Chp 6 - Memory Flashcards
Long term memory (4) features
Capacity: Unlimited
Duration: Indefinite
Forms of storage: varied
Encoding, Storage, Retrieval
Types of LTM (4)
Declarative memory (i.e., “how things are…”)
- Semantic memory
- Episodic memory
Procedural memory (i.e., “how to…”)
Relearning task (Ebbinghaus)
Use non-sense syllables to avoid confound
Had others read to him in fast speed
- Try to recall them all back, repeatedly, count no of trials until can recall perfectly, Then relearn with a delay
Found that the relearning with much easier
e.g. 10 trials to learn, relearning took 6 trials
= difference = 4 = 4/10= 40% saving score (how much time saved in the learning process) Relearning task (Ebbinghaus)
Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve (retention curve) shows:
shows how information is lost over time when you don’t try to retain it.
Different tasks used to study LTM in lab: (4)
Relearning task (Ebbinghaus)
Paired association task
Recall Task (Free/Serial/Queued)
Recognition tasks
Paired association task
a technique used in studying learning in which participants learn syllables, words, or other items in pairs and are later presented with one half of each pair to which they must respond with the matching half.
encoding
to input or take into memory, to convert in a usable mental form, to store into memory
Metamemory
thinking about thinking
- We are not overly accurate on what we do or don’t know
Encoding methods (Elaborative rehearsal) (10)
- spacing effect
- Self-Reference effect (relate info to us personally)
- generation effect
- Production effect
- Testing effect
- enactment
- Visual imagery
- Organisation
- Encoding specificity
- mnemonics
(Repetition (Massed vs. distributed))
Self-Reference effect
The tendency for people to better remember information when it has been encoded in reference to the self
e.g.
Present list of personality traits, how well does this trait describe you?
Remember the words that feel described themselves well
Encoding specificity
Context of learning is more important
information is encoded into memory not a set of isolated , individual items
- instead is each item
Scuba diving study
- Half of them memorize list of words under water or beach
- Same context retrieval or opposite
- Retrieval at the same place cause better memory
mnemonics (2+3)
Acronyms (e.g., OCEAN)
- Pairing verbal with nonverbal info
Method of loci:
- Visual imagery, choose a set of diff visual locations
- Pick out landmarks to trace
- e.g. pair a landmark with grocery list items
production effect
Writing, speaking it out or typing it out for deeper processing
Rehearsal (3)
Mental practice
Maintenance rehearsal
- rote memorization
Elaborative rehearsal
- information is embellished, organized, or related to existing knowledge (e.g., meaningful learning)
The spacing effect
demonstrates that learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out.
The generation effect
phenomenon where information is better remembered if it is generated from one’s own mind rather than simply read.
Enactment effect
describe the fact that verb phrases are memorized better if a learner performs the described action during learning, compared to just getting the verbal information or seeing someone else perform the action.
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) Modal Model (5)
Modal model of memory: The standard model of memory consists of 3 primary components
The sensory registers
Short-term store
Long-term store
- Control processes
- Encoding
Levels of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) (4)
Suggests that memory is dependent on the depth (level) at which the information is processed as it is being encoded
→ Shallow processing: takes in only surface features of the info
→ Deeper processing: must consider meaning
→ Maintenance vs elaborative rehearsal
Hyde & Jenkins (1969)
Maintenance rehearsal
straight repeating of information to memorize it.
- also called rote rehearsal.
- This type of rehearsal can be mental
Elaborative rehearsal
encoding strategy to facilitate the formation of memory by linking new information to what one already knows.
For instance, when trying to remember that someone is named George, one might think of five other things one knows about people named George.
Criticisms of the Levels of Processing approach: (3)
→ Circularity – determination of whether something has been processed at either a shallow or deep level is made after the fact
→ Does not account for task effects
task effects: when diff memory tasks are used (e.g. recognition vs. recall)
Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924) Sleeping vs. awake group
– participants who had been allowed to sleep recalled more syllables after a delay than those who had stayed awake
- sleeping group had less probability for interference by other words
organisation
recalling related words together, grouping and clusters on information being stored
consolidation (5)
- Decreased rate of forgetting over time can be explained by assuming older memories have had more consolidation time
- Patients with retrograde amnesia often show greatest forgetting for memories formed shortly before amnesia onset
- “Blackouts” caused by excessive drinking – failure to consolidate?
- Consolidation during sleep
- Reconsolidation (Chan & LaPaglia, 2013)
Proactive Interference (PI)
Keppel and Underwood (1962)
Older material interferes forward in time with recollection of current stimulus
e.g., stimuli learnt from an earlier list cause difficulty in recalling later words
Retroactive Interference (RI)
Newer material interferes backward in time with recollection of older items
e.g., recalling items from list 1 but recalling from list 2
Patient HM
- Removed medial temporal lobes bilaterally (includes the hippocampus)
- Severe anterograde memory
- Impaired in spatial/ topographical memory
Had intact STM:
- Skills (motor learning)
- Mirror drawing task
Anterograde amnesia
impairment in ability to learn and remember information encountered after the onset of amnesia
Retrograde amnesia
Impairment in ability to remember events prior to amnesia onset
Korsakoff’s syndrome
amnesia due to chronic alcohol abuse
More studied as it is hard to study those with closed head surgery
Possible to have both anterograde/ retrograde
Non-declarative (implicit) (4)
Skills and habits
Priming
Simple classical conditioning (involuntary)
Non-associative learning
autobiographical memory vs episodic memory
Episodic memory is about recollection of events in one’s past.
- Autobiographical memory is one’s personal history that may include episodic memories in addition to other facts about oneself (such as one’s place and date of birth) (autobiographic semantic memory)
Episodic & semantic memory: separate systems? (4)
Patients with amnesia often have greater impairments to episodic memory than semantic memory
Patients with semantic dementia often have greater impairments to semantic memory than episodic
Evidence suggests that episodic and semantic memory may rely on different brain regions
rhinal: semantic
hippocampus: episodic
Episodic & semantic memory: Interdependence
Renoult et al. (2016) – used EEG to look for event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to episodic and semantic memory retrieval
→ ERPs differed between episodic and semantic memory retrieval
→ Tanguay et al. (2018); Greenberg et al. (2009)
Semanticisation
when an episodic memory becomes a semantic memory over time (Robin & Moscovitch, 2017)
the testing effect
demonstrating that taking tests during the learning phase facilitates later retrieval from long-term memory.
Repetition priming vs. Procedural Memory
- Priming occurs rapidly whereas procedural memory/skill learning is typically slow and gradual
- Priming is tied to specific stimuli whereas skill learning typically generalizes to other stimuli
Perceptual priming
occurs when repeated presentation of a stimulus leads to facilitated processing of its perceptual features
Conceptual priming
occurs when repeated presentation of a stimulus leads to facilitated processing of its meaning
Sins of Omission (3)
Sometimes total forgetting
1) Transience
2) Absentmindedness
3) Blocking
Sins of Omission: 1) Transience
- Situations where the memory is just not there, maybe because of decay or interference
- Used to refer to the loss of info formed
- Memory probably won’t come back
Sins of Omission: 2) Absentmindedness
- We don’t really encode things that aren’t required for us to pay attention to
- Intersection between LTM and attention
Sins of Omission: 3) Blocking
- Situations where the failure to retrieve
- more temporary
- TOT
Sins of Commission (4)
1) Persistence
2) Misattribution
3) Suggestibility
4) Bias
Sins of Commission: 1) Persistence (3)
Situations where we have unwanted memory popping up
Common in PTSD
Might be brought up by retrieval cues
Sins of Commission: 2) Misattribution
The memory is correct, but attributing to the wrong source
e.g. A: I read this off a news article! -> B: No, I told you that.
Sins of Commission: 3) Suggestibility
Incorporating info provided by other people
e.g. justice system, eyewitness
We are highly suggestable when it comes to memory
Sins of Commission: 4) Bias (3)
Tendency for our past knowledge/ current beliefs on how we remember other things
Bias affects encoding
Confirmation bias, confirming what we already believe
MEGYRA & BURTON (2008) faces
Participants asked to study a face (live or photographed) for 30 uninterrupted seconds, and then immediately asked to pick out the face they had just seen from an array of 10 photos
Overall accuracy: 66%!
MORGAN ET AL. (2004) military
Studied military recruits during traumatic training exercises
Highly traumatic situations resulted in worse memory for the faces of interrogators/guards
Memory and stress curves/ models
Yerkes-Dodson Law
- physiological arousal to a certain point can increase memory accuracy (inverted U)
The “Catastrophe” Model
- to some extent stress aids memory accuracy
- too high stress cause worse memory (dramatic drop)
Memory Narrowing (2)
People show excellent memory for things that are central for emotional event but poorer memory for peripheral details
Central details due to the fact to be elaborated later from other story teller, details get reinforced into the memory
Weapon focus effect
Presence of a weapon can narrow the focus on the weapon, but has a bad peripheral vison of the scene (e.g. cannot tell the face of the person holding the weapon)
BIGGS ET AL. (2014): weapons photos
Participants were shown photos of people holding either a weapon or a neutral item (e.g., a remote control): visual fixation points tracked
Experiment 1:
Participants pointed a (non-working) gun
Experiment 2:
Participants held a metal cylinder
Experiment 3:
Gun holstered at the participant’s hip
Results:
When looking at photos of people holding actual weapons:
- Participants in Experiment 1 spent more time looking at the person’s face
- Participants in Experiments 2 & 3 spent more time looking at the weapon (expected weapon focus effect)
The misinformation effect
Memory is subject to post-event distortions when people are presented with misleading information after the fact
Unconsicous Transference (2)
Witnesses may unconsciously misidentify a person as the perpetrator of a crime because that person seems familiar to them
Photo bias
- Increase in probability to being accused as the perpetrator if you’ve been seen in a photo
Change Blindness (4)
a failure to detect changes in the presence, identity or location of objects in scenes, is also strongest when subjects do not expect changes to occur.
Demonstrates limited capacity to take in all aspects of a scene at the same time
Illusion of continuity
Results from our natural tendency to use top-down processing (fill in the gaps)
LOFTUS & PALMER (1974): car accident
Participants watched a video of a minor car accident and then asked leading questions about it
“smashed” vs. “hit” – the participants in the leading condition estimated the cars’ speeds as higher and recalled more broken glass
LOFTUS ET AL. (1978): stop yield experiment
In the classic study (Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978), participants viewed slides of a car accident and were later asked questions about it. The critical misleading question asked whether there was a “stop” or a “yield” sign at the intersection where the car made the fatal turn.
- Participants who were misled about the type of road sign present in the original slide show were more likely to make errors when presented with two pictures and asked which had been in the original slide deck
BROWN ET AL. (1977): criminals
Participants shown 10 people labeled as “criminals
Participants subsequently shown a photo array of 15 mugshots (some “criminals”, some “non-criminals”)
- In a lineup one week later, participants were more likely to label a “non-criminal” as one of the original “criminals” if they had seen the person’s mugshot
False Memories
manipulate people into thinking they remember something that didn’t actually happen
The DRM paradigm (3)
• Used in the laboratory
• Recall and recognition type tasks
• Researchers hope to create a false memory through related words
Remember know procedure (3)
• To investigate recollection and familiarity
• Do you recognise this word? Further questions about the word and if you can, it signifies you remember
• Metamemory: how confident people are in their responses
Loftus & Pickerell (1995)
shopping mall
Involved implanting false memories about being lost in the shopping mall as a child
- Researchers were able to elicit a false memory in about ¼ of their participants
• Interviewed about 3 times in a 2 week period
Priming
Garry et al. (2007) (3) hurricane
• Participants read a news article about a hurricane; some saw the article accompanied by a pre-hurricane phots, the others a post hurricane photo
• Not told to remember any info
• After a week, brought in for a surprise recognition task, “was this statement on the paper?’
○ Those who saw the post photo, recall the newspaper reporting injuries and deaths despite none vs. The pre-hurricane group
Social media and memory
When info presented online in spoken words, they are better remembered than formally reported info
