Memory Chapter 6 Part II

1. MemoryChapter 6Part II William G. Huitt Last revised: May 2005

2. Factors Influencing Retrieval • Serial position effect • The tendency to remember the beginning and ending items of a sequence or list better than the middle items • Primacy effect • The tendency to recall the first items on a list more readily than the middle items • Recency effect • The tendency to recall the last items on a list more readily than the middle items

3. Factors Influencing Retrieval • Environmental context and memory • any elements of the physical setting in which a person learns information are encoded along with the information and become part of the memory trace • Memories are better recalled in the environment they were learned

4. Factors Influencing Retrieval • State-dependent effect • The tendency to recall information better if one is in the same pharmacological or psychological (mood) state as when the information was encoded • Participants learned (encoded) material while sober or intoxicated, and later were tested in either the sober or intoxicated state • Recall was found to be best when the participants were in the same state for both learning and testing • Evidence does suggest that anxiety and fear influence memory • Adults who are clinically depressed tend to recall more negative life experiences and are likely to recall their parents as unloving and rejecting

5. Biology and Memory • Hippocampus and hippocampal region • Hippocampal region • A part of the limbic system which includes the hippocampus itself and its underlying cortical areas • Research has established that the hippocampus is critically important for storing and using mental maps to navigate in the environment

6. Biology and Memory • Hormones and memory • McGaugh and Cahill • Suggest that there may be two pathways for forming memories – one for ordinary information and another for memories that are fired by emotion • When a person is emotionally aroused, the adrenal glands release the hormones adrenalin and noradrenaline into the bloodstream • Excessive levels of the stress hormone cortisol have been shown to interfere with memory in patients who suffer from diseases of the adrenal glands • Estrogen, the female sex hormone, appears to improve working memory efficiency

7. Forgetting • Causes of forgetting • Encoding failure • A cause of forgetting resulting from material never having been put into long-term memory • Decay theory • A theory of forgetting that holds that the memory trace, if not used, disappears with the passage of time • Harry Bahrick and others • Found that after 35 years, participants could recognize 90% of their high school classmates’ names and photographs – the same percentage as for recent graduates

8. Forgetting • Causes of forgetting • Interference--memory loss that occurs because information or associations stored either before or after a given memory hinder the ability to remember it • Proactive interference • Occurs when information or experiences already stored in long-term memory hinder the ability to remember newer information • Retroactive interference • Happens when new learning interferes with the ability to remember previously learned information

9. Forgetting • Causes of forgetting • Consolidation failure--any disruption in the consolidation process that prevents a permanent memory from forming • Retrograde amnesia • A loss of memory affecting experiences that occurred shortly before a loss of consciousness • Nader and others • Demonstrated that conditioned fears in rats can be erased by infusing into the rats’ brains a drug that prevents protein synthesis

10. Forgetting • Causes of forgetting • Motivated forgetting • Forgetting through suppression or repression in order to protect oneself from material that is too painful, anxiety- or guilt-producing, or otherwise unpleasant • Repression • Removing from one’s consciousness disturbing, guilt-provoking, or otherwise unpleasant memories so that one is no longer aware that a painful event occurred • Prospective forgetting • Forgetting to carry out some action, such as mailing a letter

11. Forgetting • Causes of forgetting • Amnesia • A partial or complete loss of memory resulting from brain trauma or psychological trauma • Retrieval failure • Endel Tulving • Claims that much of what people call forgetting is really an inability to locate the needed information • Found that participants could recall a large number of items they seemed to have forgotten if he provided retrieval cues to jog their memory

12. Improving Memory • How information is organized strongly influences your ability to remember it • Overlearning • Practicing or studying material beyond the point where it can be repeated once without error • Research suggests that people remember material better and longer if they overlearn it • Krueger--Showed very substantial long-term gains for participants who engaged in 50% and 100% overlearning

13. Improving Memory • Massed practice • Learning in one long practice session as opposed to spacing the learning in shorter practice sessions over an extended period • Long periods of memorizing make material particularly subject to interference and often result in fatigue and lowered concentration

14. Improving Memory • Distributed practice • Spacing study over several different sessions generally is more effective than massed practice Recent research suggests that significant improvement in learning results when spaced study sessions are accompanied by short, frequent tests of the material being studied • The spacing effect applies to learning motor skills as well as to learning facts and information

15. Improving Memory • A. I. Gates • Tested groups of students who spent the same amount of time in study, but who spent different percentages of that time in recitation and rereading • Participants recalled two to three times more if they increased their recitation time up to 80% and spent only 20% of their study time rereading