Cognitive Psychology 1 A48CO

Cognitive Psychology 1A48COMaa Valkanou

psyonics@gmail.comm.valkanou@hw.ac.uk2The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, 1952/54Salvador Dali

What is memory?

Greek myth first to describeMnemosyne Titaness, daughter of Gaia & Uranusmother of 9 muses (, , , , , ,, & )+ A goddess of timeThinking task no 1.

Mnemosyne

Inventress of language & wordsMnemosyne spring - rememberLethe spring - forget

Thinking task no 2. Do we remember better:Words?Said?Heard?Written?Iconic?

Definition of memory

Memory refers both to the STRUCTURES and PROCESSES involved in the 3 aspects:encoding, preserving and retrieval of information.Key and essential for survival. Without a memory of the past, we cannot operate in the present or think about the futureNO memory NO learning

Memory regards

Encoding -

in the forms of chemical and physical stimuli.

Storage - maintaining information over periods of time.

Retrieval - locate it and return it to our consciousness. How good is your Short term memory 30 s test

Different kinds of memorySensory memory (visual, auditory, haptic), very brief (MILIseconds)Sensory memory holds sensory information for a part of a second after an item is perceived. The ability to see (hear, touch, taste, smell) an item for just enough to make it through to short term memory. It is out of cognitive control and is an automatic response. Iconic 500ms average, 200-500 (1/5-1/2 s)

Short-term memory-small amounts of info for short intervals (up to 30 seconds).Rely mostly on an acoustic code for storing information, and to a lesser extent a visual code. Conrad (1964) found that test subjects had more difficulty recalling collections of letters that were acoustically similar (e.g. E, P, D). (encoding of written text, generalisations to all forms of memory cant be made)STM is stored and retrieved sequentiallyLong-term memory *immeasurably large capacityStores much larger quantities of information for potentially unlimited durationEncodes information semantically. Baddeley - similar meanings (big, large, great) Episodic memory (part of long term) captures 'what', 'when' and 'whereLTM is stored and retrieved by association.

Memory in the brain

Short-term memory:frontal lobe the parietal lobe

Long-term memorypermanent changes in neural connections widely spread Hippocampus is essential learning new informationconsolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory

Research: patient Henry Molaison after removal of both his hippocampiHow do WE study memory? Brain damaged individuals

Experiments conducted in laboratories

Introspection

Brain demageNeuropsychologists attempt to show that specific behavioural deficits are associated with specific sites of brain damage

Thinking task no 3. Problems?Famous casesClive Wearing & Henry MolaisonHenry Molaison (1926 2008) (1st paper by Scoville andBrenda Milnerin 1957)had both his medial temporal lobes removedsevere anterograde amnesia: although hisworking memoryandprocedural memorywere intact, he could not commit new events to hisexplicit memory.moderateretrograde amnesia, could not remember most events in the 12-year period before surgery. He could learn newmotor skills, despite not being able to remember learning them. Studies of Molaison's ability to acquire new motor skills demonstrated preserved motor learning.

Clive Wearing (1938) He is a British musicologist, conductor, tenor and keyboardistSuffering from chronic anterograde amnesia, caused by a virus (47y)Lacks the ability to form new memories and cannot recall aspects of his past memoriesUnable to control emotions and associate memoriesBecause the hippocampus, an area required to transfer memories from short-term to long-term memory is damaged, he is completely unable to form lasting new memories his memory only lasts between 7 and 30 seconds

book by his wife Deborah Wearing, titled Forever Today: A Memoir of Love and Amnesia.

What would it be like to live without memory?Relationships?Communication?Personality?

How is to live in the present?

Can you imagine what it's like one night 20 years long with no dreams and no thoughts. My brain has been totally inactive, day and night exactly the same. There's no difference between this and death. Clive WearingExperiments conducted in laboratoriesHermann Ebbinghaus 1885

Experimented on himself by testing his own ability to memorize lists of randomly arranged syllables

Traced learning and forgetting curves

Investigated ability to memorize at different times of the day and under different conditions

Low / high ecological validity

Thinking task no 3. Problems?

Neisser (1996)Identified a crucial difference between traditional memory studies and memory in everyday life.

Participants in traditional memory studies are motivated to be as accurate as possible in their memory performance.

In contrast, memory in everyday life is purposeful, is influenced by the individual and situational demands(e.g., description of party).Experiment 1You will be presented with a sequence of numbers, which will appear in the centre of the screen at one second intervals.

When you see the word NOW appear, write the numbers down in the same order as they were presented (serial recall).

How did you do? 5 9 4 7 2 8 6 1 3

Miller (1956)the magical number 7 +/- 2

on average, the capacity of STM is between 5 and 9 items of information Professor AleXANDER AitkenUniversity of Edinburgh Mathematics professorWorked on the Enigma codeRecall to the first 1000 decimal places the value of pi

Try againTry the experiment again, this time with letters as stimuli, writing them down in the same order as they were presented (serial recall), when you see the word NOW appear.

Difficult, isnt it? TBKRHSPAQ

Experiment 2Lets try a bit more and see what happens

When you see the word NOW appear on the screen, write down as many of the letters as you can remember, in the same order as they were presented (serial recall).gcebtecgcsegnvqas

The other wayYou will be presented with a line of 17 letters across the centre of the screen which will appear for approximately 10 seconds.

When you see the word NOW appear on the screen, write down as many of the letters as you can remember, in the same order as they were presented (serial recall).

Difficult, wasnt it?GCEBTECGCSEGNVQAS

You probably found that you remembered between 5 and 9 items, digits or letters, on each trial, in line with Millers (1954) findings.

Now try it again.

G C E B T E C G C S E G N V Q A SNOWYou probably did better this time - Why might this be?Miller (1956) found that the capacity of STM could be considerably increased by combining, or organising, separate bits of information, e.g. letters or digits, into larger chunks.

The process of chunking involves the imposition of meaning, through organising the To-Be-Remembered-Material (TBRM), in line with existing knowledge - in this case, of qualifications.

Armed with your new-found knowledge, write down your answers when the numbers NOW appear.1 9 0 0 1 9 1 4 1 9 1 8 1 9 3 9 1 9 4 5 2 0 0 0

1 9 0 0 1 9 1 4 1 9 1 8 1 9 3 9 1 9 4 5 2 0 0 0NOWHow did you do this time?

Based on existing knowledge of the two World Wars of the 20th century, you might have been able to reorganise these 24 bits of information into 2 CHUNKS, i.e.:

The dates of the two World Wars, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945;the beginning and end of the 20th century, 1900 and 2000. Free RecallFree recall is where the items can be recalled in any order.

Write down as many of the following words as you can remember (in any order).PencilHamsterBananaLeafChimneyMoneyMarketHeartCloudButterBootsChairTeabagMascaraBookNoodlesDaisy StampsUmbrellaNotebook

Free Recall: Serial Position CurvePrimacyRecencyFree RecallPrimacy Effect: Items at the beginning of the list remembered more often than items in the middle

Recency Effect: Items at the end of the list remembered more often than items in the middlePrimacy & Recency EffectsExplainedPrimacy: Beginning items in ltm (long term store) but no longer in stm (short term store)

Recency: End items still in stm

Thinking task no 4. Ebbinghaus (1885)Improving MemoryTotal Time HypothesisImproving MemoryTotal Time Hypothesis

Distributed practice (spaced repetition)

OR

Massed practice (fewer & longer training sessions)

Thinking task no 5.

Massed vs Distributed PracticeBaddeley & Longham (1978)

1. Massed vs Distributed PracticeBaddeley & Longham (1978)

teaching postmen how to type using a new system on a typewriter4 Schemes: Each day 1 session of 1 hour2 sessions of 1 hour each1 session of 2 hours2 sessions of 2 hours each

the postmen who were taught using shorter sessions stretched over multiple days learned the material better & ended up with more accurate and quicker typingthe postmen who were taught using shorter sessions stretched over multiple days learned the material better & ended up with more accurate and quicker typingWhat do you notice about these words?Jordan Plumber

Elephant Electrician Potato

Cow Carrot Paul Tiger Stephen Tomato Lecturer Giraffe Vet Turnip Terry 2. OrganisationCategorical ClusteringBousfield (1953)

Group 1: 60 wordsGroup 2: 60 15 animals unrelated words 15 boys names 15 jobs 15 vegetables

Result: Group 1 better recall3. Visual Imagery Mnemonics Various techniques used to increase chances of remembering

The Pegword MethodCreate an image of memory with another set of ordered cuesCreate an easily recalled list of nouns (the ordered Cues)Then picture each memory interacting with one of the nouns

The pegword methodone-buntwo-shoethree-treefour-doorfive-hivesix-sticksseven-heaveneight-gatenine-mineten-henAn important element in the method of loci is interactive imagery . One item will help you remember another if they are linked (interacting).

Bower (1970)-Paired-associate learning (e.g. goat/pipe)-Imagery better than non-imagery-Interacting images better than non-interacting images

Wollen, Weber and Lowry (1972) compared bizarre versus ordinary. Both groups equal. Also compared interacting and non-interacting images. Bower confirmed - interacting images produced superior recallTechnique of interacting images

93WHY Are interacting images better than non-interacting images?

Thinking task no 6.

Why do visual images improve memory?Dual code hypothesis (Pavio, 1969) Memory contains two distinct coding systems: -verbal (abstract, linguistic meaning) -Imagery (mental pictures) Having two codes improves memory over having only a single codePavio (1965) - Four lists of noun pairs

CC: both words concrete objects (e.g. book/table)CA: one concrete, the second abstract (e.g. chair/justice)AC: reverse of previous pair (e.g. freedom/dress)AA: both abstract (e.g. beauty/truth)Results:CC = 71%, CA = 63%, AC = 46%, AA = 38%Interpretation-People spontaneously make images for concrete nouns-Imagery varies with concreteness-Concrete nouns are dual coded whereas abstract nouns are only coded verbally-First noun in the pair acts as a conceptual peg on which the second noun is hooked. Thus imaginability of the first noun is critical (explains CA/AC difference)CC: both words concrete objects (e.g. book/table)CA: one concrete, the second abstract (e.g. book/justice)AC: reverse of previous pair (e.g. justice/book)AA: both abstract (e.g. justice/truth)

JUSTICEJUSTICETRUTHReadingBaddeley. Your memory a users guide. Chapters 1,2 & 14.

Eyseneck, Psychology an International Perspective, Chapter 9 pp 291-296; 322-323.

Baddeley, Essentials of Human Memory, pp 71-76, Chapter 14.