memory - using it not losing it

Question 1

memory cue

Answer 1

• Free recall of a list of 40 words was better when the environment (context) matched, whether underwater or on land

Question 2

What is transfer-appropriate processing and how did Morris et al (1977) demonstrate it?:

Answer 2

• Words were encoded using ‘deep’ vs ‘shallow’ study tasks
  
  • When asked if items were old or new, people remembered semantically encoded ones best (generated to fit sentences)
  • When cued with rhyming items, people remembered rhyme encoded ones best (generated to make rhymes)

Question 3

What is an episodic memory made of?:

Answer 3

• Contextual information - time + location, what we were thinking
  
  • Relations (associations) of details - people + time + location
  • A one-shot memory
  • Details about an event e.g., who was there
  • When these details come to mind we often have a sense of “reliving the past” = recollection (Tulving, 1983)
  • Reinstating part of a memory can help bring back the rest = contextual cuing/contextual reinstatement

Question 4

recall bs recognition tests

Answer 4

• free recall (minimum cue)
• cued recall (cue is more informative)
• recognition

Question 5

memory cues

Answer 5

• Location can be a powerful contextual memory cue

Question 6

Smith and Manzano (2010):

Answer 6

• Written free recall of words improved by reinstating images from scene videos at test
  
  • Scene cues more effective when each video context was studied with fewer words
  • Cues better when more diagnostic

Question 7

how do cues work?

Answer 7

• Content addressable memory – find by knowing content. Contrast with address addressable, e.g. where people live
  
  • Global matching models: retrieval reflects the match between a cue and all stored memory traces (Clark & Gronlund, 1996)
  • Complementary learning systems model: episodic memory representations stored in cortex, partial cue triggers pattern completion by the hippocampus McLelland et al., 1995)

Question 8

encoding and retrieval

Answer 8

• Context is incorporated in the memory trace
  
  • Cueing with context helps retrieve that memory
  • A cue should match – its processing overlap with – what was encoded
  • E.g. if you know your memory cue will be a photo of a location, you might encode that context better
  • Encoding and retrieval are interdependent!
  • Morris et al.’s (1977) Transfer-Appropriate Processing principle and Tulving & Thomson (1973) Encoding Specificity Principle [treat them as the same for this course]

Question 9

Was your memory worse during lockdown?:

Answer 9

• Celia Harris argues that when events in our lives become similar to each other as during lockdown, it’s more difficult to find distinctive (diagnostic) cues to retrieve individual events

Question 10

Episodic reinstatement:

Answer 10

• How does the brain allow us to ‘relive the past’?
  
  • Memory traces are stored using some of the same neural representations that allow us to experience the events
  • If a partial cue overlaps with a memory trace it triggers recollection, and this reinstates the rest of the memory trace
  • This reinstatement can be shown with fMRI by looking for reactivation of neural patterns of experimental ‘events’
  • Polyn et al. (2005) measured fMRI brain activity patterns when people studied and recalled faces, locations and objects
  • Machine-learning algorithms were trained to discriminate neural patterns during study
  • Then during recall the same algorithms could ‘read out’ (decode) what (which category) people were recalling
  • Neural reinstatement of memory contents thought to be how we ‘relive the past’ during recollection

Question 11

Episodic encoding:

Answer 11

• Events engage multiple areas of the cortex
  
  • Prefrontal cortex is involved strategically to organise information
  • Memories are encoded as a ‘byproduct’ of event processing
  • Hippocampus binds multi-element memory traces

Question 12

Episodic retrieval:

Answer 12

• Episodic retrieval is triggered by a cue
  
  • The hippocampus initiates recollection in response to the cue
  • Then, the original cortical activity is reinstated
  • Prefrontal cortex is involved strategically to organise and monitor

Question 13

self-cuing

Answer 13

• Polyn et al (2005) brain activity patterns during recall
• reinstatement started about 5 sec before recall
• preliminary evidence that mental reinstatement actually triggers recall

Question 14

Episodic reinstatement:

Answer 14

• Different types of events have unique patterns of brain activity which get sorted in memory traces
  
  • When a cue triggers completion, reinstatement of these patterns is though to support recall
  • A memory cue can be external e.g., a smell, a photo
  • Or cue can be internal - deliberate mental reinstatement may also trigger pattern completion
  • Application - the cognitive interview for eyewitnesses.

Question 15

The testing effect:

Answer 15

• Roediger and Karpicke (2006, experiment 2)
• memory for ‘idea units’ in prose passages

Question 16

Testing - a robust, replicable effect:

Answer 16

• Large effect with lots of replications
  
  • E.g., Rowland (2014) meta-analysis
  • Shown in applied educational settings
  • Transfer of learning to other material
  • Not just students - generalises to different populations, e.g., older adults (Meyer and Logan, 2013)

Question 17

semantic elaboration

Answer 17

• Testing may enrich semantic representations of a memory
  
  • Because when we learn something, additional associations are formed around it, giving alternative retrieval routes
  • Study mother-child
  • Initial test with cue mother: answer is child
  • Later, can use associates of the cue, mother, to retrieve the target
  • E.g., father: answer is child - this answer is given more often after the practice test compared to a restudy condition

Question 18

in the brain

Answer 18

• Wing et al. (2013) memory encoding during study vs. initial test
  
  • Hippocampus and temporal ‘semantic’ regions - only during testing
  • BUT don’t know if semantic processing actually happening
  • AND overall activity in these areas greater during restudy…

Question 19

episodic context

Answer 19

• When item is studied and later tested, the context is different – not only place but also time, internal state
  
  • Testing updates context representations so memory trace now includes both old and new context
  • Larger range of potential cues can now trigger recall, as they may overlap with either old or new context
  • Supported by findings that a difficult initial test is better e.g., recall MOTHER–C—- versus MOTHER—CHI–
  • …this is because people have to do more mental reinstatement (thinking back to place, time, internal state)

Question 20

memory for video clips tested over 7 days

Answer 20

• higher forgetting of peripheral details than central information
• but cues re-triggerd recollection of the peripheral information
• repeated testing also reduced forgetting of peripheral details

Question 21

Testing, memory durability and updating:

Answer 21

• The testing effect shows that a memory is updated in some way when it is retrieved
  
  • Therefore, the variables that assist initial encoding (lecture 1) may NOT be the same ones that benefit longer-term learning (more in lecture 4).
  • Why not keep memories fixed?

Question 22

Theories of memory durability:

Answer 22

• Long debate about why older memories resistant to hippocampus damage in amnesia (e.g., patient H.M.)
  
  • Systems consolidation - memories become independent of the hippocampus with time
  • Vs
  • Multiple memory traces - updating over time. Hippocampus always involved
  • In either case generalised, context-independent (semantic) memories develop over time
  • Some episodic memories may become semanticised

Question 23

testing

Answer 23

• Strong effect on longer-term retention (Rowland, 2014)
  
  • But no agreement yet on its cognitive and neural mechanisms
  • In some sense both theories view effects of testing as memory generalisation
  • Related to encoding specificity/transfer-appropriate processing because memory updating impacts the kinds of cues that are effective
  • These are very important practical implications of the testing effect for ‘real-world’ learning.

Question 24

how not to forget

Answer 24

1. Use the right cue
   
   2. Rehearse by testing yourself these give us control
   3. Interference between similar memories - important, and probably reduced by testing
   4. Some decay with time - not really passive