forgetting encoding failure encoding failure storage decay retrieval failure

ForgettingForgetting

Encoding FailureEncoding Failure

Storage DecayStorage DecayRetrieval FailureRetrieval Failure

Encoding Failure

Test Your MemoryWhich is the real penny?

Encoding FailureEncoding Failure Penny activity: “Don’t encode Penny activity: “Don’t encode

what we don’t need.”what we don’t need.” No encoding / no LTM.No encoding / no LTM.

Storage DecayStorage Decay

Memory storage decays over timeMemory storage decays over time Lack of rehearsal accelerates decayLack of rehearsal accelerates decay Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curveEbbinghaus’s forgetting curve

Bahrick’s Spanish vocabulary study- memory Bahrick’s Spanish vocabulary study- memory loss leveled off after three years loss leveled off after three years

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve

Retrieval Failure

• The memory encoded, stored, but can’t access the memory.

Types of Retrieval Failure

Proactive Interference

• The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information. (New info messed up by old info)

If you call your new girlfriend your old girlfriend’s name.

Types of Retrieval Failure

Retroactive Interference

• The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information. (old info messed up by the new)

• “Positive transfer”When you finally remember this years locker combination, you forget last years.

Motivated Forgetting

One explanation is REPRESSION:

• psychoanalytic theory- Freud’s theory of repression

• Contradicts theory that emotions / stress hormones strengthen memories

Why does it exist?

Forgetting

My Trip To Cheesecake Factory

You go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. You are seated at a table with a white tablecloth. You study the menu. You tell the female server you want Avocado Egg Rolls, extra sauce, Roadslide Sliders, Thai Lettuce Wraps, and Chino-Latino Steak (medium). You also order a Cherry Coke from the beverage list. A few minutes later the server returns with your Avocado Egg Rolls. Later the rest of the meal arrives. You enjoy it all, except the Chino-Latino Steak is a bit overdone.

Cheesecake factory

How did you order the steak?

Was the red tablecloth checkered?

What did you order to drink?

Did a male server give you a menu?

Memory Construction“To remember our past is to revise it.”

• We sometimes alter our memories as we encode or retrieve them.

• Your expectations, schemas, environment may alter your memories.

Misinformation Effect

• Elizabeth Loftus (over 200 experiments)• Incorporating misleading information into one’s

memory of an event.• IOW: Our memory is influenced by the

language of the question…• Huge implications for questioning eyewitnesses,

or retrieval of memory in abuse cases…• Youngest and oldest (around 5 and 75) are

most susceptible

Misinformation EffectLeading Question: About how fast were the vehicles going when they smashed into each other?

Or… When they ran into each other?

Source AmnesiaSource AmnesiaSource attributionSource attribution

Forgetting, or attributing the wrong source Forgetting, or attributing the wrong source to an experience, or memoryto an experience, or memory

One of the frailest parts of our memoryOne of the frailest parts of our memory

3-5 years old- source memory develops 3-5 years old- source memory develops (prefrontal cortex)(prefrontal cortex)

Where have I seen that person before..?Where have I seen that person before..?

Who told me about that…?Who told me about that…?

Discerning True and False Discerning True and False MemoriesMemories

Experienced memories recalled with more detailExperienced memories recalled with more detail

Imagined memories recall the Imagined memories recall the gistgist (main idea) (main idea)

Basic questions (gist) run risk of eliciting Basic questions (gist) run risk of eliciting imaginative memories (therapists, investigators)imaginative memories (therapists, investigators)

Can’t judge a memory by how real it feels…Can’t judge a memory by how real it feels…

… … or by persistence of memory.or by persistence of memory.

Types of AmnesiaTypes of Amnesia

Anterograde AmnesiaAnterograde Amnesia Post-accident amnesia (remember the old, but Post-accident amnesia (remember the old, but

not the new)not the new) Often TBI (part of brain?)Often TBI (part of brain?)

Retrograde AmnesiaRetrograde AmnesiaNew memory but not the oldNew memory but not the old

Pre-accident amnesiaPre-accident amnesia