Chapter 8: Memory and Information Processing LIFESPAN
Recall
-Bauer et al.--> infants can recall a series of events 13 months remembered for 3 months 16-20 months remembered for 12 months -Ex: having a teddy bear and putting them to bed, changing their clothes, etc. -Infants remember best when: They have repeated exposures They are given plenty of cues Events they must remember occur in a meaningful or logical order
Memory Strategies
-By 2 years, children will deliberately try to remember things -Ex: repeating, talking to themselves, gestures or pointing -Rehearsal Repeating items in memory -Organization Classifying items into meaningful groups Ex: grouping animals and fruits together -Elaboration Actively creating meaningful links between items to be remembered Ex: developing a story or making a sentence -Rehearsal emerges first, then organization, and then elaboration
Reasons for childhood amnesia
-Limited space in working memory -Lack of language--> your memories before you can talk are stored in a non-verbal way--> maybe since we're verbal now, we have a hard time accessing those non-verbal memories -Lack of sense of self--> we don't know that an event we're experiencing may be significant for us -Store verbatim memories rather than gist memories--> kids store a memory exactly how it happened (verbatim), but as adults we store memories as gist memories (we generally know what happens but no specifics)
Basic Capacities
-Little change in long-term memory and sensory memory -Significant improvements in short-term (working memory) Speed of processing increases
4 stages of strategy development
-Mediation deficiency Do not use or benefit from strategies -Production deficiency Failure to produce a strategy -Utilization deficiency Spontaneously produce a strategy, but does not benefit memory Children trying to use a strategy takes up a lot of their cognitive functioning and resources so they might not be able to reach the task -Effective strategy use
Knowledge base continues to expand during adolescence
Metamemory and metacognition improve Adolescent girls consistently report using more metacognitive strategies than boys Students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds report more use of metacognitive strategies
implicit memory
Occurs unintentionally, automatically, and without awareness such as Procedural memory-How do we know how to ride a bike. Infallible; remains intact. Unintentional and automatic. Skills, conditioned learning, associative memory. Stable through lifespan. Less affected by aging and Alzheimer's Disease
Older and younger children do not differ in terms of sensory register or long-term memory capacity
Older children -Use more effective memory strategies, they Know more about memory, and have a larger memory base.
Explaining Declines in Older Adults. Negative beliefs affect memory skills. Strategy use is not spontaneous. Attention becomes more effortful (motivation)
Processing speed decreases in response to ambiguous questions. Sensory, health, and lifestyle changes. Cohort differences. Declines are not universal
Explicit memory
Requires Conscious retrieval of information Involves deliberate, effortful recollection of events - requires Recall versus recognition Declarative memory Fallible; subject to forgetting Affected by aging and Alzheimer's Disease
recall vs. recognition memory
*recall*: ability to retrieve and reproduce information encountered earlier (fill in the blank or essay) *recognition*: ability to identify information you have previously seen read, or heard about (TF/MC)
Childhood
-4 reasons why memory improves: Changes in basic capacities Changes in memory strategies Increased knowledge about memory Increased knowledge about the world
Metacognition
awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes. thinking about thinking
longterm memory
explicit and implicit
Memory in Children
have a tendency to make Perseveration errors
Older adults
learn more slowly and remember less learned information - Not everyone but many
Recall vs. recognition
recall is harder than recognition and it starts declining first.
Memory Declines Begin around age 60 or 70
slight declines at first in Short term memory & working memory and the ability to remember details (they're more focused on the gist of the data or the main point or meanings)
Parallel processing
the carrying out of multiple cognitive activities simultaneously, such as trying to remember your combination lock numbers while keeping the tried combinations in your head at the same time as trying new combinations on your visiospatial sketchpad, to narrow down the right combination
They continue to use the same strategy that was successful in the past despite the strategy's current lack of success, such as looking for a lost item in the same place it was found last time, even though it's not there
these kidssss memory
Childhood Amnesia
-Few autobiographical memories of events that occurred during the first few years of life -This is expected -Typically before 3 is when people normally don't remember--> the memories we do have around that time or normally vague or big events (ex: a hospital visit, birth of a sibling, death)
Infants
-Newborns seem to imitate some actions -Infants as young as six months display deferred imitation Ability to imitate a novel act after a delay Early form of explicit memory
Memory
-Our ability to store and later retrieve information
Infants remember best when:
-They have repeated exposures -They are given plenty of cues -events occur in a meaningful or logical order
Operant Conditioning
-Tied a rope to a babies ankle that was connected to a little mobile music playing device and she would bring the babies back weeks later to see if they're still kick their ankle when their ankle wasn't tied to a rope -Results: 3 months remember for 1 week 6 months remember for 2 weeks 18 months remember for 3 months -Early memories are cue-dependence and context-specific--> they need a cue (a reminder), they also have to be in the same exact crib and area (context) to remember
cohort
A group of individuals of the same age.
Recall 2.0
A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.
Infants as young as six months display deferred imitation
Ability to imitate a novel act after a delay, which clearly requires memory ability.
Adolescents use
Executive control processes to guide the selection, organization, manipulation, and interpretation of information throughout Problem Solving situations
Infants can overcome obstacles to achieve desired goals
Increasingly pay attention to the cues provided by adults. Increasingly solicit help by pointing, reaching, or letting the adult know that assistance is needed
Infant Memory
Infants as young as six months display deferred imitation. Pure recall by about 9 months. Infants can overcome obstacles to achieve desired goals
Age-related processing speed declines leads to poorer performance on timed memory tests, which are very common
Information can be encoded but can't retrieve without cues OR maybe it was never correctly encoded
Adolescents perform cognitive operations faster than children do
They have greater functional use of their working memory but there are no differences between children and adolescents on tasks of low complexity. Face recognition is easier too
implicit and explicit
These two types of memory are independent of one another. Explicit memory increases in capacity from infancy through adulthood then declines, while implicit memory capacity is constant across the lifespan
Selection- Older adults have a reduced capacity and loss of functioning (this means that older adults will see a reduction in performance in most life domains such as in physical abilities and speed of movement, mental processing, reaction time performance, memory recall, etc.)
They may have slower reaction times while driving, difficulty learning new material in a short period of time, and diminished ability to walk as fast or lift heavy items. They will need to select which function they want to work on (Ex. Using pill organizers to help remember to take medicines or if having difficulty reading- they can use a magnifying machine to read)
Problem Solving for Older Adults
Unfamiliar tasks are more difficult. Meaningfulness problematic to solution creation-may not be motivated to find solution. Everyday functioning is maintained
recognition
a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test
antegrade amnesia
a person loses memories for events that occur after the injury
Selective Optimization with Compensation Theory
a theory based on the idea that successful personal development throughout the life course and subsequent mastery of the challenges associated with everyday life are based on the components of selection, optimization, and compensation
Perseveration errors
an inability to switch ideas along with the social context, as evidenced by the repetition of actions, words or gestures after they have ceased to be socially relevant or appropriate
Compensation
becomes relevant when life tasks require a level of capacity beyond the current level of the older adult's performance potential. Loss-based selection denotes the restructuring of one's goal system, for example, by giving up unattainable goals and developing new ones. So instead of a goal to run a marathon, to just walk a 5K and build from there. (Ex. Going out to eat would take the place of cooking a meal and hiring a cleaning service can help keep your home clean and safe)
retrograde amnesia
loss of memories from our past
Optimization
making the best or most efficient use of a situation, product, or resource. it is possible to maintain performance in some areas through practice and use of new technologies, so listening to books on CD can optimize your performance learning new material more than reading with difficulty due to eye strain. Instead of cooking meals, microwaving frozen dinners or pizza's or putting sandwiches together with chips can optimize meal preparation.
Metamemory
understanding of processes of memory. knowledge about memory