PSYCH 104 1st Edition Exam # 2 Study Guide Lecture 9 - 14 Lecture 9 (February 9)Focus: ForgettingForgetting 1. Hermann Ebbinghausa. Ebbinghaus was very unique because he was his own subject. He invented something called a nonsense syllable this was him making up words and than testing himself on the ability to remember the made up word. The idea of the nonsense syllable was so intriguing to Ebbinghaus, and the study of memory in general because it is a way to analyze memory in its purest form without any other associations. Real words can fit into schemas and this can effect experimental results. 2. Forgettinga. Forgetting represents a decaying function over timeb. Forgetting is behavioral phenomenon in the sense that just because we forget doesn’t mean we know why we forgetc. There are three mechanisms of forgettingi. Trace decay ii. Interferenceiii. Retrieval failure3. Interference: Occurs in learning when there is an interaction between new material and past learned behavior, memories, or thoughts that has an overall negative effect on comprehension.1. Retroactive interferencea. This occurs when newly learned information affects our ability to remember information we’ve learned longer ago b. Extinction as a notion of retroactive interference, in the way that something that happened in phase two interferes with what we learned in phase 1. 2. Proactive interferencea. Proactive Interference is when you memorize a list of information and when remembering attempting to recall a later part of the list, an earlier part gets in the way.Said to increase over time, the lists also need to be similar in orderfor interference to occurb. Example of Proactive interferencei. Latent inhibition: presenting the CS multiple times without the us and than presenting it with the US it is weakened.ii. In this case the US is weakened because the memory of the CS interfered3. Retrieval failurea. Often a memory is available but you don’t have access to it b. Encoding, storage (consolidation) retrievalc. Generally cues that are associated with an item can help you to retrieve iti. Retrieval cues are to memory is as to conditioned stimuli are to unconditioned stimuliii. You can forget if none of the right “retrieval cues” are presentd. How information is encoded determines what is stored, and what is stored determines what kind of cues will be effective at retrieval. 4. The encoding specificity principle a. Tulving &Thomas 1973 experiment i. What this experiments demonstrates is that how you encode something influences how its stored and how its stored determines what will be effective in retrieval. ii. Conditions in which your tested need to be somewhat similar to conditions which you retrieveb. Overall this experiment provides a framework for context effects on memoryLecture 10 (February 11)Focus: Reconstruction and reconsolidation of memory1. Context and extinction/therapy a. Exposure therapyi. Exposure therapy is contingent upon extinction learning and the success of this will involve the contextii. By remind the subject of the extinction exposure therapy experience, we can improve memory and in this case improve the effectiveness of extinction exposure therapy experience2. The war of ghostsa. Camrbidge students came to the lab and read to themselves simple yet odd stories b. Memory was surprisingly inaccurate what happened very clearly was that over time participants started to omit certain details, and they also tended to normalize the story so that it fit everyday life. c. Categorizing errors of memory protocoli. Typical patters:1. Omissions2. Rationalization3. Dominant detail4. Transformation of detailii. New material incorporated to normalizes as if the details were “reconstructed: participants remembered a schema, a gist and filled in iii. We all have a sort of canonical list of things that occur regularly, what we remember involves filling in what we expectd. Iclicker questioni. Reconstruction in memory1. Bartlett’s emphasis on the reconstructive aspects of memory did not occur to Ebbinghaus and other. He insight is most probably due to his use of a. Repeated memory testsb. Smart Cambridge university undergraduates as subjectsc. Materials that related to the participants’ prior knowledged. All of the abovee. None of the above3. Flashbulb memoriesa. Very vivid memory of a surprising emoitional and consequential events b. Neisser and HArsch (1992)i. Results1. Memories vivide but extremely innacurate: 25% had everything wrong2. Despite very high confidence –which did not correlate with accuracy3. No subjects changed their mind with retrival cues4. Many shifted to saying they first heard about it on tv4. Iclickera. Flashbulb memories b. What is probably the most important take home message of what we know about flashbulb memoriesi. Everybody has themii. They are very vividiii. They demonstrate the importance of tviv. Vividness and confidence do not guarantee accuracy 5. Misinformation effectsa. As you recall a memory or are exposed to other things the new information gets in the way of retrieving b. Misinformation effect depends on source-monitoring confusioni. Source monitoring errors happen when a memory from one source is misattributed to another sourceii. When you get information that your going to remember later you usually tag it with a context or you tag it with its source, if were not very careful about monitoring sources of this information than this is where the misinformation effect occurs6. Reconsolidation and protein synthesisa. The argument here very subtley is when this memory is activated it is pulled out of long term memory it is no longer inactive but it is vulnerable to destruction, sowhen we tamper with protein synthesis, reconsolidation will decreased dramatically. Textbook readingsThe paradox of memory, “Our memoires are better than we give ourselves credit for, and worse than we are often willing to admit.”Learning and remembering1. Mnemonicsa. Definition: an active strategic learning device or methodb. Mnemonics in our historya. In traditions of orality, people were left to vices of their memory in order to pass information, stories, thoughts, etc on. The most useful technique for this is called method of loci, meaning visual imagery of memorized locations.b. Peg word mnemonic1. Prememorized set of words serves as a sequence of mental “pegs” onto which the to-be-remembered material can be “hung” An example of this can be seen with rhyming