Lecture 3 - Remembering & Forgetting

Question 1

What are the three processes involved in remembering?

Answer 1

Encoding: Registering new information into memory
Storage: Storing the newly encoded information in memory
Retrieval: Recovery of previous material

Question 2

According to the modal model, likelihood of transfer from STM to LTM is a function of amount of rehearsal of that information, which can be known as maintenance rehearsal. Define maintenance rehearsal.

Answer 2

Rehearsing it the amount required to maintain it in our STM

Question 3

What are the 2 types of maintenance rehearsal?

Answer 3

Maintenance rehearsal: maintaining them by keeping them active in STM (by repeating them phonologically)
Elaborative rehearsal: By creating a story/elaboration on the material given

Question 4

Describe Glenberg, Smith, & Green’s (1977) study

Answer 4

• P’s had to recall 4 digit numbers
• In between study & recall, had to rehearse a distractor word for a period of time
  After 54 trials, P’s were asked to recall the distractor words
• They found that the act of repeating a word doesn’t seem to take things into LTM (things are not recalled better if you repeat them for longer

Question 5

What is Craik & Lockhart’s (1972) theory?

Answer 5

The Levels of Processing Theory

Question 6

What are the 3 levels of processing?

Answer 6

Structural, phonological, semantic

Question 7

What does the levels of processing theory suggest about memory?

Answer 7

That the ‘deeper’ an item is processed, the better it’s retained

Question 8

What is the Transfer Appropriate Processing theory?

Answer 8

Memory performance depends on the extent to which processes used at the time of learning are the same as those used when memory is tested
(i.e., learning to ride a bike vs a psychology exam)

Question 9

Describe the Encoding-Specificity Principle (Tulving & Thomson, 1973)

Answer 9

The likelihood of retrieval depends on the overlap between cues present at encoding and retrieval

Question 10

What are the two types of contextual cue?

Answer 10

Intrinsic: features that are integral to the stimulus
Extrinsic: Other features present at the time of encoding

Question 11

Godden & Baddeley (1975) found what?

Answer 11

That words learned in the same environment as testing were recalled better than learning and recall being in 2 different environments

Question 12

Describe state-dependent recall

Answer 12

Recall is better if one’s internal state during recall mirrors state during encoding (e.g., alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, marijuana)

Question 13

Describe forgetting as a result of decay

Answer 13

Long-term memories gradually fade as a product of time

Question 14

What is The Law of Disuse?

Answer 14

If you do not retrieve the memory then it will fade as a result of disuse

Question 15

Describe interference theory

Answer 15

That we forget because the interference of other memories and learned material gets in the way of the target memory

Question 16

Descibr Jenkins & Dallenbach’s (1924) research into decay vs interference

Answer 16

• P’s learned nonsense syllables either a) immediately before bed or, b) at the beginning of the day
• P’s tested at varying intervals
• Those who were awake suffered from more interference and therefore forgot more

Question 17

Describe Baddeley & Hitch’s (1977) research into Rugby Players’ decay/interference

Answer 17

• Rugby players recalled games they had played in a season
• General decline in recall over time/number of games
• Number of intervening games was the only significant predictor of recall of team names

Question 18

What are the 2 types of interference?

Answer 18

Retroactive & proactive

Question 19

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 19

New learning interferes with prior learning

Question 20

What is proactive interference?

Answer 20

Where something you have already learned impacts learning something new (e.g., hot water taps in italy - C = caldo = hot)

Question 21

Descibe Wickens el al.’s (1963) study into the release of proactive interference

Answer 21

• In control condition, P’s memorised trigrams across 4 trials
• P’s in experimental condition memorised 3 digit numbers on the 1st 3 trials and then a trigram on the 4th = release from PI
• Performance starts to decrease for the letter condition as they receive similar trigrams each time