Memory and Forgetting

Question 1

Memory

Answer 1

Memory…three processes

1. Encoding: translation of incoming stimuli that can be processed by the brain.
   
   1. often automatic but is more effective with deliberate rehearsal.
2. Storage: maintaining information in memory.
   
   1. disrupted by retroacive and proactive interference and brain trauma.
3. Retrieval: recovery of stored information.
   
   1. facilitated by the use of retrieval cues.

Question 2

Models of Memory

Information-Processing Model (Multi-Store)

Answer 2

Information-Processing Model (Atkinson/Shiffrin)

• memory consists of three components: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

1. Sensory Memory:
   
   1. sensory register and provides brief storage of sensory stimuli.
   2. large capacity, but short duration (seconds).
   3. each sense has own memory store
   4. echoic store: auditory sense
   5. iconic store: visual sense
2. Short-Term Memory:
   
   1. when sensory memory becomes the focus of attention, it is transferred to STM.
   2. limited storage capacity, and w/o rehearsal, information in STM begins to fade w/in 30 seconds.
   3. Encoding to STM is primarily acoustic, but also semantic, visual and or kinesthetic
   4. primary memory (passive memory store) and working memory.
   5. Primary Memory capacity of 5-9 units and increased by ‘chunking/grouping’ of related items of information.
   6. Working Memory: manipulation and processing of information (repeating #’s).
3. Long-Term Memory :
   
   1. converting from STM to LTM likely due to the type of rehearsal
   2. more likely to go to LTM with elaborative rehearsal: relating new information to existing information
   3. Maintenance rehearsal: simply repeating the information with little or no processing.
   4. Encoding to LTM is largely semantic, some by visual or acoustically.
   5. capacity of LTM is unlimited and thought to be permanent.
   6. LTM consists of recent (secondary) memory and remote memory.

Question 3

Serial Position Effect

Primacy and Recency Effect

Answer 3

Support for separate short- and long-term stores

Serial Position Effect (with immediate recall)

• items in the beginning and end of the list are recalled much better than items in middle.
• Primacy Effect: LTM, already rehearsed while Recency Effect for end items due to STM.

With a delay

• only a Primacy Effect due to items at the end are no longer in STM (which makes sense!).

Question 4

Levels-of-Processing Model

Answer 4

Levels-of-Processing Model

• alternative to information-processing model
• differences in memory are due to differences in depth of processing NOT to separate memory stores.
• distinguishes between three levels of processing
• Structural, Phonemic and Semantic
  
  • trying to memorize a word (florid): focus either on its structural or physical properties (how it looks), on its sound properties (does it rhyme with anything), or its meaning.
  • Semantic: deepest level of processing and produces the greatest amount of recall.

Question 5

Components of Long-Term Memory (LTM)

Answer 5

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

• Procedural and Declarative components (Tulving).
• Procedural Memory:
  
  • stores information about how to do things (learning ‘how’) and is used to acquire, retain and employ perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills/habits.
• Declarative Memory:
  
  • mediates the acquistion of facts and other information (learning ‘that’ and ‘what’) and is further divided to semantic and episodic memory.
    
    • Semantic Memory = general knowledge that is independent of any context and is responsible for the storage of facts, rules, and concepts.
    • Episodic Memory = Autobiographical memory consists of information about events that have been personally experienced
    • Flashbulb Memory: vivid, detail images of what one was doing at the time a dramatic event occurred are stored in episodic memory.
    • Episodic Memory is affected more by normal aging than semantic and procedural memory.

Question 6

LTM continued…

Implicit and Explicit LTM

Prospective Memory

Answer 6

Implicit and Explicit divide of LTM

Implicit as procedural (how) and is automatic from basal ganglia and cerebellum

Explicit as declarative (what/that) and requires conscious recollection from the hippocampus and frontal lobes.

Supported by research showing that they involve different brain structures:

• Implicit = basal ganglia and cerebellum *
• Explicit = hippocampus and frontal lobes*

Prospective Memory

1. another component of LTM responsible fo rthe capacity to remember to do things in the future
2. husker du = remember to remember
3. in controlled situations: olders do worse than younger people with prospective memory
4. in naturalistic settings: olders do much better as they already make use of external aides such as lists and calendars.

Question 7

Attention and Memory

–multi-component model of working memory

—filter theory of selective attention

—feature-integration theory

Answer 7

Strong link between attention and memory

ability to maintain attention in the presence of distractions accounts for the difference between individual with good vs. poor working memory

Question 8

a. Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Baddeley

attention-memory connection

Answer 8

Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Working Memory consists of:

1. central executive and three subsytems
   
   1. phonological loop
   2. visuo-spatial sketchpad
   3. episodic buffer
2. Central Executive = primary component of WM and is described as an attentional control system
   
   1. directs attention to relevant info, suppressing irrelevant info, and coordinating the three subsystems!
   2. tasks that depend on the Central Executive most adversely affected by old age.
3. Phonological Loop = temporarily storing auditory-verbal information
4. Visuo-Spatial sketchpad = temporarily storing visual spatial information
5. Episodic Buffer = temporarily integrates auditory, visual and spatial information.

digit forward relies mainly on phonological loop and is relatively unaffected by increasing age

Backward digit span = depends on the phonological loop and the central executive and shows greater age-related decline.

Question 9

b. Filter Theory of Selective Attention

Broadbent

(memory-attention)

Answer 9

Filter Theory of Selective Attention

Broadbent’s Filter Theory was first of the ‘bottleneck’ theories of attention

• based on information-processing model and focuses on how sensory information is transferred to STM
• Two (2) sensory stimuli presented at the same time are maintained for a brief period in sensory register
• a filter selects one of the the two stimuli to pass through a limited sensory channel while the other stimulus is held in a temporary buffer for later processing.
• the stimulus that passes through the channel to STM is processed for meaning and comes into conscious awareness.
• Filter: prevents overloading the capacity of STM

Research to support:

Split-Span Dichotomous listenting task!

two different sets of #’s in each ear at same time.

numbers were grouped with one selected first, not mixed together!

Question 10

c. Feature-Integration Theory

Treisman and Gelade

memory and attention

Answer 10

Feature-Integration Theory

1. initially processing of visual information involves 2 stages
   
   1. initial preattentive stage: basic features of the object are perceived in parallel at an automatic or subconscious level
   2. attentive stage: features are processed serially to form a coherent whole, and this binding of features depends on focal attention
   3. once an object has been correctly integrated, it ordinarily continues to be perceived and stored in memory as a unitary object.
   4. over time: features may disintegrate and free float once more or recombine to form illusory conjunctions as the result of memory decay or interference.

Question 11

Accuracy of Memories

Answer 11

Memory Accuracy…..affected by several factors:

• schemas (cognitive structures or frameworkds that influence how new information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.
• Distortions: interpreting information through existing schemas that may introduce systematic biases into memory.
  
  • story title or picture which acivates a specific schema, influences how the story is interpreted and later recalled.
• Contruction: combining elements of new information with existing knowledge, can cause inaccuracies and distortions.
  
  • witness testimony errors due to construction can be substantial since existing knowledge affects what we pay attention to and remember about an event and what we recall about the event later.

Question 12

FORGETTING

Answer 12

Ebbinghaus first formulated forgetting research:

1. learning of nonsense syllables: predictable forgetting curve with most occurs during first 4-5 days and then tapers off.

Trace Decay Theory

1. Learning produces a trace or engram, which is a physiological change in the brain that decays over time as the result of disuse.
2. yes, but many memories are retained for long periods w/o interventing use or practice…an apparently forgotten memory of a event is suddently recalled.
3. people forget less when asleep than when awake for an equal amount of time…= forgetting is due more to interference (events that occur while awake) than to the decay of memory traces over time.
4. not the best theory

Question 13

Interference Theory

….forgetting theories

Answer 13

Interference Theory

• forgetting occurs when the ability to recall certain infomation is affected by information acquired previously or subsequently.
• Interference is most likely when:
  
  • new and old info are similar;
  • when the task involves recall (versus recognition)
  • when the information to be recalled is unimportant or meaningless
• Retroactive Interference:
  
  • new blocks the old: recently learned material interferes with the recall of previously learned (old) materials.
    
    • kinda like recency effect and STM (blocks primacy)
    • have control group rest second
• Proactive Interference:
  
  • ​old material blocks new: prior learning interferes with the learning or recall of subsequent material.
    
    • kinda like primacy effect and LTM (block recency)
    • have control group rest first

Cue-Dependent Forgetting

1. forgetting results when cues needed to retrieve information from long-term memory are insufficient or incomplete
2. time of the toungue phenomenon is due to inadequate retrieval cues.

Question 14

METHODS FOR IMPROVING MEMORY

Answer 14

MEMORY IMPROVEMENT

ENCODING SPECIFICITY

1. the greater the similarity between the way infomation is encoded and the cues that are present at the time of recall, the better the recall.
2. State-Dependent Learning: shows that recall of information is sometimes better when the learner is in the same emotional state during learning and recall.
3. recognition performance is better than pure recall due to recognition items having more retrieval cues.

ELABORATIVE REHEARSAL

• information is most likely to be transferred from STM to LTM when elaborative rehearsal is employed
  
  • when new information is made more meaningful by relating it to existing knowledge.

**MNEMONIC DEVICES: **

1. Formal strategies for improving memory and are classified as visual or verbal.
2. Visual mnemonics make use of visual imagery.
   
   1. visually associating items to be remembered with a series of places (loci) already in memory.
   2. Visually imagine going through a room and placing items around the room.
   3. to remember, must walk through room again to retrieve items.
3. Keyword Method: imagery technique and is useful for paired associate tasks in which two words must be linked.
   
   1. to remember french for book “livre” = imagine a ‘leaf’ picture on a book!
      
      1. Eiditc images: forming visual images of extreme clarity and detail, which allow people to recall events, objects, and information with great accuracy. (photographic memory?).
4. Verbal Mnemonics
   
   1. _​_acronyms and acrostics
   2. RAID: acronym for the primary symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder (re-experiencing, avoidance, increased arousal and dissociations).
   3. Acrostic: phrase or rhyme from the first letter of each words that is to be memorized: See Piaget Creep Forward= sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational)

**AROUSAL **

• Yerkes-Dodson Law: moderate levels of arousal maximize the efficiency of learning and performance
  
  • extremely low and high levels are associated with decreased efficiency.
  • relationship between arousal and learning assumes an inverted-U.
  • link betwee arousal and learning is also affected by task difficulty:
    
    • more difficult the task = lower the optimal level of arousal

Question 15

AMNESIA

antrograde and retrograde

Answer 15

Anterograde Amnesia

is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact.

Retrograde Amnesia

where memories created prior to the event are lost while new memories can still be created.

Both can occur together in the same patient.

To a large degree, anterograde amnesia remains a mysterious ailment because the precise mechanism of storing memories is not yet well understood, although it is known that the regions involved are certain sites in the temporal cortex, especially in the hippocampus and nearby subcortical regions.

In most cases of anterograde amnesia, patients lose declarative memory, or the recollection of facts, but they retain nondeclarative memory, often called procedural memory.

For instance, they are able to remember and in some cases learn how to do things such as talking on the phone or riding a bicycle, but they may not remember what they had eaten earlier that day for lunch.[2]

Associated with Alcoholism

Question 16

Medial Temporal Lobe

amnesia

Answer 16

** MTL memory system: **includes the hippocampal formation (CA fields, dentate gyrus, subicular complex), perirhinal, entorhinal, and parahippocampal cortices.

It is known to be important for the storage and processing of declarative memory, which allows for factual recall. It is also known to communicate with the neocortex in the establishment and maintenance of long-term memories, although its known functions are independent of long-term memory.

Nondeclarative memory, on the other hand, which allows for the performance of different skills and habits, is not part of the MTL memory system. Most data point to a “division of labor” among the parts of this system, although this is still being debated and is described in detail below.[2]

An important finding in amnesic patients with MTL damage is the impairment of memory in all sensory modalities – sound, touch, smell, taste, and sight.

This reflects the fact that the MTL is a processor for all of the sensory modalities, and helps store these kind of thoughts into memory. In addition, subjects can often remember how to perform relatively simple tasks immediately (on the order of 10 seconds), but when the task becomes more difficult, even on the same time scale, subjects tend to forget.

This demonstrates the difficulty of separating procedural memory tasks from declarative memory; some elements of declarative memory may be used in learning procedural tasks.[7]

MTL amnesic patients with localized damage to the hippocampus retain other perceptual abilities, such as the ability to intelligently function in society, to make conversation, to make one’s bed, etc. Additionally, anterograde amnesics without combined retrograde disorders (localized damage to the MTL system) have memories prior to the traumatic event. For this reason, the MTL is not the storage place of all memories; other regions in the brain also store memories. The key is the MTL is responsible for the learning of new materials.[2]