memory - forgetting & remembering

Question 1

forgetting

Answer 1

-inability to retrieve and recall information encoded and stored in an individual’s short or long-term memory

Question 2

retrieval failure

Answer 2

-information is still stored in long term memory but cannot be retrieved due to lack of retrieval cues
-retrieval cues: hints or prompts that help us recall information from long term memory
1. context (external)
2. state-dependent (internal)

Question 3

retrieval failure - context (external) cues

Answer 3

-dependent on the environment or situation in which the information was encoded
Baddeley - Method:
-got a group of divers to learn a list of words; half the sample in water, half on land
-participants then had to recall the list; half the sample in environment they learnt the list, the other half in a different environment.
-results: participants who recalled the list in the environment in which they originally encoded it, were able to recall more words

Question 4

retrieval failure - state dependent (internal) cues

Answer 4

-information is retrieved easier if the you’re in the same internal state (e.g. mood) you were in when it was originally encoded
Goodwin et al - Method:
-looked at how well participants could find objects they’d hidden whilst they were drunk.
-results: participants were able to find the objects quicker after they consumed alcohol again, compared to when they were sober

Question 5

retrieval failure - strengths & weaknesses

Answer 5

-strength of explaining why apparently forgotten memories may suddenly be recalled when we given the appropriate retrieval cues, supported by the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
-limited from lack of ecological validity as experiments are done so other variables are controlled for

Question 6

interference

Answer 6

-other information prevents recall, two types:
-retroactive: when new information prevents the recall of old information
-proactive.: when old information prevents the recall of new information

Question 7

interference - postman

Answer 7

method:
-had his sample learn a list of word pairs (list A), then had half learn a second list (list B)
-finally asked all participants to just recall list A
-results: participants who only learnt List A had higher recall

Question 8

interference - strengths & limitations

Answer 8

-pros of explaining why people struggle retrieving similar information that was learned at around the same time
-cons from it being unclear whether memories are confused with other similar memories or whether they are simply made more difficult to locate

Question 9

decay theory

Answer 9

-forgetting occurs because a memory (or memory trace) fades through disuse, as time passes unless it is reactivated by being used occasionally
-explains forgetting in physiological terms
-anderson theorised that neural pathways in the hippocampus were deactivated.
-argued, however, that time was not a common cause of forgetting in LTM.
-lack of retrieval cues or interference had a greater effect

Question 10

decay theory - strengths & limitations

Answer 10

-strengths of neuroimaging has showed rapid and then gradual deactivation of particular neural pathways in the hippocampus when we forget
-limitations by not explaining why apparently forgotten information may suddenly be recalled when the appropriate retrieval cues are provided
-weakness from not explaining why an individual might remember experiences from childhood better than those from the previous few days

Question 11

motivated forgetting

Answer 11

-forgetting that arises from a strong motive or desire to forget, usually because the experience is too disturbing or upsetting to remember
-two types: suppression, repression

Question 12

motivated forgetting - suppression

Answer 12

-making a deliberate, conscious effort to keep the information out of conscious awareness
-person is aware of what happened but is choosing not to think about it

Question 13

motivated forgetting - repression

Answer 13

-unconsciously blocking a memory of an event or experience from entering conscious awareness
-information is not lost, just not easily accessed during waking consciousness
-repressed information can often be recalled during dreams

Question 14

motivated forgetting - strengths & limitations

Answer 14

-strength of explaining why victims of abuse are often unable to recall details about their traumatic experience
-limited from research into motivated forgetting is generally unethical because it often involves traumatising the individual and then testing for motivated forgetting

Question 15

remembering

Answer 15

-process of consciously reviving or bringing to awareness previous events, experiences, or information

Question 16

recall

Answer 16

-being asked to reproduce information with the fewest possible cues possible
-three types: free, serial and cued

Question 17

free recall

Answer 17

-involves reproducing as muchinformation as possible in no particular orderwithout the use of any specific cue
-we rely it to retrieve all typesof information, including ‘bits’ of information that represent an entire memory, and complex mixes ofepisodic and semantic information

Question 18

serial recall

Answer 18

-involves reproducing information in the order in which it was encoded
-enables us to recall events and other types of information chronologically, which can help give logic or meaning to the information

Question 19

cued recall

Answer 19

-involves the use of specific prompts (‘cues’) to aid retrieval and therefore reproduction of the required information
-more specific the cue, the more likely we are to locate and retrieve the information from LTM

Question 20

recognition

Answer 20

-involves the use of specific prompts (‘cues’) to aid retrieval and therefore reproduction of the required information.
-more specific the cue, the more likely we are to locate and retrieve the information from LTM

Question 21

relearning

Answer 21

-involves learning information again that has been previously learned (and was therefore stored in LTM)
-if information is learned more quickly the second time, it is assumed that some information must have been retained from the first learning experience, whether the individual realises it or not
-typically, relearning something takes less effort or time than it did to learn it originally
-most sensitive measure of whether information is in LTM

Question 22

levels of processing model (craik & lockhart)

Answer 22

-focuses on the processes of memory rather than the memory stores, unlike the multistore model
-proposes that the way information is encoded affects how well it is remembered
-deeper the level of processing, the easier the information is to recall

Question 23

levels of processing

Answer 23

-shallow processing involves surface-level encoding of information and only requires maintenancerehearsal (1-2)
1. structural processing, encoding the physical appearance of something
2. phonemic processing, encodingthe sound of something
deep processing, involves a more in depth analysis and encoding of information and requires elaborative rehearsal
3. semantic processing, encoding the meaning and relating it to similar information with similar meanings
-involves elaboration, process of interpreting or embellishing information to be remembered or making associations other material already known and in memory
-non-structured approach, just what happens as a result of processing information. by-product of the depth of processing information on stores, concerned with processes

Question 24

study - craik & tulving (1975) - aim

Answer 24

-to investigate whether semantic processing led to greater recall than structural and phonemic processing

Question 25

study - craik & tulving (1975) - method

Answer 25

sample: 24 male and female undergraduate students procedure: 10 different experiments that generally followed a similar procedure, participants were informed that the experiment was about perception and speed of reaction. on each trial a different word (usually a common noun) was exposed in a tachistoscope for 200 msec -before the word was exposed, the participant was asked a question about the word, purpose of the question was to get participants to process the word in one of the levels of processing -examples of levels of processing questions: structural - Is the word in capital letters? phonemic - Does the word rhyme with___? semantic - Category: Is the word in the category___? OR Sentence: Would the word fit the sentence___? -after being asked the question, the participant was shown the word and used a key to response yes or no -after a series of trials, participants were given a retention test, either: free recall, cued recall, or recognition -in one experiment they had to select the original 60 words from a list of 180

Question 26

study - craik & tulving (1975) - key findings

Answer 26

-participants recalled more words that were semantically processed compared to phonemically and structurally processed words. -in one experiment 81% of yes-words that were processed semantically were recognised compared to 15% that were processed structurally.  type of processing the word underwent determines retention, not processing time

Question 27

study - craik & tulving (1975) - contributions

Answer 27

-improved the Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model by showing that encoding was not a simple straightforward process -widened focus from seeing long term memory as a simple storage unit to seeing it as a complex processing system -led to further experiments, most of which confirmed the superiority of deep semantic processing for remembering information  -explains why we remember some things much better and for longer than others

Question 28

study - craik & tulving (1975) - limitations

Answer 28

-sample size is small and unrepresentative therefore it is hard to generalise the results -ethical issues due to the use of deception -does not explain how levels of processing effect works -does not effectively account for the greater effect and time required to process semantic information as a cause for improved recall -study does not integrate the theory of memory structures (e.g. multistore model) -does not explain how the deep processing results in better memories and the concept of depth is vague and cannot be observed, therefore cannot be objectively measure