Psychology Memory Systems Quiz

Cognition: Week 2

• Last week's learning:

  • Spaced/distributed practice is a learning technique that involves spreading out study sessions over time.
  • Testing/retrieval practice is a technique that involves actively retrieving information from memory, for example, by self-testing.

• Motivation:

  • The graph shows a decline in time needed to re-learn material as the number of repetitions on day 1 increases. This suggests that repeated exposure to the material leads to faster relearning.

Overview

• Episodic vs Semantic Memory:
  • Episodic memory relates to specific events and experiences, while semantic memory stores general knowledge.
  • Episodic memory utilizes processes such as meaning, schemas, and organization.
  • Semantic memory involves facts and rules.

Episodic vs Semantic Memory

• Endel Tulving's view:
  • Episodic memory: Memories for specific events located at a certain point in time. Enables "mental time travel." Used for reliving past episodes and planning for the future.
  • Semantic memory: Stores facts, rules, vocabulary, and world knowledge. Does not involve mental time travel.

Are these different memory systems?

• Functional differences: Episodic and semantic memories utilize distinct types of information and experiences.

Neuropsychological evidence

• Amnesia cases: Amnesia patients often show a considerable loss of episodic memory but less pronounced loss of semantic memory.
• Hippocampal damage: Damage to this part of the brain affects episodic memory more greatly than semantic memory.

Semantic Dementia

• Patients' characteristics: These patients exhibit a substantial loss in concept knowledge while retaining intact episodic memory and cognitive skills.
• Brain damage location: Damage to the anterior frontal and anterior temporal lobes.

Episodic vs Semantic

• Brain region specializations (in different slides of images): Areas like the amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, and certain temporal lobe regions are implicated in episodic memory, while other brain regions are relevant for semantic memory.

Episodic vs Semantic memory: Conclusion

• Independent systems: Episodic and semantic memory systems are independent but interdependent.
• Integrated memories: Many long-term memories are a blend of episodic and semantic aspects.
• Interaction of systems: These systems interact dynamically and affect each other.

Meaning and Schemas

• Bartlett's approach: This theory suggests that recalling complex materials like drawings and folktales involves distortion. This suggests that people tend to make the stories more consistent with their own knowledge or schemas, rather than accurately recounting the original details.
• Effort after meaning: This refers to participants actively adjusting or reinterpreting the information while recalling it.
• Criticised for vagueness: The instructions for these studies were potentially too vague.
• Construction of Memory: The theory points to the reconstructive nature of memory; it's not a perfect record.

Schemas

• Definition: Schemas are mental frameworks of how we organize knowledge and interpret the world
• Function: These categories help us understand new information, retaining it and retrieving it later.
• Social-cultural factors: These frameworks are influenced by social and cultural contexts and can vary between cultures.

A Typical Restaurant Script/Schema

• Bower, Black, and Turner (1979): Study found that a typical restaurant experience involves a series of common steps from sitting down to leaving.

"The War of the Ghosts"

• Bartlett's study: This involved participants recalling Native American folktales and found that recall was often distorted by participants' own schemas and understanding, rather than an accurate recreation of the original story.

Activity: Read story and remember it

• A study activity that requires participants to read a story and try to recall it.

Other Activities

• Varied activities like sorting words, reading and remembering lists, or understanding the concepts of memory.

Bransford and Johnson (1972)

• Experiment with text and title: Participants recall more details and ideas when a title or context (like 'washing clothes') was given, emphasizing the importance of prior knowledge.

Role of Schemas (Sulin and Dooling, 1974)

• Effects of prior knowledge: Participants who read a story about a known historical figure (e.g., Hitler) were more prone to recalling inaccurate details than when they read about an unknown person in a story. It shows how prior knowledge affects recall, particularly with longer delays.

Role of Meaning (Carmichael et al., 1932; Bower et al., 1975)

• Reproducing figures: Individuals interpreting figures presented visually by giving them a context leading them to incorrectly interpret and redraw those images; illustrates semantic memory's influence on recalling and identifying visual input.

Jenkins & Russell study (1952)

• Word Clustering: The experiment emphasizes how memory tends to group or recall related words together (e.g., grouping 'fruit' words together).

Meaning vs Memory & Conclusion

• Importance of Meaning: Participants' ability to remember material increases when given the opportunity to connect and organize information meaningfully.

Meaning and Memory: Visual Imagery (Paivio's Dual-Coding Hypothesis)

• Imagery and Memorability: Concrete nouns are easier and more memorable because they are more imageable.
• Dual Coding: Memory includes visual and verbal codes, enhancing memorization through multiple channels.

Levels of Processing (LOP) (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Craik & Tulving, 1975)

• LOP Theory: This theory posits that the deeper the level of processing, the more robust and long-lasting the memory.
• Depth of processing: Processing information semantically leads to better recall, while superficial processing like visual encoding results in poorer memory.

Transfer-appropriate processing (TAP)

• TAP principle: Retrieval of information is optimal when the encoding and retrieval conditions are alike.
• TAP Example (Köhler, et al., 2000): Better memory performance is likely if you study in a format (e.g., images) similar to how you are tested (e.g., using images).

TAP Support (Morris, Bransford, and Franks, 1977)

• Task effect: Memorizing words by rhyming (phonological) approach led to better recall specifically when tested based on rhyming, supporting the TAP principle.

Why is deeper coding better? (Craik & Tulving, 1975; Richer, and more elaborate encoding)

• Elaborative Rehearsal: Connecting new information to existing knowledge aids long-term memory better than rote repetition.

Hierarchical organization (Bower et al., 1969)

• Hierarchical Structure: Information is better remembered if categorized hierarchically and presented in a systematic manner.

Organization (Tulving, 1962)

• Chunking and organization: Using meaningful groups of items to remember information and organizing information via hierarchical structures enhance memory performance. (e.g., linking words together or organizing them into categories).

Intention to learn (Mandler, 1967)

• Meaningful organization: The study focuses on how organizing material meaningfully is usually more effective when attempting to recall something, regardless of intent.

Summary of factors aiding encoding

• Creating connections: Linking new information to existing knowledge improves memory.
• Imagery & Meaning: Using visual imagery and understanding the meaning enhance memory.
• Organization: Structuring or organizing information into meaningful groups or hierarchies is crucial.
• LOP/TAP: Deeper processing and similar encoding-retrieval procedures are beneficial for memorization.

This week's reading

• Baddeley, Eysenck, Anderson (2020). Memory: Chapter 6 (pages 163 - 179).

This quiz covers key concepts about memory systems, focusing on episodic and semantic memory, as well as the effects of hippocampal damage and the Levels of Processing Hypothesis. Test your understanding of how different types of memory are processed and retained in the brain. Ideal for psychology students wanting to enhance their grasp of memory function.