6. Episodic Long-Term Memory

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Memory is the most important function of the brain; without it life would be a _____. Our knowledge is all based on memory. Every thought, every action, our very conception of personal identity, is based on memory…Without memory, all experience would be useless.

• Edridge-Green, 1900

Squire’s Taxonomy of Long-Term Memories

Explicit memory/declarative memory

__________________ - Long-term memory knowledge that can be retrieved and then reflected on consciously 

• A.K.A. Declarative Memory

Implicit memory/non-declarative

_______________ - Knowledge that can influence thought and behaviour without any necessary involvement of conscious awareness

• A.K.A. Non-declarative Memory

Episodic memory

________________ - Autobiographical memory; stores personally experienced events

• E.g., the events you experienced at a fun party

• About YOU

Some part of autobiographical memory is semantic like thinking you are a good person– what would it be based on, while interactions with other people.

Interactions (episodic) help develop facts about ourselves (semantic)

Semantic memory

_______________ - Stores general world knowledge, like concepts and categories

• E.g., knowing that the capital city of Saskatchewan is Regina

Some part of autobiographical memory is semantic like thinking you are a good person– what would it be based on, while interactions with other people.

Interactions (episodic) help develop facts about ourselves (semantic)

Mnemonic

Preliminary issues

_______________ - An active, strategic learning device or method

• E.g., “The Knuckle Mnemonic” for days in a month

• Acronyms, songs…

Strengths of Mnemonics

Preliminary issues → mnemonic devices

1. The material to be remembered is practiced repeatedly

2. The material is integrated into an existing memory framework

3. The mnemonic provides a way to retrieve the material

Method of Loci

Mnemonics

_________________ - uses known locations as cues for memory items

• Based on visual imagery

Two Steps:

1. Choose a known set of locations

2. Form a mental image of each thing you want to remember and place it in a location

When it’s time to recall, go through the locations

The Peg-Word Technique

Mnemonics

______________ - a pre-memorized set of words serves as a sequence of mental “pegs” onto which the to-be-remembered material can be “hung.”

Mnemonic principles

Mnemonics

_____________ -

1. Provide a structure for learning

2. Form durable and distinctive memory traces

   1. By means of visual images and rhymes

3. Guide retrieval by providing effective cues for recalling the information

Three-Step Sequence for learning and memory:

• Encoding, retention, retrieval.

Herman Ebbinghaus

______________ - Founder of scientific research on memory

• Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology (1885)

• Studied his own memory

  • Used himself as the only participant in his studies

  • Studied memory using nonsense syllables

  • Used the relearning task and savings scores

    • Forgetting curve AKA retention curve— not a massive decrease, more like a flatline

• Other Results:

  • Evidence of Overlearning:

  • More frequently repeated list = twice the savings score

  • Longer lists were remembered better

Distributed practice

An important memory effect

_______________ - study time is spread out over many, shorter sessions

• E.g., going to all your classes

Massed practice

An important memory effect

_______________ - study time is grouped together into one long session

• E.g., cramming before an exam

Metamemory

____________ - Knowledge about one’s own memory, including how it works and how it fails to work

• Mnemonics

• Judgments of Learning

• Metacognition

Metacognition

Metamemory

________________ - Knowledge about one’s own cognitive system and its functioning

Isolation effect

Stages in episodic memory (getting info into the memory system)

_______________ - better memory for information that is distinct from the information around it

• A.K.A. von Restorff effect

• E.g., printing one word in red when all others are in black

• Important principles: rehearsal, organization, imagery

Principles of storage

____________________ - 3 Principles/stages in episodic memory (getting info into the memory system)

1. Rehearsal

2. Organization

3. Imagery

1) Rehearsal

Stages in episodic memory (getting info into the memory system) → principles of storage in episodic memory

_________________ - A deliberate recycling of STM’s contents— A deliberate recycling or practicing of information in the short-term store.

Rundus (1971)

• Participants learned 20-item lists of words

  • 5 Seconds/word

• People were told to rehearse words aloud, but could rehearse any word that they wanted

Maintenance rehearsal

…Rehearsal (Craik and Lockhart - 1972)

______________ - A low-level, repetitive information recycling

• E.g., holding the number for the pizza restaurant in memory until you dial it

Elaborative rehearsal

…Rehearsal (Craik and Lockhart - 1972)

______________ - A more complex rehearsal using the meaning of the information to store and remember it

Depth of processing

..Rehearsal (Craik and Lockhart - 1972)

_______________ - Memory is determined not by how long information stays in the system, but by how the person processes it

• Shallow processing

• Deep processing

Shallow processing

…Rehearsal (Craik and Lockhart - 1972) → Depth of processing

___________________ - Leads to poor LTM traces

• Used in maintenance rehearsal

Deep processing

…Rehearsal (Craik and Lockhart - 1972) → Depth of processing

_____________ - Leads to strong LTM traces

• Used in elaborative rehearsal

2) Organization

Stages in episodic memory (getting info into the memory system) → principles of storage in episodic memory

_________________ - The structuring or restructuring of information as it is being stored in memory

• E.g., Bousfield (1953): 60 items for free recall- recalled based on semantic categories

  • Animals, names, vegetables, and professions

• Bower et al. (1969): Participants would see a hierarchy and then try to remember– other group had a similar physical structure but they were randomly organized, so no proper structure

  • Two Conditions: Organized Condition & Control

    • Organized: Got organized lists with headers

    • Control: Same physical structure of lists, but randomized words

Subjective organization

…Organization

_______________ - Organization developed by a person for structuring and remembering information

• Organization developed by the participant for structuring and remembering a list of items without experimenter-supplied categories

3) Imagery

Stages in episodic memory (getting info into the memory system) → principles of storage in episodic memory

_______________ - The mental picturing of a stimulus that affects later recall or recognition

• Paivio (1971): Reviewed studies on mental imagery and found a beneficial effects for memory

  • Dual Coding Hypothesis

• Schnorr & Atkinson (1969)

  • Paired Associate Task

Paired associate task

…Imagery (Schnorr & Atkinson - 1969) → paired associate learning

_______________ - lists of word pairs are presented to a person. After the first presentation, the first word (the stimulus) should act as a cue for the second to-be-produced word (the paired associate response).

• E.g. Dog-Book

Dual Coding Hypothesis

…Imagery (Pavio - 1971)

________________ - words that denote concrete objects, as opposed to abstract words, can be encoded into memory twice

• Once verbally and again as an image (imaginal attributes)

• Concrete Words can be stored twice in long-term memory, once as a word and again as a picture

  • Example: Elephant → Image of elephant

• Abstract Words are only stored once

  • E.g., justice, idea

Encoding specificity

…Imagery **ON EXAM**

______________ - Each item is encoded into a richer memory representation that includes the context it was in during encoding

• Extra information that was present during encoding of an item is also stored

Anything present during learning a target can serve as an effective cue for later remembering that target.

• State-dependent learning

  • E.g., Goodwin et al. (1969)•Each item is encoded into a richer memory representation that includes the context it was in during encoding

If you’re really relaxed studying, you’re not gonna be so relaxed in the exam room, so if you add some stress while practicing, more similar situations can help recall

• Ex: Scuba divers remember info better on land than they did when tested underwater because of the stimuli around them

Decay

Retrieving episodic info

____________ - The older a memory trace is, the more likely it has been forgotten

• It has decayed away, just like the print on an old newspaper fades and is no longer legible

• Thorndike (1914): The law of disuse

Interference causes forgetting - Easier to demonstrate interference instead of decay because decay is the absence of experiences

Paired associate learning

Studying interference in LTM

_____________ - A list of stimulus terms is paired, item by item, with a list of response terms

• After learning, the stimulus terms are used as cues for the response terms.

Often used to study proactive and retroactive interference

Retrieval failure

________________ - AKA forgetting— When a memory is lost in the system, as opposed to from the system

• Ex: Tip of Tongue States

Tip of the Tongue States

Retrieval failure

________________ - When a person is temporarily unable to remember some shred of information (e.g., a name) that they know is stored in LTM

Availability

_______________ - The memory trace exists; it was encoded into LTM

• Once encoded, information stays in LTM indefinitely

Accessibility

________________ - Degree to which the memory trace can be retrieved from memory

• Information is in LTM, but may or may not be accessed

Retrieval cues

Retrieval failure

___________________ - Retrieval failure occurs when the information is available, but not accessible— which is why we need THIS to help

• Recall often underestimates the amount of information that was learned

• Retrieval cues can help restore the original learning context

Recall and retrieval are NOT the same— while "recall" is a type of retrieval, "retrieval" is the broader process of accessing information from memory, encompassing both recall and recognition. 

Amnesia

_______________ - Loss of memory or memory abilities due to brain damage or disease

• Retrograde amnesia

  • Ribot’s Law- temporal gradient

• Anterograde amnesia

Retrograde amnesia

Amnesia

______________ - Loss of memory of events before the injury

• Ribot’s Law

  • Temporal gradient

Ribot’s Law

Amnesia → retrograde amnesia

_____________ - temporal gradient in retrograde amnesia

Temporal gradient

Amnesia → retrograde amnesia → Ribot’s Law

______________ - memories more distant from the time of the amnesia are clearer– the closer memories are to the injury the more likely they are to forget it, but they could remember early childhood things fine

Dissociation

________________ - A disruption in one component of cognition but no impairment of another

• Double dissociations represent stronger evidence for functional and anatomical independence than single dissociations.

Double dissociation

Dissociation

________________ - Finding reciprocal patterns of disruption

• In one patient, A is disrupted but B is not

• In another patient, B is disrupted but A is not

Double dissociations represent stronger evidence for functional and anatomical independence than single dissociations.

Patient K.C.

Dissociation → patients

_________________ - Episodic memory processes were disrupted, but semantic memory processes were in tact.

Patient H.M.

Dissociation → patients

______________ - Unable to transfer new information to LTM, but able to retrieve already stored memories from LTM

• Unable to transfer new information to LTM, but able to retrieve already stored memories from LTM.

• This person had particular memory

H.M.’s memory

Dissociation → Patient H.M.

_______________ - Hippocampus was lesioned

• Could retrieve already stored memories memories from LTM

• STM seemed to be intact

• Could not transfer information into LTM, yet implicit learning was possible

Implication: Hippocampus is critical for explicit LTM formation

Implicit memory vs. Explicit memory

______________ - Key distinction: explicit memories are consciously accessible

• Repetition Priming

Implicit memory can influence conscious experience

• E.g., déjà vu

• E.g., Advertisements

Repetition priming

Implicit vs. explicit memory

_______________ - a previous encounter with information facilitates later processing on the same information, even unconsciously