Lecture 5b memory: sources or memory accuracy and causes of forgetting

Question 0

why is it important to think about meaning?

Answer 0

• increases your chances of future remembering

- thinking about someting now to remember it later is called encoding

Question 1

define elaboration in relation to memory

Answer 1

relating what you want to remember to things that you already know

Question 2

how was it figured out that encoding was better for remembering?

Answer 2

craik and lockhart did a study

• phase 1: people presented a word and asked one of 3 types of questions.
  
  • Graphemic question: TURKEY- is it in lower case letters
  • phonemic question: BUTTON- does it rhyme with “mutton”?
  • semantic question: DOCTOR- is it related to nurse?
• phase 2: is a suprise recall test, people were asked to report all the words they answered questions about in phase 1.
• the results of the semantic questions were much higher than the others

Question 3

the importance of organization

Answer 3

it is easier to remember bits of information if you relate them to one another, rather than treat them as seperate

Question 4

the importance of distinctiveness

Answer 4

if something is distinct and stands out in memory, it is easier to recall

• an experience that you have had a thousand times is harder to remember
• if you want to remember one of those experiences you must make it distinctive to all the others

Question 5

distributed practice in relation to studying

Answer 5

if you want to remember somethin for a test, you will be much better off studying little bits at a time

Question 6

massed practice in relation to studying

Answer 6

if you cram, you wont do as well

Question 7

but why is distributed practice better?

Answer 7

because you are studying the material in different frames of mind, you are maximizing elaboration and distinctiveness both.

Question 8

what is the 1 is bun technique?

Answer 8

assoctiating numbers 1-10 with a thing that rhymes (1 is bun), and things in that sense

Question 9

beyond elaborate encoding: cued vs free recall

Answer 9

providing cues makes for easier remembering than not providing cues

Question 10

encoding specificity principal

Answer 10

it is easier to remember events when the conditions present now are similar to the conditions presented then.

Question 11

transfer-appropriate processing

Answer 11

this is inspired by the ‘match’ aspect of encoding specificity
-it involves the idea that if people will be successful at a task if they have done something similar before
-

Question 12

the father of memory research

Answer 12

hermann ebbinghaus (1850-1909

Question 13

what did ebbinghaus do with forgetting?

Answer 13

• first he constructed a list of 2300 nonsense cvc’s (eg. DAX, ZIL, BOF, etc.)
• then there was the training phase, where things were memorized in order, long lists of CVC pairings to perfection
• the test phase was where after various amounts of delay counted the percentage of correct responses to measure the rate of forgetting
• that is how the hermann ebbinghaus forgetting curve was created.

Question 14

explanations of forgetting: interference

Answer 14

similar experiences in memory block access to the experience you are trying to remember

Question 15

explanations of forgetting: retroactive interference

Answer 15

when recent experiences are preventing access to older ones

Question 16

explanations of forgetting: proactive interference

Answer 16

old experiences preventing access to more recent ones.

Question 17

what did jenkins and dallenbach do??

Answer 17

first they presented people with a list of nonsense pairs to learn to perfection

• one group that did this stayed awake for 8h and the other slept for 8h
• the sleep group remembered a lot more
• so therefore, decay does not cause forgetting, interference with similar information in memory causes forgetting (since one group was sleeping they didnt do as much that would interfere

Question 18

organic causes of memory impairment and what they are

Answer 18

retrograde amnesia: difficulty remembering events that precede brain injury
anterograde amnesia: difficulty remembering events that occur after a brain injury

Question 19

what is the case of H.M.

Answer 19

• it is where both hippocampi were surgically removed to control his epileptic seizures
• the result of this was major anterograde amnesia, but intact STM

Question 20

things that H.M. could use memory for

Answer 20

• short term retention: he was good at keeping track of what was happening in the present (conversation)
• skill learning: he could learn new abilities

Question 21

downsides for H.M.

Answer 21

has no concious knowledge of events that happened after his surgery.
-he experiences life as though time stopped in the 1950’s

Question 22

what is H.M.’s legacy?

Answer 22

people like H.M. have provided the single most important basis for ideas about the different types of memory that exist in humans