Ch 7 Long-Term Memory PDF

lOMoARcPSD|50061427 Ch 7 - Long-term memory; encoding, retrieval, and consolidation - Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind Research and Everyday Experience Cognitive Processes (University of California Riverside) Scan to open on Studocu...

lOMoARcPSD|50061427 Ch 7 - Long-term memory; encoding, retrieval, and consolidation - Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind Research and Everyday Experience Cognitive Processes (University of California Riverside) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded by Jenny Salazar ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|50061427 Encoding: Getting Information into Long-Term Memory  Maintenance rehearsal: repeating something over and over again without actually considering the meaning or making connections o Not very effective and can lead to poor memory  Elaborative rehearsal: considering the meaning and making connections to other information o Better memory than maintenance rehearsal  Levels of processing theory: states that memory depends on the depth of processing that an item receives o Depth of processing: idea that the processing of an item can occur either in deep or shallow encoding  Shallow processing: involves little attention to the meaning of the information or is focused on the physical characteristics  Deep processing: involves close attention where the focus is on the meaning of the item and relating it to something  This portrays better memory compared to shallow o Criak and Endel Tulving  Asked questions that create different levels of processing  Physical features; shallow processing  Rhyming; deeper processing  Fill in the blanks; deepest processing  After, they tested were tested to see how much they could recall  They found that deeper processing was associated with better memory o Not a widely used method but the general idea of it is still used and considered today  Forming visual images o Paired-associate learning: where a list of word pairs is presented and then participants are later asked to remember the word that it was paired with  One group was told to silently repeat the pairs and another group was told to form a mental picture of the two items  They found that people who had mental images remembered more  Linking words to yourself o Self-reference effect: memory is better if you are asked to relate a word to yourself  Explanation:  When a word is linked to them, the statement become richer in detail in the person’s mind, causing better memory of it  Generating information o Generation effect: generating materials yourself rather than be given the material enhances learning and retention  Organizing information o Retrieval cues: a word or other stimulus that helps a person remember information stored in memory  This allows for better recall Downloaded by Jenny Salazar ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|50061427 o Mental frameworks help link one thing to another, making it much easier to remember things  Relating words to survival value o James Nairne  Proposed that we can understand how memory works by considering its function  Found that linking words to survival created memory resulted in better memory  Retrieval practice o Found that retrieval of information by making up and answering questions allowed for better memory compared to just rereading information  Testing effect: enhancement of performance due to retrieval practice Retrieval: Getting Information Out of Memory  Retrieval cues o Location can serve as a cue  Certain memory can be associate with that location o Free recall: where someone is asked to recall a stimulus o Cued recall: where someone is asked to recall a stimulus with a given retrieval cue to aid them  Found that it does aid memory a lot better than free recall o Retrieval cues + self-generated; great memory and recall  Matching conditions of encoding and retrieval o Encoding specificity: states that we encode information along with its context  Best recall occurred when encoding and retrieval occurred in the same location o State-dependent learning: learning that is associated with a particular internal state (mood)  There is better memory when a person’s internal state during retrieval is the same as when encoding o Transfer-appropriate processing: better performance when the type of processing matches in encoding and retrieval Consolidation: The Life History of Memories  New memories are fragile and they can be disrupted  Consolidation: the process that transforms new memories from a fragile state in which they can be disrupted to a more permanent state which they are resistant to disruption o Synaptic consolidation: takes place over minutes or hours and involves structural changes at synapses o Systems consolidation: takes place over months or years and involves the gradual reorganization of neural circuits within the brain o Both can occur at the same time not in particular orders  Synaptic consolidation: experience causes changes at the synapse o Learning and memory are represented in the brain by changes that take place at the synapse o Repeated activity can strengthen the synapse Downloaded by Jenny Salazar ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|50061427 o Long-term potentiation (LTP): enhanced firing of neurons after repeated stimulation  Strengthens the synaptic transmission  Demonstrates that experience can cause changes at the synapse  Systems consolidation: the hippocampus and the cortex o Standard model of consolidation: states that incoming information activates a number of areas in the cortex  Since memory involves many sensory and cognitive areas, it is what activates the multiple locations o Reactivation: process in which the hippocampus replays the neural activity associated with a memory o Retrograde amnesia: loss of memory for events before an injury  Can go back minutes, hours, or years depending on the intensity of the injury o Graded amnesia: most severe for events that happened just before the injury and become less severe for earlier events  This occurs because as time passes, connections between the cortical areas are formed and strengthened o Multiple trace model of consolidation: states that the hippocampus is involved in retrieval of episodic memories  Consolidation and sleep: enhancing memory o The reactivation process is particularly strong during sleep o There is also evidence that consolidation is enhanced during sleep and that some memories are more likely to be consolidated than others  Consolidation and retrieval: reconstruction o We are constantly learning new things and changing the information that we previously had about something  This allows for us to deal with new circumstances o Reconsolidation: when a memory is retrieved, it becomes fragile and needs to be consolidated again  Important since when it is fragile, it can be changed or eliminated Downloaded by Jenny Salazar ([email protected])