7. The alteration hypothesis assumes that because of the misinformation effect, the original memory has changed. Elizabeth Loftus was a pioneer in the study of the alteration effect. In experiments, she would give subjects incentive (such as $25) for the right answer, but they could still not produce more accurate recall. In a second-guessing experiment, Loftus gave subjects the opportunity to change their answer once they were told that their guess was wrong; in this paradigm, the subjects jumped from 26% being wrong to 77% being wrong. In 1978, again with a film of a car accident, Loftus divided the participants into two groups. The first saw a car overtake at a ‘STOP’ sign, and the other saw a car overtake at a ‘YIELD’ sign. Each group was subdivided into two. The first group from each film was asked “Did another car pass at the stop sign?” and the second group was asked “Did another car pass at the yield sign?” Some time later, the participants were shown pairs of slides with subtle differences and asked which was from the film they had seen. One pair showed a car overtaking at a ‘STOP’ or ‘YIELD’ sign. 75% of those given consistent questions (who were not misinformed) chose the correct slide, while only 41% of those given questions inconsistent with the film chose the right slide. Because of these results, she began to think that she was actually altering original memories. However, another hypothesis exists called the co-existence hypothesis. This states that both the original memory and misinformation coexists. Berkian and Bowers repeated the experiment with the stop and yield signs, and found that for the experimental (mislead) group, errors were significantly greater when the choice recognition was presented in random order rather than sequential order. This supports encoding specificity because the subjects were asked to recall the information in the order in which it was learned and thus had a better recall. This supports the co-existence effect.

1. Flashbulb memories are those that are encoded in a heightened emotional state. The original theory stated that subjects remember flashbulb memories better (even if they are asked to focus on an everyday event). This is in part due to the “now print” mechanism – the tendency to record as much as possible when an event is encoded under a heightened emotional state. However, studies by Talrico and Ruben give us much more information. After different retention intervals (either 1, 7, 42, or 224 days after the event), the number of consistent details recalled is slightly greater for everyday events than for flashbulb memories (though they decrease at the same rate for both conditions). Errors, or inconsistent details, are also pretty much the same for flashbulb memories and everyday events. However, subjects were more confident in their ability to remember flashbulb memories than to remember everyday events.