Chapter 9

Question 1

What is the difference between incidental forgetting and motivated forgetting?

Answer 1

Incidental forgetting occurs without the intention to forget but motivated forgetting occurs when people engage in processes that intentionally diminish memory accessibility

Question 2

Describe the case or Jill Price

Answer 2

Memory in extraordinary detail since her early teens. Memories for the past are vivid, full of emotion, automatic and not under conscious control

Question 3

What is hyperthymestic syndrome?

Answer 3

Case of Jill Price. Associated with uncontrollable remembering with highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM). Is not strongly associated with memorization of arbitrary info not involving the past.

Question 4

How does Ebbinghause’s nonsense syllable experiment relate to the rate at which we forget?

Answer 4

Learned 169 lists of 13 nonsense syllables and relearned each list after intervals of 21mins-31 days.

He used the amount of time required to relearn the most as a measure of how much had been forgotten since he’d originally read the list

Clear relationship between time and retention

Question 5

What is the forgetting curve or the retention function?

Answer 5

The logarithmic decline in memory retention as a function of time elapsed, first discovered by Ebbinghaus.

• Forgetting is extremely rapid at first but it gradually slows down over time.
• Remembering is linear while forgetting is logarithmic

Question 6

Describe the experiment by Meeter et al. that tested memory for events that attracted the attention of most people at the time?

Answer 6

• Selected a total of 1000 noteworthy news headlines for each day over 4 years
• Participants answer a random sample of 40 questions about those headlines
• Online test with a large age range and background
• recall for events dropped from 60 to 30% in just one year with the typical forgetting curve
• Recignition performance was 52% over the years while recall was only 31%

Question 7

Describe the study by Bahrick on recall of information that is deliberately learned (names and faces)?

Answer 7

• Ability to both recognize a face or a name from a set of unfamiliar faces or names + match it up with faces remains high for over 30 years
• Ability to recall a name in response to picture of face leads to more forgetting

Question 8

Describe bahriick’s study on the verge that of delay on memory for a foreign language.

Answer 8

People who learned Spanish in college—> rapid forgetting over first 3-4 years, then little forgetting over next 30 years

People with good knowledge contributed to have a clear advantage over those with poor knowledge even 50 years later

Question 9

Describe permastore by bahrick

Answer 9

Forgetting appears to occur only up to a certain point, beyond which memory traces are frozen like a permanently frozen ground in polar regions (permafrost)

Question 10

What determines the level of overall retention?

Answer 10

Overall retention is determined by the level of initial learning.

-Forgetting curve flattens our after initial period of forgetting when material is well-learned + shows little additional forgetting over long period

Question 11

Describe Tulving’s distinction between availability and accessibility in the cognitive system

Answer 11

Accessibility—> ease of retrieval of stored memory at any given time

Availability—> whether a trace is or is not stored in memory

Some memories are still in your system but just inaccessible because the right cue has not been prompted for it.

When memories transition from being recallable to only recognizable that’s because it’s trace is fading/weaker

Thus, permanent loss happens in a graded fashion.

However, inaccessibility is still considered forgetting because it is a memory failure

Question 12

What is Jost’s law?

Answer 12

Memories are not equally vulnerable to forgetting at all points in their history

If two memories are equally strong at a given time, then the older of the two will be more durable and forgotten less rapidly

new traces are initially vulnerable to disruption until they are gradually stamped into memory

Question 13

What is consolidation?

Answer 13

The time-dependent process by which a new trace is gradually woven into memory + how it’s components are cemented together

Synaptic consolidation—>memory takes time to solidify because synaptic connections between neurons go through structural changes that take hours or days to complete

memory is vulnerable until aforementioned changes occur.

Systemic consolidation—> hippocampus initially required for memory storage and retrieval but the contribution diminishes over time until cortex can retrieve it on its own

This process occurs by reactivating brain areas involved in the initial experience until they are interlinked in a way that they can recreate the original memory. This may take years.

Question 14

What is reconsolidation?

Answer 14

Memories must restabilize after re-activation because they can be disrupted by interventions that disrupt normal synaptic consolidation (e.g drugs + electrical stimulation)

-reconsolidation is neurobiologically distinct + allows for the flexibility required to update representations with new information

Question 15

Describe Linton’s experiment proving that intentionally retrieving an experience has a potent effect on rate of forgetting that memory

Answer 15

Used herself as a participant and noted two events that had occurred in her diary every day for 5 years

Randomly select events in her diary and see if she could recall them.

items that were not retrieved had a dramatic forgetting rate, while even a single test of recall reduced forgetting.

Items tested 4+ times had impressively low rate of forgetting after 4 years

Question 16

Is the event of memory retrieval a distinct memory?

Answer 16

Yes, the event of retrieving something is a memory in itself so increased retrieval events lead to longer lasting memory

However, if incorrectly recalled details get integrated with the original memory traces during reconsolidation, memory for that event is distorted

Question 17

What is the inhibitory control view of forgetting?

Answer 17

Forgetting arises from the need to control the retrieval process in the face of interference from competing traces

so reducing the accessibility of competing traces is adaptive because it facilitates retrieval and makes subsequent retrievals of the same info easier as future competition is reduced

a properly functioning memory system must be as good as forgetting as it is in remembering

Question 18

Which 3 things has been attributed to forgetting?

Answer 18

forgetting has been attributed to decay, contextual shifts, and to interference

Question 19

Describe trace decay as a function of time

Answer 19

The idea that memories get weaker over time.

• Partially determines the loss of information from verbal & visual working memory
• Also plays a role in the decay of repetition priming & familiarity
• Activation decays gradually, even if the item remains stored. (e.g recent exposure to “helmet”–> activate a pre-existing concept that fades but the concept remains.
• Associations between features or the features themselves may deteriorate.
• Our memories survive in tissue–>a time-dependent process degrades the synaptic connections between neurons that support learned behavior in Aplysia–>degradation

Question 20

What is interference?

Answer 20

retrieval of memory can be disrupted by the presence of related traces in memory.

Question 21

What is the theory suggested by Frankland about decay as a function of time?

Answer 21

Instead of thinking about memory decay as deterioration of existing tissue, Frankland suggests that it is related to the growth of new neurons (neurogenesis)

New neurons are good for learning new things effectively, they’re bad for the retention of existing memories already stored in the hippocampus

New neurons change the pattern of communication between hippocampal neurons–> making it harder to recreate the original pattern of firing (during encoding) at retrieval,

this neurogenesis-induced decay may explain infantile amnesia

Question 22

What is infantile amnesia?

Answer 22

the tendency for older children + adults to have few autobiographical memories from the early years of life.

Question 23

Why is demonstrating decay behaviorally exceptionally difficult?

Answer 23

Must prove that forgetting grows over time, in the absence of the storage of new experiences or rehearsal.

1) Rehearsal of the memory in question must be controlled as it undercuts efforts to see decay.
2) storing new experiences after a trace has been encoded must be controlled to prevent interference
3) even in the absence of interference–>unclear whether the trace has become unavailable, or inaccessible.

Question 24

What are the two correlates of time that cause forgetting?

Answer 24

1) overtime, the incidental context we operate in gradually shifts–>impairing retrieval of older memories.
2) people store many new similar experiences that may interfere with retrieving a particular trace.

these factors do not disprove decay–> alternative explanations for the forgetting curve

Question 25

Describe contextual fluctuations and their role in memory retrieval

Answer 25

The gradual drift in incidental context over time–>distant memories deviate from the current context more so than newer memories–>diminishing the potency of the older context’s as a retrieval cue for older memories.

(e.g changes in appearance–> match less well with the original cue associated to a memory)

Forgetting more likely when incidental context at retrieval =/= incidental context at encoding

Question 26

Describe Delaney’s study about daydreaming and changes in mental context leading to forgetting

Answer 26

Participants studied two lists of 15 unrelated words + 90 seconds to perform diverting activity.

One group daydreamed about a vacation in the last 3 years within the US.
The second group was asked to daydream about an international vacation.
A control group read a passage aloud from a psychology textbook.

After daydreaming–> studied the second list of words followed by a test of the first list.

Participants who daydreamed after studying the first list remembered fewer words from that list, compared to control participants.

Effect especially pronounced for international holiday group–>because such daydreams involve large changes to one’s mental context.

Correlation between the remoteness of the vacation destination + how much participants forget the first list

Clearly, changes in mental context can lead to forgetting.

Question 27

Describe competition assumption in the context of interference

Answer 27

Interference arises whenever the cue used to access a target becomes associated with additional memories.

Progressing from a cue to a target depends on:

a) how strongly that cue is associated with the target
b) whether the cue is related to other items.

• When a cue is linked to multiple items–> items compete with the target for access to awareness
• Competitors–>associates other than the target memory. The more competitors the more interference

Question 28

What is the cue overload principal?

Answer 28

recall decreasing with the number of items one has to remember paired with the same cue,

as a cue becomes attached to too many things–> capacity to access any one trace is compromised.

Question 29

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 29

Trying to memorize new things in between initial encoding of the target and when target is tested.

storing newer experiences impairs the ability to recall ones farther back in time.

Question 30

Describe a method used to study retroactive interference?

Answer 30

In the experimental condition–> people study the first list of pairs and then a second list.

• cue words from the first list (e.g. dog–sky) paired with a new response word (dog–rock )
• The first word of each pair is given + people asked to recall the response from the first list (e.g. dog –?).

In the control condition–>people also study a first list, but engage in irrelevant filler activity in the interval when the other group is studying the second list.

(1) introducing a highly related second list impairs the ability to recall items from the first list, compared to the control
(2) increased training on second-list items continues to harm retention of first-list items further, as training progresses. This is especially true when the lists share a common cue word.

Very little retroactive interference when the pairs on the two lists are unrelated. The experience needs to be similar for memory to get impaired

Question 31

Describe Baddley’s study of rugby players examining retroactive interference

Answer 31

rugby players were asked to recall the names of the teams they had played earlier in the season

their memory of previous rugby games could be made less accessible because they have played many rugby games since then.

Time was relatively unimportant whereas the number of intervening games was critical–> forgetting was due to interference rather than trace decay.

Question 32

What is proactive interference? Describe Underwood’s study on it.

Answer 32

The tendency for older memories to interfere with the retrieval of more recent experiences.

Wanted to know why participants who had learned a list of nonsense syllables should show so much forgetting after 24 hours.

• Found out how many previous lists each participant had learned in other experiments + plot the amount of forgetting in a 24-hour period
• Students who had no previous experience remembered 80% of the list items after 24 hours vs. those with 20+ prior learning trials on different lists remembered fewer than 20%.
• Proactive interference had a giant effect on retention–> determines the rate at which students forgot the material after an extended delay.

Question 33

How is the proactive interference paradigm different/similar to the retroactive one?

Answer 33

Resembles each other except that proactive:

(1) it tests people’s memory for the List-Two responses rather than the List-One responses
(2) in the control condition, the rest period (or performance of irrelevant activity) replaces List-One learning rather than List-Two learning.

Interference is greatest when the two lists share a common cue + when recall is tested rather than recognition.

Question 34

Describe Part-set cuing impairment? Describe Slamecka’s study:

Answer 34

the tendency for target recall to be impaired when retrieval cues are drawn from the same set (e.g. category) of items in memory

A set of items is defined by some common cue (for example, fruit or birds ), to which many items are associated.

some people were given some of the members from each category as cues to help them recall the remainder; others were given no such cues.

people receiving cues performed worse than those who received no cues.

Why? because presenting some items from the set strengthens their associations to the cue–> stronger items provide greater competition during the retrieval of noncue items, impairing their recall.

-cues increase competition. As more members of the set are provided as cues, the worse memory becomes for the remainder I

Question 35

Describe the study by Heinz that questions/reject the idea that simply re-presenting cue items strengthen them

Answer 35

Suggested that forgetting may instead be caused by how people use the cues during memory search.

The first group–>participants studied categories (e.g. fruit ), each with 12 examples. Afterwards, one group was presented with four of the examples to be used as cues for retrieving the remaining noncue items.

The second group–>saw the same four items but asked to study them again before the test on noncues. No mention was made of using these items as cues.

The third group–>was instead given a test on the same four items before proceeding to the key test of the noncues

Whereas the first and third groups showed forgetting of the noncue items, the second group did not.

• Re-exposure strengthened the recall of the four items similarly across the conditions.
• Being re-exposed to items+ strengthening them does not induce forgetting of the noncue items.
• Rather forgetting relied upon whether participants retrieved the cues.

Question 36

Describe collaborative inhibition

Answer 36

When people get together to remember material–> remember less when recalling info as a group vs when they recall info separately

• This is due to part-set cuing inhibition
• If group members are generating lots of items while you are listening–> interference may disrupt your retrieval.

Question 37

What is retrieval-induced forgetting?

Answer 37

The tendency for the retrieval of some target items to impair the later ability to recall other items related to those targets.

It is usually studied with a procedure known as the retrieval practice paradigm

1) people first study simple verbal categories, like fruits, drinks, and trees for a later memory test.
2) then asked to repeatedly recall some of the examples that they just studied, from some of the categories.
3) Following this “retrieval practice,” a test is given in which people are asked to recall all examples that they remember seeing from every category.
4) Retrieval practice enhances recall of practiced items (e.g. fruit–orange ), but it impairs related items (e.g. fruit–banana).

-So, it seems that the very act of remembering can cause forgetting. Therefore, selectively reviewing facts impairs nonreviewed material, particularly related material.

Question 38

Describe Malcolm’s study on selective reviewing:

Answer 38

• Participants studied ten geography facts about two fictitious islands then performed retrieval practice.
• For one island, they practiced retrieving five of its ten facts.
• A final test followed, cued by the name of each island.

Practice facilitated the later recall of practiced facts (70%) over facts about the unpracticed island (38%)
-This was at the cost of impairing the retention of related but unpracticed facts (23%).

Question 39

Who is John Shaw?

Answer 39

A psychologist & public defender

Told a group of participants to imagine attending a party + noticing that their wallet was missing.

Watched slides of a student’s apartment + paid attention to the details to assist the police in an investigation.

Then given structured questions about some of the objects (e.g. sweatshirts) during the interrogation phase.

Found that interrogating people about some stolen items impaired their memory for related items.

Question 40

Describe Conroy’s study examining whether simply discussing an experience alters whether people will remember what was omitted.

Answer 40

Young children participate in a staged event at school called Visiting the Pirate, during which the children engaged in a number of activities across a variety of scenes.

In the next 3 days, the children discussed the event with another experimenter, who asked them questions about only some parts, such as, “Tell me about the animal that you fed.”

On the final day, the children recalled the nondiscussed elements less well than did a control group of children, who engaged in no discussion at all.

Children’s memory of their growing up years–>shaped by what family members reminisce, with nondiscussed aspects becoming less accessible.

Question 41

Describe Cuc’s study on socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting

Answer 41

They had two people, seated side by side, studying the same pairs.

In the retrieval practice phase, however, one participant performed retrieval practice, whereas the other sat silently and observed, monitoring their partner’s recollections for accuracy. Both then took the final test.

The participant who performed retrieval practice showed retrieval-induced forgetting. The silent observer also showed this effect.

When we’re discussing past events, we spontaneously recall those events along with the person recounting them–>subject ourselves to retrieval-induced forgetting for whatever the speaker remains silent about. This common in media manipulation in politics.

Question 42

What are mnemonic silences?

Answer 42

Arise when one selectively retrieves some aspects, experiences but not others–>shape individual + collective memories

Question 43

What is associative blocking?

Answer 43

Memories compete for access to awareness when their shared cue is provided.

The degree of interference should increase as the cue grows more strongly associated with the competitor–> strength-dependent competition.

If you are trying to recall banana after having practiced fruit–orange–> the cues on the final test (e.g. fruit ) to recall banana lead the person to accidentally retrieve the stronger practiced item, orange.

Once accidentally retrieved, orange will achieve greater prominence–>making it even more likely to be accidentally retrieved.

With each accidental retrieval, the wrong answer grows stronger.

The more memories associated to a cue–>more likely it should be to accidentally retrieve a wrong answer, setting the blocking process in motion.

E.g reason you can’t remember your dinner 4 months ago is that retrieval calls to mind recent dinners to such an extent that you give up.

Question 44

Describe associative unlearning

Answer 44

According to the hypothesis, the association between a stimulus & a trace will be weakened whenever that trace is retrieved inappropriately. The bond between the cue & the target gets “punished.”

If you enter old password in your email even though you have a new one & then realize this–>association between “password” and the original password details will get weakened

With enough punishment the cue “password” will no longer activate that trace; the stimulus will be decoupled from the response.

Question 45

Describe inhibition

Answer 45

Inhibition reduces the activity level of a response, ceasing its production.

e.g remembering old phone number after switching phones–> Must first stop retrieval of the old one through inhibition before recalling new one.

performing retrieval practice on fruit–orange impairs the recall of banana because it is a competing memory that is inhibited by activation-reducing mechanisms.

If the banana is truly inhibited, one might imagine that banana would be harder to recall generally, whether one tests it with fruit as a cue or another unrelated associate, such as monkey–b—.

The need to overcome interference during retrieval triggers inhibition–> active retrieval on practiced items is necessary to induce forgetting of competitors.

e.g simply replacing retrieval practice trials (e.g. fruit–or—) with a chance to re-study fruit–orange multiple times should eliminate later forgetting of competitors like banana .

Forgetting should disappear because giving people fruit–orange to study eliminates any struggle to retrieve orange + any need to resolve interference from banana .

Only retrieval practice impairs the retention of the unpracticed competitors–>this finding doesn’t favor the blocking hypothesis,

Question 46

Compare inhibition to blocking & unlearning:

Answer 46

Inhibition predicts that retrieval-induced forgetting should generalize to new cues–> exhibiting cue independence.

In contrast, both blocking & unlearning–> retrieval-induced forgetting should be cue dependent. That is, as long as you switch to another cue, like monkey, no impairment should be found for banana.

Question 47

Describe Bjork’s study of strength independence

Answer 47

The amount of forgetting appears unrelated to how
strong the practiced associations become as a result of practice–> not in favour of blocking

it is possible to greatly strengthen practiced items through repeated study, without impairing unpracticed competitors.

strengthening a competitor may not be necessary at all to trigger retrieval-induced forgetting.

Participants were, for some categories, given retrieval practice cues that were impossible to complete.

e.g received the cue fruit-lu—to complete during retrieval practice, even though no fruit begins with lu–>could not complete any of these retrieval tests–> as much forgetting for the remaining unpracticed exemplars as the ones that could be completed

Strength independence–>the struggle to extract a trace from memory in the face of interference is the important trigger for retrieval-induced forgetting, not the strengthening of the practiced items.

Question 48

Describe Anderson’s study on interference dependence

Answer 48

If inhibition overcomes interference from competitors, how much you forget depends on whether there was any interference during retrieval practice. If the other associates of a cue don’t cause interference, inhibition should be unnecessary.

Anderson varied competing items based on the frequency of examples in their categories (e.g. fruit–banana vs fruit–guava ).

• high-frequency examples, like fruit–banana–> prime targets for inhibition because they come to mind so readily
• low-frequency exemplars might not need to be inhibited.

Question 49

Describe roman’s study confirming that retrieval-induced forgetting is attention dependent.

Answer 49

selectively retrieving facts or events places demands on attentional control processes like inhibition, to overcome interference from distracting memory traces.

If inhibition truly requires attention, e.g (It takes attention to suppress the tendency to look at your wrist reflexively when someone asks you what time it is)–>then retrieval-induced forgetting is reduced if people are distracted during retrieval practice–> b/c can’t devote the full resources needed to suppress distracting memories.

Participants studied a list of categories (fruits + drinks)–> retrieval practice with full attention or did a concurrent attention-demanding task (press button every time 3 odd digits were presented in a row auditorily)

Participants in both groups–> equally successful in performing retrieval practice, despite the differing attention demands.

In the final memory test, participants in the divided attention condition showed no retrieval-induced forgetting at all.

People going under highly stressful tasks (e.g presentation) or people with ADD show significantly reduced retrieval-induced forgetting.

Question 50

Describe Kuhl’s study on brain activation that demonstrates attentional demands of retrieval practice declining over repetitions, consistent with a diminished need to overcome distraction.

Answer 50

Asked participants to retrieve the same to-be-practiced items on three occasions

On the first practice trial, competing memories are yet to be inhibited–>produce substantial interference that needs to be resolved by engaging interference resolution mechanisms.

By the third trial, any interference caused by competitors is much reduced–>eliminating the need for control.

more activation in the left + right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex + anterior cingulate cortex on early trials compared to later trials –> associated with cognitive control + the resolution of response conflict

The less activation in these areas from 1st to 3rd trial–> greater retrieval-induced forgetting observed on the final test.

The adaptive advantage of forgetting: by reducing distraction from competing memories–> less neural effort during retrieval practice to retrieve the things they wanted to recall

Question 51

What is a person’s ability to engage the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex to inhibit competing memories is related to?

Answer 51

related to genetically linked variation in the availability of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex

Question 52

the properties of cue independence, retrieval specificity, strength independence, interference dependence + attention dependence support the role of which function as a source of forgetting?

Answer 52

Support a role of inhibition as a source of forgetting–> many of our experiences with forgetting may arise from the need to control interference.

Due to distraction by momentarily irrelevant information in our memories (e.g looking at mental watch)–>engage inhibition to refocus on what we hope to retrieve from memory.

The mechanisms we use to direct retrieval are the ones that ultimately contribute to forgetting.

Such forgetting is adaptive–>helps to reduce interference from info that may no longer be as relevant as it once was

Such forgetting is also functional–> If info remains in memory + can be revived (e.g. by re-exposure)