. Frederick Bartlett described theprocess of memory as a collaborative function, related toperception, imagining and constructive thinking and based uponprevious knowledge, expectations, beliefs and attitudes that arederived from differing sources. Bartlett coined the term Schemataand the idea that remembering is based on the previously mentionedprocesses can be attributed to him.
To disprove the myth that human memory works like a taperecorder, one must briefly understand a memory model and how memoryis thus categorized and stored. Discerning what impacts upon thevalidity of human memory is a more complex process. As memory is abroad field, the primary focus will be the role of schema and itsinfluence on memory. The Atkinson-Schiffrin model of memory is athree-stage model that is comprised of a sensory memory, ashort-term memory and a long-term memory. This model of memory asillustrated in figure 1, shows the process of how memories arestored. Baddeley and Hitch however improved upon this model ofmemory, creating what is called the working memory model. Thismodel as shown in figure 2 has four sections, the central executive(the supervisory system) and three slave systems, the phonologicalloop (language), visuo-spatial sketchpad (visual semantics) and theepisodic buffer (short term episodic memory). The central executiveas it is aptly named controls the actions of all the other slavecomponents. The three basic steps in memory are the initialencoding of an episode, the storage of the information and then theretrieval stage where most errors occur, often due to insufficientattention during encoding, or failure to recover theinformation.
Preceding Bartlett the studies of qualitive, accuracy focusedresearch on memory were evident amongst gestalt psychologist Koffka1935 and Riley 1962. Wulf (1922), who had subjects draw geometricalfigures from memory, identified two opposite types of changes:sharpening, which involves the exaggeration of selectedcharacteristics of the original figure, and levelling, whichentails a weakening of one or more features. These changes wereassumed to be progressive, such that later reproductions tend toexaggerate the deviations of the previous ones.
Based on these results, Wulf put forward three causal factorsunderlying both levelling and sharpening. The first of which,normalizing, refers to changes toward a well-known or conventionalfigure. Second Wulf coined pointing which refers to changes thatemphasize a feature of the stimulus, and autonomous changes, whichreflect systematic self-governed modifications of the memory tracetoward simpler and more regular patterns, good form. It is thepostulation of autonomous, intrinsic changes operating on thememory trace that is unique to Wulf Gestalt perspective.
The Psych textbook defines schema as an \"Integrated pattern ofknowledge stored in memory that organizes information and guidesthe acquisition of new information.\" Put simply a schema is muchlike a plan that gives the user a familiar routine to follow or arecognizable way of categorizing and dealing with everyday life. Wehave schemas for nearly everything we do. Therefore, it is nosurprise that schemas will affect how memories are reconstructedwhen there is error in the recollection of a past event. The schematheory claims the content of what people remember is a combinationof the input information and their pre-existing schemas. Anygeneric understanding of how an event should occur will fill theblanks. Schemas have been proven to affect the connection betweeninput and remembering in several different forms, occurring atdifferent stages in the memory process. Alba & Hasher (1983)identified the effects of five basic types of schema processes.These processes, encoding, abstraction, interpretation, andintegration, all occur during encoding, with the exception ofreconstruction which occurs during retrieval.
All of these effects provide explanations for ways in whichmemory can fail, or become inaccurate. They are different fromforgetting in the understanding that forgetting is a conceived lossof correspondence between the memory and actual occurrence.Selection effects focus more so on the amount of information thatis remembered rather than the accuracy. Details of an event thatcan be incorporated into an active schema have a higher chance ofbeing remembered than information that is irrelevant to the schema.During encoding, the lack of relevant knowledge or a pre conceivedschema can dramatically reduce the likelihood the information is tobe recalled. (e.g. Johnson 1970) The effects of abstraction aresimilar to those of selection in that event specific details areoften lost as they are encoded under the generic schema for anactivity. An example of this is the fact that during encoding ofinformation from a text we do not remember a word for word recount,rather the general gist of it. As does selection effect, thisincurs a reduction in the amount of encoded and consequentlyremembered information. This plays a critical role when determiningthe validity of a memory and abstraction leaves memory open toalterations and error. For example a witness when asked about theirwhereabouts at a certain time may try to reconstruct a plausibleexplanation based upon their schema processes. (Bartlett 1932,Neisser 1967).
Dissimilar to both the selection and abstraction errors duringencoding and remembering interpretation refers to actual changesand addition to the input information during encoding. This iswhere the individual uses schematic knowledge to deduce meaningthat goes beyond the actual input event, thus becoming part of thememory and its representation. Interpretation can cause a greatdeal of interference in recollecting accurately if one from theinitial encoding cannot determine the veridicality of thesituation. Integration is the combination of various fragments ofinformation into a cohesive schematic episode, either whilst orafter initial coding. Integration following the first encoding islargely responsible for post event misinformation effects. It alsohas some use in attempting to explain the hindsight bias peoplehave after being presented with after the fact information thatdistorts one’s initial estimation of an events cause or reasoning.The process of reconstruction is used by people trying to rememberforgotten details of an events as evidenced when people fail toaccurately recall the correct details consistently. Errors inretrieval and the chance of false recall are symptomatic of theprocess of giving a probable account of an event rather than theactual reiteration of it. The theory that an event is not simplystored in one place but instead groups fragments or features of theevent all over the brain gives some plausibility to the faultsinherent in reconstruction. Source monitoring is another waywhereby the reconstructive nature of memory retrieval can affectthe accuracy of the recollection. The experience of not knowingwhether we dreamed or actually experienced an event is an exampleof confusion of the source which can lead to misattribution ofinformation that came from an internal imagining to a real lifeevent or happening. It involves clarifying the detail, ourfamiliarity, the vividness of the event and its context todetermine its origin. Examples of a failure to adequately monitorsources are false memories. The work of Elizabeth Loftus holdsgreat importance, beyond a mere fascination with the working ofmemory it affects the society we live in directly. Like Bartlett'sher work highlights the impact of suggestibility, and inference indetermining how a memory is reconstructed. This carries seriousimplications in relation to eyewitness testimonies and examinationby lawyers. Loftus developed several studies that investigated thereliability of memory, most famously the false memory experimentand the reconstruction of automobile destruction experiment. Theautomobile destruction experiment was designed to investigate theimplications of the wording of certain questions, having particularimportance in relation to leading questions in the courtroom. Afterbeing shown a video of two cars crashing participants were thenasked a set of questions, the importance being placed on the speedthe vehicles were travelling at. As evidenced in figure 3 the moreprovocative or aggressive the verb used, the higher the estimatedimpact speed. This shows how wording can influence thereconstruction of a memory and the judgements made of it. It isevident that memory does not accurately record events like a taperecorder.
There are many factors that influence our memories, some ofwhich we do not fully understand. We must remember that ourmemories are not concrete; they are impressionable and open topersonal bias. Not only does our perception play a dramatic role inmemory but the fact that very few people can recall every singleaction or occurrence in an event accurately shows how much schemascontribute to fill the gaps in memory, often without our consciousknowledge.
