PSYC 513/703 Lecture Notes Flashcards

Long-Term Memory

• Involves consolidation, encoding & retrieval processes, and different varieties.
• Attendance details: Michael Verde, Office PSQ A201, Office Hours: Mon, Wed.

Consolidation

• An ongoing process involving connections at synaptic and structural levels.
• Reorganization occurs, with initial dependence on the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe, transitioning to more permanent representations in neocortical areas.
• Damage to these areas (hippocampus & medial temporal lobe) results in amnesia.

Consolidation in Long-Term Memory

• New memory representations are initially formed by the hippocampus but become consolidated in other regions of the cortex over time.
• Damage in amnesia interferes with this process.
• Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), used to treat severe depression, can lead to memory problems (amnesia) in both short and long term.

Retrograde Amnesia

• Involves the loss of memories prior to the onset of amnesia.
• Squire, Slater & Chace (1975) studied patients undergoing ECT and found memory deficits for television shows that ran for one year over two decades, with deficits primarily for the last 3 years.

Amnesia Components

• Anterograde: Inability to form new memories post-trauma.
• Retrograde: Loss of pre-trauma memories.
• Retrograde memory loss often exhibits a temporal gradient, where recent memories are more affected than remote memories.

Retrograde Amnesia Studies

• Squire, Haist & Shimamura (1989) examined amnesics in their 50s and matched controls.
• They used questions about public events from the 1950s-1980s and identification of photos of famous people from the 1940s-1980s.
• Results indicated a temporal gradient of memory loss, with memory worse closer to the trauma.

Memory Consolidation Over Time

• Newer memories are more fragile and susceptible to disruption.
• Brown (2002) meta-analysis supports this, distinguishing between absolute recall and recall as a percentage of control group recall.
• Transfer to cortical representations increases stability of memories.
• Reactivation strengthens neuronal connections and creates additional copies, making them more resistant to loss.
• The process of consolidation can continue for years.

Quiz Questions (Consolidation in Long-Term Memory)

• What is the nature of the memory deficit in retrograde amnesia?
• Would a person with amnesia be able to remember their wedding (which took place before the onset of their condition)? Would they be able to recognize their mother from a photograph?

Long-Term Episodic Memory

• Part of declarative (explicit) memory, which includes events (episodic memory) and facts (semantic memory).
• Also contrasts with nondeclarative (implicit) memory, which includes procedural memory, perceptual representation system, classical conditioning, and nonassociative learning.
• Episodic memory involves specific personal experiences from a particular time and place.
• Semantic memory involves world knowledge, object knowledge, language knowledge, and conceptual priming.

Episodic Memory Processes

• Encoding
• Storage & Consolidation
• Retrieval

Encoding and Retrieval in Episodic Memory

• Exploration of why some things are easy or hard to remember.

Memory Representations

• "Grandmother cell" concept (a single neuron represents a specific concept).
• Distributed pattern of activation (concepts are represented by the activation of multiple neurons).

The Problem of Retrieval

• How to retrieve one memory among many (e.g., one day out of thousands)?

Encoding Factors

• Quality of Representation.
• Depth of Processing.

Quality of Representation

• Imagery / Richness
• Distinctiveness

Imagery / Richness and Memory

• Shepard (1967) showed that recognition memory accuracy decreases over time: 2 hours (99.7), 7 days (87.0), 4 months (57.7) using 612 color pictures.
• Standing (1973) found that recognition memory accuracy varied based on the type of photo and number of photos:
  • 1,000 vivid photos: 95.2%
  • 1,000 normal photos: 90.8%
  • 10,000 normal photos: 72.8%

Picture Superiority Effect

• Pictures are generally better remembered than words.

Picture Superiority Effect Study

• Ghering, Toglia, and Kimble (1976) showed higher recall rates for pictures compared to words over time (10 min, 1 hr, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months).

Imagery and Memory

• Bower & Winzenz (1970) found that forming mental images of word pairs results in superior memory compared to silent repetition.

Autobiographical Memories

• Involve “mental time travel” or reliving the past, highly associated with mental imagery.
• Aphantasia (poor or no mental imagery ability) is associated with reduced autobiographical memories.

Distinctiveness in Encoding

• Intrinsic properties (unusual, emotional, arousing).

Production Effect

• MacLeod et al. (2010) demonstrated that saying words aloud during study leads to better recognition memory compared to reading silently.
• Ozubko, Hourihan, MacLeod (2012) extended these findings to sentences & texts, showing memory advantages even after 1 week.

Distinctiveness Types

• Intrinsic properties: unusual, emotional, arousing.

Isolation Effect

• Relative distinctiveness leads to increased processing or attention.
• Von Restorff (1933) showed that memory for an item depends on the context; distinctive (isolated) items are better remembered.

Depth of Processing

• Craik & Tulving (1975) showed that semantic processing leads to better memory than phonemic or structural processing.
• Participants studied a word and answered a question about it:
  • Structural: Is the word in capital letters?
  • Phonemic: Does the word rhyme with X?
  • Semantic: Would the word fit in the sentence “He met a ___ in the street”?
• Conditions ranked from low to high depth of processing.

Self-Reference Effect

• An especially effective (deep) type of processing.
• Deeper processing is more (personally) meaningful.
• Encoding instructions involving self-reference are most distinctive and elaborative.

Survival Processing

• Nairne, Thompson, Pandeirada (2007) investigated the impact of relevance ratings on memory using scenarios:
  • Survival: Imagine being stranded in grasslands and needing to find food and water.
  • Moving: Imagine planning to move to a new home in a foreign land.
  • Pleasantness: Rate the pleasantness of each word.
• Results showed that survival processing led to better free recall compared to moving or pleasantness ratings.
• This may be due to distinctiveness or survival processing being a special adaptation.

Quiz Questions (Encoding)

• Why do we remember pictures better than words?
• Do you think we would remember photographs of animals better than drawings of simple geometric shapes?
• What factor related to memory encoding can explain the production effect? The survival effect?

Retrieval

• Distinctiveness
• Encoding Specificity

Retrieval Distinctiveness

• Memory interference occurs when searching through many similar memories, making remembering difficult.
• Isolation effect: relative distinctiveness leads to easier retrieval.

Encoding Specificity

• To retrieve information, you must reinstate the conditions at encoding.
• Memory is better if the retrieval context matches the encoding context.

Tulving & Thompson (1970) Study

• Examined the effect of cue-target associations on recall. Participants studied cue-target pairs:
• HOT – COLD (strong associate).
• SNOW – COLD (weak associate).

Specific Forms of Encoding Specificity

• Transfer-appropriate processing
• State-dependent learning

Transfer-Appropriate Processing

• Memory is best when you use the same processing at encoding and retrieval.
• Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977) showed that memory depends on the match between encoding and retrieval tasks.

State-Dependent Learning

• Memory is best when the environmental or mental context is the same at encoding and retrieval.

Quiz Question (Retrieval)

• According to encoding specificity, how should you revise for this exam?

Memory Processes

• A strong, accessible memory depends on encoding, consolidation, and retrieval.

Episodic Memory Components

• Familiarity: feeling of recognition without specific details.
• Recollection: recall of specific episodic details or associations.

Familiarity vs. Recollection

• Familiarity is fast, automatic, and possibly unconscious.
• Recollection is slow, deliberate, and conscious.
• Data supporting this comes from subjective experience, effect of attention, and time course of retrieval.

Subjective Experience Study

• Gardiner, Ramponi & Richardson-Klavehn (2000) asked people to label their feelings during a recognition test using “Remember,” “Know,” or “Guess”.
• Objectively, “Remembering” is associated with accurate memory for source, context, associations, declines rapidly over time, and is greatly impacted by reduced attention.

Attention and Recognition Memory

• Jacoby, Woloshyn & Kelley (1989) showed that divided attention at encoding has a large effect on recognition memory but no effect on fame judgments.
• Fame judgments = familiarity.
• Recognition memory = recollection + familiarity.
• Recollection requires conscious attention, while familiarity is automatic and unconscious.

Time Course of Retrieval

• Jacoby, Jones & Dolan (1998) showed that in recognition memory, the contribution of recollection and familiarity changes over time.
• Initial reliance on familiarity until recollection becomes available later in time.

Memory Reliance

• People may prefer to rely on recollection, as it is more accurate and less ambiguous.
• Recollection may counteract false familiarity.
• When conscious attention or time is limited (at encoding or retrieval), judgments are based more on familiarity and less on recollection.

Quiz Question (Familiarity and Recollection)

• You spot your friend in a crowd and are about to run up to them – but you stop yourself. You realize it isn’t your friend after all! Explain this experience in terms of familiarity and recollection.

Summary

• Memory Consolidation: Temporal gradient in retrograde amnesia
• Memory Encoding: Imagery/Richness & Distinctiveness
• Memory Retrieval: Encoding Specificity (Transfer-Appropriate Processing & State-Dependent Learning)
• Episodic Memory: Familiarity & Recollection Subjective Experience, Attention, Time Course