Memory: Acquisition and Retrieval Flashcards
What did Murdoch conclude from the following experiment:
Participants were asked to memorise a list of word and they were allowed to say the words in any order (free recall).
Murdoch wanted to know how many words were recalled based on their position in the list.
In this experiment, the first 5 words were recalled better. This is called the primacy effect. This is due to the fact that participants have more time to rehearse these words and transfer them to LTM.
As the words go on, the attention gets divided between the words reducing the ability to remember them.
On the other hand, the recency effect happens for the last words memorized.
Murdoch did a second experiment where participants were asked to count backwards from 30 after the last word in the list. What happened?
Counting prevented the rehearsal of the last words memorized thus dropping the ability to recall them so the information does not make it to the WM.
Double Dissociation
When two mental processes are shown to be independent.
Patient H.M
Patient H.M. was a patient with epilepsy who got their hippocampus removed.
At the time, it was not known that the hippocampus was important for the LTM and so Patient H.M. was not able to create new memories anymore.
Patient K.M.
Patient K.M. had their LTM but not their STM. Usually, memory span if of about 5s to 9s but this patient had a span of 2s.
Is memory retrieval dependent on how it was encoded?
Yes, if you don’t use the same connection you will not retrieve the information.
Context-dependent Learning
When you remember something by finding yourself in the same context as when it was encoded.
In a study by Godden and Baddeley, divers were divided into two groups. Group A had to memorize a list of words underwater and group B had to memorize the same list on land.
Explain the results.
Each group was able to better recall the list of words if they were in the same environment as when they learned it.
There have been other studies that support this. For example, studying in silence vs studying with noise.
Can you still recall the information even if you are not in the same location as when you learned it?
Yes! You can imagine it. Actually, retrieval is not only a physical context but also psychological.
State-dependent Learning
Retrieval of information is better when the mood and mental state of the person is the same when they encoded the information and when they are retrieving it.
True or False
There is a greater benefit if the participant creates their own retrieval cues.
True!
In an experiment by Mantyla, participants were divided into 3 groups. The first groups were allowed to create their own cues and use then for retrieval, the second group gets cues created by someone else and have to use those cues during retrieval. Finally, the third group was given no cues for memorizing and they were given some cues for retrieval.
What is stored in memory?
The material and all the connections.
Encoding Specificity
The idea that you recall better if you are in the same context
Long-term Memory is divided into two subsystems
Explicit and Implicit Memories
Explicit Memories
Conscious memories. Is formed by the Declarative memory (which are events and facts). Declarative memory is divided into Episodic and Semantic memories.
Episodic Memory
Recall events: where you were, with who you were, how you felt, etc.
Semantic Memory
Facts: dates, times, what happened…
True or False
Episodic memories morphed into semantic memories.
And give an example.
True.
When you learned something in 6th grade, you forgot the moment but retained the information.
True or False
Semantic memory can be enhanced by episodic memory.
Give an example.
True
It might be easier to remember the name of a singer if you went to their concert.
True or False
Semantic memories can affect our attention.
True
Testing Explicit Memory
Memory can be divided in two ways:
- Recall: Lear a list of words and say all the words remembered. Explicit memory search depending on connections.
- Recognition: Learn a list of words, see some words and recognize the ones in the list. Recalling a previous episode and identifying it explicitly.
Familiarity
Feeling of familiarity without knowing why.
Source Memory
Perfect memory but no sense of familiarity.
What area of the brain is responsible for the sense of familiarity?
Perihinal Cortex
Which areas of the brain are responsible for the source memory?
Hippocampus and Parahippocampal cortex
We know that the hippocampus makes memory connections to promote source memory.
Implicit Memory
Memory without awareness. The content of the memory cannot be recalled explicitly.
How do you find out if someone remembers something without explicitly asking them?
Expose someone to the same event twice. Then you can ask if the first exposure primed such that they had some kind of experience for the second exposure and so it would be easier the second time if it, indeed, primed.
Give an example of a Priming task
- Ask the participants to read a list of words (do not ask them to memorize it but to check for the spelling for example).
- Lexical decision task. (Ask the participants to point out which words are real English words.)
During these tasks, we noticed that people were faster at identifying the English words that were in the list.
There was a study made with two groups of people. Group A was composed of people with Amnesia, group B was a control group.
The participants were asked to rank from 1 to 5 how much they liked certain words.
After, they were given a list of words to memorize.
What did the researchers conclude?
When participants were asked to recall the memorized words, amnesic participants did very poorly, were as the control group was almost as good as when they were prompted with the 3 first letters.
Amnesic people were much better at remembering the words when the 3 first letter were prompted and they were memorized via ranking their pleasantness.
False Fame Effect
- Participants were presented with a list of non-famous names.
- Test immediately: Participants had the familiarity feeling and the source of the memory
- Test after 24h: many of the non-famous names were named as famous! Participants had forgotten the source of their memory but still had the sense of familiarity.
True Statement Effect
Participants were given a lists of facts (where some were true and some weren’t).
Participants were then told which were not true.
After a while, participants had to rate the credibility of some facts which contained some of the facts shown before. Participants rated the credibility of the previous facts higher even if they were told they were not true.
Mandela Effect
In an experiment, participants were shown a staged crime. They were then shown pictures of convicted people. Finally, they were shown a lineup of potential suspects. Some of the people in the lineup were in the pictures but none was in the crime. Participants still pointed at one of the people in the lineup because of the sense of familiarity that came from the pictures shown.
True or False
We are good at identifying familiarity but not the source. Moreover, we are constantly being influenced by memories that we don’t even know we have.
True
Retrograde Amnesia
Events before trauma are forgotten
Anterograde Amnesia
Events after the trauma are forgotten.
