Download Unit 7A

UNIT SEVEN-A
1)
What does this unit cover?
 Phenomenon of memory
 Information processing (encoding, storage, and retrieval)
 Forgetting (encoding failure, storage decay, retrieval failure)
 Memory reconstruction (misinformation and imagination effects, source
amnesia, discerning true from false memories, children’s eyewitness recall,
repressed or constructed memories of abuse)
 Improving memory
2)
What is memory?
 Learning that has persisted over time
 Information that has been stored and can be retrieved
3)
What is encoding?
 Getting information into our brain
 Sensory information is translated into neural language
4)
What is storage?
 Retaining the information
5)
What is retrieval?
 Later being able to get the information back out
6)
What is connectionism?
 Present memory model for information-processing
 Proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin
 Memory is formed in 3 stages: sensory memory, short-term memory, and longterm memory
7)
What is sensory memory?
 Fleeting (seconds)
 Considered “to-be-remembered” information
8)
What is short-term memory?
 Information that is processed
 Encoded through a variety of ways
 Gone quickly – less than 5 minutes
9)
What is long-term memory?
 Information here is considered “important” and termed for later retrieval
 Can be “lost” if not actively retrieved and “processed”
10)
How has the Atkinson-Shiffrin 3-stage model been modified?
 Researchers have recognized that some memories skip the first 2 stages and are
unconsciously and automatically processed directly into long-term memory
 There has also been an addition – working memory
11)
What is working memory?
 Active processing of information
 Focus on new or important information
 This information is processed and linked to other information we consider
relevant from long-term memory
 Used to solve problems
12)
How do we encode?
 Automatically
 With effort
13)
What do we process automatically?
 Space – location/placement of certain items. If something is misplaced, you can
later recall where that something was. You can visualize the surroundings.
 Time – keep track of the sequence of events: what happened first, second, third.
 Frequency – note how often something occurs.
 Well-learned information – words in your native language are second-nature by
now. You recall the meaning of words without effort.
14)
How do we process with effort?
 Effortful processing must be achieved with work and focus and produces durable
and accessible memories.
 Rehearsal – conscious repetition
Amount remembered depends on time spent learning. Additional rehearsal
(overlearning) increases retention.
Quickly learned – quickly forgotten.
Experiments were done by Ebbinghaus – lists of nonsense words
 Spacing effect – space out learning
Cramming can produce speedy short-term learning
Distributed study time produces better long-term recall
 Testing effect – repeated studying
Helps with retention, not just assessment
 Serial position effect – where an item is positioned in a series/list makes a
difference as to how it is remembered
Items first and last are recalled better than those in the middle.
First items recall – primacy effect
Last items recall – recency effect
After a delay, we will remember first items best.
15)
How do we encode?
 Through meaning
 By creating an image
 In mentally organizing it
16)
What are the various levels of processing?
 Visual – forming an image
Are the letters of the word in all capitals?
 Acoustic – through sounds and rhyme
“What sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals
 Semantic – establishing meaning
Self-reference effect – if whatever is learned can be connected to ourselves, it
will be best remembered
17)
What is visual encoding?
 Creating an image of it
 Mnemonic (memory) devices create weird images to make them easier to
remember. Ie. Grocery list: A paper towel is covering the bread that is a bed for
the chicken, etc.
18)
How do we organize information for encoding?
 Easier to remember if we organize it into meaningful units
 Through chunking or hierarchies
 In chunking …
We group or organize into parts, so that they are better remembered.
These can be acronyms, such as HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie,
Superior)
Or simply by sections: I am going to first remember how to spell the words, then
I’ll organize them by parts of speech, etc.
 By creating hierarchies …
What is more important? And how are they related to each other?
This combines semantics with visuals
And looks like an outline
19)
What is best remembered?
 If the encoding uses more than one code, such as visual (image) and acoustic
(rhyme). Even better, if this rhyming image can be make have a personal
connection or be especially meaningful (semantic).
 High and low moments, though high is remembered better of the two (rosy
retrospection)
20)
What is iconic memory?
 Part of sensory memory
 Fleeting photographic memory
 Better to remember 3 letters than 9
 Tied to an experiment by Sperling
21)
What is echoic memory?
 Ability to recall auditory echoes left in the last 3-4 seconds
 Ex. You’re daydreaming … teacher asks, “What did I just say?” You are able to
recall the last few words
22)
What is the duration and capacity of short-term memory?
 Short-term memory is fleeting as well – less than a minute
 If not able to practice what is learned (working memory), the information
disappears
 Only able to store about 7 bits of information
 Ex. It became troublesome to remember area codes in addition to phone
numbers
 Able to better recall numbers than letters – letters tend to sound alike
 Can recall as many letters as we can sound in 2 seconds
 Without recall, we can remember 4 meaningful information chunks
23)
What is the duration and capacity of long-term memory?
 Limitless
24)
Where are memories stored?
 Storage does not occur in one singular place
 Ex.
Recalling an old student, I may have him “filed” by year, seat he sat in,
appearance, gender, achievement level, etc. Take away one “file,” I still
may be able to find him under others.
25)
What does our brain look like after memories are formed?
 Memory traces show us where connections have been made
 A section of the brain has stored a memory (though it can be found in another
section under a different “file”)
 Neurons here have formed a network which has strengthened under activity
(working memory)
 Neurons have connected by a release of serotonin, which speeds the connection
between these neurons
 When something triggers the memory, it needs less of that something
(prompting) to communicate through the release of neurotransmitter
 Long-term potentiation (LTP) is associated with the strengthening of potential
neuron firing
26)
How do we know that LTP is associated with memory?
 Drugs that block LTP interfere with learning
 Mice engineered to lack an enzyme needed for LTP cannot learn their way out of
a maze
 Rats given a drug that enhances LTP will learn a maze with half the number of
mistakes
 Rats that have been injected with a chemical that blocks LTP preservation will
erase recent learning
27)
What is CREB and how does it help enhance memory?
 A protein which can switch genes off or on
 Boosting CREB production might lead to increased production of proteins that
help reshape synapses and consolidate a short-term memory into a long-term
memory
 Enhanced CREB production in animal subjects has displayed enhanced memories
28)
What is glutamate and can it enhance memory?
 Neurotransmitter that enhances synaptic communication (LTP)
 Still being experimented upon
 Not sure if it will simply enhance memory of trivia best forgotten, for you cannot
(at this time) enhance SELECTED communication; you’d simply be enhancing ALL
communication
29)
How can short-term memory be disrupted?
 A blow to the head (as in a sports injury) or an electrical current will erase shortterm memories
 There was no time for working memory to sort through the experience and store
30)
How do strong emotions and stress affect memory?
 Favorably – in terms of the strong emotional or stressful memory
 Not favorably – for neutral events occurring about the same time
 During high emotional or stressful states, we produce more glucose, signaling
something important has occurred
 The amygdala boosts activity and available proteins in the brain’s memoryforming areas
 We want to remember the trauma in order to avoid and survive in the future
 Given drugs that help relieve stress immediately after the event led to people
not suffering from PTSD. (They had not suffered as much stress and therefore
had not seared the memory.)
 Prolonged stress, however, can blunt the memory, making it a bit more like an
impression than a detail
31)
What is flashbulb memory?
 Significant event is captured
 Experiencing the significant event is better remembered than hearing about it
 Misinformation can seep in – discussing it with others may jumble the facts –
their recollection can become ours
32)
What is the difference between implicit memory and explicit memory?
 Implicit – nondeclarative memory – unconscious memories – riding a bike,
playing an instrument, toasting a bagel (procedural memories)
 Explicit – declarative memory – able to say and explain how they know
 Ex.
Someone suffering from the kind of amnesia that does not allow him to
form new memories will be able to (1) read a story faster the second time
(though not able to recall the story was read at all previously), (2) say the word
“perfume” after being shown the word many times and then prompted to say
the word that first comes to mind starting with “per.”
33)
How does the cerebellum work with memory?
 Plays a key role in forming and storing implicit memories created by classical
conditioning (association)
 If the cerebellum is damaged, certain reflexes don’t develop
34)
What is the hippocampus and how is it associated with memory?
 Part of the limbic system, there are 2 of them, in the temporal lobe (above each
ear and about an inch and a half straight in)
 Left side associated with verbal information
 Right side associated visual information
 New explicit memories of names, images, and events are laid down via the
hippocampus
 Can grow as more information is given it
 Active during slow-wave sleep as memories are processed and filed for retrieval
 Memories seem to move out of the hippocampus and into other parts of the
brain after 48 hours. They’ve moved into long-term memory.
 During sleep there are mirroring activity rhythms in both the cortex and the
hippocampus – as the memory “files” are transferred
35)
What is recall?
 Ability to retrieve information not in conscious awareness
 Can be done through recognition (multiple-choice test) or relearning (going over
information previously learned and doing it more quickly – as in a review)
36)
What is priming?
 Wakening of associations
 Ex.
See the word “rabbit” over and over. Ask the person to spell
“hair/hare.” “Hare” will be spelled.
37)
How does context affect recall?
 Helps in remembering
 Ex.
You realize while in the kitchen that you need something from the
garage. You go to the garage and draw a blank: why am I here? Return
to the kitchen, and you remember what you needed.
38)
What is déjà vu and how is it explained?
 French for “already seen”
 Experiencing something knew gives feeling of having already experienced it
 Explanation 1 – Something familiar in the surroundings allows for an earlier
memory to be retrieved, giving you the feeling of having seen/experienced it
already.
 Explanation 2 – Parallel processing may cause a slight malfunction – a new
experience may be processed as a memory.
39)
What is state-dependent memory?
 Whatever emotional or physical state you were in when the experience occurred
will allow you to better retrieve the memory.
 Ex.
Reason to recreate events when trying to reconstruct a crime memory.
40)
What is mood-congruence?
 Whatever mood you are in will help recall experiences of a similar mood.
 This means that if you are happy, everything will seem happy because you are
now recalling similar happy events. The opposite is true as well.
41)
What are the seven sins of memory?
 3 sins of forgetting
 absent-mindedness – inattention to details leads to encoding failure
Ex. – our mind is elsewhere as we lay down the keys
 transience – storage decay over time
Ex. – after we part ways with former classmates, unused information
(such as their names) fades
 blocking – inaccessibility of stored information
Ex. – seeing an actor in an old movie, we feel the name on the tip of our
tongue but experience retrieval failure – we cannot get it out
 3 sins of distortion
 misattribution – confusing the source of information
Ex. – putting words in someone else’s mouth or remembering a dream as
an actual happening
 suggestibility – the lingering effects of misinformation
Ex. – a leading question – “Did Mr. Jones touch you inappropriately?” –
later becomes a child’s false memory
 bias – belief-colored recollections
Ex. – current feelings toward a friend may color our recalled initial
feelings
 1 sin of intrusion
 persistence – unwanted memories
Ex. – being haunted by images of a gun-point robbery
42)
Can age affect our ability to encode and retrieve?
 Yes
 Brain areas that encode new information are less responsive in older persons
 Often, an older adult has not forgotten the information, just seems unable to get
to it easily
43)
What is the forgetting curve?
 Developed by Ebbinghaus
 Forgetting is huge the first 5 days after learning something
 Then, levels off but what is retained seems to be retained “forever”
 If what is learned took a year to learn, then the drop does not level off until 5
YEARS later
44)
Other than a biological reason, what could be the rationale for failure in retrieval?
 Interference
 Learning some items that are similar in nature makes it difficult to recall all
45)
How does sleep affect memory?
 Material learned 1-2 hours before sleeping is better retained
 Less retroactive interference – what could you possibly learn while sleeping?
46)
What is positive transfer?
 Old information can help in the learning of new
 Ex.
Having learned Spanish can make learning Italian easier
47)
What are the 2 types of interference?
 Proactive (forward-acting) – something you learned earlier disrupts your recall of
something you experience later
 Pro – moving forward – positive (as in a number line) – the arrow “hurts/hits”
something in the future
 Retroactive (backward-acting) – something you learned recently makes it harder
to recall something you learned earlier
 Retro – moving backward – negative (as in a number line again) – the arrow
moves back, “hurting/hitting” something in the past
48)
Why do we change events in our memory?
 Because it suits us
 We may change memory to make us look better
49)
What is repression?
 Freud proposed
 In order to function properly, we “forget” (by repressing) painful memories.
 Not true – emotional and traumatic events are difficult to forget
50)
How do we construct memory?
 We retrieve the facts
 We may change them to make ourselves look better
 We may “fill in the blanks” of information we did not encode
51)
What is the misinformation effect?
 Exposure to subtle misinformation, most people misremember
 Ex.
The cars, that smashed into each other, were they speeding?
Most people, having heard “smash,” conclude they were speeding.
 Ex.
Photo of yourself at a party (which you did not attend)
Now you “remember” being there.
52)
What is the imagination inflation?
 If asked to imagine doing something (over and over), most people will actually
think they have actually did this
 An imagined event becomes familiar; familiar events seem more real. Hence,
what was not real, now becomes a “real” memory
 Ex.
Séance leader (and actor) claims that the table is lifting and thanks
everyone for concentrating deeply. This is done a few times. Weeks later
participants claim the table moved.
53)
What is source amnesia?
 Source misattribution
 We do not recall or recall incorrectly where we learned the information
 Ex.
Event in our life – did we remember living the event or was it told to us?
Dreamt something – is it real (we lived it) or we dreamt it?
54)
How can we tell a false memory from a real one?
 False memories are more of an impression
 Real memories have a greater amount of detail
 Children’s memories from childhood tend to fade as the child matures
55)
Knowing that memory can be faulty, how have police interrogations changed?
 Witnesses visualize the scene
 Recount everything – with as much detail as possible – and with no interruptions
from the interrogator
 Follow-up questions are devoid of suggestions
56)
Are memories of childhood abuse repressed or constructed?
 If the individual cannot remember it, more than likely it did not happen.
 Most psychologists do not believe repression can occur – since trauma is usually
vividly remembered.
 Suggestions lead to reconstruction.
 Drugs and hypnosis act as suggestions.
57)
What are some truths about childhood abuse?
 Sexual abuse happens – leaving the victim depressed or sexually dysfunctional
 Injustice happens – guilty people get away; innocent people get accused
 Forgetting happens – if the abuse was very early, children forget, especially
before age 3
 Recovered memories are commonplace – with cues, a person may remember;
these cannot be too strong, however
 Whether real or false, memories can be emotionally upsetting
58)
Who is Elizabeth Loftus?
 Famous psychologist
 Conducted much research on memory and childhood abuse
59)
How can memory be improved?
 Study repeatedly – space out practice
 Make the material meaningful – how does this tie to you?
 Activate retrieval cues – return to the same location, recreated the mood
 Use mnemonic devices
 Minimize interference – study before sleeping, do not schedule back-to-back
study sessions which may confuse one with the other
 Sleep more
 Test your knowledge