memory (6-10)

how did endel tulving describe episodic memory?

as mental time travel a conscious re-experience

what does it mean when we say that semantic memories often start off as episodic memories?

as you learn, new semantic memories are initially tied to episodic components like where you learned it, who said it, etc. eventually it just becomes semantic but it's originally tied to that original learning context

recalling an episodic memory requires

attention (which implies the working memory and central executive - frontal lobe) (prefrontal cortex is particularly active with attention) (hippocampus too)

who is most at risk for false memories?

children because they are compliant and have immature prefrontal regions individuals with mental illness

what is explicit memory also known as?

declarative memory

recollection is more likely to be negatively impacted by

distractors suggests that it's a more controlled, attention based process (likely to involve the frontal lobe)

what kind of rates do explicit and implicit memory grow at?

explicit - nearly exponential rates implicit - levels off in early childhood

damage to this part of the brain is related to increases in confabulation

frontal lobe

what is recognition memory

identifying whether or not we've had experience with the stimulus problem: hard to tell guessing from correct or incorrect answers

which tends to develop first: implicit or explicit memory?

implicit, and it may be present at birth

what is the single most important factor in improving memory retention?

intention to learn

most of what we call forgetting is due to

interference

what is source monitoring?

knowing WHERE a memory came from

the brain regions involved with implicit memory are ......

mainly subcortical, like the basal ganglia and cerebellum (Which are both well developed at birth)

what is retroactive interference

older (more retro) memories are difficult to retrieve because of new ones

what is a source memory

recall of when, where, and how information was acquired

retrieval can involve which two types of memory

reconstructive OR recognition

frequent retrieval increases

retention, because each case of retrieval further enhances the memory trace

what is transient global amnesia (TGA)

short lived and more common in older people might be caused by little strokes that resolve quickly sudden, temporary memory loss loss of memory for recent events (days to 1 year)

when does most forgetting occur?

shortly after the event

where in the brain are declarative memories stored?

somewhere in the cortex (since we are aware of them)

for the long run, what is the best way to retain info?

study it under different conditions

recognition increases likelihood of retrieval (over recall). this suggests what?

that many memories that we can't recall aren't really lost, we just haven't found good cues for their retrieval

what is the moses illusion? what is a possible explanation for it?

the illusion: how many animals did moses bring on the arc? - most people will say 2, but it was actually noah - explanation is related to semantic organization - we recall what we expect to recall - semantic processing is less detailed and uses partial assessments, so other semantic similarities can mislead interpretation - expectations allow us to fill in missing pieces

how does probing a memory affect it?

the more often a given memory is probed, the better it is retrieved

what might the central executive's role in episodic memory be?

to inhibit the interference of related episodies - sorting out the irrelevant from the relevant memories - think of the CE like a flash light...inhibits similar memories and looks for source memory. the more info we have on source memory, the easier it is to find

what is the permastore?

type of long-term memory that appears to be permanent

what is motivated forgetting?

- Freud - may account for small %

what is deja vu?

- an error in recognition, specifically familiarity - might be an error in medial temporal lobe (hippocampus) processing

what is source attribution error

- memory is correct but attributed to the wrong source

what is autobiographical memory

- personal data of ourselves - might be a combination of subsets of semantic and episodic

what is infantile / childhood amnesia?

- the inability to recall autobiographical events before the age of 3/4

what are theoretical explanations for interference phenomena?

1. associative blocking or response competition theory 2. associative unlearning 3. inhibition as cause of forgetting

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

what brain region is involved when episodic and semantic memories are initially being encoded?

frontal lobe

what does 'benign senescent forgetfulness' mean?

natural or normal memory loss

damage to what area often results in episodic memory deficit?

papez circuit linking the hippocampus and frontal lobes

what is TMS

transcranial magnetic stimulation

what was sulin and dooling's 1974 study?

xxxx

what is interference?

- #1 reason for forgetting - retrieval (possibly encoding) of a memory may meet with competition from other memories - episodic recall is impeded as more connections are made - the greater the similarity, the greater the competition - similarity most important variable in determining strength of learning and memory

what was the daycare sexual abuse hysteria?

- Kern county's McMartin preschool - said the people that worked there were satanic and abusing the children

how does the hippocampus facilitate the formation of neuron assemblies?

- LTP -- alteration in protein synthesis - helps them all connects y making more connections with additional proteins

what is Ribot's law?

- Memories from earlier in life are easier to recall than those later in life - the older the memory, the less susceptible it is to disruption - occurs because most recent memories haven't been fully consolidated and every time you retrieve a memory it gets further entrenched (and there's more time to do that to older memories)

what is signal detection theory

- Statistical approach which attempts to determine the level of probability of 'hit' in the face of false alarms and misses.

what are categories in semantic memories?

- a class of concepts to which a set of assertions apply - example: colors, vehicles, animals

what is false memory syndrome

- a condition in which a person's identity and interpersonal relationships are centered around a memory of traumatic experience which is objectively false but in which the person strongly believes - recovered or repressed memories - demonstrates how easily memories can be altered by expectations, suggestions, and persuasions

what is episodic memory?

- a conscious recollection of a past experience, experiencing it almost as the original - the recall of the what, where, and when of an event - depends on autonomic consciousness (the ability to reflect on our thoughts) - capacity to remember specific events and distinguish them from other, similar events - requires a cataloging system/file system (source memory)

what is the false fame effect?

- a disconnect between source and content, related to mere exposure effect - increased when distractions occur during encoding - it's when you hear a name, but you don't know from where, so you think it must be a famous person

what are concepts in semantic memory?

- a mental construct that contains information associated with an idea - it's a thought about something fairly specific - example: what is justice? what is love?

what is Galton's cue word?

- a probe technique that contains many cue words and asks you to recall a memory related to a word - assessed autobiographical memory and what's intact

what are scripts

- a routine dependent upon a given situation - essentially, how you're supposed to act, what the steps are - examples: on a date, on a job interview, going to restaurant

what is the tip of the tongue phenomenon (TOT)

- aka presque vu (almost seen) - the experience of being on the verge of retrieving a memory - key features: inaccessibility and imminence - usually the target is a verbal representation, not a visual one (you can see the actor, can't think of the name)

what is the hierarchical network model?

- by collins and quillians (1969) - the underlying principle of cognitive economy - property information is stored up as high the hierarchy as possible to minimize the amount of information that needs to be stored in semantic memory - think of it as storing bird information as birds generally, versus the same info repeated over and over for each bird (feathers, small, can fly...) - this can differ tremendously depending on how each individual's memory is structured

what is decay of memory trace?

- can occur with time (with age, but forgetting would accelerate and it doesnt) - OR due to neuronal loss or damage (aging vs. trauma, disease)

what is episodic memory

- conscious recollection of a past experience or event (experiencing it almost as the original) - might require an awareness of the self

what is semantic memory?

- encyclopedic, general knowledge - generalizations allowing us to deal with the world - self-awareness not critical (only awareness of the semantic memory itself)

What is the reminiscence bump?

- enhanced memory for late teens to early 20s years when you're older (perhaps because there are major firsts during this time period) - also a bump for most recent events

between episodic and semantic, which one does amnesia affect more

- episodic

What Is The Role Of Imposed Organization, Such As Memory Schemata, Upon Memory?

- episodic memories are influenced by our imposed organization, which can reflect various types of expectations - it could either 1) be that imposed organization at the time of retrieval infuses a memory with a structure that's not in the stored memory or 2) due to schemata, imposed organization can impact the stored memory with the passage of time

why might deferred imitation be evidence of explicit memory?

- evidence from amnesiacs....declarative is usually the first type to go, and these patients can't do deferred imitation

what is the reappearance hypothesis (with respect to involuntary or intrusive memories)

- exact memory traces can appear again later in the same form - studies sealed that most people don't experience exact repetition

what are frames

- expectations for a concept - this can be for any kind of concept, like an object, or people - examples: a building should have floors, a roof, walls, etc.

what is false alarm?

- false recognition - can be false sense of familiarity OR false recollection

what is the revelation effect?

- false recognition of an item (word, image) if subject 'figures it out' from a distorted presentation - requires some sort of cognitive test - mostly semantic, but can affect episodic - episodic example: if people unscramble sentence about breaking a window, they're more likely to claim it accurately reflects a true incident from their past

what is source monitoring?

- identifying the source of the memory (context, when, where, who)

what is probably the role of the frontal lobe in episodic memories?

- in both the formation and retrieval, probably serves to locate and identify the source information for the episode

what is associative unlearning

- incorrect retrieval might lead to punishment - like we don't get rewarded

when do increases in interconnectivity occur? what do they improve?

- increases in interconnectivity often occur with experiences - the increases improve retrieval of semantic material (because more connections mean more paths for possible retrieval) (this isn't true for episodic, where more connections can lead to confusion)

what does decreased neuronal conduction speed do?

- increases reaction time - seen as we age

general events

- intermediate level, will contain many individual specific events - repeating or extended - repeating: a course taken (individual lectures are taken as a general event) - extended: when an event is extended across time and space (first job)

Why might infantile amnesia exist?

- is it lack of encoding? storage? retrieval? - it might be because they can't verbally encode information but they need to verbally retrieve it - might need to have well-developed verbal skills

how is the hippocampus related to declarative memory?

- it's critical for consolidation, and is possibly involved for the entire period before the memory is entrenched - the hippocampus acts as a facilitator, which binds disparate regions of activity to one another o create a pattern unique to a given memory - once that memory pattern is engrained, the hippocampus is no longer necessary -

how is semantic memory related?

- it's related by shared aspects of meaning, not by simple association such as conditioning and not limited by sensory modality

how is semantic memory represented in the brain?

- it's represented in the brain by a pattern of activity across neuronal assemblies or ensembles in the cortex - it's the same pattern that occurs when the information is first perceived and being acquired

what are some things that are learned in the first five years of life?

- language, skills (throwing a ball), social skills, recognition fo stimuli and how to manipulate them

what does the HERA hypothesis state

- left pre-frontal region: retrieval of semantic, initial coding of episodic - right: retrieval of episodic

what is the issue with collins and quillian's hierarchical theory?

- longer times might reflect less familiarity with a concept than with distance in hierarchy - if you're familiar with whatever the concept is, it won't take you as long to find the answer

what is psychogenic amnesia

- memory loss that is basically repression - many cases accompanied by physical trauma like rape - extreme motivated forgetting

specific events

- most basic level - contain much perceptual detail and also context information - many are probably lost, while others endure and become significant life events

what is proactive interference

- newer memories are difficult to retrieve because of old memories - culprits:well stored older memories

what is the spreading activation model by collins and loftus (1975)

- no real hierarchical structure here - the distance in links represents how related they are in meaning - less rigid, as a number of paths might be activated when a given concept is probed - can't account for all the complexities of semantic organization

what is the distinction between normal and abnormal forgetting?

- normal: statistically common failure in some memory process 1) incidental: most common, you just forget it 2) motivated forgetting: we dont want to remember it, it's like thought stopping - abnormal: statistically unusual 1) brain injury or damage 2) extreme motivated forgetting (psychogenic amnesia)

what is the sleeper effect?

- over time, the credibility of the content changes as a subject forgets the source - how we often respond to things changes as time goes on if we aren't really paying attention to it anymore

what is autobiographical memory?

- personal memories regarding ourselves and our relationship with the world around us - often forms a life narrative - biggest problem studying it: there is no experimental control over the learning situation

what is PTA?

- post traumatic amnesia - considered a measure of concussion - mild: lasts less than 5 minutes - severe: lasts longer than 4 weeks

serial positon effects

- primacy and recency effect: you'll remember the first and most recent unless something about the middle makes it stand out

what are some types of interference?

- proactive - retroactive: one from right now makes it harder to retrieve older one - associative interference and fan effect (associative: the more similar something is, others fan into each other) (very different settings helps prevent this)

what are flashbulb memories

- proposed by brown and kulik - key elements are vividness and details of memory - 'now print' mechanism caused by extreme emotion - but can other well-known characteristics of memory also explain flashbulb memories? ---unique experiences are less likely to have interference from similar events ---they are more likely to be relived over and over

what is autobiographical memory interview (AMI)?

- questions pertaining to a specific time frame in person's life - with a few specific questions which would be verified - start with free recall, and give cues if don't remember

what is retrieval?

- reactivating a trace memory based upon cues - target memory/trace: what we're trying to get to - cues: some things you can remember about it - associations/links/ spreading activation

What is the encoding specificity principle?

- recall is better if the retrieval context is similar to the encoding context - in order for a cue to be useful, it must be present at time of encoding

what are the two processes of recognition memory?

- recognition memory if further divided into 2 separate processes process 1: familiarity based recognition = knowing that you know, knowing process 2: recollection = knowing how you know, remembering

what is farah and mcclelland's (1991) sensory functional theory?

- regarding the distinction between animate vs. inanimate objects - it's not about living vs. non-living, it's really about visual (appearance) and non visual (function) processing regions

what are the two types of schemata?

- scripts - frames

what did the loftus an suppes (1972) study suggest about simple concepts?

- search and retrieval strategy was aided by pointing toward the more narrow category - people were quicker to identify if they began with a more narrow category (letter of word) instead of just category (bug)

what is the neuroanatomical distinction between semantic and episodic memory?

- semantic: stores as the results of repeated sensory cortex experience, somehow mediated by the hippocampus and related structures - episodic: additional critical component is the frontal lobe, hippocampus may be involved

cueing

- stimulation makes you recall an episodic memory that you forgot about - a feature: someone mentioning a name from the past - the context: you being in a restaurant where your first date was -

How is semantic memory organized?

- strong tendency to group items into categories - ability to categorize depends on familiarity and expertise - we organize hierarchically

what was the study that showed the hippocampus might be involved in spatial memory?

- study of cab drivers have detailed cognitive map of city - back part of hippocampus got bigger, rest was smaller than the average person - having such good memory of past layout impaired ability to learn new layouts.

study by anderson and Pritchert (1978) on retrieval strategies

- subjects adopted POV (burglar or homebuyer) while reading a story and then had to recall items from story - tended to recall items corresponding to POV - second recall attempt made them take POV of opposite, and more items were recalled. shows that retrieval processes may not always accurately reveal what was stored in the first place

thematically organized lifetime periods

- such as early childhood, career, etc.. - when involved, recalling on theme unlikely to recall specific memories from other themes

what was Rovee-Collier's mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm?

- suggests evidence for episodic memory - according to authors, infants recall what happens when they move their feet - but is it really evidence of explicit memory? or is it a case of operant conditioning? - RC says the infant remembers this happening to them...

what is retrieval induced forgetting

- the act of attempting to retrieve information may, itself, decreases likelihood of successful retrieval of other information

what is verbal overshadowing?

- the act of verbally retrieving a visually stored memory alters the memory - and repeated verbalization impacts memory - example: subjects required to describe perpetrator were less successful in identifying correct picture than those who just had visual recall

what is the retrieval mode?

- the cognitive set, or frame of mind, that orients a person toward the act of retrieval, ensuring that stimuli are interpreted as retrieval cues which can be used to probe episodic memory - example: getting in the car is the mode, actually driving somewhere is the strategy

how can you study episodic memory?

- the experimenter must control the original learning situation - usually done by having students read a story, watch a film, or experience a scene

what did Craik and Lockhart show in their paper about levels of processing

- the greater the depth of processing (shallow vs. deep), the longer lasting the memory - example: memorizing sentences from the text as opposed to understanding the meaning and writing the down in your own words

what were criticisms of bartlett?

- the instructions were vague - many subjects' error were the results of guessing when they couldn't recall, instead of schematic organization - when the study was repeated, subjects instructed to recall as accurately as possible had less errors in recall

why might the TOT occur?

- the retrieval search might start down the wrong path and retrieve the wrong answer - since the wrong one is most recently active, we tend to keep going down the path even though we somehow know its wrong

what are context cues? what're some types?

- they are spatio-temporal: place and time when memory was encoded 1. environmental (think of study of divers....beach vs. in water) 2. state you're in: drunk vs. sober 3. mood congruent vs. dependent (congruent: easier to recall items that have same emotional tone as does subject) (dependent: regardless of tone of time, if encoded during a given mood best retrieved in same mood) 4. cognitive context dependent: retrieval and bilingual speakers (if you're speaking in French and learn something in French, youll better remember it later if you switch to French to recall it than English)

how did Bartlett use complex stimuli to study episodic memory?

- used war o the ghosts NA folk tale - examined errors in free recall or point to clues as to how the story was stored (errors reflect their own culture) - found that the recalled memories were systematically schema driven - errors of recall reflected effort after meaning and the intrusion of readers' expectations about viewpoints (memory schemas)

what is source cueing?

- when knowledge of a source is used to narrow down or access traces in memory

what is part-set cueing impairment

- when presenting a part of a set of items hinders your ability to recall the remaining items in the set - as additional items of set are offered, they become competitors with target memory

what is collaborative inhibition

- when retrieval success appears to decrease as number of individuals working on it increases

levels of representation

- you tend to remember more general aspects over the long term and forget the details (example: remembering you agreed, but not why)

what is associative blocking or response competition theory

-only one memory at a time - if another is more prominent, its retrieval increases its strength to the cue and makes it a better competitor

What is Korsakoff's syndrome?

-when patient makes up stories to fill in time gaps (confabulation)...not really lying though, they're disoriented to time also - might also experience apathy

if age isn't causing memory loss (passage of time), what other things change and might also cause forgetting?

1) contextual fluctuations (affects retrieval cues) 2) interference (experiences)

what are two methods used to probe autobiographical memory for patients with retrograde amnesia?

1. Galton's cue word 2. autobiographical memory interview (AMI)

what are some factors that determine retrieval success?

1. attention to relevant cues (encoding specificity principle) 2. number of cues 3. strength of target memory

what are 3 aspects about the nature of the source we need to know?

1. contextual: what was the context in which the memory was encoded? 2. details: perceptual, emotional, etc. memories we actually experienced tend to have greater perceptual, cognitive, semantic, and emotion details 3. cognitive operations: memories we experienced involved in encoding and storage (which doesn't occur if we are just reading about an event)

what are some examples of errors in source monitoring?

1. cryptomnesia 2. false fame effect 3. social influence and the sleeper effect

what are some neurological changes in old age that might underlie memory changes?

1. decreased conduction speed (due to gradual loss of myelin) 2. decreased frontal lobe activity (especially in area with central executive and working memory) 3. decreased dopamine activity 4. decreased temporal lobe activity (learning explicit memory) 5. less lateralization during certain tasks

what is some evidence of categories in the brain for semantic memory?

1. different parts of grammar are in different neural regions (concrete nouns in sensory cortex in parietal lobe, action verbs in motor cortex) 2. brain damage can lead to specific category deficits (think of animate vs. inanimate things)

what are some possible theories of infantile amnesia?

1. encoding deficit: but there is evidence of very young children having episodic memory 2. encoding exists but stored in different memory system, so not accessible by mature mechanisms (like language, but maybe language is irrelevant...) 3. retrieval error 4. lack of cognitive sense of self

what're the 3 different types of monitoring?

1. external: which external sources? tv, neighbor, newspaper, etc... 2. internal: was this something i thought about doing or actually did? 3. reality: was it truly experienced or just imagined?

as children get older, memory processing changes in a number of ways. what are 6 of them?

1. faster memory processing (due to increased myelination) 2. working memory becomes more efficient, and working span increases 3. improvement of cognitive processes (frees up memory processes, like increased ability to inhibit irrelevant info) 4. retention intervals lengthen 5. increased use of retrieval cues and strategies to avoid forgetting 6. semantic memory expands

what are the theories/models about semantic memory organization?

1. hierarchical network model 2. spreading activation model

explicit memory requires these three brain regions, which are not yet developed

1. hippocampus (not completely developed) 2. cortex (first 2 years have myelination, which speed up messages) 3. frontal lobes (develop throughout childhood, not fully developed until early adulthood)

what are the proposed causes of normal forgetting?

1. interference 2. decay of memory trace 3. motivated forgettin

what are three potential reasons for forgetting?

1. lack of initial encoding (you never learned it in the first place) 2. loss of stored memory trace (you encoded it and it was stored, but your lost the case) (unlikely) 3. retrieval failure (you just can't find it)

what are some ways to test memory function in infants?

1. looking method and habituation paradigm: combined together, baby looks and measure how long it's looking (they look longer at things they havent seen before) 2. non-nutritive sucking: when interested, they suck harder 3. conjugate reinforcement: tie baby's toe to mobile, and by moving foot, can activate mobile. they can see what child remembers 4. elicited imitation / deferred imitation: baby recalls how to do something at a later date even after just one exposure

what are different types of interference

1. retroactive 2. proactive 3. part-set cueing impairment 4. retrieval induced forgetting (RIF)

what are the 3 types of declarative memory?

1. semantic 2. episodic 3. autobiographical

what are some characteristics of episodic memory?

1. serial position effects 2. levels of representation 3. cueing

what are some ways to study false memories?

1. suggestive narratives: lost in the shopping mall narrative... the more detailed the narrative, more they can visualize it, more likely to recall it 2. doctored photograph phenomenon: hot air balloon photos, 50% had false memories 3. DRM paradigm: semantic false memory test with a list of words, target not on original list, many report it as being on list 4. misinformation paradigm: power of suggestion 5. implantation paradigm: creates false memories for entire events

what are the different levels of categorization?

1. superordinate: biggest category with most items in it 2. basic: more basic items (what we tend to think about in every day life) 3. subordinate: further dividing

what are two important aspects of episodic memory?

1. the source 2. the content when you're retrieving an episodic memory, either the source (source misattribution) OR content (false memory) can be incorrect

what are the different levels of autobiographical memory?

1. thematically organized lifetime periods 2. general events 3. specific events

what are two common examples of false memory?

1. verbal overshadowing 2. revelation effect

what is cryptomnesia?

a type of misattribution that occurs when a person thinks he or she has come up with a new idea, yet has only retrieved a stored idea and failed to attribute the idea to its proper source - unintentional plagiarism - example: plagiarized tune, speech

what are some strategies for improving memory?

active processing through... 1. chunking 2. hierarchical structures 3. other subjective organization 4. relating it to information already stored in LTM

what is reconstructive memory

an active and inferential process of retrieving a possibly incomplete memory the gaps are then reconstructed, according to some sort of inferential process typically based upon expectation or logic problem: might be influenced by schema at time of retrieval

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past

general term for forgetting

any inability to produce a memory (whether encoding, storage, or retrieval failure)