Psych 111 L3/4 (Memory)

Memory

the means by which we retain and draw on our past experiences to use that information in the present or the dynamic mechanisms associated with storing, retaining and retrieving information about past experiences

Encoding

Processes used to store information in memory

Storage

Processes used to maintain information in memory

Retrieval

Processes used to get information back out of memory

Recall

You have to generate an answer

Free recall

Anything you can remember no particular order

Serial recall

remember order as well as item names (more difficult)

Cued Recall

Some clue is given to trigger recall (ex. paired associations)

Recognition

Don't need to generate an answer

Explicit Memory

Involves conscious recollection - participant knows they are trying to recollect

Implicit Memory

Requires participants to complete a task and their performance indicates memory

Procedural Memory

Knowing how to do something (resistant to forgetting); ex. riding a bike

Declarative Memory

Memory for facts or events (more prone to forgetting)

Atkinson-Shiffon (1968) Model

Stages of Memory; how we process explicit memories

Sensory Memory

Large Capacity but persists for only a very short period of time, pushed out by new info but can be stored longer through memory repetition

Whole report procedure

Part of Sperling’s experiment set up to test iconic memory; 1st scenario where participants were shown images for less than a second then asked how many letters they could remember (~50% avg)

Partial Report Procedure

Part of Sperling’s experiment set up to test iconic memory; 2nd scenario where participants underwent the same experiment but were asked to remember letters from the top, middle, or bottom rows according to a tone they heard (~100% avg)

Sperling’s Experiment Findings

Demonstrated that our sensory memory holds a great deal of info very briefly, ½ a second, and defined 2 types of sensory memory (iconic and ecoic)

Iconic Memory

Fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli

Ecoic Memory

Fleeting sensory memory of auditory stimuli (like your memory after someone reads out a list of numbers)

Two Track Memory Processing

Short Term Memory

Takes in info from sensory memory (through attention) and long term memory (through recall); capacity of (7 ± 2) items, short duration but effortful processing strategies can increase effective capacity

Miller’s Magic Number 7

The number of items which can be stored in our short term memory

Baddley’s Working Memory Model

An active desktop where your brain processes info by making sense of a new input and linking it with long-term memories; STM is for more simple tasks + brief storage; WM is for recalling info while manipulating it or completing a secondary task (ex. decision making); WM incorporated STM while completing other processes

Craik & Lockhart’s Levels of Processing Model

Shallow processing: (physical) encodes on a very basic level such as a word’s letters or sounds

Deep processing: (elaboration) encodes semantically based on meaning of words (using a word in a sentence)

Idea that the deeper (more meaningful) the processing → the better retention

Emotions and Memory

Emotional/stressful events can form indelible memories bc hormones are triggered → provokes the amygdala to boost activity in memory forming areas

Flashbulb Memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment/event

Chunking

Increases memory/digit span; By grouping numbers together you are able to store more info in the short term memory

Mood-Congruent Memory

A kind of state dependent memory; the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to learn new explicit info after trauma (Patient H.M.; Clive Wearing) ex. Dory

Retrograde Amnesia

Inability to retrieve explicit info learned prior to trauma; temporally graded (memory for old info typically intact, more recent info more vulnerable)

Decay theory

Forgetting; memory weakens if you don’t have to remember (passage of time without using memory makes you forget)

Proactive Interference

Old memories interfere with recall of newer info

Retroactive Interference

New memories interfere with recall of older info

Long Term Potentiation

An increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation - neural basis for learning and memory

Memory Consolidation

The neural storage of a long term memory

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory (rabbit → hare/hair)

Context Dependent Memory

Putting yourself back in the context where you experienced something can prime your memory retrieval

State Dependent Memory

What we learn in one state may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state (ex. drunk vs. sober; mania)

Serial Position Effect

Our tendency to recall the best and last (recency effect) and first (primary effect) items in a list

Digit Span

A standard cognitive assessment that measures short-term verbal memory and working memory capacity (see/hear numbers and must repeat them back in order)

Bahrick’s Research on Very Long Term Memory

Tested long term memory using old yearbook photos; 392 ex-high school students took 4 different memory tests:

— Free recall of the names (15 years = 60% ; 30 years = 30% accuracy)

— A photo recognition test (48 years = 40%)

— A name recognition test (48 years = 80%)

— A name and photo matching test (34 years = 90%)

Tests of Implicit Memory

Stem completion, word fragment completion

Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977)

Criticized LOP Model; Two processing tasks: semantic vs. rhyme; found memory performance also depends on the match between encoding processes and type of test (match of encoding and test results in better memory)

Brooks Interference Study (1968)

Brooks asked participants to perform a primary task that involved either spatial visualization or verbal processing, then were prompted to either verbally say yes/no or point to yes/no; Found pointing (a spatial response) severely disrupted the performance of the spatial imagery task, but had little effect on the verbal task; Likewise speaking an oral response (a verbal output) disrupted the verbal memory task more than it disrupted the spatial visualization task

Doing tasks of the same modality causes major interference while mixing modalities is less disruptive

Extraordinary memories

Mnemonist: “S” memory expert who could remember long lists and passages with ease and repeat back lists of 70-80 words or numbers months or years later; had sensory synesthesia

Toscanini: conductor with incredible memory that allowed him to memorize roughly 250 symphonic works and 100 operas note-for-note

Sensory Synesthesia

Condition where people have unusual, and usually involuntary associations between different sensory modalities or representations; ability to improve memory, often used by Mnemonists

Roger Shephard (1967)

Image recognition of 612 objects after a certain amount of time; Very good recognition initially, decreased later on; showed memory capacity much larger than previously known

Ebbinghaus forgetting curve

A mathematical model that describes the exponential loss of newly learned information over time when there is no attempt to retain it; ran experiment that found while immediate recall had ~100% accuracy, it fell by over 50% within an hour of learning

Penny Example

Many people can’t identify which example is right because they never encoded the info in the first place; only need to recognize it

Encoding specificity effect

Your ability to remember a stimulus depends on the similarity between the way a stimulus is processed at encoding and the way it is processed when tested (Tulving & Thompson, 1971)

Spacing Effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice

Factors that improve memory

Spacing effect, organization, matching learning and testing

Testing effect

Repeated self-testing, an effective way to distribute practice and better retain information

Godden & Baddeley (1975) Scuba Study

Tested whether word memory is better on the surface or while scuba diving; Found greater recall when learning and testing contexts are the same

Nelson study of "lost" memories

Conducted a paired associations test and brought subjects back after a month → if they forgot a pairing, they would either relearn their original pairing or learn a new pairing; Found that relearning had better results than new pairing, suggesting that even if you struggle to retrieve info from the long-term memory, it is still there

Encoding Specificity

Memory recall is most effective when the context, environment, or internal state during retrieval matches the conditions present when the memory was first encoded

Patient H.M.

Hippocampus and medial temporal lobe was removed because of seizures; Unable to learn new information though could recall info from before surgery and working memory was normal; Grew an awareness that something was wrong

Clive Wearing

Damage to left and right temporal lobe, as well as frontal lobe; Experienced total anterograde amnesia as well as much retrograde amnesia; Wrote in a diary and could only remember the current moment and his wife

Mirror image reading study

Test on individuals with Severe Anterograde Amnesia; Experiment included 50% repeated words across 4 days (Non-repeated words: implicit; Repeated words: implicit + explicit)

For new words, Normals and Amnesics improved about the same (implicit only)

For old words, Normals were better than amnesics (implicit + explicit).

Loftus’ experiments

1 - see event (car accident, robbery, etc.)

2 – misinformation (usually in a question)

3 - memory test (was memory affected by the misinformation?)

Found that wording could change someone’s perception of the event (ex. hit vs smashed); memory distortion

Role of Hippocampus/Medial Temporal Lobe in Memory

Does not store memory permanently, but is critical for initial coding - bind activity in different parts of the cortex; Once consolidated don’t need hippocampus to retrieve them, but if damages will not be able to encode info (ex. Patient HM)

LEI - Life Events Inventory Garry, Manning, Loftus & Sherman (1996)

Had participants complete LEI and the results showed that when participants imagine events that they said did not happen to them, they are more likely to say they did happen to them

Implanting False Memories

Can be implanted in some people some of the time; Implant false memories by saying that they happened - people believe they remember them because they tried to recall

Childhood (infantile) Amnesia

The common inability of adults to recall specific episodic or autobiographical events from the first three to four years of life