Transcript Memory
Memory Psychology 3906 Introduction • Skinner vs. the cognitivists • Cognition FTW • However, we still use the methods of course • The study of animal cognition and memory started in the mid 70s The Dalhousie conferences • Conferences in the 70s, as I mentioned the other day • Not just in Canada, but there was a huge Canadian component We rule • • • • • • • Cheng Sherry Revusky Staddon Spetch Shettleworth Honig • • • • • • • Baker Grant Wilkie Hogan Lolordo Wiesman Roberts Key terms and method • Working memory – What you need to complete a sinlge trial of some task • Reference memory – The rules of the game, the requirements for any trial of a task Matching to sample Matching to sample • MTS can be DMTS • Or you can have delayed non matching to sample • Or symbolic matching to sample • Stimuli can be colours, or shapes or spatial locations The Radial Maze • Olton and Samuelson (1976) • Working and reference memory errors • Also used with many different species • Might relate to foraging in some species • Food is information, not reinforcement Conditions • Salience – ITI and duration play a role here • • • • Surprise Chunking RI and PI context Species differences • First off, the lowly pigeon has one hell of a memory for individual slides • Al Kamil and Russ Balda have found amazing long term memory in corvids • Anders Brodin has found long lasting cache memory in parids • Are differences specific or general? Food storers on different tasks Task CN PJ MJ SJ storing 1 2 3 4 Hp vol 1 2 3 2 Cache 1 2 Maze 1 1 2 2 Sp 1 DNMTS Colour 2 DNMTS 2 2 2 1 1 2 3 Contents of memory • • • • • • • Retrospective vs. prospective encoding Roitblat 1980 Symbolic matching 1) Red sample -> Horizontal line 2) Orange Sample -> Vertical line 3) Blue Sample -> Almost vertical line If they make mistakes when the choices are 1 and 2, they are encoding retrospectively • If they do when the choices are 2 and 3, they are encoding prospectively contents • Directed forgetting • Metamemory • Implicit vs explicit memory In sum • We are scratching the surface • Don’t try to get inside an animal’s head • New cool stuff all the time