Prep 10

. Learning & Memory.

5 Things:

Forgetting

Balrick

Memory systems

Interference

Unreliable memory

Class 10 Notes

Forgetting Overview

• Some things are easier to forget than others
• How much you forget depends on the knowledge domain
• store things in various memory systems
• retrieve them with various levels of success
• Ebbinghaus
  • Not good at remembering nonsense syllables or isolated words
    • verbal learning is linear
    • forgetting verbal learning is nonlinear
  • Learning is a function of time spent
    • longer you study the more you learn
  • Forget the majority of facts very quickly
    • within the first few hours
    • after the first day, decline is more gradual

Bahrick (1975)

• Better at remembering names and faces
  • memory for names and faces depends on the task
  • studied nearly 400 people
  • Ss varied in age from 17 to 74
• Foreign language memory can last for years
  • takes a dip between 40-50 years old
  • better initial learning, longer the knowledge remains
  • similar Ebbinghaus’ syllables
  • tend to forget a language we don’t use
  • forgetting starts rapidly before it tapers off
  • some memories remain = permastores (mental permafrost)
• Picture-name memory can last for years
  • takes a dip between 40-50 years old
• Picture recognition: very good; given a picture, tell if former classmate
• Name recognition: quite good; given a name, tell if former classmate
  • in contrast, college teachers remember names of their students more than faces
• Name matching: fairly good; given a name, find name
• Picture matching: fairly good; given a picture, find picture
• Picture cuing: not very good; given picture, find name
• Free recall: not very good at recalling names with no cues

Memory Systems

Declarative Memory

• knowledge you know that you know (can declare)

Semantic Memory

• Long-term memory of world knowledge & general information
• nonsense syllables
• foreign languages
• Requiresconscious thought to learn
• soon becomes automatic
• your name

• Episodic Memory
  • long-term memory ofevents, experiences and autobiographical information
  • stories of your life
• Semantic & episodic memory systems work together
  • semantic memory = Austin is the capital of Texas
  • episodic memory = whether or not you have ever been there
  • appears to decrease at about 5% per year (Linton, 1975)
  • similar to forgetting how to ride a bike
• Implicit Memory (procedural memory)
  • automatic
  • can’t explain how you do these tasks
  • learned “how” to do something, instead of “what”
  • brush your teeth, put on your clothes and walk across street

Muscle memory

• not stored in muscles
• uses cerebellum and limbic system of brain
• continuous movement of muscles
• hop, twirl and play video games

• Complex skills are very resistance to forgetting
  • two years after flying a virtual airplane, very little forgetting (Fleishman & Parker, 1962)
  • any loss is quickly recovered with a few warm up trials
• Amnesia patients
  • keep their implicit memories
  • can still write, conduct music and dance
  • can learn or improve on implicit memory tasks
  • non-declarative systems remain after declarative systems no longer work
• Continuous movement are easily retained
• Discrete motor movements
  • typing & playing piano: each strike is separate event
  • no remarkable retention for discrete skills (Baddeley, 1974)
• Mixed tasks involving both continuous and discrete components
  • CPR
  • survival of patient drops from 100% to about 15% in a year (McKenna & Glendon, 1985)

Interference

• Predominant approach in N. America for 30 yrs
• Based on associationism
  • learning = formation of associations between previously unrelated events
• Developed in Chicago in the 1930s (Carr, Robinson and McGeoch)
  • relatively atheoretical
  • good research, not much theory
• McGeoch (1932)
  • First to propose interference theory
  • Time-based decay theories not valid explanations
  • Iron rusts over time
    • time does not cause rust
    • oxidation causes rust
  • Memories are forgotten over time
    • time does not cause forgetting; caused by something else
  • 2 kinds of interference
  • Proactive interference
    • previous info impacts new
  • Retroactive interference
    • new info impacts old
    • retrieval errors occur because wrong memories found

3 Mechanisms

1. Response competition
   • when 2+ potential responses to a memory query
   • Melton & Irwin (1940) showed errors could not be attributed solely to intrusion items
2. Altered $ conditions (altered context)
   • performance declines because of changes in environment from study to test
   • functional $ is cue + environment
   • forget if entire functional $ not present
3. Mental set
   • use an inappropriate mental set
   • search through wrong list

Part-set cuing

• Ss recall list worse if some items (part of the set) are provided for them (Slamecka, 1968)
• Ss hear a word twice
• control Ss wrote as many words as could
• experimental Ss were given a paper with some of the words on it
• Ss who receive some words did worse
• maybe the cues interrupt retrieval strategy
• Predictor but not cause of forgetting

• McGoeoch & McDonald (1931)
  • systematically vary similarity of interfering activity & recall material
  • learn list of adjectives
  • 10 min rest or learn new material
  • as similarity increases, recall drops
  • but even resting Ss forgot some too
• (Slamecka, 1960): sentences
  • 2, 4, 8 trials
  • followed by rest or 4 or eight trials learning another literary genre
  • amount learned is a function of # of initial learning trials
  • amount of forgotten is function of number of interfering trials

Unreliable Memory

False memories

• photographs
• vividness
• eye-witness testimony
• smashed or bumped
• store recipe, not meal
• source monitoring

Loftus (1977)

• Film of car crash
  • contacted, hit, bumped, collide or smashed
  • estimated speed of car (31.8, 34.0. 38.1, 39.3 and 40.8, respectively)
  • week later, asked if any evidence of broken glass
  • smashed reported broken glass
  • green car went past accident without stopping
  • 12 questions (item 10 referred to blue car)
  • 20 minutes later, Ss asked color of car
  • Ss given false info, more likely remember green or bluish green car
• Possible interpretations
• Overlays but not destroy it
  • destruction of earlier info
• Social pressure
  • offered rewards, no better accuracy
• Speed of response as fast for false as original
  • just as confident for false or original
• Concluded:
  • memory trace distorted or destroyed
• What not affect learning
  • No difference in forgetting rate as a function of type of material
  • # of items lost per unit time not depend on level of initial learning
  • Rate of forgetting not related to type of amnesia
• What affects learning
  • High-frequency words easier than low-frequency words
  • English-like easier than not English-like (bal versus zij)
  • Baddeley concludes
  • Items are lost at a constant rate, regardless of how well initially learned

Memory Failures

• Time-Gap
  • no conscious recollection of trip
  • driven home late at night
  • driving well-traveled route
  • highway hypnosis; driving long stretches
• Cryptomnesia
  • unintended plagiarism
  • believe have made a novel creation but it’s based on earlier works
  • failure to recognize it as familiar
  • usually of others
  • Nietzsche, Freud, Helen Keller
  • George Harrison
    • My Sweet Lord by the Beatles
    • He’s So Fine by the Chiffons
  • How guard against it
  • can’t but can try to minimize by searching literature & peer review

Amnesia

• forgetfulness; without memory
• Caused by
  • brain damage
  • disease
  • drugs (sedatives & hypnotic)
• can be either wholly or partially lost
• Two main types (not mutually exclusive)
  • Retrograde amnesia
    • inability to retrieve info acquired before a particular date
    • loss can extend back decades
    • lose can last for months+
  • Anterograde amnesia
    • inability to transfer new info to long-term memory
    • can’t remember things for long periods of time
  • Post-traumatic amnesia
    • Major trauma
      • usually head injury (fall, football, boxing)
      • often transient but may be permanent
    • Mild trauma
      • car crash
      • no memory of moments before accident
    • Childhood amnesia (infantile amnesia)
      • can’t remember before age 2-3
      • brain not developed enough to hold cognitive structures
    • Transient global amnesia
      • unknown cause
      • memory loss for less than a day
      • reduced blood flow, seizure or migraine?
    • Source amnesia
      • can’t remember where learned information
      • poor source monitoring
      • source not encoded
    • Hyped but Non-Existent
      • Dissociative amnesia
        • can’t remember because of psychological trauma
      • Types:
      • Repressed memory (psychogenic amnesia)
        • inability to recall info about stressful or traumatic events
        • rare or doesn’t exit
      • Dissociate fugue (psychogenic fugue)
        • cannot recall some or all of past
        • extremely rare or doesn’t exist
      • Posthypnotic amnesia
        • failure to remember suggestions made under hypnosis
        • extremely rare or doesn’t exist

Other Theories

Cue Dependent Theory (Retrieval Failure)

• Forgetting is lack of retrieval cues, not overwriting existing info (Tulvig & Postka, 1971)
• Ss given list of 24 words (4 items in six categories)
• try to recall as many as possible
• Learn 0, 1, 2, 3 or 5 further lists (3 trials), immediate free recall
• Recall as many words from any lists
• Clear evidence of RI
  • more lists in the middle, worse did
  • Ss tend to forget whole categories
  • 10 minute break
  • give categories, asked to recall
• Performance as good as original free recall
  • no effect of interpolated lists
• Can’t recall because $ is missing
  • present at time of encoding
  • not erased; not available
  • proper cue can retrieve it
  • like searching for a book in the library
  • no reference number
  • no subject
  • no author

Good retrieval cue

• consistent with encoding situation

• If a word is emphasize during encoding
• Should be emphasized at test time

State Dependent Cues

• retrieval depends on state of mind
• at encoding & at testing

• Memory triggered or facilitated by:
• inebriated
• anxious
• happy

Context Dependent Cues

• retrieval depends on environment
• at encoding & at testing
• Memory triggered or facilitated by:
  • under water
  • weather
  • location
  • smell

Trace Decay Theory

• Learning causes neuro connection
  • trace degrades over time, recall is worse
  • except notice that if brain is injured, old memories more resistant than new ones (Brower, 1967)
  • crumbling into parts; loss of components
  • both interference and decay
• Problem:
  • time has both decay & interference (aren’t doing nothing over time)

Consolidation

• Learning is not complete when practice ends (Muller and Pilzecker (1900)
  • perseveration occurs for awhile afterward
  • perseveration = continued processing of an item after practice or rehearsal ends.
• If anything interrupts perseveration
  • memory trace may not consolidated
  • recall not possible
  • storage problem
• Longer perseveration continues, stronger the memory
  • if process is interrupted, no storage
• Assumptions
  • mental inactivity helps consolidation (Ebbinghaus, 1885)
  • rate of forgetting is slowed when sleep between study & test (Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924)
  • Ss can recall more after a period of sleep
• Interference model would say the same thing
  • if interrupted, nothing stored
  • Ss with retrograde amnesia:
  • can’t remember events right before trauma
  • perseveration interrupted by the trauma
  • consolidation not completed
• Rats with induced retrograde amnesia show better memory performance if allowed perseveration time
  • If prevented, no storage
• No good studies with humans on the issue
  • Not easy to prevent unless remove hippocampus

Notes

Principles

• Some things are easier to remember than others
• positive
• distinctive
• meaningful
• related to you
• Memories stored in different media
• Two phases
• availability
• accessibility
• Cluster
• Creative Memory
• memory is generative
• Misinformation
• memory is actively updated

Memory Systems

• sensory
• procedural
• prospective
• declarative
• semantic
• episodic
• implicit
• muscle memory

Encoding

• encoding
• structuring
• retrieving
• forgetting
• not good at remembering nonsense syllables
• some things easier to forget than others
• loss depends on context

Forgetting

False memories

• photographs
• vividness
• eye-witness testimony
• smashed or bumped
• store recipe, not meal
• source monitoring

Class 10 Terms

• accessible memories
• amygdala
• anterograde amnesia
• Atkinson & Shiffrin
• automatic processing
• available memories
• Baddeley
• basal ganglia
• cerebellum
• chunking
• deep processing
• déjà vu
• distributed practice
• Ebbinghaus
• echoic sensory store
• effortful processing
• emotional coding
• encoding
• encoding failure
• encoding specificity principle
• episodic memory
• explicit memories
• external mnemonics
• false memory
• flashbulb memories
• forgetting
• forgetting curve
• herpes encephalitis
• hierarchies
• hippocampus
• iconic sensory store
• implicit memories
• improving memory
• interference
• levels of processing
• long-term memory
• long-term potentiation
• match context and mood cues with when coded them
• meaningful
• memory
• memory retrieval
• misinformation effect
• mnemonics
• mood congruent
• motivated forgetting
• personally meaningful
• priming
• proactive interference
• recall
• recognition
• reconsolidation
• recovered memories
• recovered with hypnosis
• rehearse repeatedly
• relearning
• repression
• retrieval
• retrieval cues
• retrieval failure
• retroactive interference
• retrograde amnesia
• savings
• semantic memory
• sensory memories
• serial position effect
• shallow processing
• short-term memory
• sleep more
• source amnesia
• spaced practice
• split brain
• storage
• storage decay
• synaptic changes
• technical mnemonics
• test your knowledge
• testing effect
• tip of the tongue
• unreliable memories
• Wearing, Clive
• working memory