critical thinking in psychology - ch. 2: memory

change blindness blindness:

*change blindness:* not noticing an unusual event that occurs right before you eyes - change blindness is so counterintuitive that few people are willing to believe that they would miss an unusual event that occurred "right before their eyes" = *change blindness blindness:* being blind or rejecting the idea that they actually miss major events in their environment

*chunking:*

*chunking:* reducing large amount of into into smaller units - the more meaningful the presentation of the info, the more easily remembered - EX: phone #s, SS #s - experts are able to perceive large, meaningful patterns of info that help them remember

the illusion of truth:

*illusion of truth:* inaccurate information from the past can influence what you believe in the future - information that was encountered previously, even if at the time you knew it might be a lie, makes it more likely that you will believe the info when it is encountered a second tine than if you had not been told the original lie (thorough example on pg. 65) - repeatedly remembering something can have the same effect - when you remember something repeatedly, you judge that memory to be more truthful - EX: rumors, politics, & "there is no such thing as bad publicity",

forgetting:

*interference theory of forgetting:* we forget things because events/info interfere w each other in memory - the more similar 2 events/pieces of info are, the more likely they will interfere w each other *tip of the tongue phenomenon:* when we know we know it but for some reason, we cannot quite retrieve it can be bad for decision making bc we cannot remember something which'll lead to biases in decision making or overconfident in decision making

*metamemory:*

*metamemory:* one's personal knowledge of his/her own memory system - effective learners know how they learn and what they need to do to perform well WAYS TO ENHANCE METAMEMORY: 1. ease of learning judgements (before) - anticipate the challenges & ask why do you care 2. quality of learning judgements (during) - during the task, how well are you doing? r u zoning out?(put stuff in ur own words to remember better) 3. feelings of knowing judgements (after) - rate how well you know the material. are you confident? 4. degree of confidence judgements (at recall) - for a final, how much do you remember from a previous test

*mnemonics:*

*mnemonics:* techniques for organizing and elaborating info so it can be more easily remembered EX: pemdas - usually provide an organization scheme or a meaninful context for unrelated items - they are rhymes, pegwords & images, method of places, and (first) letters. EXTERNAL VS. INTERNAL MEMORY AIDS: *external memory aids:* the most common aids - AKA cognitive prosthesis - *prospective memory:* if you have to remember to do something, it is a kind of remembering called prospective memory because it is a memory for future events INSTEAD, YOU SHOULD USE: - sticky notes - alarms - helps to reduce cognitive strain bc u know you have a reminder _______________________________ *internal memory aids:* mnemonics

*memory retention:*

*retention:* the continued possession, usage, and control of something - is often used as synonym for "memory" - it suggests that memory is factual & that we can access all memories at any time which is WRONG memory is actually constructive in nature and tends to become increasingly more inaccurate over time a) memories are frequently inaccurate b) we tend to fill in missing info in memory with info that "fits" with our belief system or was acquired after the event occurred c) although there is generally a positive relationship between memory accuracy and confidence, we tend to be more confident about highly emotional events, and this is where the relationship between confidence and accuracy breaks down - people believe that their memory for emotional events is far more accurate than it rly is when we encounter new info about an event that happened in the past, we have to incorporate it into our existing knowledge of that event = results in memories becoming less clear/reliable because we confuse new info w our original memory of the event as time goes on, people feel that their memory of an event are more accurate when it really isn't - memory depends on how we encode/interpret events, not necessarily how events themselves actually occur

memory acquisition:

- when we hear something new, we have acquired new info - knowledge changes how we view new info, how we perceive old info, and how we think - we cannot process all of the available info around us (*"information explosion"*) = we are selective about stimuli we attune to and the nature of the info we eventually acquire and/or remember

availability heuristic: risk perception:

1) AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC *heuristic:* is any "rule of thumb" that we use to make decisions and solve problems - does not always give us the right answer but it is a helpful aid/guide to get the right answer (different from algorithm [a procedure that will always yield the correct answer if you follow it exactly]) *availability heuristic:* the belief that information that is easily available in memory occurs more frequently than information that is difficult to recall - sometimes leads us to making choices that do not actually make sense 2) RISK PERCEPTION *the perception of risk:* psychologists have found that hazards that are unusually memorable (such as recent disaster or how a teenager killed their parents) distort people's perception of risk - the distortion in perceived risk is due to the sorts of events that people can think of when they make judgements about risks - most people rate dramatic causes of death such as earthquakes or shark attacks to be many more times more likely than they actually are while less memorable causes of death are routinely underestimated - EX: when 9/11 happened, videos of it kept playing, causing people to start believing that driving is safer than flying but really, driving is way more dangerous (people don't really fear car accidents because they think of all the times they weren't in car accidents) the ease with which we recall something is a critical determinant of how we think about it, but with conscious thought (& some data comparisons from a reliable source), we can get better at assessing risks *another example on top of pg. 58 how our judicial system uses availability heuristics

3) *long-term memory* *everything is important in here*

1) DECLARATIVE VS. MOTOR & PROCEDURAL: _______________________________ *declarative memory:* conscious recollections of events, facts, famous figures, places, pieces of info, personal experiences, etc. AKA *explicit memory:* usually easy to explain/discuss the knowledge contained in these memories - has 2 systems 1. *episodic memory:* memory of things we've personally experienced (knowing when & where we learned something) (EX: what you did for your 16th birthday, where you had your first kiss, etc.) - usually easy to acquire and requires little effort on your part 2. *semantic memory:* memory of things we've learned like word meanings & the multiplication table - we cannot necessarily recall where or how we learned these things ________________________________ 1. *motor memory:* the memory of how to do something, such as perform an action or skill AKA *implicit memory:* hard to describe in words - knowing that - automatically available for retrieval and implementation - often so ingrained into ur memory, they're automatic and is difficult to explain in words (easy to demonstrate but hard to describe) 2. *procedural memory:* aka remembering how to do something - knowing how ** motor memory involves motor skills, but not all procedural memory necessarily involve motor skills (EX: knowing how to cook creme brulee) 2) AUTOMATIC VS. EFFORTFUL *automatic memory:* encoding happens somewhat effortlessly and without much thought regarding it - more likely to happen when you are particularly interested/invested in an experience/topic (you are involved, it is important to you) OR through some form of basic learning (conditioning, motor skills) _______________________________ *effortful memory:* learning that requires conscious awareness and some amount of work to remember - you're choosing to learn something & memorizing it - w practice, more info, and/or deeper understanding of a topic, processing, and retrieval will become more automatic over time 3) INTENTIONAL VS. INCIDENTAL LEARNING *intentional learning:* when you consciously and deliberately decide to learn something and engage in activities that help you remember the material - EX: studying for an exam _______________________________ *incidental learning:* when you learn something without conscious or deliberate effort - EX: remembering the storyline of a TV show _______________________________ how does this fit in with attitudes towards learning overall or towards learning specific subjects? - when you think of something as hard, remember that some learning is effortful and some is easy - when you understand this, you'll be better off at learning something you originally thought you couldn't

*memory without awareness:*

1) IMPLICIT MEMORY *implicit memory:* memory that is formed without awareness and that cannot be assessed by usual methods of responding (implicit: applied though not plainly expressed) - EX: the small words "just supposed" were shown but they're so small, you can barely see them, but then you're asked to fill in the blanks: _ _ s _ s _ p p _ _ e, your mind knows that it spells out "just suppose" and it affected your memory without awareness 2) FAMILIARITY *familiarity:* stimuli that reside in your memory that you have no conscious knowledge of "feel familiar" even tho you do not know why - memories "feel" different from new info - we use these feelings about what we remember as a basis for judgements, without knowing that familiarity is causing us to make the judgements that we do we need to be aware of our unconscious memories so we can use that info to improve our thinking!

*strategies that promote learning:*

1) PAY ATTENTION - draw a penny: although you've seen million of pennies, you rly can't remember the details of it - cocktail party effect: you're talking to someone at a party & it's really loud but then someone mentions your name in their convo so your attention redirects and suddenly you can hear but if someone were to talk about something you're not interested in, you wouldn't be able to hear - generating a name to promote later recall: when someone introduces themselves, repeat their names over n over so you can remember it later 2) MONITOR MEANING - if you don't know what you read, you won't remember it! - state in your own words to check comprehension - relate new info to old material or put info into context that is meaningful yo you (easier than remembering isolated bits of info) 3) DISTRIBUTE LEARNING - don't cram - study periods should be long enough to learn materials but not so long that it's hard to pay attention - vary length and location of study sessions for max. benefits 4) GET ORGANIZED 5) GENERATE MULTIPLE CUES OF RETRIEVAL - *inert knowledge:* knowledge that you cannot recall when needed (ex: during an exam or discussion) - *encoding specificity:* material most likely to be recalled in situations or with cues that were available when you learned the material - *hook:* cues that help make info more accessible to you when needed for recall = deep understanding of material and practicing multiple cues makes it easier and more likely for you to recall info 6) OVERLEARN - answer questions correctly multiple times to ensure you know the info 7) BE AWARE OF NON-COGNITIVE FACTORS - lack of sleep, too much exercise, malnutrition, stress, drugs, etc.

how we make memories: (crash course vid)

1) recall :a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier - how you reach back into your mind and bring up info 2) recognition :a measure of memory in which the person need only to identify items previously learned - identifying old info you already learned 3) relearning :a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again - relearning/refreshing old info

memory evaluation:

1. memory works like a camera, accurately recording the events we see & hear - FALSE 2. people generally notice when something unexpected enters their field of view - FALSE 3. once you have a memory of an event, that memory does not change - FALSE 4. the testimony of an eyewitness is enough to convict someone of a crime - FALSE

types of memory:

MEMORY IS NOT A SINGLE PROCESS & IT IS DIVIDED INTO 3 PARTS: 1) sensory memory: - rly brief - seeing, hearing, touching 2) working memory: - repeating something constantly to remember it - the "place" and processes used when we think or "work on" info 3) long term memory: - the retention or "storage" of memories over longer periods of time (30 secs to a lifetime)

*recall errors:*

errors in recall can shed light on how people organize info in their minds - EX: ever got called your sibling's name? or your dog's name? - intuitively, this would be insulting because it suggests some underlying facts about how your parents think about you - EX: when ur bf calls you the name of his ex, insulting because he might've been thinking of her - sometimes referred to as *"slip of the tongue"*

learning & retention:

learning and memory are NOT observable behaviors - they must be inferred from the activity of recall, such as writing the correct answer on a test *hypothetical constructs:* an explanatory variable that is not directly observable - you cannot see them happen, but you can infer that they did 1) *learning (learned the material)* = you study for an exam 2) *retaining (kept it in memory)* = being able to correctly apply the answers to the exam questions 3) *recall (retrieve it from memory)* = you were able to recall the information when it was needed - if you cannot answer a question correctly, it is because: a) you never learned the material b) you learned it but you forgot it OR c) you could recall it in some other situation, maybe w some recall cues the relationship among learning, retaining, and recalling involves the passage of time. - there is a *time-based* relationship (temporal relationship) between learning and memory - *retention interval:*time between learning something and retrieving/remembering it or forgetting it (time varies) OUR MEMORY IS ASSOCIATIVE *associative netowrk:* spider-like organizations of information in which closely related topics are located near each other (woman-man; plane-train) and those that bear little relationship w each other are far away. - objects, emotions, and actions that frequently occur together become linked in memory so that when we retrieve info, one memory reminds us a related concept, which reminds us of another, and so on. (EX: africa + black & white = thoughts of a zebra) (EX: when you think of babies, you associate them w crying, diapers, and breast milk)

*memory biases:*

memories often encoded without awareness or intention are unequally available for recall, and are often biased = *confirmation bias:* we look for info that confirms what we believe and more easily disregard info that contradicts it - we gather and evaluate info selectively - makes people more likely to persevere in their beliefs despite valid evidence to the contrary - leads to overconfidence in belief system

2) *working memory*

memory has a limited capacity (7 +/- 2 therefore 5 or 9: we cannot keep more than 5 to 9 pieces of info in our thoughts at the same time) - we cannot remember everything that we would like - we can't keep too many different "pieces" of info in an active form in memory so that we can use them all simultaneously the cognitive resources that are used to execute mental operations and to remember the outcomes of these processes are available only in a limited supply *working memory:* the "place" where conscious thoughts occur - it's a hypothetical space where we perform the work of thinking - one goal of an efficient cognitive system is to make the work of thinking easier and/or to reduce the amount of space or effort needed in working memory = using external aids! - instead of trying to remember ur shopping list, u write it down - we categorize info to reduce the load on memory (buy "stuff" for dog: you automatically remember what you need to buy) we have a tendency to reduce complex issues into simple explanations to reduce the load on our working memory - although this is helpful for our working memory, it doesn't always lead to solutions

why does memory matter? what would life be like without memory?

memory is central to developing thinking skills - thinking partially depends on how well we can utilize past experiences stored in our memory

classical conditioning:

memory without awareness (implicit memory) often occurs through classical conditioning: if you pair a bell (classical stimuli) with food (unconditioned stimuli), dogs would salivate to the sound of the bell bc they learned the association between the bell and food - salivation is an unconditioned response to food (unconditioned stimuli) because we naturally salivate to the sight of food and is a classical response to the bell (classical stimuli) because of learned association classical conditioning can occur without conscious awareness and clever propagandists have used this technique to influence how people think - EX: rat scenes & jew people's noses *SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES:* - a stimuli that is flashed too quickly to be recognized is called "subliminal", which means that it was not registered consciously (EX: when the word "RAT" was shown right before a pic of a politician, people rated him more negatively, versus when "RAT" was placed first followed by other words after)