Quiz 7 Review Flashcards
STM Capacity
+7/-2 pieces of information
STM Chunking
- combining bits of information into meaningful groups
- Experts use chunking to remember complex information
- Chess board experiment
Experts chunked locations into meaningful patterns
Recalled more when patterns were realistic
Maintenance rehearsal
repeating information to keep it in STM
Elaborative rehearsal
linking information in a meaningful way to improve STM
Levels-of-processing model
- the more deeply we process info, the better we remember it
- Semantic processing is best
Long-term Memory
Our permanent store of information
* Includes facts, skills, experiences
* Long duration and unlimited capacity
LTM vs STM
The order of the word matters for how well we remember it
* Serial position curve: people have generally better memory for words at the beginning and end of the list
Primacy effect
tendency to remember words from the beginning of the list
- Word gets encoded into LTM
Recency effect
the tendency to remember words from the end of the list
- Word is still stored in STM
Types of LTM
- Explicit memory
- Implicit memory
Explicit memory
conscious memories we recall intentionally
o Semantic memory: knowledge of facts
o Episodic memory: autobiographical memory
Implicit memory
unconscious memories we do not reflect on deliberately
o Procedural memory: memory of how to do things, including motor skills and habits
o Priming memory
o Conditioning memory – classical conditioning
o Habituation memory
How do we get info into LTM?
Encoding: a mechanism that transfers information from STM to LTM
Things that help to encode:
o Maintenance rehearsal
o Elaborative rehearsal – why care about it?
- For the test
Best ways to study:
Don’t highlight or copy, take notes in your own words
Ask yourself f questions as you read or study
Come up with examples that apply to you
Teach a friend
Retrieval
a mechanism that transfers information from LTM to STM
o What helps?
- Encoding specificity: we remember info better under the conditions present at learning
Context-dependent learning
we recall information better in the same place we learned it
o Godden and Baddeley – 1975
o Scuba divers learned lists of words on land or underwater
o Tested in the same or opposite environment
o Remembered best when tested under the same conditions
State-dependent learning
we recall information better in the same cognitive state we learned it in
o Psychological state (mind)
o Physiological state (body)
Memory Fallibility
- memory isn’t perfect
- memory is a reconstruction
–> memory+context+other experiences+typicality
–> memories may shift with time
Flashbulb memories
extremely vivid and detailed memories
- Feel special, stand out to us
- Important or tragic events
–> 9/11, JFK assassination
challenger explosion, etc.
- Thought to be photographic in
detail. immune to decay
But..
- Tests find major distortions in these
memories over time
–>Just like reqular memories,
carry same reconstructive
nature and distortion
- There’s nothing special about
flashbulb memories. They’re
reconstructions too.
Even though thev feel special
False memories
memories for events that never happened
- Elizabeth Loftus
* Famous for studying false memory
* 3 words to describe human memory
- Suggestive
- Subjective
- Malleable
False memories can be formed in
therapy
- Suppressed memories
recovered through therapy?? - Feel very real
- Can be very damaging
Lost-in-the-mall experiment: - Told participants they had been lost in the mall as a child. later asked them to recall the event
- People formed memories of events that never occurred
- Called parents, asked them to list and describe events that happened to you as a child
- Added false memories to see
if people would falsely
remember them - People would
“remember” that those
things “actually
happened” based on
suggestion - Seeing your mother as
the trustworthy source
Misinformation effect
Altering memories
by providing misleading information after
event
- Loftus & Palmer (1974)
* Asked people to estimate the speed of cars that collided in a car crash
* Everyone had same source, but people were questioned using different language
–> Estimate speed when
they “smashed” into
each other?
–> Estimate speed when
they “contacted” each
other
* Wording used changed
reported memories
Eyewitness testimony
- often extremely influential in court cases
- eyewitness certainty and accuracy do not correlate
- Uncertainty but usually
correct? - Certainty but usually
incorrect? - Many eyewitnesses incorrectly identify culprits
- When people are stressed, their memory is impaired
- Cross-race identification is especially poor
- Presence of a qun lowers
reliability
–> Less time focusing on
person’s face
–> Guns are stressful!!!
Amnesia
- usually misrepresented in movies (two types of amnesia)
- retrograde
- anterograde
Retrograde amnesia
- Inability to remember old
things - Can think about it as the
“recall process” being broken - Reset on memory, can start from scratch and create new ones though
- Loss of episodic memory
Implicit and semantic
memories remain intact
–> Remember how to
walk, talk, speak
english
Anterograde amnesia
- Inability to form new
memories - Can think about it as the
“encoding process” being
broken - Loss of ability to form new explicit memories
- Implicit memory remains
intact - Can learn to drive a
manual car, then forget
that you know how to
HENRY MOLAISON:
- hippocampi removed to prevent seizures/ severe anterograde, some retrograde amnesia
- start-tracing task: required to trace an image in a mirror, challenging for everyone/ you get better at it over time.
- no explicit memory of the task, but got better at it; procedural memory remained intact
TEACHES US: implicit memory is stored somewhere other than hippocampi
CLIVE WEARING
- hippocampi destroyed by a viral infection; severe anterograde amnesia
What did we learn from famous cases?
- hippocampus involved in forming new memory (but not in storing LTM)
- implicit/explicit memories rely on different parts of the brain
- semantic and episodic memory are stored and function separately
