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Cognition (y2s1) > Week 4 Lecture 4 - forgetting > Flashcards

Week 4 Lecture 4 - forgetting Flashcards

1
Q

What are the two types of forgetting?

A

incidental forgetting
motivated forgetting

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2
Q

What is incidental forgetting?

A

occurs without intention to forget

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3
Q

What is motivated forgetting?

A

purposefully diminish access to memory

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4
Q

What is superior autobiographical memory?

A

uncontrollable remembering

  • feels like you are reliving the event
  • uncontrollable and effortless
  • can’t forget unpleasant memories
  • distracting
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5
Q

Does forgetting increase over time?

A

yes

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6
Q

Does rate of forgetting increase over time?

A

no this is different

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7
Q

Who came up with the forgetting curve?

A

Ebbinghaus

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8
Q

What is the forgetting curve?

A
  • logarithmic relationship
  • initially rapid
  • less additional forgetting at longer intervals
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9
Q

What did a study into forgetting public events find?

A

rate of forgetting is similar to that of the forgetting curve
recognition is less affected

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10
Q

What did a study into forgetting personal events find?

A
  • recognitions of classmate names and faces was intact
  • ppts could match up names with faces (unimpaired)
  • recall of names when given a picture of a face was impaired (similar to the forgetting curve)
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11
Q

What did a study into forgetting knowledge find?

A
  • forgetting levels out after 2 years with little forgetting after
  • conducted on uni alumni
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12
Q

What is availability?

A

is item in the memory store?

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13
Q

What is accessibility?

A

is item accessible for retrieval?

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14
Q

Do both availability and accessibility denote forgetting?

A

yes

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15
Q

What are 2 factors that discourage forgetting?

A
  • better learning at the beginning
  • repeated attempts to retrieve
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16
Q

What can incomplete / inaccurate retrieval lead to?

A

memory distortions

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17
Q

Are all memories equally vulnerable to forgetting at all points in their history?

A

no

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18
Q

What is Jost’s law?

A
  • older memories are more durable and forgotten less rapidly than newer memories
  • new memories are initially more vulnerable to disruption / distortion until they are consolidated
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19
Q

What is consolidation?

A

process that transforms new memories from a fragile state to a more permanent state

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20
Q

What are 2 types of consolidation?

A

synaptic consolidation
systems consolidation

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21
Q

What is synaptic consolidation?

A
  • structural changes in synaptic connections
  • takes hours to days
  • memories vulnerable until changes are complete
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22
Q

What is systems consolidation?

A
  • gradual shift of memory from hippocampus to cortex
  • memory componets (in cortex) replayed until linked
  • takes months to years
  • memories vulnerable for as long as they rely on hippocampus
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23
Q

What are 3 causes of incidental forgetting?

A
  • trace decay
  • context shifts
  • interference
24
Q

What is trace decay?

A

memories weaken due to the passage of time

25
Q

What 2 things are especially prone to trace decay?

A
  • priming
  • familiarity
26
Q

How does decay affect memories? Give 2 possible explanations

A
  • a memory’s activations fade but the memory itself is intact
  • the memory itself and its elements degrade along with its activity
27
Q

What is the biological basis for trace decay?

A

synaptic connections degrade and neurons die –> memories fade in the same way

28
Q

What is neurogenesis?

A

the growth of new neurons

29
Q

neurogenesis remodelled structure and gradually modifies connections

What is this good and bad for?

A
  • good for new learning
  • bad for old memories (especially in the hippocampus)
30
Q

is trace decay valid?

A
  • behaviourally difficult to prove
  • rehearsal and interference can’t be controlled
  • memories unavailable or simply inaccessible?
31
Q

What are correlates of time?

A
  • forgetting may not be caused by the passage of time itself but by a correlate of time
32
Q

What are contextual shifts?

A

different cues are available now than the ones available at encoding

33
Q

How might similarities between encoding and retrieval context explain forgetting?

A
  • contextual fluctuation
  • incidental context differs more between retrieval and encoding over time
    incidental context is less similar to the remote past then more recent past
34
Q

What is interference?

A

similar memories hinder retrieval

35
Q

Explain how interference can lead to incidental forgetting

A
  • similar traces impede retrieval
  • difficult to discriminate between them
  • similar memories accumulate more over time
36
Q

When does interference occur?

A
  • whenever the cue that can be used to access a memory becomes associate with other memories
37
Q

What is the competition assumption?

A

memories associated to a shared cue automatically impede retrieval when cue is presented

38
Q

a cue activates all associations

Then what happens?

A
  • the activated associates compete for access to consciousness
  • competitors hinder access to target memory
39
Q

What does interference occur due to?

A

the negative effect of having competitors

40
Q

What is retroactive interference?

A

the introduction of new memory impairs recall of a first memory (especially if they are similar)
e.g., learning of a list of Spanish words then learning a list of French words

41
Q

Give an example of a study showing retroactive interference

A

Baddeley and Hitch
rugby players study

new rugby games interfered with previous ones making them less accessible

42
Q

What is Proactive interference?

A
  • older memories interfere with retrieval of new experiences
  • more severe for recall that recognition
43
Q

What is part-set cuing impairment?

A
  • providing hints may impede memory retrieval
  • impairment increases as the number of cues provided increases
44
Q

How does part-set cuing impairment work?

A
  • presenting similar items as cues, strengths their association to the cue
  • competition for non-cues increases –> memory worsens
45
Q

What is retrieval induced forgetting?

A
  • selective/partial retrieval can harm recall of other memories related to retrieved item
  • selective retrieval may contribute to more severe forgetting for information that is not practiced / retrieved
46
Q

What study supports retrieval induced forgetting?

A

crime scene investigations study
interrogating people about some stolen items impaired memory for related items

47
Q

What are 2 types of interference mechanisms?

A
  • associative blocking
  • associative unlearning
48
Q

What is associative blocking?

A

a cue fails to elicit a target trace because it repeatedly elicits a stronger competitor, leading people to abandon efforts to retrieve target

49
Q

give some examples of associative blocking

A
  • tip-of-the-tongue
  • retroactive interference
  • part-set cuing
  • cue overload –> more associates, more likely a wrong answer to intrude
50
Q

What is associative unlearning?

A

associative bond linking a stimulus to a memory trace is punished by weakening it after being retrieved in error

Difficult to demonstrate empirically

51
Q

What are some examples of associative unlearning?

A
  • retrieval-induced forgetting and retroactive interference
  • competitors intrude at retrieval practice and are punished
52
Q

Describe inhibition as an alternative explanation for forgetting

A
  • allows an unwanted response to be stopped, while alternative response needs to get strengthen
  • suggests that forgetting targets the memory itself
53
Q

What is forgetting under the functional account?

A

forgetting –> to control retrieval in the face of competitors

54
Q

What is the functional account of forgetting?

A
  • forgetting may serve a functional purpose and therefore can also be an active process
  • facilitates future retrieval attempts of practiced/strengthened memories by inhibiting competitors
55
Q

How might forgetting promote flexibility and generalisation?

A
  • forgetting allows individuals to exhibit flexible behaviour and generalise past events to new experiences
  • therefore, forgetting is not necessarily failure of memory but may represent an investment in a more optimal mnemonic strategy

Cognition (y2s1) (10 decks)

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