What is encoding?
Encoding is entering material into memory
A theory of encoding into LTM is through the modal model
What is the modal model, and what are the issues with it?
- Information maintained by rehearsal in STM until transferred to LTM
- Largely structural (memory as stores)
Problems: - Rehearsal does not produce good LTM
- There are multiple ways to encode material in STM and LTM
What is the LOP theory (levels of processing theory)
- It is a continuum of depth of memory that goes from
Orthography (spelling) to phonological (pronunciation) to semantics (meaning)
Why is deep processing important for memory?
It allows the person to
- Promote connections by the person organising their learning through mnemonics
- Semantic processing promotes chunking based on meaning or structure of items
e.g. skilled chess player memorising the location of chess pieces on the board whereas a novice one wouldn’t do that as much.
Why is distinctiveness and connections important for memory?
- Provide retrieval cues and paths
- So helps access memories of the study phase
- Distinctiveness helps to discriminate among retrieved items that are similar or related
What is a traditional way of helping encoding?
- Rhyme working with semantic cues
(ba ba black sheep)
How do emotions help encoding?
- It increases arousal and arousal increases attention
- Inducing emotion after material has been presented helps people remember material more
- We encode emotional events better because they are the important events
What are flashbulb memories?
- People report vivid detailed memories from the time of major and consequential disturbing events
(9/11, natural disasters)
What is retrieval? And what helps us retrieve information?
- Bringing out material from out memories
- Retrieval cues
- In a study, participants had lots of attempts to study and recall a list of 36 words. On each recall attempt, participants remembered nearly 4 more different words, but the also forgot 3.9 words from the last test
What are encoding-retrieval interactions?
- Interactions between encoding and retrieval
Later memory work found that memory depends on how the material is going to be used and how memory is to be probed at test - Semantic encoding is useful for conceptually semantically based tests
What is an experiment that looked at encoding-retrieval interactions?
Stein 1978
- P’s study words with one capital letter
- Group 1 is asked if the word fits group 2 is asked what the capital letter is
Both groups had a list of distractor words to chose and then had to chose the capital letter.
- Semantic test (sentence word placement test had higher recall than capital letter group)
What is TAP?
Transfer appropriate processing - which means that transfer is best when test processes overlap with processing at study
What is evidence for TAP?
A study was done with a diver recalling words in the water, or on land. And the diver either learnt the words in the water or by the waters edge. It was found that when participants learnt the words wet and recalled them wet the remembered better then learning the words dry than having to recall them in the water.
What are positive effects of testing at Uni? (indirect and direct)
Indirect
- Students study more if they have a test
Direct
- Additional encoding of material encountered or retrieved during tests
- effects of tests on ease of retrieval
What are ways to study for University?
- Distribute practice - often but not for too long
- Practice retrieval - self-tests
- Interleave practice - mix up topics
- Elaborative interrogation- ask why something is true
- Self-explanation
