Retrieval

Question 1

What is tip of the tongue state? and ‘tip of the finger’?

Answer 1

• Tip-of-the-tongue state: a feeling that one knows a response yet is unable to produce it
  A similar phenomenon (‘tip of the finger’) has also been reported in sign language users

Question 2

What is retrieval?

Answer 2

• A progression from one or more retrieval cues to a target memory trace through associative connections
• The aim is to make the target available

Question 3

What is the target memory trace?

Answer 3

The particular memory we are searching for

Question 4

What are retrieval cues?

Answer 4

Bits of information about the target memory that guide the search

Question 5

What are associations?

Answer 5

• Bonds that link together items in memory

- Vary in strength (e.g. banana would be more likely to have a stronger association with ‘fruit’ than ‘guava’)

Question 6

What is the activation level?

Answer 6

• The internal state of a memory, reflecting its level of excitement
• Determines accessibility of the item
• Increases when
  § Something related to the memory is encountered
• Persists for some time

Question 7

What is spreading activation?

Answer 7

• The automatic transmission of ‘energy’ from one memory to related items via associations
• Proportional to the strength of connections

Question 8

What is pattern completion?

Answer 8

• Retrieval: reinstatement (via spreading activation) of features that represent a memory
• Features, provided as cues, will spread activation to other features, completing the missing components
  Pattern completion = the process by which spreading activation from a set of cues leads to the reinstatement of a memory

Question 9

What sort of mechanism is pattern completion regarded as?

Answer 9

Pattern completion is regarded as a hippocampal mechanism

Question 10

What are factors determining retrieval success?

Answer 10

• Attention to cues
• Relevance of cues
• Cue-target associative strength
• Number of cues
• Strength of target memory
• Retrieval strategy
• Retrieval mode

Question 11

What does reduced attention to a cue do in terms of retrieval?

Answer 11

Reduced attention to a cue impairs its ability to guide retrieval

Question 12

When does a secondary task reduce memory performance during retrieval?

Answer 12

Ø Related to the primary task
Ø Demands a lot of attention

This is called dividing attention

Question 13

Does divided attention have a larger effect when tested with recall or recognition?

Answer 13

§ Larger effect when tested with recall than recognition

Question 14

When are retrieval cues most useful?

Answer 14

§ Retrieval cues are most useful if:
§ Present at encoding
§ Encoded with the target
§ Similar to the original cue available at encoding
Having the right cue enhances retrieval – the best cues are the ones present at encoding -> encoding specificity

Question 15

What is cue-target associative strength?

Answer 15

• Retrieval success depends on the strength of cue target association
• Determined by the length of time and attention spent on encoding the relationship
• Encoding the cue and the target separately is unhelpful
  They need to be associated with each-other

Question 16

Does more cues aid retrieval?

Answer 16

• Access to additional, relevant cues facilitates retrieval
  § Activation spreads from both cues to the target, facilitating retrieval
  § Cueing multiple access routes to a target (extra cues) can provide a super-additive recall benefit
  Elaborative encoding maximizes the number of retrieval routes

Question 17

Explain the effect of the strength of the target memory on retrieval

Answer 17

• Weakly encoded targets are more difficult to retrieve
  § The targets start at a lower activation level
  § Require a greater boost in activation to be retrieved
• Explains the word frequency effect on recall
  More frequent target words start with higher activation level -> more easily retrieve

Question 18

What is retrieval success increased by?

Answer 18

§ The organisation of materials at encoding
§ Adopting efficient strategies of memory search
- Adopting a new perspective/ strategy can facilitate recall of different objects previously forgotten

Question 19

Does completing multiple episodic tasks in a row improve retrieval performance and why?

Answer 19

yes because episodic retrieval is implicated in different brain regions (the prefrontal cortex) than semantic judgements

Question 20

What are direct/ explicit memory tests?

Answer 20

• Ask people to recall particular experiences
• Require a contextual cue
• Reveal impaired performance in amnesiacs
  In many cases rely on hippocampus

Question 21

What are indirect/ implicit memory tests?

Answer 21

• Measure the unconscious influence of experience without asking the subject to recall the past
• Priming: recent experience with the stimulus improves performance
• Reveals normal performance in amnesics

Question 22

What is a free recall task?

Answer 22

Explicit

‘recall studied items’

Question 23

What is a cued recall task?

Answer 23

Explicit

‘What word was presented with DOG’

Question 24

What is a yes/no recognition task?

Answer 24

Did you study: Dog…apple…monk?

Question 25

What is a forced choice recognition task?

Answer 25

Forced-choice recognition

Explicit
Which word did you study: APPLE of MONK?

Question 26

What is a stem completion task?

Answer 26

Implicit

Fill in missing letters with a word that fits: MO__

Question 27

What is a fragment completion task?

Answer 27

Implicit

Fill in letters to make a word A_P_E

Question 28

What is a conceptual fluency task?

Answer 28

Implicit

Name as many birds

Question 29

What do contextual cues do?

Answer 29

Specify conditions under which a stimulus was encoded

Question 30

What is a spatio-temporal/environmental cue?

Answer 30

Location and time during an event

Supermarket; lecture theatre

Question 31

What is a mood cue?

Answer 31

Emotional state that one was in during the event

Sad; happy

Question 32

What is a physiological cue?

Answer 32

Physical (pharmacological) state one was in during an event

Tired; drunk

Question 33

What is a cognitive cue?

Answer 33

Collection of concepts one has thought about the event

Specific thought

Question 34

What does it mean that memory is context dependent?

Answer 34

• Context reinstates original encoding environment and facilitates retrieval
  Principle of encoding specificity: we encode information along with its context

Question 35

What is the context dependent memory environmental factors test?

Answer 35

• Task:
• Taught divers word pairs in one of two contexts: dry land or underwater
• Tested cues recall in same or different environment
• Results:
• Material is recalled best in the environment it was learned

Question 36

What is state-dependent memory

Answer 36

• Like context-dependent but relating to internal state/ environment
• Recall depends on the match between the participants internal environment (i.e. physiological state) at encoding and retrieval
• Recall is best if encoding and retrieval both occur when:
  § Drunk (Goodwin et al., 1969)
  § Under the influence of marijuana or caffeine (Eich, 1980)
  § Under the influence of exercising or at rest (Miles 7 Hardman, 1998)
  State dependency disappears under recognition tests

Question 37

What is mood-dependent memory?

Answer 37

• Mood-dependent memory: about the person/person match

- Recall is dependent on the match in mood states between encoding and retrieval

Question 38

What is mood-congruent memory?

Answer 38

• It is easier to recall events that have an emotional tone that matches the current mood of the person
• Depressed individuals are more likely to recall mostly unpleasant memories

Question 39

What is cognitive context-dependent memory?

Answer 39

• Retrieval is better if the same cognitive features/ tasks are involved
• Ideas, thoughts and concepts that occupied our attention
• Memory facilitated when cognitive context at encoding matches retrieval

Question 40

What does it mean that memory is reconstructive?

Answer 40

• Retrieved memories are not entirely intact
• ‘Figure out’ some aspects of recalled experience
  Reconstructive memories: inferential aspect of memory

Question 41

What is recognition memory?

Answer 41

· Decide whether one encountered a stimulus before
· Presents the stimulus (i.e. target), unlike in recall
· Discrimination between OLD and NEW stimuli
· Old = studied stimuli
· New = non-studied distractors, lures or foils
· A measure of the participants’ level of guessing and decision-making bias for accepting items as old

Question 42

What is signal detection theory (SDT)?

Answer 42

• SDT to understand and explore recognition memory decisions
• Developed from auditory perception
• Auditory task:
• Detect a tone (signal) presented against background noise
• Hard or easy to detect
• Four potential outcomes depending on whether target stimulus present:

Old:old: hit
New but say old: false alarm
Old but say new: miss
New: new: correct rejection

• New or old? Equivalent to signal vs noise
• How the old stimuli discriminated from the new

Question 43

How does STD (signa detection theory) work in recognition memory?

Answer 43

• STD useful to understand how recognition decisions are taken and how to discriminate true memory from guesses
• Memory traces have strength values. These dictate how ‘familiar’ a stimulus feels
• The traces vary in their familiarity based on: attention at encoding and repetitions
• New and old items are combined in a recognition task each having their own distribution on a familiarity continuum
• New items are less familiar than old items. But distractors can be quite familiar e.g. they appear often or are similar to old items
• Therefore, the two distributions can overlap
  Response criterion: items that surpass this are judged old. Can be more liberal or strict
• Everything more familiar than (to the right of) the response criterion will be judged ‘old’
  Everything less familiar (to the left of the response criterion) will be judged ‘new

Question 44

What is the dual process theory?

Answer 44

• Recognition memory is based on two types of memory or process (Mandler, 1980):
• Familiarity:
  § A sense of memory without being able to remember contextual information
  § Described by signal detection
  § Faster and more automatic
• Recollection
  § Retrieving contextual details about a stimulus – like cued recall
  § Slower and more attention demanding

Question 45

What is recollection selectively disrupted by?

Answer 45

§ Divided attention during encoding
§ Divided attention during recognition
§ Advanced age and damage to the prefrontal cortex
- Familiarity is usually faster than recollection (as it is an automatic process)

Question 46

What is the remember/know procedure to measure recognition memory?

Answer 46

• Participants decide whether they base their decision on:
• Remember the item being presented previously:
  § Recollect contextual details
  § Measure of recollection
• Know it was presented previously:
  § Seems familiar
  § Measure of familiarity

Question 47

what memory kind/ function is the hippocampus involved in?

Answer 47

Recall/ recollection

Question 48

What memory kind/ function are the surroudning cortical regions (perirhinal/ entorhinal cortex) involved in?

Answer 48

Recognition memory/ familiarity

Question 49

What structures are thought to support recognition memory?

Answer 49

The medial temporal lobe (MTL)

Question 50

Give a summary of retrieval

Answer 50

· Memory can fail because retrieval fails
· Retrieval success is determined by the relationship between cues and target memories
· Tested using explicit (direct) tests or implicit (indirect) tests
· Context at retrieval and the degree of match to encoding context has major impact on retrieval success
· Recognition memory: familiarity and recollection
The MTL is critical for recognition memory. The hippocampus = recall/ recollectio