Evidence for Repression?

Childhood amnesia? NOPsychogenic amnesia? MAYBEPerceptual defense? NO

Other studies

Slips of the Tongue

Does repressed material come out inslips? (Freudian slips)

“It is my great pleasure to prevent . . .I mean present our leader.”

Baars et al. (1992) slips created in the lab

(1) Do dieters make more slips related to food?

“ig pout” spoken as “pig out”

NO (didn’t work)

(2) Do male speakers who score high ona “sex-guilt” questionnaire make more slipsrelated to sex?

“bine foddy” spoken as “fine body”

There was a tendency for more slips from thesubjects who felt guilty about sex

Studies of Collections of Real Speech Errors

No evidence for hypothesis that slips expressrepressed material

Conclude:Evidence is not strong for “Freudianslips”

Dreams and Repression

Why do some people remember dreams morethan others?

Some people dream less?probably not

Some people wake up differently?probably this does account for somedifference

RepressionHypothesisYou repressyour dreams

and so you onlyremember

“harmless” ones.

SalienceHypothesis

What matters isintensity. If youdon’t remember

dreams, it’sbecause they are

not intense.

Cohen & Cox (1975) found•A “repression” test did not correlate with dreamrecall•more intense dreams more likely to be reported

Remembering Dreams

Are dreams “real”?

•REM - rapid eye movements

period of REM sleep is correlatedwith the length of dream

content of sleep talking consistent with reported content

•Lucid dreaming

becoming aware that you are dreaming while you are dreaming

You can be trained to make an overt responseas soon as you’re aware you are dreaming.

Return of Repressed Memories?

PainfulMemory

Memoryis Gone

Memory Returns

. . . . . .

Example

return of memory for a murder

Are the memories real?

False memories can be created by suggestions,

misleading information

Loftus & Coan “Shopping Mall Experiment”

How easy is it to plant false memories inchildren?

“Sam Stone” experimentCeci, Leichtman & White

3-6 year olds

(1) told about Sam Stone who is clumsy(2) “Sam” visits and is not clumsy(3) next day, shown a ripped book and

asked if Sam did it

•almost no one said Sam did•25% said he could have done it, though, but they didn’t see him do it

(4) each child is interviewed 5 times over thenext 10 weeks

During interviews“I wonder whether Sam Stone waswearing long or short pants when heripped the book?

(6) New interviewer asked children whathappened when Sam visited

•72% of 3-4 year olds said Sam ruinedsomething•45% “saw” him do it•only 11% of 5-6 year olds “saw” him do it

A control group who wasn’t told Sam was clumsy in phase (1) made fewer false claims

Conclude:

Repeated interviews create false memories more in younger children

•Expectations matter

Repression

•“Everyday repression” lots of evidence•Taboo word effect not repression•Psychogenic amnesia repression is

possible explanation•Slips of the tongue not caused by

repression, but onestudy (Motley &Baars) doessuggest it canhappen

•Return of repressed possible, butmemories memories may be

false•Childhood amnesia not repression•Poor dream recall no evidence for

repression

Sleep and Memory

Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924)

Why?

•Less interference?•Time of day effect?•Maybe sleep actually improves memory

% r

ecal

l of

sylla

ble

s

| | | |1 2 4 8

awake

after sleep

100%

retention interval (hours)

Folkard & Monk (1978)

Subjects read 1500-word passage

Then answer questions

Score onquestions

115-

100-

85-

| | | | | |8 11 2 5 8 11

time of daymorning

morning is best

eveningis worst

Benson & Feinberg (1975)

morning afternoon . . . . morning

Group Alearnnonsense testsyllables

Group Blearnnonsense testsyllables

Group B is better!

Sleep enhances memory? ortime of test?

8 hours

24 hours SLEEP

Idzikowski (1984

serial anticipation learning

NID GAK LIG FES

PAF TUD KEL BOJ

Idzikowski Experiment Conditions

Subjects are re-tested and % savings is computed

Group

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

learn test

morning afternoon

(8 hours)

morning evening

(16 hours)

morning morning

(24 hours)

morning morning

(24 hours with SLEEP)

evening morning

(8 hours with SLEEP)

evening afternoon

(16 hours with SLEEP)

evening evening

(24 hours with SLEEP)

% savings

65%

73%

68%

86%

87%

84%

84%

Idzikowski - Experiment2

Does sleep enhance memory or does beingsleep deprived hurt memory?

% learn test saving

1. evening morning 83%(33 hours)

2. evening morning 84%(33 hours)

The important thing is to sleep after learning.

Being sleep deprived doesn’t hurt as long as youslept after the learning.

SLEEP … all nighter...

SLEEP … SLEEP

•Which phases of sleep are important?

possibly REM sleep

•Are dreams necessary for memory?

possibly

•Is dreaming a kind of house cleaning of yourmind?

Context Dependence

Your ability to remember an event is betterif the “context” at encoding matches the“context” at time of retrieval.

Word contextsFisher & Craik

study item

damp - LAMPcontext

testdamp - ?

damp is a better retrieval cue for LAMP thanlight is

Environmental Contexts

Material learned in one place is best recalled in the same place.

•Room effects are very weak

•Godden & Baddeley (1925)

Recall while Dry Wet

13.5 8.6

8.4 11.4

DryLearn while

Wet

Numberof

wordsrecalled

Drug-related State-dependent Retrieval

Material learned under a particular druggedstate is best retrieved in the same state.

A complete state-dependence experiment

Group

1

2

3

4

LearningState

Placebo

Drug

Placebo

Drug

TestingState

Placebo

Drug

Drug

Placebo

good performance shows state-dependence

Drugs showing state dependence

Marijuana (THC)

barbiturates

amphetamines

alcohol

Dosage must be high enough to change

perceived state of consciousness.

Eich et al. (1975)

Effect of cues on state dependenceDrug was THC (marijuana)

Four groups of subjects

TestDrug Placebo

same diff.

diff. same

DrugStudy

Placebo

Studycategorized lists

Furniture … Animals …LAMP LIONSOFA BEAR. .. .

TEST

Free Recall

Found large effect of state dependence

Cued Recall(give category names as cues)

Found no effect of state dependence!!

WHY?

When do you get State Dependence?

Eich (1980) examined 57 studies

Type of test

Free RecallSerial Recall

Cued RecallRecognition

State Dependence

yesyes

nono

You get S.D. when memory is tested by a

method with no cues

Why are Cues Important?

1. Changing the state changes your “inner” context.

2. Context provides cues that guide the initialsearch through memory.

3. When context is different (when drug state isdifferent) the search is in the wrong place.

4. Cued recall - explicit cues help search get to theright place.

Recognition tests - very little search is required.

So you get no state dependence with cuedrecall and recognition.

Moods are like internal states

Bower (1981)

80-

70-

60-

50-

% o

f re

c all

| | Sad Happy

Recall State

learn when happylearn when sad

Are these phenomena all due to state dependence or environmental contextdependence?

Failure to Recall Dreams?

could be state dependence

Hypnotic Amnesia?

probably not state dependence alone

Failure to Recall Memories From ManiaStates in Manic-Depressive Psychosis?

probably is very similar to drug-related state dependence

Getting Older

The bad news

•you slow down

•you have trouble searching LTS

The good news

•you know a lot more

Memory and Aging

•More difficulty with LTS than STS

FreeRecall

Serial Position

Young

Old

•Remote childhood memories don’t get easier toretrieve with age (Schonfield, 1969)

Tea

cher

Rec

all

.7-

.6-

.5-

.4-

| | | | | |20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+

Age

Search phase, rather than the decision phase, ofretrieval is disrupted with age.

1. Schonfield & Robertson (1966)

# co

r re c

t o u

t o f

24

2. Vocabulary tests

“Hemoglobin means what?”NO DECLINE WITH AGE

“Red pigment in blood that takes upoxygen is called what?”

GETS WORSE WITH AGE

more search needed

20-

15-

| | | | |20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+

Recall

Recognitionmore search needed

Processing Speed

Sternberg Memory Scanning Paradigm

RT

520-

490-

460-

430-

400- | | | | |1 2 3 4 5

Eachadditionalitem inset addsabout35 msecto RT

yes

RecognitionStudy Test

yes 3 9 7 7trial set size = 3

no 2 1 3 4 5trial

no

Set Size

9 1 5

6

2 8 3 7 9 6

8

4 9

4

Main Results

1. RT increases linearly with set size

2. “Slope” of line is the same for yes and noresponses (each additional item addsabout 35 msec to RT)

Interpretation

Items are held in STS

•Test item is compared with items in memoryone at a time(serial, not parallel, comparison)

•The comparison is done exhaustively (all items)not in a self terminating fashion

600 –

500 –

400 –

| | | | 1 2 3 4

RT

Set Size

yes

CollegeStudents

35 msec/item

RT

Set Size

RT

Set Size

Data shows that it’s exhaustive

If self-terminating

slope for “no”twice as bigas for “yes”

If exhaustive

slope for“no” =slope for“yes”

50-55 year o

ld - 50 m

sec/it

em

35-40 year old - 37 msec/ite

m

Memory scanning rate is not slower, but overallRT is (could be perceptual or motor processes)

Young schizophrenics - 35 msec/item

Young alcoholics - 35 msec/item

800 –

700 –

MentallyRetardedadults (no

brain damage)66 msec/item

Retardationfrom brain

damage111 msec/item

Burke et al. (1991)

Old subjects have more Tip-of-the-Tongueexperiences.

“What is the proper name for a tidal wave?”

“Oh … wait! I know … It’s …... on the tip of my tongue”

Number of TOTs in a diary study

Numberof TOTs

in a month

7-

6-

5-

4-

3-

young middle old

Experimental Study

Asked about famous people

“What is the last name of the man whosaid “I regret that I have but one lifelose for my country?”

Supports the idea that old subjects havedifficulty retrieving information from LTS

Mean# ofTOTs

4-

3-

2-

1-

Young Old

Where do TOTs come from?

Connections in LTS (semantic memory)

You are in the TOT state when you haveactivated the word node, but not the soundnodes

blood pigment ironConcepts

Sounds

Words hemoglobin

h e m o g l o …..

stuck

here

Why are there more TOTs as you get older?

Connections in the LTS network get weaker,

so activation spreads more slowly.

(Burke et al.)

Knowledge is still there, but it is weakened.

Hence it sometimes can’t be retrieved.

Conclusions

1. Aging affects the search phase of retrievalfrom LTS

•Recall is bad; not recognition

•TOTs increase

2. General processing speed is slower

The slow processing speed may be the cause

of the search deficit