Mindfulness: Past Lecture Notes PDF

temp part 2 Type Status Not started Lecture 7 : Why Study Mindfulness? Western research has indicated that meditation can be effectively used to: Treat psychological disorders, including anxiety, dep...

temp part 2 Type Status Not started Lecture 7 : Why Study Mindfulness? Western research has indicated that meditation can be effectively used to: Treat psychological disorders, including anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, sleep disorders, ADHD, and conduct disorder Recent reviews indicate that overall effect sizes are modest, but mindfulness is still considered an evidence-based treatment for most psychological disorders The small effects are comparable with what would be expected from the use of psychotropic medications (e.g., antidepressant) in a primary care population but without the associated toxicities Treat physical conditions, including chronic pain and cardiovascular disease, and enhance immune system function Lengthen life span quite dramatically – 30% reduction in mortality due to heart disease and 49% reduction in mortality due to cancer, according to one 20-year study Slow the cognitive decline associated with “normal aging” Increase activity in areas of the brain associated with optimism, empathy, attention, and emotion regulation – highly trained “super-meditators” show activity in these regions that is off the charts Awareness and Acceptance All mindfulness therapies share a common aim of cultivating an attitude of awareness of the present moment with acceptance This is an attitude that extends toward whatever is arising at the moment, including thoughts, feelings, and experiences of contact with the outer world The aim is in line with the psychoanalytic view that it is primarily experiential avoidance that causes distress Neuropsychological evidence that awareness/labeling of negative emotions actually reduces their intensity (fMRI study): Participants were shown frightening faces/faces expressing strong emotions and asked to choose a word that described the emotion on display Controls were asked merely to identify the gender of the people in the photos ➜ Labeling the fear-inducing object Reduced activity in the amygdala, the seat of fear and other negative emotions Increased activity in parts of the prefrontal cortex (right ventrolateral and medial PFC) involved in vigilance and discrimination, relative to controls 💡☞ Naming the emotion transformed the images from objects of fear to objects of scrutiny, potentially resulting in a more effective response temp part 2 1  Study on spider phobia: Researchers recruited participants who had a spider phobia and exposed them to spiders Four experimental conditions that differed in their instructions for what to do with the anxiety 1. Label the anxiety felt about the spider 2. Reappraisal: think differently of the spider so that it feels less threatening 3. Distract from the anxiety elicited by the spider 4. No specific instruction (control) Later (on Day 2 and Day 9), participants returned to the lab and were again exposed to spiders to test the long-term effects of their emotion manipulation ➜ Those who had been assigned to labeling their emotions had lower physiological reactivity to the spiders, as measured by skin conductance responses ➜ Within the affect labeling condition, participants who verbalized a larger number of fear and anxiety words had even fewer skin conductance responses Unfortunately though, being accepting and nonjudgmental is easier said than done because of our natural human tendency to avoid painful experiences ➜ It is very difficult, if not impossible, to force ourselves to fully experience situations and emotions that we deem to be painful Traumatic experiences are a classic example of this However, even in ordinary life, we are constantly dissociating from painful situations and emotions – or ones that we think may potentially cause pain This may range from actual pain-inducing experiences to insights that might cause us to feel bad about ourselves 💡☞ There is a limit to the extent to which we can force ourselves just to “be with” our anger or sadness or fear. Meditation is a technique that can help resolve this problem of experiential avoidance. Step One in mindfulness practice is to engage in focused meditation because: 1. It is very difficult to be aware of ourselves and our surroundings if we are afflicted by “monkey mind” ➜ Focused meditation allows us to calm monkey mind 2. Focused meditation ultimately enables us to connect with the non- moving mind and the “suchness” of experience, which produces a sense of general “Okness” Step Two: Focused meditation is just calmly abiding, with the object of concentration – not obsessive glomming There should be a relaxed connection with the object The aim is to “be present with the object,” not to lock onto it and grip it like a dog, or to concentrate on it the way you might concentrate on memorizing the details of an image As the meditation develops, allow your perception of the object to change as you are present with the object on more and more subtle levels... The focus becomes just stillness itself, rather than the physical object temp part 2 2  You find that there is something in you that is imperturbable and open, fundamentally calm Developing one-pointedness of concentration enables you to find one-pointedness in yourself, the non-moving mind, which resolves all things « Stilling the eyes is a way of stilling the mind Meditation Q & A 1. Can focused meditation produce negative effects? a. Generally safe. But for those with history of severe trauma/abuse i. In those cases, when doing focused meditation, it is recommended that one direct attention to an external object or the feet, rather than the breath, as the latter may trigger too many memories and emotions Lurid example of the agitated mind and how it causes us to be unable to sit alone with our thoughts and emotions: Participants were asked to sit in a chair, without a device or a book and without falling asleep, for 6 to 15 minutes They were given the option to self-administer mild electric shocks rather than just sit alone with their thoughts ➜ 67% of men and 25% of women did just that! Relationship between Attention and Happiness Study in which 1000 people were texted at random times throughout the day As soon as participants received text, they had to answer 3 questions 1. What are you doing right now? 2. Where is your mind right now? Is it focused on what you’re doing or is it focused elsewhere? 3. How happy or unhappy are you right at this very moment? Results: “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind” Average American adult spends 47% of waking life not paying attention to what they’re doing When they were not paying attention, they were significantly less happy Meditation and the Default Mode Network Meditators from various traditions show reduced activity in their Default Mode Network (DMN) when meditating, as well as when they are not meditating The DMN or “task negative network”: Includes posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and angular gyrus Is active when we are not focused on a particular task Is involved in self-referencing, recognition of emotions in others, remembering the past, and imagining the future Is associated with ruminating about the past, worrying about the future, thinking about what other people are thinking about you Mindfulness as a Two-Part Process However, use of calm-abiding practice (focused awareness) to stabilize the mind is only the first step in mindfulness practice This first step is what make the second step – mindfulness or awareness of the present moment with acceptance (open monitoring) – possible because... temp part 2 3  Calm-abiding practice connects you with the suchness of things, with the ground of reality, which imbues all things with a sense of “Okness” This causes the sense of judgment to naturally drop away, and there is a cognition that everything is exactly as it should be Integration of Body and Mind A number of modern-day teachers have emphasized that inclusion of some sort of practice that integrates the physical body with the mind, such as various types of yoga, is critical for mindfulness to be effective for modern laypeople who do not have luxury of spending 12 hours a day meditating To a large extent, becoming more mindful or aware of one’s thoughts and emotions means becoming more aware of one’s body Meditation can help us “physicalize the mind,” so that when we have a negative thought, we can actually feel it almost as something physically pulling us off center ➜ This can make it vastly easier to control negative thoughts and emotions in daily life Some yogis have demonstrated quite remarkable control over body functions, such as breathing, heart rate, body temperature and other vital function: Tummo practice ☛Using Mindfulness to Work with Negative Emotions Try to experience the emotion fully in your body- energy-mind, that is, focus on the energy and physical sensations of the emotion, but do not let yourself get caught up in the content, in the story associated with the emotion ☛Mindfulness gives us insight into the narrative we have about ourselves ★ Your ordinary mind cannot do this: remember that meditation is not done with the ordinary thinking mind When we think, we just stay caught in our own conceptual systems, our own habitual ways of looking at things ➜ Meditation accesses a deeper mind with much greater awareness that is able to solve problems more effectively ☛ Using Mindfulness to Break Habits Develop awareness of how you are feeling immediately before and during you engage in the problematic behavior If you are unable to implement the replacement activity, simply note how you feel as you continue to engage in the old habit and in particular, how you feel when you finally stop 💡 ➜ That will reduce the odds or your engaging in the behavior again in the future Acceptance and Transformation Making peace with where we are: Feeling and accepting our negative emotions allow us to transform those emotions On the other hand, ignoring, repressing, denying, or even trying to change negative emotions ties up our energetic resources and actually makes real change much more difficult. “What you resist, persists” This is the underlying premise of mindfulness practice and, as discussed earlier, it is also supported by neuropsychological research Self-Acceptance and Self-Improvement Motivation But if I accept myself fully, won’t that undermine my motivation to try hard and improve? Actually, it’s just the opposite: beating up on yourself results in a less effectual response If an experience is painful, we tend to avoid looking at it, so we don’t learn from it The attempt to suppress the negative thoughts and emotions saps our energetic resources Feeling bad about ourselves causes us to engage in more unhealthy habits temp part 2 4  Self-compassion study Participants were told that the purpose of the study was to understand the relationship between test performance and personality and asked to identify their biggest weakness. Then they took a difficult test. Self-compassion group: saw an additional statement embedded in the instructions that read, “If you had difficulty with the test you just took, you’re not alone. It’s common for students to have difficulty with tests like this. If you feel bad about how you did, try not to be too hard on yourself.” Results: Self-compassion increased study time, which in turn predicted higher test scores, though it did not directly lead to improved performance Open, Nonjudgmental Awareness Mindfulness practice is about developing greater awareness Taken to higher levels, this can produce states of great bliss If we fully connect with the “suchness” of things in our body-energy-mind, we find a ground which holds everything and gives rise to a sensation of great bliss in the center of the body 💡 This takes the truism that true happiness must come from within to a whole new level! enlightenment is right here right now ☞ The big secret is that The experience of bliss in turn makes it possible to connect even more fully with the suchness of things, to be even more inclusive... The above is accompanied by a transformation of perception. You see that everything is perfect just as it is. You don’t need to change anything bad into anything good or to “fix” yourself in any way Ironically, this actually makes it easier to effect changes because your energy is no longer all tied up in beating yourself up Applying Mindfulness to Daily Life Mindfulness practice is not just about sitting on a meditation cushion; it’s about a way of being that extends to how we engage in all of our daily activities. It’s knowing that you are exactly where you should be this moment and appreciating this moment, engaging in activities with full focus of attention Ex: Walking meditation is about really enjoying the walking – walking not in order to arrive, but just to enjoy each step ☞ Mindfulness doesn’t just mean “noticing things.” It’s about being present with experience in a way that’s much more vivid, immediate, and real Even “negative emotions” are perceived as juicy experiences that are “OK” Mindfulness and awe Research has indicated that the emotion that confers the greatest health benefits may be awe Participants who scored high on awe had the lowest levels of interleukin-6, which is tied to inflammation ☛Lovingkindness Practice Preliminary practice (visualization + gratitude) Start by giving loving-kindness to yourself because without loving yourself, it is almost impossible to love others. If you are an empty cup, you have nothing to give. Research on Compassion Practice Study on compassion meditation in long-term Tibetan meditation practitioners who had had logged in 10,000-50,000 hours of practice Meditators were asked to engage in compassion meditation during EEG study Compassion meditation does not focus on particular objects, memories, or images; rather the emphasis is on generating feelings of benevolence and compassion, causing them to “pervade the mind as a way of being” Controls were undergraduates who had been given a crash course in compassion meditation and had practiced for an hour temp part 2 5  Results: Long-term practitioners showed high levels of activity in gamma-band frequencies (25-42+ Hz) and increased neural synchrony This involves large regions of the brain pulsing in synchrony 30-80 times a second As they went deeper into meditation (jhana states), there appeared to be both a spreading and a strengthening of gamma wave activity When controls engaged in compassion meditation, they also showed an increase in gamma activity, but the increase was slight Gamma waves Type of very high-frequency brain wave Research has linked neural synchrony of high-frequency brain waves to enhanced attention, working memory, learning and conscious perception Size of the gamma wave is related to the number of neurons firing in sync Greater synchrony between various sections of the brain indicates greater integration of cognitive and affective functions and less dissociation Compartmentalization of brain functions is associated with aging and cognitive decline What the meditation practitioners themselves reported experiencing during this state: A change in the quality of moment-to-moment awareness, bringing with it a vast panorama of perceptual clarity Monks who had spent the most years meditating generated the highest levels of gamma waves Increased gamma activity and neural synchrony were evident in the long-term practitioners even when they were not meditating Gamma Wave & Cognitive Functioning MIT neuroscientists found that exposing mice to strobe lights and clicking sounds at frequencies that stimulate gamma waves reduced levels of beta-amyloid associated with Alzheimer’s and improved cognitive function Study 1: Mice performed better on memory tasks, including recognizing objects and navigating a water maze to find a hidden platform. temp part 2 6  Mice were engineered to exhibit Alzheimer’s-like qualities Exposed to clicking sounds at 40 Hz for an hour a day for a week Results: Induced synchronized gamma-wave oscillations in the brain Gamma waves are involved in concentration, sleep, perception, and movement, and are disrupted in patients with Alzheimer’s Reduced levels of beta-amyloid and tau-proteins in the auditory cortex and nearby hippocampus Increased activation of microglia, which is important in clearing harmful debris, and improved functioning of blood vessels Study 2: Mice were exposed to a combination of light and sound stimulation Results: Expanded effects to prefrontal cortex Resulted in clustering of microglia around amyloid deposits and reduced amyloid pathology Effects were short-lived, however, diminishing a week after stimulation Longer-term follow-up study on mice with more advanced Alzheimer’s disease Mice given 6 weeks of gamma entrainment using strobe lights Results: Increased gamma brain waves in the visual cortex, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex Reduced neuronal and synaptic loss in these brain regions Reduced inflammation Improved performance on memory tasks ➜ Findings point to an overall neuroprotective effect, even in the later stages of neurodegeneration New clinical trials starting using human participants Meditation, Prefrontal Dominance & Optimism EEG studies by Richard Davidson found that meditation practice is associated with increased left prefrontal activity As mentioned earlier, left prefrontal cortex brain activity is known to be associated with positive outlook and feelings of happiness and well-being Early on, Davidson had noticed that an elderly Tibetan monk in one of his studies showed much greater predominance of activity in the left prefrontal than any of the other people previously tested Research on other long-term meditators provided further confirmatory evidence temp part 2 7  For instance, one meditation adept, Matthieu Ricard, showed increased left pre-frontal cortical activity that was 4.5 standard deviations outside the standard bell curve An early study found that less extensive meditation practice (40 minutes a day for 8-10 weeks) was also associated with a significant shift in hemispheric dominance In addition, degree of shift in activity from right to left prefrontal was found to correlate with enhancement in immune system (resistance to flu virus) Neurological Effects of Mindfulness MRI study on Western lay practitioners who incorporated meditation practice into their daily lives Meditators averaged 6.2 hours of practice a week for 9.1 years ➜ Compared to control participants, showed thickening in parts of prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula These regions of the brain are involved in attention, sensory processing, and empathy Cortical growth was not due to the growth of new neurons but resulted from: Wider blood vessels More supporting structures such as glia and astrocytes Increased branching and connections ☞ Between-group differences in prefrontal cortical thickness were most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might be particularly important in preserving cognitive functions as people age VBM study on long-term meditators found similar effects Lay practitioners who had practiced meditation for 10-90 min daily for an average of 24 years ➜ Meditation was associated with increased gray matter volume in areas important in emotion regulation and memory, including Orbitofrontal cortex and Hippocampus 💡 Meditation increases density of gray matter in frontal and temporal in much the same way that physical exercise increases the size of muscles Other Cognitive & Affective Benefits 💡 enhanced ability to identify microexpressions in meditators (Eakman) A series of faces displaying various expressions was shown in very quick succession. Participants were asked to identify that expression ➜ Two experienced Western meditators whom Ekman tested achieved results that were far better in the ability to recognize such fleeting facial expressions. The ability to recognize such fleeting facial expressions has been associated with a capacity for empathy and insight, as well as openness to new experiences, intellectual curiosity, and general reliability and efficiency Mindfulness and the Treatment of Psychological Disorders Research has indicated that mindfulness practices are useful in the treatment of a wide array of psychological disorders, including: temp part 2 8  Anxiety and depression, Eating disorders, Stress, and Substance abuse Effects of meditation on these psychological, as well as physical, conditions are probably mediated at least in part by reduction in cortisol levels Research in the 1970s found that meditation is associated with“a wakeful, hypometabolic state of parasympathetic activity” Research on use of mindfulness in treating psychological disorders in children and adolescents: 14-18 year olds who took an MBSR class reported a decrease in anxiety, depression, and somatic complaints, as well as an increase in sleep quality and self-esteem, compared with controls Meta-analysis of 15 studies on children and adolescents found that mindfulness was effective in treating anxiety disorders, ADHD, substance abuse, sleep disorders, and conduct disorder More recent reviews have found that meditation enhances ability to regulate emotions and attention in children Is Mediation really working??? 2014 meta-analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine called into question the effectiveness of mindfulness training programs in improving mental health and reducing stress-related behavior Studies were primarily 8-week-long mindfulness training programs that used psychological and behavioral assessments, rather than neuroimaging Along with mindfulness, meta-analysis included meditations that emphasized use of a mantra Mantra: repetition of a word or phrase in such a way that it helps one transcend to an effortless state where focused attention is absent Results: Meditation programs resulted in− Only moderate reductions in anxiety, depression, pain, and stress/distress These small effects were comparable with what would be expected from the use of antidepressants but without the associated toxicities Problems identified in review: Use of outcome measures that can be easily biased by participants’ beliefs in the benefits of meditation Control participants that received less time and attention from the teacher or the group than those in meditation program Very few mantra meditation programs met inclusion criteria ✧ Reviewers pointed out that effectiveness of programs may depend in part on Type of meditation practice, Amount of training, Use and qualifications of instructor, Degree of emphasis on religion or spirituality Whether program integrated dietary regimens and/or movement exercises (e.g., yoga) ☞ Most forms present meditation as a skill that requires expert instruction and time dedicated to practice Research Issues 💡 The modest psychological effects found in studies of short-term mindfulness contrasts with the much larger effects of neuroimaging and reaction time studies on long-term meditation practitioners This difference suggests that the benefits of mindfulness meditation may accumulate and become more pronounced with consistent, long-term practice. It also highlights the importance of considering different types of measurements (psychological self-reports vs. neurological or behavioral measures) and the duration of practice when evaluating the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions. temp part 2 9  Physiological Effects of Meditation: Mortality Rates Experimental study in which patients with mild hypertension were trained in meditation and followed for 19 years ➜Meditation group showed a 23% decrease in overall mortality, a 30% decrease in rate of cardiovascular mortality and a 49% decrease in the rate of mortality due to cancer compared with controls 73 residents of homes for elderly were assigned either to daily mindfulness, meditation (transcendental meditation or mindfulness), a relaxation group, or a no-treatment group ➜After three years, survival rate was 100% for TM, 87% for mindfulness, 65% for relaxation, and 77% for no-treatment group Only differences between meditation and non-meditation groups were significant In general, there are more similarities than differences between psychological effects of different types of meditation Mindfulness and Physical Pain A large component of “physical pain” is actually mental The mind reacts to pain with fear, rejection, despondency, or a feeling of powerlessness, dramatically compounding the pain These are mental elaborations. Pain is actually just sensations – it’s the aversion response that causes most of the suffering Sort of like little kid screaming about getting shots, when the punches they get roughhousing on the playground are actually many times more painful Research on neurophysiological response to pain in meditators vs. non-meditators Used hot laser to create pain in the foot/arm Results: In comparison with the non-meditators, the Zen practitioners Showed significantly greater activity in the somatosensory cortex, as well as in the insula, the part of the brain involved in proprioception (noticing body sensations) Reported that the pain sensations were very, very vivid Showed significantly less activity in parts of the prefrontal which are involved in evaluating the pain Rated the pain very low, as a 1, 2, or 3, as opposed to the non-meditators who rated their pain as a 8, 9, or 10 💡 Meditators with the most experience showed the largest reductions in prefrontal and amygdala activation In addition, the lower pain sensitivity in meditators was strongly predicted by reductions in functional connectivity between executive (prefrontal) and pain-related cortices ☞ Results suggest a functional decoupling of cognitive-evaluative and sensory- discriminative dimensions of pain, allowing practitioners to view painful stimuli more neutrally Consciousness, Mindfulness & the Mind-Body Connection In our culture, we normally think that: Our mind is identical with our body OR our mind is in our body (duality) However, the meditation traditions from which mindfulness arises hold that Our body is actually in our mind... and that we are a lot more than we think temp part 2 10  The small sense of self with which we normally identify is an arbitrary construct based on sensory feedback mechanisms Lecture 8 Three-Stage Model of Memory Three-stage modal model of memory (Atkinson-Shiffrin model): Sensory memory Working memory or short-term memory Long-term memory Sensory memory Holds sensory information very briefly (1/2 to 4 secs) Large capacity store Sensory input is held very briefly in sensory memory to allow selection and processing of information Now often considered to be a part of perception Two types of sensory memory: 💡 Iconic memory (photographic memory): visual sensory memory Echoic memory: auditory sensory memory Eidetic imagery (photographic memory): characterized by relatively long-lasting and detailed images of visual scenes that can sometimes be scanned and “looked at” as if they had real existence Group of schoolchildren was shown a picture for 30 seconds. Picture was taken away, and children asked whether they could still see anything and, if so, to describe what they saw. Some children showed evidence of this kind of memory. Eidetic imagery is relatively rare – only 5% or so of tested schoolchildren have it and proportion is much smaller in adults It is not an especially useful form of mental activity. Contrary to popular lore, memory experts don’t generally have eidetic imagery; their skill is in organizing material in memory, rather than in storing it in picture form. Short-term memory (STM) or working memory Holds items that are actively being thought about. Has limited capacity temp part 2 11  💡 7 +/- 2 items, e.g., letters, words, dots, though this number can vary by task. Number of words you can speak in 1.5 seconds Also limited in time, but longer than sensory memory Lasts 5 to 30 seconds Information decays rapidly unless maintained in consciousness through rehearsal Working memory (Baddeley) is now the preferred term because it emphasizes that this is an active, rather than a passive, process − Includes a phonological loop (associated with the left hemisphere) that briefly stores sounds, and a visuospatial sketchpad (associated with the right hemisphere) that stores visual and spatial information o Two visuospatial tasks will interfere with each other if performed simultaneously, as will two items in the phonological loop o However, people can perform a verbal task and a spatial task simultaneously Episodic buffer: another component of working memory that can hold and combine information from phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and long-term memory to form a story – important in time sequencing Central executive: integrates information from phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer o Similar to attention/sensory memory in Atkinson Shriffin model Long-term memory (LTM) Repository of all one’s knowledge Unlimited in the amount it can store No time limit 💡 Evidence for short-term memory and long- term memory: serial position effect There is a tendency for people to remember best the items learned first (because of LTM) and the items learned last (because of STM). similarity interferes. temp part 2 12  Proactive interference: words from previous lists interfere with your ability to learn new words of a similar nature (doing progressively worse on Lists 2-5) Release from PI (doing well on List 6): items are different so no interference – memory for these items should be good Retroactive interference: words from later list interfere with recall of a prior list (difficulty recalling items from List 1 at the end) Experiment also shows that semantic similarity of items affects recall Medical applications of primacy-recency effect Our memories of how painful an experience was tends to depend on the peak intensity and how much pain was felt at the end Participants in experiment were asked to immerse one hand in painfully cold ice water for 60 secs, then other hand in same ice water for 60 secs followed by a slightly less painful 30 secs more ➔When asked which trial they would prefer to repeat, most participants preferred the longer trial, with more net pain – but less pain at the end Strategy of tapering off pain (though this means increasing net pain experienced) has been implemented in painful medical procedures like colonoscopies Primacy-recency can color our memory of pleasures too In one experiment, participants, on receiving a fifth and last piece of chocolate, were told it was their “next” one Others were told it was their “last” piece The latter liked the chocolate better and also rated the whole experiment as being more enjoyable ★ Possible applications for romantic relationships? Types of Long-Term Memory Explicit/declarative memory (with conscious recall): recall or recognition of information; can be verbally transmitted Episodic memory: recall of personal facts Semantic memory: recall of general facts temp part 2 13  Implicit/non-declarative memory (without conscious recall): memory that influences one’s behavior or thought but does not itself enter consciousness; cannot be verbally transmitted Procedural memory: Recall of how to do things The Race IAT ➔80% of those who have ever taken the test end up having pro- white associations, including about 50% of African Americans Does the IAT correlate with specific behaviors? White college students who had more implicit negative stereotypes of Black people showed significantly more nonverbal signs of discomfort (e.g., standing further away, making less eye contact, stumbling over words more, smiling less) when interviewed by Black interviewers People with a stronger pro-White bias on the IAT were also more likely to perceive anger and apparent threat in Black faces How can implicit stereotyping be reduced? In case of black-white implicit stereotyping, thinking about admired out-group member (Tiger Woods) and disliked in- group member (Jeffrey Dahmer) can reduce implicit IAT bias for up to 24 hours Imagining counter-stereotypic women (e.g., strong women) similarly reduces implicit stereotyping Students enrolled in a prejudice and conflict seminar taught by a black professor show a reduction in implicit biases after participation in course, as compared with controls The power of implicit attitudes: Newlyweds’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward their new spouses were measured Explicit measure: spouses asked to report extent to which they would describe their marriage using 15 pairs of opposing adjectives (e.g., “good” vs. “bad,” “satisfied vs. “dissatisfied” Implicit measure: version of IAT that required spouse to indicate as quickly as possible the valence of positively and negative valenced words after being exposed to 300-ms primes of photos of their partner and various control individuals Marital satisfaction was tracked over 4 year period ➜ Implicit attitudes were a better predictor of future marital happiness than their explicit attitudes Where in the Brain is Long-Term Memory Stored? How does storage work? Rats learn maze, Lesion cortex, Test memory ➜ Memories do not reside in single, specific spots Long-term potentiation (LTP): mechanism through which learning occurs in brain A long-term increase in the excitability of a neuron to a particular synaptic input caused by repeated high-frequency activity of that input ☞ Stimulating a particular neural circuit will increase the sensitivity of neurons in that circuit, increasing the probability that they will fire again Process involves binding of glutamate to NMDA receptor What LTP means psychologically: Both positive and negative thoughts tend to be self-reinforcing 💡 ★ “Passing mental states become lasting neural traits” Two structures that play particularly important roles in the processing and storing of new explicit memories are: Frontal lobes: recalling information and holding it in working memory Hippocampus: “save” button for explicit memories temp part 2 14  The hippocampus acts as a loading dock where the brain temporarily holds to-be-remembered information Items then migrate for storage elsewhere in process called memory consolidation Ø Example: Removing a rat’s hippocampus 3 hours after it learns the location of some tasty new food prevents long-term memory formation. Removal 48 hours later does not After a training experience, the greater one’s heart rate efficiency and hippocampus activity during sleep, the better the next day’s memory will be Memory Disorders : Evidence for Separate Memory Systems Dissociation: when brain damage affects two behaviors very differently, this suggests that the two behaviors are produced by different processes Clive Wearing, an English musician, suffered damage to his hippocampus as result of encephalitis If you walk out of the room, then come back 10 minutes late, he won’t remember you, but he can still conduct a choir and play the piano and harpsichord beautifully The hippocampus is central to the formation of explicit memories 💡 People with full temporal lobe amnesia (damage to the hippocampus and surrounding areas) cannot form new explicit memories though they can form new implicit memories. They often have normal IQs and can carry on a normal conversation but cannot remember anything that happened more than a few minutes previously The posterior hippocampus contains place cells, neurons involved in spatial navigation Volume of posterior hippocampus is positively correlated with amount of time spent as a taxi driver Follow-up study London cabbies have to pass centuries old test, “The Knowledge,” to get their license. They spend 3-4 years memorizing 25,000 streets. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to assess hippocampal volume before and after learning Cabbies who passed the test showed significant growth in their posterior hippocampus, whereas controls did not Two structures that play important roles in the formation of implicit memories are temp part 2 15  Cerebellum: involved in learning of procedural memories for skills Basal ganglia: deep brain structure important in motor sequencing Parkinson’s disease involves degeneration of parts of the basal ganglia 💡 Cases of organic amnesia have provided evidence for the distinction between different memory systems (e.g., implicit and explicit) temp part 2 16  ☛ Controversies in Cognitive Science To what extent is the mind modular, that is, organized inspecial information-processing modules? If memory is modular, how do the modules interact? How might this be represented in a computational model of mind? ACT-R: Hybrid Cognitive Architecture “Adaptive control of thought – rational” Cognitive architecture with modular organization that was developed by John R. Anderson in 1976 It is hybrid in sense that it incorporates both symbolic and subsymbolic information processing temp part 2 17  💡 ★ All of the above modules are encoded in the form of physical symbols Perceptual-motor layer Perceptual module in turn consists of a visual module, audition module, etc. Motor module consists of speech module, motor module, etc. Communication between modules on different layers takes place via buffers (workspaces) Cognitive layer Declarative memory is organized in “chunks” Procedural memory is encoded as production rules: actions for the system to perform, e.g., retrieve a chunk from memory, send a command to the motor module to perform an action Production rules can be nested within each other, so that output of a given production rule will trigger firing of another production rule What makes ACT-R a hybrid architecture is that the symbolic, modular architecture is run on a subsymbolic base ACT-R is designed to operate serially, so that at any given moment, only one production rule can be active, but how does it select that one? The pattern-matching module controls which production rule gains access to the buffer by working out which production rule has the highest utility at the moment of selection, as determined by How likely the system is to achieve its current goal if the production rule is activated The cost of activating the production rule 💡 These calculations are subsymbolic and use an artificial neural networks approach Subsymbolic equations are also used to model how accessible information is in declarative memory The basic units of declarative memory are chunks, but each chunk is associated with a particular activation level, which is determined by How useful the chunk has been in the pasto How relevant the chunk is to the current situation and context The general information processing that takes place in the buffers is symbolic In contrast, the calculations that determine whether or not a particular item of knowledge ends up in a buffer are subsymbolic temp part 2 18  Classification of Memory Disorders Organic amnesia: physical cause Brain injury through accident or stroke Korsakoff’s amnesia (Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome): amnesia caused by brain damage resulting from thiamine deficiency, usually as a result of chronic alcoholism Patient staggers, develops abnormal eye movements, becomes confused, and experiences severe loss of memory for recent and relatively long-term events Patients tend to make things up (confabulate) rather than admit they can’t remember N.B.: In most cases of trauma-induced organic amnesia, there is spontaneous recovery after matter of minutes or hours Psychogenic (“hysterical”) amnesia: psychological cause Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder): disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities Dissociative amnesia: inability to recall important personal information, usually precipitated by a traumatic experience Hypnosis may be used to help recover memories Dissociative fugue: disorder in which person has sudden, unexpected episode of travel from home during which he can’t remember some or all of his past life Study found that incidence of this rises sharply whenever popular film depicting this subject is released Alzheimer’s Disease Disease occurring in latter part of life that is characterized by deterioration of memory, reasoning, and language abilities Common form of neurocognitive disorder (deterioration of intellectual abilities; another common cause is vascular dementia) Occurs in 7% of population above age of 65 and up to 40% of people older than 80 years Associated with loss of neurons in cortical and sub-cortical regions: ventricles may be enlarged temp part 2 19  patients might end up losing as much of 50% of their brain mass Produces severe degeneration of large parts of the brain: can eventually destroy most of the hippocampus and cortical gray matter Brains of patients contain many amyloid plaques, which contain a core of misfolded b-amyloid protein surrounded by degenerating axons and dendrites, and neurofibrillary tangles, dying neurons that contain twisted filaments of tau protein Deficiencies of acetylcholine: failure to show eyeblink conditioning Causes of Alzheimer’s Geneticcomponent Higher risk of disease in those who have previously suffered a stroke or head trauma Conditions associated with cardiovascular disease, e.g., obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, and lack of exercise, increase risk Associated with low levels of vitamin D and certain B vitamins Exposure to lead and toxic substances, such as air pollutants, may increase risk Article published in Lancet in 2017 noted that hearing loss is now known to be the largest modifiable risk factor for developing dementia, exceeding that of smoking, high blood pressure, lack of exercise, and social isolation Research indicates that use of anticholinergics is associated with reduced brain volume and lower levels of glucose metabolism, particularly in the hippocampus Those on anticholinergics also showed poorer performance on cognitive tests Anticholinergics include Tylenol PM, Benadryl, Claritin, Dimetapp, Paxil, and Xanax ☞ Researchers concluded that these drugs could trigger or worsen Alzheimer’s Also, studies have found that older people with tooth and gum disease score lower on memory and cognition tests Experts speculate that inflammation in diseased mouths migrates to the brain Most importantly... Those who stay physically active and are non-obese have lower risk of developing disease 💡 Heart health → brain health Studies have found that people who keep their minds active tend to show less loss of intellectual functioning in general as they age Study of nuns in convent found that education and intellectual activity seem to protect against Alzheimer’s Study also found that degree of sentence complexity and amount of positive affect expressed in writing samples when subjects were in their 20’s were negatively associated with incidence of disease and positively associated with longevity There have been cases where autopsies showed presence of disease but no symptoms had been present temp part 2 20  Do Plaques and Tangles Really Cause Alzheimer’s? Claudia Kawas’ 90+ study on the “oldest old” Team of medical experts were asked to examine years of medical records to determine if each of participants had Alzheimer’s 40% of participants that they concluded had Alzheimer’s did not have any amyloid plaques or neurofibrillary tangles at death On the other hand, about half of participants who died without symptoms of dementia had plaques and tangles Conclusion? Maybe plaques and tangles have nothing to do Alzheimer’s (unlikely) There may be multiple factors (e.g., lack of physical exercise, lack of cognitive stimulation, history of head trauma, etc.) that contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s... ➜ Whether people develop the disease may depend on the number of ”hits” they take from these various factors Lecture 9 Memory Strategies Meaning/deep processing: processing information deeply (by its meaning) produces better recall at a later time than does shallow processing (attending to its appearance or sound) Mere repetition is not very effective in enhancing long-term memory, but understanding aids memory To enhance recall, use elaboration : relate new information to other information in memory Organization: effective organization of material greatly enhances recall Chunking lists of numbers, letters, or names can enhance memory: organizing items into familiar, manageable unit Hierarchical organization: clustering chunks as a hierarchy Material organized in a hierarchical structure is recalled significantly better than disorganized material (eg. heading, subheading) First-letter technique: using the first letter of each word in a series to make up a phrase (acronyms) eg. The knuckle trick for the number of days in each month 🖼️ Imagery: Recall is best when info. is encoded both visually and semantically Key word method Method of loci technique or mnemonic (memory technique) Use of imagery in enhancing prospective memory: Study on 60- to 81-year-old adults who needed to remember to test their blood sugar temp part 2 21  Imagination condition: pictured themselves taking blood sugar during activity they routinely engaged in, e.g., right after drinking morning orange juice Rehearsal condition: repeatedly reciting instructions out loud Deliberation condition: writing down pros and cons for taking blood sugar 💡 ➜Results: participants remembered 76% of time in imagination condition vs. 46% in other conditions Use of physical retrieval cues can also be effective for enhancing prospective memory, e.g., leaving pen in middle of desk Rhymes and songs 🎼 : eg. songs for alphabet Review : putting information into your own words and testing yourself to determine what you do not know is much more effective than passively reading over material Even more effective if you wait at least ten minutes after reading a selection before quizzing yourself 💡☞ Talking to people about what you know and testing yourself (generation effect) is one of the most effective memory strategies! Taking lecture notes by hand, which requires summarizing material in your own words, leads to better retention than does verbatim laptop note taking Spacing effect: information is retained better when study sessions are distributed over time rather than massed Study compared students who learned 50 Spanish words in lessons spread one day apart in lessons separated by 30 days 💡 ➔When tested eight years later, the students who had distributed their practice recalled almost twice as much Practice effect: the more time that is spent studying material, the more likely one is to remember it. ➔Overlearning aids recall. “MOZART EFFECT” Ericsson’s studies of expert performers in diverse fields (music, math, science, chess, and sports) found that in every case, outstanding performers shared certain characteristics 10,000-hour rule: virtually all experts had spent over 10,000 hours in deliberate practice (usually 10+ years for at least 4 hours every day) They were taught by outstanding teachers Mozart started practicing the violin at the age of 3, his father was an outstanding violin teacher, and he practiced on average 10 hours a day 💡 A large number of studies have found a direct correlation between number of hours of practice and level of expertise in elite musicians, chess players, etc. Context effect (encoding specificity effect or state- dependent memory): recall is better where there is high degree of similarity between test environment and encoding environment temp part 2 22  People who learned lists of words underwater showed better recall when tested under water; those who learned on land showed better recall when tested on beach Students who learned words in room that smelled of chocolate, cinnamon-apple, or mothballs performed better on recall test if same smell was again present Participants who were drunk when learning a word list performed better on recall test when they were again drunk Self-reference effect: memory is enhanced by relating stimuli to one’s own personal experience. Me! Me! Me! In advertising, people are more likely to recall the brand name of a product if they had been asked to imagine themselves using the product than if they had been given information about the product Asians exhibit greater self-referencing towards Asian models, and this results in more favorable attitudes toward the ad and greater purchase intention Emotional arousal: arousal enhances learning and retention of memories Arousal sears events into the brain People given a drug that blocks the effects of stress hormones will later have more trouble remembering the details of an upsetting story. However excessive stress may corrode neural connections (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder 😴 Sleep, especially REM sleep, is important for memory consolidation Timing factor: material presented an hour before sleep tends to be remembered best Even 10 minutes of waking rest enhances memory of what we have read Multimodal approach: paying attention to your mental and physical condition, as well as flexible use of memory strategies Belief: anything that you believe will boost your memory will boost your memory! Ø Researchers were able to use subliminal messages representing either senile behavior (e.g., “absent-minded,” “senile”) or “wise” behaviors (e.g., “sees all sides of issues,” “smart” to manipulate performance of seniors on memory tests ☞Issue of whether all memories are potentially retrievable is impossible to prove, but it’s probably advantageous to believe that they are Other Factors Affecting Memory Schemas: generalized mental representation or concept of a given class of objects, scenes, or events that can aid (or distort!) recall Mood-congruence effect: tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood temp part 2 23  Depressed people are likely to recall more negative experiences than positive experiences Currently depressed people recall their parents as rejecting, punitive, and guilt-promoting, whereas formerly depressed people describe their parents much as do those who have never suffered depression In the long run, people tend to recall pleasant events better than unpleasant ones. In the short run, we tend to experience a negativity bias Mood effect: people score more poorly on memory tests when they are depressed Introversion/extraversion factor: introverts are more easily distracted by outside noise/music during encoding than extraverts Factors Affecting Neurogenesis Factors that enhance neurogenesis: Learning An enriched environment Exposure to estrogen Physical exercise Studies involving mice, as well as people, show strong relationships between being physically active or fit and having greater brain volume and stronger cognitive abilities – even when participants are young and healthy Recent research on mice indicates that the neurocognitive benefits of exercise derive in large from irisin Irisin is a hormone produced during endurance exercise that improves cognitive function, dampens neuroinflammation, ensures the healthy development of new neurons, and reduces risk of development of Alzheimer’s Exercise, Neurogenesis, and Learning & Memory Physical exercise Muscle fiber contains a scaffold made of special proteins that hold these acetylcholine receptors in place Rats that ran on a treadmill show increased levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is known to support the health of existing neurons and coax the creation of new brain cells As little as 3 hours a week of aerobic exercise (brisk walking) triggers biochemical changes that increase production of new neurons; stretchers-and-toners do not show similar brain changes Children who walked briskly or jogged on a treadmill for 20 min showed marked improvement in math and reading comprehension scores; those who read quietly for 20 min did not Older women who walked or did weight training for 6 months performed significantly better on tests of spatial and verbal memory Sedentary behavior is associated with reduced thickness of medial temporal lobe, which contains hippocampus Research on rats indicate that exercise can even compensate for neurocognitive impairments Rats in experimental group were injected with substance known to induce inflammation and cognitive impairments, then given weight training Bags of weighted pellets were gently taped to the rats’ rear ends. They were rewarded with a Froot Loop when they reached the top of a 3-foot ladder. Rats in experimental and control groups were then placed in brightly lit temp part 2 24  maze with single, darkened chamber. Rats gravitate toward dark places, so animals were expected to learn the location of the chamber and aim for it ➜Results: In first few tests, control animals were fastest and most accurate With a little practice though, the weight-trained animals, despite their induced cognitive impairments, caught up to and in some cases surpassed the speed and accuracy of the controls Moreover, researchers found that the memory centers of the weight trainers now teemed with enzymes and genetic markers known to help kick-start the creation and survival of new neuron Factors that inhibit neurogenesis Stress and glucocorticoids – as little as a few hours of either in a rat! Food additives? Drugs that may enhance memory Caffeine : anything that increases attention will tend to boost learning and memory Gingko biloba : may enhance memory in Alzheimer’s patients Experimental drugs Drugs that boost production of CREB (e.g., phosphodiesterase inhibitors), which turns on genes that code for production of proteins important in formation of new synapses Drawback: can produce really nasty side effects, such as severe nausea Drugs that increase levels of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that enhances LTP Drawback: may increase risk of seizures and strokes ☞At this point, it’s probably much more effective just to get more sleep! Lecture 10 Forgetting and Memory as Reconstruction Memory Experts Rajan Mahadevan memorized pi to over 30,000 digit; father had memorized all of Shakespeare’s sonnets Russian journalist Shereshevskii “recalled everything he had ever seen or heard” Could report back 70 digits or words after only having heard them once Could recall list and circumstances under which he had learned it 15 years later Drawbacks of having a “perfect” memory Memory whizzes are often poor at abstract thinking – generalizing, organizing, evaluating. Also, problems with extra personal relationships, and confusion btw memories (unable to distinguish between conversations he’d heard 5 minutes or 5 years before - memory weren't fading → typically associated with older memories ) Savant Syndrome and Memory Savant syndrome: people who are born with severe intellectual disability but show superior ability in one intellectual domain, such as music, art, or mental arithmetic About 10% of children with autism have savant talents Analysis of case history of 13 musical savants All had severe deficits in ability to understand and use language 5 were blind or partially so All showed an extraordinarily intense interest in performing music beginning at a very young age, usually before age 4 temp part 2 25  💡 Savant syndrome is largely attributable to a seemingly limitless memory Musical savants can play back, note for note, long passages of music heard just once Artistic savants can reproduce exact copies of animals or people or scenes from memory Human calculators can tell you the day of the week that corresponds with any given day of any given month and year, past or future ☞Suggests that memory capacities are potentially virtually limitless... 💡 Possible to create savant-like memorization skills and artistic abilities in people without autistic traits by disrupting left anterior frontal lobe with TMS Neurocognitive Model of Savant Syndrome Savant syndrome is associated with: Disruption of global connectivity in neural networks, which results in impairment in certain types of cognitive processing, such as executive function and social cognition Enhanced connectivity in local brain regions (in part through disruption of connections to prefrontal cortex, which exerts inhibitory control on other cortical regions), resulting in specialization and facilitation of low-level cognitive processing Feats of memory in ordinary people… Participants were shown 2500 slides of faces and places for 10 sec each ➜Afterwards, they were able to pick out slides they had seen with 90% accuracy People can remember a substantial amount of material learned decades earlier, including foreign language vocabulary, mathematical knowledge etc. Three Stages of Memory Processing and Forgetting Memory as an information processing system: temp part 2 26  💡☞ Forgetting can derive from problems in encoding, storage, or retrieval Encoding failure: information never entered long-term memory (lack of attention) ➜Only 1 in 85 UCLA students, including 52 Apple users, could accurately draw the Apple logo. Or memory of penny. Storage decay: information stored in long-term memory gradually fades In general, storage decay is not as severe as most people tend to think… Study found that people remembered nearly 40% of foreign language vocabulary, idioms, and grammar after 50 years (and 75% when recognition tests are used) People who had taken psychology class remembered about 70% of broad general facts and research methods 10 years later Is storage decay simply due to the passage of time or to interference from new memories formed during this interval? Research suggests that storage decay is primarily due to interference (other events happening) Participants learned lists of nonsense syllables, then either slept or engaged in normal daily activities. ➔Recall was significantly better when participants slept during the retention interval The degree to which memories interfere with each other depends on their similarity. It’s harder to remember a list of letters if all the letters rhyme (V, G, P, D) Retrieval failure: failure to access information that is stored in long-term memory – “forgotten” material is not completely erased but merely inaccessible Evidence for retrieval failure: Research on cuing Willem Wagenaar (1986), a Dutch psychologist kept a diary in which he recorded one or two of his experiences every day for six years, resulting in a total of over 2400 incidents He tested his memory by having a colleague supply some information from each diary entry, then seeing if he could recall the remainder 💡 With a sufficient number of cues, he was able to recall virtually every incident that he had recorded over those six years Savings during relearning Research using digit-word pairs has found that even when information appears to have been entirely forgotten (can neither be recalled or recognized), the information can be relearned much more rapidly the second time around ➔Even in the case of material that has apparently been “forgotten”, some memory trace is preserved In addition, even if you can’t actively recall material, it may still be present in your brain in some form and may affect you in various ways Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon: sensation we have when we are confident that we know the word for which we are searching yet cannot recall it This subjective feeling of knowing strongly suggests that the forgotten material is really still there, but is this feeling trustworthy? Research suggests that it is Even when people cannot remember the word for which they are searching, they often can identify important attributes such as the first letter, the number of syllables, and (in Romance languages) the grammatical gender of a noun temp part 2 27  Providing first letter or number of syllables of target word may prompt recall Causes of retrieval failure Lack of appropriate retrieval cues (due to encoding specificity principle) Ex: Inability to recognize student from your biology class at a dorm party Repression of painful or anxiety-provoking information There have been documented cases of individuals who had been treated in hospital emergency rooms for childhood sexual abuse, yet these individuals failed to recall the episode when interviewed as adults Are encoded memories ever completely forgotten? Difficult, if not impossible to prove, but the bulk of research evidence suggest that memories are never completely forgotten – they are still present in some form though they may be inaccessible Penfield study & Oliver Sacks’“Murder” story Memory and Forgetting in Children 👶🏻 Babies only 3 months old can learn that kicking moves a mobile – and retain that learning for a month However, adults generally can’t remember events that occurred before 2 or 3 years of age (infantile amnesia) College students recalled details of birth of younger sibling much more accurately if they were three-years-old at the time of the sibling’s birth than if they were two-years-old Recall is poorer if a dramatic change in childhood environment occurred (moving to a different country) or if language spoken changed Two contributing factors: We index much of our explicit memory with a command of language that young children do not possess The hippocampus is one of the last brain structures to mature, and as it does, more gets retained Study found that 10-year-olds could consciously recognize (amid other photos) only 1 in 5 of their former preschool classmates ➜However, their physiological responding (skin perspiration) was greater when shown their former classmates – even when not consciously recognized Memory Reconstruction Memory as reconstruction: what we think we remember often never really occurred – we filter information and fill in missing pieces Whenever we retrieve a memory, the brain rewrites it a bit – it is slightly altered chemically by a new protein synthesis that links it to our present concerns and understanding (reconsolidation) ☞Every thought we think rewires our brain to some extent, changing its structure and/or function Because the processes involved in memory reconstruction are unconscious, we can be convinced that our memories are accurate even when they are partially or even wholly wrong 73 ninth-grade boys were interviewed, then re-interviewed 35 years later When asked to recall how they had reported their attitudes, activities, and experiences, most men performed at a rate no better than chance 1 in 3 now remembered having received physical punishment though, as ninth-graders, 82% said they had Researchers are experimenting with manipulating reconsolidation to treat people with traumatic memories People are asked to recall the traumatic or negative experience. At the same time, they are given Propranolol, a memory-blocking drug or A brief painless electric shock This disrupts reconsolidation of the memory, “erasing” it in part Causes of Memory Distortions temp part 2 28  1. Consistency bias (or hindsight bias): we tend to reconstruct the past to be more consistent with our current feelings and beliefs People asked how they felt 10 years ago about marijuana or gender issues recalled attitudes closer to their current views than to the views they had actually reported a decade earlier Couples who were re-interviewed after eight months remembered their past feelings about their partners as matching their current feelings more than had actually been the case 2. Schemas: generalized information about a situation or event (e.g., things people do at birthday parties) In general, people show enhanced recall for schema-consistent material but there are exceptions Repisodic memory: recall of a supposed event that is really the blending of details over repeated and related episodes If asked to recall the details of last Monday’s lunch, you might produce a repisodic memory based on what you usually do for lunch Misinformation effect: incorporating misleading information presented after an event into one’s memory of the event Study in which people were shown a film depicting a traffic accident, then either asked how fast the cars were going when they hit each other or how fast they were going when they smashed into each other ➔People gave faster speed estimates when word smashed was used ➔When asked a week later whether there was any broken glass in the accident, people who heard smashed were much more like to answer yes Source amnesia: attributing to the wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined Photo lineup studies Participants watched a staged crime, then examined mug shots to identify the perpetrator A few days later, they were asked to identify perpetrator in a lineup ➜ Participants revealed a strong tendency to select people whose faces had been seen only in the mug shots Implantation of false memories temp part 2 29  Studies show that it’s not all that hard to plant a false memory in a person’s mind Participants in one study were falsely led to “recall” that they had knocked over a punch bowl at a wedding when they were six-years-old In a more recent study, 70% of students reported a detailed false memory of having committed a crime, such as assaulting someone with a weapon 💡 Memories are particularly easy to implant if person is asked to visualize event Overconfidence in flashbulb memories (memory for the situation in which you first learned a very surprising and emotionally arousing event) People were interviewed one day after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and again, three years later Participants reported having vivid memories of what they had been doing when they heard the news and were very confident that their memories were accurate However, these recollections were often wrong! Average accuracy score was only 3 on a 7-point scale, and 25% of participants were wrong on every single detail 💡☞ Flashbulb memories are typically no more accurate than memories for other events – people’s confidence in their testimony is not strongly correlated with accuracy Eyewitness Testimony Eyewitness testimony is often mistaken It is estimated that 2000 to 10,000 people are wrongfully convicted each year in the U.S. on the basis of eyewitness testimony Case of man who spent 11 years in prison for rape before they found out on the basis of DNA testing that he couldn’t have been the assailant One study examined 62 cases in which innocent people were later exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence (including 8 in which person had been sentenced to death) In 52 of these 62 cases, the crucial evidence leading to conviction had come from eyewitnesses Errors are especially likely if: Witness’ attention was stressed and/or distracted (e.g., by presence of a gun) Plausible misinformation was given during questioning Witness is pressured to give a specific response Witness is given positive feedback (could be even a simple “OK”) 💡☞ Confidence of a witness is a very poor predictor of whether a memory is accurate; nevertheless juries are strongly influenced by confidence Face Recognition 💡☞ Attempt to verbalize memories/insights may in fact impair ability to recall what was actually there. Experiment: Participants are shown series of faces and asked to make either Holistic judgments (Does she look like an accountant?) OR temp part 2 30  Judgments about specific features (Does he have bushy eyebrows?) ➜ The holistic judgments condition resulted in better performance on recognition test ☞ Expert police sketch artist focus on asking witness about emotional characteristics of suspect in sketching portrait People are more accurate in identifying members of their own race (own- race bias or other race effect) Analyses of people’s descriptions of faces for police artist show that people tend to describe members of their own race more in terms of emotions or personality characteristics Effect seems to be primarily due to experience People of European descent more accurately identify individual African faces if they have watched a great deal of basketball on television, exposing them to many African-heritage faces Improving Testimony Warn witness that perpetrator might not be present Witnesses are often convinced that culprit must be present in a lineup and so simply pick the person who most closely resembles their memory of the perpetrator Researchers found that telling witnesses that perpetrator might not be present reduced number of innocent people who were identified incorrectly by 42% Ask witness to describe what happened before beginning questioning Cognitive interview technique: Reinstate physical and emotional context of the crime as fully as possible, e.g., by returning to the scene of the crime for the interview Ask witnesses to visualize scene and describe every detail before detective begins questioning ➔Technique has generally been found to result in recall of 30% to 35% more information without any increase in erroneous recall Ask witness open-ended questions Recovered Memories Much of the recovered memory literature has focused on cases of child abuse Recovered memories can be real Research has demonstrated that some people may indeed forget about painful childhood memories and recall it years later There have been documented cases of individuals who had been treated in hospital emergency rooms for childhood sexual abuse, yet these individuals failed to recall the episode when interviewed as adults Case of a college professor, Ross Cheit, who woke up one morning and suddenly remember having been molested by camp counselor – counselor confessed when confronted with the crime Recovered memories can be false Many reported incidences of abuse probably never happened Case of woman who “remembered” being raped by her father Research has shown that it is not all that hard to implant false memories Study on implanting false memories in children An adult repeatedly asked child to think about several real and fictitious events temp part 2 31  “Think hard, and tell me if this ever happened to you. Can you remember going to the hospital with a mousetrap on your finger?” After 10 weeks, a new adult asked the same question ➜58% of preschoolers produced false (and often vivid) stories regarding one or more events they had never experienced Children have particular difficulty with source monitoring Ex: they sometimes recall that they had performed a task that someone else had actually performed According to Freud, children’s attention tend to be focused on erogenous zones 3-year-olds were asked to show on anatomically correct dolls where pediatrician had touched them ➜55% who had not received genital examinations pointed to either genital or anal areas Children’s Eyewitness Testimony Under ideal circumstances, children’s reports can be trustworthy Reports may be unreliable when Children are young They have been supplied with suggestive questions Interviewers ask questions in a highly emotional tone or use complex language Nine-year-old girl said she had seen suspect with blood spattered on his shirt and hands Two weeks before scheduled execution, girl admitted that she wasn’t certain whether the red stain was blood or salsa (suspect had worked in a salsa factory) She said that she had originally testified against man because her mother had told her that he was a bad man, and people encouraged her to be more certain of her testimony than she was Déjà Vu Who experiences déjà vu? About 60% of population Positively correlated with socioeconomic level and education Negatively correlated with age Positively correlated with stress and fatigue More common in people who travel Scientific explanations: 1. Dual processing explanation Incoming sensory data follow several different pathways A slight alteration in transmission speed in one pathway could cause the brain to interpret the data as two separate experiences 2. Attentional explanation A fully processed perceptual experience that matches a minimally processed impression received moments earlier produces a strong feeling of familiarity The original impression may not have been fully processed due to a physical distraction or a mental distraction, such as preoccupation with other thoughts 3. Memory explanation: Implicit familiarity without explicit recollection temp part 2 32  Ex: Seeing a lamp in your friend’s apartment that is similar or identical to one that used to be in your aunt’s house Lecture 11 Neurological Mind Reading Team of neuroscientists at Carnegie Mellon led by Marcel Just are learning to read people’s minds based on fMRI cortical activation patterns In early study, researchers were able to identify which of 10 similar objects (e.g., hammer vs. drill vs. screwdriver) people were viewing based on scans Lab has now also identified activation patterns associated with Different abstract ideas (e.g., forgiveness vs. gossip vs. spirituality Thinking in different languages Different emotions Participant is asked to think of scenario that would conjure up disgust, envy, etc. (e.g., someone vomiting at baseball game, beautiful model) ➜ Computer is able to identify the emotion fMRI cortical activation patterns can now also be used to distinguish between participants with autism and controls with 97% accuracy ➜ When those with autism were asked to think of social interactions like adore, hug, humiliate, they showed significantly less activation in areas associated with the self than controls Thought of words more like definitions Patients with suicidal ideation were asked to think about death- related words (e.g., funeral, death) and positive words (e.g., praise, good, carefree) ➜ Compared with non-suicidal controls, self-related brain regions showed significantly more activation for death- related words and less activation for positive words The Online Brain: Effects of the Internet on Cognition 45% of US teens report that they are online “almost constantly” According to review article published in World Psychiatry, research suggests that this increase in Internet use may be Impairing our ability to sustain attention Negatively impacting our memory and analytical thinking ability Promoting a type of social comparison that increases risk of depression and mental health problems, especially among adolescents Effects of the Internet on Attention & Impulse Control Studies have shown that adopting a less physically and cognitively active lifestyle across the lifespan may accelerate loss of cognitive function Emerging evidence indicates that disengaging from the “real world” in favor of virtual settings may similarly induce adverse neurocognitive changes Ex: Adult participants (both gamers and non-gamers) engaged in an online role playing game daily for 6 weeks (55 hours total on average) ➜ Showed significant reductions in gray matter within the orbitofrontal cortex relative to matched controls temp part 2 33  💡 The OFC is a brain region important in executive function, impulse control, and decision making In addition, leading technology companies have been accused of intentionally capitalizing on the addictive potential of the Internet without concern for user well‐being They study, test, and refine attention‐grabbing aspects of their websites and apps to promote extremely high levels of use