Lecture 5b memory: sources or memory accuracy and causes of forgetting Flashcards
why is it important to think about meaning?
- increases your chances of future remembering
- thinking about someting now to remember it later is called encoding
define elaboration in relation to memory
relating what you want to remember to things that you already know
how was it figured out that encoding was better for remembering?
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
the importance of organization
it is easier to remember bits of information if you relate them to one another, rather than treat them as seperate
the importance of distinctiveness
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
distributed practice in relation to studying
if you want to remember somethin for a test, you will be much better off studying little bits at a time
massed practice in relation to studying
if you cram, you wont do as well
but why is distributed practice better?
because you are studying the material in different frames of mind, you are maximizing elaboration and distinctiveness both.
what is the 1 is bun technique?
assoctiating numbers 1-10 with a thing that rhymes (1 is bun), and things in that sense
beyond elaborate encoding: cued vs free recall
providing cues makes for easier remembering than not providing cues
encoding specificity principal
it is easier to remember events when the conditions present now are similar to the conditions presented then.
transfer-appropriate processing
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
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the father of memory research
hermann ebbinghaus (1850-1909
what did ebbinghaus do with forgetting?
- 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.
explanations of forgetting: interference
similar experiences in memory block access to the experience you are trying to remember
explanations of forgetting: retroactive interference
when recent experiences are preventing access to older ones
explanations of forgetting: proactive interference
old experiences preventing access to more recent ones.
what did jenkins and dallenbach do??
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
organic causes of memory impairment and what they are
retrograde amnesia: difficulty remembering events that precede brain injury
anterograde amnesia: difficulty remembering events that occur after a brain injury
what is the case of H.M.
- it is where both hippocampi were surgically removed to control his epileptic seizures
- the result of this was major anterograde amnesia, but intact STM
things that H.M. could use memory for
- short term retention: he was good at keeping track of what was happening in the present (conversation)
- skill learning: he could learn new abilities
downsides for H.M.
has no concious knowledge of events that happened after his surgery.
-he experiences life as though time stopped in the 1950’s
what is H.M.’s legacy?
people like H.M. have provided the single most important basis for ideas about the different types of memory that exist in humans