Week 6 + 7 (M2) Flashcards
Intention to learn experiment
- intention to learn has an indirect effect IF the subject applies the right learning strategy
- if NO processing instructions are given, people spontaneously choose their own strategies
= some might choose deeper processing strategies
- might choose deeper processing strategies if they know they will be tested
How does deep processing help learning
Memory is clue based
- Acquisition and retrieval are
interdependent and interactive - you pay attention to meaning
- memory acquisition is not independent of memory retrieval
- remembering acquisition can help facilitate retrieval
- understanding meaning helps establish memory connections
richer memory networks = better retrieval
Principles of organization
- mnemonic strategies
- peg word system
- method of loci
Mnemonic strategies
Purpose
discover organization within the material
- categories
- similarities
- differences
- temporal relations
Peg-word system
- Learn a list of words
that act as ‘pegs’ to
‘hang’ other words on - Create an image of
the peg word
interacting with the
to-be-remembered
(TBR) word
Method of Loci
- Developed by early Greek and Roman
orators as technique for delivering long
speeches - Storage of to-be-remembered (TBR)
information that must be recalled in a
specific order - could do it with objects in rooms in a building that you picture walking through
Acronyms
- good for remembering lists, but not for understanding
To remember names
- use the name
- space practice
- make connections (I also have an uncle named _______)
To understand
→ build a network, make connections with other material
When you study for exams
- encode the meaning of info, organize, elaborate, and understand it
- be an active processor
- space your practice
- sleep on what you’ve learned
Building a network of connections
- Prior knowledge provides framework
= The ability to organize, understand, interpret, and infer - Organization requires attention
- Links made provide retrieval pathways later on
Interference experiment - Wickens flowers
- proactive interference
- memorize a list of 3 flowers
- then count backwards by threes
- then repeat the words
REPEAT - as you keep hearing terms from the same category, it gets harder and harder
- earlier terms interfere with the later terms
- when the category is changed, there is a RELEASE from proactive interference
Proactive interference
PREVIOUS learning hurts new learning
= can’t remember NEW things very well
Retroactive interference experiment
lists A and B
Group 1
- learn list A then list B
- test list A
Group 2 (control)
- learn list A then rest
- test list A
- group 2 did better bc no retroactive interference
Retroactive interference
NEW learning interferes with OLD stuff
= harder to recall OLD stuff
Is deep processing always superior to shallow processing?
- Depends on what you need to retrieve
- Depends on the cue
What makes an effective cue
- associative strength between a cue and a target (ex. spider+web)
- state-dependent (physical/mental state) or context-dependent (retrace your steps) learning
- encoding specificity (same cues present when memory first formed)
What makes an effective mnemonic
- Provide a structure
- Create a durable record (ex. Visual images)
- Guide retrieval by providing effective cues
Building associative strength
- Build up associative strength by frequency of occurrence or distinctiveness of the relation
Ex. meow+cat more strongly associated than milk+cat - Spreading activation: knowledge represented across neural networks
State-dependent learning
- the importance of the perspective at time of encoding and at time of retrieval
a) location (ex. under water vs. on land)
b) physiology (ex. intoxicated vs. sober)
c) mood (ex. happy vs. sad)
d) environment (visual, auditory, olfactory…)
- the context becomes incorporated with the
associations and thus the path of retrieval - ex. divers learning underwater vs. on land
= better retrieving where learned
Encoding specificity
- interactions between encoding and retrieval operations
- retrieve info by thinking about the item and the context
- ex. if you think about the learning room while testing, you do as well as you do when tested IN the learning room
Perceptual fluency vs. conceptual fluency
Perceptual fluency
- if you have perceived the stimulus, fluency develops for perceiving the stimulus
- specific to stimulus details
- does not lead to conceptual fluency
Conceptual fluency
- if you think about the meaning, fluency develops for thinking about the meaning
- does not lead to perceptual fluency
- specific to perspective taken
Example of shallow, medium, deep learning
Recall “depth of processing” experiments:
- shallow (compare font): worst recall
- medium (compare sound): in between
- deep (compare meaning): best recall
Remembering the source vs. experiencing familiarity
- remembering the source = the particular episode in which learning occurred
- remember the place, time, details
the remember/know distinction in memory research: do you “remember” that the word was on the list or do you just “know” it was there
Recall tests
Recall (short answer)
- Requires you generate the answer
Followed by a decision - is the answer correct?
- Must identify the item as part of a particular episode
- Requires source memory
Recognition tests
Recognition tests (yes/no)
- Does not require generation
Still requires a decision - is the answer correct?
- Can use a source memory
- Can use familiarity + inference
- Correctly or incorrectly infer the item was (or was not) from a particular episode
Attribution in memory retrieval
Attribute the source of knowledge
- used in both recognition and recall
Recall
* need to decide whether a particular memory was
correctly retrieved
Recognition
* need to decide why a particular item seems
familiar
Elaborative rehearsal
- making connections in memory
- used for forming source memories
- good preparation for BOTH recall and recognition
Maintenance rehearsal
- making familiar
- helps recognition
- ineffective for recall
Using familiarity for recognition
- organization of material has a big effect
- ex. flowers, then animals
- meaningful grouping helpful for recall
- not as helpful in recognition (already know they’re all flowers)
Issue with using familiarity for recognition
- don’t remember where something is familiar from
- esp. with very common words
- with common words, need to rely on source memory even in recognition tasks
ex. if you see someone familiar in a criminal lineup, you’ll feel familiarity and attribute the source incorrectly
Source memory for recognition
Three list example
Show three lists
Say only identify which of these were from list 2
- need to remember specific source, not just familiarity
- need to rely more on source memory as the # of potential sources increases
of potential sources increases with
- time between study and test
- higher frequency items
Source vs. familiarity in recall
- why did this come to mind
- is this really what I’m looking for
Recall of implicit memories
- implicit memories = no awareness
- might not be available to recall
- need different kinds of memory testing
Testing memory with and without awareness
- familiarity affects behaviour
- but it’s memory WITHOUT awareness
how to test:
- direct tests = conceptual
- indirect tests = perceptual
Jacoby experiment - processing depths and perceptual/conceptual
3 levels of processing = three different learning conditions
1. Shallow = show XXXX then a word to be read aloud
2. Medium = show a word and then an antonym (ex. Hot + cold) and read the second one
3. Deep = show a word and make the person generate an antonym
- Test is trying to remember the second words
- Two different kinds of memory tasks
- Direct explicitly memory task = did you see this on the list = conceptual
- Old-new decisions
- Indirect implicit memory test = tachistoscopic identification = perceptual
Jacoby results
- Shallow processing
- low conceptual
- High perceptual
- no context given - Medium processing
- in between - Deep processing
- high conceptual
- low perceptual
- second word never actually presented, just imagined by participant
Better conceptual = best recognition
EXPLICIT memory
Better perceptual = best tachistoscopic performance
IMPLICIT memory
- repetition priming
Implicit memory - layman’s terms
- People demonstrate clear influence of a past event though they don’t consciously remember that event
- When things “ring a bell”
- Deja vu
Explicit memory
- Memory with awareness
- Controlled
- Recall for specific episodes of the source of info
- Direct memory tests
- Identify words as being on a list
- Elaborative processing helps
Implicit memory
- Memory without awareness
- Automatic
- Sometimes experience a sense of familiarity
- Indirect memory tests
- Tachistoscopic or word-stem completion
- Identify briefly presented words
- Preetition (priming) helps
The false fame effect
- given list of names and when you’ve seen one before you think its from a famous person
- familiarity makes you think that they’re famous if you’ve herd their names before
Opposing effects of automatic (implicit) and controlled (explicit) processes
- Fluency of processing
- exposure of names in the first list results in fluency of processing the next time they are presented
= automatic processes - Leads to feeling of familiarity
- processing fluency leads to feeling of familiarity - Attempt to determine the source of familiarity
= controlled process
Theories of implicit memory
- is a processing skill
- is activity based
- practice with a sequence of associations = processing fluency
we don’t perceive it as “fluency,” instead we feel familiarity and infer the source (correctly or incorrectly)
Illusion of familiarity experiment
Dots experiment
illusion of familiarity
= fluency without a previous experience
- view a list of words
- view a second list of words and say if they were old (previous list) or new
The words on the second list were
embedded in moving dots
easier to see = greater processing fluency
Illusion of familiarity experiment - results
Old words
doesn’t matter more or less moving dots
- processing fluency
New words
More moving dots
- lack of processing fluency = thought to be new
Less moving dots
- processing fluency = thought to be old
Fluency and new-ness
- lack of fluency leads to the feeling of newness
ex. the case of the shaved beard or half shaved beard
The illusion of truth
the effect of familiarity on what you think you know
- related to slander, propaganda, witness identification
Source misattribution experiment - witness identification
- if we don’t know the source of familiarity, we might misattribute the source (correctly or incorrectly)
- show ppl a staged event
- show mug shots 2-3 days later with nobody from the actual scene
- 4-5 days later people had to pick out of a lineup for the crime
- 29% of people picked only ppl appearing in the mug shots, not from the crime
Procedural memory
- implicit memory = residual skill
ex.
- how to ride a bike or unscrew a screw
Patient HM amnesia
ANTEROGRADE amnesia
bilateral removal of temporal lobes including hippocampus, to treat intractable epilepsy
- intact working memory
- intact LTM for events stored before the procedure
- intact ability to learn new PROCEDURAL information
- inability to store new information
Anterograde, what is lost vs. kept
Lost
- can’t form new EXPLICIT memories
- can’t convert working memory to LTM
Kept
- working memory ok
- can learn new IMPLICIT or PROCEDURAL memories
Patient HM mirror writing task
- can learn new procedural memories
- like writing while looking in a mirror
- performance improved even though he didn’t remember learning the previous days
Korsakoff’s syndrome
anterograde amnesia
- amnesia associated with alcoholism
- thiamine deficiency
- can’t form new explicit memories, plus memory loss for more recent decades
can form some memories:
- prefer tunes previously heard
- remember to avoid injurious handshake
- won’t laugh at a joke previously heard (remember the punchline)
Retrograde amnesia examples
- physical brain trauma
- electroconvulsive shock therapy
Anterograde amnesia examples
- soap opera amnesia
- Korsakoff’s
- Patient HM
General retrograde vs. anterograde amnesia
Retrograde
- can’t remember old memories / related to a specific event
Anterograde
- can’t form new memories
- can remember things from before amnesia
Types of long term memory - general flowchart
Declarative = explicit
- semantic
- episodic
Procedural = implicit
Types of long term memory - layman’s terms
Declarative - things I know that I know
Semantic - general knowledge
Episodic - memory of specific events
Procedural - things you don’t explicitly know that you know
Repetition priming or learning new skills
Academic office experiment
- Asked them to sit in the office for a while before the experiment (pre-phones)
- But actually this was the experiment
Of 30 subjects: - 9 recalled seeing books (there actually were no books)
- memory error
Academic office experiment - explanation of memory errors
- Memories are in line with expectations
- You expect to see books in a professor’s office, so you remember books
- People recall details from non-existent film footage
Memory reconstruction
- memory is often very sketchy as a result of inattention
- we make inferences to fill in the gaps of our memory
- can’t distinguish between true and inferred memories
Memory = gist
+ exceptions
- all understanding is based on inferences
ex. Jane’s piggy bank - we remember the gist of sentences, not the exact wording
EXCEPT for with jokes and highly interactional content (ex. did he say he likes or like likes me)
Memory and understanding
understanding guides both what we put
into memory, and what we retrieve from
memory
Schema
- general knowledge about the way things work
- stereotypical knowledge
Schematic knowledge
Schemata
- static knowledge about a place or thing
Scripts
- dynamic knowledge about how things unfold
Pros and cons of schemata
- used to retrieve memories or to fill gaps in memory
Pro
- makes unusual things really stand out
Con
- gaps may be incorrectly filled
Three hypotheses for forgetting
- Decay
- Interference
- Retrieval failure
Decay hypothesis for forgetting
- memories fade with time
- brain cells die and connections fade
- how to tell the difference between time and new learning
COCKROACHES
Cockroaches experiment - decay hypothesis
- teach them a maze
- either have them rest and not move OR do what they want and explore (learning)
supports interference
- new learning is what counts, not time spent remembering
Human hypothesis - decay hypothesis
- teach them random syllables
- either have them learn more or sleep (to prevent new learning)
supports interference
- new learning is what counts, not time spent remembering
Interference
- proactive and retroactive
- related to source memory confusion
Misleading question - car crash
- verb used influenced estimated speed
- faster = “saw glass”
- no glass
Misleading question - stop vs. yield sign
- ask if the car did something as it passed the stop/yield sign
- later asked what sign they saw
- if misled, only 41% chose the correct one
- if not misled, 75% chose the correct slide
- if guessed wrong, got another chance between correct sign and new sign
- STILL got it wrong, responses at chance
What is happening when memories change
3 theories
- Destructive updating
- new memory replaces the old, old destroyed - Filling in a gap
- the old memory did not exist in the first place (not cemented) - Choosing from two memories
- old is not destroyed; a choice is made whether to use old or new memory
Eye-witness testimony: three mechanisms causing memory error
- generic knowledge produces errors
- expectations
- schemas
- activation of networks - misleading information
- exposure, leading questions can lead to confident false identification - imagining an event
- can lead to you thinking you experienced the event
Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM)
paradigm
- say a list with an associated, unsaid “root” word
- people likely to recall the associated word and are confident about the memory
- works in both recall and recognition
- even if warned about the trick, still fall victim to it
The “Moses” illusion
Importance of combined cues
- How many animals of each kind did Moses bring on the arc
- It wasn’t Moses, it was some other dude
- Everything sounded like it went together, but not completely true
- Tendency to overlook distortions in statements
- Semantic illusion
The cognitive interview
- technique used to improve eyewitness statements
- Use the encoding specificity principle
- restate context - Use all available retrieval paths
- recall everything, even if it seems unimportant - Report the events in a variety of orders
- backwards and forwards - Assume different perspectives
- use different sets of cues
- to get the correct full story and not influence them to remember any false memories
Three retrieval conditions experiment
- Between subjects experiment
- Watch crime video together then interviewed differently
- Cognitive interview
- Hypnosis
- Standard
Three retrieval conditions experiment - result
- Best recall occurred for the Cognitive Interview
- 25-35% more info than the other conditions, all correct info
- No extra generation of incorrect information
Issue with hypnosis
read textbook
Causing false memories experiment
Memories can be:
- Altered (ex. Misinformation effect)
- Misattributed (source confusion)
- Created or implanted
- She created memories by working with the parents of uni students
- Got them to repeatedly tell their kids a made up story about childhood events (ex. Getting lost in a shopping mall)
- With repeated tellings, many students start to “remember” the episodes, and supply recalled details
Who is most susceptible to implantation of false memories
- children
- those with vivid imaginations
Imagination effect
If you can see the image vividly, blurs the reality vs. implanted memory
Memory confidence
- We frequently rely on our confidence in our memories to make judgements and decisions
- Memory confidence and memory accuracy have very little actual relationship
Implications for recovered memories
- No good evidence for recovery of “repressed” memories
- Plus, it just doesn’t add up with everything we know about how memory works
Getting better memory accuracy
- give better cues
- the cognitive interview
- give better tests:
- implicit tests so no judgement is remembered needed
- ex. eye tracking
recognized faces = tight scanning pattern
Autobiographical memory
- Memories about your own life
- Better remembered than other memories
- Fits into our rich, detailed self-schema
Issue
- We think that we always thought what we think now
= retroactive thought unreliable
- also, bias for a positive view of oneself
Childhood amnesia
- Age 3 is the crucial cutoff age for most people
- Can’t remember before the age of 3 (simply gone, no retrieving)
Childhood amnesia - explanations
- Biological changes in the brain
- Encoded in a different way when you were an infant (ex. texture in mouth)
- Children have children’s schemas
- Importance of verbal encoding, young kids don’t talk to themselves as much
Flashbulb memories
- Where were you when…?
- Memories SEEM special, extremely clear, vivid, accurate
- not actually more accurate than other memories
- seem clearer because…
1. Emotional content improves memory consolidation (biology)
2. Frequently rehearsed
3. Consequential
Flashbulb memory experiment - Neisser and harsch
- Asked people just days after the challenger explosion where they were during
- Asked again 2.5 years later
- Very little agreement between what they originally said and what they remembered now
- Even though memories felt extremely vivid and there was a lot of confidence
Normal repression
Try not to think about unpleasant things, so not rehearsed, get forgotten
Normal recovery
Remember something you haven’t thought of in years due to the right cue
Traumatic memories
- Usually emotion improves memory
- But people might have no memories of traumatic events
Why no memory of traumatic events
Extreme emotion disrupts process needed for memory consolidation = never stored in LTM
Repression - concept
- First discussed by Freud
- Memories tucked away and not thought about
- Can later come back
Repression - true?
Doesn’t actually happen - no good evidence
Especially if it was an ongoing event lasting a while
BUT doesn’t mean people are lying if they feel like they recovered a repressed memory, maybe implanted
PTSD
- Can’t stop thinking about a traumatic event
- Intrusive thoughts and memories
Tradeoff between memory accuracy and retrievability
- Errors frequently caused by many different memory connections we make = interference
BUT these connections also make memories retrievable and allow us to understand the world in-depth
Memory is all about CONNECTIONS
More connections mean a better chance of retrieval
Good acquisition strategies emphasise making connections
Good connections are imagable (like mnemonics)
Best connections are the most meaningful ones
New memories should connect with old memories
- Understanding where new info fits with the old v important
Memory needs structure, only YOU can provide that
