PS122 Psych of Learning Flashcards
What are the four reasons for memory failure?
- Decay
- Cue unavailability
- Interference
- Retrieval-induced forgetting
What is decay?
The strength of a memory fades over time
What is Ebbinghaus’ Law of Learning?
As repetitions on day 1 of learning increases the time to relearn on day 2 decreases
Retrieval in an Associative Network
Retrieval depends on connections between the target and cues in a given context. The first co-activation of a cue and the target establishes a connection. Each subsequent successful retrieval further strengthens cue-to-target connections. Connections may decay over time. When cues are activated, the stronger the total connections between cues and the target in a context, the stronger the activation of the target.
What is cue unavailability?
Forgetting occurs due to the absence of retrieval cues.
Bahrick, 1975 cue unavailability example
Participants were tested on their memory of high school graduation classmates’ names approximately 50 years after graduation. Name recognition task 70% correct compared to free recall only 20% correct.
Cue unavailability
Retrieval depends on connections between the target and the cues in a given context. Fewer activated cues result in weaker activation of the target.
What is interference?
The presence of competing memories interferes with retrieval.
Proactive vs retroactive interference?
Proactive is previously acquired information interfering with new learning whereas retroactive is recently acquired information interfering with old memory.
Why is it helpful to learn right after waking up or just before sleep?
Learning right after waking up reduces interference from old information (proactive interference). Learning just before sleep reduces interference from new information (retroactive interference).
Retrieval is competitive
Retrieval depends on connections between the target and the cues in a given context. Retrieval also depends on connections between competitors and the cues. The stronger the total connections between cues and competitors, the weaker the activation of the target. Retrieval is competitive.
What is retrieval-induced forgetting?
Retrieval practice can lea d to retrieval-induced forgetting of non-practiced items
True or false retrieval practice can enhance long-term retention of selectively tested items
True
Retrieval induced forgetting in an Associative Network
Successful recall of a competitor further strengthens its connections with the retrieval cues. When the cues are activated again, the competitor’s activation becomes stronger, while the target’s activation is further weakened
Retrieval induced forgetting
Is a mechanism that actively facilitates memory loss, often for a functional purpose.
What are the three types of memory distortion?
- Misinformation Effect
- Hindsight Bias
- Associative Memory Illusions
Loftus & Palmer, 1974
See a film depicting a traffic accident. Receive a questionnaire asking them to answer a series of specific questions about the accident. “About how fast were the cars going when they contacted/hit/smashed each other?” This changed the mean speed estimate. Contacted (31.8mph) Hit (34mph) Smashed (40.8mph)
What is the misinformation effect?
Receiving misleading post-event information can bias recall of the original event
What is hindsight bias?
After an outcome is revealed, people often overestimate what they knew beforehand.
Hindsight bias - Scharfe & Bartholomew (1998) on dating couples
Month 0: report attachment
Month 8: report attachment and recall their initial attachment evaluations. Recalling past assessment as more congurent with their present one.
What are associative memory illusions?
People falsely recall non-presented information that is meaningfully associated with presented information.
Brewer & Treyens, 1981 - Participants in an office
Participants wait in an office.
Surprise task: do you remember the items in the office?
Results: Books? 30% said yes despite there being no books
Schemas influence memory
More likely to remember schema-congurent items. False memories of items not actually in the office but were rated high on schema expectancy.
Associative networks
Each unit of information in LTM is a node in the network. Each node is connected to may other nodes based on factors such as spatial proximity, tempral proximity and importantly semantic relatedness. Activating one node increases activation levels of its associated nodes, and their associated nodes (spreading activation).
Semantic Priming Effect
Experiencing a word leads to automatic spreading activation to related concepts. People respond differently to a target word depending on whether it is preceded by a semantically associated word or an unassociated one: hospital-doctor vs bread-doctor. When the target word follows a semantically associated word, people are more prepared and respond faster.
Meaningful information gets stored in LTM. Elaborative encoding through meaningful association improves memory.
(Level-of-processing effect) e.g giving random pictures a description rather than two straight lines and two circles with circles in them two donuts rolling down the street together.
Level of Processing Effect - Craik & Tulving, 1975
Show participants a list of words (five-letter common concrete nouns )
Ask them to answer a question for each word
“The experiment concerns perception and speed of reaction”
FRIEND
Different questions in four conditions:
1) Is the word in capital letters?
2) Does the word rhyme with train?
3) Is the word an animal?
4) Would the word fit the following sentence: He met a ___ in the street
Found that the first condition had the shallowest processing effect whereas the last had the deepest processing effect.
Self-generation Effect
Two students are learning about the concept of “working memory”
* Student A creates their own meaningful associations based on their
experience
* Student B uses the associations created by Student A
- Whose strategy is going to work better?
- Student A, because of self-generation effect
Stein and Bransford (1979)
Learning phase: “The old man bought the paint”
Incidental learning in four conditions, followed by a distractor task before testing
Testing phase: “The ___ man bought the paint.” 10 questions in total
4.2 correct - base sentence alone
5.8 correct - base sentence and self generated continuation
2.2 correct - base sentence and imprecise elaboration that does not clarify the meaning of the target word “The old man bought the paint that was on the top shelf”
7.4 correct - base sentence and precise elaboration that clarifies the meaning of the target word
“The old man bought the paint to colour his cane”
Understanding, organzing and chunking information can increase distinctiveness, reduce interference and lower memory load.
Mneumonics and acronums
My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Pluto)
Memory retrieval is better when the retrieval context matches the context at encoding (encoding specifiicty effect)
Godden & Baddeley (1975) tested memory in a diving club
Some learned the word list on dry land; others underwater
Some were tested in the same environment where they studied
the list; others tested in the alternative environment
It was found when the recall environments were the same as the learning environment they recalled a larger amount.
Memory retrieval is better if the mental process engaged at retrieval matches the process at encoding (transfer-appropriate processing effect)
Morris et al, 1997
Testing, even without feedback, improves retention and is more effective than relearning (testing effect)
Roediger & Butler (2011) asked
participants to relearn and/or
practice retrieval for different times
in different conditions
Increasing times of retrieval practice
(left vs. right) enhances
performance, whereas extra
repetition of studying has little effect
Adding gaps between study sessions enhances learning through deeper processing, retrieval practice and contextual fluctuation (spacing effect)
Pavlik & Anderson (2005) had participants learn Japanese–English paired
associates in 480 study trials. In the learning session, the word pairs were
introduced with study trials and practiced by test-and-feedback with 2, 14, or 98
spaced presentations
Plato - memory
- “Every mind contains an aviary stocked with
birds of every sort… A person acquires a piece
of knowledge and shuts it up in his enclosure…
[later]… hunting once more for any piece of
knowledge that he wants, catching and holding
it, and letting it go again.”
Aristotle - memory
“Our minds contain a block of wax… Whenever
we wish to remember something… we hold this
wax under the perceptions or ideas and imprint
them on it as we might stamp the impression of
a seal ring. … Whatever is rubbed out or has not
succeeded in leaving an impression we have
forgotten and do not know.”
Ebbinghaus
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) of Berlin
University
* Ebbinghaus’s book:
* Memory: A contribution to experimental
psychology (1885)
* He was the first psychologist to use
quantitative, empirical approach to study
how we remember and learn new information
* He conducted self-experimentation, testing
only himself
Ebbinghaus’ Law of Learning
- Before the experiment, he invented stimulus materials that were:
- Simple and neutral in meaning
- Countable for recording the amount of retained material
- Available in large numbers
- He used nonsense syllables
- word-like consonant-vowel-consonant trigrams
- Examples: KEB, LON, TIZ…
- He recited lists of 16 nonsense syllables at a rate of 2.5 syllables per second and
repeated the recitation 8, 16, 24, 32, 42, 53, or 64 times. - After 24 hours, he measured how long it took to relearn the list.
(AS REPETITIONS ON DAY ONE INCREASED THE TIME TAKEN TO RELEARN IN DAY TWO DECREASED)
Cognitive revolution - memory as a computer
Encoding - information is acquired and processed into neural code (just as information is entered with a keyboard)
Storage - Information is stored in the brain (just as it is stored on a computer’s hard drive)
Retrieval - information is retrieved when it is needed (just as it shows up on-screen so it can be viewed)
Patient H.M
Patient H.M. (1926-2008)
* Suffered from severe epilepsy since age 16
* Underwent surgery in 1953, which removed parts of his medial
temporal lobes, including the hippocampus
* Unable to form new memories of life experiences
* “Right now, I’m wondering. Have I done or said anything amiss?
You see, at this moment everything looks clear to me, but what
happened just before? That’s what worries me. It’s like waking
from a dream; I just don’t remember.” (Milner, 1970)
* Unable to learn new general knowledge
* Vocabulary remained stuck in 1953
* Software: expensive clothing made of soft fabric
* Brain wash: the fluid that surrounds and baths the brain
Why was the case of H.M important?
- Patient H.M. (1926-2008)
- Able to learn new skills
- Showed improved performance with
practice on motor and perceptual tasks,
such as mirror tracing
What are types of explicit memory?
Episodic and semantic memory
What are the types of implicit memory?
Procedural memory and conditioning
What is explicit memory?
Declarative: facts, things you can talk about
What is semantic memory?
General knowledge of facts and concepts
Types of retrieval
Recall: bringing from memory information that has been remembered
Recognition: judging whether information has been seen/learned before
What is episodic memory?
Memory of past events & experiences (who, what, where
&when). “Mental time travel”
What is implicit memory?
Non-declarative memory
What type of memory is conditioning?
Implicit memory
The case of C.W
- Amnesia - only remembered the love for his wife and playing the piano
Implicit memory spared - “You played us some music about two minutes ago”
Explicit memory impaired “Not known to me”
Visual Sensory Memory (Iconic Memory)
- Whole report procedure
- Stimuli are presented for 50ms and then removed
- Participants immediately report as many letters as possible from the whole
stimulus - Result: Participants typically report ~4 items.
- Two possible explanations:
- Limited encoding: Participants encode only ~4 items
- Rapid forgetting: Participants encode all items but forget most very quickly
Partial report procedure
- Stimuli are presented for 50ms and then removed
- After various time intervals, a tone is played to indicate which row to report:
- High-pitched à report 1st row
- Medium-pitched à report 2nd row
- Low-pitched à report 3rd row
- Result: When there’s no wait, most or all items in the row can be recalled
Suggests rapid forgetting occurs rather than limited encoding
Visual sensory memory
- Capacity
- Visual sensory memory
seemingly contains all
presented visual input
à It has a large capacity - Duration
- An attentional cue must
appear within 0.5-1 second to
have an effect
à It is fleeting
Sensory memory
- Similar results have been found for auditory sensory memory (echoic memory)
- Sounds are played simultaneously from the left, right, and above
- Partial report procedure: a visual signal indicates which sound to recall
- We have a sensory store that
- holds a large amount of information
- very briefly
- in a pre-attentive & unprocessed form
- Attended information can enter short-term memory, which…
- has a very limited capacity…
- whereas unattended information is lost
Short-term memory
Short-term memory span
* The largest number of items one can correctly repeat in 50% of tests
immediately after stimulus presentation
* Used to measure short-term memory’s storage capacity
* Limited capacity
* “Magic number seven, plus or minus two items” (Miller, 1956)
* Recent review: Miller’s estimate may be too high and working memory
may be limited to about four items (Cowan, 2021)
Chunking
Capacity is not based on the absolute amount
of information
* It is based on the number of meaningful units
(e.g., letters, words, digits, groups of digits,
meaningful patterns in chess)
* Organizing information into meaningful units is
called chunking
* The more efficiently you chunk, the more you
remember
Brown-Peterson test
- Lasts for a short duration, unless maintained through rehearsal
- How long can it last?
- Brown-Peterson test
- Participants read some stimuli (e.g., a sequence of unrelated consonants, a
sequence of unrelated words) - Perform a distractor task to prevent rehearsal for a set time interval
- Recall the items after the interval
- Produce the forget curve of short-term memory: recall rate ~ time intervals
Short-term and working memory
- Short-term memory is not merely a temporary holding station (e.g., keeping a
number before saving it to a phone) - It also acts as a buffer that maintains information, allowing our mind to
manipulate it (e.g., counting backward by sevens)
What is working memory?
- It is the system that actively maintains and manipulates information (from
different sources) for the purpose of making decisions, solving problems,
generating goal-directed behaviours, retrieving other information, etc.
Baddeley’s Working Memory Model
- Baddeley’s (1986) model of working memory describes how we manipulate
information in short-term memory to perform cognitive tasks - Phonological Loop (maintenance: verbal rehearsal)
- Visuospatial sketchpad (Maintenance: visual storage)
- Central executive (manipulation)
Phonological loop
Phonological store - the “inner ear” that maintains speech inputs in their temporal order for 2 seconds
Articulatory control process - the “inner voice” or subvocal rehearsal which: transforms nonspeech inputs into phonological code and repeats information on a loop to prevent decay
Evidence of subvocal rehearsal
- Word length effect: We can recall more words when they have fewer
syllables. Verbal STM span = The number of words that can be spoken in 2
seconds - Phonological similarity effect: Rhyming letters are harder to remember
than non-rhyming letters (e.g., CPVTB vs RKBQC ) - Articulatory suppression: It’s difficult to remember a list while repeating
“the, the, the…” because it overloads the phonological loop
Visuospatial sketchpad
A parallel system for rehearsing visual and spatial information
* For example, holding a mental image of something just seen, imagining
what something might look like
Modality-specific interference
- Learn lists of words using visual imagery or verbal repetition
- An interfering activity in the background: irrelevant speech or visual
flickers - Visual imagery interfered by visual flickers
- Verbal repetition interfered by irrelevant speech
Central executive
Monitors and manipulates the two working-memory buffers
* updating short-term memory buffers
While listening to someone speak, you
continuously update your short-term storage to integrate new information and keeping track of the conversation
When visiting France, you might
automatically look to the right to check for oncoming cars
Central executive functioning helps you inhibit this habitual response
Rogers & Monsell (1995) Number-Letter Task
Rogers & Monsell (1995) Number-Letter Task
* When the number-letter pair appears in the top two quadrants, indicate
whether the number is odd or even
* When the number-letter pair appears in the bottom two quadrants,
indicate whether the letter is a consonant or vowel
Central executive: monitors and manipulates the two working-memory buffers
- Updating short-term memory buffers
- Inhibiting automatic responses
- Shifting between tasks
- Setting goals, planning
Relations among Executive Functions
- Miyake et al. (2000) asked each participant to perform a set of tasks that targeted
different executive functions (updating, inhibition, and shifting) - The executive functions were moderately correlated with one another but were
clearly separable
Double dissociation
Double dissociation between STM & LTM: They function independently of each other
Recency effect
Words still in STM
when asked to recall
immediately à readily
available for retrieval
* Selectively influenced if
an irrelevant distractor
task occurs between
list presentation and
the recall test
Primacy effect
- More rehearsal
devoted to the first few
words à greater
chance of transfer to
LTM - Selectively influenced if
the presentation speed
is increased
Double dissociation: STM & LTM
- Evidence 1:
- H.M. & C.W: LTM impaired. STM spared
- K.F.: STM impaired. LTM spared
- Evidence 2
- Adding a distractor task between list presentation and recall reduces the
recency effect but does not affect the primacy effect - Increasing presentation speed reduces the primacy effect but does not
affect the recency effect
What is a category?
A category is a set of objects or events that share commonality
What three ways do we learn categories?
The definitional approach, prototype theory and exemplar theory
Definitional approach
- In the definitional approach concepts are like definitions. There are defining
features for category membership. - The definitional approach works well for some categories, e.g., equilateral
triangles (triangles that have all its sides equal in length)
Hampton 1979 - Problems of Definitional Approach
- People actually don’t have much agreement on the defining features of a
category - In a study, 32 participants listed defining features of various categories (e.g.,
fruit) - Here’re their production frequencies of different features for FRUITS
Is a plant/vegetation - 31 responses
Is edible/eaten - 30 responses
Typicality effect
Typicality effect: Typical items are more easily judged as a member of a
category, with shorter response time (in milliseconds)
* Typical members appear earlier in speech production
Fuzzy boundaries in Definitional Approach (McClosky & Glucksberg, 1978)
Categories often have fuzzy boundaries that are not well defined, leading to many
ambiguous, borderline instances
* Between-participant disagreement on category membership
* Within-participant inconsistency: Participants changed their mind one week
later for 22% of low-typicality cases
I.e is cucumber a fruit 28% yes 72% no
Prototype Theory
The mental representation of a category is a prototype or an average of its instances. Category learning involves abstracting this prototype from all the instances one has encountered. For example the prototype for birds is based on robins, sparrows, etc but does not exactly match any single one of them
Prototype Theory - Typicality Effect and Fuzzy Boundaries
High typicality: an instance closely resembles the category prototype (illustrated by a shorter distances between the instance and prototypes of other categories). Explains the typicality effect and explains fuzzy boundaries.
Exemplar Theory
In exemplar theory, categorization is also similarity-based than rule-based. However, the standard is not a prototype or an average of instances but the previously encountered instances themselves i.e exemplars
Exemplar - Typicality effect
Similar to many exemplars of the category? A quick, strong YES
Similar to fewer exemplars of the category? A slow yes
This is the typicality effect
Similarity-based Systems
Principles of operation - similarity and contiguity
Source of knowledge - personal experience
Cognitive functions: intuition, visual recognition and creativity etc
Rule-based Systems
Principles of operation - Symbol manipulation
Source of knowledge - language, formal systems
Cognitive functions: deliberation, explanation, formal analysis
What is problem solving?
A searching process
What are the four essential features of problem solving?
Start State, Goal state, Action Application, Subgoal Decomposition
Start State
The state representing the initial situation of the problem
Goal State
The state in which the problem is solved
Action Application
Taking action to transform the problem from one state to another, often governed by specific rules
Subgoal decomposition
Identifying smaller goals that help reach intermediate states closer to the final goal
Problem space
The set of all possible states (start state, goal state, and intermediate states) that the problem solver can generate
Problem Solving
The process of searching for a sequence of actions in the space that leads from the start state to the goal state
What three factors interfere with problem solving?
Functional fixedness, mental set and difference reduction
What is functional fixedness?
The tendency to perceive only a limited number of uses for an object, leading to difficulty in using familar objects in novel and flexible ways.
Duncker, 1945
- Candle problem: there is a candle, a box of drawing pins, and a book of matches.
How can you affix the lit candle to the wall in a way that prevents wax from
dripping onto the table below? - Seeing a box as a container (typical function) made it difficult for problem solvers
to view the box as a structural support - People who were given boxes filled with drawing pins found the problem harder
than did people who received the drawing pins outside of the boxes
What is mental set?
The tendency to approach a problem using previously effective solutions, even when they do not suit the current problem.
An example of mental set
Matchstick problem: Given six matchsticks of equal length, how can you
arrange them to form four equilateral triangles? People usually assume the shape must be 2D but to solve the problem it must be 3D
What is difference reduction?
A cognitive bias toward selecting the action that produce the greatest immediate decrease in the perceived distance to the goal state
Example of difference reduction
Example: There are different ways to revise for PS122 without a full set of notes
Candidate action 1: borrow notes
Candidate action 2: write your own notes and organize the information your way
Action 2 is slower to reach subgoal 2 getting a full set of notes but is more effective for the goal of revision
What Are the Four Ways of Improving Problem Solving
Working backwards, alternative representation, analogical transfer and incubation
What is working backwards?
A problem solving strategy that involves starting from the goal state and working backward to determine the sequence of steps needed to reach it. This is particularly useful when many actions are possible from the initial state, but only a few lead directly to the solution.
What is alternative representation?
A strategy that involves reorganizing how a problem is mentally represented (e.g visually instead of verbally) to facilitate problem solving
What is analogical transfer?
A problem solving process in which a solution is found by recognisjng an analogy between the target problem and a source problem with a known solution, then mapping their corresponding elements
What is incubation?
A stage of problem solving in which the problem is set aside and not consciously worked on. During this time, insight may be obtained.
Meltcalfe and Wiebe
- Metcalfe and Wiebe gave participants different problems and asked them to
make warmth judgments every 15 seconds. Higher ratings, further from “cold,”
indicated that participants believed they were getting closer to a solution. Problems that involve more insight there is a longer period where participants have not gotten closer to finding the solution but then it suddenly goes up quite steeply.
What is the three process theory of insight?
Selective encoding, selective comparison and selective combination
(Davidson, 1995)
What are the two difficulties in solving non-routine problems?
Functional fixedness and mental set. Inability to generate any paths to a solution.
How incubation helps:
Forgetting: A break allows unproductive fixations to fade and enables more useful associations to emerge
Changing contexts: different contexts can activate new perspectives and facilitate analogical transfer. During incubation, people opportunistically assimilate new information.
Effective problem solving involves many other factors…
Including matching
knowledge, intrinsic motivation, impasse identification, flexible thinking, positive
affect, and social interaction
