Transcript Forgetting - Mr.Wolman

MEMORY
Forgetting
Is forgetting a good thing?
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Yes AND NO
Yes: gets rid of useless junk that would
clutter up our thoughts
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“S” the Russian genius went crazy because he
remembered everything!!
No: its frustrating!
3 sins of forgetting
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Absent-mindedness- inattention to details
Transience- storage decay over time
Blocking- inaccessibility of stored info
3 sins of distortion
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Misattribution- source confusion
Suggestibility- misinformation effect
Bias- belief-colored recollections
Why do we forget?
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Encoding failure
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Storage decay
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Retrieval failure
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Interference
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Amnesia
1. Encoding Failure
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never entered long-term memory
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Older people encode slower
External----sensory----(attn)---short-term---(encoding)---Long-term
Events
memory
mem.
Mem.
OR --- (encoding failure)---FORGET!
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What letters are on the #5 on a phone?
2. Storage Decay
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Memories leave us even if encoded
properly
*forgetting curve*
Example: learning Spanish
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After 1 year--- retain 80%
“ 3 years---50%
“ 5 years ---40%
“25 years---38%
“50 years ---32%
*** forgetting levels off over time
3. Retrieval Failure
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“It’s on the tip of my tongue!”
You know it’s there, but you don’t have
the right resources or information to get
it.
External---sensory---(attn)---STM---(encoding)---LTM
Events
memory
---(retrieval)---
OR
(failure)---FORGET
4. Interference
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1. something you learn now makes it
harder to recall something you learned
earlier.
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Ex: teacher has new students- makes it
harder to remember old student’s names
2. something you learn before makes it
harder to recall something now.
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Ex: if you move and get a new phone
number, your old number might get in the
way
5. Amnesia
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The blocking of older memories and/or the
loss of new ones
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“blocking” because memories sometime
return… “blocking” can be selective
3 explanations:
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Blood and chemical loss to brain, changes
brain’s ability to produce a memory
Trauma to head will disrupt neurotransmission so memories can’t be stored,
and erase memories that haven’t been moved
into LTM.
Electric shock therapy- treats depression
Repression
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Freudian theory
Basic defense mechanism that banishes
anxiety causing memories to the
unconscious
Aka…Motivated forgetting
Misinformation and Imagination
effects
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Read Elizabeth Loftus and answer the
questions