1. Retrieval Memories are held in storage by a web of associations, each piece of information interconnected with others. The best retrieval cues come from associations we form at the time we encode a memory: smells, tastes, sights, sounds. Fig. 25.1 (mp331 cp316 f8.16)Priming is the awakening of associations. The spreading of associations unconsciously activates related associations. Fig. 25.2 (mp 331 cp 317 f8.17)Context-dependent memory. Words heard under water were best recalled under water; words heard on land were best recalled on land. (Godden & Baddeley, 1975 mp331 cp 316). Memories are mood congruent; people in a good mood judged themselves competent and effective, others as benevolent. (DeSteno et al., 2000 mp332 cp 317). Currently depressed people recall their parents as punitive; formerly depressed people's recollections of their parents matches the non- depressed. (Lewinsohn & Rosenbaum, 1987 mp332 cp 317).

2. Retrieval Fig. 25.3 (mp 333 cp 318 f8.18)Serial position effect. (Reed, 2000). Because of rehearsal-both conscious and subvocal--we recall the names of the first people we meet at a social event, and the names of the last ones. Middle names are repeated the least. The last people will be recalled especially well, because of recency effect, as these items are still in working memory. After a dela, when attention has been shifted away from the last items, recall is best for the first items, or primacy effect. What always suffers performance-wise are the middle items; remember this when you study for the next exam. Try this: Consciousness, Learning, Memory; then Memory, Learning, Consciousness, then Learning, Consciousness, Memory. Altering the sequence allows the middle item more opportunities for rehearsal.

3. Memory Construction It is an evolutionary advantage to discard out-of-date information; if we remembered every detail, we would have great difficulty generalizing, organizing and evaluating priorities, thinking styles which have greater survival value than merely remembering facts. (Parker et al., 2006 m p334 cp319) Myers makes a point that may help your Oct 29 exam: “If a memory- enhancing pill ever becomes available, it had better not be too effective.” Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new memories; retrograde amnesia is the inability to recall long-term memories. Anterograde amnesia can be caused by severe alcoholism, in a condition formerly known as 'wet brain': the mammilary lobes of the hippocampus have been destroyed by alcohol, and therefore no new memories can be formed. Anterograde patients can be classically conditioned, and develop non-verbal skills, but they have no conscious memory of having ever acquired those skills.

4. Memory Construction We selectively attend to only a few of the myriad sights and sounds around us; for example, can you draw the sides of a 'loonie' from memory? A coin-collector (numismatist) would. Fig. 26.1 (mp336 cp320): Forgetting as encoding failure: we cannot remember what we have not encoded. Fig. 26.3 (mp336 cp321)Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve. He found that memory for novel information fades quickly, then levels out. Fig. 26.5 (mp 337 cp823)Retrieval failure: sometimes stored information cannot be accessed, which leads to forgetting. Memories are stored primarily by semantic webs of meaning, as opposed to sights, sounds, smells and tastes. Proactive (forward-acting) interference: If you learned French just before learning Spanish, your French could make retrieval of Spanish more difficult. Retroactive (backward-acting) interference: you may remember a new version of a movie, say 'Planet of the Apes, (2014)' better than the old one (2001) if you saw them in the original sequence.

5. Memory Construction Fig. 26.7(mp340 cp325 f8.25) Forgetting can occur at any memory stage. As we process information, we filter, alter or lose it. What about repressed memories? Freud build his career on it, and it is still the favorite of writers, because then the reader can discover the mysteries in a story at the same time the character does. but..while peoples' efforts to intentionally forget neutral material often succeeds, but fail when the to-be-forgotten material has a strong emotional charge. (Payne & Corrigan, 2007 mp340 cp325 ). Misinformation effect: (Loftus & Palmer, 1974 mp341 cp326): When people who had seen a traffic safety film of a car accident were later asked a leading question, they recalled a more serious accident than the one they have actually viewed. Guessed details will be absorbed into our long-term memory, and feel as real as if we had actually experienced them.

6. Memory Construction Misinformation and imagination inflation occur partly because visualizing something and actually perceiving it activate similar brain areas. (Gonsalves et al., 2004 mp342 cp327). The more vividly we can imagine things, the more likely they are to become memories. (Loftus, 2001.) Source amnesia aka source misattribution. The 'Mr. Science' experiment (Poole & Lindsay, 2002 mp343 cp328), children mixed a real experience with one their parents read to them. Deja Vu: the uncanny feeling that 'all this has happened before' can be induced by the use of subliminal stimulation. Remember that conscious processing of information is the exception, not the rule. If the temporal lobe (which creates the feeling of familarity) and the frontal lobe/hippocampus are out of sync, we will have a sense of familiarity without conscious recall. Maturation makes liars of us all.

7. Memory Construction Suggesting interview techniques: (Brown & Ceci, 2004 mp 344 cp329): children were asked to think about real and fictitious events. After 10 weeks, 58% of preschoolers produced false (often vivid) stories regarding events they had never experienced. Children can be good eye-witnessed, but...neutral words and non- leading questions must be used in the interview technique. (Holliday & Albon, 2004 mp345 cp 330). Repressed or Constructed memories of abuse: Sexual abuse happens; injustice happens; forgetting happens; recovered memories are commonplace; memories of things before age 3 are unreliable; memories 'recovered' under hypnosis or drugs are especially unreliable; memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting. People who recall abuse spontaneously rarely form false memories in a lab setting; people who form memories of abuse during suggestive therapy tend to have vivid imaginations and score high on false- memory tests (McNally, 2003 mp347 cp332).