Models of Memory
Information
Processing
Stages
of information reception, storage, retrieval, transfer.
Sensory
Memory
Short
Term / Working Memory
Long
Term
encoding / learning
storage / holding on to
retrieval
/ remembering
Types
of Memory (systems of organisation/data bases)
Procedural
Declarative
(Episodic)
Remembering
explicit vs. implicit memories
recall
vs. recognition
Encoding
specificity
Context & State Dependent Memory
Amnesia
/ forgetting & the brain
anterograde
vs. retrograde
The self
and Memory
Brief History
Autobiographical
memory
Episodic
Memory
Identity
Crisis
Reconstruction
of memory
totalitarian ego
FMS & Crime Reporting
A place where we leave things? A tape recorder?
An activity / behaviour, hologram, electrical network?
Information Processing: A computer
model
(New form of Behaviourism?)
Various Levels of information
Reception - 'cognitive' memory models show information being processes at the sensory level (perception) where initial organization occurs.
Attention - Draws awareness (late selection Cocktail Party phenom.) for further (deeper) processing and encoding.
Storage - 'place' models of memory indicate that there are three main storage sites: sensory, short-term, & long-term.
Retrieval - depending on the 'input' organisation, information may be recovered or left behind.
Transfer - once stored, information can be moved and reformatted into other 'data bases' and systems.
Memory
Stores (place model)
Sensory >> Short Term>>>>> Long Term
Sensory Memory - Information received by sensory neurons is held in storage for very brief periods of time.
Iconic - (visual) memory held as icons in eyes for about 300 - 1000 milliseconds. Trailing light from sparkler.
Short Term - Working memory requires resources: (using attention can keep working on it for some time).
Capacity - has been found to be about 7+2 by George Miller (1956). Limited capacity, attention-working storage.
Chunking can improve capacity by placing many into few
Maintenance Rehearsal can also help to keep those items in storage for longer than 10-20 seconds. Repetition!
Baddeley (1992). Two types of working memory. Tends to function on verbal/sound basis: homophonic errors but also have visuo-spatial working memory.
Note: Requires "Central Executive" or Homunculus!
Serial Position - Early and later items in a list are remembered best, suggesting limited capacity working model of memory. Revealing "U" shaped curve.
Early items get more work before getting 'bumped' late one still in store, not displaced by 'newer' items. Distinctive? Demonstration
Long Term Memory
Encoding / learning - beyond early organisation.
Craik & Tulving (1975) get elaborative rehearsal that tends to get at meaning and "deeper" conceptual levels of processing than surface sight or sound - words & faces.
"Self referencing", "over learning" & "spacing effect"
Storage / holding on to information through semantic-verbal, visual, acoustical, olfactory, emotional,...
Semantic Networks - Priming and spreading activation of thought and concepts through the networks.
Memory Systems (data bases)
Procedural - Know How - Actions, processes, rules, ...
Declarative - Knowing That - Semantic meaning through language specific statements of fact.
Remembering-Retrieval
Explicit memories - those of which one is fully conscious
Recognition - identifying items from memory based upon the cueing or selection of them from a collection of others
Recall - reporting the contents of memory verbatim, or with minimal cueing. Self-generated
Interference reduction- increase recall through reduced confusion. Block / separate domains, practice
How does
storage work?
Synaptic
changes
Long-term Potentiation is an increase in synapse’s firing potential after
brief, rapid stimulation.
Single
Nerve Cells are altered and Glutamate is a key neurotransmitter invovled in LTP.
Limbic System (and Olfaction) Strong emotions make for stronger memories some stress hormones boost learning and retention.
This has implications for PTSD and memory for other stressful events such as "flashbulb memories" like when 911 happened.
However, prolongued stress may deteriorate memory.
Sleep and dreaming is a time when our memories get improved - mental housekeeping. Recent study shows the reversal of memory loss due to sleep deprivation.
1. Decay: Initially thought that memory fades in time, now is thought that with sleep there is interference & inhibition
2.Interference: two kinds
Proactive Interference occurs when first learned items reduce the recall of more recently learned items. (older interferes with newer).
Retroactive Interference - occurs when newer items reduce recall of older items. Recently learned stops previous items
3. Encoding Specificity
Context dependent memory - where memory is tied or linked to the place or situation in which it was encoded
State dependent memory - where memory is tied or linked to the psychological state (of consciousness) during encoding. Similarity of mood or state shows in recall.
4. Head Trauma . ...
Amnesia & the Brain
Retrograde - loss of memory for events that took place prior to brain damage / surgery
Anterograde - loss of memory for events that occur after the surgery. Suggests that hippocampus is involved in memory consolidation - the transfer from STM to LTM.
E.g. Brenda Milner's Case of H.M. - some retrograde, but sever anterograde following surgery of medial lateral temporal lobe. could still complete words E.g., k---ht, & kni--. Priming works here.
Clive Waring 30 second memory Video part 2 3
Implicit memories - 'unconscious' memory where behaviour or performance is altered by experience.
Hippocampus is important for declarative & spatial memories. E.g, some birds have larger hippocampi and Taxi Drivers have larger posterior hippocampi
Implicit
Memory in Everyday Life
Retention
without awareness leads to:
1. False
Fame Effect - think people are famous
2. Illusion
of Truth - familiar must be true
3. Eyewitness
Transfer - mug shot recognition
4. Unintentional
plagiarism - forget the source
Prefrontal Cortex Damage - loss of memory for temporal order. E.g., Which face was seen most recently? Also difficulties with Self-ordered tasks (some done, some not)
Memory loss also due to ECT, Concussion, Alcohol, …
->Equipotentiality of all sites in brain needed for memory.
The Self and Memory
A brief history of self....
Locke - memories are the ties from the present self to past and future selves. Prince and pauper, memory & plan.
Artificial Intelligence - Daniel Dennett suggests that functional properties of memories constitute consciousness which can be recognised in machines (computers) e.g. self-reflection or self-reference = consciousness or reacting to environment?
Autobiographical memory
Generally recall more recent than distant memories, except for "reminiscence peaks," E.g., firsts, flashbulbs, childhood amnesia (not prior to 3).
Identity Crisis - Loss of access to or willingness to participate in past selves. Taking on new roles and relations, ideas and ideologies, ways of living.
Hindsight bias occurs when we knew how things would work out, but only after it has happened.
Eliminated or changed details - added others details to make it more coherent - even with a "moral" to the story.
-Report "Gist" of scenario eg. 'office'
Memory is a reconstructive process -when remembering complex information we alter it to help us make sense of it, based upon what we already know. (e.g., HM made up stories to account for the candy wrapper he found.
Can we trust Eyewitness Testimony? 2022 2021 2020 - 2019 - 2018 - The Event 2014 RECALL12 2011 Leading Questons
We tend to observe some events and fill in the other details (i.e., closure, fill colour. make use of schemas, ...)
Loftus & Palmer (1974) viewed film of a car accident - then asked what were average speed estimates when cars:
| smashed, | collided, | bumped, | hit, | contacted |
| 40.8 | 39.3 | 38.1 | 34.0 | 31.8 |
other leading questions were: THE or A broken headlight
Children
as Eyewitnesses: Ceci & Bruck (1993, 1995) show
that most young children do recollect accurately, however,
with leading questions will get some alterations (e.g., when asked
about a visit to the doctor, they say yes when they were not touched etc.)
pre-schoolers are more susceptible, where there is more blurring of reality and fantasy.
desire to please the interviewer may also lead them to say that they were hugged and kissed, photographed and bathed while at the doctors office
What
leads to Confabulation ?
(& the misinformation
effect)
1. Thought about the imagined
event many times
(e.g., same stories come up
a parties again and again)
2. Imagined event contains
a lot of details
(complex - easy to add or
forget details)
3. Event is easy to imagine
(easy to confuse image with
reality)
4. Rememberer focuses his/her emotional reactions to the event rather than on what really happened
False Memory Syndrome Controversy
In 1992 the foundation was established by parents and John's Hopkins Medical Institute to
Freud (1895) published the seduction theory of neurosis, two years later retracted the seduction hypothesis because unconscious cannot distinguish reality from fantasy.
Masson (1984) suggested that Freud was trying to 'cover up' for his own father and his friend Fleiss in retraction Traumatic therapies can have long-lasting effects on mental health
Remembering Dangerously
Loftus (1995) suggests that "Like witch-hunt trials of old, people are being accused and even imprisoned on 'evidence' provided by memories of dreams and flashbacks"
Memory is easily altered through
misinformation, as was the case for 29% of subjects with "lost in mall
story" in two follow up interviews.
Critique
