Chapter 7 - Memory Flashcards
Freudian model of memory
- All memories remain permanently intact but may be “repressed”
- Some therapists claim to gain access by hypnosis, dream interpretation, etc, which can cause false memory implants (suggestibility), and other negative effects
- No scientifically acceptable evidence to support it
Videotape model of memory
- Some memories remain intact for a long time, or forever
- Can be played back like videotape
- No scientific evidence and lots of contradictory evidence (our memory declines over time)
Eidetic memory
- Known as “photographic” memory, although there’s no evidence anyone has ever had memory that’s instant, passive, effortless, like photocopy.
- We actively reconstruct our memories
Simple biological model of memory
- Memories are stored in brain
- Not stored in single cell, therefore not susceptible to “decay” if some brain cells die
Role of Amygdala in memory
- Associated with emotional memory
- Emotional memories tend to be stored for a long time
- Damage to amygdala: patients remember facts but not emotion (esp. fear)
Role of Hippocampus in memory
- Significant for LTM
- Injury impairs explicit memory
- Injury causes Anterograde amnesia more commonly than retrograde amnesia
Define: Anterograde Amnesia
Inability to form new memories (ie, after injury)
Define: Retrograde Amnesia
Inability to remember memories in the past (ie, before accident)
Define: Flashbulb memory
- Extremely vivid memory of emotional memory
- Tend to be way less accurate than we think, because of intense emotions and rehearsal
Cognitive model of memory (in relation to older models)
- Takes good/useful stuff from common sense, videotape (ff, rewind), Freudian (some memories can be difficult to access), biological models.
- Adds emphasis on practical problems, accounts for anomalies, recognizes physiology
Per cognitive model of memory, how is memory reconstructed?
- No individual brain cell for each memory
- Memories are result of reactivating the pattern of neural connections
Define memory distortions
- Info loss and false addition caused by loss of cells and pattern overlap
- Eg, volunteers waiting in office remembering book but there were none
Three memory stages
- Encoding
- Storage
- Retrieval
Define memory Encoding
- Transferring information into a form that can be stored in memory
- Requires selective attention
- Use mnemonic devices (First-letter technique; method of loci; pegword method; keyword method)
Define memory Storage
-Involves consolidation and long-term-potentiation (LPT)
Define schema
- Organized knowledge structure or mental model, stored in memory
- Allow us to retrieve examples, make inferences, draw conclusion
- Are one expl. for paradox of memory
- When something doesn’t fit schema at encoding: info stands out
- When something doesn’t fit schema at retrieval: prone to distortion and reconstruction
Define: Retrieval
- Information stored in memory is reconstructed
- Retrieval cues help
The Three Memory Systems (Atkinson-Shiffron): Cognitive Model of Memory
- Sensory memory
- Short-term memory
- Long-term memory
-Information can be lost at all stages
Describe: sensory memory
- Temporary storage
- Large capacity
- Very brief (<1 sec. for iconic; 5-10 for echoic)
- Those with “photographic memory” can hold their iconic memory for longer than normal
Describe: short-term memory
- Information we’re currently working on
- Capacity: 7+- 2 items (chunking helps, eg, phone numbers)
Define: Proactive Interference
- Old information interfering with creating new memories
- [Remember: word refers temporally to memory being affected ]
Define: Retroactive Interference
- New memories interfering with retention of old memories
- More temporary because old memory is better remembered
- [Remember: word refers temporally to memory being affected ]
Define: working memory
-System that allows us to hold and manipulate information
Define: Maintenance rehearsal
-Memory strategy where you repeat over and over (not the best way)
Define: elaborative rehearsal
-Linking stimuli to something meaningful (deeper processing)
Define: Long-term memory
- No known limits to capacity
- Enduring (minutes to years) information storage
- Information loss due to interference, or encoding, consolidation, retrieval failures)
Three types of LTM retrieval
- Recognition
- Recall
- Relearning
Define: LTM Recognition
- Previously learned item is selected from a range of alternatives
- Role of hippocampus
- Eg, multiple choice, police lineup
Define: LTM Recall
- Information retrieved from scratch
- Eg, essay question, police interview, serial recall (alphabet, poem)
Define: LTM Relearning
- Measuring retention in terms of percentage of time saving for second time you learn something (1st x 60 min VS 2nd x 30 min)
- More sensitive measure than recognition or relearning
Define: Declarative Memory
-aka Explicit memory
-Memories we recall intentionally
-Two types:
1-Episodic memory (recollection of events on our lives)
2-Semantic memory (knowledge of facts about the world)
-Damage to hippocampus impairs declarative memory
Define: Non-declarative memory
-aka Implicit memory
-Memories we don’t deliberately remember
-Four types: [remember 1st one]
1-Procedural memory (how to do things, esp motor skills)
2-Priming (identify a stimulus more quickly after we’ve encountered a similar stimulus, eg, see QUEEN, more likely to comlplete K___ as KING)
3-Conditioning
4-Habituation
Define: Primacy effect
- Tendency to remember stimuli early in list
- Reflects workings of LTM due to rehearsal
Define: Recency effect
- Tendency to remember stimuli later in list
- Reflects workings of STM (was there more recently)
Define: Von Restorff effect
-Remembering items that are distinctive/stick out
Children and memory
- Younger children overestimate their recall ability
- Older are more accurate
Implicit memory in infants
- “moving mobile” experiment
- 2mo old retained memories for 24 hrs
- 3mo old retained for one week
- Infantile memory partly due to underdeveloped hippocampus (for LTM and episodic memory)
Define: Source monitoring [confusion]
- Misattribution of source of memory
- eg, Father’s bedtime stories become your actual memories
Define: misinformation effect
- creation of fictitious memories by providing misleading info about event after it takes place
- eg, saying car “crashed, bumped, hit, contacted” affects memory of car’s speed
Optimizing eye-witness testimony
- Sequential is better than simultaneous (photos/lineup)
- Person conducting interview should not know who suspect is–bias
- Caution witness against guessing
- The shorter the time after the event, the better
Define: State-dependent vs Context-dependent
- State-dependent: superior memory retrieval when in same psychological/physiological state as during encoding (mood/alcohol, etc)
- Context-dependent: superior memory retrieval when in same external context (scuba divers, etc)
