memory - catching the moment

Question 1

what is an episodic memory made of?

Answer 1

• Contextual information - time + location, what we were thinking
  
  • Relations (associations) of details - people + time + location
  • A one-shot memory
  • Details about an event e.g., who was there
  • When these details come to mind we often have a sense of “reliving the past” = recollection (Tulving, 1983)

Question 2

episodic memory in the lab

Answer 2

• study phase - encoding new ‘events’
• test phase - retrieving these ‘events’

Question 3

stages of memory

Answer 3

1. Encoding
   
   2. Storage
2. Retrieval

Question 4

divided attention and memory

Answer 4

• Dividing attention during encoding markedly impairs memory
  
  • i.e., if you do something else at the same time you will not learn much!

Question 5

in the brain - the hippocampus

Answer 5

• fMRI scanning when attending to colour or location
  
  • Attention boosted source memory for the attended feature
  • Hippocampus activated more when people encoded the attended features
  • Hippocampus essential for binding items with context to create memories
  • Known from effects of amnesia (H.M.)
  • Further suggests attention may modify input to hippocampus

Question 6

attention and memory

Answer 6

· Attention is important for encoding new memories
· Attention may boost inputs to the hippocampus
· To learn as much as you can, avoid distractions like social media

· Pictures often easier to remember than words (picture superiority effect)
· Mentally imageable words are also easier to remember
· So are concrete words (words that refer to objects)

Question 7

why? dual code theory

Answer 7

· Paivio’s (1971) dual code theory - an image plus a verbal code produces a richer memory trace
· But this theory only explains the picture superiority effect (and did not predict it)

Question 8

Or? distinctiveness theory

Answer 8

• The Von Restorff (1933) (isolation) effect - a memory boost from processing difference in the context of similarity (Hunt 2013)

Question 9

distinctiveness and picture superiority

Answer 9

• Ensor, Suprenant and Neath (2019) abolished the picture superiority effect by making the words more distinctive using colour and fonts

Question 10

predictors of memorability

Answer 10

· Objects, colour, and complexity made data visualisations memorable
· Scientific figures did not do as well as infographics, Govt worst
· Borkin et al (2013)
· Varying contexts - distinctive images were memorable Bylinski et al (2015)

Question 11

meaning in image memorability

Answer 11

• images are less memorable where their concepts share more features with other concepts
• images with people are memorable, but natural scenes arent
• atypical versions of objects are - more distinctive
• review by Rust and Mehrpour (2020)

Question 12

in the brain and at uni

Answer 12

· Studied new facts within degree courses
· Related (existing schema) to previous year’s content
· Or unrelated (no schema) to previous year’s content
· Memory better for course-related (schema) information 24 hours later
· fMRI while encoding new facts
· Schema-related facts:
○ Activated the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) more
○ Activated the medial temporal lobe (MTL) less (includes hippocampus)
· Medial PFC schema-related activation predicted Y2 course performance

Question 13

schemas + prediction = distinctiveness?

Answer 13

• prediction error/distinctiveness effect - unexpected objects also better remembered than neutral
• schema effect - expected objects better remembered than neutral objects
• might prediction account for other kinds of distinctiveness effects on memory too?

Question 14

levels of processing

Answer 14

· The baker-Baker paradox
· Processing for meaning often helps memory encoding
· But idea of ‘depth’ doesn’t tell us why or when this semantic processing will help.

Question 15

depth of processing in the brain

Answer 15

· Brain regions like ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (A: VLPFC) are activated by semantic bs phonological processing
· Also activated when words are successfully encoded into memory

Question 16

elaboration as processing strategy

Answer 16

· Any semantic processing involves relating new material to your prior knowledge
· But elaboration means going further and may capitalise on other distinctive processing as well as meaning
· Meaningful mental imagery linking unrelated pieces of information boosts memory (Reed, 1918)
· Important to relate new to known material

Question 17

prefrontal cortex and memory

Answer 17

· Prefrontal cortex (PFC) damage does not cause frank amnesia, but DOES impair memory control
· E.g. patients do not organise material to be remembered (Gershberg & Shimamura, 1995)
· Dorsolateral PFC - Organisation in encoding (and executive functions like information updating)
· Ventrolateral PFC - Semantic (‘deep’) encoding (and semantic control)

Question 18

in the brain - encoding organised memories

Answer 18

• activating dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during encoding predicted later semantic clustering i.e., recall organised by meaning
• hippocampus more activated

Question 19

in the brain - distinctive processing

Answer 19

• fMRI study
• faces were more likely to be recollected if people judged their distinctiveness
• compare with judging similarity
• when encoding memories, this processing for distinctiveness boosted activation of the hippocampus

Question 20

how can we capture the moment

Answer 20

· ‘Trying to remember’ doesn’t always help
· But these active learning strategies can:
- Attending to what you want to remember
- Using mental imagery
- Processing actively for meaning
- Processing material so it is more distinctive
- Organising material mentally