Transcript Cognition: Memory - School District of Altoona, Altoona, WI

Cognition: Memory
Memory
Definition: Learning that has persisted over
time
Happens in three stages:
1. Encoding – getting information in
2. Storage – maintaining information over time
3. Retrieval – getting memory back out
Encoding: Getting Information In
Automatic processing – we unconsciously
encode information about space, time and
frequency and well-learned information
Effortful processing – encoding that
requires attention and conscious effort
Can be boosted through
rehearsal – conscious repetition
spacing effect – retaining information
better when rehearsal is spread out over
time
serial position effect – tendency to better recall
the last and first items in a list
What We Encode
Levels of processing:
Visual encoding – encoding of picture images
Acoustic encoding – encoding of sounds
Semantic encoding – encoding of meaning
Organizing information for encoding:
Mnemonics – memory aids, especially those that
use vivid imagery and organizational techniques
Chunking – organizing items into familiar,
manageable units
Often happens automatically
Storage: Retaining Information
Information processing model:
1. Sensory memory – immediate memory;
information is kept here for a few seconds
or less
Iconic memory – fast-decaying store of visual
information
Echoic memory – fast-decaying store of
auditory information
2. Short-term memory
Limited in duration and capacity
Capacity is generally 7 +/- 2 “bits” of information
Slightly better for random numbers than random
letters
Slightly better for what we hear than what we see
3. Long-term memory
Unlimited
Storing Memories in the Brain
Memories are not stored in precise locations
in the brain
Long-term potentiation (LTP) – increase in a
synapse’s firing potential after a brief, rapid
stimulation
Thought to be a neural basis for learning and
memory
Flashbulb memory – a clear memory of an
emotionally significant moment or event
Stronger emotional experiences produces
stronger, more reliable memories
Prolonged stress can corrode neural connections
and shrink the hippocampus
Amnesia victims
Have implicit (or nondeclarative) memory – how to do
something
The cerebellum helps form and store implicit memories
Often don’t have explicit (or declarative) memory –
memory of facts and experiences
The hippocampus helps process explicit memories for
storage
Infantile amnesia – we have no accurate memories
before age 3 because
Most explicit memories are indexed by words non-speaking
children don’t have
Hippocampus is one of the last brain regions to mature
Retrieval: Getting Information Out
Retrieval cues
Tastes, smells and sights aid in recall of
associated episodes
Priming – activation, often unconsciously, of
particular associations in memory
Context effects
déjà vu – sense that “I’ve experienced this before”
Cues from current situation might subconsciously trigger retrieval
of an earlier experience
State dependent memory – what we learn in one state can
be more easily recalled when we are again in that state
Losing keys while intoxicated and remembering their location
while again intoxicated
Mood-congruent memory – tendency to recall
experiences that are consistent w/one’s current good or
bad mood
When depressed, we recall sad events which perpetuates the
depression
Why we forget
A.Three sins of forgetting
1. Absent-mindedness - inattention to
details
2. Transience - storage decay over time
3. Blocking - inaccessibility of stored info
B.Three sins of distortion
1. Misattribution - confusing the source of the
information
2. Suggestibility - lingering effects of
misinformation
3. Bias - belief-colored recollections
C.One sin of intrusion
1. Persistence - unwanted memories
Retrieval failure
Proactive interference – disruptive effect of prior
learning on the recall of new information
Retroactive interference – disruptive effect of
new learning on the recall of old information
Repression – in psychoanalytic theory, the basic
defense mechanism that banishes from
consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts,
feelings and memories
Most memory researcher think repression rarely
occurs
Memory Construction
Misinformation effect – incorporating
misleading information into one’s memory of
an event
“How fast were the cars going when they
smashed into each other
Source amnesia – attributing to the wrong
source of an event we have experienced,
heard about, read about or imagined
Madonna vs. Lady Gaga
False memories may feel as real as true
memories
The most confident and consistent eyewitnesses
are the most persuasive but often not the most
accurate
Children’s memories are especially unreliable
and easily influenced
Improving Memory
Study repeatedly
Make the material meaningful
Activate retrieval cues
Use mnemonic devices
Minimize interference
Sleep more
Test and retest
Cognition: Thinking, Problem
Solving, Creativity and Language
Cognition
Cognition – mental activities associated with
thinking, knowing, remembering and
communicating
Concepts – mental groupings of similar objects,
events, ideas or people
Prototypes – mental image or best example of a
category
Solving Problems
Strategies
Algorithms – step-by-step procedures that
guarantee a solution
Heuristics – simple thinking strategy that often
allows us to make judgments and solve problems
efficiently
Faster, but more prone to errors than algorithms
Insight – sudden and often novel realization of the
solution to a problem
Creativity – the ability to produce novel and
valuable ideas
Five components of creativity identified by
Robert Sternberg
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Expertise
Imaginative thinking skills
A venturesome personality
Intrinsic motivation
A creative environment
Obstacles to Problem Solving
Confirmation bias – tendency to search for
information that supports our preconceptions
and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
Fixation – inability to see a problem from a fresh
perspective
Mental set – tendency to approach a problem in one
particular way, often a way that has been successful
in the past
Functional fixedness – tendency to think of things
only in terms of their usual functions
Using and Misusing Heuristics
Representativeness heuristic – judging the
likelihood of things in terms of how they seem
to represent, or match, particular prototypes
May lead us to ignore other relevant information
Availability heuristic – estimating the
likelihood of events based on their availability
in memory
If instances come readily to mind, we assume
such events are common
Overconfidence – tendency to be more
confident than correct
Belief perseverance – clinging to one’s initial
conceptions after the basis on which they
were formed has been discredited
Intuition – effortless, immediate, automatic
feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit
conscious reasoning
See chart on p. 310 for its pros and cons
Framing – how an issue is posed can
significantly affect decisions and judgments
Language
Phoneme – smallest distinctive sound unit in
language
Morpheme – smallest unit of language that
carries meaning
Ex: “I”, “s” to indicate something is plural, “ed” or
“pre”
Grammar
Semantics – set of rules by which we derive meaning
from morphemes, words and sentences
syntax – rules for combining words into
grammatically sensible sentences
Language Development
Receptive language – ability to comprehend
speech
Develops by 4 months
Productive language
Babbling stage – spontaneously uttering a variety of
sounds
Begins around 4 months
By 10 months language can be identified
One-word stage – child speaks mostly in single words
Usually from age 1 to 2
Two-word stage – speaks mostly in two-word statements
Usually starts about age 2
Telegraphic speech – early speech stage in which a child
speaks like a telegram, using mostly nouns and verbs
Explaining Language Development
B.F. Skinner: Operant learning
Argued babies learn to talk through association,
imitation and reinforcement
Noam Chomsky: Inborn universal grammar
Believed that given adequate nurture, language
will naturally occur
Statistical learning and critical periods
Childhood is a critical period for mastering certain
aspects of language
Thinking and Language
Language determinism – Benjamin Whorf’s
hypothesis that language determines the way
we think
More likely words influence our thinking