Ajudando a lembrar : aprendizado social e conformidade de memória

Abstract

This Master's thesis consists of two studies, one theoretical and one empirical, about memory conformity. Memory conformity occurs when information one person's report leads other people exposed it to remember the same information. The theoretical session consists of a narrative review presenting how and why memory conformity occurs, suggesting that this effect is a social learning product. This session approach evolutionary causes of memory conformity, suggesting a broader look to this phenomenon. The empirical session tests a new experimental paradigm to study memory conformity effect on learning, testing if choosing to know other’s answer increases the probability of remembering this information in the future. Thus, we performed an experiment with 124 undergraduate students divided among three groups. One group chose when access another’s person answer (n=47), another group was randomply exposed to another’s person answer (n=53) and a control group was not exposed to another’s person answer. The main results indicated that choosing to access another’s person answer lead to a immediate improve in the mean of correct information retrieved. This effect did not last when the subjects were tested again, four days after the exposition to another’s person answer, and the control group presented a higher mean of correct information retrieved. Also, choosing access another’s persons answer did not increase the memory conformity effect in long term memory. The findings suggest that information based mainly in other’s answer are less likely to remain in long term memory, when compared to information based mainly in one’s own memory.