Course Overview

1. Knowledge The Brain Course Overview Acquisition (perception) Use ch. 3: Vision. How are objects recognized? Ch. 6-11: Memory - to know is to remember Ch. 12-14: Reasoning - inductive - deductive Problem Solving -It looks easy but it’s not - Different types of knowledge (visual K, language, categories) ch.4: Attention. -Filters perceptual input ch. 5: Working Memory - Buffer for mental representations Ch 4:Executive Functions - Deficits & Errors Emotion

2. Memory Processes Sensory Memory Short-term Working Memory Long-term Memory • Attention • Rehearsal, Elaboration, etc. • Encoding • Retrieval

3. Model of Memory Semantic Memory Visual F I L T E R Central Exec. Sensory Memory Episodic Memory Procedural Memory Auditory

4. Types of Knowledge (memory) Declarative Procedural Semantic Memory Episodic Memory 2+2, sun is blue The Eagles won; ‘cook’ was a word in the list Affected by Amnesia The distinction emphasized by the declarative/procedural model is in terms of the kind of information being represented (i.e. knowledge that can be reported verbally vs motor skills).

5. ‘Of two men with the same outward experiences and the same amount of mere native tenacity, the one who thinks over his experiences the most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory’ William James, 1890

6. Moving information from Working Memory to Long Term Memory • Maintenance rehearsal(e.g. phone number): • rote mechanical process • requires little effort, but • effective only for short-term retention(Craik & Watkins, 1973) • Elaborative rehearsal(e.g. exam; phone of cute guy): • Semantic processing & relations to background knowledge • requires effort, but • leads to better long-term retention

7. Maintenance rehearsal is ineffective for long-term retention (Craik & Watkins, 1973) • Task: • Listen to a list of words. • name the last word that started with the letter ‘b’ • E.g.,...book, river, chair, brandy, textile. --> ‘brandy’ • This task encourages a maintenance rehearsal strategy (why?) • Variable amount of rehearsal for each ‘b’ word: • … crook, basket, spoon, baby, ocean … • … sauce, bride, table, airplane, giraffe, truck, carrot, barber... ‘basket, basket’ ‘baby, baby, …’ ‘bride, bride, bride, bride, bride, bride’ • At the end of experiment: surprise memory task (recall ‘b’ words)

8. basket bride

9. Lincoln penny(Nickerson &Adams, 1979) (medin p.272)

10. Encoding information in Long-Term Memory • Intention to learn • Incidental Learning: No warning about future recall task • Intentional Learning: “You will be have to recall these words” • Level of processing • Shallow: ‘Are the two words... • of the same color? • in the same screen location? • written in same case? (HOUSE-trick) • Medium: ‘Do the two words rhyme?’ • Deep (meaningful):‘Are the two words synonymous?’

12. Results • Main effect of Intention to learn? (intentional vs. incidental) • Main effect of Level of Processing? (shallow, medium, deep) • Interaction? • Intuition: intentional learning should be best • Results: incidental is as good as intentional learning • How do we reconcile these opposing views? • Intention to learn acts indirectly, biasing attention toward effortful, deep, semantic processing (that is, toward the meaning of stimulus) • Attention to meaning promotes understanding, helping to ‘see’ the connections between the to-be-remembered item and background knowledge • These connections • serve as distinctive cues for retrieval • provide ‘retrieval paths’

13. Memory Stages: Encoding Retention Retrieval Memory is enhanced by: - Distinctiveness (encoding of differences among items)

14. gray large Semantic Knowledge Big ears Africa trunk dog cat Distinctiveness Deep Processing Encoding Elephant animal Recall stage: - These distinctive semantic cues (trunk, animal, large, etc.) point to a single specific target - Other semantic cues (bark, pet, hunt, fido) would to other targets (‘dog’)

15. pet category one ‘e’ gray large animal sexual Semantic Knowledge Big ears Africa trunk dog cat Shallow Processing: (e.g., count number of ‘e’s in each word) Elephant Recall stage: - The cue “the target has one ‘e’” is not distinctive enough

16. Memory Stages: Encoding Retention Retrieval Memory is enhanced by: - Distinctiveness (encoding of differences among items) - Organization (grouping items into categories)

17. Organization: Grouping items into categories • Examples • California Verbal Learning Task (CVLT) • In one minute, name as many (states/animals) as you can (Retrieval Plan) • Organization • reduces amount of information encoded (chunks) • provides ‘retrieval paths’ that make the memory ‘findable’ • It is most effective for recall tasks (less effective for immediate recognition tasks)

18. In sum, long-term retention is enhanced by • Distinctiveness: • Encoding of differences among items • Organization: • Encoding of similarities among items • Both distinctiveness and organization are maximized by semantic processes (deep processing)

19. Evidence • Two types of word pairs: • related (beer-wine) • unrelated (table-dog) • Two encoding conditions: • Group A: ‘list similarities between the two items’? • Group B: ‘list differences between the two items’? • Results in a surprised recall task • Listing similarities favors recall unrelated words • Listing differences favors recall of related words

20. Some factors that enhance long-term memory • Understanding (semantic organization): • reduces amount of information encoded • provides ‘retrieval paths’ • Other factors related to semantic processes • Background knowledge (better chance of understanding) • Semantic elaboration: • The fat man read the sign vs. • The fat man read the sign warning about thin ice • Metacognition: • Memory strategy: • maintenance vs. elaborative rehearsal • Shallow vs. deep processing • Subjective organization of to-be-remembered items • Response criterion: When to volunteer an answer

21. Other factors that enhance long-term memory • Encoding specificity • Spacing • Emotion

22. Memory Stages: Encoding Retrieval Retention

23. Retrieval: Example • What did you do in the morning of on November 26, 2003? • Cue: Nov 26 was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day • Remembering starts at the general level (‘words in the list’, ‘morning of thanksgiving day’) and from there proceeds to finer discriminations • Memory Cues have a dual function: • They narrow the set of alternatives to sample (distinctiveness) • They activate associated items (retrieval path)

24. Retrieval: A two-stage process • Step 1: Generate (activate items related to the cue) • Match current content of your experience to similar contents in your memory • For example, think about the question asked, hopefully it will have content related to the answer OR • Retrieve associated information (source memory) • For example, think about other things related to that day (where were you?). Hopefully it will bring associated memories to mind • Step 2: Recognition • Decide whether the activated items are correct or not • Recognition tasks are easier than recall tasks because they do not require the generation stage.

25. Spreading activation and associative strength • Activation: • Long-Term Memory representation raises to the level of Working Memory (consciousness) • Associative Strength: • Learning about the material in different ways creates multiple connections • Some connections are stronger than others (table-chair, table-book) • Spread of Activation: • Once the representation is above certain threshold, it spreads its activation to associated representations • Fan effect (example) • Hints: • Contextual information spreads activation to the target • Many of these ideas are similar to how the interactive models explain the word superiority effect (McClelland & Rumelhart)

26. Encoding Specificity(State-Dependent Learning) • Memory retrieval is enhanced under conditions similar to the conditions at encoding.(context)

27. When the context for retrieval is the same as for encoding (e.g., land-land), the contextual cues activate the memory nodes, enhancing performance. You enter the room were you left the keys, and all of a sudden you remember where you put them

28. Another example: - Encoding: ‘attend to sound’ vs. ‘attend to meaning’ - Recall: ‘sound hint’ vs. ‘semantic’ hint - Level of processing Effect: meaning better than sound - Similar State effect: ‘meaning-meaning’ better than ‘meaning-sound’ ‘sound-sound’ better than ‘sound-meaning’

29. Effect of Encoding-Retrieval Similarity • Encoding Instructions: • Recognition (‘The exam will be multiple choice’) • Recall (‘The exam will be essay format’) • Test Conditions • Recognition (which words were in the list: ‘golf, table, parrot…’ etc.) • Recall: name all the words in the list • Design (?) • Predicted results: main effect/s?interaction? (Tversky, 1973)

31. When told to expect a ‘recall’ test • Participants encode items using: • Elaborative rehearsal (deep processing) that emphasizes • relation to other knowledge and to context • At recall, participants use such knowledge and context: • To activate the target memories (path retrieval) • To experience ‘source memory’ (episodic memory): • the memory for the setting in which the material was first encoded (where, when, who said it, what the place looked like, etc.) • In surprise recognition test: • Retrieval is not needed, thus context information is not useful

32. When told to expect a ‘recognition’ test, or not told about memory test at all • Participants encode items using: • maintenance rehearsal (shallow processing) that provides only • Sense of familiarity • At recognition, participants use such sense of familiarity: • To recognize which items are old and which are new • In surprise recall test: • Context information is not available to guide the retrieval path • Supporting evidence for the role of familiarity in recognition • Unusual words (okapi) are better recognized than familiar words (cat) • Familiar words are better recalled than unusual ones (more cues)

33. Types of Knowledge (memory) Declarative Procedural Semantic Memory Episodic Memory 2+2, sun is blue The Eagles won; ‘cook’ was a word in the list Affected by Amnesia This distinction emphasizes the kind of information represented (i.e. knowledge reported verbally vs motor skills).

34. Another Possible architecture of: Memory Systems Implicit Memory Explicit Memory Skill & Habit Learning Priming Semantic Memory Episodic Memory Classical Conditioning 2+2, sun is blue Affected by Amnesia This emphasizes how information is accessed (conscious vs automatic)

35. Implicit Memory • Perceptual priming • Tachitoscopic recognition (read the word): • xxxx --> Scone Accuracy • Scone --> Scone • Lexical Decision (is this a word?): • xxxx --> Star RT • Star ---> Star • Word-stem completion • xxxx --> Sco__ Choice • Scone --> Sco__ • Perceptual priming is modality specific • Conceptual priming (of ideas) is amodal

36. Is perceptual priming a process independent from explicit memory? • Behavioral dissociation • Anatomical dissociation • Brain lesion • Brain imaging (we won’t discuss in this course)

37. Process Behavioral Dissociation Perceptual Semantic • Study Stage • Read aloud - Alone xxx- Cold ‘cold’ • Read aloud - Context Hot- Cold ‘cold’ • Generate Hot ____ ‘cold’

38. Explicit Memory (recognition) Explicit Memory (recognition) Semantic process: low high Explicit recognition (‘was this item in the list?’): semantic benefit Perceptual process: high low Tachitoscopic identificationcold: ??

39. Semantic process: low high Explicit recognition (‘was this item in the list?’): semantic benefit Perceptual process: high low Tachitoscopic identificationcold: Double Dissociation from explicit recognition

40. Is perceptual priming a process independent from explicit memory? • Behavioral dissociation • Anatomical dissociation • Brain lesion

41. Brief detour on Amnesia Anterograde: events since brain trauma Retrograde: events prior to brain trauma

42. Neurological Evidence (Hippocampus) Anterograde amnesia: Inability to remember events occurring after brain injury. (Patient H.M.)

43. Bitemporal Lobectomy - Performed as treatment for epileptic seizures - “Success” except for anterograde amnesia Patient H.M. * had such a surgery in 1953 (age 29) * normal IQ, digit span, conversation, motor learning

44. Priming in anterograde amnesia • Amnesics show; • Normal repetition priming • Normal word-stem completion • Study phase: “is this word pleasant or not? • Test phase: • Recognition[Was “scorch” on study list?]or • Word Stem Completion: Complete “sco_ _ _” • Impaired recognition but normal stem completion (i.e., as likely as normals to complete stems with words that were observed earlier). (Graf, Squire, & Mandler, 1984)

45. How to distinguish amnesia from malingering? • Read word list • Administer implicit memory test after short delay • Amnesic: • poor explicit memory • Good implicit memory • Results: better than chance performance • Malingerer: notices relation to study list • Pretends chance performance

46. Conceptual Fluency and Source Monitoring • Judgment of fame • Study phase: ‘read names’ • Alonso, Compaired, DeSalvo, Bueres • Test phase: ‘how famous is this person’ • Three conditions: • famous (Pacino), • Non-famous Old (Compaired) • Non-famous New (Chiesa) • Two test times (between-subjects design): • Immediately after reading the list • Day after reading the list • Results • Immediate: Correct rejection (familiarity with good source monitoring) • Day after: False familiarity (loss of source memory)

47. Conceptual fluency and Source Monitoring - II • Judgment of truth (was Saddam Hussein linked to 9/11?) • Today: sense of familiarity + source memory --> rejection • In a few years: • still have sense of familiarity, but • no source memory • --> sure the bastard did it! • Misattribution of source • You watch an assault (staged) • Two days later, you are shown ‘potential’ suspects (innocent bystanders) • Four days later, you are asked to identify the criminal • The innocent bystander looks familiar, you point to him (busted!) • Summary: • Source attribution is an inferential process • Confidence of judgment is not predictive of accuracy

48. Autobiographical memory • Not in your handout • A type of episodic memory • Memory for personal experiences\ • Components • Imagery (e.g., visual imagery) • Lots of detail (flashbulb memory: where were you on 9/11?) • High confidence in its accuracy (even if it is wrong!) • Emotion • It has a narrative (it tells a story), thus • It is constructive • is biased by goals at the time of retrieval