DAY 3

Fun Stuff re: Encoding Failure

What is the color on the top stripe of the American Flag? Bottom stripe color?

A wooden pencil that isn’t round typically has how many sides?

In what hand does the Statue of Liberty hold her torch?

What is on the back of a $10 bill? A $5 bill? A $1 bill?

What four words besides “In God We Trust” appear on most US coins?

LTPLong-Term Potentiation: an increase in a synapse’s firing after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

We know about LTP’s effect because:Drugs that block LTP interfere with learning

Mutant mice engineered to lack an enzyme needed for LTP can’t learn their way out of a maze

Rats given a drug that enhances LTP will learn a maze with half the usual number of mistakes

Injecting rats with a chemical that blocks the preservation of LTP erases recent learning

GlutamateGlutamate is a neurotransmitter that enhances synaptic communication (LTP). It remains to be seen whether such drugs can boost memory without nasty side effects and without cluttering our minds with trivia best forgotten.

Flash-Bulb MemoriesA clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.When stress hormones are released, you are more likely to remember such an event. Where were you on September 11, 2001 when you found out about the attacks?

H.M.Famous patient who had the inability to form

new memories after a piece of his brain had been removed.

His symptoms presented the way Drew Barrymore’s character did in 50 First Dates.

Please take a moment to differentiate Implicit Memory and Explicit Memory

Nondeclarative vs. Declarative

Retrieval: Getting Memory OutRecall: a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve info stored earlier like a fill-in-the-blank test.

Recognition: A measure of memory in which the person needs to identify items previously learned like on a multiple-choice test.

Relearning: a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for the second time

Priming: the activation, often unconsciously of particular associations in memory.

Deja Vu: the eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.”

Mood-Congruent MemoryThe tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.

We’ve talked about memory but…

Why do we forget?

Three Sins of ForgettingAbsent-mindedness: inattention to details (our

mind is elsewhere as we lay down the car keys.)

Transience: Storage decay over time (after we part ways with former classmates, unused information fades.)

Blocking: inaccessibility of stored information (seeing an actor in an old movie, we feel the name on the tip of our tongue but experience retrieval failure, we cannot get it out.)

Three Sins of DistortionMisattribution: confusing the source of information

(putting words in someone else’s mouth or remembering a dream as an actual happening)

Suggestibility: the lingering effects of misinformation (a leading question—Did Mr. Jones touch your private parts?”—later becomes a young child’s false memory)

Bias: Belief-colored recollections (current feelings toward a friend may color our recalled initial feelings.)

One Sin of IntrusionPersistence: Unwanted memories (being haunted by images of sexual assault.)