Lecture 3: The Retrieval Process Flashcards
What is retrieval?
The ability to retrieve information
What is Tip-of-the-Tongue state?
A feeling that one knows a response yet is unable to produce it.
What is target memory trace?
The particular memory we are searching for
What are retrieval cues?
Bits of information about the target memory that guide the search
What are associations?
Bonds that link together items in memory [vary in strength]
What is activation level?
The internal state of a memory, reflecting its level of excitement. [determines accessibility of the item]. It increases when something relating to the memory is encountered.
What is spreading activation?
The automatic transmission of ‘energy’ from one memory to related items via associations. It is proportional to the strength of connections.
What is pattern completion?
The process by which spreading activation from a set of cues leads to the reinstatement of a memory.
There are 7 factors determining retrieval success, what are they?
Attention to cues, relevance of cues, cue-target associative strength, number of cues, strength of target memory, retrieval strategy, retrieval mode
How does attention to cues determine retrieval success?
Reduced attention to a cue impairs its ability to guide retrieval
How does relevance of cues determine retrieval success?
Retrieval cues are most effective when they are strongly related to the target
How does cue-target associative strength determine retrieval success?
Retrieval success depends on the strength of cue-target association
How does the number of cues determine retrieval success?
Access to additional, relevant cues facilitates retrieval (such as elaborative encoding)
How does the strength of a target memory determine retrieval success?
Weakly encoded targets are more difficult to retrieve
How does the retrieval strategy determine retrieval success?
Retrieval success is increased by:
- The organisation of materials at encoding
- Adopting efficient strategies of memory search
How does the retrieval mode determine retrieval success?
Frame of mind allows interpreting environmental stimuli as episodic memory cues to guide subsequent retrieval.
What is an example of a direct/explicit memory task?
Ask people to recall particular experiences; Require a contextual cue; Reveal impaired performance in amnesiacs; In many cases, rely on hippocampus. Types: Free recall, Cued recall, Yes/No recognition, Forced-choice recognition
What is an example of an indirect/implicit memory task?
Measure the unconscious influence of experience without asking the subject to recall the past. Reveal normal performance in amnesiacs.
Types: Stem completion, Fragment completion, Conceptual fluency
What are the four types of cue?
> Spatio-Temporal/Environmental
Mood
Physiological
Cognitive
What is a spatio-temporal/environmental cue?
Location and time cues during an event
What is a mood cue?
Emotional state that one was in during the event
What is a physiological cue?
Physical (pharmacological) state one was in during an event
What is a cognitive cue?
Collection of concepts one has thought about the event
What type of dependent can memory be?
Context - reinstates original encoding environment and facilitates retrieval.
What is the principle of encoding specificity?
We encode information along with its context
Gooden and Baddeley conducted a study in 1975 concerning divers, what was it?
Taught divers word pairs in one of two contexts: dry land or underwater. Tested cue recall in same or different environments. Concluded that material is best recalled in the environment it was learned.
What is state-dependent memory?
Recall depends on the match between the participants’ internal environment at encoding and retrieval.
What happens to state dependency under cognition tests?
It disappears.
