5. L5 principles and dissociations of memory Flashcards

1
Q

abstraction

A
  • People memorise conglomerations of ideas
  • Not verbatim information
  • People appear to lose specific surface information (shortly after study)
  • People retain “gist”: Generalised, abstracted information
  • People infer things they never heard or saw
  • Explanations and models must accommodate abstraction
  • Most of our log term memory is devoted to things which are devoid of detail but maintain the gist of the info
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2
Q

Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory paradigm

A
  • Study list of words
  • cloud, drop, water, sun, storm, shower,…
  • In subsequent memory test, up to 70% of participants remember the item “rain”
  • “rain” is not on the list…
  • …but all list items are associates of rain
  • false memory can be seen as an instance of generalisation or abstraction
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3
Q

hyper specificity

A
  • The idea that abstraction is encoded but specific details about a stimulis are also encoded and we show facilllitation for that item in a test
  • Memory for surface features persists
  • Manifest primarily on indirect tests of memory (priming; but also some forms of direct tests such as image recognition)
  • Explanations and models must accommodate hyper specificity
  • Favours models that retain all aspects of each stimulus experience
  • Indirect tests of memory have little to do with memory tests as they are conventionally understood (i.e., direct tests with intentional retrieval)
  • Now search for specificity in direct tests of memory more generally
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4
Q

hyper specificity is long lasting

A

Kolers 1976
- Participants quicker at rereading same text they had read a yer ago
Mitchell (2006)
- Found priming after 17 years
With the camel shapes

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5
Q

hyper specificity and encoding context

A
  • Any stimulus we encode is encoded in a specific context, e.g. * time of encoding * place * other stimuli (people, things) present * task specifics * etc.
  • At a basic level, context can influence encoding efficacy,
    ○ eTask set e.g., depth-of-processing
    ○ Unitization (feature binding demands) easier to remember vs. (Karlson et al., 2010)
    ○ Synchronicity better memory for words chanted together with others (von Zimmerman & Richardson, 2016)
    More generally, context matters because context elements are always encoded with a stimulus, and can thus be used as retrieval cues
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6
Q

hyper specificity encoding context examples

A

Encoding Specificity Principle (Thomson & Tulving, 1970)
- match between study and test matters
- target word = flower
- strong cue = bloom
- weak cue = fruit
- remembered best at test when cue was the same as what they studied, whether it was weak or strong cue.

Encoding specificity: Godden & Baddeley (1975)
- learning and recalling test material under water
- Impairment if you went from one context to the other context
- It also works with internal states, e.g. relating to substance intake (alcohol, nicotine, caffeine) and mood (i.e., state-dependent memory)

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7
Q

abstraction vs hyper specificity

A

Specificity apparent with
- Memory tasks that require perceptual processing of specific cues
- Performance benefits when a cue present at study is repeated at test
- e.g., repetition priming (implicit) or recognition of images (explicit).

Abstraction apparent with
- non-specific, direct (explicit) tests
- mainly free recall
- Abstraction is then adaptive and useful
- Free recall of prose
- But can also be maladaptive when you are led into abstraction
Abstraction can contribute to false memories

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