Week 6

Question 1

What is context-dependent learning?

Answer 1

Creating memory connections related to the context in which you are learning the material.

Question 2

How does context dependent learning affect retrieval?

Answer 2

improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same.

Question 3

What is encoding specificity?

Answer 3

That what you encode (place into memory) is specific, not just the physical stimulus but the stimulus together with its context.

Question 4

What are retrieval cues?

Answer 4

Stimuli that help us to retrieve certain memories.

Once the “node” passes an activation threshold the memory will be recalled.

Question 5

What is semantic priming and how is that thought to influence performance?

Answer 5

Semantic priming = a specific prior event of a related word will produce a state of readiness later on.
= faster performance on lexical decision task

Question 6

What is recall?

Answer 6

You’re presented with a retrieval cue that broadly identifies the information you seek, and you need to come up with the information on your own.

Question 7

What is recognition?

Answer 7

Information is presented to you and you must decide whether it’s the sought after information.

Question 8

What are the differences between implicit and explicit memory?

Answer 8

Implicit memory: unconscious and automatic
Explicit memory: Consciously recalled memories

Question 9

How do you test implicit memory?

Answer 9

Indirect memory testing

Question 10

What is the illusion of truth?

Repurcussions?

Answer 10

Familiarity increases credibility
Repercussions = political misinformation for example. People believe things that aren’t true because they are familiar

Question 11

What is the hierarchy of memory?

Answer 11

Memory –> explicit –> episodic & semantic

Memory –> implicit –> procedural memory, priming, perceptual learning, classical conditioning

Question 12

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 12

often caused by blows to the head; the person is unable to recall events that occurred just before the blow.

Question 13

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 13

Causes disruption of memory for experiences after the onset of amnesia.

Question 14

What is generic, episodic and source memory?

Answer 14

Generic (semantic) - general knowledge

Episodic - life events

Source - source of info

Question 15

What are memory errors and distortions?

Answer 15

Different nodes are all connected by associations and thoughts that link events and details.
You can lose track of which bits of information were contained within which event

Question 16

What are intrusion errors?

Why does this happen?

Answer 16

Errors in which other knowledge intrudes into the remembered event.

The connections that help you retrieve information can also make it difficult to see where one memory stops and starts.

Question 17

Explain the DRM procedure?

Answer 17

Participants are shown a list of associated words (e.g. related to sleep) and eventually asked to recall the words. Participants often include other associated words such as the word sleep in a list of words that were all related to sleep but sleep wasn’t on the list.

Question 18

what are schemas?

Answer 18

Schemas summarise the broad pattern of what’s normal in a situation e.g. what happens in a restaurant.

Question 19

Why are misleading questions and misinformation problematic?

Answer 19

It is easy to influence people’s memories of an event.
Problematic in situations such as eyewitnesses.

Question 20

How does confidence influence remembering?

Answer 20

People tend to trust memories that are expressed with confidence.

Question 21

What are the primary causes of forgetting?

Answer 21

Retention interval - amount of time between learning & initial retrieval

Decay theory of forgetting - memories fade over time

Interference theory - new things learnt interrupt old memories

Retrieval failure - still there, cant access it

Question 22

What are flashbulb memories? How reliable are they?

Answer 22

Memories of extraordinary clarity, typically for highly emotional events, retained despite the passage of many years.

Not very

Question 23

What can be done to help forgetting be undone?

Answer 23

Cognitive interview - provides cues to try and trigger memories

Question 24

How does emotion influence memory?

Answer 24

Emotion enhances consolidation.
Consolidation = the process through which memories are biologically cemented in place.