Psychology - Chapter 8 - Memory

Rich False Memory

A vivid false memory replete with rich detail and emotional content. "It was you who discovered your mother's body" - triggered the construction of a rich false memory, a vivid false memory replete with extensive detail and emotional content.

Maintenance Rehearsal

Actively repeating or thinking about information so that it remains in short-term memory.

Recall

Recall occurs when you produce something from LTM entirely on your own. Thus, multiple choice tests require recognition, whereas short-answer and essay questions depend upon recall. As you might guess, recognition is much easier than recall, and recall demonstrates a more secure and deeply encoded memory.

Scripts and Schemas

Recall the concepts of proactive and retroactive interference, in which one memory can interfere with another, with complete forgetting being the result. In a somewhat similar way. our expectations, based on previous experiences of the type of situation being recalled - rather than specific memories - can also interfere with the retrieval of accurate memory and result in distorted and false memory as in misattribution. To understand how this works, we need to discuss the workings of schemas and scripts. Schema - A schema is an organized mental model or knowledge structure that helps to organize our experience of some type of event or situation, or our understanding of some object or concept. (Subsequent visits may alter or refine the schema in various was, but the schema allows you to anticipate in a general way what is likely to happen on any given visit to the dentist.) Schemas are useful because they allow us to place new memories into an organizational structure that makes sense. Scripts - Schemas often play out in the form of scripts - structures in long-term memory that represent the typical sequence of events likely to occur in any given situation for which we have a schema - in a sense, the "story" of the situation. Scripts also include ideas about causes of events within a schema and roles that different individuals are expected to take.

Recognition

Recognition occurs when you are presented with something and are able to identify it - a fact you have previously learned, a person with whom you have had contact, and so forth. Thus, multiple choice tests require recognition, whereas short-answer and essay questions depend upon recall. As you might guess, recognition is much easier than recall, and recall demonstrates a more secure and deeply encoded memory.

Retrieval

Recognizing or recalling something from long-term memory.

Retrieval Cue

Any hint or association that helps one retrieve a long-term memory. Retrieval of long term memories is greatly enhanced through retrieval cues. A retrieval cue is any type of hint or assocation that helps you sift - consciously or unconsciouly - through the immense and complex store of LTM to select the appropriate information. These cues may be external, originating outside yourself (seeing books stacked on your desk reminds you that you have a paper due); or internal, originating from within (thinking about your best friend reminds you of the time the two of you went hiking and gost lostin in woods).

Two types of LTM

At present, it is generally accepted that there are two fundamental types of LTM: explicit memory and implicit memory.

Strategy

At strategy, in contrast to a tactic, is a way of approaching the entire studying enterprise that is based upon context.

7 Sins of Memory

Cognitive scientist Daniel Schacter has analyzed processes of forgetting, the construction of distorted or false memories, and the unwanted intrusion of unpleasant memories. He characterized theses processes in a list of seven memory "sins" along the lines of the "seven deadly sins" described by various religious traditions. Three of the sins pertain to forgetting, three to memory distortion, and one to the intrusion of unwanted memories. The 7 sins of forgetting are: transience, absentmindedness, blocking, memory misattribution, suggestibility, bias, persistence

Explicit Memory (Declarative Memory)

Conscious memories for personal experiences (episodic memory) or facts about the world (semantic memory). Explicit memories are conscious memories for personal experiences or facts about the world. Explicit memories are often termed declarative memories because they are memories which we can declare - that is, consciously recall. There are two subtypes of explicit memories: episodic memory and semantic memory.

False Memory

Memory of an event that did not actually occur. In some cases, blatantly inaccurate recollection of details of an event that did occur may also be considered a false memory.

Implicit Memory

A memory that affect how we behave without our conscious awareness of the memory itself. Implicit memory occurs when we recall something but have no awareness that we are doing so. Because people have no recollection of implicit memories, the existence of these memories is generally deomstrated in behavior. For example, when you get into a car and drive to work or school you are demonstrating memory for a complex and varied number of skills that once had to be learned. Although implicit memory is not divided by subtypes, as is explicit memory, it is most frequently expressed in two ways: procedural memory and repetition priming. If you recall our discusstion of latent learning from Chapter 7 - learning that occurs below the level of awarness - you might now see that implicit memory is a record of latent learning, the opposite side of the same coin. Like explicit memory, implicit memory is associated with specific brain regions and may become impaire while leaving explicit memory intact. However, unlike explicit memories, which deteriorate considerably over time, implicit memories appear to have remarkable longevity.

Bias

A systematic distortion in perception, cognition, or memory as a result of some aspect of one's current psychology.

Tacit

A tactic is a specific technique - for example, generating a series of test questions to answer or creating flash cards.

Tip-of-the-Tounge Phenomenon (TOT)

A type of blocking where there is a powerful sensation that a work of name is remembered but somehow is out of reach.

Suggestibility

A type of misattribution where a memory originates in suggestions made to a person by someone else. Suggestibility is a specific type of misattribution that results from intentional or unintentional suggestions from others. Suggestion is a pwerful road to the development of memory distortions, particulary false memory. Elizabeth Loftus and her colleagues have been interested primarily in two aspects of suggestibility: the misinformation effect and the implanting of rich false memories. Much of Loftus' work druing the 1980's explored the ways in which people who are exposed to incorrect information about an event they have experienced, later recall the event in a distorted maner by incorporating the false information - a tendency that has come to be termed the misinformation effect.

Flashbulb Memories

A unique type of internal retrieval cue that has fascinated researcher and the public alike is the flashbulb memory. A flashbulb memory is a highly vivid and detailed remembrance of one's personal circumstances at the moment of learning of some shocking and unexpected event - the association of a public figure, a natural disaster, an attack by a foreign nation. For example, at the moment I first heard about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on a radio news report, I vividly recall that I was alone in my car, making a right-hand turn from Normandie Avenue onto Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. In a sense, then, a flashbulb memory is a memory for unremarkable events, cued by memories of remarkable events. As vivid as flashbulb memories may be, however, they are not necessarily reliable.

Memory

From the cognitive perspective, memory involves the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. Neuroscientists are more likely to define memory as learning-induced changes in the activity of neurons. There are two basic ways to define memory. First, memory can be defined in a general way as the ability to retain information about past personal experiences or facts about the world, and to utilize this information in the present. However, psychologists who study memory generally define it from an information-processing perspective. Looked at it this way, memory is a group of mechanisms and systems that encode, store, and retrieve information. Put simply, encoding means getting the information into your brain, storage is keeping it there, and retrieval is finding it when you need it.

Procedural Memory

Implicit memory for skills involving motor coordination. Procedural memory is implicit memory for skills involving motor coordination, such as driving a car, walking, or flipping a pancake in the pan. These are behaviors that are performed automatically.

Chunk

Individual items that are grouped together in memory because they are meaningfully associated with one another (but only weakly related or unrelated to items in other chunks). Chunking involves organizing information into manageable units. Chunking is the reason we can easily remember sentences composed of 20 words, but cannot rememver 20 unrelated words in order (unless we use our own highly personal system to create chunks out of otherwise unrelated (items). Chunking allows us to remember phone numbers.

Absentmindedness

Lapses of attention that result in a failure to recall information. Absentmindedness can result from a failure to encode properly or lapse of attention/preoccupation at the moment of retrieval. Absentmindedness describes lapses of attention that result in a failure to recall information. This can happen for two reasons: either (a) the information was encoded improperly (or not at all); or (b) it was encoded properly and is technically available but at the moment that its retrieval is necessary it is overlooked for some reason. An example of the first cause (improper encoding or non-encoding) is my constant misplacement of my reading glasses. An example of the second cause (failure to retrieve) is the story of a woman in El Dorado, Arkansas, who, on 3/12/05 placed her 15-day old baby on a grocery store counter, purchased her food, left the store, and drove off - without the baby. She returned in a panic moments later. It is unlikely that this woman did not encode where she had placed her baby - she did return to the store, so the knowledge that her baby was there existed in her memory and therefore had been encoded. Instead, when the moment came to retrieve this information, something - massive preoccupation, perhaps - interfered with her ability to access this information.

Episodic Memory

Memories acquired through personal experience. Episodic memories are one sub-type of explicit (declarative) memory. Episodic memories are those acquired through personal experience - they are our atutobiographical memories.

Semantic Encoding

Memory encoding according to the meaning of the stimulus.

Acoustic Encoding

Memory encoding according to the sound of the stimulus being encoded.

Visual Encoding

Memory encoding according to the visual appearance of the stimulus.

Semantic Memory

Memory for facts one has learned as opposed to personal experiences. Semantic memory is one type of explicit (declarative) memory. Semantic memories are memories for facts that we have learned such as numbers, vocabulary words, names of people and places, historical events, scientific information, concepts, and so forth.

Elaborative Rehearsal

Mentally encoding information into long-term memory in a way that is personally meaningful and associates the new information with information that already exists in long-term memory. In general, material is most likely to be recalled at a later date if it has been encoded for LTM during elaborative reherasal, which may or may not occur deliberately. Elaborative rehearsal differs from maintenance rehersal in that it does not consist of simple repetition. Elaborative rehearsal involves processing new material in a way that is personally meaningful and which associates the new information with other information that already exists in LTM.

Short-Term Memory (STM)

Short-term memory is a memory store used for attending to information in the short term. Short-term memory is limited in the length of time the memory can remain active - no longer than about 20 seconds. It is also limited in the amount of information that can be stored. No more than about four to five items or chunks of information. STM is one component of the Modal Model of Memory. STM can be thought of as whatever appears on the screen on your computer at any given moment. The transferring of information from sensory memory to STM is a result of further processing of the information by the brain. Any time you pay attention to a sight, sound, feeling, idea, or piece of information - either it automatically or as a conscious decision - that information is transferred to STM. Attention is the force that singles out information in sensory memory for transference to STM, and it is attention that determines how long the information remains in STM. However, if sensory memory is fleeting, STM is brief. In general, information can remain in STM for no longer than about 20 seconds unless it is actively thought about or repeated.

Transience

The "fading" of memories from long-term memory. Transience describes what most people mean when the say "forgetting."

Memory Span

The amount of information that can be held in a memory store at any one time. The capacity of short-term memory averages four to five items or chunks of information.

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

The deepest level of encoding of information - a theoretically limited memory store that contains memories for facts, autobiographical events, and learned skills. LTM is a component of the Modal Model of Memory. If STM can be thought of as whatever appears on the screen on your computer at any given moment, then LTM memory represents the data stored in files for later retrieval. Thus LTM is a relatively permanent store of memory. Unlike STM, LTM has a theoretically limitless capacity.

Forgetting Curve

The discovery made by Hermann Ebbinghaus that forgetting follows a pattern according to the passage of time, with most memory loss occurring rapidly, and the pace then slowing.

Encoding

The memory process of "translating" sensory impressions into meaningful perceptions that may then be stored as memory. Encoding in the STM tends to be primarily acoustic, secondarily visual, and much less often semantic. Encoding in LTM generally relies upon the idea of meaningfulness of the information being encoded. However, long term memories are most effectively encoded when the information being encoded is associated meaningfully with information already known. Therefore, encoding in LTM is primarily semantic and depends upon meaning. Because semantic encoding creates longer-lasting memories, it is considered a deeper level of processing than acoustic and visual encoding.

Storage

The memory process whereby meaningful perceptions are retained as memory.

Sensory Memory

The memory stage that very briefly stores large amounts of fleeting sensory impressions. Sensory memory is comprised of iconic store (visual) and echoic store (auditory). Sensory memory is divided into two categories. When sensory impressions are visual in nature, they are termed iconic store. These traces last less than half a second. When they are auditory, they are termed echoic store, and may last as long as a few seconds. Sensory memory serves two functions. At the most basic level, it "collects" sensory information and briefly holds it for possible further processing in memory. Secondly, it allows us to perceive the world as a continuous stream of events, rather than a disjointed series of visual and auditory "snapshots."

Levels of Processing Framework

The model of memory originated by Fergis Craik and Robert Lockhart which denies the existence of distinct memory stages or stores. Instead, it proposes that the more deeply an item is processed, the more likely it is to be recalled. LTM encoded through elaborative rehearsal is often considered a deeper level of processing. Although the levels of processing framework can be "fit in" to the modal model, Craik and Lochart did not adhere to the notion that memory consists of separate stores and stages such as STM and LTM. Instead, they simply propsed that the more deeply an item is processed, the more likely it is to be recalled at a later date. For example, Craik and Lochart demonstrated that words which had been encoded according to their meanings (semantic encoding) rather than sound or appearance were recalled more readily. These researchers concluded that this was due to a deeper level of processing in semantic encoding. They suggested that it was not neccessary to hypothesize the existence of separate memory stages and stores - in understanding the level of processing, one understood the process of memory. They did not deny that STM and LTM existed, but they disputed the idea that they respresented distict mental store.

Interference Theory

The notion, subscribed to by most memory researchers, that problems in retrieving memories result from the interference of one memory with another. There are two types of interference: proactive and retroactive.

Consistency Bias

The tendency to recall one's past attitudes, feelings, and beliefs in a way that brings them in line with one's current attitudes, feelings, and beliefs.

Egocentric Bias

The tendency to recall past events in a way that enhances one's current view of oneself.

Childhood Amnesia

The term used to describe the fact that adults do not have accurate, coherent memory for events of early childhood. Theorists currently propose that coherent memories are not retained for events prior to the fourth birthday.

Modal Model of Memory

The traditional model of memory initially devised by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin. The Modal Model views memory as consisting of three stages or stores: sensory memory, short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).

Blocking

When a memory has been encoded properly and primed by a retrieval cue yet cannot be retrieved. One day I was in the middle of a lecture, I suddenly forgot the word "indicative." Blocking differs from transience and absentmindedness. In transienc, a memory fades over time, in all likelihood due to interference. In absentmindedness, a memory is not encoded properly or a person's attention is diverted when it is time for the memory to be recalled. But in blocking, a memory is encoded properly, is not subject to interference, and is primed by solid retrieval cue - it should be recalled. It just isn't.

Misattribution

When a memory is attributed to a source other than its actual origin. Misattribution occurs when a person attributes a memory to a source other than its actual origin. While misattribution can result in entirely false beliefs that one has experienced an event when one has not, it may also result in false beliefs about aspects of an event that one has experienced.

Retroactive Interference

When a new memory interferes with the retrieval of an old memory. Retroactive interference is much the same mechanism but in reverse. In this case, the learning of new information interferes with memory for the old. For example, when you acquire a new cell phone number and learn it, it may soon become virtually impossible to remember the old one due to retroactive interference. Retroactive interference may decrease over time, and it is less dependent upon the new information being similar to the old.

Misinformation Effect

When a person exposed to incorrect information about an event they have experienced later recall the even in a distorted manner by incorporating the false information.

Proactive Interference

When an old memory interferes with the retrieval of a new memory. In proactive interference, a memory that one has fomed in the past interferes with the retrieval of a new memory - particulary if the new inforamtion is in some way similar to the old. The effects of proactive inferference for a memory tend to increase over time.

Persistence

When an unpleasant memory intrudes upon a person's thoughts against his or her will.

Repetition Priming

When performance on a task improves as a result of previous implicit exposure. Repetition priming refers to the way that a person's performance of a certain task can improve without his or her awareness merely as a result of previous exposure to the task - even if the person is unaware of the previous exposure.

State-Dependent Memory

When retrieval of a memory is enhanced by internal states such as mood or drug effects that were present when the memory was encoded. An example of an internal retrieval clue is state-dependent memory. Mood and other psychological states, including drug-induced changes in consciousness, can act as retrieval cues. Indeed, while alcohol and marijuana have been shown to impair memory as a rule, if you happend to learn some new information while high on these drugs, the information is often better recalled when in the same condition than when sober - although this effect is seen primarily in free-recall tasks (e.g., a fill-in-the-blank question) as compared with recognition tasks (e.g., multiple-choice question).

Context-Dependent Memory

When retrieval of a memory is enhanced in contexts that were similar to the one that existed when the memory was encoded. An important type of external retrieval clue is context. Context-dependent memory describes situations in which retrieval of a memory is enhanced in contexts that were similar to the one that existed when the material was encoded.

Working Memory

Working memory is defined in different ways by different theorists, and is often used synonymously for (or in place of) short-term memory. As used here, the term describes "what happens" in short-term memory when information is manipulated or processed "online." A number of influential concepts that move beyond the modal model have recently become part of the accepted picture of human memory. Perhaps the most important of these concepts is working memory, most often associated with researcher Alan Baddeley. Although working memory may be defined in a number of different ways by different theorists (e.g., Cowan, 2005), it is probably best to think of working memory as a new way of looking at what happens in STM when information is manupulated or processed - for example, during maintenance rehersal, during the transfer of information from STM to LTM, or during the retrieval of material from LTM back into STM for "online" use. Thus, working memory might better be termed "working with memory." Because most of the time we actually are in some way manipulating and processing information while it is in short-term memory, some psychologists have come to use the term working memory in place of short-term memory.

Serial Position Curve

graph depicting both primacy and recency effects on people's ability to recall items on a list