Memory 2

Introduction to Psychology
Class 12
 Class Attendance

• Response:
 Learning Objectives
At the end of this class, you should be able to:

• Describe how retrieval cues work.

• Describe how forgetting occurs

• Discuss strategies to boost memory

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Retrieval: Getting Information from
Long-Term Memory
▪ Retrieval refers to the process of accessing
and retrieving stored information in long-term
memory.

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The Importance of Retrieval Cues

▪ In many instances, ability to retrieve stored

memory hinges on having an appropriate
retrieval cue.

▪ Retrieval
▪ Retrieval cue
▪ Retrieval cue failure

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Common Retrieval Glitches
The Tip-Of-The-Tongue Experience
▪ Tip-of-the-tongue experience (TOT):
sensation of knowing that specific
information is stored in long-term memory
but being unable to retrieve it
▪ About half the time, accurate first letter of the
target word and number of syllables identified
▪ Approximately 90 percent of TOT experiences
are eventually resolved, often within a few
minutes.

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Testing Retrieval

▪ Recall
▪ Test of LTM that involves retrieving memories
without cues; also termed free recall
▪ Cued recall
▪ Test of long-term memory (LTM) that involves
remembering an item of information in response
to a retrieval cue
▪ Recognition
▪ Test of LTM that involves identifying correct
information from a series of possible choices

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The Serial Position Effect
▪ Serial position effect:
tendency to remember
items at the beginning
and end of a list better
than items in the middle
▪ There are two parts to
the serial position
effect.
▪ Primacy effect: tendency
to recall first items in a
list
▪ Recency effect:
tendency to recall final
items in a list

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The Serial Position Effect

Try to remember these words as best you

can
Ball Sky Store
Shoe Desk Pencil
Tree Car Grass
Dog Rope Man
Paper Dress Cloud
Bird Xylophone Hat
House Knife Vase

Chances are, you did best on:

(1) The first few words
(2) The last few words
(3) Xylophone (because it’s obscure)

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The Serial Position Effect

▪ Characteristics of LTM: primacy and

recency effects
▪ When remembering a list, people tend to
remember the first words (primacy) and
last words (recency) the best

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The Serial Position Effect

▪ Characteristics of LTM: Primacy and

recency effects

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The Encoding Specificity Principle

▪ According to the encoding specificity principle,

re-creating the original learning conditions
makes retrieval easier.
▪ Encoding specificity principle: Retrieval is
more likely to be successful when the
conditions of information retrieval are similar
to the conditions of information encoding.

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How Does the Encoding Specificity Principle
Help in Recall?
▪ People are more likely to remember things
if the conditions under which they recall
them are similar to the conditions under
which they learned them.

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The Specificity of Memory

We’re more likely to remember something

when learning conditions match retrieval
conditions

Two main forms:

Context-dependent learning
State-dependent learning

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The Specificity of Memory

▪ Context-dependent learning: better

retrieval when external context matches
from learning to test
▪ E.g., having an exam in the same room as
lecture helps!

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The Specificity of Memory

Context-dependent learning:

• 50% of participants learned a

list of words under water; 50%
learned words out of water

• Those who learned

underwater did better
underwater, and those who
learned out of water did better
out of water

• I.e., when external context

matched from learning to test,
superior performance

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The Specificity of Memory

▪ State-dependent learning refers to

internal state consistency
▪ I.e., superior recall when internal
psychological or physiological state consistent
from learning to test
▪ E.g., mood

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The Specificity of Memory

People who learned under the

influence of alcohol perform
better when tested under the
influence of alcohol

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Flashbulb Memories
Vivid Events, Accurate Memories?
▪ Flashbulb memories involve recall of very specific
details or images surrounding a significant, rare, or
vivid event.
▪ Details may or may not be accurate, but higher
degree of confidence in accuracy

▪ However, research demonstrates that

▪ both flashbulb and everyday memories gradually
decay over time and
▪ flashbulb memories are emotionally charged, but they
are not necessarily more accurate than memories of
more common events.

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Forgetting: When Retrieval Fails

▪ Forgetting is the
inability to retrieve
information that was
once available.

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Why Do We Forget?

▪ Encoding failure
▪ One of the most common reasons for
forgetting occurs when information
insufficiently encoded initially into long-term
memory.
▪ Absentmindedness
▪ Prospective memory error
▪ Failure to remember what needs to be done in
the future involves a
▪ retrieval cue failure.

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Decay Theory

▪ Decay Theory
▪ When a new memory is formed, it creates a distinct
structural or chemical change in the brain (memory
trace).
▪ Memory traces fade away over time as a matter of
normal brain processes.

▪ Challenges
▪ Some research has shown that information can be
remembered decades after it was originally learned.
▪ Decay is not primary cause of forgetting, but it
contributes to forgetting.

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Interference Theory
▪ Interference Theory
▪ Memories interfering with memories
▪ Forgetting not caused by mere passage of time
▪ Caused by one memory competing with or replacing
another memory

▪ Two types of interference:

▪ Retroactive interference
▪ A new memory interferes with remembering old information;
backward-acting interference
▪ Proactive interference
▪ An old memory interferes with remembering new information;
forward-acting interference

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Motivated Forgetting

▪ Motivated forgetting
occurs when an
undesired memory is
held back from
awareness.
▪ Suppression:
conscious forgetting
▪ Repression:
unconscious
forgetting (Freudian)
▪ Controversial

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Déjà Vu Experiences
▪ Déjà vu is a brief but intense feeling of remembering a
scene or an event that is actually being experienced
for the first time.
▪ One of six people (16%) experience déjà vu about
once a month.
▪ Incidence decreases with age.
▪ Causes
▪ Arises when enough features in the current situation
trigger the sensation of matching features already
contained in a previous memory leading to disruption in
source memory or source monitoring
▪ Can be related to an encoding failure called “inattentional
blindness”

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Imperfect Memories:

▪ Errors
▪ Distortions
▪ False Memories
▪ Memories can be easily distorted so that they
contain inaccuracies. Confidence in a memory is
no guarantee that the memory is accurate.

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DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY SANDRA E. HOCKENBURY | SUSAN NOLAN | 9th edition
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Imperfect Memories
▪ Memory details change over time.
▪ Without awareness, details can be added,
subtracted, exaggerated, or downplayed.

▪ Misinformation effect
▪ Post-event can distort eyewitness recollection of
an original event (Loftus).

▪ Source confusion
▪ The true source of a memory can be forgotten.
▪ A memory can be attributed to the wrong source.

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Convicting the Innocent

▪ Recall is not an exact

replica of original
events.
▪ Recall is a
construction built and
rebuilt from various
sources.
▪ We often fit memories
into existing beliefs or
schemas.

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Which Is the Real Photo?

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Schemas and Memory Distortions
▪ Can the knowledge people had before an event
occurred influence their later memory of the
event?
▪ Schemas are useful in organizing and forming new
memories, helping to quickly integrate new
experiences into a knowledge base.
▪ But schemas can also contribute to memory
distortions by prompting us to fill in missing details
with schema-consistent information.
▪ Preexisting schemas can distort memories for events
within seconds.
▪ Schemas: organize clusters of knowledge and
information about particular topics

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Source Confusion

▪ Source confusion: memory distortion that occurs

when the true source of the memory is forgotten
▪ Memory may be attributed to a wrong source.

▪ False memory: distorted or fabricated recollection

of something that did not actually occur
▪ Created for actions that would have been consistent
with a script
▪ Feels real, and is often accompanied by all the
emotional impact of a real memory

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Forming False Memories

▪ A variety of techniques can create false

memories for events that never happened.

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Imagination Inflation
Remembering Being Lost in the Mall
▪ Lost-in-the-mall technique: creating or inducing
false memories of childhood experiences
▪ Information from family members is used.
▪ Research participants experience real events and
imagine false events.

▪ Imagination inflation: memory phenomenon in

which vividly imagining an event markedly
increases confidence that the event actually
occurred
▪ Can be used to manipulate people’s memories of
actual political events, influence false confessions

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Factors Contributing to False Memories

Factor Description
Misinformation effect Erroneous information received after an event leading to distorted or false memories
of the event
Schema distortion The tendency to fill in missing memory details with information that is consistent with
preexisting knowledge
Source confusion Forgetting or misremembering the true source of a memory
Imagination inflation Unfounded confidence in a false or distorted memory caused by vividly imagining the
false event
False familiarity Increased feelings of familiarity due to repeatedly imagining an event
Blending fact and fiction Using vivid, authentic details to add to the legitimacy and believability of a false event
Suggestion Hypnosis, guided imagery, or other highly suggestive techniques

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The Memory Wars: Recovered or False
Memories?
▪ The controversy
▪ Questions about the validity of recovery methods (memory wars)
▪ The critical issues
▪ Some details of traumatic event may be forgotten, but the event
can be remembered.
▪ Many recovered memories are actually false memories.
▪ Conclusions
▪ Childhood abuse contributes to adulthood psychological
problems.
▪ Recovered memories need to be regarded with caution.
▪ Memory details can be easily distorted.
▪ All memories involve reconstruction.
▪ False memories can be unintentionally created; guidelines are
needed.

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Processing Memories in the Brain
Clues from Amnesia
▪ Important insights into the brain structures
involved in normal memory have been
provided by case studies of people with
amnesia caused by damaged brain tissue.

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Retrograde Amnesia
▪ Amnesia: severe memory
loss
▪ Retrograde amnesia:
inability to remember past
episodic information
▪ Loss of memory, especially
for episodic information
▪ Backward-acting amnesia
▪ Common after head injury;
interrupted consolidation
▪ Memory consolidation:
gradual, physical process of
converting new long-term
memories to stable,
enduring memory codes

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Anterograde Amnesia

▪ Anterograde amnesia: loss of memory

caused by the inability to store new
memories
▪ Forward-acting amnesia
▪ Related to hippocampus damage

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DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY SANDRA E. HOCKENBURY | SUSAN NOLAN | 9th edition
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Brain Structures Involved in Human Memory

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Losing Memory, Losing the Self
▪ Dementia: progressive deterioration and impairment of
memory, reasoning, and other cognitive functions as
the result of disease, injury, or substance abuse

▪ Alzheimer’s disease (AD): progressive disease that

destroys the brain’s neurons, gradually impairing
memory, thinking, language, and other cognitive
functions
▪ Results in the complete inability to care for oneself
▪ Is most common kind of dementia; causes still unknown
▪ Occurs as brain develop two abnormal structures—beta-
amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles

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Ten Steps to Boost Your Memory
1. Commit the necessary time.
2. Organize the information.
3. Elaborate on the material.
4. Explain it to a friend.
5. Use visual imagery.
6. Reduce interference within a topic.
7. Counteract the serial position effect.
8. Use contextual cues to jog memories.
9. Use a mnemonic device for remembering lists.
10. Sleep on it to help consolidate those memories.

DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY SANDRA E. HOCKENBURY | SUSAN NOLAN | 9th edition