human memory exam 1

chapter 1 and 3

hermann ebbinghaus

was first to study memory scientifically

developed the method to study memory

believed in the importance of unconscious, Lionshare is unconscious

“Savings”

verbal learning

a term applied to an approach to memory that relies principally on the learning lists of words and nonsense syllables

gestalt psychology

an approach to psychology that was strong in Germany in 1930s and that attempted to use perceptual princlp;es to undertsnad memory and reasoning

clive wearing

case study of an extreme case of amnesia due to Herpes breaking the blood-brain barrier

cannot move memory into the LTM

he didn’t forget how to play the piano and music

shows memory is not a single simple system

reductionism

the view that all scientific explanations should aim to be based on a lower level of analysis: Psychology in terms of physiology, physiology in terms of chemistry and chemistry in terms of physics

mere exposure effect

we like familiar things more than novel things

subconsciously will pick the familiar object

modal model

bottle neck effect

a different modal model

everything starts as episodic → things that are repeated become semantic

explicit/declarative memory

concious

memory that is open to intentional retrieval, whether based on recollecting personal events of facts

episodic memory

from explicit memory

assumed to underpin the capcity to remember specific events

semantic memory

from explicit memory

assumed to store assumalative knowledge of the world

implicit memory - nondeclarative

unconcious

retrieval of information from long term memory through performance rather than explicit concious recall or recognition

turns into conditioning, skills, priming, performance

Endel Tulving

episodic memory allows us to mental time travel

iconic memory

a term applied to the brief storage of visual information

echoic memory

a term applied to the brief storage of auditory information

masking

a process by which the perception and/or storage of a stimulus is influenced by events occuring immediately before presentation (forward masking) more commonly after (backwards masking")

visual memory

a quarter of a second

auditory memory

two-three-four seconds

short-term memory / working memory

7-10 seconds

long term memory

any memory longer than 10 seconds

order of ebbinghaus’ contributions

1 He developed a method of studying memory

2 He is credited as being the first to discover certain empirical findings, such as the learning curve and the forgetting curve.

3 He contributed significantly to an overarching theory of memory.

savings formula

time of intial learning - time for relearning

time for intitial learning times 100

burtt study

played meaningless materical (selection from greek dramas) and were read to a 15 month child everyday for 3 months

tested at 5, 11, 15 years

learning curve

one of Ebbinghaus’ contributions

forgetting curve

three phases of memory

encoding → retention time passing → retrieval

intentional encoding

a person actively tries to commit something to memory

incidental encoding

some other “cover task” is used by the experiences, most of what we remember in our lives was not encoded intentionally (what you ate for breakfast)

common encoding manipulations

repetition - memory increases with increased repetition (learning curve)

encoding time - being exposed to stimulus for longer

“elaboration” - attaching meaning, visualizing, etc memory increases with elaboration

retention

retention interval: millisecond to half century

experimenters can manipulate what happens b/w encoding and retrieval

free recall

tell me anything that you remember in any order

explicit test

serial recall - recall in order, usually only for short term memory tasks

clustering

in free recall, the tendency to group related or neighboring items together during free recall, reflecting the way the memory is organized in the mind

cued recall

you are given a “hint”, a cue to help you remember “a bit of furniture”

recognition

“did you see this before”

• Montana (Y or N) Wyoming (Y or N)

or forced choice

• oregon or idaho

facial recognition

• hits and false alarms

associative recognition test

everything can look familiar

harder test than standard recognition

difference between familarity and recollection

familiarity- a vague, nonspecific feeling of past occurrence

recollection - retrieval/access to details about a past occurrence; more specific

source memory

where did you learn/see/hear/ or read it

gets worse with age

source monitoring framework - Johnson

people infer the source by evaluating qualitative features of memories

physical memories

• perceptual details

• contextual details

• cognitive operations

destination memory

remembering to whom you told something to

• repeating the same stories to friends

even harder than source memory, especially for older adults

implicit memory test

the task does not refer back to the encoding episode

asked to complete regular test

perceptual ID test

encoding phase- incidental - expose people to words under some other guise

on the test, participants simply have to try and read words that are presented very quickly and or obscured in some way (masking)

encoding phase is not referred to during the ID phase

called repetition priming, perceptual priming, positive priming

explicit memory test

a memory test that elicits conscious memories of previously experienced events.

examples

• free recall

• serial recall

• cued recall, multiple choice tests

top down processing

using stored knowledge → memory

primacy effect

better memory for beginning of the list

due to extra attention/rehearsal of items at the beginning of a list transfers these items into LTM

developed gradually with age

recency effect

better memory of the end of the list

modality effect

larger recency effect for auditory information due to the lingering auditory trace

only affects the end of the list because it is the only part not affected by “auditory masking”

suffix effect

an auditory stimulus after the list wipes out the modality effect

saying end at the end of list instead of silence → no modality effect

why STM vs LTM

intuition (remembering information just experienced “feels” different than retrieving information from more remote

evidence of very rapid forgetting of information not rehearsed

Clive Wearing → intact STM and impaired LTM

Recency effects

ways to test STM

explicit memory tests

digit span

letter span

phonological similarity effect

block tapping test?

phonological similarity effect

a tendency for immediate serial recall of verbal material to be reduced, when the items are similar in sound

bat vs vat

Miller 1956 “ magic number”

digit span test - most people’s limit was 7±2 numbers recalled

information is chunked in a meaningful way

chunking / recoding

using long term memory to reduce the number of separate items you need to remember

grouping items and remembering the groups instead of the items

chase and ericsson study

trained a student to reach a digit span memory of 82

stupidizing

4 or lower- immediately can tell its number

5 or higher- have to count it quickly

Irrelevant sound effect

a tendency for verbal STM to be disrupted by concurrent fluctuating sounds, including both speech and music

corsi block tapping

visuo-spatial counterpart to digit span involving an array of blocks that the tester taps in a sequence and the patient attempts to copy

short term memory test

visuo-spatial STM

retention of visual and/or spatial information over brief periods of time