Memory File - Lecture notes 6 PDF

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Sarah Gasper...

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Memory Objectives: Students should be able to  

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Explain the cognitive perspective and how Memory falls within this school of thought Summarize and identify the various kinds of memory o Explicit o Implicit o Episodic o Semantic o Retrospective o Prospective Summarize and apply Information processing approach o Encoding, Storage, Retrieval Compare, contrast, and apply the stages of memory o SM, STM, LTM Explain and apply rehearsal methods Explain and apply chunking Compare and contrast memory tasks: recall and recognition

Lecture videos: 1. Crash Course: How we Make Memories #13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSycdIx-C48 2. Crash Course: Remembering and Forgetting #14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVWbrNls-Kw 3. Discovering Psychology, Remembering and Forgetting https://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/remembering-and-forgetting/

Kinds of Memory: 

Explicit Versus Implicit Memories. o Explicit memory: referred to as declarative memory is memory for specific information. Declarative memory is the LTM subsystem that holds information that can be easily expressed in language (i.e., declared). Episodic Memory: a form of explicit memory, memories of the things that happen to us or take place in our presence. Also referred to as autobiographical memory. “I remember…..” Semantic Memory: Memories of general knowledge. Semantics concerns meanings. “I know…” o Implicit memory: also referred to as nondeclarative memory is memory of how to perform a task, how to do something. Nondeclarative memory holds information that is not easily translated into words (e.g., how to ride a bicycle). It also includes behavioral responses acquired through operant and classical conditioning. Characteristics:     

Implicit memories are suggested (implied) not declared. Implicit memories are illustrated by the things that people do but not by the things they state. Implicit memories involve skills, both cognitive and physical: they reveal habits and involve effects of conditioning. Implicit memories can persist even when we have not used them for many years. Implicit memories can become relatively automatic referred to as priming.

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Retrospective Memory versus Prospective Memory.

Retrospective memory is the recalling of information that has been previously learned. This includes: Episodic, Semantic, Implicit Prospective memory involves remembering to do things in the future. E.g., items at a grocery store, taking out the garbage, turning in a paper. Prospective memory is very unreliable and tends to fail when we are: Preoccupied, Distracted, Feeling stress of time pressure, Negative emotional states impair prospective memory.

Processes of Memory: The Information-Processing Approach  

Psychologists and computer scientists speak of processing information. Information-Processing theory uses computer models and computer terminology to describe human cognitive functioning. Memory defined: Memory is the processes by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved. o Encoding: Information about the outside world reaches our senses in the form of physical and chemical stimuli. When we encode information we transform it into psychological formats that can be represented mentally. o Visual code: remembering things as a picture. o Acoustic code: remembering things as a sequence of sounds. o Semantic code: remembering things in terms of their meaning. o Storage: The Memory’s “Save” Function. Maintaining information over time. o Maintenance rehearsal: mentally repeating information. o Elaborative rehearsal: elaborating or extending the semantic meaning of what you are trying to remember. o Retrieval: The Memory’s “Find” Function. Retrieval of stored information requires locating it and returning it to consciousness.

Stages of Memory: The Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory is an information-processing model that proposes three memory storage systems: sensory, short-term, and long-term. There are three stages of memory and information progresses through these stages determining how whether and how long the information will be retained. 

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Sensory Memory: the type of memory that is first encountered by a stimulus. This is just long enough for the nervous system to begin to process the information and send some of it on to short-term memory. o Vision example:  Saccadic eye movements: series of eye fixations; movements which jump from one point to another about four times each second.  Memory trace: visual impression left by the stimulus.  Held in visual sensory register.  Research has used the whole report procedure and the partial report procedure in memory tasks.  Memory trace for visual stimuli decay within a second. Short-Term Memory: (AKA working memory). If one focuses on a stimulus in the sensory register, they will tend to retain it in short-term memory (also referred to as working memory). In short term memory the image tends to significantly fade after 10-30 seconds if it is not rehearsed. To retain the information then rehearsal is needed.

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o The Serial-Position Effect. The tendency to recall the first and last items in a series is known as the serial-position effect. Primacy effect: tendency to recall the initial items in a list. Recency effect: tendency to recall the last items in a list. o Chunking: discrete elements of information. Seven chunks, plus or minus one or two, is a “magic” number of the amount of information a typical person can remember. o Rote learning: mechanical associative learning that takes time and repetition. o Interference in Short-Term Memory. Prevention of rehearsal can inhibit short term memory. Appearance of new information can displace the old information. Long-Term Memory: LTM is the third stage of information processing. The vast storehouse of information. Information can be kept in the unconscious; long-term memory by the forces of repression. o How Accurate Are Long-Term Memories? Can We Trust Eyewitness Testimony?  Loftus notes that memories are distorted by our biases and needs. Loftus and Palmer and the experiment of the car crash. Words served as diverse schemas that fostered the developed the very different ways of processing information. http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/ (interesting link to Loftus’ work!)  The words chosen by an experimenter and those chosen by a lawyer interrogating a witness have been shown to influence the reconstruction of memories.  Children tend to be more suggestible witnesses than adults. But when questioned properly, young children can provide accurate and useful testimony.  Hypnosis does more than amplify memories; it can also distort them. Witnesses may accept and embellish suggestions made by the hypnotist.  Witnesses may pay more attention to the suspect’s clothing than to more meaningful characteristics such as facial features, height and weight.  Other problems with eye-witness testimony are: Identification is less accurate when suspects belong to ethnic groups that differ from that of the witness. Identification of suspects is confused when interrogators make misleading suggestions. Witnesses are seen as more credible when they claim to be certain in their testimony but there is little evidence that claims of certainty are accurate.  Because of reconstruction, eyewitnesses often make mistakes.  Eyewitness testimony is also influenced by the misinformation effect  Research participants' confidence in their ability to remember the details of scenes they have witnessed is unrelated to the accuracy of their memories. o How Much Information Can Be Stored in Long-Term Memory?  For all practical purposes, long-term memory is unlimited.  The information can endure for a lifetime.  Information can become lost but not destroyed or deleted. o Transferring Information from Short-Term to Long-Term Memory: Using the “Save” Function. The more often chunks of information are rehearsed, the more likely they are to be transferred to lo ng-term memory. Repeating information over and over to prevent it from decaying is termed maintenance rehearsal. A more effective method is to make information more meaningful; relating information to well-known material is termed elaborative rehearsal. Levels of Processing Information. o Elaborative rehearsal to remember things are processing information at a deeper level than people who use maintenance rehearsal. o Information is remembered if processed deeply-attended to, encoded carefully, pondered, and related to things we already know. Remembering relies on how deeply we processes information. o Research has shown that deep processing is related to activity in the prefrontal area of the cerebral cortex.

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Flashbulb Memories: “To Leave a Scar Upon the Cerebral Tissues”. People tend to remember events that are surprising, important, and emotionally stirring. These memories are termed flashbulb memories. One factor is the distinctness of the memory. The feelings caused by them are special. We are likely to dwell on them and form networks of associations. Organizations in Long-Term Memory. People tend to organize information according to a hierarchical structure. A hierarchy is an arrangement of items into groups or classes according to common or distinct features. Context-Dependent Memory: Been There, Done That? The context in which we acquire information can also play a role in retrieval. Context-dependent memories are clear in the context in which they were formed. Being in the proper context can dramatically enhance recall. Memories are often tied to the settings in which they occur. Returning to such a setting can trigger the retrieval of context-linked memories. Odors are one element of a context that can be tied to a memory and can become a trigger for it. State-Dependent Memory. State-dependent memory is an extension of context-dependent memory. We retrieve information better when we are in the physiological or emotional state that is similar to the one in which we encoded and stored the information. There is evidence of support for this with love, anger, frustration, rage, sober or inebriated, happy, sad, and bipolar. For instance, test anxiety may trigger memories of studied information in students who were also anxious while studying.

Forgetting and Remembering: 

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Memory Tasks Used in Measuring Forgetting. o Recognition: recognize something we have experienced. The easiest type of memory task. (e.g., “B. F. Skinner was the founder of operant conditioning theory. (true/false)”). o Recall: Remembering information from memory without cues. Research conducted in this area used paired associates. Recall is more difficult than recognition. (e.g., short-answer questions such as "Who was the founder of operant conditioning theory?"). o Relearning: We can relearn information more rapidly the second time (e.g., reviewing for a comprehensive final exam). Interference Theory. We may forget information in short-term and long-term memory because newly learned material interferes with it. Two types: Retroactive interference: new learning interferes with the retrieval of old learning. Proactive interference: older learning interferes with the capacity to retrieve more recently learned material. Retrieval failure happens when information has been stored in long-term memory in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to retrieve (e.g., rote memorization of a textbook chapter). Repression: Ejecting the Unwanted from Consciousness. Freud suggested that we are motivated to forget painful memories because they produce anxiety, guilt, and shame = Repression. This is the heart of disorders such as dissociative amnesia. o Stress hormones released when we experience extremes of anxiety actually heighten memory. Repressed memories may not be ill-formed we just don’t focus on them. o Critics argue that therapists using hypnosis and guided imagery to help their patients recover repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse are actually implanting false memories in those patients. Therapists who use these techniques believe that a number of psychological problems can be treated successfully by helping patients recover repressed memories of sexual abuse. One reason that many psychologists doubt some accounts of recovered memories is that people claim to be remembering events that occurred during the early months of life when the formation of long-term memories is not yet possible (infantile amnesia). Infantile amnesia is difficulty in remembering episodes that happened prior to age 3 or so. Has little to do with the fact that the episodes occurred in the distant past. The hippocampus does not become mature until we are about 2 years of age. Cognitive factors include:

o Infants are not particularly interested in remembering their past. o Infants don’t weave episodes together into meaningful stories. Infants don’t make reliable use of language to symbolize their events. o We are unlikely to remember episodes unless we are reminded of them from time to time as we develop. o There is no evidence to suggest that early memories are systematically repressed. 

Anterograde and Retrograde Amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is memory lapses for the period following a trauma. Inability to form new LTM. This memory loss has been linked to damage to the hippocampus. Retrograde amnesia is memory lapses for the period before the accident. Inability to retrieve LTM.

Using the Psychology of Memory to Enhance Your Memory. 

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Psychologists have developed methods for improving memory. o Drill and Practice: “A,B, C, D, …” o Recommendations from Herrmann (1991) to remember a person’s name: Say the name out loud, Ask the person a question, using her or his name, Use the person’s name as many times as you can during your conversation, Write down the name when the conversation has ended. Relate New Information to What Is Already Known using Elaborative rehearsal. Form Unusual, Exaggerated Associations. It is easier to recall stimuli that stand out. Create unusual associations. Use the Method of Loci: select a series of related images and then attaché information that you want to remember to those images. (e.g. parts of the body, furniture in your house). Use Mediation: Find a Conceptual Bridge: The method of mediation also relies on forming associations. Lind two items with a third one that ties them together. Use Mnemonic Devices: Mnemonics are systems for remembering information typically using chunks of information combined into an acronym. Organized information (e.g., lecture note outlines) is easier to remember than unorganized information. Overlearning involves learning information to a degree that is beyond that which is required for a given memory task. Massed practice is a long, intense period of study or memorizing. It is less effective than shorter study periods. Spaced practice involves short study periods with breaks between them. Self-testing after studying improves memory. Recitation combined with rereading information that cannot be recalled is a better study strategy than just rereading.

EXTRAS: http://allpsych.com/psychology101/memory.html...