MEMORY Flashcards
MEMORY
- understanding how things are remembered and why they are forgotten
3 Stages of Memory
1) Sensory memory
2) Short term memory
3) Long term memory
Sensory memory
- last a few seconds
- connection between perception and memory
Iconic Memory (SM)
- sensory memory of vision
- people can see more than they can remember
George Sperling (SM)
- shown string of letters and people forgot other letters in time that it took to write down the first = partial report
Partial report (SM)
- demonstrates that sensory memory (iconic memory) last only for a second
- e.g. Sperling experiment with string of letter
Neisser (SM)
- coined the term icon
- found backward masking
Icon (SM)
- brief visual memory that last for a second
Backward Masking (SM)
- when a light or pattern is presented before the iconic image fast, the first image will be erased
- more successful if mask if similar to original stimulus
Echoic memory
- sensory memory for auditory sensations
Short Term Memory (STM)
- temporrary; last seconds
Working Memory (STM)
- temporary memory that is needed to perform task
George Miller (STM)
- capacity of 7 (+ or minus 2)
Chunking (STM)
- grouping items to increase memory of STM
How are items coded in STM?
- phonologically (auditory)
Rehersal (STM)
- repeating or practicing to keep items in STM and transfer to LTM
Primary (maintenance) rehersal (STM)
- repeating material to transfer into LTM
Secondary (elaborative) rehersal (STM)
- organizing and understanding material to transfer into LTM
Interference (STM)
- how informations or distractions cause one to forget items in STM
Proactive Interference (STM)
- disruption of info that was learned before the new items are presented
Proactive inhibition (STM
- caused by proactive interference
- problematic for recall
Retroactive interference (STM)
- disruption of info that was learned aftr the new items is presetned
Retroactive inhibition (STM)
- caused by reteroactive interference
- problematic for recall
Long-term Memory (LTM)
- capable of permanent retention
- learned semantically
How is LTM measured?
- by recognition, recall, and savings
Recognition (LTM)
- recognize things e.g. multiple choice test
Recall (LTM)
- generate information on own
2 types of recall (LTM)
1) cued recall: e.g. fill in the blanks
2) free recall: no cue
Savings (LTM)
- measures how much info about subject remains in LTM by assessing how long it task to learn something the second time vs. the first
Encoding Specificity Principle (LTM)
- material is more likely remembered if retrieved in same context in which it was stored
What is LTM not subject to? What is it subject to
NO: primacy and recency effects
YES: interference effects of STM (proactive and reteroactive interference)
Episodic Memory
- details, events, and discrete knowledge
Semantic Memory
- general knowledge of the world
Procedural Memory
- “how to” do something
Declarative Memory
- knowing a fact
Explicit Memory
- something and being consciously aware of know it
e. g. a fact
Implicit Memory
- Knowing something without being aware of it
e. g. HM not knowing he has done it before
Hermann Ebbinghaus
- first to study memory systematically
- present subjects with list of syllables to study STM
- forgetting curve (and learning curve)
Forgetting Curve
- presented by Hermann Ebbinghaus
- sharp drop in savings immediately after learning and levels off, with downward trend
- some doubt that nonsense syllables generalize to other types of memory
Frederick Bartlett
- memory is reconstructive v. rote
- people remember ideas of stories vs. details
Allan Paivo
- dual code hypothesis: items will be better remember if they are encoded both visually and semantically (icons and understanding)
Dual Code Hypothesis
- things are better remembered if they are encoded both visually and semantically (icons and understanding)
Paired-associate learning
- behavioursits explain memory through recall of one item cueing the recall of another
Elizabeth Loftus
- memory of traumatic events are altered by events itself and way questions are asked
Karl Lashley
- memories are stored diffusely in brain
Donald Hebb (memory)
- invovles changes in synapses and neural pathways to make a memory tree
E. R. Kanel
- similar ideas of hebb and memory tree by studying the Aplysia
- studies of brains in young chicks show that their brains are altered with learning and memory
Brenda Milner
- wrote about HM who had a lesion in his hippocampus to stop epilepsy
- remember things from before surgery, STM intact but could not form long term memories
Serial Learning
- a list is learned a recalled in order (serial recall)
- feedback is given after the entire list is recall
- subject to primacy and recency effects
Primacy and recency effects
-first and last items are remember and the middles ones forgotten
- benefit from most rehearsal/exposure
= serial position curve
Serial Position Curve
- cause by primacy and recency effects in a serial recall task
Serial-anticipation learning
- asked to recall items one at a time and given feedback to each items then move onto next
Paired-associate learning
- used when studying foreign languages
e. g. pairing English word with Spanish word
Free-recall learning
- all items learned and recalled in any order without a cue
Facto that make a list easier to learn and retrieve
- acoustic dissimilairty
- semantic dissimilairty
- brevity (both in term, and length of list)
- familiarity
- concreteness
- meaning
- importance to the subjec
2 mains theories that suggest the origin of forgetting are:
1) decay theory
2) interference theory
Decay theory
- AKA trace theory
- memories fade with time
- criticize for simplicity
Interference theory
- competing information blocks retrieval
e. g. 2 groups and one sleeps while the other works on task; the sleeping group will remember more
Mnemonics
- memory cue that help learning and recall
e. g. acroynm
Generation-recognition model
- anything one might recall should be easily recognized
- e.g. principle of multiple choice
Tip of the tongue phenomenon
- verge of retrieval but can’t
State-dependent memory
- same as state dependent-learning
- retrieval is more successful when it occurs in same state that encoding occurred
e. g. depressed ppl can’t recall happy memories
Clustering
- brain groups similar items into memory regardless if they are learned together
- grouped in conceptual/semantic hierarches
Order of items on a list (recall task)
- subjects state the order of two items if they are far apart (e.g. 7 is before 593) than closer together (133 is before 136)
Incidental learning
- measured by presenting subjects with items they are not suppose to try to memorize and test for learning
Eidetic memory
- photographic memory
- more common in children and rural cultures
Flashbulb memorys
- recollections burned into the brain
Tachtiscope
- instrument used in cognitive or memory experiments
- presents visual material for fraction of second
Zeigarnik effect
- tendency to recall uncompleted tasks better than completed ones
Dual code hypothesis
- test material better retained with understanding (elaborative rehersal)
- rote memorization depends on only one link and susceptible to decay
Decay theory is also called:
Trace theory
