PSY372 Psychology of Memory

Psychology of Memory and the Human mind

Autobiographical memory

across your lifespan - about you

Is autobiographical memory a separate system?

Yes and No → depends on episodic memory + role it plays differs from other functions of memory

4 Proposed Functions of AM

• Directive

• Social

• Self-representation

• Coping Mechanism

Diary Method of Studying AM

Recording 2 events per day → test on it → more test and recall, better remebered

Wagneer Diary study found that

Probes for who, what, where was best for recall, but when was not → more cues the better recalled

Letters to study AM

More naturalistic but similar to diary

Issues with use of letters and diaries to study AM

Sampling bias in events recorded

Report events leads to better recall

Need perseverance by participants and motivation

Island view of AM

AM are islands in a sea of forgetting → more retelling, the longer the islands stay → but may be just memories of memories(not true memories)

Memory Probe method of studying AM

Give words as probes and recall a certain memory

What’s found from memory probe methods?

• Infantile amnesia

• Reminiscent bump

Issue with memory probe methods

→ not a lot of control

Life Narrative

account of one’s life that forms basis of AM → story of who we are and how we got here

What influences life narrative?

Stressful/intense emotions → more deeper encoding

Reminiscence Bump

Memories rated on emotional valence → + memories show a bump

Conway’s Theory of AM

Recollective experiences = Experienced Self → personal semantic memories

From Conway’s theory, whole self based on:

Working Self → encodes information about what is, what can be, and what has been

Conway’s structure of Knowledge

Hierarchy → Detailed AMs from frontal lobe = slow vs semantic memory is immediate(fast)

Flashbulb Memory

Very detailed and higher accuracy > extreme emotion = photographic representation → Still subject to forgetting

Social Influences of AM

AM is highly self-biased = Self at center

Depressed patients have

Less rich AMs

PTSD and memory

stressful events → anxiety → vivid flashbacks

Hippocampus and PTSD Memory

Memory areas that can Shrink due to cortisol levels

Psychogenic Amnesia

Emotionally disrupted memory

Situation Specific Amnesia

Due to situation → so horrifying I can’t remember anything

Dissociative Amnesia

a real and complete loss of memory → personal info loss → no underlying medical or physical cause

Dissociative Amnesia Characterized by:

Sudden onset, trauma and stress - can come again - can remember semantic info(facts) but not episodic info(self)

Localized Amnesia

Fail to remember info from a SPECIFIC time period

Selective Amnesia

SOME parts of memory recalled, not all

Continuous Amnesia

Where a person forgets information from a SPECIFIC DATE to Present

Systematized Amnesia

Where only certain CATEGORIES of info forgotten

Generalized Amnesia

where the person forgets ALL info from past

Dissociative Fugue

Loss of memory for self and past → people tend to travel and forget self and make up a whole new identity → recovered persons don’t remember events during fugue

Dissociative identity Disorder (DID)

no sense of self, many identities and most severe of dissociative disorders → 2 or more personalities of Host and Alters

DSM-5 Criteria of DID

2 or more identities

Gaps in recall of everyday events, personal info, traumatic events

distress, not normal of culture, not due to physiological, medical, or substance use

DID and Personalities

May be distinct in voidem tone, age, gender → alters may not be mutually aware of each other → stem from abuse/trauma

Etiology of Dissociative Disorders

Usually intense trauma → trauma model = severe trauma + predisposition = dissociations

Heritability of Dissociations

Twin studies = 50% variance = some heritability

Socio-Cognitive factors of Dissociations

Therapist diagnoses = makes more alters → iatrogenic conditions(from diagnosis)

Neurobiological Model of Dissociations

growth and maturation of orbito-frontal cortex -> early trauma → lateral inhibition of self-representations leads to seperation → Gene x Environment

AM and the Brain

Damage to brain = personal identity lost = rare

Semantic memory and AM

Left side to right activation

Autobiographical memory and brain

Start from hippocampus/temporal, PFC areas in left and spread to right areas of Inferior frontal gyrus(IFG)

Prospective Memory(PM)

Future goals and intended actions without any reminders

Retrospective Memory

Cue driven → what vs When

PM memory Types

Time based = cue to action

Event based = event provides cue for future actions

What have PM?

Goal directed = need to remember to perform goals at appropriate times and avoid consequences

PM stages

Intention formed

Monitor = event/time cue

Cue detection/retrieval of intention

Execute intention

PM situations

Episodic tasks = later based on self

Habitual Tasks = correct order

Atypical conditions = devaited from normal circumstances

Interrupted tasks = to return to task after interruption

Interleaving tasks = two or more toegetrhr

Interrupted tasks

More returned to when pause after + cue to return back to it

OCD behaviours

Obsessions = recurrent thoughts

Compulsions = actions to reduce anxiety

OCD + Memory

OCD actions leads to worse PM and low memory confidence overall

What is infantile amnesia?

Freud → sexual repression of impulses

Tustin and Haynes Study of Childhood memories found

Ages 5-9, younger and less remembered, but ages 12-13 more remembered and 18-20 even more

Sibling memory study

Students remember nothing if something happened to them/siblings born before they were 3 years old → remember more after age of 3

Infantile amnesia aka

Childhood amnesia → hard to study

Infantile amnesia in rats

Unless given a cue, rats don’t remember infancy but do when cued - higher activation of hippocampus and NMDARs

How much a child remembers depends on

Whether they possess the language skills to talk about the memory

Why does infantile amnesia occur?

Children are very poor at encoding AM in LTM → because of brain development

Memory in Infants

Mobile Conjugate Task → 3 phases(baseline, learning, test)

From mobile conjugate task found

2 months remember for 2 days

3 months remember for 1 week

reminders = reactivation

Train Task

6 month olds → reminders given from 7-18 months → with reminders before forgetting, baby remember to press button to move train → reminders have a time wondow

With train task, memory enhanced with:

inside time window reminders

Deferred imitation task in Infants

Sensory preconditioning → an association between 2 stim prior to conditioning → infants → 6 month olds did better than 9 month

Development of Declarative Memory

gets better through development

4 Reasons of developing declarative memory

WM capacity increases → increase in verbal storage, memory span

More memory strategies

More knowledge

Metamemory

WM capacity Increase

Baddeley’s WM → similarly present in ages 5-12 → higher WM = maturation of PFC

Brain develops(direction)

Back to front

Memory Strategies in Children

Older children use more strategies than younger children → related to higher WM

Content Knowledge in Children

Older Children possess more knowledge of all kinds → better memory when related to old memories

Meta memory

Knowledge of our own memory → how it works → declarative/procedural → moderate correlation between meta memory and performance(as meta memory increases, performance increases)

Development of Implicit Memory

All ages show sensitivity to violations to env ex. room changed

Types of Implicit Memory

Associative Links = monkey - banana → easier to list

Categorical links = Animal - monkey → can be any aminal

IM based on associative links

Differences in use of associations vs categories → older children prefer categorical links, and no difference from associative links

Childhood and the Brain

Implicit Memory = Cerebellum, brain stem, striatum → primal structures

Explicit memory = hippocampus, parahippo, pfc → hippo formed before birth and parts mature later

Neurogeneis Decreases with

Age → Rates of HCM → higher at birth and lower through age

Neurogenic Hypothesis

Hippocampus generates new neurons → highest during first year of life and slows in adulthood → neurogenesis is replacement/modification of preexisting memory circuits

Adult Neurogenesis

As cells age, new neurons can replace existing ones(leads to loss of info) and mature neurons acquire potential to store memory and undergo LTP

Connectivity and Memory Development

uncinate fasciculus connected to hippo and PFC → continues to develop into adulthood

ENV effects on memory

Biopsysocial model → better ENV = better memory

Too much stress can lead to

Poorer Memory → too much stress = more cortisol

Memory + aging

Decline in episodic memory after 35 years

n-Back test for Memory

Those in the longitudinal group = showed better memory effects than those in cross-sectional groups

WM and Aging

greatest capacity of WM in young adulthood, and declines = higher PFC activity with WM

Scaffolding Theory

Recruitment of alternate neural circuits to make up for losses => as age increases, memory decline, use other pathways for memory storage/functions

The Default Network

Active at rest → processes internal stim → older adults show less activation at rest

With aging, semantic memory, implicit, and AM

Does not decline

Episodic Memory

decline with age - but depends on memory task and method of testing retention

Associative deficit hypothesis

trouble with binding unrelated bits of information - making links and recall

Recall is

to know something, rather than recognition

Episodic memory depends on

integrity of connections among frontal cortex, temp and parietal lobes and thalamus → white matter

Remote memories

recall of info from a distant past → hard to recall over time

Exception to remote memories

AM → reminiscence bump = identity

Implicit memory with age

Doesn’t decline = can compensate for loses in other ways ex. other pathways

Priming with age

moderate age effect, but worse in older adults

Prospective memory with age

Becomes worse → time and event based → involves FC → reminders help but not always and importance matters more

Source Memory

Recall of where and how you acquired the info → declines with age and prone to illusionary bias

Sometimes prospective memory with age

can lead to better goal setting and regulation that leads to older folk better remembering to do less important things

Memory Self-Efficacy

the confidence you have in your memory → higher efficacy = higher performance

Age increases, self-efficacy

Decreases

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

Sterotype threat = perform in the way that stereotypes show → ex. old age = bad memory