Remembering & Forgetting

Remembering & Forgetting

1. iNTERFERENCE

   • RETROACTIVE INTERFERENCE what we have learned more recently interferes with infomation we had previously learned. EG forgetting how to use your old mobile when you have become used to using a new model.
     • PROACTIVE INTERFERENCE what we have previously learned interferes with what we have learned m,ore recently. EG calling your new boyfriend by your old boyfriends name.
   • EVALUATION 1) slthough the effects are demonstrated, there is no real explanation as to why they occur. 2) Almost impossible to say that decay was not involved. 3) Use of artificial stimuli in a laboratory environment, such as nonse syllables. 4) Some researchers have use real lfe events and so provided support.
   • STUDY. Schmidt et al (2000) i) participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that contained a map of their childhood neighbourhood. ii) asked how long they had lived there and how often thry had moved. iii) ther variable was the number of street names they recalled correctly. iv) participants who had moved more than 8 times recalled an average of 10 street names. v) those who had never moved recalled an average of 23
   • STUDY. Baddely and Hitch (1977). Rugby players were asked to recall the names of the teams they had played earlier in the season. Through the season, different players had played different numbers of games. Looked at how recall was affected by both the number of intervening games and the amount of time that had passed since each game was played. Results clearly showed that forgetting was affected by the number of intervening games, rather than the amount of time that had passed.

2. DECAY

   • Offers an explanation for forgetting in both short term and long term memory. Memories have been shown to involve structual changes in the brain and the establishment of fixed connections between neurons (Rose 1992)
     • Decay is really a biological explanation which suggests that unless infomation is rehearsed, the trace connection between neurons are not sufficiently fixed and simply fade away. This would explain forgetting in short term memory.
     • In long term memory, memories (which have been rehearsed and so have become fixed as a structual change in the brain) can nevertheless fade away over time if not used regularly.
   • STUDY. Waugh and Norman (1965). Set out to investigate forgetting in a short term memory task. Participants heard a list of 16 digits in one condition, where the list was presented at a rate of 4/second. Thus in the first condition, the list took 16 seconds to read out, whereas in the second condition it took only 4 seconds to read out. After presentation of the list, participants were given a cue to indicate which of the sequences to recall. If decay was responsible for gorgetting, then the more time that had passed, the more infomation would be forgotten. However, there was no significant differene in recall found between the two conditions. The findings do not supporrt decay theory, as they suggest that the passage pf time alone cannot explain forgetting.

3. LACK OF CONSOLIDATION

   • This explaination has a biological basis. Parkin (1993) descrives the making of memoories as perminant alteration of the brain substrate in order to represent some aspect of a past experience.
     • Brain research suggests that the pattern of activity between connecting nerurons forms the basis for making memory. The neurotransmitter acetylcholine has been identified as very important for the consolidation process. It follows, therefore, that interfereing with the activity of acetycholine could disrupt consolidation, leading to forgetting.
   • STUDY. Yarnell and Lunch (1970). American footballers who had beein knocked out in games were investigated. They were asked about details of play straight after waking up. and then again between 3 and 20 minutes later. When they were asked immediately, they could recall the details. However no infomation was available for recall when questioned 3-20 minutes later. Proves that the concussion disrupted the consolidation of infomation, as they could recall detai;s straight after waking meaning they did originally take in the infomation.
   • STUDY. Drachmn and Sahakian (1979). A drug that prevents acetycholine passing between neurons was given to a group of participants, and a control group recieved none. Both groups were given a list of words to learn, and after learning, they were given a 60 second distracter task. then asked to recall the words. Participants in the control group recalled around 2x as many words as those who had taken the drug.
   • EVALUATION. Consistant with knowledge of neurvous system, neurons etc. Links both biological and psychological approaches to memory.

4. REPRESSION

   • Sometimes reffered to as motivated forgetting, repression means that we forget things because we wish to forget them, as they might be damaging to our psyche.
   • STUDY. Levinger and Clark (1961) aimed to test the idea of repression experimentally. Participants were given a list of words, some emotionally negative such as 'sadness' or 'rape' and a set of emotionally neutral words such as 'house' and 'car'. They were then asked to provide an associated word for each stimulus word (e.g. 'sadness' = cry). Later, they were asked to recall the word that they had chosen to match the cue. The results show that fewer associated words for the emotionally negative cues were recalled than the neutral set. The difficulty recalling the negative word associations was taken as an indication of repression.
   • STUDY. Williams (1994). Set out to see if women around the ages 18 & 31 recalled incidents of chilhood abuse. The participants were 129 women shown by hospital documentation to have been abused between the ages of 10 months and 12 years. In extended interviews about their sexual history, 38% of the women failed to report the abusive episode. They had failed to recall specific incidents of abuse because they had been repressed.

5. WORKING MEMORY MODEL

   • CENTRAL EXECUTIVE
     • Responsible for allocating processing resources to the two slave systems. It is the most iportant componant of qorking memory and its disfunction is often implicated in many neurological disorders. Monitors and coordinates all other mental functions in working memory.
   • THE PHONOLOGICAL LOOP
     • Auditory short term memory. Its a loop because it can store and repeat sound for a limited period of around 20-30 seconds. It has two sub components, phonological store and articulatory control process.
       • The phonological store is the inner ear and contains snippits of sounds either from the outside world or recalled from long term memory.
       • The articulatory control process is the inner voice, which is essentially our own voice inside our heads. Encodes sounds into the working memory, incolving maintenance rehersal.
   • THE VISUO-SPATIAL SKETCH PAD
     • The visual short term memory, or the inner eye. It can manipulate images into two or three dimensions. For example, you recall a friends face from long term memory. Encodes visual information in terms of different objects as well as the arrangement of these objects in ones visual field.
   • EPISODIC BUFFER
     • Recieves input from many sources, temporaily stores this infomation and then intergrates it inorder to construct a mental episodie of what is being experienced. Added to model to explain why some patients with amnesia can remember some things.

6. LEVELS OF PROCESSING

   • STRUCTUAL
     • Shallow, sensory memory
   • SEMANTIC
     • Deeper, meaningful infomation
   • PHONOLOGICAL
     • Auditory information

7. MULTI STORE MODEL

   • Stimuli enters the sensory memory. Provided attention is given to the stimuli, this infomation is passed to the short term memory. After elborative rehearsal of the infomation it enters the long term memory.
     • STUDY. Case of HM. Lost his short term memory after brain surgery to reduce symptoms of epilepsy. Even though he had lost his ST memory, his long term memory was intact.

8. STRUCTURE

   • STM
     • 18-30 second duration
     • 7+/- 2 capacity
     • acoustic encoding
   • LTM
     • unlimited capacity
     • unlimited duration
     • semantic encoding