Memory Retreival

Question 1

Different Types of Memory Retrieval

Answer 1

Recognition
• Single/multiple items
e.g., Was this a word you studied?
• forced choice
e.g., multiple choice question

Recall
• cued recall
e.g., What animal words did you study?
• free recall
e.g., unseen exam essay

Question 2

Recognition Memory Can Sometimes Amazingly Good!

Answer 2

Results: People can recall more than 85%
of objects (> 2125 objects)!!
 Long-term memory has a remarkable
capacity, particularly when people are given a
recognition memory test

Question 3

BUT Recognition Memory Can Sometimes Be Worst

Answer 3

Results: People fail to recognize some words,
but then are able to recall it
 Recognition failure of recallable words
 Availability vs. Accessibility of Memories
 Cues match better the original encoding
context (i.e., Encoding Specificity)

Question 4

Recollection versus Familiarity

Answer 4

1. Recollection: we retrieve the specific instance where we saw it
   before (linked to the concept of “episodic memory”)
2. Familiarity: we feel that we have seen it before, but cannot
   retrieve any additional details about where and when

Question 5

Evidence for Recollection & Familiarity Processes

Answer 5

Encoding manipulations affect recollection & familiarity differently:
– Encoding things more deeply (i.e., Levels of Processing) increases recollection
more than familiarity
– Emotional stimuli are associated more with recollection than familiarity
• Retrieval manipulations affect recollection & familiarity differently:
- Familiarity responses occur more quickly during retrieval than recollection
• Recollection is affected more in amnesia & healthy aging
• Recollection & familiarity rely on different neural mechanisms

Question 6

Memory is Constructive

Answer 6

Memory retrieval is not like watching a video
Memory retrieval is more like editing a video
People’s knowledge, experiences, expectations, etc. influence how
memories are encoded and later retrieved

Question 7

Schemas and memory

Answer 7

Brewer &Treyens (1981):
• Had participants wait in an office
• Given a surprise memory test for
what was in the office
• Some critical objects were not in
the office but were often recalled
(e.g. 30% reported having seen
books)
• The participants had a mental
“schema” for the types of objects
they expected to be in an office

Question 8

Deese-Roediger & McDermott (DRM) Paradigm

Answer 8

Roediger & McDermott (1995):
Participants studied lists of words (e.g., candy, sour, etc.) highly
associated with a non-presented critical lure (e.g., sweet)
65% of studied items were recalled  True Memories
40% of critical lures were recalled  False Memories
Critical lures were more likely to be recollected than familiar
- Participants were highly confident they had seen the critical lure
studied associates may bring lure to mind during encoding
and/or there may be a failure to monitor the source of the item

Question 9

False Memories: Misinformation Paradigm (LOFTUS)

Answer 9

Two groups of participants watched
the same video of an accident, but
were asked different questions:
1) how fast were the cars when they smashed into each
other?
2) how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?

People in the smashed group were more likely to falsely report that there was broken glass in the video
than people in the hit group.

Question 10

Memory is Similar to Imagination

Answer 10

Patients with amnesia have
difficulty imagining new
events
(Hassabis et al., 2007)