Memory: Course of Experimental Psychology - PDF

MEMORY Claudia Repetto Course of Experimental Psychology Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore TOC ▪ DEFINITION OF MEMORY A N D MAJOR DISTINCTIONS ▪ THREE MEMORY STORES: SENSORY MEMORY; SHORT-TERM MEMORY; LONG-TERM MEMORY ▪ THREE STAGES OF MEMORY: ENCODIN G – STORAGE – RETRIEVAL ▪ EMOTI...

MEMORY Claudia Repetto Course of Experimental Psychology Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore TOC ▪ DEFINITION OF MEMORY A N D MAJOR DISTINCTIONS ▪ THREE MEMORY STORES: SENSORY MEMORY; SHORT-TERM MEMORY; LONG-TERM MEMORY ▪ THREE STAGES OF MEMORY: ENCODIN G – STORAGE – RETRIEVAL ▪ EMOTION & MEMORY ▪ CONSTRUCTIVE NATURE OF MEMORY Tell me the facts you know about memory Results: https://www.mentimeter.com/app/presentation/n/al4538kwx4btyfuvv6ozohvbfpnwa1f8/edit?question=jtx o1kbzqrnt  “The marvelous capacity that we call by the single name of memory, the capacity that permits organisms to benefit from their past experiences.” (Endel Tulving,Tulving, Endel. "How many memory systems are there?." American psychologist 40.4 (1985): 385). Memory is the ability to retain information over time. There is no single memory system in our brain but several, functionally distinct systems. They differ in: the type of information that they store, the duration for which it is stored, and the maximum amount of information that can be stored (capacity).  TWO MAJOR DISTINCTIONS ABOUT MEMORY 1. Three stages of memory: encoding – storage – retrieval 2. Three memory stores: sensory store – short- term store – long-term store 1.THREE STAGES OF MEMORY ENCODING STORAGE RETRIEVAL 1. THREE STAGES OF MEMORY 1. Encoding consists of placing an information in memory 2. Storage 3. Retrieval when the information is occurs when the deposited in memory information is recovered stores from storage  2. THREE MEMORY STORES Atkinson - Shiffrin 3-steps Model (1968) SENSORY INPUTS Sensory Short-term Long-term memory memory memory  Sensory memory: records information from the different senses and lasts only a few milliseconds; Short-term memory – information you are conscious of, it is readily accessible, subject to decay (over period of around 20 seconds) Long-term store – unlimited store of the information generally available to us.  THREE MEMORY STORES Atkinson - Shiffrin 3 step Model (1968) SENSORY INPUTS Sensory Short-term Long-term memory memory memory Sensory memory SENSORY MEMORY Sensory memory refers to the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information before it is stored in long-term memory. Information is retained just long enough to be transferred to short-term memory It allows us perceiving the world as continuous rather then “stopping and starting” images and sounds ◾ There are sensory memories for all sensory modalities: ◾ICON IC ME MORY  Whole-Report Condition Your task: !Take paper and pen! Memorize as many letters as possible in the following display and report them after the display has disappeared. HBX V M FZ T PGW Q  How many letters did you remember?. Typically, people can report only 4.5 of them correctly  Partial-Report Condition Your task: !Take paper and pen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkZNHe49GcA Sperling (1963): Whole-report condition: After brief presentation, letters disappear Subjects have to report which letters were shown Partial-report condition: After brief presentation, letters disappear An arrow/tone indicates whether to report the letters in the first, second, or third row. Sperling decided to introduce the variation because while most of the participants were only able to report about four or five letters, some insisted that they had seen all the letters but that the information faded too quickly You did not know where the arrow was going to appear; therefore, you must have memorized all 12 letters in order to get all four relevant letters right. Iconic memory has a very large capacity (it can hold at least 12 letters), but it fades very quickly  THREE MEMORY STORES Atkinson - Shiffrin 3 step Model (1968) SENSORY INPUTS Sensory Short-term Long-term memory memory memory  Short-term memory or working memory SHORT-TERM MEMORY ◾ When you look up a telephone number that someone told you, you can represent this number with a visual or a phonological representation, although we tend to prefer a phonological one. We try to maintain this number active in our mind by repeating it over and over, a process known as rehearsal. ◾ The information is kept in short-term memory until is useful for a particular task.  Capacity of short-term memory is limited (Miller,1956): the capacity for memory span is seven items, give or take two (7 ± 2)  MORE THAN 9 ITEMS…. CHUNKING : recoding new material into larger, more meaningful units & storing those in working memory  LESS THAN 5 ITEMS…. FORGETTING: occurs either because the items “decay” over time or are displaced (displacement) by new items  S H O R T - T E R M MEM O RY & LON G-TERM MEM O RY Another important function of short-term memory is serving as “station” to long-term memory. REHEARSAL: process of conscious repetition of information which maintains an item in short-term memory (maintenance rehearsal) but can also cause it to be transferred to long-term memory (elaborative rehearsal) WORKING MEMORY Working memory: a workspace, linked to attention, which provides a basis for cognitive operations and the manipulation of items relevant for a specific task. a. Working memory can hold information for longer durations than sensory memory, but its capacity is limited. b. Information in working memory tends to be encoded acoustically, although we can use also a visual code.  Central executive Master system that controls and directs attention Phonological loop Visual-spatial sketchpad Episodic buffer Storing and maintaining Holding and operating Binding different information in an acoustic visual and spatial multimodal aspects of a code information memory BADDELEY A N D HITCH (2000) MODEL OF WORKING MEMORY  The phonological loop stores verbal content, whereas the visuo-spatial sketchpad caters to visuo-spatial data. Both the slave systems only function as short-term storage centers. In 2000 Baddeley added a third slave system to his model, the episodic buffer for multimodal information. The central executive is a flexible system responsible for the control and regulation of cognitive processes. It has the following functions: binding information from a number of sources into coherent episodes; coordination of the slave systems; shifting between tasks or retrieval strategies; selective attention and inhibition. It can be thought of as a supervisory system that controls cognitive processes and intervenes when they go astray.  !Take paper and pen! I present you with a list and you recall it. You can recall the words in any order and try to recall as many as you can (called a free recall task). BED CLOCK DREAM NIGHT TURN MATTRESS SNOOZE NOD TIRED INSOMNIA REST ALARM NAP SNORE PILLOW Write down the words you saw SERIAL-POSITION EFFECT: when asked to recall a list of items in any order (free recall), people tend to begin recall with the end of the list, recalling those items best (the recency effect). Among earlier list items, the first few items are recalled more frequently than the middle items (the primacy effect).  SERIAL POSITION Recall from Recall from CURVE LTM STM Primacy effect – remembering stuff at beginning of list better than middle because of Rehearsal (process of conscious repetition of information which maintains an item in working memory) Recency Effect – remembering stuff at the end of list better than middle because of lack of Interference (items are displaced –displacement- by new items)  THREE MEMORY STORES Atkinson - Shiffrin 3 step Model (1968) SENSORY INPUTS Sensory Short-term Long-term memory memory memory Long-term memory  LONG-TERM MEMORY It is involved in storing information from a few minutes (such as a point made earlier in conversation) to as long as a lifetime (such as adult’s childhood memories – and it is usually called autobiographical memory). ◾Explicit memory: an individual consciously recollects previous events, and recollection happens at particular time and place: we acquire this information through effortful processing. ◾Implicit memory: a n i ndi vi dua l unconsciously remembers information of various kinds. These memories are typically formed through automatic processing. Implicit memories are formed without our awareness that we are building a memory. Components of long-term memory as proposed by Squire (1992a).  ◾ It consists of facts and events that can DECLARATIVE be consciously retrieved. It is known as MEMORY explicit memory. LONG-TERM MEMORY: DECLARATIVE ◾ Form of LTM that can be consciously recollected and described to other people, such as memory for facts, ideas, and events ◾ Sometimes referred to as explicit memory Endel Tulving LONG-TERM MEMORY: DECLARATIVE ◾ According to Endel Tulving (1972) it encompasses two subsystems: ◾ episodic memory: memory of events in our own personal past ◾ semantic memory: our general knowledge about things in the world and their meaning Endel Tulving  ◾EP ISO D IC M E M O RY: Memory for specific personally experienced events that can be vividly recalled through what Tulving calls “mental time travel” ◾e.g.I celebrated my last birthday in Madrid EXPLICIT/DECLARATIVE MEM O RY:LON G-TERM MEMORY FOR FACTS A N D EVENTS ◾ S E M A N T IC M E M O RY: General knowledge of the world and society ◾e.g. “An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree”  DE CLARA TIV E ME MO R Y EPISODIC MEMORY SEMANTIC MEMORY Allows remembering personal Allows knowing facts and past events as such meanings Functions as a mental Not deals with time “travelling” in time Autonoetic consciousness («I Noetic consciousness («I know») remember», «I can re-live the experience»)  ◾ It consists of a heterogeneous NON- collection of abilities, including skills DECLARATIVE and habits,implicit memory, and some MEMORY forms of classical conditioning. It is also known as implicit memory.  P R OC E D U R AL MEMORY: Long-term memory for information that is reflected through performance, rather than overt remembering ✓ Unlike declarative memory, procedural memory allows you to remember how to ride IMPLICIT/NON- a bike even if you haven’t done so in years DECLARATIVE ✓ Difficult to verbalize ✓ Can be tested through observed changes in performance, such as the gradual acquisition of a motor skill  ◾C L A S SI C AL C O N D IT I O N IN G : refers to a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a bell). IMPLICIT/NON- DECLARATIVE ◾(see Learning from previous lessons)  NON- D E C LA RATIV E D E C LA RATIV E MEMO RY MEMO RY It consists of facts It consists of a heterogeneous collection and events that can of abilities, be consciously including skills and habits, implicit retrieved. memory, and some forms of classical conditioning. - Episodic Memory - Skills - Semantic Memory - Procedural Memory - Classical Conditioning “ I know that the capital of France is Paris” “I remember my last trip in Paris with my best friend last summer” “I learned how to drive a car in Paris” IMPROVING OUR MEMORY – FIRST PART How can we increase the chances of our encoding? Do you remember the “magic number 7”? We have seen that it is important to organize items ◾Adding meaningful connections: memory can be improved by creating real or artificial links between items, e.g. by elaborating on the meaning of material while encoding it The transfer of information into long-term memory is facilitated by elaboration or elaborative rehearsal: Some strategies include: 1. Thinking of related ideas or examples or looking at details of the content, mentally tying the information together or creating a mental image of the information 2. Making purposeful connections and associations with prior knowledge; 3. Discussions about the content with other people; 4. Organizing information, such as categorizing it into subsets, 5. Searching for more information D O YO U USE ONE (OR MORE) OF THESE STRATEGIES? WHAT IF MEMORY FAILS? ◾Forgettingin long-term memory is usually due to retrieval failures (information is there, but cannot be found) and to interference by new information ◾It is different from WM and STM, when forgetting usually is a result of decay or displacement AVAILABILITY VERSUS ACCESSIBILITY OF INFORMATION IN MEMORY ◾Forgetting occurs not because information in storage is destroyed, but because the learned material becomes not available ◾Evidence for retrieval failures: unable to recall fact or experience but recall it later or “tip-of-the- tongue”  INTERFERENCE Retroactive interference occurs when new Proactive interference stimuli/learning occurs when past interferes with the information interferes (in storage and retrieval of a forward-acting way) previously formed with learning new memories. information. ◾An example would be calling your former boss by your new boss’s name.The new name retroactively interferes with the old one, which is clearly problematic for recall: RET RO ACTIVE INTERF ERENCE ◾You had to change email passwords, but you keep typing the old one and can’t seem to memorize the new one: PRO A C TIVE INTERFEREN C E ▪ Some forgetting due to retrieval failures but some information almost certainly forgotten (consolidation failures). ◾ Role of hippocampus:most of research on storage in long-term memory suggest that the critical brain structures involved are the hippocampus and the cortex surrounding it (entorhinal, perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices). ◾ Damage to hippocampus can result to severe memory problems ◾RETROGRADE AMNESIA: Retrograde amnesia occurs when a person is unable to access memories of events that happened in the past, prior to the precipitating injury or disease that caused the loss. ◾ANTEROGRADE AMNESIA: When a person is unable to store and retain new information but is able to recall data and events that happened previously. ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS C ASE IN PSYCHOLOGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkaXNvzE4pk PATIENT H.M. In 1953, the removal of H.M.’s hippocampus Brain damage at age 27 ended his seizures, but also research indicate ended his ability to form new explicit the role of memories. hippocampal area H.M. could learn new skills, procedures, and the distinction locations of objects, and games, but had no between memory of the lessons declarative and or the instructors. procedural memory H.M. also retained some memories from before the surgery. He could retain new information as long as he focused on it, but as he was distracted, he would forget the information “he has memories of his childhood, which include vacations with his parents and information about a number of relatives” “He is altruistic: when I asked him to tell me about Dr Scoville (with whom H.M. had several appointments before his operation) he said, “He did medical research on people — all kinds of people. What he learned about me helped others too, and I'm glad about that.” “In addition, he has good insight into his memory disorder. When I asked him, “What do you do to try to remember?” he replied, “Well, that I don't know 'cause I don't remember (laugh) what I tried.” He has a sense of humour, and often makes jokes” From “Corkin, S. (2002). What's new with the amnesic patient HM?. Nature reviews neuroscience, 3(2), 153-160. Memory and aging Episodic memory is sensitive to the effects of age and very disrupted in Alzheimer’s disease. It is the first memory system to decline in both normal and pathological aging Neuroimaging studies have been fundamental in distinguishing between normal aging and AD: they have shown a particular pattern of morphological and functional distinct brain damage. The prefrontal cortex seems to be affected first in non-demented adults whereas the hippocampus is the primary structural disorder in this neurological disease.  An example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME3ideMOJws IMPROVING OUR MEMORY- second part How can we increase the chances of successful retrieval? Two factors:  As always, ORGANIZATION! Organizing the information at the time of the encoding: memory can be improved by creating real or artificial links between items  Ensuring that the CONTEXT in which the information is encoded is similar to that in which it will be retrieved: We retrieve a memory more easily when in the same context as when we formed the memory → Context serves as a cue for retrieval – if it cannot physically return then can re-create context mentally Our memories are not just linked to the external context in which we learned them. Memories can also be tied to the emotional state we were in when we formed the memory. Mood-congruent memory refers to the tendency to selectively recall details that are consistent with one’s current mood. → We have better retrieval when we are in the same psychological state as we were when we learned the material. Emotional factors in forgetting Emotions can influence long-term memory in different ways Rehearsal: we think about emotionally-charged situations more than neutral ones Flashbulb memories: vivid & relatively permanent record of circumstances where one learned of a significant event Retrieval interference via anxiety: anxiety causes/associated with extraneous thoughts which interfere with memory retrieval Context effects: recall best when dominant emotion during retrieval matches that during encoding People are more likely to remember more emotional events than neutral ones Rehearsal: we think and rehearse about emotionally-charged situations more than neutral ones Flashbulb memories refer to emotionally intense events that become “burned in” as a vivid seeming memory. Flashbulb memories are vivid and detailed memories of the moment when one first learned the news of an important, and typically shocking, public event, such as the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, or the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001.  Emotions elicit an increase in stress hormones. These hormones activate the amygdala, a crucial area near to hippocampus. The amygdala increases the memories formation and engages the frontal lobes and basal ganglia to “tag” these memories as “important”.  Consequently, the memories are stored with more sensory and emotional details.  These details can trigger a rapid, involuntary recall of the memory.  Traumatized people can have intrusive recall that is so vivid that it feels like re- experiencing the event.  Constructive memory Memory is constructive & reconstructive process – memory for an event can depart systematically from objective reality that gave rise to it Reconstructive – involving the use of different strategies (e.g., searching for cues, drawing inferences) for retrieving the original memory traces of our experiences and then rebuilding the original experiences as a basis for retrieval. Constructive – prior experience affects how we recall things and what we actually recall from memory. A famous example: Prof. Elizabeth Loftus https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_how_reliable_is_your_memory/transcript During encoding Constructive perception: if what is originally perceived differs from objective world through perceptual errors, the initial & subsequent memories will be distorted Generation of inferences: during transfer from short-term to long-term memory we can draw inferences about information, which is then stored with information It is hard to then recall what the original information was and what was the inference  Every time we revisit memory it changes in some fashion 1) Internally generated inferences: people make inferences that they incorporate into memory, e.g. using stereotypes and Post-memory schemas formation 2) Externally provided suggestions: information provided by others may be incorporated into memory, e.g. suggestive information