S2 L4 - Episodic Memory

Question 1

What is Episodic memory?

Answer 1

Memory of personal experiences that can be explicitly stated, consisting of autobiographical events and their context (who, what, when, where and why)

Question 2

What is Mental Time travel? how does it relate to episodic memory

Answer 2

(Chronesthesia)
Capacity to mentally reconstruct personal events from the past as well to imagine possible scenarios in the future

can access early memories(long distance past), recent memories, lets us think ab our future/future events, imagined events (things that have never or will never happen), reminiscence bump, flashbulb memories

Question 3

Some individuals have SAM and HSAM. What are they?

Answer 3

SAM = Superior Autobiographical Memory

HSAM = Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory

Question 4

What are flashbulb memories?

Answer 4

Emotionally significant or shocking memories

Question 5

What is the Reminiscence Bump?

Answer 5

Superior memory for events that occurred in adolescence and early adulthood

life experiences that form who you are - you remember - so encode a lot of these memories
period of recency in like 50s when memories become easily accessible and stored bc they’re recent memories

Question 6

What is childhood amnesia?

Answer 6

We don’t encode or store memories as clearly in childhood or early stages of our life compared to when we are older

Question 7

Which part of the brain is associated with the size and shape of the caudate nucleus (basal ganglia)?

Answer 7

Habits

Question 7

Which part of the brain is associated with the Shape and size of the temporal lobe?

Answer 7

Episodic memory

Question 7

What are 2 ways of measuring memory?

Answer 7

Direct Memory Tests such as
Instructed encoding (told wat to remember) > Explicit Retrieval (told to retrieve what to retrieve)

Indirect Memory Tests such as
Incidental Encoding (Ps think ab info but not told to memorise ) > Implicit Retrieval ( Asked to complete activity seemingly unrelated to memory)

Question 8

What are tests used with direct memory?

Answer 8

Recall - generate info from memory
(Open ended exam qs, digit recall task)

Free recall - recall as many items as possible

Serial recall - Recall items in order of their presentation

Cued recall - recall items with help of a cue

DV - Proportion of correctly recalled items - difference between correctly verified probes (hits) and wrongly accepted probes (false alarms) - detection performance d prime

Recognition - verify whether information presented (probe) matches memory
(MCQ exam, word recognition tasks)

Question 10

Examples of indirect memory tests?

Answer 10

Two seemingly unrelated tasks
DV- Proportion of unintentionally but correctly retrieved items

Question 11

What are ways to improve encoding memory?

Answer 11

Levels/Depth of processing (processing at a shallow (looking at structure) or deep (phonemic processing/categorisation by semantics of that word) level)
^deeper processing at encoding can aid memory

Spacing effect

Serial position effect

Question 12

What are ways to improve retrieval?

Answer 12

Testing effect

Question 13

What will impact how encoding and retrieval interact?

Answer 13

Encoding-retrieval interactions
such as
Encoding specificity
Transfer-appropriate processing

Question 14

What is the Spacing Effect?

Answer 14

Impacts ability to encode info

how much you engage w content
how spaced out your engagement is

Massed practice = single, lengthy study period (cramming in info)
Distributed practice = Multiple, short study periods (more likely to benefit performance as memory is generally better after distributed than after massed practice. the longer the spacing is, the better the memory is)

Question 15

What is Serial Position Effect?

Answer 15

Episodic memory

How well we encode memory when info is presented to us
The way we position our items (in a list) can have an impact on our memory

list of items given
likely to remember first info provided w and last info presented
Primacy Effect = first thing we learn in a list of words is remembered more strongly

Recency Effect = % of words recalled better at the end of the list

SO
It’s Information encoded first (primacy effect) or last (recency effect) is recalled best

Question 16

What does the Testing Effect impact? And what is it?

Answer 16

Retrieval
Roediger and Karpicke’s (2006) experiments

Ps studied 1 of 2 texts. Then ps had to re-study(reread) or recall the text.
Then ps had to recall after 5 mins after initial studying, 2 days or 2 weeks

Found
ps who were tested had better memory than ps who just restudied

SO
Retrieval practice improves memory for delays longer than a few minutes

Question 17

What is the Encoding specificity principle?

Answer 17

Matching context at encoding and retrieval aids episodic memory

learning info and retrieving info in the same context (env) can aid episodic memory

Shown by Godden and Baddeley’s diver study

encoding info, retrieving under water/ surface of the water
mix and matching
found when context matches, better at retrieving info

Question 18

What is transfer-appropriate processing?

Answer 18

Matching processing at encoding and retrieval aids episodic memory - how we think ab info

Matching the type of processing we are applying

People had to complete a sentence or think ab it on a phonological level - so different ways of processing and encoding this info.

at retrieval stage, had to either think ab what the concept is or
or think ab whether it rhymes

so matching between depth and semantic processing w encoding and retrieval
or mis matched bc thinking ab concept and thinking ab whether it rhymes and visa versa

Completion Encoding - the __ had a silver engine - train
Recognition retrieval - Was train one of the studied words?
Phonemic Encoding __ rhymes with legal - eagle
Rhyme retrieval - does regal rhyme with a studied word?

found - memory is best for matched encoding and retrieval processing conditions