Article  Read the copy of the article provided –This is an in class set, please don’t write on it.  Take notes on all elements relating to memory.

Retrieving Memory Recognition, recall & relearning

Problems  Problems in remembering can be due to decay, interference, or repression. In interference, previous memories can interfere with present remembering (proactive interference) or information remembered just recently can interfere with past memories (retroactive interference).

Explicit Memory  Deliberate, conscious recollection of facts and past experiences  Recall tests - people are asked to retrieve memories without the benefit of any hints or cues. A request to remember everything that happened to you yesterday or to recollect all the words in a list you just heard would be an example of a recall test. Suppose you were briefly shown a series of words: cow, prize, road, gem, hobby, string, weather. A recall test would require you to write down or say as many of the words as you could. If you were instructed to recall the words in any order, the test would be one of free recall. If you were directed to recall the words in the order they were presented, the test would one of serial recall or ordered recall.

Explicit Memory  Recognition tests require people to examine a list of items and identify those they have seen before, or to determine whether they have seen a single item before. Multiple-choice and true-false exams are types of recognition tests. For example, a recognition test on the list of words above might ask, “Which of the following words appeared on the list? (a) plant (b) driver (c) string (d) radio.” People can often recognize items that they cannot recall. You have probably had the experience of not being able to answer a question but then recognizing an answer as correct when someone else supplies it.

Implicit Memory  Using stored information without trying to retrieve it. People often retain and use prior experiences without realizing it.  For example, suppose that the word serendipity is not part of your normal working vocabulary, and one day you hear the word used in a conversation. A day later you find yourself using the word in conversation and wonder why. The earlier exposure to the word primed you to retrieve it automatically in the right situation without intending to do so.

Implicit Memory  Priming is the relatively automatic change in performance resulting from prior exposure to information.  Priming occurs even when people do not consciously remember being exposed to the information.

How priming works  In typical implicit memory experiments, subjects study a long list of words, such as assassin and boyhood. Later, subjects are presented with a series of word fragments (such as a_ _a_ _in and b_ _ho_d) or word “stems” (as______ or bo_____) and are instructed to complete the fragment or stem with the first word that comes to mind.  The subjects are not explicitly asked to recall the list words. Nevertheless, the previous presentation of assassin and boyhood primes subjects to complete the fragments with these words more often than would be expected by guessing.

Retrieval Cues  Any stimulus that helps us recall information in long-term memory  Two general principles govern the effectiveness of retrieval cues – encoding specificity and distinctiveness.

Encoding specificity principle  According to this principle, stimuli may act as retrieval cues for an experience if they were encoded with the experience. Pictures, words, sounds, or smells will cause us to remember an experience to the extent that they are similar to the features of the experience that we encoded into memory. For example, the smell of cotton candy may trigger your memory of a specific amusement park because you smelled cotton candy there.

Distinctiveness  Distinctiveness determines the effectiveness of retrieval cues. Suppose a group of people is instructed to study a list of 100 items. Ninety-nine are words, but one item in the middle of the list is a picture of an elephant. If people were given the retrieval cue “Which item was the picture?” almost everyone would remember the elephant.

Déjà Vu and Jamais Vu  Describe a time where you could swear that you remember doing something before. You don’t know when but you know you have done the exact thing once before.

How it works  The sense of déjà vu (French for “seen before”) is the strange sensation of having been somewhere before, or experienced your current situation before, even though you know you have not. One possible explanation of déjà vu is that aspects of the current situation act as retrieval cues that unconsciously evoke an earlier experience, resulting in an eerie sense of familiarity.  Another puzzling phenomenon is the sense of jamais vu (French for “never seen”). This feeling arises when people feel they are experiencing something for the first time, even though they know they must have experienced it before. The encoding specificity principle may partly explain jamais vu; despite the overt similarity of the current and past situations, the cues of the current situation do not match the encoded features of the earlier situation.

Tip of the Tongue  Refers to the situation in which a person tries to retrieve a relatively familiar word, name, or fact, but cannot quite do so.  Although the missing item seems almost within grasp, its retrieval eludes the person for some time

Theories  An intruding item essentially clogs the retrieval mechanism and prevents retrieval of the correct item. That is, the person cannot think of one thing because another gets in the way and blocks retrieval of the correct name.  Another idea is that the phenomenon occurs when a person has only partial information that is simply insufficient to retrieve the correct item, so the failure is one of activation of the target item.

Forgetting Curve

Forgetting  In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered the exponential nature of forgetting. The following formula can roughly describe the forgetting: –where R is memory retention, S is the relative strength of memory, and t is time.

Forgetting  Illustrates the decline of memory retention in time. A related concept is the strength of memory that refers to the durability that memory traces in the brain. The stronger the memory, the longer period of time that a person is able to recall it.  A typical graph of the forgetting curve shows that humans tend to halve their memory of newly learned knowledge in a matter of days or weeks unless they consciously review the learned material.

Forgetting  The speed of forgetting depends on a number of factors such as the difficulty of the learned material (e.g. how meaningful it is), its representation and physiological factors such as stress and sleep.  The basal forgetting rate differs little between individuals. The difference in performance (e.g. at school) can be explained by mnemonic skills.