Memory Psychology Notes Pt 2

Context-Dependent Memory: - Encoding Specificity Principle: helps us understand how specific cues will most effectively trigger that memory. - Our memories are context-dependent, and are affected by the cues we have associated with that context. State-Dependent Memory: - State-Dependent Memory: what we learn in one state, may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state. - What people learn when drunk they don’t recall well in any state, but they recall it slightly better when they drink again. - Moods also provide an example of memory’s state dependence. Emotions that accompany good or bad events become retrieval cues, thus our memories are somewhat mood congruent. Serial Position Effect: - Serial Position Effect: a memory-retrieval quirk that explains why we may have large holes in our memory of a list of recent events. - Recency Effect: when you recall the last items especially quickly and well - Primacy Effect: When your recall was best for the first items. 1. What is priming? Priming is the activation of associations. Seeing a gun, for example, might temporarily predispose someone to interpret an ambiguous face as threatening or to recall a boss as nasty. 2. When tested immediately after viewing a list of words, we tend to recall the first and last items best, which is known as the serial position effect. REVIEW: Storing and Retrieving Memories LOQ 8-9: What is the capacity of long-term memory? Are our long-term memories processed and stored in specific locations? There is no capacity for long-term memory. Our memories are not processed and stored in specific locations either. LOQ 8-10: What roles do the frontal lobes and hippocampus play in memory processing? It processes and stores new information for explicit memory such as facts or episodes. The left lobe holds passwords, and the right lobe has to do with remembering things visually. The hippocampus forms explicit memories of people, names, and events. LOQ 8-11: What roles do the cerebellum and basal ganglia play in memory processing? The cerebellum plays a key role in forming implicit memories The basal ganglia helps in the formation of procedural movements for implicit memories. LOQ 8-12: How do emotions affect our memory processing? Stronger emotional experiences help people remember things better. Stress hormones can also cause people to recall things better. LOQ 8-13: How do changes at the synapse level affect our memory processing? LTP appears to be the neural basis of learning. In LTP, neurons become more efficient at releasing and sensing the presence of neurotransmitters, and more connections develop between neurons. LOQ 8-14: How do external cues, internal emotions, and order of appearance influence memory retrieval? External clues (retrieval cues) can help us retrieve memories easier by thinking about our positions, mood, etc. Our internal emotions can influence memory retrieval by bringing up good or bad memories based on the emotional state one is in. The order of appearance can influence memory due to the serial position effect. For example, if you are trying to remember a set of words, you most likely will only remember the first and last few instead of all of them. TERMS AND CONCEPTS TO REMEMBER: 1. semantic memory: Facts and general knowledge. 2. episodic memory: Experienced events 3. Hippocampus: The part of the brain that works with explicit memory, and holds explicit memories like a loading dock. 4. memory consolidation: After the explicit memories are held in the hippocampus, they migrate to the cortex for storage. 5. flashbulb memory: memories of surprising, big events. 6. long-term potentiation (LTP): an increase in the cell's firing potential. 7. Priming: our associations are activated without our awareness. 8. encoding specificity principle: memories are linked to the context in which they are created. It’s easier to recall information when you are in the same context in which you memorized or studied it. 9. mood-congruent memory: Mood affects the way in which we view memories. Also, when thinking of memories that are good/bad, our moods can be changed. 10. serial position effect: one is more likely to remember the first and the last things instead of ones in the middle. MASTER THE MATERIAL: 1. The hippocampus seems to function as a a. temporary processing site for explicit memories. b. temporary processing site for implicit memories. c. permanent storage area for emotion-based memories. d. permanent storage area for iconic and echoic memories. 2. Hippocampus damage typically leaves people unable to learn new facts or recall recent events. However, they may be able to learn new skills, such as riding a bicycle, which is an (explicit/implicit) memory. 3. Long-term potentiation (LTP) refers to a. emotion-triggered hormonal changes. b. the role of the hippocampus in processing explicit memories. c. an increase in a cell’s firing potential. d. aging people’s potential for learning. 4. Specific odors, visual images, emotions, or other associations that help us access a memory are examples of retrieval cues. 5. When you feel sad, why might it help to look at pictures that reawaken some of your best memories? If you start to look at memories that you find happy, it could put you in a better mood, and change the way you’re viewing the world. 6. When tested immediately after viewing a list of words, people tend to recall the first and last items more readily than those in the middle. When retested after a delay, they are most likely to recall a. the first items on the list. b. the first and last items on the list. c. a few items at random. d. the last items on the list. Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Improving Memory: - Anterograde amnesia: where one can remember his past, but can not form new memories. - Retrograde amnesia: Those who cannot remember their past - In cases where explicit memories for new people and events are lost, they can still form new implicit memories. Encoding Failure: - Much of what we sense we never notice, and what we fail to encode, we will never remember. - Age can affect encoding efficiency. The brain areas that jump into action when young adults encode new information are less responsive in older adults. - Without encoding effort, many potential memories never form. Storage Decay: - The course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time. - One explanation for these forgetting curves is a gradual fading of the physical memory trace. - Memories may be inaccessible for many reasons. Some were never acquired, others were discarded, and others are out of reach because we can’t retrieve them. Retrieval Failure: - Often, forgetting is not memories faded but memories unretrieved. - “Tip of the tongue forgetting” - Retrieval problems occasionally stem from interference and even from motivated forgetting. Interference: - As you collect more and more information, your mental attic never fills, but it does get cluttered. - Using a new password weakens your memory of completing old passwords. - Proactive interference: occurs when prior learning disrupts your recall of new information. - Retroactive interference: occurs when new learning disrupts your recall of old information. - Old and new learning do not always compete – positive transfer. Motivated Forgetting: - Repress: the act of trying to forget something - Memory of traumatic events is stored differently in the brain. Some parts can be recalled in excruciating detail, as if the event just occurred, while others may be forgotten. 1. What are three ways we forget, and how does each of these happen? Retrieval failure, storage decay, and motivated forgetting are all ways to forget. With retrieval failure, it is when you can’t retrieve the information, “tip of the tongue forgetting”. Storage decay usually happens as one ages, and learns more things, so the attic gets cluttered. Motivated forgetting comes from purposefully trying to repress memories, and sometimes it works! 2. Freud believed (thought many researchers doubt) that we repress unacceptable memories to minimize anxiety. Memory Construction Errors: - Reconsolidation: when we replay a memory, we often replace the original with a slightly modified version Misinformation and Imagination Effects: - Misinformation Effect: despite feeling confident, we may, when exposed to subtly misleading information, misremember what we’ve seen or heard - It can influence later attitudes and behaviors. - Even imagining nonexistent actions and events can create false memories. - Misinformation and imagination occur partly because visualizing something and actually perceiving it activate similar brain areas. - The button line: don’t believe everything you remember. Source Amnesia: - What is the frailest part of a memory? Its source. - Source Amnesia/Source Misattribution: faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined. Source amnesia is at the heart of many false memories. - Deja Vu: “already seen” Discerning True and False Memories: - False memories feel real. - False memories are socially contagious. - Memory construction errors also help explain why some people have been sent to prison for crimes they never commited. 1. What – given the commonness of source amnesia – might life be like if we remembered all our waking experiences and all our dreams? I think that life would be very confusing, and that a lot of people would be out of touch with reality because so many people would have false memories. 2. Imagine being a jury member in a trial for a parent accused of sexual abuse based on a recovered memory. What insights from memory research should you share with the rest of the jury? I would have to tell them that there is a chance that the child’s memory is wrong. More often than not, a child’s memory is faulty and can also be easily influenced. Improving Memory: - To master material, remember the spacing effect. - As the testing effect has shown, it pays to study actively. - This production effect explains why we so often learn something best when teaching it, explaining it to ourselves, or when rehearsing information out loud. - Make the material meaningful. - Activate retrieval cues. - Use mnemonic devices. - Minimize proactive and retroactive interference. - Sleep more. - Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to find out what you don’t know yet. REVIEW: Forgetting, memory construction, and improving memory: LOQ 8-15: Why do we forget? LOQ 8-16: How do misinformation, imagination, and source amnesia influence our memory construction? How do we decide whether a memory is real or false? LOQ 8-17: Why have reports of repressed and recovered memories been so hotly debated? LOQ 8-18: How reliable are young children’s eyewitness descriptions? LOQ 8-19: How can you use memory research findings to do better in this and other courses? TERMS AND CONCEPTS TO REMEMBER: 1. anterograde amnesia 2. retrograde amnesia 3. proactive interference 4. retroactive interference 5. repression 6. Reconsolidation 7. misinformation effect 8. source amnesia 9. déjà vu MASTER THE MATERIAL: 1. When forgetting is due to encoding failure, information has not been transferred from A.. the environment into sensory memory. B. sensory memory into long-term memory. C. long-term memory into short-term memory. D. short-term memory into long-term memory. 2. Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve shows that after an initial decline, memory for novel information tends to A. increase slightly. B. decrease noticeably. C. decrease greatly. D. level off. 3. You will experience less (proactive/retroactive) interference if you learn new material in the hour before sleep than you will if you learn it before turning to another subject. 4. Freud proposed that painful or unacceptable memories are blocked from consciousness through a mechanism called (repression). 5. One reason false memories form is our tendency to fill in memory gaps with our reasonable guesses and assumptions, sometimes based on misleading information. This tendency is an example of A. proactive interference. B. the misinformation effect. C. retroactive interference. D. the forgetting curve. 6. Eliza’s family loves to tell the story of how she “stole the show” as a 2-year-old, dancing at her aunt’s wedding reception. Even though she was so young, Eliza says she can recall the event clearly. How might Eliza have formed this memory? Since Eliza was so young, it’s almost impossible for her to have completely formed this memory herself. From hearing other stories, she probably thinks she remembers but it is actually a false memory. 7. We may recognize a face at a social gathering but be unable to remember how we know that person. This is an example of (source amnesia.) 8. When a situation triggers the feeling that “I’ve been here before,” you are experiencing (deja vu). 9. Children can be accurate eyewitnesses if A. interviewers give the children hints about what really happened. B. A neutral person asks non leading questions soon after the event. C. The children have a chance to talk with involved adults before the interview. D. interviewers use precise technical and medical terms. 10. Memory researchers involved in the study of memories of abuse tend to disagree with some therapists about which of the following statements? A. Memories of events that happened before age 4 are not reliable. B. We tend to repress extremely upsetting memories. C. Memories can be emotionally upsetting. D. Sexual abuse happens.