Transcript Memory - Scott County Preschool

What would life be like without memories?
Memory
 “…you are what you remember. Without
memory…there would be no savoring of past joys, no
guilt or anger over painful recollections. You would
instead live in an enduring present, each moment
fresh. But each person a stranger, every language
foreign, every task… a new challenge. You would even
be a stranger to yourself.”
What is memory?
 Memory: the input, storage, and retrieval of what has
been learned or experienced
Memory
 One important to thing to remember when discussing
memory:
 Memory is personally constructed!
What is Memory?
 Processing Model of Memory- Atkinson and
Shiffrin (1968)
Sensory Memory
 A very brief memory storage immediately following
initial stimulation of a receptor
Sensory Memory Cont.
 Types of Sensory Memory
 Echoic (sound) or Iconic (visual) memory
 How long does it last?
 Iconic lasts up to 1 second
 Echoic lasts up to 1 to 2 seconds
 If it is not rehearsed or thought to be important than it is
forgotten
 Purpose:
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Keeps you from being overwhelmed
Decision time
Allows stability & continuity
Short Term Memory (STM)
 STM is memory that is limited in capacity to about
seven-ten items and in duration by the subject’s active
rehearsal
 Lasts anywhere from 20 seconds to 1 minute
 Maintenance Rehearsal- If information is not rehearsed
then it will be forgotten
 Working memory
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Focusing on what is novel or important
When using information from Long Term Memory it is
believed the information enters into STM so we can “work”
from that information
 How many circles are on the next slide?
Chunking
Chunking
Chunking
The process of
grouping items to
make them easier to
remember.
Roy G. Biv
 You have 5 seconds to remember the following list…
Mrs. Sunda’s Grocery List
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Milk
Cheese
Butter
Eggs
Flour
Cat food
Sugar
Apples
Grapes
Shampoo
Bread
Green beans
Jam
What does Mrs. Sunda need from
the grocery?
 List as many as you can remember!
Mrs. Sunda’s Grocery List
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Milk
Cheese
Butter
Eggs
Flour
Cat food
Sugar
Apples
Grapes
Shampoo
Bread
Green beans
Jam
Primary Recency Effectyou are better able to
recall info at the
beginning and end of the
list.
Long Term Memory (LTM)
 Long Term Memory is the storage of information over
extended periods of time
 LTM does not work like a filing cabinet
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Instead we reconstruct the information that we need at a given
time
 LTM is the result of the other two levels of memory
Types of LTM
 Semantic- knowledge of language, including its rules,
words and meanings
 Episodic- chronological retention of the events of
one’s life
 Declarative- stored knowledge that can be called forth
consciously as needed
 Procedural- permanent storage of learned skills that
does not require conscious recollection
LTM Continued
Miscellaneous
 Process of memory is limited and fallible
 Primarily focus on important stimuli or novel stimuli
 Information we do keep in STM rapidly decays unless
rehearsed
 Flashbulb Memory
 A clear memory of an emotionally
significant moment or event
The Processes of Memory
 There are 3 ways to process memory
 Encoding
 Storage
 Retrieval
1. Encoding
 The processing of information into the memory
system
 How We Do IT:
 Two types of processing
 Automatic
 Effortful
Encoding
 Automatic Processing
 Occurs with little to no effort
 Automatic processing is another example of
parallel processing
 Cannot switch off encoding
Encoding
 Effortful Processing
 Information we remember only with effort and attention
 Boost memory through rehearsal: conscious repetition
of information either to maintain it in consciousness or
to encode it
Encoding
 Rehearsal was demonstrated by Hermann Ebbinghaus
 Studied learning and forgetting
Encoding
 JIH
 VUM
 BAZ
 WAV
 FUB
 ZOF
 YOX
 GEK
 SUJ
 HIW
 XIR
 DAX
 IEQ
 Ebbinghaus discovered the simple principle of
memory and learning
 The amount remembered depends on the time
spent learning
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Even after we learn material additional rehearsal
increases retention
Encoding
 Spacing Effect
 We retain information better when rehearsal is
distributed over time
 Spacing effect= much better than cramming!!!!!!!!!!
Encoding
 Serial Position Effect (Primary Recency Effect)
 Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a
list
Encoding
 What we encode:
 When encoding verbal information we usually encode
its meaning
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We remember what is encoded
 Encoding Verbal Information
 Semantic encoding- encoding meaning
 Acoustic encoding- encoding of sound
 Visual encoding- encoding of picture images
Encoding
 Craik and Tulvig
 Flashed words at people and then asked a question that
required the people to process the words visually,
acoustically or semantically
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Found semantic encoding elicited much better memory
 Ebbinghaus estimated that meaningful material required 1/10
of the effort when compared to learning nonsense material
 What does this mean?
 We recall information we can relate to ourselves
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Self-reference effect
 Find personal meaning in what you are studying!!!!!
Encoding
 Encoding imagery
 Imagery: mental images
 Rosy retrospection: people tend to recall events more
positively than they evaluated at the time
Encoding
 Mnemonics: memory aids, especially those techniques
that use vivid imagery and organizational devices
 Developed by the ancient Greeks
Storage
 The process by which information is maintained over
time.
 How much information is stored depends on how
much effort was put into encoding the information
and it’s importance.
 Info can be stored for a few
seconds or for much longer.
 Think about playing an instrument:
 What all goes into this?
Storage
 Karl Lashley (1950) found that memories do not reside
in a particular spot of the brain
 Train rats and cut out parts of the brain and can still run
a maze
 MEMORY IS STORED THROUGHOUT
THE BRAIN!
Storage
 Synaptic Changes
 Kandel and Swartz (1982) looked that the Aplysia
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Found that during the learning process (classical
conditioning) the slug released serotonin
Synapses then become more efficient at transmitting signals.
 Long-term Potentiation (LTP)- increase in a synapse’s
firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation.
 Believed to be the neural basis of memory
Storage
 Confirmation of Long-term Potentiation (LTP) Drugs that block LTP interfere with learning
 Mutant mice engineered to lack enzyme needed for LTP
can’t learn their way out of a maze (and vice-versa)
 Injecting rats with a chemical that blocks the
preservation of LTP erases recent learning
Storage
 Pharmaceutical Companies are competing to
develop new memory boosting drugs
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Alzheimer’s
Mild cognitive impairments
 Drug would boost the protein CREB- turns
genes off or on
Repeated neural firing of genes produce synapse
strengthening proteins allowing Long-term
Potentiation .
 CREB may help to reshape and consolidate STM into
LTM
 Developing drugs that boosts glutamate
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Enhances synaptic communication
Storage
 Electroconvulsive therapy
 Passing an electric current through the brain will not
disrupt old memories but will wipe out recent memories
Storage
 Emotions/Stress and Memory
 When stressed or excited hormones make more
glucose energy
 Amygdala boosts activity and available proteins
in brain’s memory forming areas
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“Stronger emotional experiences make for stronger,
more reliable memories.” (and vice versa)
 People given drugs that block stress hormones are
more likely to forget details of stressful events
Storage
 Implicit memory: retention independent of conscious
recollection
 Explicit memory: memory of facts and experiences
that one can consciously know and declare
Storage
 Hippocampus:
 Explicit-facts and episodes are processed here and fed to
other parts of the brain for storage
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Works like a store room
 Active during slow-wave sleep
 Left damage- impacts verbal memory
 Right damage- impacts visual memory and location
memory
Storage
 Cerebellum
 Forming and storing implicit memories created by
classical conditioning reflexes
 Dual implicit and explicit memories explains infantile
amnesia
 Inability to recall information prior to three years of age
 The implicit reactions and skills we learned during
infancy reach far into our future, yet as adults we recall
nothing (explicitly) of our first three years.
 Hippocampus one of the last brain structures to mature.
Retrieval
 Occurs when information is brought to mind from
storage.
 The ease with which information can be retrieved
depends of how efficiently it was encoded and stored.
Retrieval
 Remembering is more than storage and encoding
 Memory is:
 Recall- A measure of memory in which a person must
retrieve information learned earlier, info not in our
conscious awareness.
 Recognition-A measure of memory in which a person
need only identity items previously learned
 Relearning-Measure of memory that assesses the
amount of time saved when learning material for a
second time
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Learning occurs faster the second time around
Retrieval
 Harry Bahrick
 Studied high school graduates that were 25 years
removed
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Had these graduates look at pictures from their
yearbook
 Could not recall classmates out-right,
but 90% could recognize names and faces
Retrieval
 Retrieval cues
 Retrieving is like a spider web
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Associate bits of information and these bits serve as retrieval
cues
 Priming
 The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations
 External contexts and internal emotion influence
retrieval
 Context leads to retrieval
 Greater recall when learning and testing context was the
same
Retrieval
 Déjà vu:
 Eerie sense that “I’ve experienced it before.” Cues
from current situation may subconsciously trigger
retrieval of an earlier experience.
Storage
 Loftus and Loftus (1980) analyzed vivid memories and
found that flashbacks appeared to have been invented
and not relived as previously thought
Forgetting
Forgetting
 Forgetting: refers to apparent loss of information
already encoded and stored in an individual's long
term memory
Forgetting
 Amnesia- Loss of Memory
 H.M. lost part of his brain due to surgery.
 He could not form new memories but his
old memories were intact.
 However he could still learn…
 Able to grasp implicit but not explicit.
Forgetting
 Jill Price Memory of every day since she was 14 years old
Forgetting
 7 sins of memory (Daniel Schacter)
 3 sins of forgetting
 Absent mindedness
 Transience- storage decay over time
 Blocking- in accessibility of stored information
 (encoding errors, storage errors, and retrieval
errors)
Forgetting
 Forgetting Curve
Forgetting
 3 sins of distortion
 Misattribution- confusing source of information
 Suggestibility- lingering effects of misinformation
 Bias- belief colored recollections
 1 sin of intrusion
 Persistence- unwanted memories
Forgetting
 Types of interference
 Proactive: disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall
of new information
 Retroactive: disruptive effect of new learning on the
recall of old information
Forgetting
 Motivated Forgetting
 People revise their own history
 Repression: psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense
mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxietyarousing thoughts, feelings, and memories
Children’s Eyewitness Recall
 Ceci and Bruck studied children and their memories
 Using suggestive wording, researchers were able to make
students have false memories
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Pre-schoolers overheard remark of rabbit getting loose in the
class (not true)
 78% recalled seeing the rabbit
Children’s Eyewitness Recall
 Can Children be eyewitnesses?
 Yes
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Other studies show that when given neutral words and
questioning techniques most children can respond with more
accurate recall
Repressed or constructed
memories of abuse
 Therapist estimate 11% of the population have
repressed memories of sexual abuse
 7 out of 10 report using hypnosis or drugs to help patient
recall repressed memories
 What might be wrong with this idea?
Repressed or constructed
memories of abuse
 Two sides
 One side argues that repressed memories exist and
should be recalled
 Other side argues repressed memories can be false
memories conjured up by thoughts the therapist places
in their minds
Repressed or constructed
memories of abuse
 Both sides can agree on some things
 Sexual abuse happens
 Injustice happens
 Forgetting happens
 Recovered memories are common place
 Memories prior to age three are unreliable
 Memories recalled under the influence of
drugs/hypnosis are even more unreliable
 Memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally
upsetting
Improving Memory
 How can we improve our memory:
 Study repeatedly
 Make material meaningful
 Activate retrieval cues
 Use mnemonic devices
 Minimize interference
 Sleep more
 Test your own knowledge
 http://www.learner.org/resources/series142.html?pop=
yes&pid=1584
Amnesia
 Two types:
 Retrograde: Forget past memories or cannot recall past
memories
 Anterograde: Cannot form new memories
 Occurs due to head injury or disease
Children’s Eyewitness Recall
 Another study children were asked to choose a card with
a story on it
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After 10 weeks of interviews 58% of the preschoolers produced
false stories