long-term memory: Everyday memory and applications

Question 1

consolidation of memory

Answer 1

changes happening at two levels

synaptic consolidation:
* repeated experience causes changes at the level of the synapse
* changes occur quickly, over a matter of minutes
* changes how efficiently the relevant synapses are exchanging signals

systems consolidation:
* repeated retrievals cause changes in the organization of neural circuits that represent memories
* changes occur gradually, over days, months or even years

Question 2

systems consolidation

Answer 2

all areas plus the hippocampus are activated

• initial burst of activity
• consolidation: as you retrieve info, the hippocampus is initially connected to all the areas and drives the retrieval
• when they are repeatedly activated they start connecting to each other and the connection to the hippocampus weakens
• so at the start the hippocampus is essential but overtime, the regions of the brain activated that are connected to the event or experience are linked to each other
• fresh memoy is established, they can be recalled from any cue to one of those areas

hippocampus becomes less and less involved until it’s not at all

Question 3

standard model of consolidation

Answer 3

once memories move away from the hippocampus, they are more stable and consolidated

hippocampus responsible for anterograde and graded amnesia

Hypoxia: lack of O2 to brain and hippocampus is most vulnerable to that

Question 4

consolidation & reconsolidation

Answer 4

• when a memory is retrieved, it is vulnerable to change
• after retrieval of a memory, it is necessary to store the memory again (reconsolidate) to return it to a permanent state

consolidation and reconsolidation are referred together as consolidation

Question 5

consolidation & sleep

Answer 5

role of sleep in consolidation is not fully understood, but there seems to be significant relationship between sleep and consolidation

testing in rats show the same areas used for learning a maze are reactivated during sleep

• brain consolidates a lot of info while sleeping
• sleep = form the largest amount of synaptic links
• you get a reactivation of what you experienced during the day but while sleeping

Question 6

consolidation & Sleep (OLD)

Answer 6

• memory loss increases with age and is connected to sleep
• found that memory is most disrupted when sleep is most disruptive

memory performance
* young adults > Older adults

slow-wave activity during sleep
* young adults > Older adults

regardless of age
* reduces refrontal cortex (PFC) volume associated with lower slow-wave activity

for consolidation
* younger adults relied more of Prefrontal Cortex
* Older adults relied more on Hippocampus

the way you retrieve info is structurally different as you age

Question 7

false memories

Answer 7

recalling how often a theme word is recalled – it actually isn’t presented

people remember seeing a ‘theme’ word

evidence for false memories

Question 8

false memory in real world

Answer 8

idea that memory recall is failable

• confusion about where information came from

Question 9

memory retrieval

Answer 9

elizabeth loftus
* students viewed films depicting vehicle accidents
* how fast were the cars going when they ___ each other?

expectations influence what we remember
* DRM paradigm: recalling theme word from a list, when that word wasn’t presented
*
* Schemas: expected sequence of events

Question 10

eyewitness memory

Answer 10

• eyewitness testimony is as unreliable as it is convincing

possible reasons
1. weak encoding (limited exposure)

2. selective encoding (weapon focus)
   * under a stressful event, you’re attentive to different things and it all depends on what you’re focusing on that you’ll remember
3. distortion during storage (source amnesia/source misattribution)

eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions

Question 11

weapon focus

Answer 11

tested bank employees’ memories for details of a training film

• film 1: bank holdup, kid shot in the face
• film 2: bank holdup, manager says “stay calm”

memory for first film was worse than control because there is motor processing that is focused on one thing

Question 12

eyewitness testimony misidentification

Answer 12

source misattribution and source amnesia

• confusing or forgetting the encoding context
• people remember the person but not where they remember them from

Question 13

the misinformation effect

Answer 13

misleading information presented after a person witnesses an even can change how the person describes that event later

experimenter’s suggestion can influence people’s memory reports for recently presented events

demonstration of experimenter suggestion
* situations in which suggestion causes people to remember events that occured early in their lives even though these events never happened

Question 14

legal implications of false memory

Answer 14

• repressed childhood memory
• memories pushed out of consciousness
• can cause psychological problems
• bad because patients with problems are convinced by therapist that is it because of childhood abuse of sexual assault
• suggestion creates false memories

Question 15

misidentification due to familiarity

Answer 15

bystanders in a crime can be mistakenly identified as a perpetrator because of familiarity from some other context

source monitoring error
* thinking a source of familiarity was him being the perpatrator but he is actually familiar from something else

Question 16

errors due to suggestion

Answer 16

suggesting who the perpatrator is increases the chances that the witness will pick someone

post-identification feedback effect
* creates a problem in the criminal justice system because jurrors are strongly influenced by how confident eyewitnesses are about their judgments

memories can be susceptible to suggestion during questioning

Question 17

how to improve eyewitness testimony

Answer 17

lineup procedures
* tell person that perpatrator might not be in the lineup which creates a 42% decrease in false identification of innocent people

another suggestion: using fillers who are similar to the suspect

use a blind lineup administrator - someone who doesn’t know who the suspect is

have witness rate their confidence immediately

interview techniques: making suggestions to witness can cause errors
* let witness talk with minimal interruption

Question 18

making inferences

Answer 18

memory influences by inferences that people make based on their experience and knowledge

pragmatic inference:
* occurs when reading a sentence leads a person to expect something that is not stated or implied by the sentence
* inferences are based on knowledge gained through experience

reading that a baby stayed awake all night might lead someone to infer that the baby was crying

Question 19

memory and emotion

Answer 19

emotion associated with special events

• better memory for arousing words
• amygdala: activity here is higher for emotional words
• damage to amygdala: no enhancement for emotional parts of stories

emotions may trigger mechanisms in amygdala that help us remember events associated with emotion

Question 20

source monitoring errors

Answer 20

misidentifying the source of the memory

cryptomnesia: unconscious plagiarism of the work of others
* making a song that is actually using someone else’s tune

determining if a name is famous

illusory truth effect
* demonstration of familiarity causing errors
* believing something is true after repeated expso

Question 21

illusory truth effect

Answer 21

enhanced probability of evaluating a statement as being true upon repeated presentation

repetition increases perceived truth even if the person knew the correct answer

why does repetition increase perceived truthfulness?
* fluency
* the ease with which a statement can be remembered influences judgement
* similar to the familiarity effect
* knowledge stored in memory is important but fluency can affect the judgments as well