Transcript Memory and Language

Lecture 13
Forgetting and the Brain
What is the best way to
study for an exam?
A. Distributed practice (studying over time)
B. Massed practice (cramming in 1 or 2 days)
C. All-nighters (cramming in 1 or 2 hours)
Remembering exactly where you
were and what you were doing on
9/11/2001 is an example of:
A. Intentional learning
B. Elaborative encoding
C. A flashbulb memory
D. Depth processing
Summary – Differences between
memory models
• Ways information gets stored
– Rehearsal
– Attention
– Deep Processing
– Strong Emotion
Objectives
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Consider how people study forgetting
Consider major theories of forgetting
When retrieval goes wrong
Consider mnemonics to reduce forgetting
Consider what happens in the brain during
memory and forgetting
Retrieving information
• Recognition – matching stimuli to a stored
representation (like multiple choice)
• Recall – the act of intentionally bringing
stored representations to awareness
(short answer)
• Which is easier?
Demonstration
• Recall and Recognition
What Causes Forgetting?
• Decay
– Theory that memories fade over time because
relevant connections between neurons are
lost
• Interferences
– Theory that the disruption of the ability to
remember one piece of information is caused
by the presence of other information
– Retroactive: New information interferes with
old
– Proactive: Old information interferes with new
Other factors related to forgetting
• Encoding failures
• Intentional forgetting
Amnesia: Physiological causes of
forgetting
• Retrograde amnesia disrupts previous
memories
– Infantile amnesia
• Anterograde amnesia leaves already
consolidated memories intact but prevents
the learning of new facts
– Patient H.M.
– Movie: Memento
Using Cues
• Cues – stimuli that help you remember
– Tip of the tongue phenomenon (demo)
– Encoding specificity
– State dependent retrieval
– Hypermnesia – improval of memory over time
Retrieval: More Than the Past
• False memories
– In the Bugs Bunny study, Loftus talked with
subjects about their childhoods and asked not
only whether they saw someone dressed up
as the character, but also whether they
hugged his furry body and stroked his velvety
ears. In subsequent interviews, 36 percent of
the subjects recalled the cartoon rabbit.
Demonstration
• Productions of false memories
False Memories
Loftus and colleagues (1978)
People watched a series of slides that
showed a red Datsun stopping at a stop
sign and then proceeding into an accident
Participants were asked
“Did another car pass the red
Datsun while it was stopped at the
stop sign?”
OR
“Did another car pass the red
Datsun while it was stopped at the
yield sign?”
The Repressed Memory Debate
• Are they real memories that are forced out
of consciousness and then later emerge,
as hypothesized by Freud, or are they
false memories?
• Evidence is mixed
Improving Memory
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Depth and breadth of processing
Transfer appropriate processing
Distributed practice
Mnemonic devices
– Visualize interacting objects
– Method of loci
– Peg word system: 1 is a bun
– Acronyms (NOW), Initialisms (VFW),
Sentences: My very educated mother…
Biological Foundations
• The role of the hippocampus
– Supporting evidence – HM (and others)
– Stress and memories
Biological Foundations
• The role of the hippocampus
– Supporting evidence – HM (and others)
– Stress and memories
• The role of other sub-cortical structures
– Imaging techniques
• Modality differences
• Implicit and explicit differences
The search for the engram
• The role of the cortex
– Brain stimulation
– Brain removal
Consolidation
• The process of forming a relatively
permanent memory trace =
• Long-term potentiation (LTP) is the
strengthening of the connections between
the sending and receiving neurons that
underlies memory storage
Biological Foundations of
Memory
• Human genes clearly play a role in
memory
– The apolipoprotein E (apo E) gene is present
in many people who develop Alzheimer’s
disease
Video Clip – Implicit v Explicit
Memory
• 18. Living With Amnesia: The
Hippocampus and Memory
Multiple choice exams are testing:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Recall
Recognition
Storage
Hypermnesia
If you decide to study while drinking,
how should you take your test?
A. While drinking
B. Sober
Do you believe in false memories?
A. Yes
B. No
Jamie uses the acronym “HOMES” to
remember the names of the Great
Lakes. Jamie is using:
A.
B.
C.
D.
a mnemonic
chunking
rehearsal
method of loci
Can you diagnose this man?
• Ed is conked on the head with a baseball.
While he is able to recall events BEFORE
he was hit on the head he is unable to
formulate new memories.
What is Ed suffering from?
A.
B.
C.
D.
Anterograde amnesia
Retrograde amnesia
Retroactive interference
Repressed memories