Lecture 26 - Wrap Up & Final Thoughts Flashcards
One of the central tenets of distributed cognition is that…
…some aspects of
‘thinking’ can be accomplished though
the use of external artifacts.
external memory
aids.
Your smartphone, calendar, computer,
note pad, etc.
You ‘retrieve’ a memory through a manual procedure, rather than mental recall.
− However, you need to remember how to do this.
mnemonics
any techinque you use to improve encoding and retrieval of info
techniques that help memory retention
use interactions with the physical world as memory cues.
method of loci (also called the memory
palace)
One of the oldest mnemonics (Greeks)
- Ordered sets of items (e.g. lecture topics, events, words) are imagined in a familiar place (e.g. you house).
- You think of a vivid and emotional, visual image at each location. This acts as the CUE for the memory.
- During retrieval, you rehearse going through the scene (schema for the house that is strong in memory: walk through a spatial understanding of something already very familiar).
What are the elements from learning, memory, and attention used by the method of loci?
(5)
• The method of loci (or any mnemonic) organizes the information and establishes a retrieval plan.
=> encode and match the encoding to retrieval
• Attention is focused on the elements & retrieval cues to be remembered.
=> hyperfocusing attention on that element
• The visual imagery is a type of elaboration. It helps create a deeper, richer memory during encoding. Images are placed within your house schema.
=> making links to a visual schema that is deep in your memory
• The memory and the location is paired-associate learning.
=> taking outside something and placing it in schema
• The method creates a consistent mapping between the item
to be remembered and an image/location. This will assist in making the retrieval automatic.
=> you go back and the same location in house is linked to the same idea: you get better and better (faster and faster)
Autistic savants are thought to use which of the following methods to recall items from memory?
We don’t know, they have an architectural difference
they might use chunking, method of loci
probably don’t use emotional cues
they could use other techniques but they don’t ned them
People with hyperthymesia are thought to use which of the following methods to recall items from memory?
emotional cues
thought they emotionally charge every event that happens to them (doesn’t happen to semantic info)
purely episodic
Metamemory
form of metacognition (awareness of what you know or how you’re thinking) is your awareness of how likely (or how much) you are to remember something and how strong the memory will be.
• We’ve seen cases (e.g. eyewitness testimony & flashbulb memories) where confidence is higher than accuracy.
• In general your metamemory is fairly good.
=> you can guess how well you will remember something
• This is useful, because you use your metamemory to choose
what to study.
Nelson & colleagues (1994) tested metamemory in people learning Swahili.
• Subjects made judgments of words in a list that would be best remembered (bestlearned) or worst remembered (worstlearned), on a subsequent test.
• 4 Groups:
- One group could select which words to restudy (primarily worst-learned items);
- a computer selected for the other 3 groups (worst-learned, best-learned, and most
difficult (what people in the past had trouble learning) ).
• Subjects showed the highest accuracy
when they re-studied the worst-learned items, showing they were aware of what they didn’t remember.
=> trust your metamemory
Metamemory can be led astray by…
…feedback and familiarity.
don’t test metamemory right after doing something, take a delay
Metamemory can be led astray by feedback and familiarity
- “You’ve got this, you don’t need to study,” say the friends who want you to go out with them… Confidence increases (like eyewitness testimony feedback), but accuracy for detail may remain low.
- Massed practice (i.e. cramming) may lead to familiarity with material. You recognize answers, but may not be able to RECALL them later on the exam (illusion of competence).
• Trust, but verify, your metamemory. Make a judgment of remembering after a delay. Ask someone to quiz you so you aren’t
simply re-reading things that may look familiar, then re-study the items that are most difficult to recall.
Emotional cues seem to enhance memory for episodic information.
This appears to be largely mediated by the
amygdala.
Hyperthymesia
Individuals have amazing autobiographical
episodic memory, but average semantic.
Though not understood, it may be partly due to greater activation in the right amygdala.
Savants
may have increased memory spans (working memory), but specialization seems to be highly restricted.
This be due to
some difficulty in forming or using SCHEMAS.
Chunking
take some large number of items that would be diff to memorize alone and break into smaller units made with semantic links (top-down information)
