PSY 323: Cognition
Chapter 7:
Long-Term Memory: Encoding, Retrieval, &
Consolidation

Encoding
• Mental Rehearsal
▫ Maintenance Rehearsal
 Repeating things over and over
 Helps maintain information in STM/WM
▫ Elaborate Rehearsal
 Involves thinking about how new material relates to information already stored in memory
 Effective at transferring information into LTM

• Craik & Lockhart (1972); Nairne (2010)
▫ Quality of memory depends on how information is encoded
See demo on next two slides

3

• Chair
• Mathematics
• Elephant
• Lamp
• Car
• Elevator
• Thoughtful
• Cactus
Count backward from 100 by 3’s; when you get to 76, write down as many words as you can remember. Do that now.
Replication of Craik & Lockhart (1972)
4

For about 5 seconds per item, visualize how useful the item would be on a deserted island
• Umbrella
• Exercise
• Forgiveness
• Rock
• Hamburger
• Sunlight
• Coffee
• Bottle
Count backward from 99 by 3’s; when you get to 75, write down as many words as you can remember. Do that now.
Replication of Craik & Lockhart (1972); Nairne (2010)
5

• Chair
• Mathematics
• Elephant
• Lamp
• Car
• Elevator
• Cactus
• Thoughtful
• Umbrella
• Exercise
• Forgiveness
• Rock
• Hamburger
• Sunlight
• Bottle
• Coffee
6

Memory for words is better when they are linked to other knowledge
• Depth of Processing seems to matter
Shallow Processing
• Little attention to meaning
Deep Processing
• Close attention to meaning
7

8
Craik & Tulving (1975)

Procedure
• Shallow:
▫ Is the word printed in capital letters?
• Deeper:
▫ Does the word rhyme with train?
• Deepest:
▫ Does the word fit into the sentence “He saw a
____ on the street?”
Craik & Tulving (1975)
9

10
Craik & Tulving (1975)
Shallow
Deeper
Deepest
Deep processing takes longer but results in better memory.

Complex or descriptive sentences aid memory
• Chicken
▫ She cooked the chicken.
▫ The great bird swooped down and carried off the struggling chicken.
• Which sentence would help you to remember the word “chicken?”
11

Bower & Winzenz (1970)
Procedure
• Paired associate learning paradigm
• 15 noun pairs; 5 seconds to remember
▫ Group 1: Silently repeat
▫ Group 2: Mental image
• After delay, participants are given first word and asked to remember the second
Results
• Group 2 did better; recalled twice as many words
See next slide


Results 
Interpretation
• Illustrates the advantage of visual coding
Bower & Winzenz (1970)

Rogers et al. (1977)
Experiment 1
Procedure
• Participants read a question for three seconds and then saw a word
• They answered yes if the word was in the question and no if it wasn’t
Four types of questions:
• Physical characteristics of word
• Rhyming
• Meaning
• Self-reference

Exp. 1: Results

Rogers et al. (1977)

16
Experiment 2
Results

Rogers et al. (1977)

Rogers et al. (1977)
Experiments 1 & 2
Interpretation
• One possible explanation is that the words become linked to something the participants in these experiments know well—themselves

Slameka & Graf (1978)
Procedure
• Paired associate learning paradigm
• Participants studied related word pairs
▫ Group 1: Read group
▫ Group 2: Generate group
• After delay, participants asked to recall entire word pair
Results
• Group 2 did significantly better
Interpretation
• Generating material yourself, rather than passively receiving it, enhances learning and retention

How do we recall or retrieve information that is not presently in conscious awareness?
• Retrieval Cues
▫ Stimuli that help us to get information stored in
LTM
▫ Seems to help the best if it taps into information that was encoded at the time of learning

Retrieval Practice
Testing Effect
Roediger & Karpicke (2009)
Procedure
• Participants read prose passages for 7 minutes followed by a 2-minute break during which they solved math problems.
▫ Group 1: Testing group
▫ Group 2: Rereading group
• After various delays, all participants were given recall test

Retrieval Practice
Testing Effect
Results

Interpretation
•
Retrieval can get better with practice
Roediger & Karpicke (2009)

Cued Recall
High school students listened to lists of 12, 24, and 48 words
Procedure & Results of Tulving & Pearlstone (1966)

Matching Conditions of Encoding & Retrieval
Encoding Specificity Principle
Godden & Baddeley (1975)
Procedure
• Participants randomly assigned to 4 groups:
Listen/Recall
Group 1: water/land
Group 2: land/water
Group 3: water/water
Group 4: land/land

Matching Conditions of Encoding & Retrieval
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Procedure & Results of Gooden & Baddeley (1975)

Matching Conditions of Encoding & Retrieval
25
Procedure & Results of Grant et al. (1998)

Matching Conditions of Encoding & Retrieval
Interpretation of both studies:
• The effect of context is significant
• Recall is better if the retrieval context is similar to the encoding context
Gooden & Baddeley (1975); Grant et al. (1998)

Moods Cue
• Memory is better when a person’s internal state during retrieval matches their internal state during encoding
• Information learned in a particular emotional state (e.g., depressed, happy, somber) may be more easily recalled when in that same state of mind

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Procedure & Results of Eich & Metcalfe (1989)

State Dependent Memory
Interpretation
The effect of context is significant
• Recall is better if the retrieval context is similar to the encoding context

Transfer Appropriate Processing
This phenomenon shows that memory performance is enhanced if the type of task at encoding matches the type of task at retrieval
Morris et al. (1977)
Procedure
• The encoding part of the experiment had two conditions:
▫ The meaning condition
▫ The rhyming condition
• Participants in both conditions heard a sentence with one word replaced by the word “blank”; 2 seconds later, they heard a target word

Transfer Appropriate Processing
Procedure
Memory Group
• Answer “yes” or “no” based on the meaning of the sentence created by replacing “blank” with the target word
Rhyme Group
• Answer “yes” or “no” based on the rhyme created by replacing “blank” with the target word
Morris et al. (1977)

Transfer Appropriate Processing
Results

Interpretation
•
This result would not be predicted by levels ofprocessing theory, but is predicted by the principle that better retrieval occurs if the encoding and retrieval tasks are matched
Morris et al. (1977)

Transforming new memories from fragile state (easily lost) to a permanent state (not easily lost)
• Standard Model of Consolidation
• Multiple Trace Hypothesis

This model posits that the hippocampus important at first; not so much later
Reactivation
• A process in which the hippocampus replays the neural activity associated with memory
•
This activity results in the formation of connections between the cortical areas
• This reactivation process occurs during sleep or during periods of relaxed wakefulness, and can also be enhanced by conscious rehearsing of a memory

Reactivation
• Eventually, the cortical connections become strong enough so that the different sites in the cortex become directly linked, and the hippocampus is no longer necessary
• Thus, according to the standard model of consolidation, the hippocampus is strongly active when memories are first formed but become less active as memories are consolidated, until eventually only cortical activity is necessary to retrieve remote memories

Evidence for this model comes from occurrences of graded amnesia
• Retrograde amnesia is most severe for events that occurred just before an injury
Retrograde amnesia
• Loss of memory for events that have happened prior to trauma or disease

Gradual decrease in amnesia for past events supports idea that connections between hippocampus the cortical are formed and strengthened as time passes after an event and then vanish
• Hippocampus is strongly active when memories are initially formed and recalled
• Then becomes less involved as memories are consolidated
• Eventually, the connections between the cortical areas themselves are enough to access remote memories

Multiple Trace Hypothesis (MTH)
• Hippocampus’ influence is important during latter stages of memory formation as well
Gilboa et al. (2004)
• Participants shown photographs of themselves engaging in various activities at times ranging from very recently to when they were 5 years old
• The results of this experiment showed that the hippocampus was activated during retrieval of both recent and remote memories

• This theory posits that when a memory is retrieved, it returns to the STM state
• If undisturbed it will undergo consolidation again back into LTM
• However, it may not go undisturbed and is susceptible to alteration at this time
• Since reactivated memory is in a labile state, it can be blocked (just as in consolidation)

 Some of the slides in this presentation prepared with the assistance of the following web sites:
 www.radford.edu/dhall/Matlin%20powerpoints/ch05%20edited
.ppt
 archlab.gmu.edu/people/jthompsz/6-LongTermMemory_2.ppt