2.7- Retrieval and Encoding Problems

Forgetting Curve by Hermann Ebbinghaus

Shows that time is a significant factor in forgetting new information we encode which Ebbinghaus self-experimented on himself trying to remember nonsense syllables. Says that we forget most of the stuff after we learn it

Concepts of Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve Experiment

Gave ideas of spacing effect and primacy and recency effect

Storage Decay

Well-encoded memories can fade and weaken over time if the information isn’t rehearsed (traces back to Ebbinghaus’ work).("use it or lose it").

Encoding failure

When information that was forgotten doesn’t enter long-term memory usually because it wasn’t encoded properly or not paying attention (shallow processing)

Retrieval failure

When you can’t remember a memory even though it’s stored

Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon

The feeling of knowing a word but temporarily being unable to say it

Interference

One existing memory blocks or interrupts another

Proactive Inference

When old information disrupts learning or remembering new information

• Ex: Your old locker combo interferes with learning your new one

Retroactive Inference

When new information disrupts remembering things you’ve already learned

• Ex: learning new French vocabulary messes with your existing Spanish vocabulary

Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalyst that believed that the human mind sometimes buries specific memories in order to protect us from them (repression) and in order to be happy. Critiqued because too common

Repression

Unconscious blocking of memories that are emotionally painful or anxiety-including and is considered a type of motivate forgetting. So it can show up as gaps in memory from traumatic childhood

Motivated forgetting

Forgetting that occurs because the memory is unpleasant or threatening, sometimes consciously and unconciously

Misinformation Effect

When new, misleading information gets added to an existing memory, affecting they way our brains reconstruct memory

Being told a stop sign was a yield sign and then remembering it that way

Misinformation Effect

Source Amnesia

When you forget where you learn something, but can remember the content

Quoting a fact you read in a fictional story as it were real

Source Amnesia

Constructive Memory

Memories are constantly being rebuilt when we recall them and might fill in certain gaps without even realizing it

Imagination inflation

An error to constructive memory: imagining an event can increase belief that it happened (believing a dream was real)

Memory (blending) consolidation

An error to constructive memory: repeating or similar events (like daily routines) can merge in our minds as one event