Lecture 6 (Learning and Remembering).ppt

Learning and Remembering Lecture 6 Overview of Major Topics • • • • Preliminary Issues (mnemonics and Ebbinghaus) Storing Information in Episodic Memory Retrieving Information in Episodic Memory Amnesia and Implicit Memory Squire’s (1993) Taxonomy of Long-Term Memories Explicit Versus Implici...

Learning and Remembering Lecture 6 Overview of Major Topics • • • • Preliminary Issues (mnemonics and Ebbinghaus) Storing Information in Episodic Memory Retrieving Information in Episodic Memory Amnesia and Implicit Memory Squire’s (1993) Taxonomy of Long-Term Memories Explicit Versus Implicit Memory • Explicit: LTM knowledge that can be retrieved and then reflected on consciously. • Implicit: Knowledge that can influence thought and behaviour without any necessary involvement of conscious awareness. Episodic Versus Semantic Memory • Episodic: Autobiographical memory – stores personally experienced events (e.g., your mother’s maiden name). • Semantic: Stores general world knowledge (e.g., concepts and categories). What is the Function of Memory? Mnemonic Devices • An active, strategic learning device. • The Method of Loci: Dates back to Ancient Greece. • The Peg-word Technique: Miller, Galanter and Pribam (1960). Three Mnemonic Principles • Mnemonics: 1 Provide a structure for learning. 2 By means of visual images and rhymes, they form durable and distinctive memory traces. 3 Guide retrieval by providing effective cues for recalling the information. 1. Encoding, 2. Retention, 3. Retrieval Herman Ebbinghaus • The founder of scientific research on memory. Wrote ‘On Memory’ in 1885 • Studied nonsense syllables. • Used the relearning task and savings scores. Ebbinghaus • Discovered the forgetting curve • Also discovered the list length effect (the bigger the list, the more exposure to the syllables was required) and the meaningfulness effect (learn meaningful syllables much faster than meaningless syllables). Metamemory • Knowledge about one’s own memory, how it works and how it fails to work. • Metacognition: Knowledge about one’s own cognitive system and its functioning. Storage in Episodic Memory • Getting information into the system. • Important Storage Effects: 1. Rehearsal 2. Organization 3. Imagery Rehearsal • A deliberate recycling of STM’s contents • Rundus (1971) Showed the primacy effect to be entirely dependent on rehearsal-- the first items in a list get the best and most rehearsal. Two Kinds of Rehearsal • Craik and Lockhart (1972) • Maintenance (Type I) Low-level information cycling (holding the pizza number in memory until you dial it). • Elaborative (Type II) More complex rehearsal using the meaning of the information. Craik and Lockhart (1972) • Depth of Processing: Memory is determined not by how long information stays in the system, but by how the person processes it. Shallow Processing leads to poor LTM traces. Deep Processing leads to strong LTM traces. Studying Depth of Processing • Craik and Watkins’ (1973) “G” study. • The orienting task: Is it an animal? DOG Is it in upper case? table • Dog requires semantic processing; table does not. So, people will remember the word “dog” better than the word “table”. Challenges to Depth of Processing • Is this a circular explanation for performance? (Baddeley, 1978) • Effects using recognition instead of recall. Organization • The structuring or restructring of information as it is being stored in memory. • Example: Bousfield’s (1953) category clustering experiment. • Organization’s relationship to chunking? Example: Bower, Clark, Lesgold, and Winzenz (1969). Organization (Bower et al. 1969) Organization (Bower et al. 1969) Subjective Organization • Organization developed by the subject for structuring and remembering a list of items without experimenter-supplied categories. Subjective Organization • Organization developed by the subject for structuring and remembering a list of items without experimenter-supplied categories. Visual Imagery • The mental picturing of a stimulus that affects later recall or recognition. • Schnorr and Atkinson (1969): • Subjects studied paired associates (dog-book) either by forming a visual image or by rote repetition. Imagery condition did much better at remembering the second word (book) when cued with the first word (dog). Paivio’s Dual Coding Hypothesis • Concrete words (cigar, truck) can be stored twice in long-term memory, once as a word, and once as a picture. • Hence, concrete words are remembered better than abstract words (justice, idea), because the latter can be retrieved in two ways; whereas, abstract words can be retrieved in only one way. Encoding Specificity • Tulving and Thompson (1973) • Anything present during learning a target can serve as an effective cue for later remembering that target. • Each item is encoded into a richer memory representation, one that includes any extra information about the item that was present during encoding. Retrieving Episodic Information • Decay or Interference as the cause of forgetting? • Jenkins and Dallenbach (1924) After identical time delays, subjects who stayed awake remembered less than subjects who slept after learning a list. • How is this supportive of the interference hypothesis? Paired Associate Learning • Often used to study proactive and retroactive interference. • A list of stimulus terms is paired item by item with a list of response terms. • After learning, the stimulus terms are used as cues for the response terms. Sample Paired Associate Lists Summary of List Types • A-B C-D: The control condition (no similarity between the A-B and C-D terms). • A-B A-Br: The negative transfer condition (the same stimulus and response terms are used again, but in new pairings). • A-B A-B’: The positive transfer condition (because the response terms are highly related-bone, arm-- across the two lists). Retrieval Failure (a.k.a. forgetting) • When a memory is lost in the system, as opposed to lost from the system. • Example: Tip of the Tongue States. When a person is temporarily unable to remember some shred of information (e.g., a name) that they know is stored in LTM. Availability Versus Accessibility • Availability: The memory trace exists / was encoded into long term memory. • Accessibility: Degree to which the memory trace can be retrieved now. Retrieval Failure • Occurs when the information is available, but not accessible. • Do you think it is reasonable to have a professor who only uses recall types of questions (e.g., definitions) to assess student’s learning? Retrieval Cues and Encoding Specificity • • • • Research Examples: Bransford and Stein (1984). Thomson and Tulving (1970). Tulving and Thomson (1973) Recognition failure of recallable words. Amnesia and Implicit Memory • Amnesia: Loss of memory or memory abilities due to brain damage or disease. • Retrograde: Loss of memory of events before the injury. • Anterograde: Loss of memory of events after the injury. Dissociation of Episodic and Semantic Memory • Dissociation: A disruption in one cognitive process but no impairment of another. • Double Dissociation: Finding reciprocal patterns of disruption-- In one patient, A is disrupted by brain damage but B is not. In a second patient, B is disrupted but A is not. Examples of Dissociation • Patient K.C. Episodic memory processes disrupted, but semantic memory processes in tact. • Patient H.M. Unable to transfer new information into LTM, but able to retrieve already stored memories from LTM. • Scoville & Milner (1957), Milner (1968) – Dr. W. Scoville performed bilateral medial temporal-lobe Hippocampus resection in order to relieve epilepsy in patient H.M. • Anterograde amnesia. A Closer Look • The surgery was a partial success in that, with medication, the seizures became controllable. • H.M. was able to live with his parents at home. • His father died in 1967 and his mother in 1977, however, H.M. thought that he was still living with his mother in 1986. • H.M. knew when his birthday was, but he always underestimated his own age. • Relearning paradigm: – Sorting tasks: • Asked to sort cards on a specific dimension (e.g., colour or shape). • Measure: Perseverative errors  less than 10. – Motor learning: • Mirror-drawing tasks • Measure: Errors  decrease in errors across 10 trials/day and across 3 days. • During the relearning phase, H.M. insisted that he had not performed these tasks before. Repetition Priming • When a previous encounter with information facilitates later performance on the same information, even unconsciously. Jacoby and Dallas (1981) • Subjects saw a list of words and answered questions about each word. • The questions were similar to those used in the standard orienting task for studying depth of processing. • Examples: Is it an animal; does it rhyme with purse; does it contain the letter “L”? Jacoby and Dallas (1981), Continued… • Some subjects took an explicit memory test for each word: “Yes or No, was this word in the list you just saw?” • Other subjects took an implicit memory test: The study words were flashed briefly on a computer screen (e.g., 35 ms) and the subjects had to report the word they saw. Jacoby and Dallas (1981), Results Summary of Jacoby and Dallas • Measures of explicit memory are sensitive to how the information is processed / studied. • Measures of implicit memory usually show facilitation regardless of how the information was processed / studied. Making Memories Stick 1. Practice!! Relearn, relearn, relearn. 2. Integrate new material into existing memory frameworks (organize). 3. Retrieval cues aid access to memory stores.