memory lecture 5 Flashcards
what is repression?
active mechanism to prevent remembering
what does Freud suggest repression occurs?
memories which could harm the ego are suppressed to avoid anxiety
wilkinson and cargill (1955) repression procedure
participants told they were doing a personality study
listened to a story containing a description of a dream
dream was neutral or contained sexual imagery with oedipal material
wilkinson and cargill (1955) repression results
men had worse memory than women for the oedipal material
levinger and clark (1961) procedure
task involved neutral or emotional stimulus words
free association task- asked to write the words which first came to mind
assessed galvanic skin responses
levinger and clark (1961) results
more likely to remember neutral free associates than emotional free associates
parkin, lewinsohn and folkard: enhancing the LTM with arousal
with immediate testing, memory is worse for associates to emotional words
after 7 days, memory for associates to emotional words is better than for neutral words
who proposed action decrement theory?
Walker, 1958
what is action decrement theory?
memory traces take time to consolidate
physiological arousal increases the time for the trace to consolidate
but may improve long term encoding
anderson, wais and gabrielli (2006): retrograde arousal enhancement procedure
shown a neutral picture
interval lasting 4 or 9 seconds
shown an arousing picture
did recognition tests for neutral and arousing stimuli after a week
anderson, wais and gabrielli (2006): retrograde arousal enhancement results
more arousing images had better memory
memory for neutral stimuli shortly presented before arousing stimuli is enhanced
what did finn and roediger find out about retrograde arousal enhancement?
vocabulary learning enhanced by negative arousal pictures immediately or 2 seconds after successful retrieval
but arousal doesn’t enhance performance when restudying items
part list cueing- slamecka (1968) procedure
had to encode 30 rare words, 30 common words and 30 butterfly associates
had to remember the entire list, or given 15 words in context and had to recall the rest
part list cueing- slamecka (1968) results
part list impaired the memory
anderson, bjork and bjork (1994) retrieval induced forgetting: procedure
had to learn paired associates
encoded category exemplar pairs
practiced retrieval of half the pairs
anderson, bjork and bjork (1994) retrieval induced forgetting: results
baseline- unpracticed categories
enhanced- practiced exemplars of practiced categories
impaired- unpracticed exemplars of practiced categories
suggests practicing some things can inhibit others
what is list method directed forgetting?
learn the first list
told to forget this list
learn a second list
when people were told to forget things they did
what is item method directed forgetting?
items people were told to remember were enhanced compared to items people were told to forget
what is the explanation for list method directed forgetting?
genuine inhibition of the first list
retrieval for the second list may impair memory
what is the explanation for item method directed forgetting?
use the time to remember the items you are told to remember
so don’t have time to rehearse the items you have forgotten
anderson and green, 2001: direct suppression procedure
learnt 40 words
told to think (process the link) or no think (fixate on the cue but prevent the other word from coming to mind)
anderson and green, 2001: direct suppression results
performance improved with the repetition of the think trial
performance declined with the repetition of the no-think trial
what happens if you suppress an item?
more difficult to generate it in a new context
is there evidence for freudian repression?
no-
emotional items are generally well remembered
even neutral items associated with arosual are generally well remembered
what is partial active repression?
thinking repeatedly about something means you are more likely to remember it
actively not thinking about something inhibits its retrieval from storage
