Chapter 7: The Many Types of Memory Flashcards
What does it mean to say that “Learning is preparation for retrieval”.
Learning doesn’t just place information in your memory, it prepares you to retrieve it in a particular way.
Learning that is good for one sort of retrieval may be inadequate for another.
What is a retrieval path?
New memories attach to other information via connections. When you are trying to retrieve a memory, you go from one connection to the next along a pathway.
Describe Godden and Baddeley’s (1975) context-dependent learning experiment:
Half of participants learned test material underwater; half learned on land. Within each group, half were later tested underwater; and half were tested on land.
Explain the results of Godden and Baddeley’s (1975) context-dependent learning experiment.
It showed a retrieval advantage where the learning and test circumstances matched (i.e underwater learners performed better when tested underwater, land learners performed better when tested on land).
What is context dependent learning?
Information learned in one setting is well remembered when a person returns to that setting, but is less well remembered in other settings (see Godden and Baddeley’s 1975 Scuba experiment
When is retrieval more likely to succeed?
Retrieval is more likely to succeed if your perspective is the same during learning as during retrieval.
What is context reinstatement?
When a person is led to the same mental and emotional state they were in during a previous event; context reinstatement can often provide an accurate recollection of the event (see Smith et.al 1978 experiment with 2 study rooms)
What is the relationship between context dependent learning and context reinstatement?
You can get the same benefit from context dependent learning through context reinstatement.
What did Smith et.al’s 1978 context reinstatement show?
What matters is not the physical context, but the psychological context of learning environment.
Describe Smith et.al’s 1978 context reinstatement experiment.
Learning and testing of participants occurred in different rooms (differing in appearance, sounds and scent). In one version, participants learned material in one room and were tested in another, but were told to think about the room in which they had learned (what it looked like, felt like etc).
What were the results of Smith et.al’s 1978 context reinstatement experiment?
The participants who only thought about the “learning” room, performed as well as those who were had no room change when tested.
Why does a person’s memory improve if we use context reinstatement?
Recalling the psychological context of the learning environment recreates the learning environment. The learning environment creates a connection along the retrieval path that helps you locate information later.
What does a memory contain?
Memory contains both the information you were focusing on during learning and the connections created by context or learning environment.
What is encoding specificity?
We tend to memorise both the material we are learning as well as a certain amount of their context. As a result, the material will be remembered later on only if the information appears in the same context.
Describe the study that demonstrates encoding specificity.
Participants read target words (eg piano) on one of two contexts: “The man lifted the piano” or “The man tuned the piano”. This led the participants to think about the target in a particular way, either: piano as something heavy; or piano as something that can be tuned. When asked to recall target words, those that saw the “lifted” sentence were likely to recall the word if cued with “something heavy”. If cued with “something with a nice sound” recall was less effective. (Results were reversed for those who saw the “tuned” sentence.)
What does the piano study about encoding specificity show?
A cue is only effective if congruent with what was encoded and stored in memory.
What does encoding specificity tell us about how we understand the world?
We don’t learn isolated information, we learn broader, integrated experiences, that cannot be separated from the world as the perceiver understood it at the time of encoding.
Explain the Masuda and Nesbitt 2010) Japan vs Us study.
Collectivist countries like Japan tend to pay attention to background information and process using wholistic thinking more than Western people (who are more individualist, use analytical thinking). Japanese participants recalled more objects when shown with the same background (underwater scene with fish) as the learning environment, compared with Western participants. Background made no difference to Western participants.
What does the Japan vs US recognition study (Masuda and Nesbitt 2010) tell us about encoding context?
Context cannot be removed from the information learned. In this case, cultural preferences (collectivism vs individualism) change the way memories are encoded.
How can we think of memory?
As a vast network of ideas.
What is a node?
A representation of information within a network. Nodes are like knots on a fisherman’s net, or bulbs in a string of Christmas tree lights.
What are associative links?
They are the connections between nodes. If you think of nodes as lightbulbs that can be turned on and off, then, associative links are the wires that carry the electricity.
What is spreading activation?
The process whereby activation travels from one node to another via associative links. As each node becomes activated it serves as a source of further activation spreading through the network.
In what way is spreading activation like how neurons communicate?
Neurons are activated when they have received strong enough signals from surrounding neurons. Once the neuron receives enough activation it fires, sending activation to neighbouring neurons. Same with nodes and activation links
What is subthreshold activation?
Activation levels below response threshold (of the node). It will not trigger a response, BUT if it gets more input, it will accumulate further, eventually leading to the firing threshold being met.
What role does subthreshold activation play in explaining why retrieval hints are often helpful?
The node is already primed (has been activated to a certain level) by the hint (which is a node nearby) and it doesn’t take much more input to get it to response threshold.
What is summation?
Activation is assumed to be cumulative, i.e it takes two or more separate inputs to get a node close to response threshold.
Do we choose where to start ‘looking for’ a memory?
No, activation spreads out from its starting point in all directions simultaneously, flowing through whatever connections are in place.
Describe Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s (1971) semantic priming experiment
Participants were given a lexical-decision task involving pairs of words. In some pairs, the words were semantically related, e.g. nurse + doctor (the first in the pair primed the second); in other pairs, the words were unrelated, e.g. cat + anagram (no priming). Responses to the second word were reliably faster if the word had been primed.
What does the Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s (1971) study show?
Clear evidence of the importance of subthreshold activation. (First word primed the second if they were related)
How does semantic priming illustrate the effectiveness of subthreshold activation?
If a word is already primed (eg doctor), by a nearby node (e.g. nurse) it has come close to reaching the response threshold, and although it hasn’t fired, but it is ready to, and it won’t take much to fire it.
What two strategies do you rely on for a recognition test?
(1) you actually recall what the answer is and then recognise it when you see the options, e.g. when you see the answer in the options of a multiple choice test.
(2) when you can’t actually remember what the correct answer is but one of the options feels more familiar to you. e.g. in multiple choice one answer feels more likely than the other, but you don’t actually know the answer.
How do you rate which type of memory is being used in a recognition test?
Ask the person to rate whether they (a) actually remember the answer (a “yes” judgement) e.g., I remember from the list or (b) whether they know the answer (“no” judgement) if they can’t remember the encounter but the stimulus feels familiar to them. E.g. the word elephant feels familiar but they can’t actually remember seeing it on the list.
What are recall and recognition types of?
Memory retrieval.
What is a recall test?
In response to a retrieval cue, a person has to recall earlier information, eg “name the words from the list you saw earlier”. You need to search your memory for the answer.
