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)
