DOCSLIB.ORG

Culture Effects on Adults' Earliest Childhood Recollection and Self-Description: Implications for the Relation Between Memory and the Self

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Culture Effects on Adults' Earliest Childhood Recollection and Self-Description: Implications for the Relation Between Memory and the Self Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 2001 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2001, Vol. 81, No. 2, 220-233 0022-3514/01/S5.00 DOI: 10.1037//OO22-3514.81.2.220 Culture Effects on Adults' Earliest Childhood Recollection and Self-Description: Implications for the Relation Between Memory and the Self Qi Wang Cornell University American and Chinese college students (N = 256) reported their earliest childhood memory on a memory questionnaire and provided self-descriptions on a shortened 20 Statements Test (M. H. Kuhn & T. S. McPartland, 1954). The average age at earliest memory of Americans was almost 6 months earlier than that of Chinese. Americans reported lengthy, specific, self-focused, and emotionally elaborate memories; they also placed emphasis on individual attributes in describing themselves. Chinese provided brief accounts of childhood memories centering on collective activities, general routines, and emotionally neutral events; they also included a great number of social roles in their self-descriptions. Across the entire sample, individuals who described themselves in more self-focused and positive terms provided more specific and self-focused memories. Findings are discussed in light of the interactive relation between autobiographical memory and cultural self-construal. When asked to think of her earliest childhood memory, a Har- The work of early theorists (e.g., Greenwald, 1980; Kelly, 1955; vard undergraduate wrote down the following episode that hap- Markus, 1977; Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977; Schachtel, 1947) pened when she was about 3 years old: foreshadowed the interface between the self and autobiographical memory. For example, George Kelly (1955) proposed that a per- I remember standing in my aunt's spacious blue bedroom and looking sonal experience must be supported within an existing self- up at the ceiling. Then something caught my eye—it was the white structure to be remembered clearly. Schachtel (1947) regarded wainscoting that bordered the top of the wall with the ceiling. I remember staring, fixated with its intricate design. And while I was memory as a function of the living personality that is recon- doing this, all of sudden, I had an epiphany, a sort [of] realization. It structed from past experiences in the service of present needs, was almost my first realization of a sense of "self." Because, as I was fears, and interests. A number of contemporary investigators have staring at the ceiling, I realized that no one else was around. I extended the theoretical connection between the self and autobio- remember being taken aback by the ability to amuse myself without graphical memory. They have posited that the self operates on the any toys. encoding, organization, and retrieval of personally meaningful events (Brewer, 1986; Conway, 1996; Neisser, 1994; Ross & This memory presents us with a vivid picture: At the moment of Wilson, 2000; Thompson, Skowronski, Larsen, & Betz, 1996), and the episode, a child shows the capability of being consciously that the constructive process of autobiographical remembering is aware of herself as a physical and psychological being independent crucial for the development, expression, and maintenance of a from the environment, and of the existence of the self both as dynamic self-concept (Bruner, 1990; Fitzgerald, 1992; Fivush, subject with active agency and as object that can be acted on or 1994; Nelson, 1996; Pillemer, 1998; Singer & Salovey, 1993). influenced by the surroundings. This emerging sense of conscious self-identity is a cornerstone to many cognitive advances that Earliest childhood memories signify the emergence of an auto- emerge during this early period of life, including the onset of biographical self and therefore provide a unique and useful lens autobiographical memory, which is built around conscious epi- through which to investigate the interactive relation between mem- sodic reflection (Foulkes, 1999). ory and self. The phenomenon of infantile amnesia (i.e., the common inability to remember experiences from the first years of life) has long been a puzzle intriguing philosophers and psychol- ogists. A number of explanations have been offered since Freud's This research was supported by grants from the Department of (1949) proposal that such amnesia results from repression of Psychology, Harvard University. I thank Michelle D. Leichtman and forbidden desires, and the topic remains the focus of a great deal Sheldon H. White for their comments on an earlier version of this of theoretical debate (e.g., Harley & Reese, 1999; Howe & Cour- article. I am deeply grateful to Mike Ross for his generous help age, 1993, 1997; Neisser,, 1967; Nelson, 1996; Pillemer & White, during the revision process. Special thanks go to the participants 1989; Schachtel, 1947; Wang, Leichtman, & White, 1998). Cur- from Beijing University and Harvard University, who made this study possible. rent research indicates that the emergence of autobiographical Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Qi Wang, memory is associated with a host of neurological, cognitive, lin- Department of Human Development, Cornell University, Martha Van guistic, and social mechanisms. One aspect of the cognitive mech- Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, New York 14853-4401. Electronic mail may be anism suggested by researchers is the development of a cognitive sent to [email protected]. sense of self as indicated, for example, by mirror self-recognition, 220 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY AND THE SELF 221 which is thought to be a critical precursor to personal event Although variation exists in the degree to which individuals memory (Howe & Courage, 1993, 1997). However, if both mem- exhibit an independent versus an interdependent orientation in ory and self are indeed socially formulated (e.g., Bruner, 1990; self-construal both within and across East Asian and Western Fivush, 1994), one can hardly understand the emergence and cultures (Lee & Zane, 1998; P. J. Miller & Sperry, 1987; development of memory and self by focusing only on individual Nakamura, 1964; Spiro, 1993; Wang & Hsueh, 2000), norma- cognitive processes and neglecting their social contexts. tive differences between particular Eastern and Western cul- To address this issue, my colleagues and I (Wang et al., 1998) tures are marked (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998; examined childhood recollection and self-description in youag Hsu, 1953; Kagitcibasi, 1996; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Tri- Chinese adults who came from either only-child or multiple- andis, 1989). child families. Consistent with previous observation that the These cultural differences in the conceptual representation of copious adult attention paid to only children within the Chinese the self should correspond with different forms of autobiographical family tends to produce more egotistical offspring (Jiao, Ji, & remembering. As Markus and Kitayama (1991) commented, a Jing, 1986; Lee, 1992), we found that only-child Chinese adults consequence of "having an interdependent self as opposed to an were more individually oriented than were those with siblings, independent self concerns the ways in which knowledge about self describing themselves in more self-focused terms and providing and other is processed, organized, and retrieved from memory" (p. earlier and more self-focused childhood memories. Thus, early 232). Although researchers have speculated on the possible rela- upbringing appears to largely shape how the self is organized tions between different cultural construals of the self and different and how personal experiences are remembered. We suggested forms of autobiographical remembering (Mullen, 1994; Pillemer, that in addition to requiring that a cognitive self be in place 1998), no empirical study has been conducted to date to directly (Howe & Courage, 1993, 1997), the onset of autobiographical examine this crucial link. In addition, there has been no systematic memory may be facilitated or inhibited by particular forms of investigation of cultural differences in the cognitive style and self-organization sustained by diverse socialization practices socioemotional substance of adults' childhood recollections. The (Wang et al., 1998). present study redresses these deficiencies by systematically exam- The very few cross-cultural studies to date on adults' and ining cultural variation in adults' earliest childhood recollection, children's personal recollections have given rise to new questions cultural self-construal, and the relation between the two among concerning the relation between autobiographical memory and the Americans and Chinese. It integrates developmental, cognitive, self. Mullen (1994) found that the age at earliest memory for Asian and sociocultural perspectives, and uses a method with the strength adults was significantly later than for Americans, who on average of both cognitive and social psychology. recalled their childhood memories back to as early as 3.5 years From a functionalist perspective, personal event memories with (Pillemer & White, .1989). Observation has suggested that free- specific details and elaboration are important for people with an flowing, self-revealing, lengthy accounts of discrete, one-point-in- independently oriented self-construal to distinguish themselves as time personal events are more prevalent among Westerners than unique individuals. In contrast, there may be less need for elabo- Asians (Pillemer, 1998; Rottger-Rossler, 1993; Weintraub, 1978). rated, detailed autobiographical
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Early Childhood Memory and Attention As Predictors of Academic Growth Trajectories
    Running head: MEMORY, ATTENTION AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT 1 Early Childhood Memory and Attention as Predictors of Academic Growth Trajectories Deborah Stipek and Rachel Valentino Stanford University Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Deborah Stipek, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305. Email: [email protected] Running head: MEMORY, ATTENTION AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT 2 Abstract Longitudinal data from the children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) were used to assess how well measures of short-term and working memory and attention in early childhood predicted longitudinal growth trajectories in mathematics and reading comprehension. Analyses also examined whether changes in memory and attention were more strongly predictive of changes in academic skills in early childhood than in later childhood. All predictors were significantly associated with academic achievement and years of schooling attained, although the latter was at least partially mediated by predictors’ effect on academic achievement in adolescence. The relationship of working memory and attention with academic outcomes was also found to be strong and positive in early childhood, but non-significant or small and negative in later years. The study results provide support for a “fade-out” hypothesis, which suggests that underlying cognitive capacities predict learning in the early elementary grades, but the relationship fades by late elementary school. These findings suggest that whereas efforts to develop attention and memory may improve academic achievement in the early grades, in the later grades interventions that focus directly on subject matter learning are more likely to improve achievement. Running head: MEMORY, ATTENTION AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT 3 Early Childhood Memory and Attention as Predictors of Academic Growth Trajectories Success in school requires many skills.
    [Show full text]
  • Emotionally Charged Autobiographical Memories Across the Life Span: the Recall of Happy, Sad, Traumatic, and Involuntary Memories
    Psychology and Aging Copyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2002, Vol. 17, No. 4, 636–652 0882-7974/02/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//0882-7974.17.4.636 Emotionally Charged Autobiographical Memories Across the Life Span: The Recall of Happy, Sad, Traumatic, and Involuntary Memories Dorthe Berntsen David C. Rubin University of Aarhus Duke University A sample of 1,241 respondents between 20 and 93 years old were asked their age in their happiest, saddest, most traumatic, most important memory, and most recent involuntary memory. For older respondents, there was a clear bump in the 20s for the most important and happiest memories. In contrast, saddest and most traumatic memories showed a monotonically decreasing retention function. Happy involuntary memories were over twice as common as unhappy ones, and only happy involuntary memories showed a bump in the 20s. Life scripts favoring positive events in young adulthood can account for the findings. Standard accounts of the bump need to be modified, for example, by repression or reduced rehearsal of negative events due to life change or social censure. Many studies have examined the distribution of autobiographi- (1885/1964) drew attention to conscious memories that arise un- cal memories across the life span. No studies have examined intendedly and treated them as one of three distinct classes of whether this distribution is different for different classes of emo- memory, but did not study them himself. In his well-known tional memories. Here, we compare the event ages of people’s textbook, Miller (1962/1974) opened his chapter on memory by most important, happiest, saddest, and most traumatic memories quoting Marcel Proust’s description of how the taste of a Made- and most recent involuntary memory to explore whether different leine cookie unintendedly brought to his mind a long-forgotten kinds of emotional memories follow similar patterns of retention.
    [Show full text]
  • The New BRAIN
    SPECIAL EDITION The New BRAIN MACLEAN’S EBOOK Contents Introduction Join us for a giant brainstorming session on what the world’s neuroscience superstars are keeping top of mind The glia club Once dismissed as ‘glue,’ glial cells, neuron’s little brother, have become the lodestone of brain research. But is it a good idea for scientists to herd in one direction? Charlie Gillis How to build a brain A philosopher and engineer has created the most complex simulated brain in the world. On $30,000 a year. Nick Taylor-Vaisey Mad beauty A conceptual photographer dusts off the jars of a brain collection from a Texas mental hospital David Graham They grow up so fast The latest research on a baby’s remarkable brain development, from recognizing right and wrong to the gift of memory Rosemary Counter Gone baby gone Why don’t we remember anything from earliest childhood? It’s called infantile amnesia. Emma Teitel MACLEAN’S EBOOK THE NEW BRAIN Memory and gender Emma Teitel The young and the restless No one knows why autistic kids are often night owls, but their parents can take heart: science is looking at some biological causes based in the brain Katherine DeClerq Crying out for attention How one psychologist is offering hope to parents worried about the stigma, safety and side effects of ADHD medication Hannah Hoag Mind the age gap Previously dismissed as lesser or defective, new research is revealing that the teenage brain is just as powerful as any adult’s Rosemary Counter No brawn, no brains Genetics may decide your upper and lower limits for cognitive
    [Show full text]
  • Teaching Accurate Recall to Young Children with Autism Using Mobile Technologies And
    TEACHING ACCURATE RECALL 1 How Was Your Day in Preschool? Teaching Accurate Recall to Young Children with Autism Using Mobile Technologies and Visuals Supports Ariane N. Gauvreau A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2015 Reading Committee: Ilene Schwartz, Chair Susan Sandall Charles Peck Program Authorized to Offer Degree: College of Education TEACHING ACCURATE RECALL 2 ©Copyright 2015 Ariane N. Gauvreau TEACHING ACCURATE RECALL 3 University of Washington Abstract How Was Your Day in Preschool? Teaching Accurate Recall to Young Children with Autism Using Mobile Technologies and Visual Supports Ariane N. Gauvreau Chair of Supervisory Committee: Professor Ilene Schwartz College of Education As the number of children diagnosed with autism increases, the need for sustainable interventions and easy to use technologies is important. Advances in technology have changed the way educators can deliver and support instruction, in general and special education classrooms. This mixed methods study investigated the use of mobile technology-created visual supports as a method for teaching accurate recall to three young children with autism. Results suggest that these technologies may provide a sustainable way of developing and implementing visuals, provide a method of teaching accurate recall to young children with autism, and enhance parent-child conversations about the child’s day at school. Implications for teachers, families, and children with autism are
    [Show full text]
  • Retrieval and Phenomenology of Autobiographical Memories in Blind Individuals
    Memory, 2015 Vol. 23, No. 3, 329–339, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2014.886702 Retrieval and phenomenology of autobiographical memories in blind individuals Ali ˙I. Tekcan, Engin Yılmaz, Burcu Kaya Kızılöz, Dilay Z. Karadöller, Merve Mutafog˘ lu, and Aslı Aktan Erciyes Department of Psychology, Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Turkey (Received 13 August 2013; accepted 20 January 2014) Although visual imagery is argued to be an essential component of autobiographical memory, there have been surprisingly few studies on autobiographical memory processes in blind individuals, who have had no or limited visual input. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how blindness affects retrieval and phenomenology of autobiographical memories. We asked 48 congenital/early blind and 48 sighted participants to recall autobiographical memories in response to six cue words, and to fill out the Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire measuring a number of variables including imagery, belief and recollective experience associated with each memory. Blind participants retrieved fewer memories and reported higher auditory imagery at retrieval than sighted participants. Moreover, within the blind group, participants with total blindness reported higher auditory imagery than those with some light perception. Blind participants also assigned higher importance, belief and recollection ratings to their memories than sighted participants. Importantly, these group differences remained the same for recent as well as childhood memories. Keywords: Autobiographical memory; Visual imagery; Memory phenomenology; Visual impairment; Blindness. Visual imagery is considered an integral part 1984). For instance, Rubin and Kozin (1984) asked of autobiographical remembering (Brewer, 1996; participants to rate autobiographical memories in Conway, 2005; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; terms of vividness by asking “How vivid is your Rubin, 1995).
    [Show full text]
  • THE IMPORTANCE and EFFECTS of CHILDHOOD MEMORY and FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS in the POETRY of ADRIENNE RICH and SHARON OLDS WORKS CITED: AMY SPEARS '98 Foucault, Michel
    Articulāte Volume 2 Article 11 1997 The mpI ortance and Effects of Childhood Memory and Family Relationships in the Poetry of Adrienne Rich and Sharon Olds Amy Spears Denison University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.denison.edu/articulate Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Spears, Amy (1997) "The mporI tance and Effects of Childhood Memory and Family Relationships in the Poetry of Adrienne Rich and Sharon Olds," Articulāte: Vol. 2 , Article 11. Available at: http://digitalcommons.denison.edu/articulate/vol2/iss1/11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articulāte by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. 58 The Sexuality of Power... we must expose these cultural myths and work to destroy beliefs so accomplish this can women truly "be anything that [they] wanna naturalized into society that they are seen as truths. Not until we be." THE IMPORTANCE AND EFFECTS OF CHILDHOOD MEMORY AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE POETRY OF ADRIENNE RICH AND SHARON OLDS WORKS CITED: AMY SPEARS '98 Foucault, Michel. "Truth and Power." Critical Theory Since Plato, 1992. 1135-1145. dren; however, it is her more personal poetry that focuses on her Golden, Kristen. "Phyllis Burke: Exploding Myths of Male and // isbardto write about my own mother. Whatever! do write, it is my story I am telling, my version of the relationship with her father. In her actual life it seems that Rich's Female."Afo November/December 1996: 83. past. If she were to tell her own story other landscapes would be revealed.
    [Show full text]
  • CHILDREN's MEMORY, TRAUMATIC MEMORIES and the CHILD WITNESS
    CHILD MEMORY, TRAUMATIC MEMORY and the CHILD WITNESS George E. Davis, MD 2017 Children’s Law Institute INTERPRETING THE RESEARCH • The complications of memory study • Test conditions and questions don’t always match real life situations and motivations • Divergent interests • Although broad rules can be proposed for different ages and conditions, reliability depends on the individual case REFERENCES 1. Memory and Suggestibility in the Forensic Interview (Eisen, Quas and Goodman, 2002) 2. Stress, Trauma and Children’s Memory Development (Howe, Goodman and Cicchetti, 2008) 3. Children as Victims, Witnesses, and Offenders (Bottoms, Najdowski and Goodman, 2009) MEMORY PROCESS • MEMORY COMPONENTS – Encoding • PerceptionConstruct • Child age and knowledge – Storage • Combination, sorting, comparison in the hippocampus • Short term, long term and working memory – Retrieval • Reconstruction from associations and neural networks that are frontal and temporal TYPES of MEMORY • TYPES OF MEMORY – Explicit / Declarative / Conscious • Episodic—events • Semantic—facts • Intentional, whether learned or recalled • Organized and encoded by hippocampus and medial temporal – Implicit / Contextual / Unconscious • Procedural—riding a bike, driving to work, tying shoes, etc • Encoded and stored in motor control and brain stem – Conditioned responses—eg, fear of certain people – Autobiographical—the continuous sense of self over time DISSOCIATION • Dissociation is a breakdown in memory, consciousness and sense of self provoked by extreme fear, pain or psychological
    [Show full text]
  • Memory Plays Before the “Memory Play”
    Fall 2007 29 Some Memory Plays Before the “Memory Play” Attilio Favorini Talk about memory has become the language through which we address some of our most pressing concerns. This is because in modernity memory is the key to personal and collective identity. —Michael S. Roth, The Ironist’s Cage: Memory, Trauma, and the Construction of History In my own case the earliest childhood memories are . regular scenes worked out in plastic form, comparable only to representations on the stage. —Sigmund Freud, “Childhood Memories and Screen Memories” Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences. —Freud and Breuer, Studies on Hysteria1 Though comparatively neglected, memory may be reckoned as significant as race, gender and class as a feature of dramatic character construction. As André Malraux once put it—presciently, in light of contemporary neuroscience—“One day it will be realized that men are distinguishable as much by the forms their memories take as by their characters.”2 But if dramatic criticism has largely ignored memory,3 memory studies have characteristically overlooked drama: excellent, comprehensive, and essential works such as those by Edward S. Casey and Douwe Draisma4 make reference to not a single play. Just as the history of drama could be rewritten to include memory, the history of memory could be rewritten to include drama. We need to establish the category of “memographers”—thinkers and writers about memory irrespective of discipline. Focusing singularly on the dramatic construction of memory has the disadvantage of seeming to ignore the many other memory sites within theatre. But such concentration offers a vantage point for recognizing how dramatists have contributed to the conception of memory alongside philosophers and psychologists, as well as social and cognitive scientists.
    [Show full text]
  • Emotion and Memory: Children’S Long-Term Remembering, Forgetting, and Suggestibility
    Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 72, 235–270 (1999) Article ID jecp.1999.2491, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on Emotion and Memory: Children’s Long-Term Remembering, Forgetting, and Suggestibility Jodi A. Quas University of California, Berkeley Gail S. Goodman University of California, Davis Sue Bidrose, Margaret-Ellen Pipe, and Susan Craw University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand and Deborah S. Ablin University of California, Davis Children’s memories for an experienced and a never-experienced medical procedure were examined. Three- to 13-year-olds were questioned about a voiding cystourethrogram fluoros- copy (VCUG) they endured between 2 and 6 years of age. Children 4 years or older at VCUG were more accurate than children younger than 4 at VCUG. Longer delays were associated with providing fewer units of correct information but not with more inaccuracies. Parental avoidant attachment style was related to increased errors in children’s VCUG memory. Children were more likely to assent to the false medical procedure when it was alluded to briefly than when described in detail, and false assents were related to fewer “do-not-know” responses about the VCUG. Results have implications for childhood amnesia, stress and memory, individual differences, and eyewitness testimony. © 1999 Academic Press Key Words: children’s memory; infantile amnesia; emotion; attachment; suggestibility; eyewitness testimony. That emotions play a role in influencing the memorability of personal expe- riences has been recognized since, if not before, the early writings of Freud This study was funded by grants to Gail S. Goodman from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Division 9 of the American Psychological Association) and the University of California, Davis Faculty Research Grant Program, and a grant to Margaret-Ellen Pipe from the New Zealand Health Research Council.
    [Show full text]
  • Attachment to Childhood Places in Adult Memory and Brazilian Immigrant's Sense of Well-Being in the USA
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-1998 Attachment to childhood places in adult memory and Brazilian immigrant's sense of well-being in the USA. Joao Menezes de Sá University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation de Sá, Joao Menezes, "Attachment to childhood places in adult memory and Brazilian immigrant's sense of well-being in the USA." (1998). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 1256. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/1256 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BlEDbb asm IDMS tD ATTACHMENT TO CHILDHOOD PLACES IN ADULT MEMORY AND BRAZILIAN IMMIGRANT'S SENSE OF WELL-BEING IN THE USA A Dissertation Presented by JOAO MENEZES DE SA Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 1998 School of Education © Copyright by Joao Menezes de Sa 1998 All Rights Reserved ATTACHMENT TO CHILDHOOD PLACES IN ADULT MEMORY AND BRAZILIAN IMMIGRANT'S SENSE OF WELL-BEING IN THE USA A Dissertation Presented by JOAO MENEZES DE SA Approved as to style and content by: Maria Brassard,
    [Show full text]
  • Unspringing the Witness Memory and Demeanor Trap: What Every Judge and Juror Needs to Know About Cognitive Psychology and Witness Credibility
    Unspringing The Witness Memory and Demeanor Trap: What Every Judge And Juror Needs to Know About Cognitive Psychology And Witness Credibility By: Mark W. Bennett Unspringing The Witness Memory and Demeanor Trap: What Every Judge And Juror Needs to Know About Cognitive Psychology And Witness Credibility 1 Mark W. Bennett The soul of America’s civil and criminal justice systems is the ability of jurors and judges to accurately determine the facts of a dispute. This invariably implicates the credibility of witnesses. In making credibility determinations, jurors and judges necessarily decide the accuracy of witnesses’ memories and the effect of the witnesses’ demeanor on their credibility. Almost all jurisdictions’ pattern jury instructions about witness credibility explain nothing about how a witness’s memories for events and conversations work—and how startlingly fallible memories actually are. They simply instruct the jurors to consider the witness’s “memory”—with no additional guidance. Similarly, the same pattern jury instructions on demeanor seldom do more than ask jurors to speculate about a witness’s demeanor by instructing them to merely observe “the manner of the witness” while testifying. Yet, thousands of cognitive psychological studies have provided major insights into witness memory and demeanor. The resulting cognitive psychological principles that are now widely accepted as the gold standard about witness memory and demeanor are often contrary to what jurors intuitively, but wrongly, believe. Most jurors believe that memory works like a video camera that can perfectly recall the details of past events. Rather, memory is more like a Wikipedia page where you can go in and change it, but so can others.
    [Show full text]
  • A Critical Evaluation of the Semantic-Episodic Distinction
    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Copyright 1986 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. Learning, Memory, and Cognition 0278-7393/86/S00.75 1986, Vol. 12, No. 2, 295-306 OBSERVATIONS A Critical Evaluation of the Semantic-Episodic Distinction Gail McKoon and Roger Ratcliff Gary S. Dell Northwestern University University of Rochester Tulving (1983, 1984) has recently claimed that a wide range of evidence supports the distinction between episodic and semantic memory systems. He has provided a list of features to describe the differences between the two systems and a set of experimental results to demonstrate the distinction. In this article, we present opposing evidence that invalidates many of the distinguishing features and contradicts interpretations of the supporting experiments. In addition, we argue that the question of whether there are two separate memory systems cannot be answered without a specific theory about the differences between the systems. It has long been recognized by psychologists and philosophers tinction to neuropsychological data concerning amnesia and that experience leaves its effect on the mind in the form of both brain damage. When the ability to form new autobiographical specific memories for events and knowledge that is not tied to memories is lost, yet old memories are retained, it could be said such events (see Herrmann, 1982, for a review). This distinction that the episodic system is damaged while the semantic system was eloquently brought to the attention of cognitive psychologists is intact. In sum, Tulving's distinction is of great heuristic and by Tulving in 1972. Tulving distinguished between episodic pragmatic use. However, an evaluation of the theoretical and memory, which records events directly experienced by the sub- empirical status of the distinction, as presented in this article, ject, and semantic memory, which stores general knowledge of leads to the conclusion that the case for the distinction is weak.
    [Show full text]