Transcript Unit VII - The Independent School

“The past is never dead…”
-Faulkner
What does memory do for us?
Time, self, culture, emotion, learning, future.
Memory:
1) Learning that has persisted over time
2) Information that has been stored and can be
retrieved.
Ralph Haber - 1970
The angry rioter threw the rock at the window.
Information Processing
Models
Computer Analogy
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
An classic model that
envisions memories as
symbolic bits of data.
Connectionist
Neural Networks
Neurons and the
strength of the
connections
between them.
Sensory –
Association –
Motor
3-Stage Model
Sensory
Short-Term
Long-Term
Not all memories
follow this process
STM is now
working memory
Encoding
•Automatic Processing
•The real-time, unconscious parallel
processing of information
•Space, time, frequency, embedded info
•Development of automatic processing
•Example on next slide
•Effortful Processing
•The conscious, serial processing of
information that allows for durable,
accessible memories.
•Rehearsal
•Hermann Ebbinghaus
Effortful Processing, cont’d
Spacing Effect: Improved retention due to
rehearsal being distributed over time
“Distributed study time” vs. “massed practice”
Examples – Bahrick; the Testing Effect
Serial Position Effect: The order of rehearsal
impacts our recall of information
Primacy and Recency effects
Spacing Effect
Experiments
Psych Methods
Case Study
Survey
Naturalistic Observation
Participant Observation
Experiments
Descriptive vs.
Correlative vs. Causative
Nervous System
CNS – Brain, Spinal Cord
PNS – SNS and ANS
SNS – functions
ANS – SNS and PSNS
Functions
Encoding Experiments
http://humanfactors.arc.nasa.gov/cognition/tutorials/ModelOf/m
emory1.html
Be?
Choice one or two?
Die or sleep, no – define sleep… I wish
Die or sleep, rub – dreams shuffle
What We Encode
Encoding uses several
types of processing.
Visual Encoding
Imagery
Visual
“Eidetic Imagery”
Acoustic
Rosy Retrospection
Semantic
Combined Encoding
Examples
Implications
Mnemonic devices
More on this in a moment…
Organizing to Encode
Encoded information is
retrieved better when it is
organized and meaningful.
Chunking
Mnemonics for this
class?
Hierarchies
Buy My Red Pencil, Then
Celebrate
Brainstem, Medulla Oblongata,
Reticular Formation, Pons,
Thalamus, Cerebellum
Limber Amy’s Hyped
Hippo had Pity
Limbic system: Amygdala,
Hypothalamus, Hippocampus,
Pituitary Gland
Sensory
Stages of
Storage
These represent the three parts
of one of the information
processing models.
The other two models were the
computer and the connectionist
models.
Can you recall what the stages
for each of those models were?
Sperling’s Experiment
Iconic and Echoic memory
Capacity and duration
Working / STM
Capacity and duration
Petersons’ study
George Miller – 7 +/- 2
Long-Term Memory
Capacity and duration
Herculean feats of memory
How We Store Memories
Loftus and Loftus and Lashley, oh my!
The physical basis of memory
Long-term potentiation
Process and inhibition of LTP
Drugs to help with LTP: CREBs and Glutamate
Stress hormones and memory
Flashbulb memories
Implicit and Explicit
Memory
Anterograde Amnesiacs
Implicit aka
PROCEDURAL memory
PM is a much more
common name for this.
Explicit aka declarative
memory
A Tale of Two Brain Structures
Hippocampus - Explicit
Taxi drivers
Names, images,
events, facts
Damage to hippo
Specialized functions
Hippo and sleep
Cerebellum - Implicit
Associated with fluid
motion and motor
coordination
Physical tasks and
conditioned reflexes
Disruption to cere
Infantile amnesia
Retrieval
•The Three “R”s
•Recognition, recall and relearning
•Harry Bahrick study
•Retrieval Cues
•Associative learning dictates that surroundings,
mood, physical posture, and visual and auditory
stimuli may be fused into one chain of
associations.
•Priming
•Context-dependent memories
•State-dependent (mood-congruent) memories
Forgetting
Forgetting is a natural process – and is in some
respects a welcome aspect of life.
Those who “cannot forget”
“Seven Sins” – the problems of forgetting
Absent-mindedness, transience, blocking
Misattribution, suggestibility, bias
Persistence
Encoding and Storage
Encoding Failure
Storage Decay
The failure to input
information into our brain in
a purposeful manner.
Ebbinghaus’ famous
forgetting curve.
Age can be a factor
What we encode doesn’t
always persist in storage.
So can selective attention
The penny example
This has explanations in the
physical basis of LTP.
Retrieval Failure
Retrieval cues
Interference
Proactive and retroactive
Jenkins and Dalenbach
Motivated Forgetting
We often play in the sand
of our own memories
Freudian repression
Reconstruction of Memory
Elizabeth Loftus experiments
Misinformation effect
Imagination inflation
Richard Wiseman experiment
Source amnesia (source misattribution)
Truth vs. Fiction
“Perceptions of the past”
Halberstadt and Niedenthal
Persistence ≠ Reality
Certainty ≠ Reality
Implications for eye-witness
testimony
Children and memory
Longitudinal studies
Improving Memory
•Study repeatedly
•Make studied material meaningful
•Combine encoding methods – use
mnemonics
•Activate retrieval cues
•Minimize interference
•Sleep more
•Test your own knowledge