psych notes - test 3

steps for storing memory

1. encoding

2. storage

3. retrieval

encoding

• Take in external stimuli and create internal memory

• Not super accurate because our memory is unreliable

engram

Mythical place where a specific memory is stored in the brain

storage

Where we store our memories - no specific part of the brain

retrieval

Retrieving memories from storage and bringing them to consciousness

weak levels of processing

• structural

• phonemic

structural processing

• Focus on the visual components of what you are trying to remember

• Uses the occipital lobe

phonemic processing

• Focus on the sound of the word

• Uses the temporal lobe

higher levels of processing

• semantic

• organizational

semantic processing

• Focus on the meaning of what you are trying to remember

• Uses the frontal lobe

organizational processing

• Focus on how different stimuli fit together

• Uses the frontal lobe

Craig and Tulving, 1972

• Have participants remember a long list of words and give them questions to consider - is the word uppercase/lowercase (structural); does the word have a “th” sound in it (phonemic); is this thing alive? (semantic)

• Most successful at remembering words when the questions were semantic

ways to improve encoding

• encoding specificity principle

• elaboration

• dual-coding theory

• self-referential encoding

• motivation to remember

• pegwords

• method of loci

• chunking

• spacing/testing effect

encoding specificity principle

• Best way to encode/recall a memory is to use the same sense organs

• Ex: encode something orally thru a hearing cue

elaboration

• Doing more semantic and organizational encoding

• Build on information; add details to encoding

• Creating stronger memory during encoding process

dual-coding theory

• Better to encode information using multiple sense modalities

• Ex: incorporate both visual and auditory encoding - can fall back on type of encoding if other one fails

self-referential encoding

Connect information that you are trying to remember to yourself

cocktail party phenomenon

• We care so much about ourselves that we are always looking to hear our name

• If we hear our name, it will draw our attention no matter the background

motivation to remember

Ex: need to bring something somewhere, put it with other things so that you remember → don’t even end up needing additional things because it’s the first thing you remember

pegwords

creating mental associations between two concrete objects in a one-to-one fashion

method of loci

Take a location/path that you are familiar with and place things that you need to remember along that path

chunking

Turn a lot of information into less information

spacing/testing effect

• Space out encoding = able to remember info better

• Space out studying = more successful when it comes to exam

• Cramming = run out of resources

Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory

• Information moves through bins through control processes

• Have three bins for memory

  • sensory memory

  • short-term memory

  • long-term memory

capacity (Atkinson-Shiffrin model)

how much information can fit

duration (Atkinson-Shiffrin model)

how long info will stay

sensory memory

• First bin that memory goes through

• Primarily focuses on sense information

• Capacity

  • A lot of information can fit

• Duration

  • Does not stay there for long

Sperling, 1960 (testing sensory memory)

• Flash grids of letters to participants for a very short amount of time 

• Ask for full report (how many letters did you see) or partial report (1st, 2nd, or 3rd row)

• Would hear a high tone for 1st row, middle tone for 2nd row, and low tone for 3rd row

• Participants would be able to get ½ of the information that was shown to them for full report

• Participants would be able to get all of the information that was shown to them for partial report

short-term memory

• Capacity

  • Smaller capacity than sensory

  • Miller 7 ± 2

    • the number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2

  • Ex: get 12 items and remember 5-9 of them

• Duration

  • Longer than sensory memory

  • Still short

  • Between 30 seconds to a minute

long-term memory

• Capacity

  • Limitless

• Duration

  • Limitless

Procedural (long-term memory)

• Muscle memory

  • How to do things

• Fairly effortless

Declarative (long-term memory)

• Memory you are putting into words

• More effort

semantic (declarative memory)

• factual information that isn’t tied to learning

• Ex: what is a car?

episodic (declarative memory)

• Memory for events

• Ex: last birthday, what I had for breakfast

• Can become semantic once you forget how you learned it

Autobiographical memory

• Semantic self-information and episodic self-information

• Memory about yourself

HSAM

• Highly superior autobiographical memory

• Able to remember virtually every episodic event of their lives

• Does not relate to short-term memory

prospective memory

• Remembering something for the future

• Ex: remembering to take a medication or turn off the stove after cooking

retrospective memory

• memory for the past

• Learning a list of 10 words and then recalling the words 5 minutes later

Alan Baddeley

came up with theory of working memory

Related to working memory

• maintenance rehearsal

• elaborative rehearsal

• visuospatial sketchpad

• phonological loop

• episodic buffer

• benefits

maintenance rehearsal

• Rote repetition to remember things

• Keep information in short-term memory

• Ex: repeating phone number until the number is entered into the phone to make the call

elaborative rehearsal

• Build on information to move to long-term memory

• Typically more successful

• Ex: someone’s name is Sandy, make an association between that name and a sandy beach

visuospatial sketchpad

• Respond to both visual and spatial information

• Ex: watching someone else dancing and trying to learn the moves

Phonological loop

auditory and language information

central executive

• guide resources and attention

• Ex: talking and driving a car at the same time; have to decide which parts of brain to use

episodic buffer

• Keeps information in sequence

• Collaboration between visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop

• Ex: need to know order of numbers in phone number for the info to be important

consolidation

turn short-term memory into stable long-term memory

hippocampus

without a healthy ____________, you cannot create long-term memories

REM

Phase of our sleeping when we are in deep level of sleep and body is paralyzed

reconsolidation

Take information from long-term memory, bring it to short-term memory, then bring it back to long-term memory

implicit retrieving memory

• Unconscious, effortless retrieval

• Basal ganglia

explicit retrieving memory

• Conscious, effortful memory

• hippocampus and prefrontal cortex

state-dependent retrieval

• Emotional state that we are in at retrieval influences the information that we retrieve

• Ex: in a fight with a friend, remember every time they have made you angry

• Emotional state acts as an additional memory cue

associative network

• How we store a lot of information in our brain

• Organization of information in long term memory

• Activating one component makes it easier to access other components

• Ex: thinking about bacon also makes us think of other breakfast foods

schema

• Knowledge structure

• Shortcuts that our brain uses when processing information

• Ex: if someone asks what you had for breakfast 3 weeks ago, remember what you usually have for breakfast, say that’s what you ate since it fits within ______

recall

• Asking you to retrieve memory with none to few cues

• Harder task but more confident in memory

recognition

• Giving a lot of codes/cues to help guide retrieval

• Easier task but opening yourself up to chance

relearning

• How long does it take you to relearn a task that you’ve already learned

Testing memory

• how we determine memory is successful

• recall

• recognition

• relearning

retrograde amnesia

• Have an inability to retrieve old information

• Fairly rare phenomenon

anterograde amnesia

• Have an inability to form new memories

• More common

serial positioning effect

More likely to remember info depending on when it was presented to us

primacy (serial positioning effect)

• Remember information presented to us first

• Happens because devote more resources to remember information therefore creating stronger memory

• Stays relevant as time passes because it is stable

recency (serial positioning effect)

• Remember information presented to us last

• Happens because the information is still in our short-term memory

• Disappears as time passes

selective attention

• Focusing on a particular thing

• Remember information that we care more about

Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton

Jennifer falsely accused Ronald of sexual assault and he was falsely imprisoned

own race bias

Better at discriminating between members of our own race rather than members of a different race

source monitoring

• Ability to remember where you heard information from

• ex of inability: incorrectly recalling a conversation that occurred in a dream as reality

cryptoamnesia

• Accidental plagiarism

• Get a thought and don’t remember where it came from so you believe that it was your own thought even though you just forgot that someone else came up with it first

processing errors

• Processing stimuli incorrectly

• Encoding memory incorrectly

tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

• Know the information but at the moment failing to retrieve it

• Temporary issue with retrieval

Ineffective encoding

• Unable to accurately recall information

• Get distracted when first learning information and not able to remember later on

decay/transience

• memory fades over time

• forget useless details

• Ex: don’t remember everyday, only special days

retrieval failure

• Remember information, store information, at the time you have to remember it, you can’t

• ex: study for a test, remember it while studying, then don’t know the term at the time of the test

proactive interference

• Old information is interfering with new information

• Ex: know someone by an old name, unable to remember new name they go by

retroactive interference

• New information is interfering with old information

• Ex: know someone by a new name, unable to remember old name they go by

suggestibility

• How open you are to changing your memory

• ex: “remember that time we went to the fair together” “omg yeah totally” (you don’t remember at all but you convince yourself you do)

bias

• Remember information that matches our beliefs and expectations

• More likely to forget information that goes against beliefs and expectations

Persistence

• Issue related to PTSD

• Persistently recalling a memory and persistently reconsolidating that memory

  • Opening it up to more change

Learning styles

• have good evidence beneath them but aren’t completely accurate

• auditory, visual, verbal, reading and writing, kinesthetic

synaptic pruning

brain removes neurons and synapses that it doesn’t need

associative learning

Learn by pairing things together

classical conditioning

• Related to more reflexive/automatic behaviors

• when you hear a sound, you want food

operational conditioning

• Related to conscious/effortful behaviors

• ex: get a reward for completing assignment

Neutral Stimuli (Classical conditioning)

not the desired response/different response

Unconditioned stimuli (classical conditioning)

• Causes the natural reflexive response

• Put food in front of dogs - they naturally salivate

conditioned stimulus (classical conditioning)

Neutral stimulus becomes this stimulus through repeated pairing

unconditioned response (classical conditioning)

Natural reflexive response that the unconditioned stimulus elicits

conditioned response (classical conditioning)

Learned response that the conditioned stimulus elicits

Acquisition (classical conditioning)

• Time period when learning is occuring

• Time period when neutral stimulus is paired with the unconditioned stimulus

  • Ex: pairing bell with food in Pavlov experiment

extinction (classical conditioning)

• Time period when the organism stops responding to the conditioned stimulus

• Learning that conditioned stimulus means nothing

spontaneous recovery (classical conditioning)

• Happens after extinction

• Organism has stopped responding to conditioned stimulus but randomly starts responding again

generalization (classical conditioning)

• Respond to a stimulus as if it is the conditioned stimulus

  • If the dogs salivate at a green light, then they believe that the green light is like the bell

discrimination (classical conditioning)

• Recognize that a new stimulus is a new stimulus so they won’t respond

  • If the dogs do not salivate at a green light, then they differentiate the light from the bell

Taste aversion (classical conditioning)

Occurs when you get a stomach issue after eating a certain food; the next time you’re presented with the food, you get nauseous

higher order conditioning (classical conditioning)

Conditioned stimulus can begin to act as an unconditioned stimulus for a new round of learning

latent inhibition (classical conditioning)

Previous learning is interfering with new learning

renewal effect (classical conditioning)

• Learning and extinction happen in different environments

• When put into the original learning environment, learning comes back to the original context

• Ex: Child learns they can run at home; they can’t run at school; go back home and run again

Thorndike’s law of effect

If positive consequences happen after an action, then the action is likely to repeat

reinforcement (operant conditioning)

• trying to increase a behavior

• ex: praise a child after they put away their toys away