HH/PSYC2260 Memory: applications
Objectives
• Learning for retrieval
• Memory Errors
• Forgetting
• Autobiographical Memory
Learning for retrieval
• Facilitated by organizing and understanding the meaning.
• Acquisition, retrieval, and storage are connected. E.g. different ways to
study for recall vs recognition test
• Therefore, level of success depends on:
1. What is already known? –Memory network. Why background helps.
2. What happens during learning? E.g. maintenance/elaborative
rehearsal
What’s known?—The Memory Network
• Memory can be thought of as a vast network of ideas.
• Ideas as nodes connected to each other via associative links
Memory Network: Spreading Activation
• Spreading activation: activation travels within a network from node
to node
• A node’s activation level increases when one/more neighbours
activate
• Summation: subthreshold activation can accumulate.
• The node fires if the response threshold is reached.
• This in turn contributes to neighbours’ activation level.
• Also, ATTENTION is drawn to the ‘firing’ node.
• Similar to neurons and action potentials
Memory Network: Retrieval Cues
• Memory network model can explain why hints work.
• Also: remember depth of processing?
Memory Network: Semantic Priming
Semantic priming:
activation of an idea
spreads to related ideas
• Shown in lexical-decision
tasks
Memory Network: Retrieval Paths
• Learning connects new material with existing memory.
• These connections serve as retrieval paths.
• Retrieval paths are only useful if accessible
•A B: starting from A vs nowhere close. So the more the better!
Links between new knowledge also help.
• Way of studying is uniquely suited to the type of retrieval required:
why sample exam questions help
Connections Promote Retrieval
Connections Promote Retrieval (2)
• Attention to meaning involves thinking about relationships.
• “What words are related in meaning to the word I’m now
considering?”
• “What words have contrasting meaning?”
• “What is the relationship between the start of this story and the way
the story turned out?”
Learning for retrieval
• Facilitated by organizing and understanding the meaning.
• Acquisition, retrieval, and storage are connected. E.g. different ways to
study for recall vs recognition test
• Therefore, level of success depends on:
1. What is already known? –Memory network. Why background helps.
2. What happens during learning? E.g. maintenance/elaborative
rehearsal
During Learning: Context-Dependent Learning
Context-dependent
learning is dependent on Test environment Mean words recalled
the state the learner is in
during acquisition. Studied on land
Land 13.5
Underwater 8.5
Studied underwater
Land 8.3
Underwater 11.8
During Learning: Context-Dependent Learning
(2)
During Learning: Context-Dependent Learning
(3)
• Smith et al. (1978)
• Studied in Room A and tested in Room B.
• Not affected by the room change if participants thought about Room
A before taking the test.
• Context reinstatement: re-creating the context (e.g., thoughts,
feelings) of the learning episode
During Learning: Encoding Specificity (1)
• Encoding specificity: remembering both the materials and their
context
• Better recognized later if they appear in, or are cued by, a similar
context.
• Example:
“The man lifted the piano” versus "The man tuned the piano"
During Learning: Encoding Specificity (2)
During Learning: Elaborate Encoding
Elaborate sentences lead to richer
retrieval paths.
• Words better recalled if appeared
in elaborate than simple
sentences.
During Learning: Mnemonics (1)
Breakfast Cooks Always Sell More Omelets. Quiche
Mnemonic strategies improve Never Bought; Never Sold. Perhaps Eggs In New
memory through organization, Forms?” (The three northern territories aren’t
e.g. by imposing structure. included.)
• First-letter mnemonics
• ROY G. BIV
• "Every Good Boy Deserves
Fudge"
During Learning: Mnemonics (2)
• Visualization strategies
• Peg-word systems
• Example: “One is a bun, two is a shoe . . .”
• To-be-remembered items are "hung" on the these
"pegs.“ E.g. ashtray, firewood, picture, cigarette,…
• Mental imagery can aid in forming associations between
the items and their pegs.
During Learning: Mnemonics (3)
During Learning: Understanding and Memorizing
The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange items into different groups. Of
course one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have
to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step; otherwise you are
pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few
things at once than too many. In the short run, this may not seem important but
complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first, the whole
procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of
life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate
future, but then, one never can tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the
materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate
places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to
be repeated. However, that is part of life.
During Learning: Understanding and
Memorizing (2)
Objectives
• Learning for retrieval
• Memory Errors
• Forgetting
• Autobiographical Memory
Memory Errors
• Definition and examples
• Memory Errors: A Hypothesis
• The Cost of Memory Errors
• Avoiding Memory Errors
Memory Errors, Memory Gaps
• Some memories are effortlessly retrieved when needed.
• Other attempts to retrieve can result in:
• low-confidence recall
• drawing a blank
• incorrect recall, in the details or the entirety of the memory
• false memories
Memory Errors: Examples
•Cargo plane crash in Amsterdam (1992)
• Lost power to two engines and crashed into the side of an apartment
building, killing 43 people
•193 Dutch participants were interviewed 10 months later
• "Did you see the television film of the moment the plane hit the
apartment building?"
• 55% of participants reported seeing the crash on TV
• No footage of the crash exists
Memory Errors: Examples
•Recall is driven partly by
expectations, not reality.
• 9 of 30 participants
"remembered" seeing books in
the office.
Memory Errors
• Definition and examples
• Memory Errors: A Hypothesis
• The Cost of Memory Errors
• Avoiding Memory Errors
Memory Errors: A Hypothesis (1)
Memory Errors: A Hypothesis (2)
•Connections serve as retrieval paths.
Connections can also lead to memory errors.
• Shared connections make similar memories less distinguishable.
Connections Both Helps and Hurts Memory
Evidence: The DRM Paradigm
Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) procedure
•Participants are presented with a list of related words
• Example: "Bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket,
doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn, drowsy.”
•Participants tend to mistakenly recall the theme word despite its
absence
•Errors occur even they are warned!
Evidence: Schematic Knowledge
•Other intrusions result from schematic knowledge.
• Schema: knowledge about what is typical of a given situation, event,
location, etc.
• Helps us remember AND reconstruct/fill in gaps
• It regularizes memory
• What was the first thing that happened:
• the last time you went to a restaurant?
• the last time you went to your favorite restaurant?
• the last time you went to a restaurant while on vacation?
Evidence: Schematic Knowledge (4)
A classic demonstration of the effects of schemata on memory was
provided by Frederick Bartlett (1932).
• A Native American story was presented to British participants.
• They remembered the gist, but often left out or added details to
make it fit better with their background knowledge
Evidence: Schematic Knowledge (5)
•When recalling a memory, people use their schema to reconstruct
what must have happened or been true at the time.
• Magazines are remembered in a waiting room
• Books are remembered in an academic office.
• Video footage of a plane crash is remembered.
Quiz Time!
Which of the following is an advantage of connecting new information to
prior knowledge in several different ways? Choose the best answer.
a) It “cements” the new material in memory more securely, so it’s less
likely to decay.
b) It allows only context-dependent learning to take place.
c) It improves your implicit memory for the information.
d) It allows the information to be accessed from multiple retrieval paths.
Memory Errors
• Definition and examples
• Memory Errors: A Hypothesis
• The Cost of Memory Errors
• Avoiding Memory Errors
The Cost of Memory Errors
• "Good news" about memory connections:
• Serve as retrieval paths
• Enrich understanding
• Link to schematic knowledge
•"Bad news" about memory connections:
• Undermine accuracy
Eyewitness Errors
• Hundreds of convictions have
been overturned with DNA
evidence.
• Eyewitness errors contributed to
at least 75% of false convictions
that have overturned in recent
years.
Planting False Memories (1)
•Loftus and Palmer (1974)
• Participants viewed a series of pictures depicting a car accident.
"How fast were the cars going when they _____ each other?"
Verbs used (x-axis) Estimated speed
(mph)(y-axis)
Contacted 32
Hit 34
Bumped 38
Collided 39
Smashed 41
Planting False Memories (2)
The misinformation effect:
1. Experiences an event.
2. Is exposed to misleading suggestion about the event afterwards.
3. Delay
4. Memory test
Typically, >1/3 participants incorporate the false suggestion into their
memory.
Planting False Memories (3)
Easier to:
• plant plausible memories than implausible.
• add to a memory than replace one.
Imagery can increase one’s confidence in a false memory.
• Visual imagery (e.g., “picture each event”)
• Imagine how the event might have unfolded
• Relevant and tangible photos or videos
Are There Limits on the Misinformation Effect?
False Memories, False Confessions
False memories can occur for emotional and consequential events.
Shaw and Porter (2015): Participants were persuaded that they had
committed a crime that in fact had never happened.
• Participants remembered this imaginary event a few years later.
• Use of repetition, social pressure, and guided imagery
• People may confess to crimes they did not commit.
Memory Errors
• Definition and examples
• Memory Errors: A Hypothesis
• The Cost of Memory Errors
• Avoiding Memory Errors
Avoiding Memory Errors
• More often than not, recollection is detailed, long-lasting, and
correct.
• Is there a way to know when you've made a mistake? Or to decide on
which memories to trust?
Memory Confidence (1)
People tend to trust memories expressed with confidence.
• No widespread, reliable indicators of memory accuracy have been
found.
• Confidence is influenced by factors beyond the memory itself.
Memory Confidence (2)
Feedback condition (x- Mean reported
axis) confidence (y-axis)
No feedback 47
“Good, you identified 72
our suspect”
Memory Errors Are Unavoidable
• Memory errors may be a small price to pay for efficiency.
• Use of schemata
• Merging of related memories
TED talk by Elizabeth Loftus
Objectives
• Learning for retrieval
• Memory Errors
• Forgetting
• Autobiographical Memory
The Causes of Forgetting
Acquisition failure?
The best predictor is retention interval (time between initial learning and
retrieval):
• Decay theory of forgetting—fade or erode over time.
• Interference theory—newer learning may disrupt older memories.
• Retrieval failure—intact but inaccessible.
1. Change in context/perspective
2. Can be partial (e.g., the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon)
Decay theory of forgetting
Retention interval (x-axis) Percentage retained (y-axis)
0 min 100
20 min 59
60 min 42
9h 38
1 day 35
2 days 30
6 days 29
31 days 28
Interference theory of forgetting
Number of intervening Percentage of team names
games played (x-axis) recalled correctly (y-axis)
1 85
2 79
3 70
4 35
5 30
6 52
7 5
8 5
9 19
10 20
11 35
12 40
13 35
14 35
15 20
16 10
17 12
Retrieval Failure and “Undoing forgetting”
The Cognitive Interview procedure can help retrieval
(without an increase in false memory)
• Effort toward context reinstatement
• Diverse retrieval cues to trigger memories
• Let the witness speak with minimal interruption!
Success of the Cognitive Interview supports the retrieval
failure theory (not actual loss)
Testing Effect to Prevent Forgetting
Repeated retrieval and testing can prevent forgetting.
• The "testing effect"
• Formal testing is not required to experience these effects.
“Undoing Forgetting”
• Hypnosis makes people more open to misinformation and prone to
errors
• At least some recovered memories may actually be false memories
(entirely or partially).
o Mix of recollection, guesses, and inferences
Objectives
• Learning for retrieval
• Memory Errors
• Forgetting
• Autobiographical Memory
Autobiographical Memory
Autobiographical memory: memory of episodes and events in one’s
own life
Memory and the Self (1)
Time (s) (x-axis) Signal change (%) (y-axis)
Words in relation to Words in relation to their
Words in relation to self
another person printed format
−5 0.02 −0.01 0.01
0 0.03 0.03 0.02
5 −0.026 −0.026 −0.08
10 −0.13 −0.13 −0.03
15 0 0.02 0.01
20 −0.02 0.02 0
Memory and the Self (2)
•Memories about ourselves: mix of genuine recall and schema-based
reconstruction.
• Subject to errors
• Biased to emphasize consistency and positive traits
Why emotion enhances memory?
• In general, emotion helps you to remember.
• Emotion enhances consolidation.
• Emotional events --> increased activity in the amygdala
• Increased amygdala activity --> increased hippocampal activity
Why emotion enhances memory?
•Emotional events are also likely to be important.
• Narrowing of attention
• Shift to emotion-relevant goals
•Tendency to mull over emotional events.
• Equivalent to repeated rehearsal
Flashbulb Memories (1)
Flashbulb memories are memories of extraordinary clarity, typically for
highly emotional events, retained over many years.
• Remembered with high confidence
• "I'll never forget that day..."
Flashbulb Memories (2)
Flashbulb memories can include substantial errors.
• 3000 people interviewed after the September 11 attack on the World
Trade Center
• Reinterviewed 1yr later
• 37% gave a substantially different account with high confidence
• M = 4.4 on a 1-5 confidence scale
Flashbulb Memories (3)
Why are some accurate and others inaccurate?
• Discussion with other people: rehearsal.
• Alter to improve conversation and/or include new info from
others’ accounts.
o Which alters the actual memory
o "Co-witness contamination"
Traumatic Memories
Physiological arousal and stress of a traumatic event increase
consolidation.
But some traumatic memories are lost or effortful:
• Head injuries, sleep deprivation, drugs or alcohol, and stress
Stress: enhance memory for materials directly relevant to the source of
the stress, but undermines memory for details and other aspects—
"fragmented"
Repression and "Recovered" Memories
• Some argue that traumatic memories can be “lost” and then
“recovered.”
o Lost memories may be due to ordinary retrieval failure.
• Some of the memories reported as “recovered” may be actually be
false memories.
o Leading questions and expectations in therapy can promote this
process.
Long, Long-Term Remembering (1)
Time since Percentage of correct answers (y-axis)
graduation (x-axis)
Name matching Picture cueing
3.3 mo 90 70
9.3 mo 95 60
1 yr 11 mo 90 38
3 yr 10 mo 91 62
7 yr 5 mo 86 59
14 yr 6 mo 90 40
25 yr 10 mo 78 53
34 yr 1 mol 75 48
47 yr 7 mo 60 18
Long, Long-Term Remembering (2)
Retention Mean percentage
How quickly memories "fade" may interval times
(x-axis)
correctly recognized (y-axis)
depend on how well established Chance Names Concepts
3 mo 50 79 80
they were in the first place. 1 yr 3 mo 50 75 76
2 yr 3 mo 50 68 75
3 yr 3 mo 50 68 76
• Participants tested after 10 years 3 yr 5 mo 50 64 65
4 yr 5 mo 50 67 66
remembered as much as those 5 yr 5 mo 50 63 76
tested after 3 years. 6 yr 5mo 50 65 65
7yr 5 mo 50 64 66
8 yr 5 mo 50 64 64
9 yr 5 mo 50 63 65
10 yr 5 mo 50 68 68
Is autobiographical memory special?
Age at Percentage of memories
encoding (y-axis)
(in 5-year
bins) (x-
axis)
Japan Banglades U.K. China U.S. All
h
5 2 1 3 4 14 4
10 9 8 12 15 27 14
15 13 15 15 23 22 18
20 20 13 16 28 24 21
25 17 14 14 28 17 20
30 16 13 13 20 18 16
35 12 7 6 16 19 14
40 5 6 11 15 17 14
45 4 5 10 16 16 13
Is autobiographical memory special?
Some principles reflect general memory principles.
• All memories depend on connections
❖ Formation and reconstruction via schemata
❖ Potential for intrusion errors
❖ Susceptibility to misinformation
Is autobiographical memory special?
Other principles of autobiographical memory may be distinct.
• The role of emotion in shaping autobiographical memory is
somewhat unique
