Study Guide (6): Unit 2 - PSYC 311 (Cognitive Psychology): Declarative Memory

* - not in the study guide

*What is Declarative Memory?

• The ability to retain information about facts or events over a significant period of time and to consciously recall such information, typically in response to a specific request to remember (cue)

What are the 2 Declarative Memory Systems? Describe them.

• Semantic Memory: Long term memory system that stores accumulated knowledge.

• Episodic Memory: Long term memory system that stores information about specific events

Contrast Episodic and Semantic Memory

Episodic Memory:

• Memory of Personal Experiences & Life Events

Semantic Memory:

• Memory of General Facts, Concepts, and Impersonal Knowledge about the world.

Is the Hippocampus critical in the formation of Declarative Memories?

Yes

Can Declarative Memories be retrieved without a Hippocampus? If yes, what kinds of Memories are more likely to be retrieved?

• Yes they can!

  • • Declarative memories can be retrieved without a hippocampus if their memory trace has undergone systems consolidation—a process where the physical trace is reorganized and strengthened within the neocortex until the hippocampal "index" is no longer needed.

• The kinds of memories most likely to be retrieved without a hippocampus are remote autobiographical memories (like vivid childhood events), semantic memories (general knowledge, facts, and concepts), and highly rehearsed memories.

Where are Declarative Memories stored in the Brain?

The Hippocampus

What is a Memory Trace?

• A physical or biochemical change in the brain's neural tissue that initially depends heavily on the hippocampus to bind and temporarily store a new experience

  • Once systems consolidation is complete, this trace is transferred to the neocortex, meaning the hippocampus is no longer required to retrieve or maintain the memory.

*What is Amnesia? What memory processes are not effected by Amnesia?

The loss of Hippocampal-Depndent Memory

• Yet, you’re Sensory, Working, and Procedural Memory is in tact

What is Anterograde and Retrograde Amnesia? Contrast.

• Anterograde Amnesia:

  • Can’t form NEW declarative memories

    • This is H.M.

• Retrograde Amnesia:

  • Can’t access OLD declarative memories

*What is Interference?

• The process when similar memories get in the way of

  accessing the memory you want

How does Interference lead to Forgetting?

• Similar or overlapping memories compete with each other during retrieval or disrupt the stability of memory traces in the brain, making target information inaccessible rather than erased

  • Does this by doing Proactive or Retroactive Interference

What is Proactive vs Retroactive Interference?

• Proactive Interference: Older memories get in the way of remembering newer information.

  • ex) Accidentally writing down an old home address on forms instead of your current one

• Retroactive Interference: Newer information disrupts the recall of older, previously learned material.

  • ex) Learning a new phone number and finding yourself suddenly unable to recall your previous number

How does Cue Failure lead to forgetting?

• The cue is not helpful or specific enough to access your target memory, meaning that even though the information is still stored in your brain, you cannot locate it because the right "trigger" or reminder is missing.

How does Memory Trace Decay lead to forgetting?

• • Over time, neural patterns which are not used weaken; they may still be there, but they’re not as readily accessible, meaning that physical memory pathways naturally fade or erode if they aren't regularly reactivated.

  
  

How does Physiological Damage lead to forgetting? Provide an example.

• Physiological damage leads to forgetting by physically destroying the neural networks and brain cells where memory traces are stored. Because memories are encoded as physical pathways in the brain, structural damage to these cells results in the permanent loss of that information.

  • ex) Amnesia causes forgetting when head trauma or surgery damages the hippocampus, the brain's memory-routing center. While past memories might remain intact, the brain loses its physical ability to lock in new information.

Why is Forgetting Good?

• It reduces mental interference by clearing out useless information like bad TV plots, social media slop, and unwanted song lyrics, while also keeping you from constantly dwelling on past cringey moments.

• It blunts negative memories over time, which helps heal the emotional pain of events like breakups and prevents the psychological trauma associated with conditions like PTSD.

Why are people very confident that their Eyewitness Testimony is accurate?

• The Illusion of Memory: We intuitively feel like memory works like a perfect recording, causing us to mistake a vivid or familiar feeling for absolute accuracy, even though memory is highly vulnerable to suggestion.

• The Desire to Help & Reinforcement: Witnesses have a strong desire to help solve crimes, which can unintentionally inflate their confidence over time, especially during the average 11-day gap between the event and a lineup.

What does it mean that “Memory is Reconstructive”?

• Memory is reconstructive because it is not a literal recording; instead, recalling an event involves recreating a partially stored experience, during which the memory becomes fluid and is subsequently re-encoded with potentially new or altered details.

What is an example of how a Memory can become biased during retrieval?

• ex) The Car Crash Experiment: Participants who were asked how fast the cars were going when they "smashed" into each other gave significantly higher speed estimates than those who were asked with the verb "hit". Additionally, the "smashed" group was much more likely to falsely recall seeing broken glass at the scene even though none was present.

What did the Car Crash experiment show in terms of reconstructive memory bias?

The Car Crash experiment demonstrated that leading questions can cause a reconstructive memory bias, where a single word change (like "smashed" instead of "hit") alters a person's actual memory trace to integrate false details like higher speeds and nonexistent broken glass.

What are False Memories?

• A recollection of an event or detail that never actually happened, or that happened differently from how it is remembered

How can a False Memory be created?

• False memories are created when the brain reconstructs past events using misleading suggestions, imagination, or incorrect source details rather than recording exact realities. This distortion often happens because people confuse imagined scenarios or outside misinformation with their own real experiences.

  • ex) Participants were exposed to “ads” featuring Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. Later, about 16% report meeting Bugs at Disneyland during their childhood

What is a “Repressed Memory?”

• An unconscious defense mechanism where a person forgets a traumatic event

What normally happens to a memory when a person experience trauma?

• The memory often becomes fragmented, disorganized, and stored as sensory or emotional flashes rather than as a structured, chronological narrative.

What is Elaborative Encoding/Elaborative Rehearsal?

• A memory strategy that strengthens long-term retention by linking new information to existing knowledge and meaningful concepts

How could you use Elaborative Encoding/Rehearsal to help you remember the following list of words:

Hat, Dinosaur, Lettuce, Triangle

• We can picture a T-Rex wearing a tiny party hat while eating a crisp head of lettuce cut into a perfect triangle.

What is the Method of Loci / Memory Palace Technique?

• A spatial memory strategy that improves information recall by mentally placing items along a familiar route using visual imagery

• A form of Elaborative Rehersal

  • ex) "As I opened my front door, I tripped over a giant tomato, slipped into a river of milk, and crashed into a massive block of cheese blocking the hallway."

    • This single sentence turns a basic grocery list (tomatoes, milk, cheese) into a memorable, action-packed story happening right at the entrance of your home.

What is Hyperthymesia / Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM)?

• Hyperthymesia (HSAM) is a condition where individuals can remember every single day of their life with the same clarity that an average person remembers yesterday. This extraordinary ability to recall personal life events typically starts from around the age of three

What does Hyperthymesia (HSAM) tell us about the storage size of Long-Term Memory?

• It demonstrates that long-term memory (LTM) has an incredibly large storage capacity. The fact that the human brain can hold such vast, detailed amounts of daily information over a lifetime shows that our memory potential is much bigger than previously thought.

Why do some people with Hyperthymesia (HSAM wish they did not have it?

• They wish they did not have it because forgetting is healthy, and keeping every bad memory can be emotionally painful. Because they cannot fade out painful experiences, every day can feel as intense as the day after their worst breakup or their saddest loss.

  
  

What is Semantic Memory?

• A very long-lasting form of general world knowledge that stores factual concepts and gives meaning to information—allowing people to recognize objects and use language—though individuals usually do not remember how it was acquired and may occasionally need to re-activate it.

Why do people typically not remember where they acquired Semantic Memories?

• Semantic Memory stores generalized facts, concepts, and word meanings independently of the specific personal life events or contextual details surrounding their initial learning

What is a Semantic Concept? Provide an example.

• A Semantic Concept is a mental representation of a specific class of objects or events.

  • ex) concrete items like cats, actions like walking, properties like blue or fast, and abstract ideas like honesty.

  • Concept: A Squirrel

How are Semantic Concepts organized & where are Concepts located in the brain?

• They are organized in a multidimensional semantic web (an N-dimensional connectome) according to Spreading Activation Theory. When you think of one concept, that node activates and automatically triggers other connected nodes in the web, similar to a neural network.

• Concepts are distributed throughout the cortex but are clustered together by category. Additionally, the Hippocampus is required to form these new semantic memories.

What is a Semantic Category? Give an example.

• Grouping of similar concepts (Objects, events, entities)

  • Can be arbitrary (Track, Burn, Score, Accent, Stream)'

    • ex) Concept: Backyard & William and Mary Wildlife, Rodents

What is a Schema? Describe one of your Schemas

• A collection of basic knowledge about a concept or entity that serves as a guide to perception, interpretation, imagination, or problem solving

  • Used for representing concepts, situations, events

    • ex) Fast, bushy tail, loves acorns, lives in trees.

What is a Semantic Script? Describe one of your Scripts.

• A structured collection of concepts, expectations, and background knowledge that people automatically associate with a specific situation, event, or activity

  • or, A Schema for routine event

    • ex) A human walks by, so the squirrel runs with their acorn, darts across the grass at top speed, scurries up an oak tree, and chatters loudly from a safe branch.

      
      

What is Spreading Activation?

• A cognitive process where activating one concept node in a semantic network automatically triggers and increases the accessibility of connected, related concepts

  • ex) You think of “bread,” making “butter” easier to recall

What Brain Regions support Semantic Memory?

• Semantic memory is supported by a network of specific regions and distributed structures rather than a single location:

  • The Anterior Temporal Lobe (ATL) is the core brain region supporting semantic memory. It acts as a domain-general semantic hub, meaning it is responsible for the overall organization and routing of semantic information throughout the brain.

  • The Hippocampus is also a region that is crucial for memory creation—damage to the hippocampus impairs the formation of new semantic memories.

  • Semantic memory is also organized into categories. Instead of being stored in one spot, these categories are represented in a fragmented map distributed throughout the brain (Distributed Representation).