Dr. Michelle CowleyApplied Social Sciences

University of Southampton

The Cognitive Perspective

Lecture 7 & 8: Memory

Overview

What is memory? Types of Memory Theories of Memory Theories of Forgetting

What is memory?

Try to remember the following list of words: Carpet, coffee, painting, curtain, doorbell, helmet, teabag, rabbit, spectacles, diary, briefcase, apple, sponge, jam, whistle…

Memory: the dynamic internal mechanisms associated with the retention and retrieval of information about past experiences and the mental structures that account for this capacity (Crowder, 1976)

What is memory?

Example: Flashbulb memories (e.g., the day that Princess Diana was killed)

Memory deficits such as ‘prosopognosia’ (Sacks, 1996)

An analogy of memory: a video recorder But memory is not 100% accurate

Bartlett (1932) ‘War of the ghosts’ Memory as a reconstructive process

Implicit and Explicit Memory

Implicit memory: unconsciously recalling information (e.g., meanings of words and how to read)

Explicit memory: consciously recalling an event or piece of information:

1. Recall – the ability to retrieve and reproduce information previously encountered

2. Recognition – the ability to identify information that has previously been encountered

Theories of Memory:Fig. 1. The Multi-Store Model (Atkinson & Shiffron, 1971; adapted from Tavris & Wade)

Sensory MemoryLarge capacity,Contains sensoryInformation, Very brief retentionOf images (1/2 second)

Short-term memory(STM)Limited capacity, briefStorage of items (up to30 seconds if norehearsal, involved inconscious processingof information

Long-term memory(LTM)unlimited capacitystorage thought bysome to be permanent,information organisedand indexed

Forgotten Forgotten

Retrieved

Transfer

Transfer/Retrieval

Criticism 1. of the Multi-Store Model of Memory Atkinson and Shiffron’s (1971) model has tended

to dominate since the 1960s

But is the human brain really like a computer?

Serial vs parallel processing

Connectionism

Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) (Rumelhart, McClelland, & the PDP research group, 1986)

Criticism 2. of the Multi-Store Model of Memory Is there really a distinction between short-term

and long-term memory?

What is STM for? What work does it do? (have a look at your list!) Did you remember the words by speech rehearsal or using a visuo-spatial strategy?

Working Memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Baddeley, 2001)

Theories of Memory:Fig. 2.: The Working Memory Model of STM (Baddeley, 2001)

Central Executive

Phonological Loop

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

Episodic Buffer

Rehearsal Rehearsal

Remember the word list example at the start of class!

4 Components of working memory

A phonological loop for holding information by speech rehearsal (remember phoneme is a language term)

A visuo-spatial sketchpad for spatial manipulation and visual encoding

A central executive for attending to information from one or other or both the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad

An episodic buffer for holding and integrating diverse information

Experimental Evidence1. If two tasks use the same component, then the two tasks cannot be

carried out successfully together2. If two tasks use different components, then the two tasks can be

carried out successful together

Dual-task studies Robbins et al. (1996)

Strong and weak chess players were asked to choose a move while:

Finger tapping, random number generation (resources of central executive), pressing buttons in a clockwise fashion (resources of the visuo-spatial sketchpad), rapid repetition of ‘see-saw’ (suppression of the phonological loop)

Selecting quality chess moves was more difficult when the central executive and the visuo-spatial sketchpad resources were low due to the interference of the dual task

Long-Term Memory (LTM) Learning 3 types of knowledge:

Procedural knowledge (knowing how) Declarative knowledge (knowing that) Semantic knowledge (knowing things) Episodic memory (e.g., schemas and scripts,

Shcank & Abelson, 1977) Tulving (1972; 1994) argues that episodic and

semantic memory are independent of one another But Poldrack & Gabrieli (2001) argue that episodic

and semantic memory are both types of declarative memory…

Memory structures in LTM: Schema Theory (Schank & Abelson, 1977)

Bartlett’s idea of meaning then effort Schemas represent commonly experienced

events

They contain: Core variables- components that define the

event Other variables- components that can vary from

one event to the other Sequences and slots Filling in the gaps in our memory for events

Memory processes Levels of processing theory (Craik & Lockhart, 1972):

The level/depth of processing a memory stimulus affects its memorability

Deeper levels of analysis produce longer lasting, stronger and elaborate memory traces then shallow processing

Rehearsal: the practice of material while you are learning it Maintenance rehearsal- the rote repetition of material, such as

a phone number or the list of words we looked at earlier Elaborative rehearsal- associating new items of information with

material you know already The levels of processing theory differs from the view of

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971) because the multi-store model suggests that rehearsal is the only way to improve the long-term memory trace.

Forgetting

Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) carried out experiments on himself

Memorised non-sense syllables which he recalled at various intervals

Measure: how many trials in order to relearn the

material

The logarithmic-loss law (Rubin & Wenzel, 1996)

Fig. 3.: Logarithmic-loss law of forgetting (Ebbinghaus, 1885/1913; Rubin & Wenzel, 1996)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 1 8 24 48 120 744

Forgetting

Length of retention interval (hours)

Savi

ngs

(%)

Forgetting- interference theory

Interference theory: when new information interferes with or is laid down in place of old information in working memory we forget

Retroactive interference- interference that occurs after we learn something but before we recall it (e.g., exam prep then accidentally meeting a friend); (e.g., Underwood & Postman, 1960; Jacoby, Debner & Hay, 2001)

Proactive interference- when information interferes that has already been laid down interferes with the remembering of new information (e.g., French then Spanish)

Forgetting- Decay and Replacement

Decay theory: Information is forgotten because of the gradual disappearance of the memory trace (e.g., studying for exams, doing the exam…three months later)

Replacement theory: New information entering memory can replace old information, much like a video tape can record new material in place of old material

Amnesia and Prosopognosia

Psychogenic amnesia – to protect one from extreme shock

Amnesic syndrome – dramatic loss of memory, for example, stroke

Anterograde amnesia – inability to lay down new memories, for example, the patient HM

Retrograde amnesia – inability to remember one’s life prior to the trauma that caused memory loss.

Prosopognosia – inability to remember what items are, for example, Oliver Sacks’ patient P who mistook his wife for a hat!

Evaluation

The evidence supports the view that there are different memory stores such as LTM and STM

The notion of a unitary store for STM has been replaced with the notion of a ‘working memory’ WM (e.g., Baddeley, 2001)

Memory process theories such as the level of processing theory were developed because the concept of ‘memory stores’ attended to the content of memory rather than the processes involved in memory. However, it remains difficult to this day to ‘measure’ the depth of processing…

The CognitivePerspective

Lecture 8: Everyday Memory

Dr. Michelle CowleyApplied Social Sciences

University of Southampton

Overview

Autobiographical Memory Superior Memories and Expert

Memory Evaluating the Cognitive Perspective

How does everyday memory research different from traditional memory research (Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996)?

What? Everyday memory researchers focus on phenomena people experience in their everyday lives rather than memory for abstract material

How? Everyday memory researchers focus on ‘ecologically valid’ studies rather than laboratory studies

Where? Naturalistic settings ‘Store house metaphor’ vs. ‘correspondence

metaphor’ (e.g., content vs quantity of retention subsequent to witnessing a crime).

Autobiographical Memory Autobiographical memory is ‘memory for the events in one’s life’

(Conway & Rubin, 1993, p.103) Remember we talked about episodic memory yesterday…but the

distinction (e.g., what you ate yesterday vs wedding day)

Memories across the life-span Older people asked to recall personal memories were found to display

the following pattern for remembered life events (Rubin, Wetzler, & Nebes, 1986): Infantile amnesia (see also Rubin, 2000) A reminiscence bump (15-25yrs) A retention function for the last 20 yrs but the mid-life did not get so

much attention

Theoretical Perspectives on Autobiographical Memory: The Reminiscence Bump Rubin et al (1998) suggest early adulthood presumes a

somewhat ‘stable’ pattern and the memories contain an aspect of novelty:

The memories are stronger because they are ‘first-time’ experiences

Pillemer, Goldsmith, Panter and White (1988) found that 41% of middle-aged participants’ memories came from the first month of university

But a further reminiscence bump has been observed where an individual’s life has had upheaval in mid-life (Conway & Haque, 1999)

The Diary Method

Diary Studies Linton (1975)

2 events each day for six years Selected 2 at random each month Forgetting depended on whether the event

had been previously tested- rehearsal E.g., first meetings remembered but then

blurred into one another… Memory strategies used: Recall by order and

recall by category But how well do such diary events

correspond to typical autobiographical memories (Burt, Kemp, & Conway, 2003)

Criticism: The accuracy of autobiographical memories

Recollections are mostly truthful in that they have the accurate gist but finer details may be missing (Barclay, 1988)

But maintaining a favourable view of oneself may bias which memories are recalled, that the present state of affairs is better than the past (Wilson & Ross, 2003)

Successes are categorised as occurring more recently than failures that happened at the same time as the successes (Ross & Wilson, 2002)

The Self-Memory System Theory of Autobiographical Memory (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000)

Life-time periods which contain thematic and temporal knowledge (e.g., living with someone)

General events such as repeated events (e.g., sports) or single events (e.g., holiday)

Event-specific knowledge consisting of images, feelings, and other details organised in temporal order

Generative retrieval (constructed on remembering) and direct retrieval (salient events are spontaneously recalled).

Superior Memories

Shereshevsky (S) studied by Luria (1975) Matrix of 50 number digits in 3 minutes Method of loci Synaesthesia (the tendency for one

sense modality to evoke another) ‘What a crumbly yellow voice you have…’

(Luria, 1975, p.24) Ericsson and Chase (1982)… student SF

digit span of 18 due to his familiarity with running times.

Theoretical Views on Superior Memory

Ericsson (1988) proposes three requirements Meaningful encoding Retrieval structure set up according to the

encoding specificity principle Speed up so that the processes approach

automaticity Mnemonic techniques such as visual mnemonic

(Morris & Reid, 1970)

Expert Memory

Absence of error Chunking theories of expertise in chess (Chase &

Simon, 1973) Masters recall perceptual chunks (grouping pieces

together meaningfully) Novices recall single pieces

Template theory (Gobet, 1998) Masters recall larger chunks associated with

complete board knowledge Templates are retained in LTM with plans

associated with those positions

Evaluation of the Cognitive Perspective Contributions of the perspective:

How we think Innovative methods for exploring the black box

of thinking How beliefs affect emotions and behaviours Findings of social and legal relevance (e.g. the

Cognitive Interview)

Limitations of the perspective: No single unified theory of cognition Cognitive reductionism Cognitive relativism