Retrieval Flashcards
what is retrerival?
the process of getting information back out of LTM
Process of retrieval
job of retrieval is to use cues to find target memory
cues: pieces of info that are associated with memory
target memory: the thing that you actually want to get back
why does process of retrieval work?
because memories are linked to each other through associations
cat-dog
link to memories in other ways
ex: what did you see yesterday?
Memory research
when we begin to look through our memories we start with cues.
did you see animals yesterday?
search recent memories for animals. animal is associated with squirrel.
-cues can also be other kinds of related content
representation of squirrel like an ornament or sticker
Spreading Activation
given multiple cues we retrieve the other cues to retrieve a complete memory
the memory will be brought back because we thought of all the features. The activation spreads out to other pieces of the memory and eventually if becomes active
- think of other cues of the characteristic squirrel’s sre gray, furry. collect.
retrieving features that were not cued is called pattern completion.
process during and after retrieval monitor whether memories are actually wanted.
You and a friend are talking about your favorite
restaurants. You want to tell her about your favorite
sushi place, so you retrieve all the details from
memory. ______ was the cue for retrieval, and ______
was retrieved through pattern completion.
A. The name of the restaurant; the menu
B. Being a favorite restaurant; the menu
C. Remembering yesterday; a squirrel
D. The menu; being a favorite restaurant
B. Being a favorite restaurant; the menu
What happens when retrieval goes wrong?( 1 & 2)
1) tip of the tongue state- when we know information, but cannot successfully retrieve it.
ex: name of capitol cities
sometimes we say “i know is starts with an A”
2) When recall is influenced by a schema, even when
that schema may not be correct for that situation
Schema: a kind of conceptual organization that can
help us encode and retrieve information
Ex. What’s usually in a restaurant?
sometimes schemas can hurt us when they are incorrect
STUDY: Della Sala et al (1993)
Tested memory for famous faces in people
Tested memory for famous faces in people with
prefrontal cortex damage
faces from different decades. from before brian damage and some after
results: 2 groups of people, people same age did not have damage, people who have the damage
regardless of when the famous face was learned, there was still difficulty retrieving the information because of the prefrontal cortex damage.
Loftus and Palmer (1973)
Watched the same video of a traffic accident
Watched the same video of a traffic accident
answer the question: how fast were the cars going when they ___ each other
got different verbs, “contacted, hit
if we get a low speed verb our estimated of how fast the speed is going.
results: estimated miles per hours based on the word we got from the video, when we are asked the question how fast a car is going we are fishing our features we answer
impacted by the types of phrasing.
Brewer and Treyens (1981)
what typically is found in an office?
what typically is found in an office?
items that are normal and not normal to be in an office.
subjects waited in this office, then asked about what was in the office.
Falsely remembered objects you would expect in an
office, but that weren’t actually there
Due to reconstruction based on a schema of what is
typically in an office
results: reconstructing the office based off of their office schema.
Alisha is looking for a place to get coffee. She
remembers that there is a tea shop nearby, and that
she has seen coffee on the menu there before.
However, when she gets there, they tell her that they
only have tea and never had coffee. What kind of
memory error do you think is occurring?
Incorrect reconstruction based on a schema
A. Incorrect reconstruction based on a schema
B. A source monitoring error
C. Cryptomnesia
D. A tip-of-the-tongue state
A. Incorrect reconstruction based on a schema
or B. A source monitoring error
that she hear somewhere else and she remembered the source incorrectly
Attention
Fernandes and Moscovitch (2000, 2003)
in the same way attention is necessary for encoding , it is also important for retrieval
Main task: recall lists of words that they had heard
previously
Secondary task: make judgments about unrelated
items on a screen
result: doing any secondary task made retrieval more difficult, retrieval requires attention
What makes a good cue? 1
cues should be relevant and meaningful
What makes a good cue? 2
the number of cues, more cues are always more helpful
What makes a good cue? 3
the cues should be storngly assocaited with the target memoy
some cues are strongly associated
Badre and Wagner (2007)
word association
when people are trying to learn the work flame and candle were easier than halo and candle, they are weakly associated
Retrieval Strategy
we can use schemas to retrieve memory more successful
this may be particularly useful if we also adopted this organization
Anderson and Pichert (1978)
Read a story: two boys skipping school
a story about two boys skipping school and
hiding at one of their houses
Instructed to adapt either the perspective of a burglar
or a home buyer during reading
results: more burglar pieces of info was found in the burglary perspective group, more home buyer info was found in the homebuyer perspective
the strategy of encoding is affecting
You need to go to office hours, and you are trying to
remember the name of the TA for the class. You can’t
remember until you pull out the notebook you usually
use in that class, and suddenly remember that it’s
Jack. What probably happened?
A. You have created a false memory
B. You used a retrieval strategy
C. The notebook was a relevant cue to your TA’s
name
D. None of these
C. The notebook was a relevant cue to your TA’s
name
The role of context
context can be a cue for encoding
Context cues: the conditions under which a
target was encoded
Sometimes, context consists of when or where an
item was encoded
Other times, context involves accidental things that happened when encoding
Environmental context
the tine and place where the memory was made
the time and place can be intentional to remember or not intentional
intentional: looking for keys focusing on the recent places that you have might put them.
unintentional: the environmental cues can bring back memory that we do not try to retrieve
stand by the kitchen door in the morning, realize you forgot to take out the garbage
incidental context:
sometimes not a big deal but others such a big deal memory is affected
Context Dependent
Memory
Retrieval depends on being in a similar physical
context as encoding
outside
STUDY: Godden and Baddeley (1975)
underwater study
Being underwater is a very different physical
experience to being on land
Encoding in weird environment we can encode and retrieve better
4
2 groups : encoded words on land or on water then we retrieve the words on land or water
2 groups were encoding in the same environments and 2 of them were encding in differen
results; When we learned the words in the dry environment and recall them in the dry water we retrieved them better
but when we learned things in different environments then our retrieval is harder
STUDY; State dependent memory
Miles and Hardman (1998)
heart rate study
differ-net internal start
withing
may happen by alchohol, drugs,
Encoded words with normal or elevated heart rate
Then recalled words with normal or elevated heart rate
result: if we both learned and retrieve words when our heart rates are at rest retrieval was good
if we learned and retrieve with high heart rate then our retrieval was good
but when there is a mix of the 2, the retrieval was bad
Mood dependent memory
information of any type that is learned in a mood is easier to recall in that mood; affects neutral memories
- words or facts
Eich, Macaulay, and Ryan (1994)
moon congruent memory
some people encoding and retrieving with same and different mood
happy when we encode and happy when we retrieve better at the task
Which of the following is an example of context-dependent memory?
A. It is easier to retrieve information you encoded
while drinking caffeine if you drink a cup of coffee
B. It is harder to remember information you encoded
while you were happy when you are upset
C. It is easier for astronauts to remember information
they learned in space while they are weightless
It is easier for astronauts to remember information
they learned in space while they are weightless
how different it feels in space than bound to earth on gravity
Tasks and Theories: Signal Detection Theory
recall: draw from memory
recognition: whether you saw an item or not
some item in memory are more active than others
active memories will see more familiar, but different people will have different threshold at which they say an item was seen before
this is enough familiarly for me, i will just say hi. or i do not know her enough I will not say hu
hit: correctly identify an old item
miss: identify an old item as new
false alarm: identyfing a new item as old
correct rejection: correctly identifying a new item.
Recognition Memory
at what level if familiarity do you catgorixe
loose criterion: Say yes to most items!
strict criterion: Say no to most itmes
few new items re false alarms but more old items sre misses
what happens when retrieval goes wrong? (3 & 4)
3) We must reconstruct the features of a memory in
order to retrieve it
During this process, memories are susceptible to being
reconstructed incorrectly
4) memory research must check if memories are corrected and real and where they come from
source memory: where ew got the memory from
source monitoring error: when we do not correctly remember the source of a memory
cryptomesia: when people believe they have generated something that is actually a memory with a forgotten source.
stay with me vs dont back dow: when we think we thought of something but we just forgot it was a memory all together.
mood congruent memory:
information that matches the mood is easier to recall.
