THE STORAGE OF OUR
EXPERIENCES
Chapter 13
A Fleeting Experience
2

The case of “Donald”
A
accidental blow to the head caused damage to
hippocampus.
 Severe memory problems
 Anterograde
amnesia: the inability to form long-term
memories.
 To
recall an event, the brain must:
 Store
the event as a memory
 Encode the memory into a meaningful form
 Retrieve the memory
Measures Of Memory
3

Explicit measures of human memory
An observable measure of the strength of a memory.
 Recall: requires the subject to access a memory.




Free recall
Cued recall
Recognition: judging whether information accurately reflects
a previous experience.


Yes/no recognition
Forced choice recognition
4

Implicit measures of human memory
A
measure that provides an indirect assessment of the
strength of a memory.
 Ebbinghaus’ (1885) savings score.
 Used
to measure memory.
 (# trials original learning required) – (# trials necessary to
relearn task)
 Reaction
time.
Taxonomy of Human Memory
5
Procedural
automatic,
incremental,
unconscious
Motor Skills
Classical
Conditioning
Operant
Conditioning
Declarative
effortful,
can be conscious
Working vs.
Reference Memory
Episodic vs.
Semantic Memory
A Three-stage View of Memory
6


Atkinson & Shiffrin (1971)
Sensory register


The initial storage of memory for a very brief time as an
exact duplicate of the event.
Short-term store

A temporary storage facility where information is modified
to create a more meaningful experience.



Temporary and limited (typically 5 – 15 sec.)
Continued storage depends upon rehearsal and repetition.
Long-term store

Site of permanent memory storage.
A Rehearsal Systems Approach
8

Baddeley’s Rehearsal Systems Approach
 Inputs
retained in the sensory registers for analysis by
working memory.

Working memory
 Information
being actively processed by rehearsal
systems.

Reference memory

long term retention of events, relationships, and
procedures
10

Phonological loop
A
rehearsal system that holds and analyzes verbal
information.
 Evolved to facilitate the acquisition of language.
 Retains information in the verbal sensory system for a
about 2 sec. unless rehearsal keeps the information in
working memory.
 Probably not of great importance for a pigeon or
monkey
11

Visuospatial sketchpad
A
rehearsal system that holds and analyzes visual and
spatial information.
 Allows for people to acquire knowledge of the
appearance of objects and how to use those objects, as
well as spatial orientation and geographical
knowledge.
 Should be good in a pigeon and maybe a monkey
12

Central executive
 The
process that coordinates rehearsal systems and
retrieves memory from and transfers information to
permanent memory.
 Relies heavily on environmental cues to control
behavior.
 Can switch to an attentional supervisory control when
routine automatic control is insufficient.
 Is assumed to be a function of the frontal lobes.
13

Episodic buffer
 The
system that binds visual and verbal information in
the long-term store and retrieves information from the
short-term.
 Was a fourth component added by Baddeley to his
original conceptual framework of the working memory.
Short-term Store or Working Memory
14

Five major characteristics:
 Has
a brief storage span for new sesnory inputs
 Memories easily disrupted by new experiences.
 Storage capacity is limited
 Has a rehearsal function.
Working Memory in Animals
15
food
Hunter (1913)
Working Memory or Body Orientation?
16
food
Delayed Matching to Sample (DMTS)
17
Comparison
Sample
Comparison
Delayed Matching to Sample (DMTS)
18
PECK
PECK
FOOD
NO
FOOD
Symbolic Matching to Sample
20
Symbolic Matching to Sample
21
PECK
PECK
NO
FOOD
FOOD
NO
FOOD
FOOD
What is Learned in DMTS?
23
a) General Matching Rule
Pigeon = No! (with few samples)
Cumming & Berryman (1965)
- Trained on Red, Green, Blue
- Failed to transfer to Yellow
b) Specific “If-Then Rules”
Symbolic Matching-To-Sample
- Learned as rapidly as Standard DMTS
Memory Coding
a) Retrospective = Backward Looking
b) Prospective = Forward Looking
Retrospective Code: IF
, Remember
Prospective Code: IF
, Remember
Roitblat, 1980
Confusion Errors?
1. between samples
2. between comparisons
Confusions:
Comparisons > Samples
Therefore:
Prospective Coding
Serial List Learning
29
Present list of items to subject one at a time
A  B  C  D  E  F
Recall in any order
Serial List Learning
30
Ask subject to recall or recognize a single item
Recency effect
Accuracy
Primacy effect
A
B
C
D
E
F
Humans:
Testing after a delay produces
a primacy effect
Accuracy
Accuracy
Testing immediately after list
produces a recency effect
A
B
C
D
E
F
What about in other animals?
A
B
C
D
E
F
Radial Arm Maze
33
How Solved?
34




Random Choice
Odour Trail
Patterned Responding
Working Memory*
12-Arm Radial Maze
Choices Prior to First Error
Mean Choices
8
6
4
2
0
1
3
5
7
Trial
9
11
13
12-Arm Radial Maze
Total Number of Errors
10
Mean Errors
8
6
4
2
0
1
3
5
7
Trial
9
11
13
Switch from retrospective to
prospective?
38
12
1
11
2
10
3
9
8
4
7
5
6
Cook et al. (1985)
39


Rats removed after making 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 choices
Shifting from retrospective to prospective midway
produces the lowest memory load (inverted Ushaped error curve)
Cook et al. (1985)
40
Remember
Places Not Visited
Remember
Places Visited
Memory Coding
41
a) Active = rehearse relevant information
b) Passive = gradual fading of a memory
trace
Human Forgetting Curve With No
Rehearsal
42
Pigeon Forgetting Curve With Rehearsal
43
Roberts, 1972
Directed Forgetting
44
Sample
Remember
cue
Comparison
Forget
cue
peck
don’t
peck
ITI
Forget
cue
Delay
Least
peck
More
peck
Most
peck
Human Reference Memory
46




Duration (relatively long-term)
Capacity (relatively large)
Forgetting (details lost, gist remembered)
Requires Consolidation
Retention of Fear Conditioning
47
Clark’s Nutcracker
50





Food Storing Bird
About 5,000 Caches
20 x 20 KM Area
9-month
Buried Under Snow
Sarah Shettleworth
51
Results
52



Birds recovered previously cached seeds and made
few errors
Didn’t find seeds hidden by experimenter
Didn’t return to the same site if first storing episode
is followed by a second storing episode
Summary of Animal Memory
53

Prospective and Retrospective 
Active not Passive

Reference memory

Duration and Capacity

Forgetting and Consolidation 
Working Memory
Episodic Versus Semantic Memories
54

Episodic memory
 The
memory of temporally related events, or the time
and place of an experience.

Semantic memory
 The
memory of knowledge concerning the use of
language and rules for the solution of problems or
acquisition of concepts..

The processes involved in storage and retrieval
differ between the two.
Do Animals have Episodic Memory?
55

Association of Events
 Episodic
associations are based on temporal
contiguity
 Semantic associations are based on the similarity of
meanings of events
56

Episodic memory system has limited inferential
capacity.
 Information
based mainly on sensory impressions.
 Recollection is deliberate and often requires conscious
effort.
 Dated Personal Memory (what, when, and where)
Western Scrub-Jay (Nicola Clayton)
57
Clayton’s Results
59
(Central Executive) Metamemory in Rats?
60

Knowledge of the state of one’s own memory
 for

example, memory strength
Foote and Crystal (2007)
 Duration
of noise sample, 2.00 to 3.62 = Left
 Duration of noise sample, 4.42 to 8.00 =Right
 Choice to continue → memory test, large reward
 Choice to bail-out → no test, small reward
Foote and Crystal (2007)
61
Foote and Crystal (2007) Results
62
Problems
63


Only 2 of 3 rats showed positive results (5 others
always bailed or always decided)
Maybe they learned to bail with feedback on the
“close” duration values?