week 9

Question 1

recall

Answer 1

the act of retrieving a target based on a cue that does not include the target

Question 2

recognition

Answer 2

the act of retrieving a target based on a cue that includes the target

Question 3

retention interval

Answer 3

the period of time between a learning event and a test of memory for that event

Question 4

both recall and recognition accuracy decreased over time, at every retention interval participants’ recognition was superior to their recall. - illustrates?

Answer 4

The finding that people are often able to recognize material they cannot recall illustrates that when a person cannot recall a particular memory, it is possible that the memory is still available if the correct cues are given.

Thus, we should only consider the complete loss of a memory trace as forgetting.

Question 5

How can a researcher determine the trace is truly gone?

Answer 5

can’t use the inability to recall information as a measure that the trace no longer exists, as there is ample evidence that people can recognize material they cannot recall.

recognition can also fail - “No, I don’t remember that” but, as the storyteller begins to recount the event, suddenly the memory returns

forgetting is “the inability to recall something now that could be recalled on an earlier occasion”

Question 6

John Wixted refined Tulving’s definition further and stipulates that forgetting

Answer 6

defined as the inability to access information that was (a) successfully encoded and (b) could previously be retrieved by the same retrieval cue

referring to information that is inaccessible but not necessarily unavailable; forgetting can occur with or without the loss of the actual memory trace.

Question 7

incidental forgetting

Answer 7

which occurs without the intention to forget

Forgetting that occurs due to neurogenesis, molecular decay, or interference

Question 8

motivated forgetting

Answer 8

which occurs when an individual intentionally tries to suppress a memory.

motivated forgetting relies on deliberate psychological processes,

Question 9

The Seven Sins of Memory, Daniel Schacter

Answer 9

transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Schacter (2002) classified each sin as either one of omission (a failure to recall) or commission (a distortion in memory;

Question 10

Sins of omission

Answer 10

three reasons that people may fail to recall material,

transience—- which refers to the general loss of information over time. Transience can be caused by interference or decay

Absent-mindedness—– occurs when a person does not pay enough attention to the to-be-remembered material for the material to be recalled later. Forgetting where you placed your keys because you weren’t paying attention when you put them down is an example of absent-mindedness.

Blocking —-occurs when a person tries to retrieve an item from memory but another memory interferes, or “blocks,” that retrieval. Blocking is responsible for the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon where individuals know they know the information they want to retrieve but simply cannot retrieve it

Question 11

Sins of Commission

Answer 11

misattribution—— which occurs when a person correctly recalls a piece of information but incorrectly recalls the source of that information. For example, a person may recall reading that vitamin X cures cancer, but incorrectly recall that the information came from a medical journal rather than its true source, which was an advertisement on social media.

suggestibility, ——-which involves changing a recollection because outside information suggests the original recollection is incorrect. For example, witness A may recall that the traffic light was green when an accident occurred; however, after hearing another witness insist that the light was red, witness A later “recalls” that the light was red.

Bias——— occurs when a person’s present state of mind influences how she or he recalls the past. For example, a person who is depressed may tend to recall more negative events from the last year than a person who is not depressed, although both individuals experienced the same number of negative events.

persistence—– which involves the unwanted recall of distressing memories, ranging from embarrassing incidents to scary and traumatic experiences. Persistence can contribute to the development of phobias and is associated with post-traumatic stress disorder

Question 12

The Forgetting Curve

Answer 12

Ebbinghaus (1885) created lists of nonsense syllables (such as hep, vax, and cru), memorized them, and then tested his memory for the syllables at different points in time. The results of these experiments led Ebbinghaus to propose the forgetting curve

The forgetting curve is reflected in Jost’s law, which states that for memories of similar strength, older memories will decay more slowly than newer memories

Forgetting curves are one of the most reliable phenomena in psychology. Forgetting curves are observed for both recall and recognition and the rate of forgetting is the same regardless of the level of learning; people who learn material well forget at the same rate as people who know the information less well

Question 13

forgetting curve shows that forgetting occurs at different points in time after learning

Answer 13

steep drop in recall at short time courses implies that much material is lost soon after learning

forgetting continues to occur at longer retention intervals as well. The shape of the forgetting curve suggests that there are different sources of forgetting.

Question 14

first theory about how consolidation affects memory was proposed in 1900 by Georg Müller and Alfons Pilzecker

Answer 14

suggested that after a learning event, such as being presented with a word list, a period of perseveration begins, and that the longer the perseveration period is, the more consolidated a memory will be.

Because perseveration is a process that requires resources, Müller and Pilzecker’s theory predicts that perseveration will be less effective following activities that demand cognitive resources than following inactivity.

more forgetting following wakeful activity than following a similar delay during which the individual slept

Question 15

first biologically based consolidation theory was proposed by Donald Hebb in 1949.

Answer 15

neurons require a period of perseveration during which time they create new connections.

perseveration is a purely biological process and when this biological process is disrupted, memories are not consolidated and forgetting occurs.

best evidence for Hebb’s theory that perseveration is biological is the occurrence of retrograde amnesia following traumatic head injuries. In these cases, individuals cannot recall events that happened just before the injury occurred, suggesting that the memories were not permanent at the time of experience, and that normal brain function was critical to their consolidation.

Question 16

John Wixted has argued that new memories can produce forgetting of old memories if the new memories engage the same neural circuit as the old memory and if the old memory is not fully consolidated.

Answer 16

recently learned material can be forgotten if new information is sufficiently similar to the old, unconsolidated information

difficulty remembering brushing your teeth three nights ago because you have brushed your teeth several times since then.

Wixted’s (2005) argument is supported by the finding that inducing long-term potentiation (LTP) (the process that forms new memories) in the hippocampus weakens previously established LTP and impacts hippocampal memory

Question 17

Consolidation theory can explain why some memories are never formed, but consolidation theory cannot explain

Answer 17

retrieval failures for consolidated memories, that is, memories that have been successfully retrieved in the past.

can’t explain why you were able to recall the first 40 elements in the periodic table two years ago but can’t do so today.

Question 18

McGeoch (1932) suggested that there are two types of interference that lead to forgetting

Answer 18

proactive interference, where existing memories affect one’s ability to access newly formed memories

retroactive interference, where learning new material makes it more difficult to access older memories.

Question 19

In the lab, proactive and retroactive interference have been studied extensively using a

Answer 19

paired-associate paradigm —- a research paradigm where participants study word pairs (such as DOG–horse) and then later learn new word pairs that partially overlap with the old pairs (such as DOG–chair)

Question 20

Retroactive and proactive interference are calculated by

Answer 20

comparing recall in the experimental condition to recall in the control condition.

Question 21

used the results from paired-associate paradigm experiments to propose the three-factor theory of forgetting

Answer 21

McGeoch argued that there were three causes of forgetting: response competition, altered stimulus conditions, and set

Response competition can affect retrieval if a query results in more than one item being retrieved. For example, in the paired-associate learning task- a participant may learn DOG–chair and then DOG–horse and then be given the query DOG–????? and instructed to complete it with the associate she or he learned first.- recall both chair and horse but not which was learned first and thus has forgotten the correct answer to the query. - blocking

altered stimulus conditions, or changing contexts, can cause retrieval failures. Researchers consistently find that when the context changes between learning and recall, performance is worse - -Abernethy found that students who were tested in the classroom they learned in performed better than students who were tested in another environment

set (which is sometimes also referred to as mental set). In these cases, retrieval fails because context causes an individual to retrieve the wrong set of information. For example, suppose a person is watching a movie and trying to remember the name of an actor who seems familiar. The person will develop a set of possible names based on movies she or he has seen in the past. However, if the individual in the movie is not actually an actor but is instead a famous sports figure, the name may be more difficult to recall because the correct set has not been activated. - reflects bias

Question 22

interference theories fit experimental data well; researchers were able to produce proactive and retroactive interference in a variety of different learning situations.

Answer 22

consolidated memories become plastic (or changeable), and that retrieval of multiple memories simultaneously can lead to changes in individual memories, including the integration of new information into each trace

The individual will no longer be able to remember which location was the location of the first psychology lab, and thus a consolidated long-term memory will appear forgotten through interference.

Question 23

For almost 100 years, interference was thought to be

Answer 23

the main source of forgetting of consolidated memories.

Question 24

recent advances in the understanding of the cellular and molecular bases for long-term memory persistence suggest that

Answer 24

decay is also a source of forgetting, and that this forgetting is highly adaptive.

Question 25

promiscuous encoding

Answer 25

the encoding of all events that are experienced by an organism main adaptive benefit of promiscuous encoding is that decisions about what information is useful and what can be discarded can be made later, when the usefulness of the encoded material has been evaluated. benefits, such as allowing an animal to identify toxic foods, there is also a cost to promiscuous encoding; if left unchecked, the memory system would be overwhelmed very quickly. we have evolved a dedicated forgetting mechanism that removes old explicit memories and frees up space for subsequent encoding.

Question 26

Hardt et al. (2013), systematic forgetting occurs via either

Answer 26

interference or decay depending on the location of the memory trace in the brain.

Question 27

Explicit memories begin as episodic memories with two components.

Answer 27

One component consists of the content of the memory and is largely dependent on the neocortex ----an apple that you ate as a snack. The other component consists of spatial-contextual information within which the content was acquired and is largely dependent on the hippocampus. -----you ate the apple as a snack at your desk on Wednesday morning. The two components are linked by an indexing function controlled by the hippocampus. The memory system is designed to encode as many episodes as possible and then to eliminate memories that don’t turn out to be of any use

Question 28

Distinguishing between episodes is essential; however, episodes can contain very similar information

Answer 28

it’s important to distinguish between what you ate for lunch today from what you ate yesterday (in case one of the meals is toxic); however, these two events will share many features, as you may eat lunch at your desk every day (like me), and/or you may eat similar foods each day. The hippocampus is able to produce distinct codes for distinct events (even if they are very similar) using a process called pattern separation.

Question 29

Pattern separation

Answer 29

the production of distinct neural codes for distinct episodic events

Question 30

two areas of the hippocampus that are key to pattern separation

Answer 30

dentate gyrus (DG) and an area known as CA3 When the DG detects a pattern of neural activity that is similar to the neural activity associated with another memory in the hippocampus (such as another memory from the same location or another memory involving the same objects) the CA3 uses a different population of neurons to code the new memory in the neocortex, a phenomenon known as population coding or orthogonal coding. When population coding occurs, two similar memories, such as the memory for two meals, or the memory for two attempts to accomplish a given goal, will not be represented by the same neurons. This means that these memories can be remembered separately, without activating each other, much like one sticky note can be read without reading any other sticky notes.

Question 31

processes of pattern separation and population coding

Answer 31

The processes of pattern separation and population coding make hippocampal memories highly resistant to interference; similar memories are prevented from affecting each other just like the information on one sticky note doesn’t affect the information on the other sticky note.

Question 32

hippocampal memories are

Answer 32

orthogonal (meaning they don’t use the same neurons), interference cannot account for forgetting of hippocampal memories; for interference to be involved, one memory must affect the neural coding of the other memory.

Question 33

forgetting in the hippocampus appears to result from at least two natural processes:

Answer 33

the growth of new neurons, a process known as neurogenesis metabolic processes that can cause a loss of receptors.

Question 34

Altman was the first to demonstrate that neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampi of adult animals

Answer 34

establish that new neurons develop continually in the adult human, and that neurogenesis is particularly common in the hippocampus. decreasing neurogenesis impairs hippocampal memory formation, while increasing neurogenesis sometimes facilitates hippocampal memory formation some cases, there has been no effect of reducing neurogenesis on hippocampal memory formation. Researchers believe this is because existing neurons in the hippocampus can also be used to form memories

Question 35

neurogenesis increases the efficiency of pattern separation during encoding

Answer 35

the introduction of new neurons helps ensure that different sets of neurons are available for encoding similar events, much like introducing a new colour of sticky note enables a person to create notes that are more distinct from one another reducing neurogenesis in adult mice (either using chemicals or through genetics) reduces the ability of the CA3 to perform pattern separation using population coding.

Question 36

Niibori et al. (2012) found that when hippocampal neurogenesis was reduced evidence that pattern separation and population coding are impaired when neurogenesis is impaired

Answer 36

similar CA3 neurons were active when the animals were in similar contexts, implying that the same neurons were being used to encode information in similar contexts (and that pattern separation and population coding were not occurring)

Question 37

observation that mice with impaired hippocampal neurogenesis also have increased difficulty discriminating between two different contexts in a fear-conditioning paradigm experiment

Answer 37

reducing neurogenesis impairs pattern separation and the mice were unable to remember the specific context where they had received the foot shock

Question 38

increased neurogenesis in mice by promoting the survival of newborn granule cells, these mice were better able to perform spatial discrimination tasks than controls

Answer 38

results suggest that neurogenesis facilitates pattern separation, which enables the hippocampus to form distinct episodic memories

Question 39

In the brain, retrieval occurs as a result of pattern completion

Answer 39

PC - matching an existing memory to a cue involves the reactivation of the pattern of neural activity present at the time of encoding

Question 40

neurogenesis-dependent decay

Answer 40

forgetting that is the result of impaired pattern completion following the integration of new neurons in the hippocampus

Question 41

infantile amnesia

Answer 41

the inability for adults to remember events from early in life Humans are unable to remember any events from the first three years of life support for the notion that neurogenesis produces forgetting

Question 42

four particularly interesting aspects of infantile amnesia in humans

Answer 42

1. infantile amnesia affects episodic memories (such as memories for events), but not semantic memories (such as language) or implicit memories (such as how to walk) 2. infantile amnesia is not an abrupt transition from “no memory” to “memory”; ages four through seven represent a stage where more memories are lost than are lost from later in childhood, but more memories are retained than are retained from earlier in childhood 3. older children remember information for longer than younger children. memory retention increases steadily with age. While two-month-old infants could recall episodic information for about 24 hours, 18-month-old infants trained on a similar task could retain that information for up to 13 weeks 4. not unique to humans; young rodents and monkeys show the same pattern of forgetting as human children do. refutes early explanations of the phenomena that proposed that language development was responsible for the loss of early memories

Question 43

Campbell -infantile amnesia in rats in the 1960s

Answer 43

trained rats that were 18, 23, 38, 54, or 100 days old to avoid a shock by moving from one part of a cage to another. They then tested the rats’ memory for this avoidance response after a delay of 0, 7, 21, or 42 days. While all the rats performed the avoidance maneuver at a delay of 0 days, as the delay increased, younger rats were less and less likely to exhibit the avoidance response. younger rats forget avoidance responses faster than older rats, much like younger humans forget information more quickly than older humans.

Question 44

explanations for infantile amnesia

Answer 44

One pop theory emergence of the ability to use language changes the way memories are encoded Another theory was that the passage of time was responsible for infantile amnesia. -----presented adults with a cue word, such as bicycle, and asked participants to recall memories associated with the word and estimate their age at the time of the memory. Rubin found no memories for ages zero through three, and fewer memories for ages three through seven than for older ages, and the number reported for ages three through seven was much smaller than would be predicted by the forgetting curve, indicating that the passage of time alone cannot explain infantile amnesia. infantile amnesia results from the fact that young individuals have brains that are not fully developed. ----- brains of animals that show infantile amnesia are not fully developed at first. Neurons in the cortex undergo myelination during the first year of life, which affects processing speed and neurons continue to be added to the DG region of the hippocampus, which may affect episodic memory formation ------- Support - observation that memory retention increases with age. don’t fully explain the phenomenon; they don’t explain why memories are retained in the very short term but are completely forgotten over time. -structures of the hippocampus are fully developed by about 18 months of age; if hippocampal immaturity were responsible for infantile amnesia, then the amnesia should only affect memories for experiences prior to this age. ----The cortex, on the other hand, continues to change and mature well into puberty; if cortical immaturity were responsible for infantile amnesia, then the amnesia should affect memories right through puberty

Question 45

The Neurogenic Hypothesis of Infantile Amnesia

Answer 45

infantile amnesia is related to neurogenesis in the hippocampus Early in life, when the rate of neurogenesis is at its highest, memory stability is at its lowest and infantile amnesia is observed. It is not until neurogenesis slows down that infantile amnesia disappears and an individual is able to recall memories from early in life. forgetting that results in infantile amnesia occurs through neurogenesis-dependent decay; however, because neurogenesis is rampant in young individuals, the forgetting is extensive and affects all hippocampal-based memories. infantile amnesia occurs because rampant neurogenesis leads to rampant neurogenesis-dependent decay. The decay may occur either because new neurons alter the wiring of existing hippocampal networks or because newborn DG cells are more excitable than older cells, and when they are introduced into the network, homeostatic mechanisms decrease activation in existing neurons, leading to synaptic loss.

Question 46

At birth, neurogenesis is...

Answer 46

largely complete in most brain areas;

Question 47

which two brain areas continue to produce neurons throughout life?

Answer 47

subventricular zone of the lateral ventricle, which provides new neurons for the olfactory bulb. subgranular zone of the hippocampus, which provides new neurons for the dentate gyrus (DG)

Question 48

what is The factor that most affects the rate of neurogenesis in the hippocampus?

Answer 48

age; in most species, production of new neurons in the hippocampus peaks soon after birth and then begins to decline. In rats, for example, the rate of neurogenesis decreases by half between one and two months of age. By the time a rat is 18 months of age (old age for a rat), neurogenesis occurs at 1/100th of the rate that it did when the rat was first born

Question 49

High rates of neurogenesis in young animals are adaptive for two reasons.

Answer 49

1. neurogenesis accelerates the transfer of memories from being hippocampus-dependent to being hippocampus-independent allowing the animal to generalize across a series of individual episodes. 2. neurogenesis clears existing hippocampal representations, making way for new learning, and new learning is arguably most important early in life

Question 50

two phases of infantile amnesia in humans

Answer 50

1. initial phase of frank amnesia where essentially no information learned prior to the age of three is retained 2. Next there is a second phase of moderate amnesia where some information is recalled, but this is less than is predicted by the standard forgetting curve. The second phase spans ages four through seven.

Question 51

Memory-Trace Consolidation

Answer 51

a strengthening of the connection between neurons comprising a given memory occurs when the memory is reactivated through wakeful retrieval or during sleep reactivation causes the trace to be proliferated and stabilized in the hippocampus and/or in the neocortex memories that are retrieved more often have stronger traces. if consolidation processes overpower neurogenesis-dependent decay. In other words, when the trace is strengthened more by memory-trace consolidation than it is weakened by neurogenesis-dependent decay, the memory will persist.

Question 52

factors that influence neurogenesis will also impact neurogenesis-related forgetting

Answer 52

when neurogenesis is slowed, forgetting due to neurogenesis-dependent decay is less likely to occur (because neurogenesis has less of an impact on the connections between neurons in the hippocampus) stress, drugs of abuse, and diet can reduce neurogenesis, thus reducing the threat of forgetting due to neurogenesis-dependent decay factors tend to increase neurogenesis, including exercise, environmental enrichment, and serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). SSRIs may increase the possibility of hippocampal memories being lost due to neurogenesis-dependent decay

Question 53

learning new material that conflicts with previously learned material will be affected by neurogenesis

Answer 53

If neurogenesis is occurring, it will facilitate the forgetting of old material and favour the retention of new conflicting information. If neurogenesis is impeded, however, it may be difficult to learn new conflicting information because neurogenesis-dependent forgetting is not occurring. This means that people under stress, who abuse drugs, or who have a poor diet may have difficulty forming new memories because their lifestyle impedes neurogenesis. When neurogenesis is not occurring, an individual will be more likely to experience misattribution and suggestibility as old memories conflict with new information.

Question 54

Neurogenesis-dependent decay is consistent with arguments that suggest that forgetting is critical for healthy memory function for at least three reasons

Answer 54

First, as we saw in the chapter-opening case study, many people with hyperthymesia have difficulty functioning normally as a result of their inability to forget episodic memories. Second, maintaining memories over time requires an animal to expend energy; forgetting conserves this energy for only the most pertinent information. Finally, neurogenesis-dependent forgetting makes recalling pertinent information easier and more accurate by eliminating other similar (redundant) memories.

Question 55

long-term depotentiation (LTD)

Answer 55

when a cell loses its ability to create an action potential

Question 56

two possible mechanisms for decay in the hippocampus

Answer 56

neurogenesis-dependent decay and molecular decay.

Question 57

neocortical memories are susceptible to

Answer 57

interference but not decay, while the reverse is true for hippocampal memories, by comparing the effects of interference on recollection-based memory and familiarity judgments across a variety of experiments.

Question 58

recollection

Answer 58

the reinstatement of an event from memory that includes contextual details and an accompanying sense of self

Question 59

familiarity

Answer 59

a feeling that an item has been encountered before Familiarity is associated with neocortical memories.

Question 60

retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) paradigm

Answer 60

study phase, a retrieval practice phase, and a final test. study phase, each participant is presented with paired associates. The first item in the pair is a general category (such as FRUIT) and the second item is an example from that category (such as peach). Each study list includes pairs from two different categories (such as FRUIT and SPORT). retrieval practice phase, participants practise retrieving half of the items from one of the categories, such as FRUIT, by completing paired-associate word stems such as FRUIT–pe___ ; these practiced items are referred to as RP+ items. The participants do not practise retrieving the other half of the items from the practiced category such as FRUIT–cherry; these are referred to as RP– items. Participants do not practise any of the items from the second category, in our example, SPORTS; these are referred to as no repeated practice (NRP) items. Following a delay, participants are asked to recall as many items from the study list as possible.

Question 61

2 findings of RIF paradigm

Answer 61

1 - RP+ items are more likely to be recalled than NRP items, suggesting that retrieval practice aids recall. 2. more surprising, finding is that RP– items are less likely to be recalled than NRP items. Thus, if a participant practises FRUIT–ch___, that participant is less likely to recall other items from the FRUIT category that were not practised; this phenomenon is known as retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF).

Question 62

retrieval-induced forgetting

Answer 62

forgetting that occurs because in order to retrieve one item accurately, similar items must be inhibited

Question 63

explanations for retrieval-induced forgetting - CII

Answer 63

competition-induced interference ---- when having to inhibit retrieval of an item results in later forgetting that same item when FRUIT–pe___ is presented during retrieval practice, many items strongly associated with FRUIT (such as cherry, banana, and orange) are activated and compete for retrieval. In order for the participant to retrieve the correct response, peach, the participant must suppress, or inhibit, these other activated fruits ----suppression is argued to have a lasting effect, making these suppressed items more difficult to retrieve in the future. suggests that the memory representation for RP– items is inhibited and thus predicts that suppressed items will be difficult to retrieve during the final test. This account suggests that RIF results from blocking, one of Schacter’s (2002) sins of omission.

Question 64

explanations for retrieval-induced forgetting ---

Answer 64

retrieval-induced forgetting effects are the result of context. mental context is established by the sorts of cognitive activities that are taking place at a given time and that this mental context can serve as a memory cue. According to the context account of RIF, all items are associated with the study context, but only RP+ items are associated with the retrieval practice context. during the test phase, both the mental activity of retrieval and the category words serve as contextual cues. When the participant sees a category name that was only present in the study phase, the study phase context is reinstated; the fact that the mental context is different is of no consequence. However, the authors argue that when the participant sees a context word presented during the retrieval practice phase, the retrieval practice context is instead reinstated because this is more similar to the current context than the study context.

Question 65

Jonker et al. (2013) tested the context account of the RIF effect

Answer 65

learn a list of word pairs from four different categories. Next, participants imagined their parents’ house in as much detail as possible for one minute extra study time for half the word pairs from half of the categories by reading the word pairs aloud (These were the RP+ items; the non-practiced items from the practiced categories were the RP– items; the remaining were NRP items.) extra study phase in this experiment does not involve retrieval, the inhibition account predicts no difference in recall for the RP– and the NRP items. ecause the imagination task creates a highly salient context for the RP+ items right before the test phase, the context account predicts that the RP+ items will be better recalled than the NRP items. Jonker et al. (2013) found worse recall for RP– items than NRP items, supporting Jonker et al.’s (2013) argument that retrieval-induced forgetting is the result of a more similar context between the test phase and the context associated with RP+ items than between the test phase and the context associated with the RP– items.

Question 66

RIF and what sin

Answer 66

the results of Jonker et al. (2013) strongly suggest that retrieval-induced forgetting is the result of mental context effects and not the inhibition of RP– items. This account of RIF suggests that RIF is due to bias, one of Schacter’s (2002) sins of commission.

Question 67

intentional forgetting - motivated forgetting

Answer 67

forgetting that results from deliberate attempts to suppress certain memories deliberately trying to limit encoding or retrieval of certain memories. Reasons for this may include the information being no long relevant (like an obsolete phone number) or the fact that the memory was unpleasant (like failing an exam).

Question 68

psychogenic amnesia - motivated forgetting

Answer 68

significant memory loss resulting from psychological factors unable to remember aspects of their personal history or event because of psychological mechanisms.

Question 69

Intentional forgetting has been studied extensively in the lab using.... two main types of DF paradigms

Answer 69

ntentional forgetting has been studied extensively in the lab using what are known as directed-forgetting (DF) paradigms. There are two main types of DF paradigms: the item-method and the list-method.

Question 70

item-method DF paradigm

Answer 70

a paradigm in which participants are instructed to forget specific items from a single list immediately after the item is presented Participants recalled about 75 per cent of to-be-remembered items and recalled about 40 per cent of to-be-forgotten items, indicating that memory is significantly worse when following instructions to forget. When performance is worse in the forget condition than the remember condition in a DF paradigm experiment, there is said to be a cost of forgetting.

Question 71

list-method DF paradigm

Answer 71

a paradigm in which participants are instructed to forget an entire list of items after it has been presented presented with one list of words (L1), then given a set of instructions, and then presented with a second list of words (L2). Participants in the forget condition are instructed to disregard L1, while participants in the remember condition are instructed to continue to remember L1 as they proceed through L2. Participants’ memory for L1 and L2 items is then tested. participants show a cost of forgetting; benefit of forgetting, where participants in the forget condition are better able to recall L2 items than participants in the remember condition

Question 72

The two-factor process-based framework for list-method directed forgetting presented by Sahakyan et al. (2013) suggests that....

Answer 72

the directed-forgetting cue first leads to a strategic decision on how to best forget the preceding items, which changes the mental context that the L2 items are encoded in.

Question 73

change in remembering strategy

Answer 73

that the effect of the change in strategy has an effect that is independent from change in context, because participants who change strategies between L1 and L2 show a benefit in recalling L2 items even if they are not instructed to forget L1 items. reduce proactive interference. The independent effects of strategy change and mental context change on performance in DF experiments are fundamental to the dual-process account

Question 74

neural activity and df paradigm

Answer 74

greater alpha oscillation power and reduced alpha oscillation phase coupling in the forget condition than in the remember condition. increase in alpha power was associated with benefits of forgetting while the reduction in alpha phase coupling was associated with costs of forgetting.

Question 75

encoding suppression

Answer 75

If individuals experience an event and know immediately that they wish to forget the event, they can engage in encoding suppression, or processes that make encoding less likely to be successful. a forget cue engages the right prefrontal-hippocampal network that suppresses encoding processes

Question 76

Changing Context - motivated forgetting of personal experiences

Answer 76

Sometimes people who have encoded events that they wish to forget will avoid the context that the event occurred in. For example, a person who was in a car accident may avoid the roads where the accident occurred Aids forgetting by: 1. The individual is avoiding retrieval cues that can trigger recall. 2. By avoiding recall, the individual prevents reactivation of the memory and consequent strengthening of the memory trace. 3. By avoiding the context and thereby not retrieving the memory, the individual is more likely to develop a positive mood state.

Question 77

retrieval suppression- motivated forgetting of personal experiences

Answer 77

Sometimes people have encoded events they wish to forget but they cannot avoid context or retrieval cues associated with that event. a process by which a person stops an encoded memory from entering conscious awareness think/no think (TNT) paradigm to examine the extent to which individuals can control what they think about, and what they do not think about. ---Forgetting increases as the number of suppression attempts increases retrieval suppression initiated by instructions given in the TNT paradigm triggers activity in the brain that is consistent with first stopping reflexive retrieval of hippocampal memories.

Question 78

thought substitution- motivated forgetting of personal experiences

Answer 78

When participants in the forget condition of a list-method DF paradigm experiment are asked what actions they took to try to forget the preceding items, participants who are most successful at forgetting tend to report that they intentionally thought about other things when items from the to-be-forgotten list came to mind keeping themselves busy has helped them to cope, thought substitution involves retrieving memories to replace unwanted memories in conscious awareness, a person cannot engage in both retrieval suppression and thought substitution at the same time

Question 79

activation of two memories during thought substitution may lead to forgetting in two ways

Answer 79

the unwanted memory may be selectively weakened, making it less accessible in subsequent retrieval attempts possible that the preferred thought may be strengthened during thought substitution, making this substitute memory easier to access later on. The strengthening of the preferred memory may lead to the weakening of all competing memories, including the unwanted memory

Question 80

if thought substitution is to be used as a means of forgetting, it is essential that

Answer 80

the unwanted memory and the substitute memory be very different.

Question 81

Psychogenic amnesia

Answer 81

Psychogenic amnesia is a rare form of retrograde amnesia caused by psychological, rather than biological, mechanisms, and typically develops following a traumatic or stressful life event.