discoveringpsych7e

Chapter Introduction

226

Memory

(bkgrd) Shahril KHMD/Shutterstock

IN THIS CHAPTER:

INTRODUCTION: What Is Memory?

Retrieval: Getting Information from Long-Term Memory

Forgetting: When Retrieval Fails

Imperfect Memories: Errors, Distortions, and False Memories

The Search for the Biological Basis of Memory

PSYCH FOR YOUR LIFE: Ten Steps to Boost Your Memory

THE DROWNING

PROLOGUE

ELIZABETH WAS ONLY 14 YEARS OLD when her mother drowned. Although Elizabeth remembered many things about visiting her Uncle Joe’s home in Pennsylvania that summer, her memory of the details surrounding her mother’s death had always been hazy. As she explained:

In my mind I’ve returned to that scene many times, and each time the memory gains weight and substance. I can see the cool pine trees, smell their fresh tarry breath, feel the lake’s algae-green water on my skin, taste Uncle Joe’s iced tea with fresh-squeezed lemon. But the death itself was always vague and unfocused. I never saw my mother’s body, and I could not imagine her dead. The last memory I have of my mother was her tiptoed visit the evening before her death, the quick hug, the whispered, “I love you.”

Some 30 years later, at her Uncle Joe’s 90th birthday party, Elizabeth learned from a relative that she had been the one to discover her mother’s body in Uncle Joe’s swimming pool. With this realization, memories that had eluded Elizabeth for decades began to come back.

The memories began to drift back, slow and unpredictable, like the crisp piney smoke from the evening campfires. I could see myself, a thin, dark-haired girl, looking into the flickering blue-and-white pool. My mother, dressed in her nightgown, is floating face down. “Mom? Mom?” I ask the question several times, my voice rising in terror. I start screaming. I remember the police cars, their lights flashing, and the stretcher with the clean, white blanket tucked in around the edges of the body. The memory had been there all along, but I just couldn’t reach it.

As the memory crystallized, it suddenly made sense to Elizabeth why she had always felt haunted by her vague memories of the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death. And it also seemed to explain, in part, why she had always been so fascinated by the topic of memory.

227

MYTH OR SCIENCE?

Is it true . . .

That “flashbulb memories,” the vivid memories you form after an important, dramatic event, are no more accurate than other memories?
That déjà vu experiences are a type of ESP, and may be examples of precognition or memories from a previous lifetime?
That memory is like a video recorder–it preserves a perfect record of your experience?
That eyewitness testimony is the most reliable form of courtroom evidence?
That once formed, memories can’t change?
That it’s common to completely repress memories of traumatic events, but that such events can be accurately remembered under hypnosis?
That all memories, even complex ones, are located in a single part of the brain?

However, several days later, Elizabeth learned that the relative had been wrong—it was not Elizabeth who discovered her mother’s body, but her Aunt Pearl. Other relatives confirmed that Aunt Pearl had been the one who found Elizabeth’s mother in the swimming pool. Yet Elizabeth’s memory had seemed so real.

The Elizabeth in this true story is Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who is nationally recognized as the leading expert on the distortions that can occur in the memories of eyewitnesses. Loftus shares this personal story in her book The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse.

In this chapter, we’ll consider the psychological and biological processes that underlie how memories are formed and forgotten. As you’ll see, memory distortions such as the one Elizabeth Loftus experienced are relatively common. By the end of this chapter, you’ll have a much better understanding of the memory process, including the reason that Elizabeth’s “memory” of finding her mother’s body seemed so real.