memory - using it not losing it Flashcards

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1
Q

memory cue

A
  • Free recall of a list of 40 words was better when the environment (context) matched, whether underwater or on land
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2
Q

What is transfer-appropriate processing and how did Morris et al (1977) demonstrate it?:

A
  • Words were encoded using ‘deep’ vs ‘shallow’ 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)
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3
Q

What is an episodic memory made of?:

A
  • 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)
    • Reinstating part of a memory can help bring back the rest = contextual cuing/contextual reinstatement
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4
Q

recall bs recognition tests

A
  • free recall (minimum cue)
  • cued recall (cue is more informative)
  • recognition
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5
Q

memory cues

A
  • Location can be a powerful contextual memory cue
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6
Q

Smith and Manzano (2010):

A
  • Written free recall of words improved by reinstating images from scene videos at test
    • Scene cues more effective when each video context was studied with fewer words
    • Cues better when more diagnostic
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7
Q

how do cues work?

A
  • 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 cortex, partial cue triggers pattern completion by the hippocampus McLelland et al., 1995)
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8
Q

encoding and retrieval

A
  • Context is incorporated in the memory trace
    • Cueing with context helps retrieve that memory
    • A cue should match – its processing overlap with – what was encoded
    • E.g. if you know your memory cue will be a photo of a location, you might encode that context better
    • Encoding and retrieval are interdependent!
    • Morris et al.’s (1977) Transfer-Appropriate Processing principle and Tulving & Thomson (1973) Encoding Specificity Principle [treat them as the same for this course]
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9
Q

Was your memory worse during lockdown?:

A
  • Celia Harris argues that when events in our lives become similar to each other as during lockdown, it’s more difficult to find distinctive (diagnostic) cues to retrieve individual events
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10
Q

Episodic reinstatement:

A
  • How does the brain allow us to ‘relive the past’?
    • Memory traces are stored using some of the same neural representations that allow us to experience the events
    • If a partial cue overlaps with a memory trace it triggers recollection, and this reinstates the rest of the memory trace
    • This reinstatement can be shown with fMRI by looking for reactivation of neural patterns of experimental ‘events’
    • Polyn et al. (2005) measured fMRI brain activity patterns when people studied and recalled faces, locations and objects
    • Machine-learning algorithms were trained to discriminate neural patterns during study
    • Then during recall the same algorithms could ‘read out’ (decode) what (which category) people were recalling
    • Neural reinstatement of memory contents thought to be how we ‘relive the past’ during recollection
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11
Q

Episodic encoding:

A
  • Events engage multiple areas of the cortex
    • Prefrontal cortex is involved strategically to organise information
    • Memories are encoded as a ‘byproduct’ of event processing
    • Hippocampus binds multi-element memory traces
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12
Q

Episodic retrieval:

A
  • Episodic retrieval is triggered by a cue
    • The hippocampus initiates recollection in response to the cue
    • Then, the original cortical activity is reinstated
    • Prefrontal cortex is involved strategically to organise and monitor
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13
Q

self-cuing

A
  • Polyn et al (2005) brain activity patterns during recall
  • reinstatement started about 5 sec before recall
  • preliminary evidence that mental reinstatement actually triggers recall
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14
Q

Episodic reinstatement:

A
  • Different types of events have unique patterns of brain activity which get sorted in memory traces
    • When a cue triggers completion, reinstatement of these patterns is though to support recall
    • A memory cue can be external e.g., a smell, a photo
    • Or cue can be internal - deliberate mental reinstatement may also trigger pattern completion
    • Application - the cognitive interview for eyewitnesses.
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15
Q

The testing effect:

A
  • Roediger and Karpicke (2006, experiment 2)
  • memory for ‘idea units’ in prose passages
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16
Q

Testing - a robust, replicable effect:

A
  • Large effect with lots of replications
    • E.g., Rowland (2014) meta-analysis
    • Shown in applied educational settings
    • Transfer of learning to other material
    • Not just students - generalises to different populations, e.g., older adults (Meyer and Logan, 2013)
17
Q

semantic elaboration

A
  • Testing may enrich semantic representations of a memory
    • Because when we learn something, additional associations are formed around it, giving alternative retrieval routes
    • Study mother-child
    • Initial test with cue mother: answer is child
    • Later, can use associates of the cue, mother, to retrieve the target
    • E.g., father: answer is child - this answer is given more often after the practice test compared to a restudy condition
18
Q

in the brain

A
  • Wing et al. (2013) memory encoding during study vs. initial test
    • Hippocampus and temporal ‘semantic’ regions - only during testing
    • BUT don’t know if semantic processing actually happening
    • AND overall activity in these areas greater during restudy…
19
Q

episodic context

A
  • When item is studied and later tested, the context is different – not only place but also time, internal state
    • Testing updates context representations so memory trace now includes both old and new context
    • Larger range of potential cues can now trigger recall, as they may overlap with either old or new context
    • Supported by findings that a difficult initial test is better e.g., recall MOTHER–C—- versus MOTHER—CHI–
    • …this is because people have to do more mental reinstatement (thinking back to place, time, internal state)
20
Q

memory for video clips tested over 7 days

A
  • higher forgetting of peripheral details than central information
  • but cues re-triggerd recollection of the peripheral information
  • repeated testing also reduced forgetting of peripheral details
21
Q

Testing, memory durability and updating:

A
  • The testing effect shows that a memory is updated in some way when it is retrieved
    • Therefore, the variables that assist initial encoding (lecture 1) may NOT be the same ones that benefit longer-term learning (more in lecture 4).
    • Why not keep memories fixed?
22
Q

Theories of memory durability:

A
  • Long debate about why older memories resistant to hippocampus damage in amnesia (e.g., patient H.M.)
    • Systems consolidation - memories become independent of the hippocampus with time
    • Vs
    • Multiple memory traces - updating over time. Hippocampus always involved
    • In either case generalised, context-independent (semantic) memories develop over time
    • Some episodic memories may become semanticised
23
Q

testing

A
  • Strong effect on longer-term retention (Rowland, 2014)
    • But no agreement yet on its cognitive and neural mechanisms
    • In some sense both theories view effects of testing as memory generalisation
    • Related to encoding specificity/transfer-appropriate processing because memory updating impacts the kinds of cues that are effective
    • These are very important practical implications of the testing effect for ‘real-world’ learning.
24
Q

how not to forget

A
  1. Use the right cue
    1. Rehearse by testing yourself these give us control
    2. Interference between similar memories - important, and probably reduced by testing
    3. Some decay with time - not really passive