Final Exam

1. Final Exam • April 21 and 22 • Not cumulative • 45 percent • Same format as midterms

2. Got technical skills? • Auditory perception lab is looking for computer science or equivalent student with good technical skills • See me after class

3. Next week: • Read Vokey et al. • Turn in idea journal Thursday

4. Model of Memory RETRIEVAL Turning now to Long-Term Memory ATTENTION Sensory Memory Short-Term Memory Long-Term Memory Sensory Signals REHEARSAL

5. Long-Term Memory • Characteristics (intuitive with some introspection): • Persists indefinitely (up to decades!) • Requires no active process of rehearsal (at least that we are conscious of)

6. Some Distinctions in LTM • Endel Tulving: There are two broad categories of information that are represented in LTM - • Episodic Memory: memory of an event in your life • autobiographical • has a temporal context - something about time is encoded along with the memory

7. Some Distinctions in LTM • Endel Tulving: There are two broad categories of information that are represented in LTM - • Semantic Memory: memory of facts, knowledge of the world • unconnected to an autobiographical event • no temporal context

8. Some Distinctions in LTM • There is a third category: • Procedural Memory: memory for actions

9. Semantic Memory • Capacity is huge (unlimited?)

10. Semantic Memory • Structure of encoding is associative

11. Semantic Memory • Structure of encoding is associative • Evidence: Semantic Priming in a Lexical-Decision Task • Priming: prior exposure to some stimulus modifies subsequent processing of a target

12. Semantic Memory • Structure of encoding is associative • Evidence: Semantic Priming in a Lexical-Decision Task • Lexical Decision Task: Subject is shown a target word or pronounceable non-word (eg. gap or fap) and must respond “word” or “non-word”

13. Semantic Memory • Structure of encoding is associative • Evidence: Semantic Priming in a Lexical-Decision Task • manipulation: prime can be either related or unrelated to the target word

14. Semantic Memory • Structure of encoding is associative • Evidence: Semantic Priming in a Lexical-Decision Task • result: words are identified faster when preceded by a semantically related prime Prime + Target = Response “space” “gap” fast “truck” “gap” slow

15. Semantic Memory • Structure of encoding is associative • Evidence: Semantic Priming in a Lexical-Decision Task • Interpretation: • the representation of information in semantic memory is associative: • each fact or piece of knowledge is stored along with its relationship to other stored information • related items can activate each other which facilitates recall

16. Episodic Memory • Memory for an episode or event in your own life • Has temporal context (entails a sense of duration and date) • examples: • recall breakfast • what happened this weekend

17. Recalling Episodic Memory • Recall is highly sensitive to context - Similarities in context (especially smell) can trigger vivid recollections

18. Recalling Episodic Memory • Memory is affected by the nature of your engagement with the information • Levels-of-Processing Theory

19. Recalling Episodic Memory • Memory is affected by the nature of your engagement with the information • Levels-of-Processing Theory • Consider this experiment: List CAT pie PILLOW TREE • Method of Learning • stating capitals or lower-case • repeating words • putting words into a sentence Recall is tested some time later.

20. Recalling Episodic Memory • Memory is affected by the nature of your engagement with the information • Levels-of-Processing Theory • Consider this experiment: List CAT pie PILLOW TREE • Result: • Best recall with “deep” processing • Worst recall with “surface” processing

21. Recalling Episodic Memory • Memory is affected by the nature of your engagement with the information • Interpretation: • the successful use of memory depends on the number of connections that are made between related items and the degree to which these are initially activated

22. Recalling Episodic Memory • context is critical! • location, physiological state, etc. affect ability to recall and your confidence that you recalled correctly • e.g. lists of words are recalled better when recalled where they were first learned

23. When You Don’t Remember • Two reasons why you don’t remember:

24. When You Don’t Remember • Two reasons why you don’t remember: • Unavailable • It wasn’t successfully encoded - something went wrong while you were studying

25. When You Don’t Remember • Two reasons why you don’t remember: • Unavailable • It wasn’t successfully encoded - something went wrong while you were studying • Inaccessible • memory is stored but cannot be retrieved, perhaps because appropriate connections aren’t being made

26. Recalling Episodic Memory • Recall is a generative processes rather than simply calling up stored data

27. Recalling Episodic Memory • Recall is a generative processes rather than simply calling up stored data • Evidenced by the fact that episodic memories can be distorted or completely false under certain circumstances

28. Recalling Episodic Memory • Misinformation Effect - exposure to information subsequent to storage of memory can alter the contents of the memory

29. Recalling Episodic Memory • Misinformation Effect • Consider the following example: • Subjects were shown a video depicting a car accident

30. Recalling Episodic Memory • Misinformation Effect • Consider the following example: • Subjects were shown a video depicting a car accident • Then given the following question: “How fast were the vehicles going when they ______”

31. Recalling Episodic Memory • Misinformation Effect • Consider the following example: • Subjects were shown a video depicting a car accident • Then given the following question: “How fast were the vehicles going when they ______” • Different subjects were asked questions that differed in the “magnitude” of the final word

32. Recalling Episodic Memory • Misinformation Effect • Consider the following example: • Subjects were shown a video depicting a car accident • Then given the following question: “How fast were the vehicles going when they ______” • Different subjects were asked questions that differed in the “magnitude” of the final word • The possible words were: Contacted, Hit, Bumped, Collided, and Smashed

33. Recalling Episodic Memory • Misinformation Effect • Consider the following example: • Average estimated velocity depended on the nature of the question

34. Recalling Episodic Memory • Misinformation Effect • Interpretation: • Episodic memory can be distorted by subsequent information

35. Recalling Episodic Memory • Memory for episodes in life can be illusory

36. Recalling Episodic Memory • Memory for episodes in life can be illusory • Consider the example in Loftus’ article: • participant was induced to have an episodic memory of being lost in a mall

37. Recalling Episodic Memory • Memory for episodes in life can be illusory • Consider the example in Loftus’ article: • participant was induced to have an episodic memory of being lost in a mall • Even when told the memory is a false one, the participant had difficulty recognizing it as an invalid memory

38. Recalling Episodic Memory • False Memories may arise when details of a crime are in question as in eye-witness testimony or repressed memories of abuse during childhood

39. Implicit and Explicit Memory: yet another distinction • Are all memories explicit? Is all information stored in the brain subject to conscious scrutiny?

40. Implicit and Explicit Memory: yet another distinction • Are all memories explicit? Is all information stored in the brain subject to conscious scrutiny? • Implicit Memory refers to encoded memories that are not part of the “contents” of awareness

41. Implicit and Explicit Memory: yet another distinction • How can we know whether memory is stored/recalled implicitly or explicitly?

42. Implicit Memory • Consider the following distinction in recalling items from a list of words:

43. Implicit Memory • Consider the following distinction in recalling items from a list of words: • Free Recall - subjects can be asked to simply recall and report as many items as possible - these items are accessible as explicit memory

44. Implicit Memory • Consider the following distinction in recalling items from a list of words: • Implicit Recall - subjects can be asked to complete a word stem with any word that comes to mind after reading a list of words (no mention of testing memory!) __ack

45. Implicit Memory • Consider the following distinction in recalling items from a list of words: • Implicit Recall - subjects can be asked to complete a word stem with any word that comes to mind after reading a list of words (no mention of testing memory!) But how do you know that information is stored/recalled implicitly? Couldn’t it be explicit?

46. Implicit Memory • Consider the following distinction in recalling items from a list of words: • Twist - require subject to complete stem with a word that wasn’t on the list - if a word from the list is used preferentially, it was remembered implicitly

47. Implicit Memory Consider the implications regarding the nature of consciousness and the connection between neural activity and awareness

48. Implicit Memory Consider the implications regarding the nature of consciousness and the connection between neural activity and awareness Not all of the activity in your brain generates experience - some is “sub”conscious or non-conscious

49. Repressed Memories Elizabeth Loftus

50. “Derepressed memories” • Loftus opens with several examples of court cases that involve “derepressed memories” • What is a repressed memory? • What is a derepressed memory?