Encoding

Encoding: the long-term storage of memories

  • Refers to the acquisition of and formation of information

    • Fancy way to say long term memory

  • How does one store information? In what context?

Ideal vs. Non-ideal conditions (laboratory vs real world)

  • Ideal keeps learning and testing “simple” with controlled distractions

  • Non-ideal has distractions and requirements everywhere

Separating Encoding and Retrieval

It can seem unnecessary to separate encoding from retrieval, as any successful test of information would indicate that both have occurred.

  • Neuro activity occurs at different segments of the brain during each process

Areas of the left hemisphere are more active during studying words that were remembered, less active for unremembered words

Areas of right hemisphere are more active during encoding and recognizing of photos than during a recall comparison assessment

Encoding Variables

Episodic memory - remembering information based on its occurrence, time, or place

Characteristics of to-be-learned material:

  • Meaningfulness

  • Concrete/Abstract Words

  • Imagery

Factors in the Presentation of the to-be-remembered material:

  • Cognitive Factors

  • Subject Factors

Elaborative Rehearsal

Recap: rehearsal is the process of repeating, coding, or deep-diving on information for better long-term encoding and retention

  • Maintenance rehearsal: form of shallow processing, recycling information to keep it in the STM or phonological store

    • Repeating a phone number again and again until the call is made

  • Elaborative rehearsal: process of relating to-be-remembered material and information to other information or experience

    • Maintains an active or deliberative attempt to cognitively interact with, reflect on, or use the to-be-remembered information

    • Represents deep processing

Elaborative Processing

The process of expanding, deepening, linking, or associating additional facts or known information to better learn new information

  • Elaboration: expanding on or forming a new memory trace

    • Recall configural learning

  • Distinctiveness - memories that stand out from other memories will suffer less interference from other memories during retrieval

  • Cognitive effort - the amount of mental effort expended determines retention

    • Mnemonic devices, peg-board, rhymes, first-letter acronyms

Limitations of Elaborative Processing

  • Verbal overshadowing: verbal descriptions of nonverbal information, can result in recall errors

    • Pictures or faces

  • Easy to distinguish features associated with words do not interfere as much as non-easy to distinguish features

    • Eyes, nose, lips vs. configural arrangement of the facial features

  • Another example with taste

    • Words can be more easily remembered than the actual taste of a food or drink, thus a reuse of words that are not accurate may occur

Imagery and Memory for Pictures

Visual encoding is another factor for memory encoding

  • Noted as the use of imagery in remembering and in the recall of pictures

  • Concrete words are typically better recalled than abstract words

Concrete words: things that can be readily imagined or pictured

  • Toaster, microwave, television, hospital

Abstract words: words that refer more to ideas

  • Facts, beliefs, love, contentedness

Memory for pictures is remarkably good. It is believed that due to the amount of information within a picture, elaborative processing occurs by default.

  • Pictures and images are often remembered better than words alone

  • Objects are often remembered better than pictures and images

Explanation?

  • Dual coding: pictures can be remembered with two encodings, one visual and another verbal translation of the picture

Meaningfulness

Meaningful words have more associations to other ideas and knowledge

  • Imageable: a mental image or remembered picture can often be generated for meaningful words

  • Familiar: words have a high frequency of occurrence in the language. Also considers pronounceability.

Rated higher in emotionality: significant, interesting, relevant, pleasant, etc.

Domain-specific knowledge: experts remember more than novices

Presentation Variables

Testing effect: taking a test on the to-be-recalled information is often more beneficial than is additional study of the material

  • Study-study (SS)

  • Study-test (ST)

Standard Conditioning, S-S: study once… study again… final test

Tested Condition, S-T: study once… practice test… final test

  • Testing provides a more challenging restudying of the material than passive rereading of material

  • Answering questions requires more cognitive effort than reading

Practice testing mimics what students are required to do on the final test

Known as:

  • Retrieval practice effect: testing allows the student to practice retrieving necessary test information reflective of the conditions of the testing

Testing usually implies feedback - which questions were correct or incorrect

Isolation Effects

Unusual or distinctive material is better remembered

Originally called:

  • von Restorff effect

Now called:

  • The isolation effect: in a series of items an unusual item or an item presented in a distinctive matter is especially remembered

    • Can be attributed to enhanced encoding

    • It receives more attention, more rehearsal, more elaboration

Isolation effects tend to stand out: the friend that cot catacylsmically drunk at your sister’s wedding

Can impact recall of events that immediately precede and follow the isolation event

Spacing Effect

Recap: space learning out; do not cram… but why not engage in massed practice?

  • Attention-deficit: repeated or multiple presentations of an item within a single period can lead to the dropping of each subsequent presentation of the item (it receives less attention)

  • Encoding Variability: space allows for multiple encodings to occur related to the item

Spacing timing - P1 - Spacing interval - P2 - Retention Interval p- Test

  • Effective spacing: ratio of the length of spacing (P1 to P2) to the length of the retention interval (P2 to Test); optimal rations proposed at 10-20%

Learner Variables

As a learner, one brings a number of characteristics to the learning situation

  • Encoding is influenced by the intention to learn, the use of incentives, and the level of alertness and motivation

Incidental learning: learning that occurs without intention to remember, but incidental to processing information

Intentional learning: the need to deliberately study in order to remember

Generation effect: refers to better memory for words that are generated by the participant rather than being provided by the experimenter

Self-reference effect: information that is encoded in reference to yourself or your self-concept is especially well remembered

Survival processing: judging words for their relevance to surviving some catastrophe can be uniquely remembered

Incentives

Do incentives or offering reward increase rewards in memory tasks?

  • Answer is often no

If a mix of high-value and low-value incentives are present, learners will attend to high-value targets more than low-value

  • This could be through more devotion, rehearsal, effort, or additional elaborative learning

When incentives come after learning, they have little if any impact on the ability to recall previously learned data

Arousal

Yerkes-Dodson law: performance is best at some intermediate level of arousal, and less efficient at lower and higher levels

  • When an individual is overly aroused, or lacking any arousal, learning is stifled and recall can become hindered

  • An effect present at both ends of the learning spectrum; onset and output

  • High-stress conditions are correlative to this condition

Targeted Memory Reactivation

Targeted memory reactivation (TMR): the use of an external cue to selectively activate and strengthen the memory trace of a recently studied material

  • Often related to learning pairs, the to-be-learned material is accompanied by an external stimulus, like a smell or sound

  • In these situations, the stimulus becomes a contextual stimulus, and a cue for remembering the learned material

Stimulant Drugs

Arousal hypothesis suggests the optimal dose of a stimulant should improve acquisition in learning and memory tasks

  • Caffeine, nicotine, amphetamine, cocaine, strychnine

Despite individual studies showing a positive correlation between stimulants and learning, larger literature finds little consistency in positive outcomes

  • Often, stimulant is dependent on many factors

  • Age, amount of practice, time, personality, gender, etc.

Emotions and Encoding

How do emotions play into encoding memories? Like all things with learning processes, the answer is not as easy as it would seem.

  • Arousal focuses attention on a specific aspect of a situation

  • Due to an individual’s limited capacity to divide attention, peripheral details may go unnoticed

  • Inversely, epinephrine released during stress can lead to stimulation of the amygdala, and various levels of encoding

Flashbulb Memories

Flashbulb memories: a vivid memory related or in response to a surprising, emotional, or consequential event

  • Often thought to be complete, detailed and accurate

  • However, what people claim they remember is not necessarily true

Memories, though vivid at their onset, can be updated and altered with new or learned information about the event

Eyewitness Memory & Emotional Arousal

Emotional arousal may lead to remember central details, and consequently poor recall of peripheral details

  • Example, weapons focus: victims or witnesses focus their attention on the weapon, not the other aspects of the situation, such as the face of the perpetrator

  • Emotional memory retention can be focused on a specific item but comes at the cost of background or neutral information - one of the reasons eyewitness memory can be flawed and highly susceptible to errors

Schemas

Schemas: outlines of general knowledge that are stored in semantic memory

  • Also called scripts, are a means to organize knowledge in a hierarchical structure with packets of information stored at each level

Schemas can influence what is remembered in many ways:

  • Selection: schemas guide selection of what is to be encoded, usually details that are relevant to the schema

  • Storage: a schema organizes memory for events, providing an outline of where each new piece fits

  • Abstraction: common features across several similar experiences are abstracted and stored in the schema

  • Retrieval: a schema provides retrieval cues to guide and direct memory search

  • Normalization: the schema may lead to memory distortion, as in we remember the schema rather than what actually happened

Metamemory

Metamemory: refers to our knowledge about memory

Includes:

  • Our estimates about the difficulty of learning

  • Which strategies will be most effective

  • Monitoring progress during learning

  • Beliefs about how our own memory differs from memory in general

Judgements of learning (JOL): personal ratings of how well an individual believes they have learned material

  • Metamemory beliefs can wrongly predict that one process will inhibit learning or that one process will enhance learning

Memory self-efficacy: judgements about how well we think our memory will function in a particular situation

  • People believe they know how good their own memories are - they are almost always wrong