REMEMBERING: THE ROLE OF
THE CUE
• Remembering as “ecphory”
– A synthesis of engram, current state,
and retrieval cue (Semon, 1909)
• Cue Specificity
– Free versus cued recall
Tulving & Psotka (1971)
study categorized list
free recall:
then cued recall:
.40
.70
– Recall versus recognition
Tulving & Watkins (1973)
study word list (e.g., grape)
then cue: vary stem size (gr-- = 2)
0 (recall) .25
full (recognition) .85
• Encoding/Retrieval Specificity
(Tulving, 1973)
– Compares E/R Match versus Mismatch
– Small but reliable effects of:
•
•
•
•
Verbal/associative “context”
Encoding task and level
Physical environment
Internal state and mood
– Larger effects when other cues weak
Eich (1975): Marijuana / Placebo
Study categorized list of 48 words
Study
Pla
Pla
Mar
Mar
Test
Pla
Mar
Pla
Mar
Free Recall
11.5
9.9
6.7
10.5
Cued Recall
24.0
23.7
22.6
22.3
• E/R Specifity (cont’d)
– Larger effects with “contextual
encoding”
Eich (1985):
study / test room match / mismatch
study long word list
imagery instructions:
isolated
integrate with environment
Probability of Recall
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
integrated
isolated
Imagery instructions
E/R Match
E/R Mismatch
CUE-DEPENDENT FORGETTING
• Occlusion
– Cue activates other memories
– Watkins’ (1979) cue overload principle
– The “fan effect”
– Classic associative interference
Retroactive Interference Design
RI
A-B
control A-B
A-C
rest
A-B
A-B
Proactice Interference Design
PI
A-C
Control rest
A-B
A-B
A-B
A-B
ASSOCIATIVE INTERFERENCE
AND FORGETTING
task: study and remember lists
of paired-associates (A-B)
B
A
C
learning AC interferes with AB
AB learned first: Retroactive (RI)
AC learned first: Proactive (PI)
RETROACTIVE INTERFERENCE IN
PAIRED-ASSOCIATE MEMORY
(Barnes & Underwood, 1959)
C u e d R e c a ll ( % )
task: study and remember lists
of paired-associates
10 Trials of AB pairs
then
1 to 20 trials of AC pairs
100
80
60
"C" recall
40
"B" recall
20
0
0
5
10
15
20
# Trials on AC Lists
is AB association erased (“unlearned”)?
NO: recognition-matching still good
• Occlusion (cont’d)
– Part-list cuing effects (Roediger, 1973)
categorized lists, seven instances
cue with:
category name only
and one instance
and two instances
and five instances
pc(remaining)
.63
.62
.56
.52
– Output interference
• Recall of items within a category
reduces PC of remaining items
– (Smith 1971): categorized lists
- controls order of category cues
- recall decreases across order
• Occlusion (cont’d)
– Retrieval-induced forgetting (Anderson,
Bjork & Bjork, 1994)
Study sets of category-instance pairs
FRUIT - orange; FRUIT - apple, etc
TOOL - drilll; TOOL - hammer, etc
Retrieval practice on half of some
categories:
FRUIT – or_____
Cued recall test of all pairs: FRUIT - ?
“good” e.g.’s
“weak” e.g.’s
RP+
.81
.66
RP.41
.35
No RP
.56
.41
– Gargano & Chandler (1999): less
interference with “study” practice only
– Veling & van Kippenberg (2004):
recognition speed for target words
RP+: 678 ms RP-: 810 ms NRP: 759 ms
CUE-DEPENDENT FORGETTING
(CONT’D)
• Suppression
– Target is inhibited, becomes less
accessible to other cues
“cross-cue” forgetting observed in
some studies:
Anderson & Spellman, 1995:
practiced within-categ
RED-blood
.74
unpracticed within
RED-tomato
.22
unpracticed across, related
FOOD-strawberry
.22
unpracticed across, unrelated
TOOL-drill
.38
• Suppression (cont’d)
– But some failures too:
Gargano & Chandler (1999)
Type of Cue during…
practice
test
RP-
No RP
FRUIT-or___ FRUIT-or___
.71
.79
FRUIT-__nge FRUIT-or___
.78
.80
Fischler & Woods (1985):
train AB, DB associates
RI with half of A stimuli: AC pairs
strong forgetting of A – B
no forgetting of D - B
IS MEMORY PERMANENT?
• The arguments for and against
– Some memories seem to “last a lifetime”
– But they may not; and others don’t
– Much of forgetting seems to be “retrieval
failure”
– But sometimes all cues fail
– Brain stimulation seems to awaken specific
memories (Penfield, 1952)
– But the effect is rare (40 of 520 patients), and
events seem more schematic than episodic
– Interference in the lab dominates forgetting
– But the “forgetting function” is beautifully
time-dependent (Power Law)
– No confirmed mechanism of “decay” at
neural level
– But some evidence, and a long way to go