Memory Hackers
1) What is highly superior autobiographical memory?
When someone remembers days from their life in lots of detail and can’t forget.
2) What brain part did HM have removed that resulted in him being densely amnesic?
HM had removed much of the hippocampus to help stop the epileptic seizures.
3) What kind of task was HM able to learn?
HM was given a puzzle to trace a star shape using a mirror so he could make new memories by learning
this skill. (without his hand, it also proves that muscle movement and Episodic memory dier.)
4) What part of the brain did the drug propranolol block when the psychologist Merel Kindt
was trying to help people get over their fear of spiders?
The drug propranolol blocks the release of noradrenaline in the Amygdala.
5) Write a one-paragraph summary/critique of the false memory study conducted by Julia
Shaw.
Julia Shaw talks about how false our memories possibly are. She starts her false memory study on a
group of participants' childhoods to see if it's possible to input a false memory in participants' minds
by saying the participant committed a crime; a claim untrue. The rst participant of this experiment
seemed unsure after Shaw began to recite a false memory to the participant to see if she could
dierentiate between the actual real memory and false memory. Shaw then conducts an imaginative
exercise, subtly peer pressuring the participant into believing the false memories actually true. She tells
the participant to recite the false memory, therefore conrming in the participant's mind that the false
memory that seemed true was actually untrue. 6) How do you think you would have responded if you had been a participant in Shaw's
study? Why?
I would’ve tried to remember my original memory before the study, or at least consult with close
people in my family how true my “memories” were. I feel like I would trust my family members’
memory over someone who I wouldn’t really know.