Forgetting & Amnesia (1) Flashcards
What is the focus of the book titled “The Mind of a Mnemonist” (A. R. Luria, 1968)?
The inner world of a rare phenomenon- a man who was endowed with virtually limitless powers of memory.
How was A. R. Luria able to reveal in rich detail not only the obvious strength of S’s (the mnemonist’s) astonishing memory, but also his surprising weaknesses: his crippling inability to forget, his pattern of reacting passively to life, and his uniquely handicapped personality?
From his intimate knowledge of S., gained from conversations and testing over a period of almost thirty years.
What is a striking quote from A. R. Luria’s (Luria’s) book titled “The Mind of a Mnemonist”, referring to S.?
“There was no limit either to the capacity of S.’s memory or to the durability of the traces he retained”.
What is a striking quote from S. included in “The Mind of a Mnemonist” upon hearing a passage of writing?
“Each word calls up images, they collide with one another, and the result is chaos”.
How did S. describe his mind, as included in “The Mind of a Mnemonist”?
As “a junk heap of impressions”.
What are three reasons for forgetting?
- To enhance well-being by forgetting painful memories.
- To prevent outdated information from interfering with up-to-date information.
- To focus on the overall gist of a message by forgetting specific details.
What did Herman Ebbinghaus (1964) plot after teaching himself 2,000 meaningless letter strings (e.g. “X, E, W”)?
He plotted how many he could remember over the subsequent 31 days.
What did the “forgetting curve” observed by Ebbinghaus indicate?
That many of the meaningless letter strings that he had taught himself were forgotten very rapidly, followed by a more gradual decline.
Which effects have been replicated in more recent studies, such as those carried out by Rubin & Wenzel in 1996, and Murre & Dros in 2015?
Those related to the “forgetting curve” identified by Ebbinghaus
What percentage range did Ebbinghaus use to measure how many syllables he was able to retain?
0 - 100%.
How long was the retention interval that Ebbinghaus used to establish the percentage of syllables he was able to retain over a course of a certain period of time?
Between zero minutes and 31 days.
Which researchers further analysed Ebbinghaus’ “forgetting curve” in 2018?
Holt et al.
What are four different reasons for forgetting?
- Encoding failures
- Memory trace decay
- Interference
- Motivated forgetting
When does proactive interference occur?
When you cannot learn a new task because of an old task that has been learnt.
When does retroactive interference occur?
When you forget a previously learnt task due to the learning of a new task.
