Consider the following which is related to my other post on how to test Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM).
(1) Parker, Cahill, & McGaugh published the first study of a person with HSAM named AJ in the following: Elizabeth S. Parker, Larry Cahill, James L. McGaugh (2006). A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering. Neurocase, 12(1), 35-49. (see: http://www.psych.ufl.edu/~fischler/Hm/Parker06_MemorySavant.pdf ) In contrast to mnemonists who developed memory recoding skills (i.e., mnemonics) such as those reviewed by Ulric Neisser in his text "Memory Observed" (see the section on "Special People"; http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yf1F1c8oAB4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=Neisser+%22memory+observed%22&ots=LLHwadb6Zf&sig=wuAjBoNLzoJM9CT7dnwoPaEOt_o#v=onepage&q=Special%20people&f=false ) AJ showed an extraordinary episodic memory. Since Tulving made the distinction between semantic and episodic memory, researchers have deviated from Tulving's formulation by developing the theoretical entity known as "autobiographical memory" (Tulving lays out his view in his "Elements of Episodic Memory" which a number of memory researchers have argued against; there was an exchange between Roger Ratcliff * Gail McKoon and Tulving in one of the JEPs in which Tulving acknowledge some of the problems). Autobiographical memory differs from episodic memory in a number of ways, most notably, it is not strictly chronologically ordered, rather memories of events can be organized into hierarchical structures that define specific periods during which the events occurred (e.g., early childhood, high school, college, etc.). As Parker et al showed, AJ was average (mediocre?) on a number of intellectual and memory measures but could remember certain life event with a high degree of accuracy. But she could not remember everything and things that she experienced but did not interest her, were typically forgotten. (2) Shortly after the Parker et al article was published, a number of media outlets picked up on the research but, as usual, misrepresented the researcher. For example, the British newspaper the Mail had this headline for its news article on the research: |The woman who can't forget ANYTHING: Widow has ability - and |curse - to perfectly remember every single day of her life http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-564948/The-woman-forget-ANYTHING-Widow-ability--curse--perfectly-remember-single-day-life.html Now that's a catchy headline but it is just wrong. Infantile amnesia guarantees that the first few years of life cannot be remembered. Similarly, memory for the first several years is often limited, incomplete, and perhaps distorted by later events (e.g., the well-known story of Jean Piaget remembering being kidnapped as an infant but which never happened -- it was story his nanny made up because she met her boyfriend while taking the young Piaget out and came home late and the family repeated this story throughout Piaget's life until the nanny came clean to him when he was an adult). In addition, the battery of memory tests that Parker et al administered to AJ showed that she had pretty average memory for most things and pretty bad memory for other things (e.g., Bartlett's "War of the Ghosts" story which Mnemonists perform relatively well on). So, AJ CAN FORGET. Whether she can remember every day is another question but it would not be surprising if some days are simply not available. (3) Shortly after serving as a participant in Parker et al's study, AJ outed herself as Jill Price and put out a book with the title "The Woman Who Couldn't Forget" (see: http://www.amazon.com/The-Woman-Cant-Forget-Extraordinary/dp/1416561765 ) She showed up on some TV shows where she showed off her remarkable memory, notably on the ABC show 20/20 with Diane Sawyer; for the news article see: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4813052&page=1 For the 20/20 video of Jill Price being interviewed by Sawyer, see: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video?id=4819046 (I chant "Give her the War of the Ghosts test" while watching this video). Jill Price use the false metaphor that her memory is like a video tape and she just cues up the tape to remember an event. But we know this a false memory because what we remember depends upon a variety of factors that are operating at the time of the event (e.g., what type of cognitive processing we're engaged in, our emotional state, whether the event is familiar or novel, and so on). If her memory really was a "videotape" then she should have no problem with the "War of the Ghosts" story because all she would have to do is cue up the video to when her experience of the story begins but she cannot do this (because Jill calls this story as the stupidest thing that she ever heard and couldn't be bothered to remember it). So, how did the media portray the original Parker et al researcher and how did they present Jill Price? What was consistent with the original research and what is inconsistent? These things should be fairly obvious. The article on HSAM testing I linked to previously is also relevant because it shows how one can systematically test the claim that one has superior memory (and remember Neisser's examination of John Dean's "extraordinary" memory). -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] ---------------------------------- Original Message -------------------------------- On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 05:40:22 -0700, Marc Carter wrote: Hi, Annette -- I do something very much like this, but *after* students have had methods/stats. Before then (in methods) I will have them bring in the popular report on the research and answer questions about it, like "What else do you want to know in order to believe this?" and things like that. That might be a good exercise. And for the beginning students you might model for them what you want them to be able to do, so you could choose the article.... That might help get them along the road you want them on? > -----Original Message----- On Tuesday, August 21, 2012 9:47 PM, Annette Taylor wrote:: > > I am hoping that there is some collective wisdom at the well for me > tonight. I was planning to use a couple of media reports and primary > articles to have students compare the quality of the information > presented in them. I had hoped to have students read the media reports; > answer a number of questions about quality and then look to the source > papers to find the answers. Bah! Not working too well. > > Now maybe I am a stickler, but, on rereading the journal articles I > found myself completely dissatisfied with all the weaknesses of the > published papers! They were either too hard for me (let alone freshmen > with no stats classes behind them) to understand the results, or seemed > to minimize the correlation is not causation argument. BIG DEEP SIGH. > Or they simply had no answers to the important questions. I had been > hoping to use them just for that reason: the media outlets clearly took > the results too far. But now I see that the source articles are drawing > more grandiose conclusions than their data warrant! This seems to be a > popular theme of late. > > So, do any of you use this activity. What articles do you use? What are > your criteria? Are mine too stringent? > > Help?! > > Here are the articles I was going to use: > > Here are Mike's links from this morning: > http://www.asanet.org/documents/press/pdfs/AM_2012_Carolyn_Hsu_News_Rel > ease.pdf > Note that this is just a brief report and lacks detail. > Popular media: > http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2012/08/20/health-buzz- > college-binge-drinkers-report-being-happier > And here: > http://scienceblog.com/56149/binge-drinking-college-students-are- > happier-than-their-non-binge-drinking-peers/ > And here: > http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/08/20/binge-drinking- > makes-students-happy > And here, on the LiveScience website: > http://www.livescience.com/22512-college-binge-drinkers-happier.html > > Here are the articles about caffeine, women and depression: > http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/09/27/140837983/caffeinated- > women-may-be-fighting-depression-with-every-cup > and > http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/26/health/women-depression-coffee/index.html > and the source article: > http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1105943 > I did get the whole article for this one and found myself completely > unable to evaluate their statistics. > > Here are the articles about sexual activity and song lyrics: > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14227775/ns/health-sexual_health/t/dirty- > song-lyrics-can-prompt-early-teen-sex/ > and > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5629465 > and the source article > http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/118/2/e430.full.pdf+html > > for stressed men and heavy women: > http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/09/why-stressed-out-men-prefer- > heavier-women/ > and > http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/health/stressed-out-men-find-heavier- > women-attractive > and the source paper: > http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0042 > 593 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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