Retrieval

retrieval

“The process of recovering a target memory based on one or more cues, subsequently bringing that target into awareness” (Baddeley et al., 2015)

How do cues lead to retrieval?

Retrieval as cue-feature matching  Current context provides cues  Cues match and activate certain features of the target  Activation spreads, given that memory of features are connected  Activation completed: target retrieved

Encoding specificity principle (ESP):Tulving

Retrieval success is determined by  the amount of overlap (match) between the conditions present at retrieval and the conditions present at encoding  Larger the overlap, more likely to retrieve successfully

Importance of cues

Tulving & Pearlstone (1966)  Study phase (encoding). Participants studied 48 words with their category names (2 words per category), e.g., bird-parakeet, bird-sparrow fruit-melon, fruit-guava profession-engineer, profession-lawyer  Test phase (retrieval). Later, they were tested on the words

Free recall group: asked to recall words, no cues given  Cued recall group: asked to recall the words, with cues of 24 category names: bird? fruit?  Which group recalled more words? Why?

Tulving & Pearlstone (1966)

Distinguished between availability and accessibility of memory traces:  Availability – the memory is stored and could potentially be retrieved, given the right cues  Accessibility – the memory can be retrieved in current conditions  Inability to retrieve a memory does not mean the memory is not stored

Tulving & Osler (1968)

Can a weak cue lead to successful recall, as long as it was present at encoding?  Study phase (encoding). Participants studied targets (single words) with weakly associated cues (emblem – EAGLE)  Test phase (retrieval). Later, recalled targets (e.g., EAGLE)  Free recall group: no cue  Cued recall group, same (encoded) weak cue: emblem?  Cued recall group, different (not encoded) weak cue: soar?  Results?  Same weak cue > no cue > different weak cue  Why?

Thomson & Tulving (1970) pt1 results

Will strong cues (i.e., highly associated ones) lead to successful recall if they were not present at encoding?

Input condition (W). Participants studied target words (BLACK), with weak cues (train – BLACK). Strong cues (white) were not presented  Output Condition (W). Recall test with weak cues (train?)  This repeated using list 1 and 2  List 3, study with weak cues (W), recall with:  No cue (0): drop, compared to list 2  Weak cues (W): same  Strong cues (S): drop  List 4, study with weak cues (W), recall with:  Strong cues (S): drop  Strong cues do not lead to retrieval success, if they are not present at encoding.  Support the encoding specificity principle

Thomson & Tulving (1970) results pt2

Input condition (0). Participants studied target words (BLACK), without cues  Output Condition (0). Recalled without cues  This repeated using list 1 and 2  List 3, study with no cues (0), recall with:  No cues (0): same  Weak cue (S): same  Strong cues (S): improve  List 4, study with no cues (0), recall with:  Strong cues (S): improve  Participants might have generated strong cues themselves at encoding.

Factors affecting retrieval success: Attention at encoding

Fernandes & Moscovitch (2000)

Divided attention (DA) at encoding  Study phase. Memorise auditorily presented words, either in  Full attention condition; or  Divided attention (DA) condition. Monitor materials at the same time:  Man-made object: press key when seeing 3 consecutive man-made object words  Odd-digit: press key when seeing 3 consecutive odd numbers  Test phase. Recall the auditorily presented words  DA at encoding impaired recall regardless of distracting tasks

Factors affecting retrieval success: Attention at retrieval

Divided attention (DA) at retrieval  Study phase. Memorise auditorily presented words  Test phase. Recall the auditorily presented words in 60s  Full attention condition; or  Divided attention (DA) condition. Monitor materials at the same time:  Man-made object: press key when seeing 3 consecutive man-made object words  Odd-digit: press key when seeing 3 consecutive odd numbers  DA at retrieval impaired recall. More when the distracting task is word-based (man-made object) than digit-based

Factors affecting retrieval success: Number of cues

Superadditive effect of extra cues: Rubin & Wallace (1989)  Participants heard cues and came up with words (target: ghost)  Semantic cue only. “mythical being?” 14% generated “ghost”  Rhyme cue only. “rhymes with post?” 19%  Semantic and rhyme cues. “mythical being, rhymes with post?” 97%

 Elaborative encoding – generate mediator cues to help retrieval  Pyc & Rawson (2010)  Study Swahili-English translation pairs, e.g., wingu-cloud  Participants were asked to generate mediators for the pairs:  keywords that…  look/sound similar to Swahili (wingu), and  semantically related to English (cloud)  E.g., Wingu → wing → cloud  Repeated testing allowed strengthening of the mediation/elaboration, and generation of more mediator cues, e.g., Wingu → wind → cloud  This leads to better cued recall (Wingu?)

Factors affecting retrieval success: Context-dependent memory

If retrieval occurs in same context as encoding (cues overlap), recall will be enhanced  Context:  A collection of cues  External: environment  Internal: mood, state, internal thoughts

Environment as context (water)

Godden & Baddeley (1975):  Studied words, on land or underwater  Recall later, on land or underwater  4 groups:

No main effect of dry vs. wet Interaction between encoding and retrieval contexts: • items encoded in a dry context were better retrieved in a dry context • items encoded in a wet context were better retrieved in a wet context

enviroment as context (air)

Thompson, Williams, L’Esperance, and Cornelius (2001):  Experiment 1:  Studied words, in the air or on land  Recalled later, in the air or on land  Main effect of learning environment. Why?  Context-dependent: on land, in the air? Why (not)?

Thompson, Williams, L’Esperance, and Cornelius (2001):  Experiment 2:  Air: watch a skydiving video  Context-dependent effects

Enviroment as context (study)

Smith (1979):  Experiment 1:  Studied lists of words, in room A  Recalled later, in room A, B, or C  Results. Context-dependent: recall in room A > B = C

Smith (1979):  Experiment 2:  Studied lists of words, in room A  Recalled later  In room A (same context; SC)  In room B (different context; DC)  In room B, instructed to reinstate room A (DC-R)  Results?  SC = DC-R > DC  What does it suggest?

 Experiment 3: what if we study in too many different rooms to reinstate the target room?

Environment as context: boundary conditions

Context reinstatement benefits recall but not always recognition – why?  Context reinstatement provide cues which may be in short supply during recall. Recognition tasks provide strong cues already.

Environmental features as context

Noisy vs silent conditions:  Grant et al. (1998):  Read article, in noisy (university cafeteria) or silent conditions  Cued recall, in noisy or silent conditions  Results. Same > different conditions  Male and female voices:  Geiselman and Glenny (1977):  Studied stimuli in male and female voices  Items better recognised when test voice was same as at study

Internal context: physiological state (caffeine)

Keleman and Creeley (2003): caffeine  Studied 40 pairs of words, with a beverage containing caffeine (C) or placebo (P)  Cued recall test, with a beverage containing C or P  State dependency effect found

Internal context: physiological state (marijuana)

Eich (1975): marijuana  Studied words, smoking marijuana or placebo  Recalled later, smoking marijuana or placebo  Free recall. State dependency effect?  Cued recall. State dependency effect?  Main effect of recall type?

Internal context: physiological state (alcohol)

Eich (1980): review of 57 drug studies  Type of retrieval test: best predictor of statedependency effect  Peterson (1977): Alcohol  State dependency effect for free recall, but not cued recall

Internal context: physiological state (exercise)

Aerobic exercise  Miles & Hardman (1998):  Words learned during exercise better recalled (free recall) during exercise, those learned at rest better recalled at rest  Schramke & Bauer (1997):  Older and younger adults  Walking vs resting before learning words  State dependency effect found for free recall, but not cued recall or recognition

Internal context: mood

Mood  Mood dependent memory: recall enhanced when same mood at encoding and at retrieval  Mood congruent memory: tendency to produce memories with the same emotional tone as current state (e.g., more happy memories when you are happy, and sad memories when you are sad)

Internal context: cognitive state

Cognitive state: ideas, thoughts, concepts, languages  Marian & Neisser (2000):  Experimenter interviewed Russian-English bilingual participants on topics such as friends, holiday, birthday,  In Russian  In English  Participants shared life stories  Talking in one language “mode” (e.g., Russian) => retrieve memories acquired in that mode

Boundary conditions: What factors affect the effectiveness of context as a cue?

Extent to which context is needed for successful retrieval (“outshining” hypothesis, Smith, 1988)  If other cues are powerful enough to elicit retrieval, no need to draw on context, e.g., recognition tests – provide strong cue.

Extent to which context is or is not encoded with the target memory  Stress at encoding => lack of attention to study material  Paired associate learning => attention directed to cuetarget association rather than to background context  Lack of distinctiveness or prominence of context  Long retention interval => Weak connection between context and target

Extent to which encoding context is/can be reinstated at retrieval (mental reinstatement hypothesis):  Use of appropriate strategy – imagine original context if physically unavailable  Many similar contexts => more difficulty mentally reinstating context  Many items associated with same context => cue overload (Tulving & Pearlstone, 1966)

Environment as context – practical application

The police help witnesses to recall details in crime scenes  Crime reconstructions: recreating cues present at time  Context reinstatement in “cognitive interview”

Cognitive interview (Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, & Holland, 1985)

Elements of cognitive interviews:  Reinstate context of event  Encourage reporting of every detail, no matter how insignificant it appears  Describe incident in different order  Describe incident from different viewpoints  Encourages generation of many potential retrieval cues, and maximises overlap of retrieval and encoding cues.