In depth lecture notes about long term memory/brain and cognition, may also contain diagrams and references- easy to understand layout great revision/exam prep
Consolidation- memory records are written over and over till they reach some stability.
Factors for consolidation… exposure, intention, depth of processing, structure of information
- Exposure – number of contacts with object. But often we can’t remember things we have seen
many times! E.g. the penny test! MURDOCK tested influences of rate or presentation and of
number of items in a list
- Intention - HYDE&JENKINS used 24 words each shown for 3 secs and asked ptps to tell them if
the word contains an ‘a’ or ‘q’, then asked to rate the pleasantness of the word (half of ptps
were told to recall later). Showed only a very small effect of intention on learning, but big diff
depending on level of processing.
- level of processing – CRAIK&LOCKHART made the distinction between shallow and deep
processing- ptps processed lists of words under diff conditions, then were unexpectedly tested
on how many words they remembered. Abstract knowledge= abstract thoughts= more thinking
- Skill acquisition – follows what is known as the power law of practice- learning to do something…
the whole process is consolidation, you need more and more training to keep leaning at the
same rate.
- Interference- retroactive (new memory interferes with old info) e.g. new phone number= can’t
remember old number. Proactive (old memory interferes with new info) e.g. old phone number=
can’t remember new number. Difficulty understanding something new – mixed signals for brain.
o Interference due to format of info- acoustic confusion
o Interference due to semantic content of info- closely-related concepts
o Three experiments to determine if acoustic/semantic interferences impair recognition of
recently learnt items. Ptps shown list of 8 words in 3 conditions; no distractions,
phonetic distraction and semantic distractors. Phonetic= more efficient in short periods.
To learn:
- Exposure isn’t enough
- Intention isn’t enough
- Processing is required
- Structuring info facilitates learning
- Do not get distracted
- Motivation matters
RETRIEVAL - from LTM to STM. It is the process whereby info in working memory accesses LTM-
commonly conceived as the transfer of info from one entity (database of knowledge) to another.
- Recognition- means to ‘know again; ability to match perceptual input with knowledge.
- Working memory- request of info (conscious process)
- SHEPARD – 540 words in learning phase, 60 test pairs of old and new words, 88% correct
decisions, same experiment with 612 pics= 97% correct. Performance in recognition tasks are
better than recall tasks even after longer retention intervals.
- Retrieval of info from memory depends on cues- TULVIG&THOMSON- encoding specificity
principle
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