What Is Contextual Memory

The study of creation of false memories has been a topic of interest since the 1930s when Bartlett (1932) conducted the first experiment on the topic. Though the results of this experiment were never replicated, they contributed greatly to research by distinguishing between reproductive and reconstructive memory (Bartlett 1932 as cited in Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Reproductive memory refers to accurate production of material from memory and is assumed to be associated with remembering simplified materials (e.g., lists). Reconstructive memory emphasizes the active process of filling in missing elements while remembering and is associated with materials rich in meaning (e.g., stories).

False memories have been studied science the early 1990’s because they have become controversial topic. In the beginning they was no thought that your memory would be unfaithful and that if you had a memory that you “recovered” it had to be true because your memory couldn’t fail you. Could it? Well one woman’s disbelief caused her, Susan Clancy, who was a Harvard University graduate student at the time decided that while everyone else was arguing over the accuracy of recovered memories, she would create a study on them (Grierson 1). Clancy first started out by interviewing her subjects that said to have recovered memories of abuse after they had gone through therapy. The stories were horrifying but she was brought up to believe that what they were telling her was true. But, soon after she found herself wondering if they had even really went through these events that they “recovered”. When she spoke out against the recovered memory patients saying that they couldn’t of forgotten such a traumatic memory and that they had created a false memory by going to the therapy the hate mail started coming in (Grierson 3). Throughout this time many other scientists started to do more and more research on false memories and most of the studies have concluded with the same information. “The false memory researchers point to other research showing that traumatic events are normally remembered all too well. They argue that

Memory is defined as “the mental capacity to encode, store, and retrieve information” (American Psychological Association, 2002). It is a part of the means by which humans function. The process of forming and recalling memories involves various complex neurological processes and disruptions to these processes can result in loss of memory or the inability to form new memories. Amnesia is a memory disorder, in which, due to trauma or a head injury, certain parts of the memory is inaccessible. The two main types of amnesia are anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia refers to the inability to create new memories (Mastin, 2010). “Retrograde

One of the most interesting aspects of the human brain is the ability to remember and to travel back in time within your memory. The documentary, How Does Your Memory Work?, looks into the complexity of memory over a lifetime, something most of us take for granted it says. We learn that memory develops early, but as time progresses, some parts of memory can disappear. We also find out that our memory shapes who we are, including our personalities. Included in this video are interviews of a young guy who was born prematurely with memory not fully developed and a young girl who was a victim of sexual assault with a traumatic memory of her attack.

The authenticity of repressed memories has been the cause of much controversy in the psychology world. Some even refer to these controversies as the “memory wars”. One side supports the idea of repressed memories, saying that there are multiple reasons for memories to be forgotten and retrieved later. The latter disagrees with how legitimate repressed memories are, since there is no way to prove the honesty of the memories presented.

Most people are very convinced that they have memories of past experiences because of the event itself or the bigger picture of the experience. According to Ulric Neisser, memories focus on the fact that the events outlined at one level of analysis may be components of other, larger events (Rubin 1). For instance, one will only remember receiving the letter of admission as their memory of being accepted into the University of Virginia. However, people do not realize that it is actually the small details that make up their memories. What make up the memory of being accepted into the University of Virginia are the hours spent on writing essays, the anxiety faced due to fear of not making into the university and the happiness upon hearing

Memory is a cognitive function of the brain that is often taken for granted. Memory may have many purposes, but most importantly it is essentially a record of an entire life span. From this perspective memory is the most important aspect of consciousness. Unfortunately, through formal experimentation it has been shown that memory is fairly inaccurate, inconsistent, and often influenced by our own experiences as well as the bias of others. Memory is not only affected during an observed event, but there are instances where memory can be influenced after an event as well. There are also instances where memory can be affected retroactively due to personal experiences and biases. Incorrectly recalling the memories of one’s life is usually not

Four hypotheses were given in this experiment. Results from each were consistent with its hypotheses. 1) The recovered memory group attained higher scores on the false recall and false recognition test than the control. These results are consistent with the only other experiment that measures memory distortion. This previous study dealt with memory distortion of victims of childhood sexual abuse (Clancy et al., 2000). People who are more prone to exhibit false recall and false recognition in the laboratory are more likely to do the same in real life. 2) Repressed memory and recovered memory participants exhibited more false recall and false recognition than the control group. 3) The recovered memory did score higher than any group in both false recall and false recognition.

Neurobiological studies show that both suppression and recall and the creation of false memories are possible. (Kandel, 1994) In this paper both sides of the debate will be analyzed and evaluated.

Based on my readings and assignments, the repressed memories can resurface more likely when the victim is either triggered by similar environment or atmosphere without warning, or through therapeutic techniques such as hypnosis, guided visualization, and age regression (Rice University,

One of the most controversial topics that researchers, psychotherapist, and professionals have debated over the years is recovered and false memory. Recovered memories have focused its research on recovered memories over childhood sexual abuse; Recovered memories states that individuals “forget” the sexual abuse, and then recovered at a later time. The controversy over recovered memories is that in the majority of the cases very difficult to prove or disprove a recovered memory. On the other hand, the term false-memory perspective states that the vast majority of the recovered memories are faulty memories. Researchers claim that the majority of the recovered memories are created rather than experienced.

The functional domains that lie within the province of retrograde memory need to be clearly specified. During a person’s lifetime we build up an enormous store of knowledge, experience, and skills. The article states that “Until recent years, it has most commonly been used to refer to the loss of memory for events that had preceded

After a new memory is learnt, it enters the process of encoding during which the memory is labile and capable of disruption until it becomes stabilised over a period of time (Nader & Einarsson, 2010; Nader et al, 2000). This process is called consolidation and originally consisted of the theory that once stabilised in the brain, it remains fixed (Suzuki et al, 2004). This theory has been rebutted by the acceptance of reconsolidation, a theory that imposes the ideology that when memories are retrieved, through similar experiences (Lee, 2009), they become labile until,

Loftus and Palmer support the reconstructive memory hypothesis. They believe that information gathered at the time of an icident is

From my research, I have discovered something new in Martin A Conway’s brief book entitled, “Recovered Memories and False Memories.” In his book he gives very abstract volumes of recovered memory and breaks it down in ways that are very easy to pick up on. From Conway’s book I have found several quotes that will strengthen the point that I have discovered. Conway states, “Such memories may not initially be true but be exaggerated, however small portions of patients’ memories are true.” This quote goes to show our cognitive abilities can be inaccurate also we may feel as if the exact memory was true. Nevertheless, the older we get the harder it is to remember what happened within the last hour. “…more real-world studies show the human memories