2. LTM (forgeting) Flashcards
Reconsolidation
When memories are recalled they are recomsolidated making them more susceptible to changes again.
Memory is constructive- allows us to imagine the future, not a strict videotape of the past as it is not useful.
Allows us to update and renew our knowledge
Implications for PTSD treatments…
Pure consolidation is rare, most memories are combined with existing memory traces… Therefore reconsolidation.
Retrieval cues
Information utilised at the time of recall that affects memory performance
Improve memory performance is set up at encoding
Can be internal or external
Encoding specificity
Retrieval cues best when they are similar to the cues at encoding
Locus of effect is neither at encoding or retrieval, but an interaction of the two
Context dependent memory
Environmental context- internal and external
Ie room, time of day, alcohol, caffeine drugs etc
Smith and Vela: effect of context dependent memory can be abolished if….
- ptp focusses inwardly during encoding
- non contextual cues such as cued recall or recognition are used
EFFECT GREATEST ON FREE RECALL AS RECOGNITION IS A STRONG CUE BY ITSELF
Multiple retrieval cues
Are useful as they provide an alternate route to the information if one route is blocked
Improve recall :)
Visual retrieval cues
A camera worn by patients with anterograde amnesia recording time lapse images throughout the day to prompt memories later on .
Memory is constructive
Not a videotape of the past- this is just not very helpful, cannot change the past!
As a result it is fragile and open to distortions and false memory
Optimised efficiency
Utilise past experiences and memory to imagine the future
Amnesia memories of the future….
Found that amnesia patients struggle to imagine the future…
Either due to problems with a narrative or with EM
Found that when patients are given the details of a story they can tell it as long as it doesn’t require accessing personal episodic memory.
Therefore EM is involved in imagining the future
Implicit memory
NOT declarative
NOT episodic
NOT reliant on MTL
Adaptive improvement of function via experience
Procedural memory, priming and conditioning use different neural structures to declarative memory- they are unaffected in amnesia patients.. They can still learn new skills. HM could improve IQ
Conditioning
Associative learning
Examples
- pin stab hand shake
- electric shock hand shake
- loud noise and colour (no fear response of amygdala damaged)
Procedural
Perceptuomotor (typing, athletic skill, musical skill)
Cognitive (chess, reading, language)
Initially efforts full, then automatic
‘Expert amnesia’ when something is so automatic you have no recollection of doing it
When it is explicitly thought about, performance is inhibited.. “Choking”
I’ve driving or expert typists do not have explicit memory of the keyboard
AMNESIC PATIENTS CAN DO THIS JUST FINE
Procedural memory and amnesia
Learning of strict procedures can aid activities in every day life.
Priming
Quick and effortless
Lexical decision- is nurse a word? Is hidbj a word?
Fragment completion
Word stem completion
Conceptual fluency
Repetition priming
Encountering a stimulus more than once can speed up and facilitate a response to it
Intact in amnesia patients
Perceptual priming
Form of repetition priming
Visual or auditory similarity between prime and target (ie completion of word fragments)
