Intro to memory Flashcards
Give the study and prcedue of formation and effet of procedural memory study
Heyes, C. & Foster, C. (2002)
Visual cue appears, reponce selected w/ certain finger finger, visual cue disappears, visual cue reappears
studied serial reation times: PPT part of either random sequence or repeated sequence
People get faster on the repeated sequence, even though they don’t notice that the sequence is repeating
• This can happen even when you only observe someone doing the task (Heyes & Foster, 2002)
what is working memory?
Remembering the instruction whilst consulting long-term memory = working memory (short term memory + processing)
Outline procedural memory
memory of skills
Perceptual imput guides motor output e.g. riding a bike
(applies also to mental (cogntive skills; problem solving strategies,doing crosswords, writing essays
• Can be implicit (as opposed to explicit)
what is the difference between explicit and implicit memory
explicit: conciously work to remember it
implicit: unconciously access it
Outline the case of clive wearing
A musician
knows who people are but can’t remember anything
viral encaphalitis, damage to hippocampus both sides of brain
severe memory impairment
can make STM but not LTM
give a cogntive psychologists definition of memory and what this means
“Memory does not comprise a single unitary system, but rather an array of interacting systems, each capable of encoding or registering information, storing it, and making it available by retrieval.”
(Baddeley et al., p. 19)
Memory as storehouse
Memory as specific contents
Memory as process, or set of processes: encoding, storage, retrieval. And also forgetting.
what is eidetic memory?
“photographic memory”?
- The ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with great accuracy and without limit.
- Psychologists prefer the term eidetic memory
test this by fusion of 2 images
give a case study of Eidetic memory
- Stromeyer and Psotka (1970): Described a Harvard student named Elizabeth with photographic memory.
- She was able to mentally fuse two images seen on successive days into a three-dimensional image.
- To do this, Elizabeth must have been able to store an exact image of the first dot pattern in her brain for a whole day!
what is the contradicting evidence for eidetic memory?
Merritt (1979): “None in a million…”
• Took out advertisements in magazines and newspapers across the country – “Can you see the hidden image?”
• Only 30 people wrote in with correct answer
• 15 allowed him to visit them to see if they could do it again – not one could.
• Eidetic memory is sometimes found in young children, but gradually disappears as a person ages (e.g., Haber, 1979).
How do we test forgetting
Learning –> reterntion interval–> test memory
Who discovered the forgetting function and how?
Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)
• Father of experimental memory research • Wanted to study memory stripped of meaning • To do this, used nonsense syllables (GAX, FOZ, KIF) • Discovered the forgetting function
Outline the method of savings and what this means
Learn a list to some criterion level — how many trials did it take? Call that t1
• Retention interval
• Relearn the list—how many trials did it take now? Call that t2
• If it takes you fewer trials the second time (t2 < t1), the difference must be due to memory.
Savings = 100 ((t1-t2)/t1)
e.g., if it took 10 trials to learn a list first time, but only 5 trials the second time, the saving is 50%
Outline the forgetting functio
Ebbinghaus’ forgetting function
Function is logarithmic (forgetting initially rapid then slows down)
- Similar forgetting functions observed by other researchers since Ebbinghaus
- On a log scale, functions are approximately linear
Outline some examples of forgetting function on the realworld
• How much savings do people show for Spanish vocabulary learnt at high school? (among Ss who don’t speak Spanish regularly)
Forgetting initially quite rapid but if word is still accessible after 3 years then likely to be well-preserved 30 years later (Bahrick, 1984)
“Permastore” (Bahrick & Phelps, 1987)
Bahrick et al. (1975) extraordinarily good recognition of photographs even after 50 years
Picture and and nae recall better than free recalll
Do we ever really fail to learn?
Blodgett (1929): maze learning in rats
• Hungry rats ran in a complex maze
• Two groups: I - Rewarded every day/trial II – Not rewarded until day 3
End/Exit
So do we really ever fail to learn?
• Group II performance didn’t improve over nonrewarded days…
• But then, once rewarded, their no. of errors immediately dropped to the level of Group I
• The initially non-rewarded group had learned the maze, but learning was latent.
• Distinction between performance/behaviour and learning
Would it be good to be able to recall everything?
