Reconstruction From Memory in Naturalistic Environments

3 Key excerpts on "Reconstruction From Memory in Naturalistic Environments"

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  eBook - ePub

  Principles of Memory

  • Aimée M. Surprenant, Ian Neath(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  6CHAPTER  

  The Reconstruction Principle

   

  From the content point of view the original never is and never can be literally duplicated. Functions, on the other hand, persist as well in mental as in physical life.

  —J. R. Angell

  6.1 Principle 4: The Reconstruction Principle

  Memory, like all other cognitive processes, is inherently constructive. Information from encoding and cues from retrieval, as well as generic information, are all exploited to construct a response to a cue. Work in several areas has long established that people will use whatever information is available to help reconstruct or build up a coherent memory of a story or an event (e.g., Bartlett, 1932). However, although these strategies can lead to successful and accurate remembering in some circumstances, the same processes can lead to distortion or even confabulation in others (Estes, 1997). There are a great many studies demonstrating the constructive and reconstructive nature of memory, and the literature is quite well known. We begin by briefly reviewing the noncontroversial aspects of this area before expanding it into what might be seen as slightly more adventurous territory: semantic memory, immediate or short-term memory, very short-term memory, and sensory or iconic memory. If this property of memory is to be considered a principle by our definition, it should hold across all domains of memory.

  6.2 Classic Demonstrations

  A classic example of reconstructive memory concerns the ability to reproduce a simple line drawing. (See Figure 6.1 .) Carmichael, Hogan, and Walter (1932) presented simple line drawings to subjects and told half of the subjects that the drawing looked like one particular object and told the other half of the subjects that the drawing looked like a second, different object. For example, one group of subjects might be told that the drawing resembled a pair of eyeglasses whereas the other group was told the drawing looked like a set of dumbbells. At a later test, the subjects were asked to draw the original figure as accurately as possible. Examples of reproduced figures can be seen in Figure 6.1

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  eBook - ePub

  Intersections in Basic and Applied Memory Research

  • David G. Payne, Frederick G. Conrad(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The data gathered on the use of memory strategies to remember everyday events, while limited, does offer some pointers. Both the pilot data and the questionnaire used in the current study suggest that context-related techniques are frequently employed to remember events, even by people not instructed to use them. The failure to find a correlation between use of such techniques and recall performance is puzzling. One difficulty with the questionnaire responses was that they were highly skewed in that a large proportion of the sample reported use of almost all the items on the questionnaire. A second difficulty (and some of our participants commented on this after the study) is that they use different techniques for different things and it is possible our questionnaire was too general. A related point concerns the use of a restricted sample both in terms of age and educational background. Future research should use more representative samples, as it is fairly well established that the memory performance of college students is not typical. For example, Loftus, Levidow, and Duensing (1992) compared students of the age group used in the present study with 12 other occupational groups in a study with over 1,000 participants in a study on memory for a visit to a museum. Taking performance on five accuracy items as a measure of performance, the students’ recall was 78.8% higher than all the other occupational groups.

  Conclusions

  There were comparable levels of recall across all conditions. The only increase in accurate recall came in the form of surrounding details for the group that reinstated context in the embellished conditions. This suggests that future research should look carefully at the types of details influenced by context reinstatement. From a forensic perspective, where any surrounding detail could be relevant to an investigation, this increase in reporting of such details is an important one. In terms of operation of context at retrieval, the present research suggests attention needs to be paid to individual differences in the ability to communicate context reinstatement strategies and to effectively utilize contextual cues. Given that context reinstatement is frequently spontaneously used to remember everyday events, what we may be doing when we ask people to reinstate context is simply altering slightly the nature of the strategy they normally use to reinstate context; thus the added effects of instructions to recreate context may be ephemeral. Perhaps the effects of context reinstatement, do, after all, depend on the context.

  Acknowledgments

  This research was supported by a grant from the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) R000234290. We are grateful to Andie Lees who was our photographer and the interviewers for data collection. Thanks also are due to Orla Cronin for her comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

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  Current Issues in Cognitive Processes

  The Tulane Flowerree Symposia on Cognition

  • Chizuko Izawa(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  9). In Tulving’s view a necessary precondition for the effectiveness of stimuli as cues for the recall of personal experiences is that the memory system be in retrieval mode (because the majority of potential retrieval cues do not elicit episodic memories unless the subject is instructed to retrieve memories connected with those stimuli). Our concept of the metamemory effects of environmental cues differs from Tulving’s retrieval mode notion in that we postulate that reinstatement of environmental cues (and not just recall instructions) can have the effect of inducing a subject to attempt to remember events that occurred in the presence of those cues. Interpreting the Effects and Non-Effects, Anecdotal and Experimental, of Reinstating Incidental EC Cues One implication of the explanations we offer here is that the conditions under which physical reinstatement of incidental EC cues will aid memory is quite restricted. What are we to make, then, of the numerous anecdotes that seem so convincing, and of the numerous positive effects reported in the literature? Naturalistic Examples. We believe that the naturalistic examples reflect both genuine and nongenuine effects of reinstating incidental context. There are straightforward reasons to treat some anecdotes as genuine examples: Some of the examples satisfy the preconditions for the effectiveness of reinstatement that we set forth earlier. The long retention intervals (years, decades) common to many cases would make mental reinstatement difficult or impossible

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