Effective Encoding - Memory L3+4 Flashcards
What is Pragmatic memory research?
Seeking ways to improve people’s abilities to learn and remember
What is Experimental memory research?
Documenting the existence and nature of memory phenomena with observations that are systematically collected
What is Atheoretical memory research?
Characterising memory in an intuitive and informal manner; focusing on phenomena rather than explanations
What is Theoretical memory research?
Explaining the mechanisms of memory with theories, models, or metaphors that capture part of a phenomenon
What is the current Type of Memory Research (Searleman & Herrmann, 1994)?
Current research is mostly experimental and theoretical. However, the most useful research is often pragmatic and atheoritical!
What did Aristitle think about memory?
Laws of Association
Things that are encoded together are remembered together (atheoretical)
Century BC - Plato and Aristotle describe memory Metaphors: Wax Tablet, Aviary, Scribe.(theoretical)
What were Mnemonic Techniques?
Mnemonic Techniques
e.g. Method of Loci – Cicero’s “de
Oratore” 55BC.
(pragmatic)
What was written in the dark ages about memory?
Throughout the dark ages, little was written about memory, but almost everything written used Rhyme as a mnemonic device. (pragmatic)
What was said in the 16th and 17th centuries about memory?
16th and 17th Centuries – Theoretical interest rekindled: Bacon, Locke, Hume, Kant, Mill on ideas etc. (theoretical)
How did Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) contribute to the birth of experimental psychology?
(Experimental, Atheoretical)
Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology (1885)
Ebbinghaus decided that the scientific study of memory was possible using similar principles. His fundamental unit of memory was the nonsense syllable (e.g. nuh, zof, veg) – a partly successful attempt to circumvent the influence of meaning.
What was the “method of complete mastery” - Ebbinghaus?
Measured how long it took him to learn a list well enough that he could repeat it perfectly on two occasions.
What was the “method of savings” - Ebbinghaus?
Key measure of retention was how much less time he took to relearn a list.
What did Ebbinghaus say about forgetting? (research more)
Serial spaced learning of 1,200 lists of 13 nonsense syllables.
e.g. Re-Encoding is much faster than initial encoding
What did Ebbinghaus say about Encoding Long Lists?
Encoding Difficulty Increases Disproportionately with List Length
Encoding up to 7 items is almost instant.
After 7 items, doubling the list length more than quadruples the time to learn the list.
But after that the rate of increase in difficulty may reduce.
No evidence for any “maximum” list length.
How did Ebbinghaus/Keppel demonstrate Massed vs. Distributed Encoding?
Basic Effect was demonstrated by Ebbinghaus on himself (1885)
Detailed formal experimental data here presented from Keppel (1964)
Massed conditions MPs & MPd show steady improvements over time.
Distributed (DP) conditions show cross-day forgetting.
How good is massed practice?
Massed practice achieves goal soonest, but it is inefficient:
Less learning per hour encoding
e.g. Baddeley & Longman (1978) training postmen to type postcodes:
Training for one hour per session day is most efficient, 4 hrs per day least efficient,
Long term retention was also poorer in the 4hr group (2x2)
*But the 1 x 1 group were the least satisfied with the training!
Why does Distributed Encoding Work?
This may also be why it is so difficult to achieve and why people don’t like it. e.g. Bjork 2014 – desirable difficulties in training
Encoding variability
Multiple learning in slightly different contexts produces more available cues (e.g. Estes, 1959; Glenberg, 1979)
Deficient processing hypothesis
You don’t pay so much attention to recently encountered things e.g. Cuddy & Jacoby, 1982; Callan & Schweighofer, 2010)
Study-phase retrieval
With distributed learning, you tend to retrieve the previous episode of learning each time you re-learn and retrieval itself benefits memory (e.g. Xue et al., 2010; Feng et al., 2019)
What did Bower say about Encoding in context?
Bower et al., (1969) - words learned 4x faster if given appropriate network of meanings.
Context (Bransford & Johnson, 1972)
Schemata (Bartlett, 1932; Brewer & Treyens, 1981)
Scripts (Schank, 1982, Smith & Graesser, 1981)
Frames (Friedman, 1979; Minsky, 1975)
What do Bransford & Johnson (1972) say about encoding?
(research more)
Context here is acting as an encoding effect
What theoretical structures exist in memory?
Context
(Bransford & Johnson, 1972)
Schemata
(Bartlett, 1932; Brewer & Treyens, 1981)
Scripts
(Schank, 1982, Smith & Graesser, 1981)
Frames
(Friedman, 1979; Minsky, 1975)
Who researched Schematic Memory for places?
Brewer & Treyens (1981)
What do you remember being in the room where you were sitting?
Of 30 participants, how many recalled particular objects? - Brewer & Treyens (1981)
Chair 29
Books 9
Desk 29
Filing Cabinet 3
Wall 29
Coffee Cup 2
Poster 23
Pens 2
Door 22
Window 2
What predicts recall - Brewer & Treyens (1981)
Recall
Schema
Frequency
Expectancy
Saliency
Recall Frequency 1
Schema Expectancy 0.27 1
Saliency 0.47 -.37 1
Can you predict Schematic Memory?
Brewer & Treyens (1981) continued…
14 participants rate objects for “schema expectancy” – How likely the objects would be to appear in a room like this.
Another 14 participants rate objects for “saliency” – How noticeable the object is (or would be) in this room.
What are the results of predictung schematic Memory?
Correlation matrix of results…
False recall and recognition was almost always associated with high Schema Expectancy – see more recently, Webb, Turney & Dennis (2016)
Do Schema expectancy and Saliency (schema inconsistency) predict recall?
Brewer & Treyens found that both Schema Expectancy and Saliency (Schema Inconsistency) predict recall, even though these are negatively correlated with one another - does this support the existence of schemas? Surely you can’t have it both ways!
