Losing memory Flashcards
What are the results of Golden and Baddeley (1975)?
Free recall of a list of 40 words was better when the
environment (context) matched, whether underwater or on land
What is transfer-appropriate processing and how did Morris et al. (1977) demonstrate it?
Words were encoded using 2 different study tasks
When asked if items were old or new, people remembered semantically encoded ones best (generated to fit sentences)
When cued with rhyming items, people remembered
rhyme encoded ones best (generated to make rhymes)
They can override encoding factors like deep processing and picture superiority
What is the effect of reinstating memory?
Help bring back the rest = contextual cueing / contextual reinstatement
Cortex and hippocampus = encoding, partial cue, recollection (picture from Rudy, 2009)
What is minimal cue
Free recall?
Cued recall
Additional cue
What is recognition?
Yes or no?
What are memory cues?
Location = powerful contextual memory cue
Smith and Manzano (2010) found the scene reinstated. Ps wrote free recall of words, improved by scene cues at test.
Cues better when more diagnostic.
Scene cues = larger effect when studied videos were associated w/ fewer words
How do cues work?
Content addressable memory – find by knowing content. Contrast with address addressable, e.g. where people live
Global matching models = retrieval reflects the match between
a cue and all stored memory traces (Clark & Gronlund, 1996)
Complementary learning systems model = episodic memory
representations stored in the cortex, partial cue triggers a pattern
completion by the hippocampus McLelland et al., 1995)
Successful cues = overall and are diagnostic
What is the role of encoding and retrieval?
Context is incorporated into the memory trace
Cueing w/ context helps memory retrieval
Cue should match – its processing overlap w/ – what was encoded
Encoding and retrieval are interdependent!
Tulving & Thomson (1973) Encoding Specificity Principle = Morris et al.’s (1977) Transfer-Appropriate Processing principle. They are the same.
What is episodic reinstatement?
Memory traces = some of the same neural representations used to experience the original events
Measure by testing for reinstatement = reactivation of
distributed neural patterns across multiple regions (neurons)
Different types of events = unique patterns of brain activity, are reinstated during recall bc pattern completion and substrate of recollection
People may also use mental reinstatement to trigger recollection by self-cueing =to act like an external cue, causing the pattern
completion
Application: the Cognitive Interview for eyewitnesses
What did Polyn et al. (2005) do?
Polyn et al. (2005) measured fMRI brain activity patterns when people remember different information
Machine-learning algorithms were trained to discriminate the
patterns during viewing of faces, locations and objects
At test the same algorithms could ‘read out’ (decode) which of these 3 categories of memory people were recalling
What did Polyn et al (2005) show?
different types of events had unique patterns of brain activity which were reinstated during recall
Which brain structures are a part of episodic encoding?
Events engage multiple areas of the cortex
Prefrontal cortex strategically = organise
Memories are encoded as a ‘byproduct’ of event processing
Hippocampus binds multi-element memory traces
What brain structures are in episodic retrieval?
Triggered by a cue
hippocampus initiates recollection in response to the cue
Then, (some of) the original cortical activity is reinstated
Prefrontal cortex is involved strategically to organise & monitor
What is the role of self-cuing?
Brain activity patterns revealed the category people were recalling
Reinstatement = 5 sec before recall. Preliminary evidence that mental reinstatement (‘self-cueing’) actually triggers recall (but fMRI has poor time-resolution)
What happened in Linton’s study (1978)?
2-3 events recorded each day over 6 years
2 ‘semi-randomly’ picked later, monthly, for recall of details, dates. Delete the event file if forgotten.
From 6mths = decay over time. No. of times it had been tested, increase the memory.
What are the testing effects?
Roediger and Karpicke (2006, Experiment 2)
Memory for ‘ideas units’ in prose passages
SSSS = study 4 times for 5 mins
SSST = study then recall test
TTTT = repeated recall tests
Results = SSSS (40%), SSST (60%), STTT
52% forgetting in the repeated study conditions vs 10% in the testing condition
What is the applications of testing effects?
Large effect with lots of replications E.g., Rowland (2014) meta-analysis
* Shown in applied educational settings
* Transfer of learning to other material
* Not just students – generalises to different populations,
e.g. older adults (Meyer & Logan, 2013)
How does testing worked? (semantic elaboration)
Testing may enrich semantic representations of a memory bc when we learn something, additional associations = formed making alternative retrieval routes
Carpenter (2009) study MOTHER–CHILD
* initial test with cue MOTHER: answer is CHILD
* Later = use associates of the cue, MOTHER, to retrieve the
target
* E.g. FATHER: answer is CHILD – this answer is given more
often after the practice test compared to a restudy condition
How does testing worked? (brain)
Wing et al. (2013) memory encoding during study vs. initial test
Hippocampus and temporal ‘semantic’ regions - only during
testing - BUT don’t know if semantic processing actually happening + activity in these areas greater during restudy
Successful encoding activity = people were encoding during the initial test or restudy
How does testing worked? (episodic context)
Karpicke et al. (2014)
Item is studied and later tested = context is different = place, time + internal state
Testing updates context representations so memory trace = old + new context
Larger range of potential cues can now trigger recall, as they
may overlap w/ either old or new context
Supported by findings that a difficult initial test is better e.g., recall MOTHER–C—- versus MOTHER—CHI– bc people have to do more mental reinstatement (thinking back to place, time, internal state)
What is Wimber et al. (2015) study?
Test with cues: antique–?
Learn 2 word-face and word-object pairs
Practice tests to improve memory for only first pairs
Indirect fMRI support for context account, strengthen relevant & weaken irrelevant object representations
What does Seekers et al. (2016) show?
Higher forgetting of peripheral (perceptual) details than central (gist) information
But cues (reminders = R) re-triggered recollection of the peripheral information
Repeated testing also reduced forgetting of peripheral details
What is memory durability and updating?
The testing effect = memory is updated in some way when it is retrieved
Over time, semantic memory emerges (to some degree
at least) from episodes
Therefore, the variables that assist initial encoding may NOT be the same ones that benefit longer-term learning
Why does our memory work like this?
Different theories of durability, and of how older memories seem
to be more resistant to damage to the hippocampus in amnesia
Systems consolidation
*Memories become independent of the hippocampus with time
with or without ‘semanticisation’
vs
* Multiple memory traces – updating over time. Hippocampus
always involved, some transformation from episodic to
semantic
