An older individual learns about the potential side effects of a drug she is currently taking from a pharmaceutical advertisement she sees on television. When she recalls the information later, she remembers hearing about those potential side effects from her physician, not the advertisement. This scenario illustrates which of the following?

Question

An older individual learns about the potential side effects of a drug she is currently taking from a pharmaceutical advertisement she sees on television.  When she recalls the information later, she remembers hearing about those potential side effects from her physician, not the advertisement.  This scenario illustrates which of the following?

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

11ecba2d_0d78_fbee_a3bf_4784502c8159_MD0008_00 Memories are not perfect recordings of past events. Memory construction refers to the process of recreating a memory each time it is recalled. Rather than being stored and recalled as a copy of exact events that occurred, memories appear to be reconstructed upon recall, which can result in alterations to the memory. The nature of memory construction leads to some common memory mistakes, such as source monitoring errors, which occur when a memory is attributed to the wrong source (eg, a cousin's funny story is mistakenly attributed to an aunt). A scenario in which an individual remembers hearing something from her physician (when in fact the source of the information was a pharmaceutical advertisement) illustrates a source monitoring error. (Choice B) The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to blame others' behavior on their internal (eg, "she is stupid") instead of external (eg, "the test was hard") factors. The fundamental attribution error does not account for misattributing information to the wrong source. (Choice C) Negative priming refers to the impaired processing (ie, slower response or reduced accuracy) that occurs when a stimulus is initially ignored and then later attended to (eg, first being asked to pick a red pen and ignore other colored pens in a cup, and then when asked to pick a blue pen, response time is slower). Negative priming does not account for misattributing information to the wrong source. (Choice D) Hindsight bias describes the tendency to perceive an event as being likely after it has occurred, even if it was unlikely (eg, after getting into a minor car accident, an individual states that she "just knew" she should have stayed home). Hindsight bias does not account for misattributing information to the wrong source. Educational objective: Memories are reconstructed each time they are recalled, leading to common memory errors. Source monitoring errors occur when a memory is attributed to the wrong source (eg, information from a television commercial is attributed to one's physician).

An Older Individual Learns About the Potential Side Effects of a Drug