Three processes involved in remembering
- Encoding
- Storage
- Retrieval
What is encoding?
registering new information
What is storage?
storing the newly encoded information in the memory
What is retrieval?
recovery of previously stored information
Rehearsal is…
- According to the modal model, likelihood of transfer from STM to LTM is a function of amount of rehearsal
- Rehearsal in STM
What are the two types of rehearsal?
maintenance rehearsal (type 1) and elaborative rehearsal (type 2)
What is elaborative rehearsal?
not repeating in a phonological form, taking meaning and turning it into a story
What was Glenberg, Smith, and Green (1977) recall test with a distractor?
- Participants had to recall four-digit numbers
- In between study and recall, they had to rehearse a “distractor” word for some period (2 vs6 vs 18 seconds), e.g., 4863, table, table, table, …, “4-8-6-3”
- There were 54 trials, and a different interpolated word was used on every trial
- After these 54 trials, the participant (unexpectedly) asked to recall the words…
What is the Levels of processing view?
- Craik and Lockhart, 1972
- Perceptual and comprehension processes leave behind memory trace
- The deeper an item is processed, the better it’s retained
- Important thing to study is not the inherent properties of memory systems, but rather the nature of encoding processes
Support for levels of processing view
- Presented a list of words e.g., MEAL
- Each word could be associated with one of three types of encoding:
1. Structural (Orthographic): Is the word in upper case? (Yes)
2. Phonological: Does the word rhyme with “mat”? (No)
3. Semantic: Does the word (e.g., ‘meal’) fit in this sentence: “the man ate his _____” ? (Yes) - Deeper the process, better the retrieval
What is Transfer appropriate processing?
- Morris, Bransfor & Franks
- Memory performance depends on the extent to which processes used at the time of learning are the same as those used when memory is tested
- Levels-of-processing approach simply assumes that semantic processing is always better than non-semantic processing
- But encoding that is poor (“shallow”?) for one purpose might be good (“deep”?) for another.
A test of the transfer appropriate processing view (Morris, Bransford and Franks, 1977)
- Participants performed deep (semantic) vs shallow (rhyme) orienting tasks
- After 32 of these sentences, participants were given a recognition test: Either: Standard recognition: LEAF SHEEP TRAIN or Rhyming recognition: STREET GRAIN PLOT
Results of Morris et al (1977)
- Effect in standard test consistent with levels of processing view
- But opposite result for rhyming test
- Semantic processing does not always enhance memory
What is Encoding Specificity Principle?
- Tulving and Thomson, 1973
- The likelihood of retrieval depends on the overlap between cues present at encoding and retrieval
How can the encoding specificity principle be tested?
- Which of the following cues will be more effective for recalling the word PIANO? – 1) something melodious? or – 2) something heavy?
- Depends on the learning context (Barclay et al., 1974)
- Participants who learn in this context: The man tuned the PIANO showed better recall with cue (1) than cue (2)
- Participants who learn in this context: The man lifted the PIANO showed better recall with cue (2) than cue (1)
- Conclusion: Participants encoded words with their context
What are contextual cues?
-Inability to recognize a face when it is seen out of context is a common example of the importance of contextual cues.
What are extrinsic contextual cues?
-Extrinsic - other features present at time of encoding (including one’s own cognitive state)
What are intrinsic contextual cues?
-Intrinsic - features that are integral to the stimulus
How can contextual cues be tested?
- Which of the following names refer to people who were famous before 1950?
- Then asked in context
- Muter (1978) found that participants scored 29% correct in the name recognition task, versus 42% recall when cues were provided.
What is State dependent recall?
-Recall is better if one’s internal state during recall mirrors state during encoding
-Effect demonstrated for participants under influence of drugs, including:
– alcohol (Goodwin et al., 1969; Overton, 1972),
– caffeine (Kelemen & Creeley, 2001),
– nicotine (Kunsendorf & Wigner, 1985), and
– marijuana (Eich et al., 1975)
- Organising information improves recall
- What did Mandler (1967) find?
(Some) participants asked to organise words on printed cards into different piles => had to come up with 5-7 piles
- Group 1 told that there would be a memory test for the words
- Group 2 told about test and asked to organise the words
- Group 3 only asked to organise the words
- The results showed the following pattern of recall: Group 2 = Group 3 > Group 1
What is forgetting?
- Forgetting often reflects (possibly temporary) inability to access memory (i.e., retrieval failure) rather than a loss of memory
- We can often recognise things we can’t recall, and cued recall is much better than free recall (Tulving & Pearlstone, 1966).
- Availability versus accessibility.
- Retrieval failure
What do recognition tests show in terms of forgetting?
Testing memory through recognition tests compared to recall tests often reveals that more is available than is necessarily accessible (e.g, Bahrick & Phelps, 1987)
Why do we forget?
- Decay? Perhaps long-term memories gradually fade over time
- The Law of Disuse? (Thorndike, 1914).
- Bahrick and Phelps’ (1987) study of memory for classmates is not compatible with this account.
- Decay theory suggests that rate of forgetting should be fixed over a given period of time, whatever the individual does in that time
