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Cog Dev in Middle Childhood
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL: (7-12 YRS)
The ability to form operations, internal transformations, manipulations,
and reorganizations of mental structures emerges in this stage.
Piaget called this stage concrete b/c ch can perform operations only on
images of tangible objs and events.
 CHILD SHOWS CONSERVATION CONCEPTS,
 CAN ADOPT OTHERS' VIEWPOINT
For a ch to be able to coordinate several aspects of a problem help the ch
appreciate tt there are several ways to look at things.
This ability should lead to decline in egocentrism, but I'm sure we all know an
adult or two tt still continues to think egocentrically!!


CAN CLASSIFY OBJECTS IN SERIES (EX. FROM SHORTEST TO
LONGEST), &
SHOWS COMPREHENSION OF BASIC RELATIONAL CONCEPTS,
SUCH AS ONE OBJECT BEING LARGER OR HEAVIER THAN
ANOTHER.
Recall:
The word "Preoperation" suggests tt ch do not yet think in an operational way.
Operations: are internalized sets of actions tt allow the ch to do mentally what
before they did physically.
Operations are highly organized and conform to certain rules and principles of
logic.
In this stage ch master reversibility and decentration, & conservation.
Transformational thought: allows ch to understand the process of change from
one state to another.
The ch is capable of logical operations and now knows tt there must be the same
amount of water after it's poured into a different container. The ch uses logic, not
just appearance as a cog guide.
Note: mass and number are understood earlier than area and volume. Piaget
used the term, horizontal de'calage for the idea tt different cog skills related to the
same stage of cog dev emerge at different times.
EX: ch can better understand the process of change involved inpouring water.
Reversibility allows a ch to mentally undo an action.
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EX: The ch can now mentally reverse the pouring process and imagine the water
in its original ocntainer.
EX: Math problems: ch can understand tt if 2 + 4 = 6 then
4 + 2 also = 6
and later tt 6-4 = 2.
EX: rltnshp btwn time and speed (See pg 309 in Feldman).
Decentration refers to a ch focusing on more than one feature of a problem
simultaneously.
EX: blue and yellow flowers are both subclasses of flowers.
EX: size and value of money like dime is worth more than nickel despite being
smaller in size.
Conservation: recog tt basic properties of substances such as weight & mass
remain the same when superficial features change.
EX: glasses, clay, napkin
EX: Ask a child does row A or row B have more or are they the same?
A: O O O O O O O
B: O O
O
O
O
O
O
Seriation: enables ch to arrange items mentally along a quantifiable dimension
such as length or weight.
Transitivity: operational thinkers can describe the rltnshps among elements in a
series.
EX: If John is taller than Mark and Mark is taller than Sam, who is taller—John or
Sam.
In contrast a preop ch may insist tt these ppl stand next to each other to fig out
the answer.
Multiple Classification: Ch can classify objs by multiple dimensions and grasp
class inclusion.
EX: subclasses brown beads and white beads are included in a whole class—
beads.
When you give a ch a string of 10 brown beads and 15 white beads and ask
them do I have more white beads or beads? Preop ch say white beads and
concrete op ch says beads.
EX: blue and yellow flowers.
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INFORMATION PROCESSING IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD
Intro
Ch become inc sophisticated in their handling of info. Like computers, they can
process more data as the size of their mem storage increases and they become
more efficient in mem processing abilities.
THE INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACH relies on abstract models of
human cog rather than trying to directly model how the B works. An example
would be the 3 stage mem model.
A model tt explains tt info enters thru a sensory pathway and then is either
processed in working mem (STM) or stored in LTM.
Review for Human Growth & Development
But this mysterious power that binds our life together has its own vagaries &
interruptions. It sometimes occurs that memory has a personality of its own, and
volunteers or refuses its information at its will, not at mine-Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Natural History of Intellect)
Definition of Mem: The retention of information over time.
The means by which we use info that we gained in the past. Thru mem, we store
& retrieve info about past experience to help us understand the present and
future.
Introduction to Memory Chapter
 Psychologists study how info is initially placed / encoded into mem, how it's
retained / stored after being encoded, and how it is found / retrieved for some
purpose later on.
 Sometimes info is retained for an instant, sometimes for an entire lifetime. If
you had no mem you would know nothing about what happened to you 2
seconds ago, 20 minutes ago, or 10 years ago.
 You wouldn't have a sense of self b/c you couldn't see any connections btwn
what is happening now and what happened in the past. You might have
feelings, but they'd be meaningless w/o the ability to contemplate them later.
 Mem is complex and consists of not only one, but of several systems tt operate
simultaneously and interact in many ways. In this chapter we will examine
these systems, which basically vary in 2 important ways:
1. how long mem lasts and
2. the type of info remembered.

Mem isn't simply a passive recording of info in true form & faithful form.
Mem is an active, constructive process, involving coding & recording info,
linking new info to past memories, & making inferences about meaning.
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 Additionally, language & culture play fundamental roles in mem. Our culture
sensitizes us to particular events & objects, affecting what we pay attn to and
remember (Harris, Schoen, & Hensley, 1992).
 Learning & mem depend on each other; you can't learn if you can't remember
& vice versa. W/o the ability to encode, store, & retrieve info from mem, you
can't learn or build on tt info in subsequent experiences. And w/o acquiring new
info (learning), there is nothing to store in mem.
 What we store as mems isn't reality itself, but rather internal models, or mental
representations, of external reality. These mental representations may include
ppl, objects, or events.
 Mems depend in part on the biological functioning of our nervous system,
especially the B, & we assume tt creating a mem involves changes (sometimes
called memory traces) in the B.
MEM AS AN INFO PROCESSING SYSTEM
In the late 1960s and early 1970s psychologists, Richard Attkinson & Richard
Schiffrin developed an info-processing approach to studying mem.
Their theory of mem is still the strongest today and is the only mem theory tt we'll
discuss in this intro class.
They explain mem in terms of stages and processes.
3 Stages of memory called
Forgetting is attributed to a failure at one or more of these stages.
1) encoding: the transormation of physical input (tt corresponds to a
representation tt mem accepts—Hilgard p. 257) into a mem system
2) storage: refers to maintaining information in mem
3) retrieval: refers to the process of retrieving info from storage
3 Types of mem systems
Show Transparency: STAGES OF MEM MODEL
1) sensory mem
2) stm or working mem
3) ltm
Each sys is described in terms of:
Capacity: How much info is processed in a mem system?
Duration: How long are stimuli present in a mem system?
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1. SENSORY MEM:
Sensory Mem is the momentary lingering of sensory
information after a stimulus has been removed.
SM holds info from the environ in its original sensory
form for only an instant, not much longer than the
brief time it's exposed to the visual, auditory, & other
senses.
Sensory mem also lets you decide whether incoming
stimuli should be processed further.
SM is very rich and detailed, but the info in it is very
quickly lost unless certain processes are engaged
tt transfer it into STM or LTM where it can be stored
permanently.
You don't have voluntary control over the info tt
enters sensory mem, but the reason you don't feel
overwhelmed by the vast amount of incoming stimuli
is tt you do not attend to all the possible information.
The irrelevant info fades away since you did not
attend to it.
Next, we're going to talk about how auditory and visual stimuli are represented in
SM.
FYI:
iconic mem (icon=image) visual sensory registers in wch info is retained only for
about ¼ of a second.
echoic mem (echo= to cry out, sound, roar) auditory sensory registers in wch
info is retained up to several seconds usually about 4).
EX: Auditory stimuli

Words sound like they do b/c of sensory mem.

When you hear Rumpelstiltskin why does it sound like Rumpelstiltskin?
Because Rumpel is held in your sensory mem until you hear stiltskin.
(** currently this issue of an echoic store is being debated**)
EX: An example of determining if incoming data should be processed further
would be when you are really focused on something like reading Harry Potter
and a friend suddenly asks you a question, just as you are about to say, "What?"
You notice that your friend said something, but you don't comprehend it right
away b/c you are so focused on your book.
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B/c speech sounds were held in sensory mem long enough for you to switch your
attention towards them, you're able to answer their question before they have
time to repeat what they said.
This is informally called the "What did you say, oh nevermind" phenomenon.
EX: Visual stimuli
 If I waved a flashlight in a continuous circle you would experience seeing a
circle of light.
 You are actually seeing the light in each of its various positions as they are
being held in sensory mem.
 New images are being registered before old ones fade so you see the outline
of a circle.
 Whenever you blink your vision is momentarily interrupted.
 Sensory mem makes your visual world seem smooth and continuous even
though your eyes are constantly blinking.
 Sensory mem maintains the visual images so that you are not aware of these
interruptions.
SM Capacity: Practically Unlimited
SM Duration: Visual stimuli = .25 seconds ; Auditory stimuli = abt 4 secs.
Decay / Forgetting: Rapid
* Decay refers to info gradually disappearing over time, rather than the info being
displaced (pushed aside) by other info.
Transition from SM to STM
Brief Transition: Only the information selected for passage from SM into STM
receives further processing and has a chance of being stored permanently.
Longer Transition: Once information has reached this point, rehearsal of the
info can then stay in STM or it can be transferred into LTM.
If you want to use info from LTM it has to be transferred back to STM before it
can be used.
SHORT-TERM MEMORY (STM): refers to activated mem or mem tt's involved in
holding a few items briefly in our conscious awareness.
This type of mem is also called working mem because it's the mem system
involved in what we are currently consciously attending to OR thinking about.
This is the memory you are using by listening to me and by writing notes.
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Depending on what we select for attention, the contents of STM can be changed
rapidly or dismissed or retained. What we select for attention can either be
automatic or deliberate.
EX: You're at a football game and just as your team is scoring a touchdown
some idiot behind you spills a coke and it splashes the backs of your legs and
drips into your sandals.
Instead of the contents of your STM being focused on the game you rapidly
change the info tt you selected to attend to and now you are focused on the cold,
wet sensation you are experiencing.
So when we feel like we don't have control over what we select to attend to, this
automatic (you may not have control over it) attention shift is designed to protect
us.
Sometimes our nervous system makes some choices for us tt have important
survival value.
Paying attention to strange stimuli helped prevent early humans from being prey
to other species.
An example of dismissing information is by focusing on something while
ignoring something else.
EX: You focus on the game instead of the airplane flying over head with an
advertising banner.
By focusing on some info and dismissing other, potentially infinite amounts of
info, we don't overload our B.
And you can retain info for a short duration, which is the info that you are
currently deliberately attending to, the game. You do have some control over
what you are paying attention to.
But as we will see in a moment the tremendous flexibility that STM is capable of
has survival value.
Why is it important that STM is flexible?
We hold information in STM long enough to evaluate it, organize it, and combine
it with old and new information.
STM is where thinking occurs; so you can think of STM as the awareness or
consciousness of the mem system.
STM Duration: A sound or visual image lasts about 5- 30 seconds in this stage
unless it gets processed further.
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Decay and interference just like in SM both explain the short duration.
One way of processing info further is called Maintenance Rehearsal where
stimuli you are attending to goes thru a rehearsal loop and is reentered until you
stop attending to it where it would be dismissed or transferred to LTM.
EX: you see a car on the side of the road with a for sale sign in it and a phone #.
You can’t write it down so you repeat it over and over.
But what if while you’re memorizing the phone # a rock hits your windshield. This
Interference will prevent your continuing rehearsal and you may forget the #.
Capacity: How limited is STM? Or how much can we retain in our STM at one
time?
How many items can you remember in your STM?
EX: String of numbers
THREE:
3,4,6
FOUR:
9,0,2,6
FIVE:
4,0,8,1,5
SIX:
3,9, 6, 2,8,4
SEVEN:
8,0,5,4,4 , 6,7
EIGHT:
4,5,2,9,0,1,8,5
NINE:
0,2,9,3,8,4,7,4,1
TEN:
8,2,3,2,5,6,5,0,1,6
EX: If you went to Baskin Robbins and looked at all the flavors how many would
you be able to remember?
Psychologist George Miller’s research revealed that the magic # is 7 plus or
minus 2. This # refers to units.
If I told you that I could assure you that you could memorize 24 letters in one try
you would think I was nuts, but if you group the smaller letter units into word units
you could do it!
“thepeopleincoloradoareverynice”
Chunking.
 Grouping or packing of info into higher-order units tt can be remembered as
single units.
 Chunking expands STM to make large amounts of info more manageable.
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Using STM effectively. If you are supposed to be able to remember 7 pieces of
information why do I have such a hard time remembering someone’s name?
You have all been to parties, weddings, membership recruitment events where
you’ve just been introduced to somebody’s friends’ mother’s son. And boy is he
cute!
Just as you are about to say hi you start panicking.... Can he smell the onion
sandwich I had for lunch? Is there spinach between my teeth? All of a sudden he
winks at you and says save me a dance blah blah. Oops you can’t remember his
name.
Because the name can't be processed further for transfer to ltm if other things
occupy the stm spaces and cause interference, it helps to deliberately
concentrate on the name and repeat it to improve its chances of being
remembered.
Problem: Trouble remembering people's names at a party.
Solution?
When you are being introduced to ppl at a party:
*try to relate the person's name to something unique about them.
*when being introduced say their name, "nice to meet you ........"
* As you walk away repeat their name in your mind while picturing their
appearance.
* Remember key points of info abt them to use as conversation pieces
later.
LTM: According to contemporary theories of human mem, once input info has
been processed or interpreted in a reasonably "deep" fashion, the underlying
abstraction is stored away in what we commonly call LTM.
LTM is presumed to have unlimited capacity to store info and the duration or
length of time it is stored is also presumed to be unlimited.
There are 2 types of LTM storage
Declarative and Procedural Memory:
In DECLARATIVE MEM you are explicitly focusing on storing to be learned info
in your LTM. "Knowing that". Another way of defining dec mem is tt it is the
explicit cog processes tt a person is aware of using.
ex: telling someone about a movie you just saw.
ex: describing the stages of sleep to someone.
ex: learning the 12 cranial nerves
There are 2 types of Dec mem: Semantic and Episodic:
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SEMANTIC MEM is a form of mem tt represents knowledge of words, symbols,
and concepts, including their meaning & rules for using them.
Like a dictionary or encyclopedia. This system is filled with general facts
and information. This is the system tt is most helpful to you during exams or
when you trying to teach someone to tie their shoes or drive a car.
EX: ability to carry on a conversation, understand history, psych, calculus, bio,
etc., understand the words you are hearing right now.
EPISODIC MEM is a form of mem tt represents our knowledge of personally
experienced events and the order in which they occurred.
episodic mem. This system is more like a diary than it is an encyclopedia.
Episodic mem is made up of specific events tt have personal meaning for you.
EX: ability to remem events from summer camp during our chhood, our first kiss,
our 1st week at college, and a movie we saw last weekend.
PROCEDURAL MEM: A form of mem tt involves a sequence of movements or
actions and tt enables us to perform various acts or skills.
EX: ability to learn how to swim, drive a car, operate a computer, [Susan hit
John......]
You may be able to consciously recollect "how to" info, especially if you are trying
to teach someone how to do smthng like play tennis, construct an architectual
design, play the piano, etc. , but here's an example tt will help illustrate the
distinction betwn dec and procdrl mem.
Imagine you're at Wimbledon: Jennifer Capriatti moves gracefully for a
wide forehand, finishes her follow-thru, skips quickly back to the center of the
court, pushes off for a short ball and volleys the ball for a winner. If we were to
ask her about this rapid sequence of movements, she probably would have
difficulty explaining each move. In contrast, if we asked her who her toughest
opponent is, she would quickly respond Venus Williams.
In the first scenario she was unable to verbally describe exactly what she
had done and in the 2nd scenario she had no problem answering tt question.
MEMORY PROCESSES
*This section will involve an interaction btwn stm and ltm for the most part
Memory processes refer to the encoding of new info into mem and to the retrieval
of what was previously stored.
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(1) Encoding: the transformation and/or transfer of info into a mem system.
Encoding has a lot in common w/ lrning. When you are listening to a lecture,
watching a movie, listening to music, or talking to a friend, you are encoding info
into ltm.
It's highly unlikely tt you are encoding all the info you receive into ltm.
In order to study how much encoding takes place and the types of processes
involved we are now going to look at the next 8 mem processes:
(2)Attn: Pay attn! is a phrase we hear all the time. But what exactly is attn?
When you take a test, you attend to it. This implies tt you have the ability to focus
your mental effort on certain stimuli (the test ?s) while excluding other stimuli.
So an important factor in attn is the selectivity of the object of your attn.
SELECTIVE ATTN: is the focusing of attn on a narrow band of info.
Sometimes we have trouble ignoring info tt's irrelevant to our interests and goals.
EX: listening to music with words and trying to study at the same time will
interfere w/ your ability to concentrate on either one.
Your attn is shiftable, which involves stm. The stimuli tt shifts your attn can either
be external like a phone ringing while cooking dinner, or internal, you can
mentally shift your attn from one topic to another either on purpose or
subconsciously like when you daydream while someone drones on about
smthing you just aren't interested in.
(3) Effortfulness plays an important role in encoding info.
Encoding processes differ in how much effort they require.
EX: Imagine you are driving down the street and chatting with a friend. You're
fine as long as the driving is easy and the conversation is light.
But if the streets are icy, or if the conversation turns super serious, then
something has to give, the talking or the driving. If 2 or more activities are
somewhat difficult, it's almost impossible to perform them simultaneously w/o
overloading your focus of attn.
EXPLICIT MEM: High effort-- the conscious recollection of information, such as
specific facts or events, and, at least in humans, info tt can be verbally
communicated.
Dev: Explicit mem capacity increases from infancy to adulthood and then
declines in later adulthood.
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IMPLICIT MEM: Automatic / Low effort-- mem for info tt either wasn't intentionally
committed to memory or tt is retrieved unintentionally from mem.
Dev: Implicit mem does not change much at all. When comparing young ch and
older ch there isn't a sig diff and when comparing young adults and older adults
there isn't a sig diff.
EX: suddenly thinking of a friend's name w/o knowing why, knowing about how
many chairs are in your classroom, you never counted all the chairs, tt info wasn't
intentionally committed, but you know anyway, at least you'd be able to give a
very accurate guess.
EX: When I used to work in retail and we’d have to ask customers for their phone
#s. I’d be driving home and all these phone #s would pop into my head.
EX: Singing songs from Riley's tv shows.
EX: ASK STUDENTS to recall how many different doors they walked through
today.
bedroom, bathroom, elevator, front door, car door, bldg door, classroom door.
EX: Commercials This is what happens when you remember commercials,
unless you find commercials so fascinating you deliberately put them in your LTM
Implicit mem can be helpful when trying to remember info tt you are trying to
become consciously aware of. So you’re transitioning from implicit mem to
explicit mem.
EX:
(4) Depth of processing or Levels of Processing (shallow or deep; a related
term: elaboration). Characterized by analyzing the deeper meaning of information
as opposed to simply focusing on superficial characteristics.
EX: read 30 words
EX: learning new vocab words
EX: learning someone's name for the first time
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(5) Elaboration-the extensiveness of processing at any given depth in mem.
EX for UNC only: what year did Wundt create the first psych lab? what's the
campus info #? 1890
EX:
EX:Self Reference Effect exercise.
Self - Reference Effect- def - the phenomenon in which info is recalled better
when it's related to the self. The ability to remember info more readily when it's
related to self-schemas
(6) Imagery- refers to sensations w/o an external stimulus present. Forming
mental images (or internal visual pictures) in your mind may strengthen the info
you wish to encode for easier retrieval later.
If you need to remember a list of things, forming mental images may help.
DUAL-CODE THEORY : Visual & verbal processing in stm.
Visualization is a highly effective way of processing certain kinds of info but we
also have a verbal "channel" for processing info contained in words & ideas.
The 2-part division of stm is called a dual-code-system.
These processes seem to operate separately from each other, but do
cooperate.
Info can be processed as a visual image, where we remember what
smthing looks like in the form of a picture.
*EX: Before coming to college how many doors did you have where you lived?
*EX: We also use a verbal transfer system for processing words whether we hear
or see them. The word pizza enters stm as a word pattern as well as a visual
image.
** Rsrch shows tt if u are trying to remember smthing, tt you will remember it
easier if you also think of a visual image of the object tt word represents.
(7) Organization: One of mem's most distinctive features is its organization.
Organization allows us to store info efficiently.
Semantic ltm for example is thought to be organized as a hierarchy of concepts.
A conceptual hierarchy is a multilevel classification system based on common
properties among items.
Not all knowledge is grouped neatly into conceptual hierarchies, knowledge is
also organized into less systematic frameworks, called semantic networks (SN).
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A SN consists of nodes representing concepts, joined together by pathways tt
link related concepts.
When ppl think about a word, their thoughts naturally go to related words, this is
called spreading activation w/in a SN. For explaining how knowledge appears to
clustered into coherent wholes, we now turn to schemas & scripts.
SEMANTIC NETWORK: This is an associative model, which is a technique of
recalling information by thinking about related information. LTM is filed into
categories and subcategories and as a network w/ several pathways to obtain a
piece of information. SHOW TRANSPARENCY.
A schema is an organized cluster of knowledge about a particular object or
sequence of events. Or a way of mentally representing the world, such as a
belief or expectation, tt can influence perception of ppl, objects, & situations. For
example: what love is, how to tie a knot.
A script is a particular kind of schema, it organizes what ppl know about
common activities. For example: how you behave when you go into a restaurant.
(8) Retrieval Cue: A stimulus tt can begin a retrieval process from ltm. Retrieval
by itself means the process of returning ltm contents to stm for analysis or
awareness.
If you have ever gone into one room and forgot why you went there and then
went back to the room in which you just came, you were using tt 1st room as a
retrieval cue.
ASK STUDENTS How many of you walk around while you talk, sometimes doing
other things.
Like trying to find where you set down your highlighter after you've gotten up to
answer the phone.
You hope that through your implicit mem processes you can direct your explicit
mem processes to guide you in your search for your highlighter.
Going back to the room where you were to figure out what it was you were
looking for in the room tt you went to. This is also an example of relying on
specific "stimulus cues" for helping to retrieve info from your ltm.
(9) Primacy vs. Recency Effect: {Serial Position Effect-the phenomenon of
remembering the material at the beginning & the end of a list better than the
material in the middle.} Primacy effect-best recall for items presented at the
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beginning of a list, Recency effect-best recall for items presented at the end.
Your poorest recall would be for items in the middle as they haven't had time to
be rehearsed and thus stored in ltm and new items (items at end of list) would
displace middle items from working mem/stm.
I pledge Allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with Liberty and Justice for all.
(10) Flashbulb mem:vivid images of circumstances associated w/ strongly
emotional or surprising events.
Challenger
Princess Diana
9/11
Columbine
(11) Zeigarnick Effect:the principle tt any task tt is interrupted (ex: due to
difficulty retrieving info from ltm) will be recalled better if you are able to work on
it "unconsciously" until it is solved. Answers the ?, Why do I sometimes
remember smthng I thought I had forgotten, when I'm not even trying to
remember it anymore?
How do you fit 10 horses in 9 barns?
(12) TOT: Despite that information being encoded in your LTM once it is
sometimes difficult to purposefully recall some piece of info. So TOT is the
feeling tt word u r trying to remember is just barely inaccessible.
DEMO: Try writing down the seven dwarfs.
happy, sneezy, bashful, sleepy, grumpy, doc, dopey.
DEMO: Try writing down Santa’s 9 reindeer
Ask students for examples from other cultures that would be difficult for
Americans to know.
Sometimes it seems that the harder you try to remember something the more
elusive the info is. Have you ever seen an actor on tv and you can't place their
name or where you've seen them before? Hours will go by and all of sudden
when you are all by yourself you'll remember.
(13) Redintegration:the recalling of many (or all) of the details of a complex mem
upon presentation of one detail. Also refers to a type of remembering tt occurs
when smthng unlocks a rapid chain of mems. EX: remember a song
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FORGETTING
Why Forgetting Happens:
(1) Ineffective Encoding-sometimes info was never properly inserted into mem
in the first place. Since you can't forget something u never encoded, this is called
pseudo forgetting.
This occurs as a result of lack of attention.
This seems to be a plausible explanation for when students say they studied
hours & hours for an exam, but "blanked out" when it came time to retrieve info.
(2) Decay theory- forgetting occurs b/c mem traces fade w/ time.
The mere passage of time produces forgetting.
In actuality this theory is weak and research has shown tt it's not the amount of
time necessarily tt contributes to forgetting, it's the amount, complexity, & type of
info tt ppl have had to assimilate after learning something new.
(3) Interference Theory-ppl forget info b/c of competition from other material.
Proactive Interference- occurs when previously learned info interferes w/ the
retention of new info (old bothers new).
EX: maiden name change ; address change
EX: open cabinet doors looking for garbage at Grammy’s house.
Proactive interference is when you forget something because info previously
learned interferes w/ the new information that you are now trying to remember.
Lets say you born speaking English, but since your dad is Japanese he wants
you to learn Japanese. So you learn to be fluent in Japanese by age 14. Then
your mom who is Italian wants to learn to speak Italian fluently. If you’re having
trouble with trying to remember how to conjugate verbs in Italian it may be
because the previously learned Japanese grammar rules are proactively
interfering with the new information. Has anyone ever studied more than 2
languages besides your native language?
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Retroactive interference- occurs when new info impairs the retention of
previously learned info (new bothers old).
EX: airport gate announcement
I was walking to Gate B32 to fly to SF when an announcement about a Gate
change came over the loudspeaker for a different flight #, but still leaving for SF. I
went to Gate B16 at the end of the terminal b/c I incorporated that info into my
mem and subsequently almost missed my flight.
EX: study for exams in two classes
Retroactive interference is when new material interferes with the ability to retrieve
information already stored in LTM. Retro means behind so something learned
behind or after something else causes forgetting of the material learned first. For
example say you just moved and you are at the Greeley Mall applying for Holiday
help and you have to write down your old address because you've lived at your
new one for less than 1 year. But you can't remember it!! So the learning of your
new address has interfered w/ the retrieving of your old address.
(4) Motivated forgetting- purposeful suppression of memories. Ppl may not
remember anxiety-laden material as readily as emotionally neutral material.
This is where ppl are blocked from remembering something tt would cause pain,
threat, or embarrassment. So actually info is not really forgotten because it is still
in LTM and could be remembered if the protective mechanisms were overcome.
EX: dental appts.,counseling appts, helping a friend move, term paper deadline,
fight w/ significant other.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING MEM
Physiology of mem: mem traces may reflect alterations in ntr release at specific
locations. Hormones, norepinephrine, ACh, & protein synthesis may be involved
in the biochemical coding of mem. Mem traces may also consist of localized
neural circuits tt undergo long-term potentiation (long lasting increase in neural
excitability at synapses along a specific neural pathway). Amnesia rsrch has
implicated the hippocampus & amygdala as B structures involved in mem
consolidation.
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Subliminal learning: Is it possible for u to lrn smthng by listening to a tape while
you're asleep? No. Any lrning from listening to a tape occurs just b4 falling
asleep. Recordings of B waves were used to determine when subjects(S)
listening to sleep lrning machines were fully asleep. Results: Ss who heard tapes
while in drowsy state could answer 50% of the ?s they were asked about the info
they heard. Ss in transition btwn drowsy & light sleep, they could answer 5%.
When fully asleep, they could remember 0%. *Rsrch suggests tt when u listen to
lecture or study in a drowsy state, u won't encode & store info efficiently. Proper
info encoding & storage require an alert mind, effortful processing!!
Savant Performance: certain individuals who are mentally retarded or who
suffer from mental handicaps or B injuries exhibit remarkable abilities in highly
specialized areas, such as numerical computation, mem, art, or music.
Eidetic mem: aka photographic mem is the experience of examining a visual
image of smthng tt appears to still linger before your eyes.
This is not an ex of normal sensory mem, b/c the image lasts for several mins
before it fades away.
5% of ch from 6-12 yrs have this distinctive visual mem capacity.
This ability almost always disappears as ch enters adol.
Adults who can form eidetic images are very rare and they can sometimes form
very sharp & detailed visual tt they can recall at will, even after a substantial
amount of time has gone by (Plotnik & Mollenauer, 1986).
Mem Impairment-B damage:
Damage to certain parts of the B by tumors, strokes, surgery, alcoholism
(Korsakoff's syndrome), activities (football, boxing) whose risks include multiple
concussions, can produce various types of mem impairment.
Alzheimer's disease(AD)-a progressive mental deterioration tt occurs most
commonly in old age.
The most noticeable early symptoms are disturbances in mem. Autopsies of ppl
w/ AD reveal shrunken cerebral hemispheres & neuron damage in the nucleus
basalis near the hippocampus. ACh is the ntr tt is assoc. w/ AD.
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Retrograde vs. Anterograde Amnesia(Am): Am-a persistent partial or total
forgetting of past experiences often due to some kind of B disorder or severe
psychological stress.
Anterograde Amnesia: loss of mem for events & experiences occurring
subsequent to
the am-causing trauma; difficulty
transferring info from stm into
ltm.
Retrograda Amnesia:
period of
difficulty retrieving info
loss of mem for events & experiences occurring in
time prior to the am-causing trauma;
from ltm.
How does Valium (V) affect mem? {V is a trademark name for diazepam which
is a tranquilizing type of drug used to treat anxiety, also a muscle relaxer &
convulsion inhibitor}
In a study by Mewaldt, Hinrichs, & Ghoneim, 1983, group 1 subjects were given
V and group 2 (control group) was given no V.
45 mins later were asked to memorize 32 nouns.
Then they were asked to recall the nouns in any order.
Results: both groups recalled the end of the list equally well, demonstrating tt stm
wasn't affected.
The groups differed in recall ability for nouns at beginning of list, demonstrating
interference w/ the transfer process of info into ltm.
V & alcohol & marijuana have all been found to affect the transfer process.
IMPROVING YOUR MEMORY

Diet & Drugs & Exercise & Sleep
Is it possible to improve your memory by changing your diet or taking drugs?
Rsearch does support the finding tt glucose taken before a mem test can
enhance performance on some tasks for elderly humans.
Taking antioxidants and getting regular exercise can help mem formation and
retrieval. It basically is common sense tt being physically healthy is linked to
psychological health.
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Getting effective (meaning restful) sleep is extremely important in the learning
and memory process.
Apply Levels of Processing theory and related concepts—elaboration and selfrefernece effect—to your own study habits: emphasizes the degree to which new
material is mentally analyzed. The depth of processing during exposure to
material meaning the degree to which it is analyzed and considered is critical.
The greater the intensity