A TRUE STORY In my mind I’ve returned to that scene many times, and each time the memory gains weight and substance. I can see the cool pine trees, smell their fresh tarry breath, feel the lake’s algae-green water on my skin, taste Uncle Joe’s iced tea with fresh-squeezed lemon. But the death itself was always vague and unfocused. I never saw my mother’s body, and I could not imagine her dead. The last memory I have of my mother was her tiptoed visit the evening before her death, the quick hug, the whispered, “I love you.” It was some thirty years later that Elizabeth began to remember the details surrounding her mother’s death. While at her Uncle Joe’s ninetieth birthday party, Elizabeth learned from a relative that she had been the one to discover her mother’s body in Uncle Joe’s swimming pool. With the realization, memories that had eluded Elizabeth for decades began to come back. The memories began to drift back, slow and unpredictable, like the crisp piney smoke from the evening campfires. I could see myself, a thin, dark-haired girl, looking into the flickering blue-and-white pool. My mother dressed in her nightgown, is floating face down. “Mom? Mom?” I ask the question several times, my voice rising in terror. I start screaming. I remember the police cars, their lights flashing, and the stretcher with the clean, white blanket tucked in around the edges of the body. The memory had been there all along, but I just couldn’t reach it. As the memory crystallized, it suddenly made sense to Elizabeth why she had always felt haunted by her vague memories of the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death. And it also seemed to partly explain why she had always been so fascinated by the topic of memory. However, several days later, Elizabeth learned that the relative had been wrong—it was not Elizabeth who discovered her mother’s body, but her Aunt Pearl. Other relative confirmed that Aunt Pearl had been the one who found Elizabeth’s mother in the swimming pool. Yet Elizabeth’s memory had seemed so real. The Elizabeth in this true story is none other the Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who is nationally recognized as the leading expert on the distortions that can occur in the memories of eyewitnesses. Even though Loftus is an expert on memory distortions and false memories, she wasn’t immune to the phenomenon herself. Loftus experienced firsthand just how convincing a false memory can be. In retrospect, Loftus can see how she actively created information in her own mind that corresponded to the inaccurate information that she had been the one to discover her mother’s body. As Loftus writes, “That elaborate but completely fabricated memory confronted me with its detail and precision, its utter lack of ambiguity.” (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994). Chapter 9 Memory The Phenomenon of Memory Memory: the persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information Clive Wearing, the man with no memory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmkiMlvLKto&feature=mr_meh&list=PL1DA172C40AC3B362&playnext=0 3-3’s of Memory 1. Three Kinds/Types of Memory 2. Three Processes of Memory 3. Three Stages of Memory Three Kinds/Types of Memory Episodic Memory: A memory of a specific event Flashbulb Memory: A vivid, detailed memory of a surprising, emotional event These animals all have flashbulb memories of when Bambi’s mother was shot Episodic Memory Jill Price has perfect episodic memory. Would this be a blessing or a curse? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoxsMMV538U Three Kinds/Types of Memory Generic/Semantic Memory: General Knowledge that we have but don’t remember when we acquired it. Three Kinds/Types of Memory Procedural Memory Consists of the skills or procedures we have learned. Often a procedural memory consists of a complicated sequence of movements that cannot be described adequately in words. Once a procedural memory is formed it usually stays with you a long time– perhaps a lifetime. Many activities require all types of memory. Example: Playing the game of tennis Generic/Semantic Memory: Knowing the rules of the game, knowing how many sets it takes to win. Episodic Memory: Knowing who served last. Procedural Memory: Knowing how to lob or volley the ball Now you try it. Generic/Semantic Memory: Episodic Memory: Procedural Memory: PEG is kind! This is a memory cue for the three kinds/types of memory. P=Procedural E=Episodic G=Generic/Semantic Kind=Kinds of Memory Information Processing Encoding: The processing of information into the memory system, for example by extracting meaning. Example: If you were trying to memorize the definition of a key term that appears on a text page you would visually encode the patterns of the lines and dots on the page as meaningful words that can be retained by your memory Information Processing Storage: The maintenance of encoded information over time. (Keeping it in your memory) Information Processing Retrieval: The process of getting information out of memory. A library is an analogy of the three processes of memory Encoding: Acquiring the books Storage: Cataloging the books and keeping them on the shelf Retrieval: Making it available to the user A computer is another analogy Encoding: Storage: Retrieval: Now you try it. Come up with your own analogy. Be creative! Encoding: Storage: Retrieval: What is a good memory cue to help remember the Three Processes of Memory? Three Stages of Memory Sensory Memory: Consists of the immediate, initial recording of information that enters through our senses. After a few seconds or less, the information fades Solve the following problem without writing anything down. 765 x 4 Three Stages of Memory Short-Term/Working Memory: Holds a few items (7 plus or minus 2) briefly (about 20 seconds) before the information is either stored or forgotten. The items need not be discrete elements, it could be for chunks Three Stages of Memory Short-Term/Working Memory: Although information is encoded both visually and acoustically into STM acoustic encoding seems to dominate Evidence? Also, information encoded acoustically tends to last longer than information that is encoded visually Figure 9.11 Short-term memory decay Myers: Psychology, Eighth Edition Copyright © 2007 by Worth Publishers Three Stages of Memory Long-Term Memory: This memory system is presumed to be without limit, both in capacity to store information and in duration of that which is stored. In order to get information into long-term memory you must rehearse the information. REHEARSED STIMULUS SENSORY REGISTERS Memory system that holds incoming information long Enough to be processed further SHORT-TERM/ WORKING MEMORY REHEARSED Holds 7+/- 2 PROCESSED items/ chunks for approximately 18-20 seconds ENCODED RETRIEVED FORGOTTEN FORGOTTEN Acquiring New Memories 3 Stages of Memory (Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory) LONG-TERM MEMORY Capacity and Duration seem to be limitless Sally Sings Loudly on Stage Sensory Memory Short-term/working Memory Long Term Memory Are Stages of Memory How We Encode Automatic Processing: Unconscious process of encoding certain information without effort. Some forms of processing, such as learning to read or drive, require attention and effort when we first perform them, but with practice become automatic. How We Encode We automatically process information about: Space: Where in your notes you wrote a particular definition Time: What you did before you studied for psychology Frequency: How many times a teacher says a particular word How We Encode Effortful Processing: Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort Generally, encoding into long-term memory is the result of effortful processing involving semantic encoding Effortful Processing Rehearsal: The conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage Rehearsal Ebbinghaus: Studied memory and forgetting, using himself as a subject and nonsense syllables as the material Rehearsal Ebbinghaus studied the “method of savings” by computing the difference the number of repetitions needed to learn a list of items initially and the number of repetitions needed to relearn it after some time has elapsed Rehearsal Maintenance Rehearsal: Involves merely repeating an item over and over. This is good for remembering information for short periods of time. (i.e. The phone number for the pizza place) Rehearsal Elaborative Rehearsal: Involves thinking about how new information is related to material already stored in memory. Examples include self-referencing and visual imagery Elaborative rehearsal is more effective than maintenance rehearsal because the material is processed in more depth than when one uses maintenance rehearsal Spacing Effect Massed practice: When practice sessions are run together Distributed Practice: Practice sessions are separated by rest periods *Distributed practice is more effective than massed practice “The mind is slow in unlearning what it has been long in learning” Serial Position Serial Position Effect: Our tendency to remember best the first and last items in a list Primacy and Recency Effect: Primacy Effect The tendency to recall the initial items in a series of items better than the middle items. Recency Effect The tendency to recall the last item in a series of items better than the middle items. How Can you use your knowledge of the primacy and recency effect to maximize the effort you put into your studying? Ways to Encode Information Visual Encoding: the mental representation of information as pictures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8YXZTlwTAU Ways to Encode Information Acoustic Encoding: The mental representation of information as a sequence of sounds Ways to Encode Information Semantic Encoding: The mental representation of an experience by its general meaning Ways to Encode Information Transfer-Appropriate Process: This model suggests that our memory is better when the encoding process matches up with what we are trying to retrieve For instance, if we encode material semantically then our memory is better if we try to retrieve it semantically rather than acoustically Recognizing Factors in Memory Encoding Check your understanding of various factors at work in memory encoding by identifying each of the vignettes below as an example of one of the following: (A) semantic encoding (C) visual imagery (B) elaboration (D) attention _____1.As Zach reads the next chapter in his psychology textbook for the first time, he stops whenever he comes across a word he doesn’t understand and looks it up in a dictionary. In addition, at the end of each paragraph he stops and quizzes himself to determine whether he understands what he’s just read. _____2.On the bus riding home from work, Zeon relaxes by reading books about baseball. He’s really interested in learning the intricacies of baseball strategy. It’s a more challenging subject than he thought, so he really has to concentrate on shutting out the noise and other distractions that go along with riding a bus during rush hour. _____3. Zelda has discovered that many of the foreign-sounding vocabulary terms in her anatomy and physiology course are similar to common English words. Furthermore, she has realized that if she forms mental pictures of the objects these English words remind her of, she is often better able to remember the meaning of the vocabulary terms. _____4. While Dr. Riley is lecturing on theories of motivation, Zoe is thinking of examples in her own life of each of the concepts Dr. Riley is introducing. Ways to Encode Information Levels of Processing Model: This model tells us that the most important determinant of memory is how extensively information is encoded or processed when it is first received Visual Encoding Imagery: Mental pictures (being able to picture a word will be a powerful aid to process it) Visual Encoding Mnemonic Devices: Catchwords, jingles, acronyms, or phrases to help you recall a particular fact Examples: ROY G. BIV (to remember the visual spectrum and descending wavelengths) Encoding, Storage, Retrieval (LEG) (Which device is better? Why?) Other Examples of Mnemonic Devices? HOMES (for remembering the Great Lakes) Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us NOTHING!!! (for remembering the planets and their distance from the sun) Disadvantages of Mnemonic Devices? They may be too time consuming to develop. If you rely solely on the mnemonic device you may make errors. Visual Encoding Mnemonic Devices Method of Loci (Latin for physical place) A mnemonic strategy in which the items to be remembered are converted into mental images and associated with specific positions or locations. Visual Encoding Mnemonic Devices Peg-Word System: A Mnemonic strategy used to remember lists, in which each item is associated in imagination with a number-word rhyming pair. Visual Encoding Example of Peg-Word System 1 = bun 2 = shoe 3 = tree 4 = door 5 = hive 6 = sticks 7 = heaven 8 = gate 9 = vine 10 = hen Imagine the list of items you want to remember are items you need to buy at the grocery store such as: milk, eggs, bread, butter… You would visualize the first item (milk) with a bun (imagine a soggy bun in a bowl of milk). Then visualize the second item (eggs) with shoe (imagine a giant shoe stepping on a carton of eggs). Next you may imagine slices of bread hanging on a tree Organizing Information for Encoding Chunking The process by which the mind sorts information into small, easily digestible units (chunks) that can be retained in short term memory. Chunking occurs so naturally that we often take it for granted (414) 604-3200 Sensory Memory Iconic Memory (visual sensory memory) The perceptual experience of briefly retaining an image of a visual stimulus beyond the cessation of the stimulus It usually lasts less than one second G H R W B N M K S Sensory Memory Echoic Memory: (auditory sensory memory) The persistence of auditory stimulation in the nervous system for a brief period after the end of the stimulus. It lasts about 3-4 seconds Working/Short-Term Memory The stage of memory that can hold 7 plus or minus 2 items for 18-20 seconds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuvF113uty4 Long-Term Memory The stage of memory that can hold an unlimited amount of information for an unlimited amount of time “He can remember when Hannibal crossed the Alps. But when it comes to my birthday- forget it!” Storing Memories in the Brain Karl Lashley found that memories are not localized in one specific region of the brain, but, instead are distributed throughout large areas of brain tissue Synaptic Changes Acetylcholine: Plays a prominent role in memory A shortage has been linked with Alzheimer’s Disease Drugs that reduce the amount of acetylcholine in the brain impair memory Drugs or dietary supplements that increase the amount of acetylcholine in the brain can improve memory Synaptic Changes As the sequence of neurons that represents a particular memory fires repeatedly, the synapses between these neurons become more efficient, a process known as longterm potentiation. Learning and memory stimulate the neurons to release chemicals (primarily serotonin) at the synapses, making it easier for the neurons to fire again in the future. Synaptic Changes The tracks formed in your brain are almost like a trail balazed through deep snow from a cabin to the woodpile. With each repeated trip, the trail becomes easier to follow. Synaptic Changes Long-term potentiation (LTP): An increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Long-term potentiation is believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory Drugs that block LTP interfere with learning After LTP occurs, passing an electric current through the brain won’t disrupt old memory, but will disrupt recent memories that have not had time to consolidate into long-term memory Long-Term Potentiation Stress-Hormones and Memory The naturally stimulating hormones that humans and animals produce when excited or stressed make more glucose energy available to fuel brain activity, signaling the brain that something important has happened. The amygdala, an emotion-processing structures in the brain’s limbic system, arouses brain areas that process emotion. The emotion-triggered hormonal changes boost learning and retention. Emotionless events mean weaker memories. Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories Amnesia Retrograde Amnesia: loss of memory for events and experiences that occurred before the onset of the amnesia Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories Amnesia Anterograde Amnesia: loss of memory for events that occurred after the onset of amnesia Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories Implicit Memory (nondeclarative memory): Retention independent of conscious recollection. It is incidental, unintentional remembering, the unintentional influence of prior experience Implicit memory is largely unaffected by amnesia, age, the administration of certain drugs (such as alcohol), the length of the retention interval Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories Explicit Memory (declarative memory): The process in which people intentionally try to remember something and are consciously aware of doing so Explicit memory is affected by amnesia, age, drugs, the length of retention interval, etc Explicit memory can be best assessed with recall or recognition measure of retention Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories By the time you reach adulthood, you may have no explicit memories of the interaction you had in early childhood with friends from different ethnic groups. Research suggests, however, that your implicit memories of such experiences could have an unconscious effect on your attitudes toward and judgments about members of those groups Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories Hippocampus: a neural center that is located in the limbic system and helps process explicit memories for storage. Even though your ability to form explicit memories is compromised due to damage to the hippocampus, your ability to form implicit memories is still intact. Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories A woman with organic amnesia was unable to recognize the physician. Each day he needed to reintroduce himself. One day, after reaching for his hand, she yanked hers back because the physician had pricked her with a tack he had in his palm. The next day he reintroduced himself and stretched out his hand to shake hers. She refused to shake his hand but couldn’t explain why. She had implicit memory of the painful pinprick despite damage to her hippocampus Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories Cerebellum: this part of the brain plays a key role in forming and storing the implicit memories created by classical conditioning. Damage to this structure makes it impossible to develop conditioned responses RECOGNIZING VARIOUS TYPES OF MEMORY Check your understanding of the various types of memory discussed in this chapter by matching the definitions below with the following: (A) Episodic Memory, (B) Explicit Memory, (C) Implicit Memory, (D) Long-Term Memory, (E) Procedural Memory, (F) Semantic Memory, (G) Sensory Memory, or (H) Short-Term Memory. _____1. An unlimited capacity store that can hold information over lengthy periods of time. _____2. The preservation of information in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second. _____3. Type of memory apparent when retention is exhibited on a task that does not require intentional remembering. _____4. Chronological, or temporally dated, recollections of personal experiences. _____5. The repository of memories for actions, skills, and operations. _____6. General knowledge that is not tied to the time when the information was learned. _____7. A limited-capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for about 18 seconds. Retrieval: Getting Information Out Recall: The learner has to reconstruct the entire stored material Usually yields a lower amount than recognition Examples: Retrieval: Getting Information Out Recognition: Identifying objects or events that have been encountered before It is the easiest of the memory tasks Examples: Retrieval: Getting Information Out Relearning (Method of Savings): A procedure for studying memory or retention in which the effort required to learn the material a second time is compared with the effort needed on the initial learning experience. If it takes less time and effort to learn the material a second time, then there must be material that was retained in the memory system Examples: Retrieval Cues Priming: the activation, often unconsciously, of . particular associations in memory A technique called priming can demonstrate implicit memory. A person who sees the word yellow will be slightly faster to recognize the word banana as a word. This happens because the words yellow and banana are closely associated in memory. Researchers sometimes envision a network of word meanings or semantic network somewhat like the diagram. The distance between words indicates the frequency with which the words are associated in everyday life. Because of these associations, activating one node of the network (showing the person one word) warms up or primes nearby words, speeding retrieval. This effect lasts about 30 minutes after exposure to the priming word. Context Effects Context Effects Retrieval is sometimes aided by returning to the original context in which we experienced an event or encoded a thought. It can flood our memories with retrieval cues that lead to the target memory. Sometimes, being in a context similar to one we’ve been in before may trick us into unconsciously retrieving the target memory. The result is a feeling that we are reliving something that we have experienced before—a phenomenon known as “déjà vu” Context Effects déjà vu: the eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before” Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience. Mood and Memories State-Dependent Memory When a person’s internal state can aid or impede retrieval memory State dependent effect are very weak and limited to free-recall tasks Example: College students remember more positive incidents from their diaries or from their earlier life when they are in a positive mood at the time of recall Forgetting Three sins of forgetting: 1. Absent-mindedness 2. Transience “I said you forgot to feed the dog again” 3. Blocking Forgetting Absent-mindedness: If you want to remember vital information you have to keep your mind and your attention focused. (Example, our mind is focused elsewhere as we lay down the car keys). So in class you should sit in the front of the room, ask questions, participate in the discussions, and look directly at the teacher. If you don’t focus and properly encode the memory, you can’t retrieve it later. Forgetting Transience “Use it or lose it” Not all memories are permanent. Stored memories decay over time (in 5 years time you may not remember your Spanish) Forgetting Blocking Blocking occurs when something has been well encoded and retained in memory but cannot be retrieved (We are trying to remember a particular actor in a movie and it is on the tip of our tongue but we cannot retrieve it) Forgetting Three sins of distortion 1. 2. 3. Misattribution Suggestibility Bias Forgetting Misattribution Incorrectly identifying the time, place or person responsible for memory Example: Putting words in someone’s mouth, remembering a movie scene as an actual happening "Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them, or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so." --William James Forgetting Suggestibility The sin of incorporating information suggested by someone else into our memory. This can easily happen because of misleading questions, comments, or direct suggestions— particularly at the time of retrieval. A witness can falsely remember a suspect’s face after being questioned in a leading manner, and a therapist’s comment about “possible signs of sexual assault” may later become a client’s false memory Child psychologist Jean Piaget, in his Plays, Dreams, and Imitation in childhood, related a personal story about the malleability of memory: ...one of my first memories would date, if it were true, from my second year. I can still see, most clearly, the following scene, in which I believed until I was about fifteen. I was sitting in my pram, which my nurse was pushing in the Champs Elysees, when a men tried to kidnap me. I was held in by the strap fastened around me while my nurse bravely tried to stand between me and the thief. She received various scratches, and I can still see vaguely those on her face. Then a crowd gathered, a policeman with a short cloak and a white baton came up, and the man took to his heels. I can still see the whole scene, and can even place it near the tube station. When I was about fifteen, my parents received a letter from my former nurse saying that she had been converted to the Salvation Army. She wanted to confess her past faults, and in particular to return the watch she had been given as a reward on occasion. She had made up the whole story, faking the scratches. I, therefore, must have heard, as a child, the account of this story, which my parents believed, and projected into the past in the form of a visual memory. Forgetting Bias Bias occurs when current knowledge and beliefs distort our memory of the past. Most people believe that their beliefs and attitudes have not changed much over time, yet during a divorce, couples tend to only remember the bad parts of their marriage. In contrast, couples celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary seem to remember “always being in love” Forgetting One sin of intrusion Persistence Traumatic and extremely emotional events can cause memories to persist even when we would like to forget Encoding Failure One explanation for forgetting is that we fail to encode the information for entry into our memory system. Without effortful processing, much of what we sense we never notice or process In the circle, draw the front side of a penny. Draw a picture of a penny Storage Decay According to Ebbinghaus the greatest amount of forgetting (60%) occurs in the first nine hours (with the most happening in the first hour) after learning and then the rate of forgetting slows down considerably. Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve Storage Decay Barrick extended Ebbinhaus’ findings. He examined the forgetting curve for Spanish vocabulary learned in school. Compare with those just completing a H.S. of college Spanish course, people who had been out of school for 3 years had forgotten much of what they had learned. However, after roughly 3 years, their forgetting leveled off; what people remembered then, they still remember in 25 and more years later, even if they had not used their Spanish at all Retrieval Failure Interference: The interference theory proposed that people forget information because of competition from other material. Interference does not push items out of long-term memory, it just interferes with the retrieval of those items. Interference Proactive Interference (forward-acting interference) the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information Retroactive Interference (backward-acting interference) the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information Figure 9.23 Proactive and retroactive interference Myers: Psychology, Eighth Edition Copyright © 2007 by Worth Publishers PORN Proactive Interference Old over new Retroactive Interference New over old Motivated Forgetting Repression Motivated forgetting. In Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings and memories More and more memory researchers are thinking that repression barely, if ever, occurs. Their skepticism is because research shows that emotions and associated stress hormones strengthen memories Motivated Forgetting Memory Construction Memories are not stored as exact copies, and they certainly are not retrieved as such. Rather we construct our memories, using both stored and new information. In many experiments around the world, people have witnessed an event, received or not received misleading information about it, and then taken a memory test. Results show that people often misremember Elizabeth Loftus experiment Misinformation Effect Misinformation Effect Incorporating misleading information into one’s memory of an event As people recount an experience, they fill in their memory gaps with plausible guesses. Other vivid retellings may also implant false memories. Even repeatedly imagining and rehearsing nonexistent events can create false memories Misinformation Effect Example: Loftus’ study where subjects who were asked how fast the cars were going when they “smashed” into one another gave high speed estimates and a week later remembered seeing more glass at the scene then those who were asked how fast the cars were going when they “hit” Source Amnesia Source Amnesia (source misattribution) Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. Source amnesia is at the heart of many false memories Discerning True and False Memories Unreal memories feel like real memories. Neither the sincerity nor the longevity of a memory signifies that it is real. The most confident and consistent eyewitnesses are often not the most accurate Memories of imagined experiences are usually limited to the gist of the supposed event—the meanings and feelings we associated with it. True memories contain more details than imagined ones. Children’s Eyewitness Recall A supporting argument for the reliability of these reports is that even very young children can accurately recall events if a neutral person talks to them in words they can understand, asks nonleading questions, and uses the cognitive interview technique. A challenging argument is that preschoolers are more suggestible than other children or adults, and they can be induced, through suggestive questioning to report false events. Repressed or Constructed Memories of Abuse Innocent people have been falsely convicted of abuse that never happened, and true abusers have used the controversy over recovered memories to avoid punishment. Forgetting of isolated past events, both negative and positive, is an ordinary part of life. Cued by a remark or an experience, we may later recover a memory. Controversy, however, focuses on whether the unconscious mind forcibly represses painful experiences and whether they can be retrieved by a therapist-aided technique. Memories “recovered” under hypnosis or drugs are especially unreliable as are memories of things happening before age 3. Traumatic experiences are usually vividly remembered, not banished into an active but inaccessible unconscious. Improving Memory Overlearn Use elaborative rehearsal Rehearse actively Use mnemonic devices Capitalize on context effect and mood congruence Study the material as close to when you learn it as possible Be able to not only recognize the information but also recall it Remember the primacy and recency effect