Memory and amnesia lectures

Wade et al 2002

- Undergraduate participants - Obtained photos from family - Doctored 1 photo of being in balloon - Asked participants to recall events in 4 photos over 3 interviews - Over 50% of participants formed a partial or complete memory for the hot air balloon ride -in 1st interview, 40% of participants remembered false memory. increased with each interview. guided imagery used to help them think through what might have happened false memories are easy to implant.

Forensic Aspects of Dissociative Amnesia

-Fairly common for people charged with a serious crime to claim amnesia for the episode -is it malingering/faking amnesia, or is it actually dissociative amnesia? -Difficult to tell with certainty

Interference theory

-New memories compete with old memories but do not damage their neural representations (psychological) -New memories disrupt the neural synaptic connections that represented old memories (biological)

Sperling's (1964) Iconic memory experiment

-Presented matrix of letters for 50 ms on white screen - Report as many letters as possible -Subjects recall only half of the letters -Sperling's hypothesis: you have an entire record of what you saw but it fades so fast that you can only get through half of them. After stimulus was flashed: Sounded low, med, or high tone immediately after matrix disappeared --tone signaled one row to report --Recall of that row was almost perfect Hypothetical "icon" in your mind Estimated letters in the iconic image = # of letters reported from a row x # of rows what we see, we have the entire icon in our brains but it fades very quickly. the longer you wait, the worse you do (up to one second= 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 1). Immediately after, participants recall almost perfectly Did not know what they were going to be asked to report.

Video: the case of clive wearing

-Started with a headache (brain damage) and slowly lost the ability to remember things starting with his daughters name -moment to moment consciousness -Always thinks he's been awake for 2 minutes -Writes in a diary his schedule, writing the exact same thing each time. Does not recognize he wrote it- thinks he was unconscious -Ever repeating moment of awakening -cannot make new memories (amnesic) -bilateral temporal lobe damage

transient global amnesia (TGA)

-Sudden onset, severe memory impairment -Anterograde amnesia and temporally graded retrograde amnesia (can't make new memories, like normal MTL amnesia but temporary) ex. can remember childhood but not memories before trauma -Resolves within 24 hours -Usually occurs in people older than 50 -About 1/3rd of TGA cases are precipitated by physical or emotional stress

retroactive interference

-forgetting caused by subsequent learning -new memories 1. degrade neural representations of old memories or 2. compete with old memories

Features of TGA

-invariably leaves the patient with memory loss for events that occurred during the episode -occasionally some retrograde amnesia (a few hours to a few days before TGA) remains permanent -during TGA, anterograde amnesia is substantial and retrograde amnesia is temporally graded can copy rey-osterreith figure but cant remember it later (HM or EP MTL amnesia) give keywords, (bicycle) comes up with memories years ago, very few in last 20 years and almost none after the onset of amnesia looks a lot like MTL amnesia (anterograde + temporally graded retrograde amnesia) Consistent with neurological (organic) etiology = NOT a psychogenic etiology. maybe MTL amnesia, not getting enough blood flow to both sides of the brain, unknown

Lab testing of subjects with HSAM

-significantly better performance st recalling public as well as personal autobiographical events (personally experienced before) -however their performance was comparable to age and sex matched controls on most standard lab memory tests such as digit span (normal memory... only own personal life experiences) -they are not immune to memory distortions (false memory) Face-name-occupations task 17 HSAM and 17 controls participants learned two sets of 16 unfamiliar face-name F-N and 16 unfamiliar face-occupation F-O pairs. they were tested immediately 20 min later and 96 hours later. HSAM's are better on this task but not by much

Why do we forget?

-we forget in a curved linear faction (rapidly at first and continues to slow down) -Decay -Interference

Working memory (Baddeley's model)

1. Dual task methodology: -subjects perform 2 tasks at once -used to identify structure of short-term store 2. Common Results: -Visual tasks interfere with visual retention -Verbal tasks interfere with verbal retention 3. implications: -Multiple short-term memory systems -articulatory loop vs. visuo-spatial scratchpad

uncommon amnesias

1. Transient global Amnesia (TGA) -Anterograde and retrograde amnesia with sudden onset that resolves in about 24 hours 2. Dissociative Amnesia (Functional retrograde amnesia/psychogenic amnesia FRA) -sudden inability to recall a stressful time period (purely retrograde) 3. Dissociative Fugue (Functional retrograde amnesia/psychogenic amnesia FRA) -Sudden inability to recall personal identity + travel to a new location (purely retrograde)

Theories of infantile amnesia

1. the cognitive self Howe/Courage 1997 theorized that infants can only form autobiographical memories after they have developed a sense of self 2. Forgetting Encoding specificity- the earlier in life a memory was encoded, the less likely we are to encounter a relevant cue later in life (ex. no language at encoding) hard to get cue neurological maturation- early memories are not well consolidated therefore eventually succumb to retroactive interference Neurogenesis: high neurogenesis is in the infant hippocampus replaces synaptic connections in preexisting memory circuits. brain is making new neurons all the time. especially rapid in infants. new neurons replace synaptic connections before consolidation Traditional memory theory: during the first year of life, infants are only capable of simple non-declarative memory (cant form episodic memories) Rovee-collier 2009 ecological model: basic memory processes do not change with age (ie infants can also form declarative memories) -evidence for this model has been shown using: 1. mobile conjugate reinforcement 2. deferred imitation and sensory preconditioning

Spacing effect (Crepeda et al 2009)

2 learning sessions separated by an interval of time Spaced group: study for 1 hour --> 4 week gap --> study for 1 hour ---> test delay 24 weeks----> final test Massed group: study for 1 hour---> study for 1 hour ----> test delay 24 weeks----> final test spacers recalled 200% more: this is known as the spacing effect

diagnostic feature-detection hypothesis

A theory of discriminability that has its origins in perceptual learning theory 1940s-1960s simultaneously- find out which features that will and will not help you. innocent and guilty suspects share facial features- namely features that correspond to suspect description. common features are non diagnostic and should be discounted.

Dissociative amnesia

AKA psychogenic amnesia -the predominant disturbance is one or more episodes of inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness -usually induced by emotional stress cant be explained by forgetfulness stress-related, psychological defense mechanism.

Informal testing of HM

After his father's death HM was given protected employment. it is characteristic that he cannot give us any description of his place of work, the nature of his job, or the route along which he is driven each day After leaving the main highway, we asked him for help in locating his house. he promptly and courteously indicated to us several turns until we arrived at a street which he said was quite familiar to him he admitted that we were not at the right address. His mother revealed that they were on the street he used to live before his operation His comprehension of language is undisturbed. he can repeat and transform sentences with complex syntax and semantic ambiguity. he did well on timed tasks such as the block-design subtest of the wechsler scale . his success on these tests indicated thst spatial relationships as such cause little trouble more clear cut evidence of visual efficiency or a perceptual task comes from the MOONEY "closure" task in which the subject has to organize a face out of a chaotic black and white pattern with incomplete contour STM as measured by digit span and related tasks is unimpaired

Speech rate

As children get older, overt speaking rate increases and this tracks closely to their increase in memory span.

Flashbulb memory

Brown and kulik -special type of emotional memory -vivid and detailed memories of an emotional, usually shocking event ex. 9/11 -as if a flashbulb picture of the event was taken by your mind like a "print now" mechanism in your brain Talarico 2003 study on 9/11 more days that elapsed since the event, the more forgetting there was of the details of that day. forgetting function looks like forgetting function of everyday details. nothing special for flashbulb memories. number of correct details diminishes over time for both flashbulb and everyday memories. over time, belief in the accuracy of memories diminishes more for everyday memories than for flashbulb memories. believe you remember flashbulb memories better.

Memory for emotional vs neutral stimuli

Cahill et al 1996 Study 2 sessions of PET scan while subjects watched video clips -12 emotional video clips -12 neutral video clips test: free recall after 3 weeks emotional video clips better remembered. correlated with more activity in right amygdala. measured glucose metabolism in amygdala. the more activity in right amygdala, the better memory was for emotional clips. for neutral, no relationship at all.

Flashbulb memory accuracy

Cahill: arm in cold water--> the amygdala is activated and stress hormones are released --> better recall for emotional slides (simulates danger) Phelps: amygdala lit up for those closest to the world trade center on 9/11 these seem to contradict with the finding that flashbulb memories not remembered better than everyday memory. the amygdala is only activated in response to threats, people who have flashbulb memories about 9/11 did not necessarily experience physical; threat during the event.

Both are purely retrograde amnesias that appear to be psychogenic

Dissociative amnesia: -The patient suffers a loss of autobiographical (episodic) memory -This amnesia is commonly retrograde, in that it usually covers a fixed period of time before the precipitating event Dissociative fugue: -The amnesia is much more extensive and covers the whole of the individual's past life. -Fugue impairs semantic memory for personal information (loss of identity, failure to recognize family members), as well as episodic memory for personal experiences -And often physical travel to another location

amnesic patients

EP lost entire MTL bilaterally could not form new declarative memories; temporally graded retrograde amnesia HM lost most but not all of MTL very impaired in forming new declarative memories but could form new non-declarative memories; temporally graded retrograde amnesia KC loss most but not all MTL had extensive damage to other brain areas as well very impaired in forming new declarative memories but could form new non declarative memories; complete retrograde amnesia for episodic memory

The multimodal brain

Experience is the simultaneous activation of multiple/specialized regions of the brain

Misinformation effects

Eyewitnesses reconstruct memories when questioned about the event. ex. Car accident Depending on how you ask question- Group A: How fast were the cars going when they hit each other? (14% recalled seeing broken class) Group B: How fat were the cars going when they smashed into each other? (32% recalled seeing broken glass) Loftus results smashed - 42 mph collided - 39 mph bumped - 38 mph hit - 34 mph contacted - 32 mph

Murdock 1962

Free recall test: read out 30 words and try to recall as many words as possible people tend to recall the first word (primary effect), don't do well in the middle, and do well at the very end (recency effect)

short term memory capacity

Gathercole et al 2004 found that between the ages of 4 and 15, there were progressive improvements in all three components of the working memory system (phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad,. and central executive) Developmental changes in verbal storage only (phonological loop), complex memory span (central executive), and visuo-spatial memory (visuo-spatial sketchpad) between 4 and 15 expressed in mean z scores. get better until you age up until age 15. massive improvement in working memory throughout childhood.

phenomenon of retrograde facilitation

Hippocampal lesions inhibit both encoding and consolidation -encoding process inhibited: anterograde amnesia -consolidation process inhibited: temporally graded retrograde amnesia sleep, alcohol and benzodiazepines inhibit encoding only -encoding process selectively inhibited: anterograde amnesia -consolidation process intact: (anything that turns off encoding such as sleep/alcohol/benzodiazepines you learn that previously learned information better than you would have otherwise

revelations that came from HM

His procedural memories were intact he also suffered from temporarily graded retrograde amnesia

Craik and Tulving 1975

Incidental memory task (no rehearsal) manipulated depth of processing for. list of words: shallow (surface features) intermediate (phonemic processing deep (semantic processing) -80% recognized. understood what they meant -automatically encoded.

where are episodic memories in the brain?

Karl Lashley 1940 Studied the effect of brain lesions on the ability of rats to learn or remember a maze -Equipotentiality: the capacity of any cortical area to substitute for any other area for learning and memory. -Mass action: the reduction in memory is proportional to the amount of brain tissue destroyed. take out 10% of brain, 10% more difficulty etc Wilder Penfield 1940 -During surgery for epilepsy, studied temporal lobe neurons using electrical stimulation -~5% of patients reported vivid memories (moreso than when other parts of the brain were stimulated)

Discriminability vs response bias

Low- poor memory strength. unable to distinguish between new/old. amnesic high- can differentiate between new and old fairly well. young intact brain Response bias- Liberal vs. Conservative. liberal names most words as targets/old (red line to the left). conservative names most as foils/new (red line to the right). D prime can be the same but have different false alarm rates and hit rates depending on response bias.

Decay theory

Memories consist of formation of synaptic connections Forgetting consists of the natural loss of those connections (biological)

Properties of retrieval from long term memory

Memory is constructive (encoding) and reconstructive (retrieval)- fill in a forgotten detail memory retrieval is cue-dependent

How is information encoded in LTM

Original view: the more you rehearse, the more likely it is that information will be transferred from STM to LTM aka the Atkinson/Shiffrin model Subsequent view: memory is a product of the cognitive operations engaged during learning (levels of processing)

How is info encoded in LTM

Original view: the more you rehesrse, the more likely it is that information will be transferred from STM to LTM (atkinson/shiffrin model) subsequent view: memory is a byproduct of the cognitive operations engaged during learning (levels of processing)

MTL structures

PR perirhinal cortex EC entorhinal cortex PH parahippocampal cortex Hippocampus All MTL structures play a role in declarative memory but the hippocampus is the most important

Visual paired-associate nonword learning

PV makes some progress by only using visual sketchpad

Auditory paired-associate word learning

Pairs of words test memory tell me 2nd word later Study: smoke-cabin case-water game-date ... ... Test: Smoke- case- game- P.V. learns at the same rate as everyone else can understand and make semantic sense of words instead of using phonological loop

Role of experimental psychologists

Planting false memories of childhood event through imagining suspected scenario over and over (guided imagery)

receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve

Plots hit rates against false alarms rates. Each line represents a particular level of sensitivity, and different points on given line represent different response criteria at the same level of sensitivity. closer to line, worse memory is. one curve with multiple plots is all the same D prime (memory). liberal is to the right, conservative is to the left. higher the ROC, the better your memory is (higher D prime)

Retrieving memories from declarative long term memory

Recall: -Calling to mind something that is not present -Free recall: "recall all words from the list in any order" -Cued Recall: "Recall professions from the list" Recognition -deciding whether or not a currently presented stimulus was recently encountered "Did 'apple' appear on the list?" or "have you seen this face before" (declarative) Those without a hippocampus have trouble with free call and recognition

Phonological loop

Responsible for maintenance rehearsal Designed for speech-based rote rehearsal Accounts for phonological confusions Accounts for word length effect: -memory span depends on word length not 7+/-2 -Can maintain more digits than 2-syllable words -Digit span = # of items you can say in 2 seconds Not item based, but time based

Formal testing of HM

Rey osterreith complex figure Declarative memory is profoundly and selectively impaired 1. copy figure 2. reproduce from memory 10 min later

Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin Environment--> Sensory memory--> Short-term memory--> long-term memory Sensory input--> sensory memory (Vision, hearing, taste etc.) --attention--> Short-term memory: 7+/-2 items (rehearsal = repeating) --encoding--> long-term memory (virtually unlimited capacity) rehearsal keeps ST memory alive Hippocampus needed to get memories into long-term memory (bilateral medial temporal regions)

SD vs Dementia of Alzheimer's type

SD- right TL is ok, left TL is deteriorated, hippocampus is ok. anterior pole is shrunken DAT- temporal lobes are fine, hippocampus is shrunken . first starts, JUST LIKE MTL AMNESIA. hippocampus deteriorating on both sides of brain

Retrieval practice Karpicke 2006

Students asked to read a text -after 2 min delay, they either 1. read text again (study-study condition) or 2. were given a written recall test (study-test condition) 5 min later, similar scores over the course of 1 week, study-test group forgot much less

Memory for chess positions

Study chess positions for 10 s interfering activity for 10 s -articulatory-loop suppression (ALS): repeating a word aloud -Visual-sketchpad suppression (VSSP): push keys on calculator Reproduce chess positions Visual interference- significantly lower scores Verbal interference ALS- significantly higher scores (almost the same as control group w/ no interference)

Case Study: P.V. Baddeley, Papagno, Vallar

Subject: Italian female b. 1951 left hemisphere stroke in 1977 Functioning: Very short digit-span ex. 2 digits impaired on verbal not visual normal recall of meaningful material normal performance on visuo-spatial tasks normal functioning in everyday life

Retrieval practice Karpicke 2006

Subjects learned 40 swahili-english pairs over 8 study/test cycles ex. Mashua-boat; Leso-scarf 4 groups differed in how pairs were treated once a word was successfully recalled: ST: study-test all 40 pairs, 8 cycles SNT: re-study only not-yet-recalled pairs (always test all 40) STN: re-study all 40, only test not-yet-recalled pairs SNTN: re-study and-re test only not-yet-recalled pairs (this is recommended by many educators) Final recall test 1 week later: ST and SNT groups remembered ~80% STN and SNTN only recalled ~30%

Highlighting (Fowler and Barker 1974)

Subjects read 8000 word article from scientific American 3 groups: -active highlighters (subjects told to highlight "particularly important" text) -passive highlighters (text is pre-highlighted) -read only spend 10 min looking over article; take test Results: no difference highlighting does not put anything into LTM numerous experiments have examined efficacy of highlighting usual finding is reading with highlighting = reading without highlighting highlighting is probably ineffective because it does not require understanding Caveat: highlighting is fine if aim is to merely mark the location

Bransford and Johnson (1972)

Subjects were read a paragraph 3 groups: - not told what the paragraph is about -Told what the paragraph is about before hearing it -Told what the paragraph is about after hearing it Subjects asked to recall the paragraph as best as they could those who were told before, were able to better comprehend and recall the paragraph

Patient H.M.

The late Henry Molaison, a patient who was unable to encode new declarative memories because of surgical removal of medial temporal lobe structures. Suffered from intractable epilepsy since age 7 neurosurgeon william scoville localized HM's epilepsy to his medial temporal lobe and suggested surgical resection 8/1953, scoville removed parts of HM's medial temporal lobe on both sides of his brain After surgery HM had a significant improvement in seizures, but he was left with severe memory impairment and could not form new long term declarative memories (anterograde amnesia) all other aspects of intellectual functioning were preserved

Cue-Dependent nature of retrieval

Thomson and Tulving 1970 study lists: 24 pairs of weak associates -lady-queen -head-light After ea list, cued recall Lady- head- After 4th list of weak associates, Use strong cues fro some (king-) and weak cues for others (head-) Results: Strong cues: 25% recalled Weak cues: 75% recalled

Memory is constructive & reconstructive

While encoding and retrieving memories, we unconsciously use a previously learned semantic memory (a schema) to encode a coherent memory or to make a recalled episode more coherent

Memory is reconstructive

While retrieving memories, we unconsciously fill in missing pieces of information to make a recalled episode more coherent.

Memory

____ is the process by which we encode, store and retrieve information

long-term potentiation (LTP)

a process whereby communication across the synapse between neurons strengthens the connection, making further communication easier ex. send high voltage signals to pre synaptic neuron, making it fire (strong electrical signals an analog of an experience) now we want to test if neuron remembers experience. use standard test pulse and see how strong the response is in the postsynaptic neuron. with the same test pulse before, there was a med response, after high voltage train of electricity, same test pulse ilicits stronger response. synaptic connection is stronger (more receptors, changes in presynaptic neuron branching) neural basis for memory in brain. tends to degrade over time. changes will slip away causing decay

Eyewitness confidence and accuracy

act of testing memory contaminates it. should look at identification 1 and not identification 2. test right at the beginning before contamination. low confidence IDs sre error prone. high confidence suspect IDs are highly accurate apply to first uncontaminated memory tests only and to fair lineups only. response latency: if face recognition doesn't happen before 30 seconds, its unlikely to happen at all. most accurate between 0 and 5 seconds.

Role of the amygdala in emotional and non emotional memory

adolphs et al 1997 don't need amygdala to form memories. without it (bilateral amygdala lesions) wouldn't be amnesic but no emotional enhancement. be like any other memory -Studied 2 rare patients with bilateral amygdala lesions -participants were presented win an audiovisual story (12 slides + narrative) concerning neutral and emotionally arousing material. the most emotionally arousing slide showed surgically repaired legs of a car crash victim multiple choice memory test for the slides 1 week later Results: for emotionally arousing slide, amount of material is about the same for patient 1 as it is for other slides. for control the emotionally arousing slide was remembered the best. people remember emotionally arousing slide better than all others. emotional enhancement. for patient 2, controls remembered very well. for 2 it was just another slide. memory for non emotional slides: control 54.7% and 47.3% for patients Emotional slides: 91.5% for controls, 38.5% for patients

implicit/procedural memory in childhood

age effects on non declarative/implicit memory are typically much smaller than those on explicit or declarative memory finn et al 2015 found an adult advantage for declarative LTM and working memory WM measures, but not for procedural measures children as witnesses: -are more suggestible than adults (memory more likely to be influenced by misleading information) -in order to give children the best chance of providing accurate testimony, their memory needs to be tested under fair and unbiased conditions. when unbiased wording is used, recall is more or less equally high across the range, but under biased conditions younger children are more easily misled

Dissociative fugue

aka psychogenic fugue -the predominant disturbance is 1. sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's customary place of work, with 2. inability to recall one's past (including loss of identity) -usually induced by emotional stress

deferred limitation and sensory preconditioning

an association between two stimuli that is established even if they are not rewarded or reinforced for doing so (ie prior to imitation task) put two stimuli together to form association since they are seen together procedure: phase 1 involved just pairing two objects together (pink rabbit and yellow duck hand puppets) phase 2 involved modeling an action with one object (removing mitten from puppet's hand a and shaking it to ring an attached bell) remember nondeclarative memory is rigid; doesn't transfer to anything else. declarative memory is much more flexible. want to see if babies' memory of this action is flexible or not Phase 3 involved testing whether the infant would repeat the modeled action when presented with other object. trasnfers action to new object..? phase 2 modeling always happened 24 hours before phase 3 test. phase 1 happened either 7, 14 or 18 days ago 18 days: no imitation. forgotten 7/24 days: do show imitation; evidence that infants have declarative memory

paired association learning conclusion

as an infant, all sounds are unfamiliar/foreign. phonological loop is needed to repeat and hold it in memory until they are made sense of

accumulation of knowledge (semantic memory)

as we grow up we gain knowledge of all kinds. memory is generally better when the learner can relate what they are learning to relevant stored knowledge "understanding is memorizing" this is not an effect of age but instead an effect of expertise ex. immediate recall of chess positions and digits in children age 10 with expert knowledge of chess and in adults with limited knowledge of chess

Patient KC

born in 1951 at age 30, motorcycle incident diffuse brain lesions (unlike HM) including MTL Prior semantic knowledge seems intact: -knows birthdate -knows location of cottage owned by parents -knowledge of math, history and other subjects still intact Episodic memory is utterly impaired: -no recollection of previously experienced events -this retrograde amnesia is not temporally graded (ie episodic memory amnesia from birth to present) -no ability to form new episodic memories (anterograde amnesia) cant remember his brother's wedding or death but has semantic memory of it. (knows it happened but knows no detail) Semantic knowledge test: Medicine cured hiccup Vacationer attracted mosquito medicine cured ___________ vacationer attracted _________ 64 pairs over 12 sessions KC recalled ~50% of the target words but does not remember the learning trials

diagnosticity ratio

correct id rate/false id rate. (whichever value is higher is "better" ) high ratio = more conservative. one roc is one memory strength condition incorrect measure.

Tulving's encoding specificity principle

cue facilitates retrieval only if it was encoded with the to-be remembered item. Weak cues were effective because they were encoded with the to-be-remembered word Strong cues were not effective even though they could be used to generate the right answer

ventral/dorsal stream

dorsal = where things are pathway. parietal lobe (may also be a learned "how" pathway) ventral = what things are pathway. temporal lobe

proactive interference

forgetting caused by prior learning psychological competition -prior memories compete with new memories

Luck & Vogel (1997)

found that participants could detect a change in a display if the display contained 4 or fewer items. 1-.3 items was ~100% correct Performance suffered when more than 4 items were in the display Sample array if colored shapes for 100 ms. Delay for 900 ms. Test array until response: is this the same or different from what you saw previously. Performance declines precipitously w/ lists of 3 or 4 items. this is the capacity of visual STM. Same estimate that Cowan (2001) came up with for verbal STM.

DRM paradigm

given a list of words to look at, then presented words at random and asked if the word is new or old. "lures" were related words to the list studied. subjects often claim to vividly remember hearing/seeing the critical non-studied word.

uncommon memory abilities

highly superior autobiographical memory (hyperthymesia) James McGaugh at uci discovered individuals with highly superior autobiographical memory -they can remember days of their lives with uncanny accuracy as if they had a personal mental calendar -individuals are otherwise "normal" AJ a woman who's memory dominates her life. excessive amount of time recalling her personal past with considerable accuracy and reliability. hyperthymestic syndrome

perceptual learning is both non conscious and extremely specific

improved ability to detect one target does not transfer to another target i.e. learning is extremely specific implications: -non-conscious (procedural learning involves neurons in visual cortex -Conscious (declarative) learning requires the hippocampus

emotion of memory

in the MTL, the amygdala plays a key role in emotional memory. what makes memory stick, is their ability to arouse our emotions. stress hormone help to solidify memory still forming in the brain. (look at pictures then put arm in ice water to induce hormone. these ppl remembered better) not all emotional events are remembered the same. in men, emotional events turn on only the right amygdala. in women, only the left amygdala is activated. (hypothesis- right brain focuses on the gist and left focuses on details) man and woman have an argument-not storing the exact same emotion in the same way

GRE vocab learning (Kornell 2009)

in the spaced condition, word pairs were studied in a single large "stack" of 20 cards; in the massed condition, the word pairs were split into 4 smaller stacks of 5 cards each the materials were synonyms (ex. affulgent: brilliant). in both conditions, every word pair was presented for self-paced study 4x spaced group remembered more

recovered memory epidemic 1990

in therapy, adult victims would recover memories of having been sexually abused by their parents during childhood charges would be brought against parents guilty verdicts were reached based only on the recovery of repressed traumatic memory of being abused the book "the courage to heal" by ellen bass and laura davis made assertions based on no research or data. they claimed that if you have a feeling you went through something abusive, you probably did, to trust your intuition and assume feelings are valid and demands for proof are unreasonable need corroborative evidence. false memories look just like real memories. memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be recovered later. but it is also possible to construct convincing pseudomemories for events that never happened. independent corroboration is essential

Prosopagnosia

inability to recognize faces (FFA damage) supported b the fusiform face area FFA of the temporal lobe lies along the ventral/"what" pathway affects previous experience and newly experienced faces (retrograde and anterograde) recognize through voice, clothing, hair etc.

Misinformation effect

incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event

Semantic Dementia (SD)

initially affected in anterior temporal lobe aka temporal pole (beginning stages = mainly stays in temporal pole) -difficulty naming objects (not just temporary word-finding problem) -difficulty understanding words and objects -the ENTIRE concept (eg. fruit) seems degraded. what is it? what do you do with it? where is it from? etc. -sometimes extends to difficulty recognizing people

Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement Task

introduced the causal contingency paradigm in which infants show initial learning through their increased rate of kicking. collier's causal contingency paradigm during baseline, when kicking cannot activate the mobile and during acquisition, when the ankle ribbon is attached to the mobile. memory is tested a few days after training if context is changed (ex. music on during learning but off during test), thereby changing the retrieval cue, memory is worse --> cue-dependent declarative memory. cue-dependent memory is declarative memory. (tulving's encoding specificity principle says if you present a cue that was present at the time of learning, it will increase the odds of retrieval. music is retrieval cue. music is playing at time infant is moving foot, so encoded along with the mobile moving. then if its present at retrieval a few days later, it enhances their memory and they remember and kick their foot more compared to if you don't have that music playing

signal detection theory

items on a recognition memory test generate a memory strength signal that comes in every shade of memory strength: low, med, high (just like height) when you see the targets that you studied, they generate a fairly strong average memory signal. everyone will have a different strength. foils/lures will generate a memory signal but will be a relatively low signal on average. Has to be a distribution. not all foils will generate the same low memory strength. gaussian variability. cant be perfect bc distributions overlap. some foils will generate strong signals and some targets will generate weak signals. if you could study for an hour, the distributions would be very far apart. false alarm is when a foil generates a strong memory signal and you call it old.

Cue overload principle

long term memory is cue-dependent (ex. Tulving's encoding specificity principle) -The more memories associated with a cue, the less each memory is activated by that cue. (consistent with both retroactive and proactive interference) ex. learn something with a given cue, then learn something else with the same cue, will have trouble remembering because there's more than one thing associated with the same cue

Bayley and squire 2002

maybe priming and not semantic memory -tested patient EP, a dense amnesic with complete bilateral MTL lesions similar to HM learned 48 3-word phrases ex. speech caused laughter control studied list 2x, EP studied list 24x over 12 weeks (synonym test: speech triggered laughter) EP did not do well EP's learning does NOT appear to reflect the acquisition of new declarative semantic memories. instead, his learning appears to reflect non declarative memory because his ability to complete 3 word sentences was not accompanied by conscious knowledge (eg confidence was low) and his learning was inflexible, unlike controls, whose performance was resilient to modifications in the test stimuli

autobiographical memory

memory related to an individual's life combination of episodic and semantic memory normal older adults 40+ often experience the reminiscence bump (increased recollection from adolescence and early adulthood) remember more details from that period of rime

Tests of procedural memory

mirror drawing task: Trace figure while looking in a mirror Control subjects get better with repetitive training HM also improved with repeated training Procedural memory is intact. Cannot recall ever having performed this task before (no declarative memory for having performed the task) surgery affected conscious declarative memory but not procedural memory. Repetition priming: study list of words Fill in the blanks with first word that comes to mind HM shows normal priming. more likely to use a word if you have seen it recently priming is observed Visual Search Focus on one triangle orientation. 300 ms ex. say whether or not theres a target pointing down/up/left/right performance improved over time learning is specific to target. cannot switch targets (will get poor results without practice)

Learning strategies

not useful: repetition/rehearsal highlighting massed study Useful: self-explanation retrieval practice spacing

wrongful convictions

of 161 DNA exoneration cases involving eyewitness misidentification, 57% or 91, indicated uncertain eyewitness identification. test result came back inconclusive for all 91. not bc of unreliable eyewitnesses but the inconclusive nature of their IDs were ignored.

where are emotional memories stored?

phillips and leDoux 1992 how different brain lesions affect a rat's emotional memory tested rats with no lesion (control), cortex lesions, amygdala lesions and hippocampus lesions Day 0: put into chamber without shock Day 1-2: acquisition. shocked. getting conditioned. hear tone and freeze. learning to freeze when you play tone Day 3+: extinction period. only play tone to see how long they freeze for. start forgetting tgat they got shocked. eventually no longer freeze when tone is played Control: 1st curve- after 1-2 days, freeze 10 sec, 20 sec at day 2, after day 3, number goes down. unconditioned bc no longer getting shocked. non declarative memory. 2nd curve- triggered by contexts only. no tone and no shock but they remember they were shocked there before, so they freeze. how long was recorded. this is episodic memory/context conditioning length of freezing increases in acquisition period and decreases in extinction period Amygdala lesion: little or no freezing throughout course. damage to amygdala completely eliminated their behavior responses to the shock interferes with acquisition to freezing to both context and the tone Hippocampus lesion: very little freezing pre-tone period (normal rats would freeze because they recognize the context). barely freezed. still exhibited the normal pattern of freezing in the presence of the tone. hippocampus is needed for episodic memory (context related response) but not needed for them to have the nondeclarative memory aspect. still fear tone but will not fear the context without hippocampus Cortex lesion: same pattern of freezing as the controls conclusion: -emotional aspects of a memory are stored in the amygdala -other aspects of memory are probably elsewhere in the neocortex selective effects of lesions on declarative memory -lesion color processing areas of neocortex --> color aspects of prior memories eliminated -lesion emotion processing areas of the brain (amygdala) --> emotional aspects of prior memories eliminated

Confidence-accuracy relationship

recall that there is a strong relationship of confidence and accuracy in eyewitness memory then why might people remain relatively more confident about their flashbulb memories despite them not being accurate? when you remember an event, you retrieve not just memory but emotions associated with memory too. for the amygdala to light up, it had to have been activated in the first place. it activated for the people who literally feared for their lives, in the building during 9/11 etc. afraid of dying = amygdala lights up. most people, their amygdala probably did not light up. not in fear, see it on the tv. (limited forgetting if they were actually there). not accurate flashbulb memory. if you tested those in danger, they would have remembered. can be highly accurate if highly distinctive, emotional and potentially life-changing events. + contamination

MTL amnesia vs semantic dementia

rey osterrieth figure: semantic dementia just like controls (MTL patients cant remember even copying the figure.) no problem copying and remembering. episodic memory is not an issue. (no damage to hippocampus)

Why are simultaneous lineups diagnostically superior?

simultaneous lineups make it easier to appreciate the existence of shared and therefore non-diagnostic features (everyone in lineup as similar features meaning that those features won't decide who is guilty because everyone in lineup has them) other five features you didn't describe that the suspect will have. enhanced awareness of non-diagnostic features makes it easier for eyewitnesses to focus on diagnostic features which helps them to tell the difference between innocent and guilty suspects

recognition failure of recallable words

study word pairs for cued recall lady-queen head-light Present unexpected recognition test (choose words you recognize from the list) queen, tank, phone, light... Follow with cued recall test lady- head- Finding: very often words not recognized will be recalled

Auditory paired-associate nonword learning

study: smoke-labin case-wazr game-dete P.V. makes 0 progress. after 10 trials, she learns 0 of the word pairs. Without phonological loop, she cannot make immediate connections. need to hold on to sound and find way to associate words since the second words have no meaning.

Self-explanation (Smith et al 2010)

subjects read bio text 1/2 were occasionally interrupted and asked to explain chapter 1/2 read and reread chapter subjects later tested Results: explainers outscored re-readers

LH

suffered head injury in accident. cannot identify faces of family or famous people in photographs can recognize objects but not animals

learning styles

the idea that students learn better if instructional method matches student's learning style (ex. visual, verbal etc.) conclusions - students have different preferences. combining multiple approaches can help. (text with diagram may be better than either one alone) optimal approach varies by topic (ex. geometry requires visual instruction, english requires verbal) NO evidence for "customized" instruction

what explains highly superior autobiographical memory

there could be brain differences but no obvious ones have been identified -OCD tendencies from a young age, AJ would become upset when order in her environment was disturbed -she kept a daily diary for 32 years as a way of maintaining control over her environment hoarding behavior is also common obsessed with own autobiographical life key point: their superior memory abilities have to do with autobiographical personal memories in particular, not to non-personal memories like lists of words or numbers

simultaneous vs sequential lineups in the real world

two police department field studies involving actual eyewitnesses to a crime both found evidence in favor of simultaneous lineups (consistent with mock crime lab studies) -psychological scientists attempted to understand memory without the benefit of a guiding theory (signal detection theory) -instead of relying on a simple theory, they relied on intuition which led them to use the wrong measure (diagnosticity ratio)

memory strategies

verbal rehearsal, mnemonics (elaborative processing) -present a list of categorized items (4 professions, 4 animals etc,.) randomly intermixed -adults will organize the words at recall (ex. the professions will be recalled together), indicating that they organized the items at encoding older children more likely than younger children to understand and employ these strategies

Memory in childhood

what is your earliest memory? most adults cant remember much of anything from before they were ~3 years old. younger children (5-9) can remember things from ~1.5 years of age onward, but those early memories eventually disappear. this phenomenon is called infantile amnesia Tustin/Hayne 2010 study of earliest memories of children between 5 and 9 were from 1.5 years sheingold/tenney 1982 when college students were asked to recall the birth of a sibling, they remembered virtually nothing if the event had occurred before they were 3 y/o: example of infantile amnesia

Memory athletes

world memory championships began in 1991 and have increased in popularity psychologists in memory are taking noticed lab testing: variety of memory tasks completed across 3 days -memory for lists of words, nonwords, working memory also interested in tests measuring the construct of attentional control- how well people focus or concentrate on a specific task while ignoring some competing demand: stroop color/word interference show superior recall: controls recall 10% memory athletes remember 70% attentional control name color of ink of each word. experience interference. enhanced attentional control for memory athletes- much faster (better attention and control) show exceptional recall on standard memory tasks (kind of tasks they have practiced a lot) often rely on techniques related to spatial memory and navigation (ex. method of loci) they also show better attentional control as reflected by stroop interference -it is not that they have better brains for memorizing like a bigger hippocampus. instead, it seems that they are better at focusing intensively on the task and screening out irrelevant information (inhibitory control)