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Types of Memory Failure

Encoding Failure

• Memories that are not properly encoded.

• If it doesn't make it to our long term memories, how can we recall it?

Reasons for Encoding Failure

• Lack of focus

• Lack of attention

• Stress, anxiety, depression

Retrieval Failure

• The information is stored in long-term memory, but cannot be accessed. 

Reasons for this include:

• Time

• Interference

• Emotions

Can you recall a time where the information you were looking for was on the tip of your tongue?

This is the Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon - Lethologica

• This is a retrieval failure, as you clearly know the information(name, place, thing) that you are seeking, but you cannot actually retrieve the memory.

• Scientists are not certain of what causes this, or what it means, but it is generally thought of that this is a warning that your retrieval system is awry.

• It is normal, and happens universally.

Memory Decay

• The idea that memories fade over time.

• The natural process of forgetting or losing access to certain memories over time. 

Causes:

• Time

• Lack of use

  • Memories that are not used tend to decay faster.

• Interference

  • New information/experiences can interfere with memories.

• Age

  • Memory decay increases with age.

Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve tries to explain the rate at which we forget things.

• Forgetting occurs rapidly after initial learning, and tapers off after time.

Other factors play a role in forgetting/remembering:

• How meaningful the information is

Interference is another major factor in forgetting. This includes anything that occurs between learning something, and when you try to recall that memory/information. 

Proactive Interference

• When prior learning disrupts recall of new information.

• When forced to change a password, you may instinctively type in the old password instead of the new password.

• If someone decides they want to go by their middle name, you may have a difficult time calling them their middle name at first, because the name that you are used to calling them interferes.

Retroactive Interference

• When new learning disrupts recall of old information.

Information studied closer to when students sleep is better retained, because there is less opportunity for any interference to hinder the memory.
Sometimes our memories are altered or forgotten unintentionally, because we are subconsciously avoiding the truth, or turning it into something less harmful.

How many hours were you on your phone over the break?

How many cookies did you eat over the break?

Our memories of these events may be altered by what we want to be true, because we are motivated to forget the truth.

Repression

• The idea that our brain hides memories or information that increases anxiety or stress.

• Psychoanalytic theory.

• Central to Freud’s theories and counseling sessions.

The process by which memories are formed, changed, and influenced by our own prior knowledge, experiences, and schemas.

• Instead of memories being exact replicas of events, memories are often full of inaccuracies and biases.

In fact, when you “replay” a memory in your head, you often replace it with a slightly different version. This is called reconsolidation.

Misinformation Effect

• After being given misleading or incorrect information regarding a memory, our memories can be significantly changed.

  • Leading questions, pointed questions, stereotypes, situation, are all things that are able to change out memories.

Imagination Inflation

• Phenomenon when frequently visualizing a false memory, the individual is more likely to believe it to be true the more they picture it in their mind.

How does this affect the court system and eyewitness testimony?

Witnesses are often told to frequently go over the memory in their mind, to “make sure” they have details correct. Does this help them or hurt them?Partial or total loss of memory.

Anterograde Amnesia

• Inability to form new memories.

• Causes:

  • Brain tumors, epilepsy, operations

Retrograde Amnesia

• Inability to remember information from the past.

• Causes:

  • Blow to the head, highly stressful event

Source Amnesia

• Inability to remember where you obtained certain information.

Dementia

• Syndrome associated with cognitive decline in many areas.

Alzheimer’s Disease

• Brain condition that causes a decline in memory, thinking, learning, and organization skills.

• Severe memory loss is the main symptom.

• Caused by a deficiency of neurotransmitters (Acetylcholine, Somatostatin, Norepinephrine) 

• 10% of people over the age of 65 suffer from Alzheimer’s

Rehearsal is the key to memory and learning.

• Using distributed practice, testing effect.

• Make the material meaningful

  • Deep Processing

• Activate Retrieval Cues

  • Mnemonics, hierarchies, etc.

• Minimize interference

• Sleep more

• Test yourself

Intelligence

• The ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

Building on Gardner’s idea that there is more than g, Sternberg proposed a triarchic theory of intelligence.

• Analytical (academic problem-solving) intelligence

  • Defined by intelligence tests. Well defined problems with a singular answer.

• Creative intelligence

  • Innovative ideas. The ability to adapt to new situations and generate novel ideas.

• Practical intelligence

  • Required for everyday tasks that may be poorly defined and may have multiple solutions.
    

Intelligence Tests

• Method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Achievement Tests

• A test designed to assess what a person has learned.

• Quizzes in any of your classes.

Aptitude Tests

• A test designed to predict a person's future performance.

• College entrance exams are designed for this.

Aptitude

• The capacity to learn.

Mental Age

• A measure of intelligence test associating a given level with a given age.

• If an 8 year old scores an average IQ score for an 8 year old, then their mental age is said to be 8.

Another psychologist came along, Lewis Terman, and adapted Binet’s tests and ideas into a more complex test. He also came up with the idea of the Intelligence Quotient.

Intelligence Quotient

• William Stern derived the idea that a person’s IQ is simply a person’s mental age divided by chronological age, multiplied by 100.

  • This worked well for children, but not for adults. Should there be that much of a difference in IQ from a 25 year old, and a 50 year old?

Lewis Terman unfortunately agreed with Francis Galton’s idea of Eugenics, and believed that certain races are naturally mentally superior to others. This led to the first mass administration of IQ tests, through Immigration Stations during WWI.

David Wechsler

• Created what is currently the most widely used IQ test. It consists of 15 subtests including:

  • Vocabulary

  • Similarity

  • Block Design

  • Letter Number Sequencing

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Psychometrics

• The scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits.

There have generally been 3 “tests” of if an IQ test is a good test.

Is it Standardized?

Is it Valid?

Is it Reliable?

Standardization

• The process of gathering a representative sample, and pre-testing your test with that group.

• They are hoping that the scores come out looking normal.

Flynn Effect

• The rising of intelligence test scores over time and across cultures.

Is the test Reliable?

Reliability refers to the test yielding consistent results.

• If someone were to take the test multiple times, their scores should be consistent, within a margin of error.

How do we test reliability?

Split-half reliability

• A test of reliability where you split the questions on the test in half, and the results should stay consistent. One half of the test should not yield much different results than the other.

Test-retest reliability

• A test of reliability where you have the same group of students/people take the same test again, to see if results stay consistent.

Is the test valid?

Validity

• The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.

Depending on the test, they each have a different type of validity.

Content Validity

• Extent to which tests sample the behavior of interest.

• Driver’s road test

Construct Validity

• The degree to which a test measures the concept(construct) that it claims to measure.

Predictive Validity

• Success with which a test predicts what it is meant to predict.

• SAT/ACT

Expectations are very important in how we perceive the world. They can also influence how we act, and how well we perform.

In one study, equally capable men and women took a difficult math test. The women did not do as well as the men — except when they had been led to expect that women usually do as well as men on the test

Stereotype Threat

• Phenomenon in which performance on a task is negatively impacted by the person’s fear of confirming a negative stereotype of one’s social group. 

Stereotype Lift

• Phenomenon in which individuals NOT targeted by a negative stereotype perform better on a task.

•  If you are confident that your group or “type” does well on a task, being exposed to situations that create stereotype threat in outgroup members may actually improve your performance.

Poverty Discrimination

• Unfair or unjust treatment of individuals based solely on perceived economic status.

Educational Disparity

• Are those who have received a good education more intelligent because of that education?

• Would others have done just as well as them with the same background?

• Education is the key to upward mobility in our society today. Getting access to a quality education is very important to uplifting others.

Consists of 4 abilities

• Perceiving emotions

  • Recognizing them in faces, music, stories, and identifying our own emotions.

• Understanding emotions

  • Predicting how they may change and blend.

• Managing emotions

  • Knowing how to express them in various situations, and handle others emotions.

• Using emotions to facilitate adaptive or creative thinking.

Emotionally intelligent people are often very successful.

• They can read others’ emotional cues and know what to say to soothe a grieving friend, encourage a workmate, and manage a conflict.

• They can delay gratification in pursuit of long-range rewards.

• Thus, emotionally intelligent people tend to succeed in their relationships, careers, and parenting situations where academically smarter but less emotionally intelligent people may fail.

Do you believe that intelligence, as well as other traits that determine success are fixed? Or do you believe that you can grow into them?

Growth Mindset

• A focus on learning and growing rather than viewing abilities as fixed.

Fixed Mindset

• The view that intelligence, abilities, and talents are unchangeable, even with effort.