Long-term Memory

Question 1

Whats LTM?

Answer 1

Declarative/explicit memory
Non-declarative/implicit/procedural memory

Question 2

Whats declarative/explicit memory?

Answer 2

LTM for events (episodic memory, as you may recall from last week) and facts (semantic memory) that can be “declared”

Involves conscious recollection

Impaired in amnesiacs

Question 3

Whats Non-Declarative/Implicit/Procedural memory?

Answer 3

Typically reflected through skills or changes in behaviour
- E.g., How to ride a bike

Doesn’t involve conscious recollection

Preserved in amnesiacs

Question 4

Whats the Distinction between STS and LTS: Neurological evidence from amnesia?

Answer 4

Much of the evidence for a distinction between a short-term store and a long-term store takes the form of neurological evidence, whereby specific brain impairments have resulted in selective memory deficits.

For instance, Henry Molaison (better known as H.M.) had selective memory impairments following the removal of some of the medial structures of his left temporal lobe.

Following the surgery, he became severely amnesic. He could remember events from before the surgery, and had intact short-term memory (e.g., a normal digit span) and non-declarative memory, but could not form new explicit long-term memories.

Question 5

Whats the Distinction between STS and LTS: Experimental evidence?

Answer 5

The serial position curve is a common finding in word-list experiments, wherein participants are asked to study a list of words and then recall them (see Murdock, 1962, for an early demonstration of the serial position curve).

The serial position curve refers to a pattern of recall whereby:
- Words at the beginning of the list are remembered well, as they have been rehearsed and transferred into LTM (primacy effect).
- Words in the middle of the list are remembered poorly.
- Words at the end of the list are remembered well, as they are still available in STM (recency effect).

Question 6

What are Processes and strategies that aid long-term memory?

Answer 6

How do you improve your ability to remember things (e.g. for exams)?

It depends a wide variety of factors…
– On how you encode the information.
– What it is you are trying to remember.
– How you are trying to retrieve the information.

Here we will review a few of the relevant factors.

Question 7

What’s spacing effects?

Answer 7

Memory is better for information when study of the material is spaced or distributed (i.e., shorter periods of study over more sessions), rather than massed (i.e., longer periods of study, but with fewer sessions or just one session)

Question 8

What are levels of processing?

Answer 8

Craik & Lockhart (1972) argued that making information more meaningful makes it more memorable, as it makes the information more distinctive (different from other memory traces) and allows for richer processing.

For instance, in a 1975 paper, they found that asking participants to encode words deeply, that is, according to their meaning (i.e., judging if the word made sense in a given sentence) led to better recall than encoding words shallowly, that is, according to their structural characteristics (judging if it was written in upper-case letters) or phonetic characteristics (judging if it rhymed with a given word)

Question 9

Whats the expecting to teach effect?

Answer 9

In Nestojko et al. (2014), participants studied a passage on the Crimean War. They would they would either (1) be tested on it, or (2) have to teach it to other students.

Recall was better when students expected that they would have to teach it to other students.

Question 10

Whats the permastore?

Answer 10

Permastore (Bahrick, 1984):
- An analogy to permanently frozen polar regions
- Refers to very long-term stable memories

• In this case, Bahrick was referring to long-term memories of Spanish learned in school.
• The amount of information in the permastore was a function of how well the material was originally learned.

Question 11

What are reconstructive forces?

Answer 11

Though forgetting often does slow down at a certain point, memory is nonetheless subject to reconstructive forces which cause distortions of various kinds.

The influence of such reconstructive forces belies the notion that memory works like a video camera, and information is encoded and then stored perfectly accurately and in pristine form.

Question 12

What did Bartlett do?

Answer 12

The war of the ghosts

One of the earliest researchers to demonstrate the reconstructive nature of memory was Sir Frederic Bartlett. He was interested in what happens when information is passed from one culture to another.

What distortions occurred?
- Conventionalisation – e.g. “canoes” becomes “boats”
- Transformation – e.g. changing details that don’t make sense “something black came out of his mouth” becomes “he was sick”
- Omission – e.g. leaving out details
- Commission – e.g. making up new details

Basically participants were not recalling the story verbatim (i.e. word for word) but reconstructing the details of the story according to their expectations and pre-existing schema for a story (Bartlett, 1932).

Question 13

What are schema/scripts?

Answer 13

“The use of the past to deal with new experiences”

“A stored framework or body of knowledge about some topic”

“Scripts” or “frames” are essentially a more specific type of schema

Question 14

What are the function of schemata?

Answer 14

To help people understand incoming information

Categories new instance of events
Infer additional attributes
Guide interpretation, attention and behaviour

They don’t have to be accurate - stereotypes are a form of schema and are often inaccurate

Question 15

How do schemata effect recall?

Answer 15

Anderson and Pichert (1978) found that people remember more details relevant to their operative schema (either the burglar schema or an alternative schema, whereby the participant was instructed to take the perspective of a prospective homebuyer).

The important point is that our organized past experiences (schemata) help us make sense of and interpret our new experiences.

In the same way that, in Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts, participants organised elements of the story according to their preexisting schema for a story (e.g., changing details that didn’t make sense), participants here organised (and thus recalled) the information in the story according to the particular schema that had been activated (burglar/homebuyer).

Question 16

What did Kleider do?

Answer 16

The effect of gender schemata on recall

Kleider et al. (2008) showed participants photographs of a man and a woman performing either gender-consistent or gender-inconsistent actions.
Participants were then asked to recall which actions had been performed by the man and which had been performed by the woman.

When participants inaccurately recalled the action performed, they more often recalled someone as performing a gender-consistent action (when they actually performed a gender-inconsistent action) than vice-versa

Question 17

What are leading questions?

Answer 17

Loftus and Palmer (1974) had participants watch films of automobile accidents and then answer questions about the event occurring in the films.

The questions included:
- How fast were the cars going when the cars smashed into/hit/collided with/bumped/contacted each other.
- Participants were then asked to estimate how fast the cars had been going.

Effects - Speed estimates depended on the word used in the question:
- Highest for smashed
- Lowest for contacted

Question 18

Whats post-event misinformation?

Answer 18

In Loftus et al. (1978), participants were shown slides of an accident in which a car hits a pedestrian.
- The car passes a “Stop” sign or a “Yield” (give way) sign.
- Participants were then asked a question containing either consistent or inconsistent information.

For instance, if they originally saw a “Stop” sign then …
- Consistent condition = asked “did another car pass the red Datsun while it stopped at the Stop sign”
- Inconsistent condition = asked “did another car pass the red Datsun while is stopped at the Yield sign”

Question 19

What are the effects of post-event misinformation?

Answer 19

Results from Loftus et al. (1978)
- Twenty minutes later, participants were asked to select which sign they had actually seen, a “Stop” sign or a “Yield” sign.
- Participants given consistent information were correct 75% of the time.
- Participants given inconsistent information were correct 41% of the time (i.e., less than chance).

Conclusion:
- Memory can be systematically distorted by the way questions are phrased.

Question 20

Whats memory conformity for details?

Answer 20

Gabbert et al. (2003) investigated memory conformity effects between individuals who witness and then discuss a criminal event.

They employed a novel procedure whereby each member of a dyad watches a different video of the same event.
Each video was filmed from a different angle and contained unique details that were thus seen only by one witness.
For instance, in only one condition was the participant able to see the theft of some money.

Method:
1)View the film.
2)Discuss the film with your partner.
3)Recall the video individually.

Question 21

What did Gabbert find?

Answer 21

71% of witnesses who had discussed the event went on to mistakenly recall at least one detail that had not been present, including claiming that they had “seen” the non-existent theft.