Lecture 7 Memory & Thinking Visiting Assistant PROFESSOR YEE-SAN TEOH Department of Psychology...
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Transcript of Lecture 7 Memory & Thinking Visiting Assistant PROFESSOR YEE-SAN TEOH Department of Psychology...
Lecture 7Memory & Thinking
Visiting Assistant PROFESSOR YEE-SAN
TEOHDepartment of Psychology
National Taiwan University
1
Unless noted, the course materials are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Taiwan (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY
Not just copying information - requires some intellectual engagement with the material.
What we think about it is what is actually stored in memory….which has implications for:
a.What you will remember.
b.Under what circumstances you will remember.
c.How accurate your memory will be.
Intentional Learning
Deliberate memorization.
Placing of new info in memory when person anticipates that his/her memory will be tested later.
E.g. Revising for General Psychology exam.
Incidental Learning
Learning that takes place without any intention to memorize.
Often occurs without the awareness that learning is actually occurring.
E.g. Remembering what you ate for dinner last night without trying to memorize that fact.
Sensory Memory
“Raw” sensory information.
Information enters the senses, triggering neural messages that are sent to the brain.
i. Iconic memory: Visual sensory information.
ii. Echoic memory: Auditory sensory information.
Short-Term/Working Memory (STM/WM)
Place where you hold a small amount of information while you’re ‘working’ on it.
Can hold for very short periods of time.
Long-Term Memory (LTM)
Can hold vast amounts of information for extended periods of time.
More permanent storage place.
Primacy & Recency Effects
Free Recall: A test of memory that asks for as many items in a list as the subject can recall regardless of order.
i.Primacy Effect = Tendency to recall the first items on a list more readily than those in the middle.
ii.Recency Effect = Tendency to recall items at the end of the list more readily than those in the middle.
Why?
There’s a limit on how many things someone can think about at once.
Limit to how many items can be maintained in working memory.
Recency Effect
New words entering working memory will bump out the words that were there a moment ago.
Last few words don’t get bumped out because no new information was presented to bump them out, so those items are still in working memory.
Primacy Effect
Primacy effect must involve long-term memory.
The first few words presented get more attention and rehearsal than the later ones, which enables them to be more likely to be established in long-term memory.
The capacity of working memory
Working memory capacity is 7 items, plus or minus 2
Chunking: Reorganizing materials in memory so that more can be remembered.
FYIUSATHXBRB
(12 items)
Chunk into 4 units?
FYI USA THX BRB
(4 items).
Importance of Active Engagement
LTM is not automatic.
Requires mental engagement.
Not all information we are exposed to gets established in LTM.
The more we make sense or process the material, the more likely that memory will be retained.
LTM & Understanding
Greater levels of activity in the brain (especially in the hippocampus &
prefrontal cortex) during initial memory acquisition
Greater probabilities of retention later on.
Best study techniques?
Techniques that emphasize efforts toward understanding the material are likely to pay off with good memory later on.
Mechanical strategies (repetition) may produce no benefit at all.
Memory Connections
Mnemonics: Deliberate techniques that people use to help them memorize new information.
Memory Consolidation
Biological process taking place for a period of time (several hrs) after an event is experienced.
Transforms memories from transient & fragile status to more permanent & robust state.
Time period allows creation of new pattern of communication among neurons to represent the newly acquired memory.
Retrieval Cues
Stimulus that helps one to recall a memory.
Cue needs to recreate the context in which the original learning occurred.
E.g. Childhood memories might return to those who return to their hometown and see the city buildings and their old home.
Context Reinstatement
When we put ourselves back into the same mental or physical state that we were in during the initial learning.
We can improve our ability to remember the information.
E.g. Memory for lists of words learned on land vs. underwater.
Encoding Specificity
Retrieval is most likely if the context at the time of recall is similar to the original encoding context.
Memory trace is specific – represents copy of original material + your thoughts & understanding.
Specificity has powerful effects on retrieval because the retrieval cues must reflect the content or context of the original stimulus.
Example:
“Something heavy” will be a good cue for the word “piano” if you were shown the word in the context of:
“The man lifted the [piano]”
But not in the context of:
“The man tuned the [piano]”
Forgetting
Ebbinghaus (1964/1885)- Memory declines with the passage of time, but the decline is uneven, being sharpest soon after learning, and then becoming more gradual.
Exceptions for new learning
Dissimilar InformationNo interference found when the new learning consists of dissimilar material.E.g. Learning how to skate will not interfere with your memory of Intro to Psyc material.
Consistent InformationNo interference found when the new learning is consistent with older learned information.E.g. Taking college psyc course will help you remember the information learnt in high school psyc course.
Intrusion Errors
Memory mistakes in which someone remembers elements that did not actually occur as part of an earlier event, so that these other elements are mixed into the memory.
Intrusions are often small…
E.g. Thinking you called your mum last night when it was
really 3 nights ago.
But can be large errors…
E.g. Recalling an event that never happened.
The Misinformation Effect
When people are presented with incorrect information (misinformation) about an event they witnessed, this incorrect information is often incorporated into their original memory of an event.
How can misinformation be introduced?
Leading questions or through other people’s reports.
Intrusions from Semantic Associations
Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) Paradigm
Tendency to falsely recall a target word from a set list of words centered around that target word.
Example: List of words all related to ‘sleep’, but ‘sleep’ is not on list – incorrectly remember ‘sleep’ as being on the list.
Semantic Memory
Type of explicit memory that includes knowledge of words and concepts.
Knowledge is not tied to any time or place.
Also called generic memory.
E.g. “What is the capital of Taiwan?”
Episodic Memory
Type of explicit memory which includes memory for specific events (episodes).
E.g. 16th Birthday, or what you had for breakfast this morning.
A Few Types of Episodic Memory- Autobiographical Memory- Flashbulb Memories- Memory for Traumatic Events
Memory for Traumatic Events
Sometimes traumatic events are not recalled until much later – this can be explained by:
(a)Physical duress – e.g. sleep deprivation, head injuries, alcohol abuse, which can disrupt memory process.
(b)Extreme stress assoc with the event may disrupt the biological processes needed for establishing memory in the first place.
(c)Repressed – pushed out of consciousness by defense mechanisms designed to shield a person from psychological harm.
Flashbulb Memories
Vivid, detailed memories said to be produced by unexpected, highly distinctive, and emotionally important events.
Most examples involve negative events that trigger fear, horror, or grief.
E.g. when the Twin Towers were hit on Sept 11.
While flashbulb memories are associated with strong confidence in their accuracy, they are not often associated with actual accuracy (e.g. Neisser & Harsch, 1992).
Of course, flashbulb memories involve stress at the time of encoding, which may enhance people’s memories – at least for certain aspects of the event (e.g. Buchanan & Lovallo, 2001).
Example of Implicit-Explicit Memory Distinction
H.M – Patient with epilepsy treated surgically; most of hippocampus, amygdala removed.
Resulted in anterograde amnesia – couldn’t form new explicit memories.Could acquire implicit memories from specialized testing.Could be taught how to work his way through a maze.But no recollection of ever having seen the maze or learning how to work the maze.
Mental Representations
• Content of thought – how our thoughts are represented in the mind.
• Contents stand for some object or event, allowing us to think about those things even in their absence.
Mental representations can also stand for things that exist only in our minds.
Internal symbols, actions, images, or words.
Types of Mental Representation
Analogical
Shares some of the physical characteristics of an object.
Usually takes form of mental images.
E.g. When trying to remember whether a person had short or long hair, one will usually call to mind a mental image of the person’s head to mentally “see” the hairstyle.
Types of Mental Representation
Symbolic
Does not correspond to the physical characteristics of that which it represents.
E.g. The word ‘mouse’ does not resemble the small rodent it represents. (as opposed to the picture of a mouse)
Mental Images
• Our mental images are like pictures.
• Neuroimaging studies show that many of the same brain structures are active during both visual perception & visual imagery.
• Primarily in the occipital lobe.
Classic Study of Mental Imagery
Participants are asked to memorize the map of a fictitious island and form a mental image of it.
Then asked to imagine a black speck traveling from one location to another.
Time needed for speck to “travel” across the mental image was directly proportional to the distance between the 2 points on the original map.
Duck-Rabbit Study
• Picture of duck/rabbit is easily reinterpreted.• But the corresponding mental image (duck,
rabbit) is already organized and interpreted to some extent.
• Mental images can’t be easily reinterpreted .
Judgment
Drawing conclusions from experience.
Various steps are used to reach beyond the evidence encountered so far.
Involves some extrapolation and some element of risk that the extrapolation will be mistaken.
Judgment
Example
We conclude that we like all movies with the actor Tom Cruise, because we have liked all the movies that we have seen him in it.
But this judgment may be a mistake because we might come across a movie with him in it that we may not like.
Using Heuristics to Make a Judgment
Rule of thumb that can describe how humans solve particular problems.
Strategies that help us make judgments more quickly but at the cost of occasional mistakes.
The Availability Heuristic
Rule of thumb often used to assess how often one has encountered a particular event or object.
When examples of events come easily to mind – we conclude that circumstance is a common one.
Errors – very vivid events will be easily remembered but may also be rare.
The Representativeness Heuristic
Rule of thumb by which we estimate the probability that an object/event belongs to a certain category based on how prototypical it is of that category.
Strategy assumes that each member of the category is “representative” of that category – so we know what to expect the next time.
Errors – generalizing the results of a single case to other cases or situations.
Reasoning
Drawing implications from our beliefs.
“If I believe in X, what other claims follow from this?”
Deduction = Derive new assertions from premises (assertions already in place).
If Premise A (Engineers are good at math); Premise B (Tao is a an engineer);
then C (Tao is good at math).
Why is Reasoning Important?
Allows us to use our knowledge in new ways.
E.g. We know that if it’s raining, today’s BBQ will be canceled; we see that it is raining, so we can reason that the BBQ will be canceled.
Provides means of testing our beliefs.
E.g. You reason that if someone likes you, s/he will say “yes” with enthusiasm if you ask him/her out; you can test that theory and find out if the person likes you.
Confirmation Bias
Tendency to seek or endorse evidence to support one’s beliefs, and ignore or dismiss evidence that will challenge our beliefs.
E.g. Compulsive gambling – remember wins vividly which reinforces belief that I can win again, remember losses as near wins , bad luck.
Utility Theory
One should always consider the possible outcomes of a decision and choose the most desirable one.
Attractiveness of the outcome: Choose the option with the greatest benefit & the least cost.
Likelihood of achieving that outcome: Choose the option that gives the greatest likelihood of achieving the things you value.
Framing
Our decisions can be influenced by how a question is phrased or how our options are described.
Affects the subjective desirability of an event by changing the standard of reference for judging that desirability.
E.g. Comparing all outcomes to the worse possible result (50% failure rate); vs, comparing them to the best possible result (50% success rate).
Problem Solving
The thinking we do when we know what our goal is, but need to find a sequence of steps that will move us towards that goal.
Means-end Analysis: Strategy in which one continually evaluates one’s current position & resources with respect to one’s goal.
What is the difference between my current state and goal?
What means do I have available for reducing this difference?
Example of M-E Analysis
“I want to get to class”
What is the difference between my current state & my goal? [Distance]
What means do I have available for reducing this difference? [My bike]
Means-End Analysis
Replaces initial problem with a series of subproblems.
Initial goal gets broken down into a series of subgoals, and the subgoals can be broken down into smaller subproblems.
Automaticity
Ability to do a task without paying attention to it.
Automaticity in reading in adults
Stroop Task
Participant must name the color a word is printed in.
As fast as possible.
The Stroop Effect
Significant decrease in the speed of naming colors.
Reading becomes automatic so participants can’t help but read the word “red”.
Competing responses – responses become slower than when reading non-color related words or nonsense words.