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Learning and Remembering

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Memory Model

Memory

Declarative Procedural Explicit Implicit

Semantic episodic skills priming simple nonassociative

Memory memory motor perceptual conditioning habituation

Facts events perceptual cognitive sensitization

cognitive

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Implicit memory (procedural)

• Skills– Motor skills – riding a bicycle; requires

conscious effort to learn but becomes automatic with practice

– Perceptual skills – we learn how to organize stimuli into complex wholes

– Cognitive skills – learning to solve puzzles and problems

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Implicit memory

• Priming– Perceptual priming – seeing one member of a

category makes recognizing another member of the category quicker

– Semantic priming – seeing a related word will speed up recognition of a second word

• Meyer et al, 1975 – subjects given a word and then a string of letters. They were told to determine if the second string was a word or not

• 3 conditions– Words were related bread- butter; nurse – butter– Words phonetically the same bribe – tribe; rumor-

fumor– Words graphemically similar phonetically different

touch - couch

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Implicit memory 3

• Associative learning

– Classical conditioning – learning an association between two stimuli

– Operant conditioning – learn to associate a response with a reward or punishment

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Implicit memory 4

• Nonassociative learning

– Habituation – reduced response to a frequently presented stimuli

– Sensitization – increased response to a frequently presented stimuli

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Explicit Memory – Episodic and Semantic• Both forms of memory are best

remembered when the information is organized – it makes sense

• Natural organization – similarities exist between the material to be remembered – material induced organization

• Subjective organization – the use of mnemonics – we incorporation or induce an organization because it is not naturally organized

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Mnemonics

• Formal – pre-existing memory aids that usually have been developed and used by others– Method of loci– Peg word device– Acronyms such as HOMES or NOIR

• Informal – we invent ourselves, they are personal to us

• Mnemonics work by doing 3 things– Provide structure to the information– Assist in the storage of information– Provide retrieval cues to help access

memories

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Early memory research - Ebbinghaus

• 1st systematic psychological studies of memory

• Best know for 3 things:– Used himself as his only subject– Invented the use of nonsense

syllables; the C-V-C triad– Use of relearning paradigm and

concept of savings

• Relearning paradigm seen as innovative use of nonsense syllables recently criticized as being too artificial

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Metamemory

• Ebbinghaus used nonsense syllables because he knew his memory could be influenced by previous learning

• This is called metamemory – knowledge about our own memory, how it works and how sometimes it doesn’t work– Generally it increases with age and

experience– It allows us to change memory strategies

if we feel we are not doing well– We are not always accurate in our

knowledge

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Storage in episodic memory

• Key to storing information is rehearsal• Ebbinghaus repeating syllable lists over

and over created best memory for lists• Led to theory that the more frequently

information is present the better it is remembered

• 2nd theory based on the idea that making information more distinctive – different from other information makes it easier to understand – von Restorf effect

• You should notice that important terms are highlighted in your text book as a cue they are important

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Levels of processing theory

• Craik and Lockhart (1972)• Two fundamental assumptions of

levels of processing– 1. Memory is produced through

perception and comprehension –we have to attend to information and the more attention you pay to it, the better it is remembered, but it does not depend upon conscious intent

– 2. Memory is different depending upon how information is encoded or how it is rehearsed

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Levels of processing – types of rehearsal• Type 1 or maintenance rehearsal –

nonsemantic rehearsal of information; repetition of information as in memorization– Considered shallow processing

because most of the information is lost if rehearsal stops

• Type 2 or elaborative rehearsal - semantic processing of information; using the meaning of the material to better remember it– Gets information into long term

memory – deep level processing

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Levels of processing – two predictions

• 1. Deep processing takes longer than shallow processing

• Deep processing results in better memory than shallow processing

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Levels of processing

• Supporting studies

– Craik and Watkins (1973)

– Craik and Tulving (1975)

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Levels of processing - Problems

• In ability to define shallow or deep levels independent of performance on memory tests– No method existed for predicting

ahead of time whether a rehearsal strategy was shallow or deep

– The only way to determine whether a strategy was deep processing was to see if it improved memory

• Task effects – Glenberg (1977) – found support for levels of processing on recall memory tests, but not on a recognition test

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Levels of processing conclusions

• Levels of processing is a useful description of how we can improve memory, but not useful from a scientific perspective.

• Looking at how material is organized and ways we can organize information is more useful

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Visual imagery

• Why does the method of loci techniques and other uses of visual imagery improve memory?

• Paivio’s dual coding hypothesis:– Word’s with concrete referents are

remembered better than abstract concepts

– These words are encoded into memory twice

• Once as a word with meaning • Second as a visual image – you can form a

visual image of the object the word stands for

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Conclusion about the storage of information

• Information is best stored in ways that it will be best retrieved

• Encoding specificity:– Information should not be stored as

isolated facts but incorporated into a mental representation that includes other information related to the new information

– This related information can serve as retrieve cues which can help memory retrieval

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Retrieval from Episodic Memory

• Basic competing theories:

• Decay theory; forgetting is a storage problem; memory traces decay from storage and are lost

• Interference theory – there is no forgetting; memories are permanent, but are sometimes inaccessible as a result of interference

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Interference theory

• More popular as a experimental paradigm

• Seems to fit the data better than decay Jenkins and Dallenbach (1924)

• Interference was much easier to study experimentally and an experimental task already existed – paired associate task

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Paired associate learning

• Proactive interference– proactive interference: learn one list of

paired associates; then learn a 2nd list. Learning of the 1st list interferes with memory for 2nd list. Most interference if the same words are used

– List 1 list 2 Test list 2

– Tall – bone tall - bench– Plan – leaf plan - pencil– Nose – fight nose - wait– Park – flea park - student– Grew – cook grew - window

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Paired associate learning

• Retroactive interference – learn 1st list then learn 2nd list. 2nd list will interfere with your ability to remember the first. Little interference if 2nd list unrelated to 1st.– List 1 list 2 Test

list 1– Tall – bone tall - bench– Plan – leaf plan - pencil– Nose – fight nose - wait– Park – flea park - student– Grew – cook grew - window

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Paired associate learning

• Proactive transfer – learning 1st list facilitates or helps learning 2nd list

• List 1 List2

• Tall – bone smoke – arm• Plan – leaf mess – people• Nose – fight rabbit – several• Smoke – hand tall - skeleton• Mess – crowd plan – tree• Rabbit – few nose - battle

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Paired associate learning

• Negative transfer – learning a 2nd list is more difficult because of same words used, but in different pairs

• List 1 list 2– Tall – bone plan - bone– Plan – leaf smoke - leaf– Nose – fight rabbit fight– Park – flea grew - flea– Grew – cook nose - cook

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Behaviorist interpretation

• Reason for interference was that subjects learned A – B associations, which A word was associated with which B words. When they learned new associations, they had to unlearn the A – B associations

• Slamecka (1966) – 1st associations (A – B) were not unlearned when A – C associations learned– Subjects presented with A words and told to

come up with their own B words using free association

– The learned new A – C associations tested on the A- B associations they had made – no interference

– Paired associate task irrelevant for memory where meaning was involved

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Memory failure as retrieval failure

• Memories are for the most part permanent – new information interferes with the retrieval not storage of information

• Or there is an active inhibition of irrelevant information – you avoid retrieving unimportant information

• Tulving and Pearlstone (1966)

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Retrieval and encoding specificity

• Memory is best when you try to retrieve information under the same circumstances under which it was learned – context can provide effective retrieval cues

• Thompson and Tulving (1970)• Given word list under 3 conditions

– No cue given, just the words to be remembered– Weakly associated cue wind – COLD– Highly associated cue hot - COLD

• Memory of words tested under same 3 conditions

• Encoding specificity can even cause recall to be better than recognition

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Two ways retrieval cues can be effective• 1. You remember previously

learned information and spontaneously encode it while learning new information

• 2. The retrieval cue is presented along with the information to be remembered– You could be generating your own

retrieval cues to information in a lecture– Or I could provide you with retrieval

cues

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Example of the importance of context

• Subjects bilingual in Russian and English

• Subjects remembered more life experiences from the period when they spoke Russian when interviewed in Russian

• Remembered more of their English speaking lifetime when interviewed in English

• What does this imply about studying psychology together

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Amnesia

• The loss of memory or memory ability caused by injury or disease

• Amnesias can be classified by the type of memory loss and in relationship to where the damage is located

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Amnesia terms

• Retrograde amnesia – loss of memory for information acquired before damage occurred

• Anterograde amnesia – disruption of memory for acquiring new information after the damage occurred

• Dissociation – one form of memory is impaired while another is intact

• Double dissociation – in one patient memory A is impaired but not memory B; in a second patient, memory B is impaired but not memory A

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Amnesias classified by type of memory loss• Patient K. C. – motorcycle accident

– – complete loss of episodic memory after

his accident – no old or new memories– Intact semantic memory – remembers

and can learn new factual information

• Patient H. M. – surgical removal of medial temporal cortex– Anterograde episodic amnesia,

semantic and most retrograde episodic memory intact

• Korsakoff's syndrome – anterograde episodic amnesia with deficits in metamemory

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Dissociation of implicit and explicit memory

• Schacter and Graf (1987) –study of memory in Alzheimer’s disease– Poor performance on explicit memory

test– Normal performance on implicit

memory test