Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

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Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Hermann Ebbinghaus studied
• invented over 2300 nonsense syllables and put
  them into random lists.

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Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Lists and serial-order effects
• primacy effect
• tendency to remember beginning of list
• recency effect
• tendency to remember items at end of list

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Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Dependence of memory on method of testing
• Recall (or free recall) simplest method for the
  tester but most difficult for person being tested
• To recall something is to produce it, as is done
  on essay and short-answer tests.

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Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• Dependence of memory on method of testing
• Recognition requires person being tested to
  identify correct item from a list of choices
• Multiple-choice tests use recognition method.

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Other Memory Distinctions

• Declarative memory is the ability to state a
  fact.
• Procedural memory is the memory of how to do
  something.
• Long-term declarative memory classified as
• semantic (dealing with principles of knowledge)
  or
• episodic (containing events details of life
  history.)
• memory of recent piano lesson is declarative
  episodic memory of how to read music is
  semantic memory of how to play piano is
  procedural

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Ebbinghauss Pioneering Studies of Memory

• processes tested by Ebbinghaus involved explicit
  memory memory we are aware we are using
• Implicit (indirect) memory is other major memory
  process
• any experience that influences us without our
  awareness
• Priming process that activates implicit memory

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• draws an analogy between a computer and the
  workings of memory in the human brain.
• According to this view, information enters the
  system, is processed and coded in various ways,
  and is then stored.

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• The sensory store
• more accurately described as a combination of
  memory perception, the sensory store is
  considered 1st stage of memory processing
• very brief (less than a second) stage that
  registers everything perceived in the moment that
  we call now

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Short-term and long-term memory
• Temporary storage of information someone has just
  encountered is short-term memory
• Long-term memory is a relatively permanent
  storage of mostly meaningful information.
• Retrieval Cues
• Reminders or hints that help us to retrieve
  information from long-term memory

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Short-term memory
• If a friend asks you what was just said in class,
  and you were paying attention, you could repeat
  it, or something close to it.
• If you were not paying attention, you would not
  recall it. Attention moves information from the
  sensory store to short-term memory.

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Long-term memory

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Capacities of short and long-term memory
• Most adults can immediately repeat a list of
  about seven bits or pieces of information, with
  expected variations in range from 5-9 items
• magic range of 7 /- 2 bits is a
  well-replicated finding regarding STM
• It can be expanded through techniques such as
  chunking into larger, meaningful units.

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Decay of short and long-term memory
• Information stored in LTM may be vulnerable to
  effects of interference, but generally does not
  decay due to the effects of time alone
• Information held in STM is vulnerable to effects
  of time
• Forgetting tends to begin in seconds unless
  rehearsal is permitted

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Capacities of short and long-term memory
• If information held in STM is meaningful, it will
  be transferred easily to LTM and be less subject
  to decay
• once called consolidation - formation LTM

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Working memory is a concept of
• intermediate stage between our 1st encounter with
  new information and its eventual storage
• Working memory processes or works with current
  information
• Working memory is conceptualized as having three
  major components.

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The Information-Processing View of Memory

• Working memorys 3 components
• phonological loop that stores and rehearses
  information, similar to the 7 /- 2 idea from the
  traditional concept of STM
• A visuospatial sketchpad that stores and
  manipulates visual and spatial information.
• Central executive that governs shifts of
  attention can handle shifts among multiple
  aspects of complex tasks

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Meaningful Storage and Levels of Processing

• The levels-of-processing principle
• ease with which we can retrieve a memory depends
  on the number and types of associations that we
  form with that memory
• More ways in which you think about the material,
  the deeper your processing will be more easily
  you remember the material

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Use of Special Coding Strategies

• Retrieval Cues
• are bits of associated information that help you
  to regain complex memories for later use.

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Use of Special Coding Strategies

• Retrieval Cues
• encoding specificity principle states that the
  associations formed at time of learning are
  typically the most effective retrieval cues
• State-dependent memory is our tendency to
  remember something better if your physical
  condition is same at time of recall as it was at
  the time of learning

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The Influence of Emotional Arousal

• greater the emotional arousal associated with an
  event, greater the likelihood that event will be
  remembered.
• Although event itself may be remembered, the
  emotion associated with event does not guarantee
  accurate memory for details of event

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The Influence of Emotional Arousal

• During stressful or emotional events, SNS works
  to boost production of cortisol and epinephrine
• This is usually accompanied by increased
  stimulation of the amygdala
• Net effect of these processes is to enhance
  memory storage of information associated with
  emotional or stressful events

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Interference

• Role of interference
• Part of the difficulty for Ebbinghaus may have
  been the fact that he memorized so many lists of
  nonsense syllables
• If one learns several sets of related materials,
  retention of old material makes it harder to
  retain new material, and learning of new
  materials makes it harder to retain the old

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Reconstructing Past Events

• When you try to remember an event, you usually
  start with details you remember clearly, and fill
  in the gaps.
• This is the process of reconstruction.
• When we try to retrieve the memory, we
  reconstruct an account based partly on surviving
  memories and partly on expectations of what must
  have happened.

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Reconstructing Past Events

• Your memory for activities that are routine
  your breakfast, lunch or dinner for example
  from the past week can be reconstructed with
  little effort. But these will fade rapidly
  unless something unusual happened.

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Reconstructing Past Events

• Hindsight bias
• tendency to mold our recollection of the past to
  how events later turned out
• We say I knew that was going to happen! after
  the event has occurred.
• Our memories are tailored as we reconstruct the
  event to fit that outcome.

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Reconstructing Past Events

• The false or recovered memory controversy
• Reports of long-lost memories, prompted by
  clinical techniques, are known as recovered
  memories. Often these are memories of abuse that
  took place in early childhood.
• examples of accurate inaccurate memories
  constructed through clinical techniques

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Reconstructing Past Events

• Memory for traumatic events
• Sigmund Freud believed that it was possible to
  repress a painful memory, motivation or emotion,
  to move it from the conscious to the unconscious
  mind.
• This idea is not well supported in research on
  memory and forgetting.

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Reconstructing Past Events

• Memory for traumatic events
• Research indicates that it is possible to forget
  a traumatic event, but whether this happens
  depends on several age at the time of the
  event, reaction of family, and type of event
• Most people do not forget traumatic events if
  they happen later than age 3.

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Reconstructing Past Events

• Suggestion and false memory
• A false memory is a report that one believes to
  be a memory but actually never occurred.
• studies have shown it is possible to implant
  memories for fictional events by suggestion
• 1/4 of subjects in studies were convinced that
  they had been lost as children after a researcher
  suggested it to them.

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Reconstructing Past Events

• Children as eyewitnesses
• Under proper conditions, children as young as
  three can make accurate reports of events that
  they have witnessed.
• Young children can answer specific questions
  accurately.

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Reconstructing Past Events

• Children as eyewitnesses
• Repetition of question in the same interview
  session may yield two different answers.
• Repetition of the question between spaced
  interview sessions may help child remember
  better, which is important in court testimony
• Dolls and props seem like helpful tools, but they
  do not increase the accuracy of a childs recall
  or testimony.

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Reconstructing Past Events

• Children as eyewitnesses
• Most effective strategies in interviewing young
  children are
• Use of simple questions
• Maintenance of a non-threatening atmosphere
  during the interview
• Avoidance of suggestions or pressure
• Schedule the interview as soon as is reasonable
  after the event

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Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Amnesia is a severe loss or deterioration of
  memory.
• We can learn a lot about the different forms of
  memory by studying these cases.

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Figure 7.19a

• Figure 7.19 (a) The hippocampus is a large
  subcortical structure of the brain

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Figure 7.20

• Figure 7.20 Brain damage induces retrograde
  amnesia (loss of old memories) and anterograde
  amnesia (difficulty storing new memories.)

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Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Frontal-lobe damage
• Frontal lobes receive substantial input from
  hippocampus. Damage here causes some problems
  that are similar to hippocampal damage, and some
  unique problems as well
• occurs as a result of stroke, head trauma, or
  Korsakoffs syndrome, a dementia brought on by
  deficiency of vitamin B1 related to chronic
  alcoholism.

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Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Frontal-lobe damage
• symptoms of Korsakoffs syndrome include
• Apathy and confusion
• Retrograde amnesia usually dating back to about
  15 years before the onset of the syndrome
• Anterograde amnesia
• Confabulation wild guessing mixed in with
  correct information in an effort to hide memory
  gaps

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Amnesia After Brain Damage

• Implicit memory in amnesiac patients
• Implicit memory does not require recognition.
  The recall of activities stored in implicit
  memory seems effortless and unconscious.
• You drive your car to school everyday but dont
  remember any details of the activities associated
  with driving.