Ch 5: Long Term MemoryChapter Introduction-Two basic categories:oWorking memory-Brief, immediate memory for material we are currently processing -Fragile; info can disappear from memory after less than a minuteoLong term memory-Large capacity-Contains your memory for experiences and info you have accumulated throughout your lifetime-Debate over whether they are distinctly different kinds of memory but division is a convenient way to partition the enormous amount of research and knowledge about our memory processes -Divided into subdivisions (mainly for convenience rather than distinctness)Episodic memory-Focuses on your memories for events that happened to you personally; it allows you to travel backward in subjective time to reminisce about earlier episodes in your lifeSemantic memory-Describes your organized knowledge about the world, including your knowledge about words and other factual information-Semantic = meaningProcedural memory-Refers to your knowledge about how to do something-How to ride a bicycle, send an email, etc. -Three aspectsEncoding-Process info and represent it in your memoryRetrieval-You locate information in storage, and you access that informationAutobiographical memory-Your memory for experiences and information that are related to yourself-Demonstration 5.1Physical appearance: 2/5Rhyming: 3/5Meaning: 5/5 Encoding in Long Term MemoryLevels of Processing-Levels of processing approachoDeep, meaningful processing of info leads to more accurate recall than shallow, sensory kinds of processingoPeople achieve a deeper level of processing when they extract more meaning from a stimulusoWhen you analyze for meaning, you may think of other associations, images, and past experiences related to the stimulus Levels of Processing and Memory for General Material-Dem 5.1oPeople were about three times as likely to recall a word if they had originally answered questionsabout its meaning rather than if they had originally answered questions about the word's physical appearance-Deeper levels of processing encourage recall because of oDistinctiveness-A stimulus is different from other memory traces-Distinctive encoding-Trying to remember important name, irrelevant names will be less likely to interfere if you provide distinctive encoding oElaboration -Requires rich processing in terms of meaning and interconnected concepts-Little extensive elaboration when youre just thinking about appearance -The more elaborate, more detailed a sentence inquiring about the meaning of a word produced far more accurate recall-Deep processing also enhances our memory for facesoPeople recognized more photos of faces if they had previously judged whether the person looked honest, rather than judging a more superficial characteristic Levels of Processing and the Self-Reference Effect-Self reference effectoYou will remember more info if you try to relate that info to yourself-Tend to encourage especially deep processing -Examples of self reference researchoRepresentative research (Rogers et al. 1977)-Asked participants to process each English word according to the specified instructionBy visual characteristics, acoustic characteristics, semantic characteristics, self reference instructions-To decide whether a particular word could be applied to themselvesRecall was poor for the two tasks that used shallow processing but much better when people had processed in terms of semantic characteristics Self reference task produced best recall -Requires organization and elaboration-People are likely to recall a word that does apply to themselves rather than a word that does not apply-Meta anaylsis (Johnson 1997)Statistical method for synthesizing numerous studies on a single topic Computes statistical index that tells us whether a particular variable has a statistically sig effectConfirmed pattern we've describedoParticipant's failure to follow instruction-Marry Ann Foley et al (1999)Participants might actually use self reference technique when instructed to use relatively shallow technique Students told about kind of mental image they should form before listening to a list of familiar, concrete nounsInstructed to 1. visualize object or 2. imagine yourself using the objectStudents in the first condition often inserted themselves into the mental image; when this happened the recall was equalWhen they sorted the words according to the processing method used rather than instructions received recall was more than three times as high when they used self reference-Shows out cognitive processes are active; people do not just passively follow instructionsoFactors responsible for the self reference effect-"self" produces an especially rich set of cuesCues are distinctive and you can easily link these cues with new info you're learning-Self reference instructions encourage people to consider how their personal traits are connected with one anotherThis kind of elaboration leads to more accurate retrieval-You rehearse material more frequently if it is associated with yourselfMore likely to use rich, complex rehearsal when you associate material with yourself The Effects of Context: The Encoding-Specificity Principle-Encoding specificity principleoStates that recall is better if the context during retrieval is similar to the process during encodingoGo to kitchen forgot why you went return to bedroom and rememberoAlso called transfer appropriate processing and reinstatement of context Research on Encoding Specificity-Marian and Fausey (2006)oParticipants heard 4 stores, 2 in English, 2 in SpanishoPeople were relatively accurate in answering questions if they heard the story and answered questions in the same language; less accurate if the story told and questions asked were mismatched languages -We often forget material that is associated with contexts other than our present context-Different kinds of memory tasks oTwo situations typically test different kinds of memoryoRecall task-Participants must reproduce items they learned earlier-Can you recall the definition of elaborationoRecognition task-Participants must judge whether they saw a particular item at an earlier time -Did the word morphology appear earlier in this chapteroReal life --> more recalloLab studies --> more recognition-Encoding specificity is typically weak in these lab, short dlay situations oEncoding specificity effects most likely to occur in memory tasks that-Assess your