Gre Psych (Memory)

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memory

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how things are remembered and why things are forgotten

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stages of memory

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sensory, short term, and long term

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sensory memory

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lasts seconds. forms connection between perception and memory. e.g. when pen wiggled back and forth, the sensory information remains in your awareness briefly and because the pen moved quickly, the information all runs together, creating the illusion of a ghost pen in all positions

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iconic memory

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sensory memory for vision

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George Sperling

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studied "iconic memory". Found that people could see more than they can remember.

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partial report

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in Sperling's experiments, subjects were able to write down the strings of letter of a particular line that had just been presented to them, but in the time it took them to do this, they had forgotten the other strings of letters

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Ulric Neisser

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coined term "icon" and found that an icon lasts for about one second. Also discovered "backward masking"

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icon

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brief visual memory

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backward masking

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when subjects are exposed to a bright flash of light or a new pattern before the iconic image fades, the first image will be erased

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echoic memory

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sensory memory for auditory sensations

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short-term memory (STM)

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temporary; lasts for seconds or minutes

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George Miller

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found that STM has the capacity of about 7 items (+ or - two)

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chunking

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grouping items; can increase the capacity of STM

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phonological

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STM is thought to be largely auditory and items are coded phonologically

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rehearsal

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repeating or practicing. key to keeping items in the STM and to transferring items to the LTM.

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primary (maintenance) rehearsal

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involves repeating material in order to hold it in STM

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secondary (elaborative) rehearsal

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involves organizing and understanding material in order to transfer it to LTM

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interference

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How other information or distractions cause one to forget items in STM. STM and LTM are susceptible to interference.

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proactive interference

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interference in which the disrupting information was learned before the new items were presented, such as a list of similar words. Problematic for recall and thus causes proactive inhibition

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retroactive interference

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interference in which the disrupting information was learned after the new items were presented. Problematic for recall and thus causes retroactive inhibition

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long-term memory (LTM)

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capable of permanent retention. Most items are learned semantically, for meaning.

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recognition

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measure of LTM retention that requires subjects to recognize things learned in the past. e.g. MC tests

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recall

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measure of LTM retention that requires subjects to generate information on their own. "Cued recall" begins the task.

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cued recall

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e.g. fill-in-the-blank

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free recall

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remembering with no cue

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savings

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measures how much information about a subject remains in LTM by assessing how long it takes to learn something the second time as opposed to the first time

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encoding specificity principle

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material is more likely to remembered if it is retrieved in the same context in which it was stored. LTM is subject to this effect.

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episodic memory

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consists of details, events, and discrete knowledge

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semantic memory

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constists of general knowledge of the world

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procedural memory

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knowing "how to" do something

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declarative memory

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knowing a fact

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Herman Ebbinghaus

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first to study memory systematically. Presented subjects with lists of nonsense syllables to study the STM. Proposed "forgetting curve"

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forgetting curve

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depicts a sharp drop in savings immediately after learning and then levels off, with a slight downward trend

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Frederick Bartlett

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found that memory is "reconstructive" rather than rote using the story "War of the Ghosts"

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reconstructive

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people are more likely to remember the ideas or semantics of a story rather than the details or grammar of a story

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Allan Paivio

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suggested the "Dual Code hypothesis"

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Dual Code hypothesis

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items will be better remembered if they are encoded both visually (with icons or imagery) and semantically (with understanding).

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Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart

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asserted that learning and recall depend on "depth of processing"

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depth of processing

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different levels of processing exist from the most superficial phonological (pronunciation) level to the deep semantic (meaning) level. The deeper an item is processed, the easier it is to learn and recall.

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behaviorists and learning

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explain memory through "paired-associate learning"

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paired-associated learning

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one item is learned with, and then cues the recall of, another

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Elizabeth Loftus

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found that memory of traumatic events is altered by the event itself and by the way that questions about the event are phrased. Important for law-psychology issues, such as witness questioning.

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Karl Lashley

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found that memories are stored diffusely in the brain

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Donald Hebb

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posited that memory involves changes of synapses and neural pathways, making a "memory tree". Brain studies of young chicks also show that their brains are altered by learning and memory

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E.R. Kandel

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based on his studies with the sea slug Aplysia, believed that memory involves changes in synapses and neural pathways

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Brenda Milner

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wrote about "HM" who was given a lesion of the hippocampus to treat severe epilepsy and could not add anything to his LTM

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hippocampus

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possibly related to LTM

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serial learning

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verbal learning and memory task in which a list is learned and recalled in order ("serial recall")

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serial recall

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list is recalled in order

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primacy and recency effects

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How the first and last few items of a list are easiest to remember. First items are remembered because they benefit from the most rehearsal/exposure; last items because there has been less time for decay. Serial learning is subject to these effects. LTM is NOT subject to these effects.

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serial-position curve

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depicts the primacy and recency savings effects as a U-shaped curve

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serial-anticipation learning

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a list is learned

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paired-associate learning

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use this type of learning to study foreign languages. e.g. remember the Spanish word before remembering the English meaning

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free-recall learning

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list of items is learned, and then must be recalled in any order with no cue

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acoustic dissimilarity

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factor that makes items on a list easier to learn and retrieve

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semantic dissimilarity

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factor that makes items on a list easier to learn and retrieve

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brevity

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(in length of the terms and in length of the list of items to be remembered). factor that makes items on a list easier to learn and retrieve

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familiarity

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factor that makes items on a list easier to learn and retrieve

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concreteness

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factor that makes items on a list easier to learn and retrieve

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meaning

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factor that makes items on a list easier to learn and retrieve

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importance to the subject

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factor that makes items on a list easier to learn and retrieve

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decay theory

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aka Trace theory. Theory of the origin of forgetting which posits that memories fade with time. Too simplistic because other activities are known to interfere with retrieval

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interference theory

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Theory of the origin of forgetting which suggests that competing information blocks retrieval.

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mnemonics

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memory cues that help learning and recall.

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generation-recognition model

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anything one might recall should easily be recognized. i.e. MC tests are easier than essay (recall) tests

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tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

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being on the verge of retrieval but not successfully doing so

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state-dependent memory

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like state-dependent learning. Retrieval is more successful if it occurs in the same emotional or physical state in which encoding occurred. e.g. depressed individuals cannot easily recall happy memories and alcoholics often remember the details of their last drinking session only when under the influence of alcohol

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clustering

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brain's tendency to group together similar items in memory whether they are learned together or not. Most often, they are grouped into conceptual or semantic hierarchies

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order of items on a list

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recall task in which subjects can more quickly state the order of 2 items that are far apart on the list than 2 items that are close together. e.g. 7 and 593 easier than 133 and 136

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incidental learning

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measured through presenting subjects with items they are not supposed to try to memorize and then testing for learning

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eidetic memory

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photographic memory. More common in children and rural cultures

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flashbulb memory

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recollectiong that seem burned into the brain

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tachtiscope

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instrument often used in cognitive or memory experiments. It presents visual material (words or images) to subjects for a fraction of a second

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Zeigarnik effect

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tendency to recall uncompleted tasks better than completed ones