Memory: A strange brew

1. Doctor: Good morning, I’m doctor X, I’m here to test your memory H.M. Hi, nice to meet you. Anybody ever tell you that you look just like Frank Sinatra? Doctor: I get that a lot. I’m going to start by showing you some pictures and I want to you to name them as fast as you can and then try and remember them because I will ask you later about them. OK? H.M. OK. H.M. Slowly - Rhinoceros, Camel, Anchor,, lamp Doctor: good -- can you repeat those back to me: H.M. Sure, Rhinoceros, Camel, anchor, and lamp Doctor: that’s very good (pager rings), I’m sorry, I’ll be right back H.M. No problem. Doctor leaves room for 3 minutes and comes back. Doctor: I’m going to ask you now if you remember any of the words I asked you to remember before. H.M. What words? Anybody ever tell you that you look just like Frank Sinatra? Doctor: I get that a lot. Do you remember any of the words I told you before? H.M. What are you talking about? I’ve never met you before in my life, Doctor: OK, I’m doctor X. I’m going to start by showing you some pictures and I want to you to name them as fast as you can OK? H.M. No problem. - quickly. (F)Rhinoceros, (S)car, (F) camel, (S) horse, (F) anchor. Doctor: do you remember naming these pictures for me before? H.M. Huh? I told you, I just met you,, I’ve never seen these pictures before. Doctor: Why do you think you named some of the pictures (like the rhinoceros) more quickly? H.M. They’re were easier to recognize Doctor: Does it make sense that a rhinoceros would be easier to recognize than a car given that you see cars a lot more often than rhinoceroses? H.M. No, not really -- something weird is going on. Memory: A strange brew

2. Memory is divided into two systems Neurally separate Behaviorally dissociable to some degree Memory Systems: Explicit and Implicit

3. “Conscious recollection” Episodes (e.g. The trip I took to mars last year) Facts (e.g. Paris is the capital of France) Behavioral measure usually used - Recall Explicit (related to “declarative” memory)

4. Related to “Hippocampal formation (HF)” in medial temporal lobe can cause of explicit memory deficits Korsakoff’s syndrome damages mammillary bodies with alcohol abuse Amnesics have deficits in explicit memory Explicit Memory: Neural Architecture

5. Retrograde: Can’t remember things in past Go on trip to mars for 1 year (return trip was 1 month) Hit head on capsule when landing in ocean Temporally graded (events just before accident are forgotten) (e.g.Forget return trip but remember being on mars) Amnesia

6. HF holds info for a while and “teaches” information to rest of cortex This “teaching” is part of consolidation After new info has been “taught”, then it is stored in rest of cortex Time on mars has already been “taught” (OK!) Return trip not completely “taught” yet (GONE!) Why is Amnesia temporally graded?

7. Anterograde: New information cannot be learned H.M cannot learn new information (e.g. who doctor “X” is) Amnesia

8. Repetition priming (e.g. object recognition priming) Savings upon relearning (relearning the psych 120 material 10 years from now) Motor and skill learning (e.g. riding a bike) Implicit Memory: Everything that’s not Explicit

9. Implicit Memory: Example

10. Study phase - subjects look at words that have common stems (e.g. market) Test phase - cued recall: Given “mar”, say which word on previous list Test phase - completion: Given “mar”, say any word on which comes to mind Explicit vs. Implicit Memory Experiments

11. Explicit vs. Implicit: Results

12. Right occipital lobe removed at age 14 Normal functioning (owner of computer software company) Recognition Task: OK Priming (perceptual identification): Impaired Priming impairment specific to vision: Normal auditory priming Impaired Implicit Memory with Intact Explicit

13. Study phase - subjects look at words in 3 condition Generate (hot - ????) Context (hot - cold) No context (xxx - cold) Test phase - recognition - say if on old list Test phase - perceptual identification (detect word very briefly presented) Explicit vs. Implicit in Normals

14. Explicit vs. Implicit in Normals: Results

15. Memory is like a tape recorder: NOT!! Memory is Reconstructive Memory: How Reliable Is It?

16. Loftus, Burns and Miller 1978 Subjects shown series of slides depicting accident One group fed misleading questions like “Did any car pass the red sports car when it was stopped at the stop sign?” (if yield sign was actually present) Eyewitness Testimony: Leading the Witness

17. No misleading info: 85% correct Misleading info: 38% correct Called “the misinformation effect” Results:

18. Supposedly very good memory for huge events (e.g. JFK assassination) But are they correct? Flashbulb Memories

19. Students recorded info at time of disaster: Tested 2 years later Many had vivid memories Scored 0 to 7, (2 - where, 1 -who they were with, 1- time of day etc.) 3/ 44 scored 7, mean =2.9, 50% <2. Almost no correlation of accuracy and confidence Test of Flashbulb memory: Challenger

20. Associations: (e.g.) The smell of coffee means that you will get some Folger’s Structures: (e.g. how U.S. government is put together) Learning: Acquiring New Knowledge

21. Every time I play mozart, my dog salivates Unconditioned Stimulus (US) (meat) Unconditioned Response (UR)(salivates) Conditioned stimuli (CS) (Mozart) Conditioned response (CR) (salivating to mozart) Learning Associations: Classical Conditioning

22. CS comes on a little before US Adaptive: CR prepares the organism for the US Some pairings take longer Classical Conditioning: Timing

23. Danger pairings can happen very fast E.g. conditioning dog to fear the mailperson (shock him once after showing him mailperson) Conditioned taster aversion US can follow a long time after Give rats flavored water Make them sick with a drug They will avoid flavored water in future Associate flavor with getting ill Classical conditioning one one trial

24. Not all things get associated equally as well Flavor with sickness - good association Loud noise and sickness - not as well Hard-wired pathways that affect ability for things to associate Constraints of Conditioning

25. Acquisition (training): pair CS and US (e.g. playing mozart and giving dog food) Extinction (testing): don’t pair CS and US, but still get some response for a while Spontaneous Recovery: wait a while after extinction trials and try CS again and get UR, but then goes away again Stages of Classical Conditioning

26. What gets paired with US? CS is middle “C’ and is paired with meat Dog learns that middle “C” means meat and salivation What if tested with “D above middle “C”? If he salivates he is showing stimulus generalization Stimulus Specificity and Stimulus Generalization

27. How do you train your dog to bark jingle bells? Get her to bark and then slowly shape her behavior with reinforcement “Law of Effect” Can reinforce with positive (good dog) or negative (bad dog) Learnability of responses varies Instrumental Conditioning

28. Habituation - less response with experience Construction noise outside my window every day Day 1 - I want a bb gun, Day 20 - I sleep blissfully Major way of studying cognitive processes in babies Sensitization - more response with experience Often associated with strongly aversive stimuli Non-associative Learning

29. Encoding (study) Storage Retrieval (test) Long-Term Memory: Overview

30. Retrieving is easier when retrieval conditions match study conditions Encoding Specificity

31. 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Recalled on Land Recalled underwater Example: Study and test on land and under water Studied Underwater Percent Correct Studied on Land Test condition

32. Subjects learned words either inside (I) or outside (O) Recall was better when study and test matched But (I) was dreary office and (O) was nice sunny place outside Maybe outside caused a good mood and inside caused a bad mood Context and Mood

33. Same experiment, but mood manipulated I+ (Inside with good mood) I- (Inside with bad mood) 0+ (Outside with good mood) 0- (Outside with bad mood) Results: mood mattered, Inside/Outside didn’t Context and Mood

34. High-Frequency words recalled better than Low-frequency Low-Frequency words recognized better than High-frequency Assessing Memory: Recall and Recognition

35. A double edged sword If you study only in one context and reproduce all conditions at test, then similar context is good But there are contextual elements you can’t control (state of your brain fluctuates) You can’t always reproduce study conditions (can’t study in 2278 all the time) Context-dependent learning

36. You want to take your knowledge on the road You want to retrieve this information anywhere, anytime Vary study contexts so that memory traces are encoded with variability Context-Independent Learning

37. Even information is stored somewhere in your head, you still have to access that information Many “failures” of memory are really failures to access Things you thought you forgot can often be relearned easily (savings upon relearning) Encoding with variability sets up accessible memory traces Memory: Finding the Way

38. Massed practice: Large blocks of practice Performance during training is often better Long-term performance is crummy Spaced (distributed) practice: Smaller blocks of practice separated by time Performance during training is sometimes not as good as massed Long-term learning is much better than massed Encoding Variability: Spacing

39. Baddeley (1990) taught subjects typing 4 training schedules (1) 1 hour sessions/day (2) 1 hour sessions/day (1) 2 hour sessions/day (2) 2 hour sessions/day Spacing Effects Example

40. Spacing Effects: Results

41. Applies to almost all kinds of learning Skill learning (motor) Fact learning (explicit learning) Spacing Effects

42. Spacing Effects: Short Time Frames

43. Spacing Effects: Long Time Frames

44. Studying in different contexts will help you generalize the information Example: Study in more than one place if you cannot take the test in the place where you study One exception: If you have a hard time getting focused except in one place Better to learn to have a few places where you can study Encoding Variability: Context

45. Kids had to throw a bean bag at a post 4 feet away Group A: Practice at 4 feet only Group B: Practice at 3 and 5 feet Wait a while then test Group B did better at 4 foot toss! Encoding Variability: Motor Skills

46. Practical advice for Shaq’s free throw problem Don’t shoot 40 free throws in a row Do shoot 14 ft, 15 ft, 16 ft, 15 ft, hook shot, 15 ft, etc… Encoding Variability: Motor Skills

47. Custard-Lumber Jail-clown Envelope-slipper Sheepskin-candle Freckles-apple Hammer-star Ivy-mother Lizard-paper Scissors-bear Candy-mountain Book-paint Tree-ocean Mental Imagery Experiment

48. Interaction between elements is especially useful Example: Dollar Bill and Elephant Imagine elephant paying with a dollar bill at a checkout line Bizarreness is not especially important Using Imagery to Enhance Memory

49. Associate each item on a list with a place Take a “Mental Walk” and associate each place with an item The Method of Loci

50. Loci: Does it Really Work?