Heuristics in Politics. A guest post by Sal Schiano.

       In What Americans Know about Politics[i], Michael Carpini describes the availability heuristic: “what Americans know most about politics is what is most readily available to them.”

Research has shown time and again that the majority of voters in America know almost nothing about the American political system and their representatives.[ii] How then, do they decide who to vote for office? This is one of the central questions in political psychology: how does an uninformed public make choices? The question can be answered through the science of cognitive psychology.

        The answer is through the use of heuristics, or “shortcuts” of understanding. The average U.S. citizen does not spend all of their time in determining who they are going to vote for in the next election. In fact the majority spend little to no time in evaluating the actualities of political candidates. The average American is busy and has no time for this, nor do they believe their vote matters anyways. Instead, to choose candidates they rely on the use of heuristics. This use may be accurate often but may also lead to inaccurate assumptions. Politicians are aware of the public’s ignorance and use of heuristics, they therefore employ cognitive psychological methods to try and secure votes. Priming, framing, and activation are three tools politicians use for elections to gain more votes, but they would not be possible without the prior knowledge of certain heuristics.

        Lau & Redlawsk attribute the use of five major heuristics in determining who the public votes for.[iii] What they determine as the most important heuristic is party affiliation. This refers to which party a particular candidate belongs to, anywhere from Libertarian to Communist, or the more common: Democrat and Republican. The voter identifies which party they believe they agree with more and often choose the candidate that too belongs to that party, this is the party heuristic. A similar heuristic is the ideology heuristic. Voters rely on some of the choices representatives make and group them with other decisions they think would be made because of the one particular decision previously made. This heuristic is flawed as it could cause an individual to vote for a candidate who say, may not stand for gun rights even though they are pro-military. 

       Another heuristic used by voters is the endorsement heuristic: when voters attribute the qualities of the endorser of a particular candidate to the political candidate. Politicians have used this heuristic to their advantage when they seek out a particular endorsement from a celebrity, company, etc. For example, one from a popular former president, such as President Obama did with Bill Clinton in 2008 and again in 2012. Voters know Bill Clinton and many liked him, because they like Bill and Bill likes Barack, they like Barack.

       A common heuristic that is not referenced often is the viability heuristic. Polls provide this through the use of a candidates “standing” in the electoral race. The use of easy to read percentages, bar graphs, and colors add to the cognitive saving heuristic of viability. This heuristic is used often early in the political race when there are more candidates. In this way voters are able to see who is winning and who is losing, sometimes severely, and quickly make the decision, say, not to vote for the guy with 3.2%. 

       The final heuristic Lau & Redlawsk argue is the candidate appearance heuristic. This is of utmost importance in voter decision because it is not restricted to anything but visual imagery. The voter can make a decision based off a single picture, because of all the information it provides, i.e. gender, race, age, and “likeableness,” which is reinforced by societal stereotypes. Voters who know nothing about politics can use this to make a decision, accurate or not. Some political scientists refer to this heuristic as the “have-a-beer” heuristic: in which the candidate seems like someone you’d want to have a beer with, which often locks in your vote. An example of this was President Obama’s famous beer summit in 2009. 

---

[i] Carpini, Michael. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Print.

[ii] Philip E. Converse (2006) The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964), Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, 18:1-3, 1-74,

[iii] Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision Making

Richard R. Lau and David P. Redlawsk

American Journal of Political Science , Vol. 45, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), pp. 951-971

Creative Fixation. A guest post by Nicholas Imlach

            The notion of thinking outside of the box has always interested me; I just feel it is under utilized. Going through the public school system feeling like nothing more than a drone monotonously going through the motions has me thinking something needs to change. Always being told you must do what you’re told, becoming fixated on a schedule, following the instructions and rarely asking why.

            When I was in high school I remember watching an episode of “Two and a Half Men.” The episode was based on Pavlov’s conditioning. At the time I didn’t realize the implication of the episode, so after I ended up google-ing Ivan Pavlov and was astonished at what I found. The basics to one of Pavlov’s conditioning experiments went like this: Pavlov had some dogs, he would ring a bell known as a neutral stimulus (NS) and apply an unconditioned stimulus (US), the US being food. When Pavlov gave the dogs the food they would salivate; the dogs would only salivate in the presence of the food. After a while of pairing the bell (NS) with the food (US), the bell became another entity in itself, known as a conditioned stimulus or (CS). When the bell became a CS the dogs would salivate by just hearing the bell, without any food being presented.

            After watching the episode I realized that seemed like the basis of high school to me. My school had two bells per class; the first meant you should be in your seats the second was move to the next class. The bell acted as a NS at first, but upon learning about the class or teacher the bell would become a CS, inciting emotion whether good or bad depending on the class. There was always one bell of the day that would incite a rousing interest by most of the students, that being the lunch bell. Upon realizing the parallels, my interest of psychology rose immensely.

            I tell this story as a basis for my point of thinking outside of the box being under utilized. Realizing that for those four years of school I could boil them down to nothing more than reacting to conditioned instructions made me think school may not be the best at growing creativity. The only real things I learned in school were to follow instructions, and don’t ask questions about why you had to follow the instructions. I had become fixated, I suppose, on following directions. I found myself being confused when asked the question “do you have any questions” not in terms of clarification, but whether or not I thought the material is true or not.

            For the past 15 years (before college) it always seemed implied that whatever the teacher said should be taken as fact. Being asked in multiple classes my opinion on whether I believe the material to be true, or more true than false, it took some work to extinguish the conditioning public school imposed on me. Using top-down processing and the video shown in this week’s class about creativity and how people tend to enjoy creative problem solving I wonder why it is not used more in the public school system. The other morning I saw my neighbors kids going to the bus stop, I said hello, asked what’s up, they looked at me like they were going to jail and said “going to school” in unison, in a voice that sounded like they were actually going to jail. I couldn’t help but say, “I know what you mean.” I understand we are not always going to be able to do what we want, but looking at school from both sides, how can teachers feel good about what they’re doing if a majority of their students are miserable and uninterested?

One last side note: playing call of duty the other day, in the game the player can create a picture to link with their name on the game. Someone started laughing and said look at so and so’s picture. The person used SCHOOL as an acronym and next to it said:

Seven

Crappy

Hours

Of

Our

Lives

I wonder if two polls were taken, one for adults and one for kids, what would be higher: the adults’ approval rating of congress or the kids’ approval rating of school?

All of the effort. A guest post by Nkechinyelu Agulefo,

To me, the effort heuristic is the most interesting heuristic of them all.  The effort heuristic is when the value of an object is judged based on the amount of effort that went into the production of the object.  In other words, if someone puts a great amount of effort into something, that person is more prone to believe the outcome should yield great results. A real life example is when I submitted my final biology lab last semester. I put so much effort into those ten pages and expected to get an A.  I spent hours on the lab report and even went as far as citing five more than the required sources which is so unlike me because I’m not an overachiever. 

(Me during the writing process.)

Long story short I got an A- and I didn't understand why.  I was devastated.  I met with the TA and pleaded my case but she didn't change my grade. I even bought her coffee with my River Hawk Dollars and at the end of my appeal she told me “thanks for the coffee but I’m not giving you an A.”  

 This is where the effort heuristic came into play.  I genuinely thought I deserved an A because of the amount of labor I put in; meanwhile my TA most likely didn’t think the same.

  Here’s another instance where the effort heuristic comes into play. If I visited an art exhibit and they showed me a painting that was made by a twelve year old and asked me to guess the price, I would probably say, “free.”  However, if they told me that that same painting was made by Jean-Michel Basquiat and asked me to guess the price I would say “four years’ worth of my tuition.” I mean it’s Basquiat, this guy is well known and has made paintings in Armani suits.  Even though the paintings are both unique and not very different, to me at least, I would definitely overestimate the price of Basquiat's painting and underestimate the price of the 12 year-old’s painting.

                                        12 year old Megrelishvili Tata's painting

VS.

JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT

Another example of the effort heuristic is if someone was to give me $200, I would spend it without caring because it was effortlessly given to me and everybody knows free money is the best money. However, if it were to come out of my paycheck then I would definitely be more cautious while spending it.  In this case the worth of the money changed when it was coming out of my pocket as opposed to when it was given to me with no strings attached. Those are the basics of effort heuristics and I know for a fact it will continue to occur in the future, I am human after all.

Justin Kruger, Derrick Wirtz, Leaf Van Boven, T.William Altermatt, The effort heuristic, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 40, Issue 1, January 2004, Pages 91-98, ISSN 0022-1031,http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(03)00065-9.

Do You Really Know Yourself?

                We are often told that we must know ourselves, love ourselves, before anyone can reciprocate. This idea of knowing oneself stems as far back as Socrates, but that does not make it any less relevant to today. Self-knowledge has been a concept far longer than I’m sure many of us may have guessed. Freud was known to openly argue the concept, believing that it was limited and biased (and obviously that psychoanalysis was necessary for true insight – because that isn’t biased). Nowadays, you can take high school and college courses on self-knowledge, you likely are someone or know someone who purchased a self-help book or one of those ten-step programs “guaranteed” to help you know yourself.

                So clearly self-knowledge is important, but it is also very difficult to grasp – to truly have. However, self-knowledge is crucial because self-deception is so easy. Carl Jung is quoted regarding self-knowledge saying, “there is no coming to [self] consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” We cannot truly understand ourselves – have full, genuine self-knowledge – if we refuse to recognize both the good and bad parts of ourselves.

                Self-knowledge is also compiled of different forms, different “selves.” The ecological self is the self as perceived within the immediate physical environment. The interpersonal self stems from communication. The extended self has its foundations in memory and anticipation. The private self is acknowledged as we eventually realize our conscious experiences are our own, exclusively. Our conceptual self draws on social assumptions and theories regarding human nature in general (though especially ourselves). Ulric Neisser argued these different types of knowledge in a 2008 publication. Neisser also argued that we rarely differentiate between these different selves – we rarely experience them as distinct because “they are held together by specific forms of stimulus information.” What I thought was more interesting, however, was Neisser’s argument that these different selves differ in developmental histories, the accuracy with which we can know them, what they contribute to our overall human experience, and even what pathologies they are subject to.

              Do I think I am in touch with all of these different selves? Not anymore. I definitely had the assumption that I knew myself very well before, and even when I started this post. Now I’m not nearly as sure. Am I going to run to Barnes and Noble to purchase a self-help ten-step self-knowledge book? Not quite yet, but I’m getting closer as I keep writing. I guess we can try to evaluate this and get a little personal tonight. So, as I’m sitting in my living room typing this I suppose my ecological self is my perception of myself as a worn-out, slightly overwhelmed college student ready for a mini vacation. My interpersonal self is only communicating via text message and I’m merely being reminded that I’m sick and alone.. I suppose my interpersonal self is not too pleased currently (sorry about that interpersonal self, I’ll find some better people to text next time). My extended self is anticipating the vacation well remaining firmly stuck in my memories of Thanksgivings past, increasing my anticipation of this year’s, as well as the semester thus far and what I must remember is to come. Perhaps I’m not quite in touch with my private self yet, however my conceptual self is definitely rooted in the stigmas, stereotypes, and obligations of being a college student.

                Did I evaluate that correctly? I think so, but I’m not 100% sure, I am just an undergraduate student after all. It was fun though, you should try it; though it was definitely odd to separate them. I hope you feel like you learned something from this post, though not quite up to the standards of a ten-step book.

Five kinds of self-knowledge (Neisser)

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a superhuman!

This blog post is going to be dedicated to those who defy the norms:

     Shakuntala Devi was acknowledged in the 1982 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Devi was able to multiply two 13 digit numbers and recite the 26 digit response in just 28 seconds. There have been many "human calculators" down the line, and nowadays they are even tested in the annual Human Calculation World Cup. Participants include world-record-breakers, math teachers, motivational speakers, etc. Many of them have authored books in attempts to improve math skills among children or to even make math fun (I took AP Calculus - math is not fun). Mike Byster is one of the fastest mathematical minds in the world, but he is a former stock broker turned math teacher and creator of Brainetics (it's for kids, to help the math-shy; it sounds neat though). However, if you simply google "human calculator," and not on Shakuntala Devi's birthday, Scott Flansburg is the top result. Flansburg is the Guinness World Record holder for fastest human calculator, and even serves as the global ambassador for World Maths Day (which I had no idea existed, but pi day is on March 14th!).
      If you ever find yourself looking for a show to watch late at night, perhaps check out Stan Lee's Superhumans, where they literally search for people alleged to defy the norms (and represent a reality for superheroes in even the slightest of ways). However, I have searched through the main bios from the show in the attempt to find the most relevant superhumans - those concerned with the brain. Eskil Ronningsbakken is alleged to have the ability to TURN OFF fear - I'm sorry, what?? Yes. This superhuman takes on super balance at super heights and seems to have the ability to turn off the brain's innate reactions (fight or flight response - FLEE! FLEE FROM THE DEADLY HEIGHTS!). Juan Ruiz has been blind since birth, but is allegedly capable of visualizing the world through a form of sonar similar to echolocation, like bats and dolphins. Derek Paravicini, a.k.a. the human jukebox, is both blind and autistic and is also capable of remembering AND accurately replaying any song he has ever heard and ever hears. Although some of the other "superhumans" were interesting and their defiance of physical norms I'm sure requires cognitive factors, these were the most relevant. Honestly though, it's all so strange, interesting, and compelling at the same time. Do you think these things are possible? Are superhumans real? How?
        I honestly can't answer those questions for you, it's entirely a matter of opinion. I'm sure there are genetic and neurological components behind these superhumans, but I cannot give you the details. Can people train for these abilities? If I give my child Flansburg's book and Byster's Brainetics, can I raise my child as a human calculator? There are so many unanswered questions (some more realistic than others obviously), but I couldn't help but address this topic. My uncle has an absurd memory - he can remember crime scenes from years ago: dates, suspects, details, evidence, etc. without even looking at the case file. I grew up thinking he had some sort of superhuman, above average, photographic memory of sorts (although now we know photographic memories aren't real). Nonetheless, I've always wanted an explanation. I've always been curious and I've always wanted to learn how he did it so that I could have a memory like that too.

Let me know your thoughts! Do you know any superhumans?

I knew it! A guest post by Tabatha Candido.

            You thought you knew the outcome of that sports game didn’t you? You also thought you knew many another things after it happened but truth is, you really did not. Hindsight bias is very common in many domains. In many situations people believe that they already know what was going to happen, or they already knew something before it happened but we never actually do.

            Hindsight bias refers to the tendency people have to view events as more predictable than they really are. This means that before an event actually, happens we believe that we already know the outcome.

            Scientists Neal Poese and Kathleen Vohns, two psychology researchers, proposed that there are three levels of hindsight bias. Memory distortion is the first level; this level involves misremembering an earlier judgment. The second level, inevitability, centers us to believe that whatever the outcome was just had to happen. Last but not least, the third level would be foreseeability, which involves the fact that we could tell what the outcome was.

            These researchers have shown that we selectively recall information that we already know is true and we connect it to information that we knew before the event and make sense of them together, which causes us to believe we already knew. If we believe we knew it all along, we never truly examine why something really happened.

            This happens in real life on a daily basis in many of our lives when we actually stop and think about the concept. Even though this is hard to admit, I will have to admit personally that this happened to me not too long ago. I attended a soccer game recently at Gillette Stadium between Brazil and Portugal’s teams. One of the two best players on Portugal’s team was injured and it is common sense (to soccer fans) that every time one of their good players does not play, they lose their confidence and they lose the game. Knowing this while attending the game, the outcome was exactly what I thought it was going to be and Brazil won. Of course since I felt I knew the exact outcome I told everyone that I already knew this was going to be the outcome of the event and no one really believed me.

            As I am sure this has not been the only time this has happened to me as I feel like hindsight bias is a lot like me and my personality, it is unbelievable how we have almost no idea this happens in our heads.

            Not only have I experienced this myself but I have also seen this in my classrooms, in my household, and at my job. Hindsight bias is not set to happen in any specific location and can really happen with anyone and for any event that ever happened. Now that you know more about the concept, does this sound like you too?

Did I really miss that goal?! A guest post by Kyle Luke.

           An interesting thing I’ve noticed about my memories is how they have the ability to haunt me and weigh me down if I think of something similar to it.  For example I remember not being able to score a goal when I was wide open in front of the net when I played hockey for my town team.  I remember the anger and frustration I felt for letting my team down and the shame I felt for not completing such an easy task.  I have recalled this memory so often that I now question just how similar it was to the actual experience as when I rationalize the memory I find some oddities that could not be true.  For example I remember receiving the pass from one of my friends who used to be my partner on defense.  At no point in time were we ever forwards at the same time and there would be no reason for him to be so deep in the offensive zone.  This made me wonder why I kept recalling this false memory and if other false memories were affecting me in a similar manner. 

                As we know, some of the best ways to encode memories is to think of how it can affect our survival.  Another good way of encoding is if the person is using a lot of adrenaline at the moment or if the person is afraid or feeling other powerful emotions.  I believe that it is possible to encode a false or inaccurate memory if it is constantly recalled and the person focuses on the emotion they felt during that time.  However, there are several problems with the manner of encoding as the person remembering is more likely to focus on exactly what frightened them or what scared them.  This makes their memory incomplete on what other aspects and details were going on around them at the time which invites the possibility of having false memories. 

                Most of the false memories that I am conscious of can be categorized into regret or frustration.  I believe the reason for this is that I have recalled memories of things that I have regretted so often that I have completely changed the original memory and because I focused more on my choices and what could have happened I mainly feel regret when I think of the memory.  The same can be said for some of the memories that I am frustrated about.  Now I use both of these types of memories to help push me into not making the same mistakes twice, such as missing an open goal in hockey or waiting till the last minute to complete school work.  Even though I realize that these memories that I recall are most likely inaccurate and false, I still use them as life lessons to make sure that I do not make the same mistake twice.  They also give me an incentive to not screw up again and to remember that I can still overcome any mistakes I make along the way.  

False memory really sounds like it should be the title of a drone/doom/post metal song. A guest post by Shawaz Imam.

False memory is the recollection of an event, or the details of an event, that did not occur. Just about everyone in the world has the potential to fall victim to false memory. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus suggests that rather than immediately labeling someone as a liar, it may be more productive to point out the fallibility of memory. Explaining that memory is not nearly as consistently accurate as we think it is may help avert some significant and potentially devastating arguments.
            Memory is a constructive process. When we encode memories, every single detail of the memory is not accurately recorded. Thus, our minds “fill in the blanks” using various processes, all of which typically work quite well, but occasionally lead to the creation of partially or totally false memories – memories of events or details of events that did not occur. Source-monitoring error, the misinformation effect, and confabulation are a few distinct forms of memory errors.

Source-monitoring error is essentially exactly what it sounds like. We attribute the source of a memory to a specific recollected experience, despite that experience not truly being the source of the memory. Source monitoring errors occur when the normal encoding process is disrupted, or when the source-monitoring process is disrupted. Depression, high stress levels, and brain damage to relevant areas are all examples of potentially disruptive factors that can lead to source-monitoring errors. In the false fame experiment, participants are presented with a list of non-famous names. Later, they are presented with the same names as before, in addition to new non-famous and famous names, and they must point out those which are famous. Typically, researchers find that participants will misidentify some of the non-famous names from the initial list as famous names.  This is a source-monitoring error because the participants misidentify the non-famous names as famous, rather than as non-famous names which they read from the initial list.

The misinformation effect is the idea that misleading information presented between the encoding of an event or experience and its subsequent recall can cause impairment in memory. In the original study, researchers Loftus (the same Dr. Elizabeth Loftus I mentioned earlier, in fact), Miller, and Burns showed participants a series of slides, one of which showed a car stopping in front of a yield sign. Afterwards, some participants read a description of what they saying containing misinformation – specifically, that the car stopped in front of a stop sign. Others read accurate descriptions. Those that read inaccurate information were more likely to report seeing a stop sign than those that were not exposed to misinformation.

Confabulation is a memory disturbance. It is the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive oneself or anyone else. As I mentioned earlier, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus believes that many arguments are caused by a misunderstanding of the difference between confabulation and lying. Confabulation is distinct in that there is no awareness of the inaccuracy of whatever it is the individual believes, while lying is the intentional intent to deceive. 

Photographic Memory : to be real or not to be real, that is the question.

      Often times on the television, we hear about photographic memory (especially if you watch a lot of crime shows, which I might do). One show in particular: Unforgettable. This show is about a female detective who, after experiencing a traumatic event, is incapable of forgetting anything and has a photographic memory.

Is this possible?

      According to Google, Wikihow can teach you how to train your memory into becoming a photographic memory. Ha! You can also go to this website and play "the photographic memory game." I'm not sure to what degree I trust that source either.

     According to Scientific American and Dr. Barry Gordon who teaches neurology and cognitive science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, a truly photographic memory has never been shown to exist. Now, just to specify, a truly photographic memory means you are able to navigate your memory similarly to photographs; you can retrieve it from your memory whenever you want to and you can zoom in, zoom out, and  scroll around as you so desire. Although many of us think our memory may be somewhat photographic because we have a stronger ability to remember visual things, this is very common and does not actually constitute a photographic memory. My uncle, who is a detective in Cape Cod, is known for his memory. He has phenomenal recall of dates, crime scenes, evidence, criminals, etc. But outside of work his memory isn't AS strong. He does not have a photographic memory by definition, but he has an extraordinary memory for his field, especially. A phenomenal memory is not out of the question, even in the slightest, but a photographic memory seems to be impossible. What do you think?

      Akira Haraguchi was able to successfully recall the first 83, 431 decimal places of pi. I don't know about you, but I can't get past 3.1415926 without having to look it up. How does Akira not have a photographic memory? He has a phenomenal memory, but still not a photogenic one. Looking through the internet it seems virtually impossible (go ahead, even go to the second page of your Google results) to find any scientifically supported evidence of the existence and possibility of photographic memory... so I guess Wikihow and my game aren't going to be very helpful after all. Sorry about that.

       Not all hope is lost, however! It is totally possible to improve your recall abilities and to turn that average memory of yours into phenomenal. We just have to give up the hyperbole of the photographic memory and recognize it as such - a hyperbole. It is an exaggeration of how good our memories really are (and as you can see in a surplus of posts on this blog - our memory isn't always that great to begin with). I know I am far from having a phenomenal memory, but I am also yet to try out any of these techniques. I'm slightly skeptical, but perhaps one will improve my memory. As college students we could all use some improvement in that area (as could everyone else). I'll have to report back on whether or not any of these techniques work - if I remember!

Until next time, thanks for reading!


References used for this post:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=i-developed-what-appears-to-be-a-ph

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200603/the-truth-about-photographic-memory

True Memories v. False Memories. How can we know the difference?

“One day, we will be able to determine which memories are true, and which memories are false.”

                This question was our debate question. I was on the opposing team for this statement, and I remain on that side. I believe there is far more evidence for this side than for the pro side, and I can show it through scientific support. Elizabeth Loftus, a leading expert in memory and false memories, has been studying memory for 40 years. On multiple occasions, in multiple articles, and even on a TED talk, Loftus supports her claim that “without independent corroboration, little can be done to tell a false memory from a true one.” This is increasingly accurate as we continue to see the flaws with independent corroboration and psychiatrist manipulation; independent corroboration can only be as reliable as often as the person is with them. Very few people can corroborate every memory or be aware of everything that has or has not happened to an individual. Psychiatrists have also, on a surplus of occasions, embedded false memories into their patients, most often of memories of abuse. The ability to embed false memories so easily further complicates the ability to differentiate between the two.

                Biologically and neurologically speaking, the neural patterns are very similar for true and false memories. When it comes to phantom recollection, for example, though it occurs less frequently than false memories, it actually activates the medial temporal lobe in the same way true memories do. The pro side argues that fMRI scans can differentiate between true and false memories based on grey matter in the brain, but this is inaccurate because it is too difficult to differentiate between the two in grey matter because it is so difficult to differentiate between the two in general. German researchers attempted to determine a physiological “tell” to differentiate between the two and after hooking participants up to the machine they concluded that “skin conductance was the only measurement that was sensitive enough to measure.” All this tells us is that people respond physiologically to being hooked up to a machine and participating in a research study; it does not show us anything specific enough to conclude it is related to the relationship between physiological responses and recalling true/false memories.

                False memories can also be equally emotional to true memories. For example, those court cases which revolve around false memories of abuse – those patients often have very strong, emotional, and realistic “memories” of the abuse and when they recall it they do so with those emotions and beliefs. They do not have doubts about the memories they are recalling and genuinely believe them to be true. Another flaw stems from the questionability of true memories in general; even true memories are constructed and reconstructed, not so much a recollection. Loftus delves into this deeper saying, “the process of calling it [a memory] into conscious awareness can change it, and now you’re storing something that’s different.” So if true memories become increasingly more falsified (however accidentally), how will we ever be able to differentiate between the two. If true isn’t always true, what is false?

http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/12/2811.abstract

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929310.400-i-could-have-sworn-why-you-cant-trust-your-memory.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2013/09/elizabeth_loftus_interview_false_memory_research_on_eyewitnesses_child_abuse.html

https://webfiles.uci.edu/Loftus/Bernstein_Loftus_TrueFalseMem_POPS09.pdf

False Memories In Different Settings. A guest post by Kyle Luke.

                Eye witness testimony is commonly used in court cases, and they often play a major role in the verdicts.   Whether it is the witness picking someone out of a lineup or stating under oath what they witnessed, memory plays a major role.  With all the emphasis placed on eye witness testimony it is surprising how inaccurate most of the testimonies and statements are.  This is not because the witnesses are purposely lying but because at how horribly unreliable a person’s memory is.  For almost everyone once a memory is encoded it almost instantly starts deteriorating,  it also does not help that each time a memory is recalled it is re-encoded which means the original memory changes a little.  It also is not uncommon for a person to develop false memories especially while being interrogated.  In fact false memories are actually much more common than most people think. 

                A good number of memories that a person has are actually false memories.  Now the difficulty with false memories is that the person who has them strongly believes that they are true.  Actually when Professor Weinstein mentioned how most of our childhood memories were likely to be false memories I was upset as she said we likely would be.  I believe that I have a pretty good memory and I think that all the memories from my childhood actually occurred yet, I know that it is unlikely to be true.  It also may have to do with my source confusion.  For example in my previous blog I mentioned how I was two or three and running around ToonTown, however it is very possible that I remember doing that when I was four or five and the reason that I believe I was younger is that I know I went to Florida every year when I was little.   The event may also be based on a photo that I have seen of myself with my parents in ToonTown.  A strong reason for why I even remember the event is the constant reinforcement I had from continually visiting the same location every year.

                Another memory that I have which is very vivid is my memory of the morning of September 11^th.  I remember sitting at my desk in fourth grade and having my principal walk in go straight to my teacher and whisper something in her ear.  My teacher than grabbed her purse and bolted out of the room.  My principal stayed and took over teaching the class.  I remember wondering what was going on and why several students were getting picked up early.  It was only after my mother picked me up after school ended and turned on the television that I realized something bad had happened.  Being a young fourth grader I could not grasp the situation but I remember just thinking to myself that they could just fix the building or rebuild it and everything would be all right because the police, firefighters, and paramedics were at the scene.  I find it interesting that even though I was young and did not fully grasp the situation I was able to encode what I had seen and my feelings.  I think the reason I was able to encode this was because of how startling it was to see a teacher run and how odd it was.  Another reason may be the guilt I feel that my first thought was not about all the lives that were lost in the event but of the buildings themselves.  Looking back now I feel guilty for even thinking about the building.  Finally possibly the biggest reason I am able to remember this event was because of how many times that I have recalled and discussed this memory.  By doing this I was practicing rehearsal of the event and it is extremely likely that because of this the details about the memory have changed substantially from the actual event.  Yet, whether it happened this way or not I know that this memory will always be with me.  

Please Cue My Memory. A guest post by Natalie Lopez.

Why do some people have better memory than others?

      Let’s say a group of four friends are in the same history class and they have an upcoming midterm to study for. Each of the friends has their own studying technique to help them prep for the exam.

      Friend number 1 (let’s call him Dave): Dave’s method of studying for the exam is repetition, he repeats aloud the study guide until he has it memorized.

      Friend number 2 (Sara) highlights key points in the reading and then looks over her notes within a week of her exam.

      Friend number 3 (Colby) studies while “multitasking,” whether it’s texting friends, watching T.V., or listening to music. He also waits until last minute to cram for an exam.

      Friend number 4 (Alyssa) reads the chapter twice, once for overview and again for clarification. Then she makes flash cards to quiz herself by creating her own questions.

      After exams were over, two of the friends did not do as well. Can you decide which ones?

…

...

     Colby and Sara did not do as well as the others. Studies show that multitasking while studying, cramming, and just reading the chapters are not beneficial study habits. In order to learn new information, it must be encoded in short term memory and then stored in long term memory.

     Let me first start by explaining what short term and long term memory are. Short term memory is any information that the mind processes within the first 30 seconds, after that it is stored away or forgotten. Long term memory is anything after those 30 seconds, for example: an event that occurred the day before that you remember was successfully stored in your long term memory.

     Study habits that can help transform information into long term memory include repetition, combining a concrete image with the word, quizzing yourself on questions that could be asked, repetition, limiting distractions, and trying to fit an environment similar to the one being tested in.

     Using flash cards to study is a good example of memory cues. Memory cues are used to help the person retrieve what is available and what is accessible. A person may not know that they have memory of a certain event in their life until they are given a memory cue.

     An example of a memory cue would be watching a home video of yourself learning to ride your bike. Before seeing this video, you remember learning to ride at age six. The memory cue, which is the home video, helps access the memory that is available that we often forget we had. After seeing the video you then remember that your uncle Joey taught you to ride a bike using your cousin Jeremy’s hand-me-down bike, and that you fell down for a good half hour before you were able to steadily manage the bike on your own.

     It is important to have both short term and long term memory to learn new things. There are many different study techniques that are used to help store information into long term memory. In order to access this memory, often times a memory cue is used to retrieve the information, but often these memory cues go unacknowledged.

Processing & Pools. A guest post by Anna Webber.

    A couple weeks ago in cognitive psychology class, we discussed the process of encoding and retrieving information in our brain. The concept that sparked my interest within this topic of cognitive psychology was the encoding process, more specifically, the levels of processing. The level of processing theory refers to how memory depends on how the information is encoded: the “deeper.” the better. Craik and Lockhart’s level of processing theory focuses on the depth of processing, which is categorized amongst shallow processing and deep processing. 

    Immediately after hearing this way of processing information, I thought of a kiddie swimming pool and a large in-ground swimming pool. I thought of these two things because when we encode information into our brain it’s very similar to how we experience swimming. Shallow processing involves little attention to meaning, correspondingly to how a kiddie swimming pool is very small with low water levels and requires little attention to what you are even doing. As for deep processing, this involves close attention, focus, and meaning. Swimming in a large, in-ground swimming pool requires you to know how to swim and pay attention to what you are doing, for instance: breathing.

    Encoding information is most effective when deep processing is occurring. By giving information meaning or relating it to yourself, this allows you to create a connection that can trigger memory.  Shallow processing is not as effective due to its lack of interest, if you only recognize the surface of something it is more difficult to determine exactly what you were doing or what you may be trying to remember. I found this topic of encoding by deep processing and shallow processing interesting because I was able to relate it to something that I enjoy doing. Also, this is a really fascinating topic because if you try deep processing while studying for a test, by creating deeper meaning to what you are studying, you can see the difference compared to how you were studying before.