Psychology- Chapter 7 - memory
Behavioural Level of dementia
severe memory loss, disorientation
3 methods of improving memory retention for exams?
1. Use deep encoding - relate material to other knowledge that you already have 2. Doing practice tests- practice what you will be doing in the exam, try to recreate the exam situation by doing practice test 3. Use distributed practice
Miller's Magic Number
7 plus or minus 2 is the number of items that can be stored in the short term memory. This can be enhanced to upwards of 20 by chunking
Chunking
A short-term memory strategy that involves mentally rearranging many pieces of information into a familiar and meaningful pattern; a single chunk can represent a wealth of information
Keppel massed VS distributed practice study
All students studied a list of words 8 times, One group had all the 8 study trial on the same day ( mass practice) The other group studied the list two times four days in a row (distributed practice) FINDINGS: interestingly, the masses practice group did slightly better on the day after the test, however distributed group did much better on a test a week later.
phonological encoding
Based on how the word sounds Example: Does the word Rhyme with "cat"? Level: Intermediate
visual encoding
Based on physical properties of the word Example: is the words in capital letters Level: Shallow
semantic encoding
Based on the meaning of the word Example: Does the word fit in this sentence? " He met a___ on the street" Level: Deep
Why does encoding specificity aid with memory
Because if you are in the same environment this increases the likelihood that the original pattern of connections will get reactivated.
Brain level of dementia
Brain deterioration in areas including in the hippocampus i.e, the memory center of the brain
short-term memory (STM)
Can store limited amounts of information for an indefinite amount of time but it order for information to stay in STM, it must be rehearsed, without rehearsal STM can only hold information for a few seconds
massed practice
Clustering the repetition
Diving club experiment of encoding specificity
Diving clubs learned a list of words either on land or 20 feet underwater (study), then remembered that list either on land or 20 feet underwater (test) Recreation of the external conditions of study at the time of test led to better recall
context-dependent learning
External cues -- where you were
What Clive wearing's case shows us about memory
He is able to retain how to play the piano (implicit memory) but is unable to retain new information His case also shows the difference between STM and LTM as he can understand a sentence but cannot retain that information as to have a conversation
state-dependent learning
Internal cues -- how you felt
retrograde amnesia
Loss of memory for something that happened prior to a brain injury
Can we isolate age-related memory decline to either encoding or retrieving?
NOPE- there is evidence for both
source monitoring error experiment
Part 1: participants read names of non famous people Part 2: Participants were tasked to identify which names were of famous people off a list composed on famous people, non famous peoples names they had just made and other non famous names Results: There where able to determine famous VS non famous names Part 3: After 24 hours participants were asked to do the same test as part 2 Results: Participants identified some non famous people that they had read in part 1 as being famous FINDINGS: Humans reorganize information in memory to fit categories that describe our world, so they can be inaccurate. We fill in the missing information with what "fits" our belief system or expectations about the world (schemas), in other words we reconstruct our memories
Brewer & Trevens schema experiment
Participants waited in an office, then participants were called into another room. The participants where asked to recall how many of certain objects (books) where in the office. Some of the given items where actually in the office however some where not. This showed that many participants had a SCHEMA , as many of them stated that there where ___ number of book sin the office as they expected there to be books when infect there where none
whole report vs partial report condition
Participants were shown a grid of letters for a very short period of time. WHOLE REPORT CONDITION - they where asked to recall as many letters as they could remember. -- averaged 4.5 /12 (54%) PARTIAL REPORT CONDITION - after the letters where gone they were told to recall a specific line -- averaged 3.3/4 (83%) Hypothesis for discrepancy in % -- 1. Participants only saw that many letters in the time duration 2. Participants saw most or all of the letters but sensory memory faded too rapidly Findings: #2 is correct because participants in the partial report did not know which line they would be asked to recall
Roediger and McDermott's DRM test on false memories
Read a list of word to participants and then asked them to recall as many words as they could. Participants would often remember a word being said when it was not as they had predetermined associations with that word. Example: Frost, Arctic, Air, Shiver, Weather, Freeze Participants added word COLD
repressed memories and Freud
Real memories that have been pushed out of consciousness because they are emotionally threatening. Freud proposed that this is a "defence mechanism" but that we can "recover" these memories in psychotherapy and that it may be therapeutic to do so
What three areas is there little evidence of a memory decline with aging
Semantic memory Procedural memory Priming
distribute practice
Spacing the repetitions of to-be remembered information out over time
What distinguished the three stages of memory?
Span - how much information you can store in each stage Duration - how long that information can be stored for
sensory memory
Stores a lot of information but for very brief periods due to constant updating
Study that shows deficiencies in encoding may be tied to increased difficulties with attention
Study phase: Younger and older adults listened to melodies under three conditions 1. Intentional encoding--they were told to listen and remember for later 2. Dancing judgement-- say whether a rhythm is a march of a waltz - no mention of later memory test 3. Intentional and dancing judgement-- Same as 1) but with dancing judgment Test phase: indicate if they had heard the melody before FINDINGS: Shows that there is an encoding deficiency as they are not able to encode as well as younger adults but it is dependent on the amount of attention they put before the task at hand
Tip-of-theTongue Phenomenon
The inability to recall a word while knowing it is in memory. Memory retrieval issue
Neural level of dementia
The protein involved in production and growth of neurons stops working, Resulting in tangled clumps of cells that fall apart and disintegrate
How does the brain remember words?
There is overlap between memories IE if you start remembering one thing you remember other things EVIDENCE: People are faster at deciding "A canary is a bird" if a true statement rather than " A canary is an animal" because of the "number of links away" those words are stored in our memory
Chase and Simon chunking chess experiment
They compared expert and beginner chess players ability to recall positions of chess pieces #1 The pieces were in random positions on the board FINDINGS: There was very little difference from expert and beginner players in recall which showed that experts did not have innately better memories #2 The pieces were in real game positions FINDINGS: the experts recalled way more of the pieces positions which showed that experts used their memory differently probably using chunking which allowed them to remember less items
Encoding
Transforming information for storage in the long term memory
Inhibition method for rehearsal
Try to rember 3 letters while you count backwards in your head by 3s from 100 On average after 10-15 the memory of the letters was gone
episodic memory
Type of explicit memory memory of events in which we can remember our own participation "mental time travel" E.X - where you spent you 17th birthday
semantic memory
Type of explicit memory memory of facts "knowing" E.X chemical formula for table salt is NaCl
Priming
Type of implicit memory the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory
Schema
a conceptual framework a person uses to make sense of the world, expectations about our environment
hyperthymestic syndrome
a condition in which an individual possesses a superior autobiographical memory, meaning he or she can recall the vast majority of personal experiences and events in his or her life.
memory self-efficacy with age
a person's belief in his or her own potential to perform well on memory tasks Older people have the societal belief there memory will decline with age so they have less belief in their own age which makes it become a self-fulfilling prophecy
Depth of processing model
a theory of memory suggesting that how deeply something is encoded has an effect on its memorability -- using what the words mean Methods: Visual encoding, Phonological encoding, Sematic encoding
N-back task
a working memory task; the participant must decide whether the currently presented stimulus is the same as the one presented immediately before (1-back) or two items before (2-back) or three items before (3-back), etc
long-term potentiation (LTP)
an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory
echoic memory
auditory sensory memory
Three Memory Model
sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory
flashbulb memories
detailed and vivid memory of where we were and what we were doing when an important event happened, thought to be specially resistant to decay, people claim to remember things vividly. These memories can actually be wrong and modified just like any memory
procedural memory
implicit memory that involves motors skills How to ride a bike
working memory (WM)
information that can be stored and manipulated at the same time Example: How do you calculate 17*24 in your head? Done in steps
Dementia
is an "umbrella" term for a number of neurocognitive disorders including - Alzheimer's disease - Huntington's disease - Lou Gehrig's disease - Parkinson's disease
implicit memory
memories we don't deliberately remember or reflect on consciously Priming or procedural
explicit memory
memories we recall intentionally and of which we have conscious awareness 1. Episodic 2. Semantic
mnemonics
memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices 1. Keywords: the use of imagery to relate known words to to-be-remembered words 2. Method of place: the be remembered items are imagined at intervals along a route. During recall the route is mentally traced
source monitoring error
misidentification of the source of a memory
reminiscence bump
older adults have the most autobiographical events from age 10-30 that they could remember
serial position effect
our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (a primacy effect) in a list INTERPRETATION: some of the items have entered LTM (primacy effect) while some are still in the STM ( recency effect) EVIDENCE: if you block rehearsal (E.X count backwards) then the regency effect disapears but not the primacy
encoding specificity
phenomenon of remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information are similar to the conditions under which we encoded it Can be Context-dependent learning, or state-dependent learning
Pollyanna Principle
pleasant memories are more likely to be recalled than unpleasant memories
Study that showed retrieval deficiencies through tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon
presented people with Faces of politicians and celebrities they where supposed to answer the persons name, they could respond that they "know", "don't know", "TOT". As to verify if the person actually had it on the tip of there tongue they where presented a multiple choice list of names. If they go it correct they it was recorded as a true TOT FINDINGS: Older adults had far more cases of TOT
associative deficit hypothesis
proposal that age-related decline is not related to single memories but in making connections between memories
maintenance rehearsal
rehearsal that involves repetition without any consideration of meaning or making connections -- this process works fine as long as you are not distracted
elaborative rehearsal
rehearsal that involves thinking about the meaning of an item to be remembered or making connections between that item and prior knowledge, can be more effective for getting information from STM to LTM
long-term memory (LTM)
stores large amount of information for very long periods of time and maybe permanently
Putting the name to the face study
study phase: participants were presented with name/face pairs they where told they would be tested on their memory of 1) Names 2) faces 3) name-face pairs Test phase: Face recognition -- presented with face pairs - "Which face did you see before? Name recognition -- presented with name pairs - "Which name did you see before?" Name-face associative recognition -- presented with "a) two faces and a name and b) two names an a i) face / ii) name did you dee before" FINDINGS: Older adults didn't differ from young on just name or face recognition but were impaired on name-face associative recognition
anterograde amnesia
the inability to form new memories after a brain injury
Retrieval (memory process)
the process of getting information out of memory storage Long term to short term
rehearsal
the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about the information as to keep it in the STM
iconic memory
visual sensory memory