midterm 4
memory illusion
- false but compelling report of an experience that did not happen
- brains go beyond available information to make sense of the world
- may fill in the "gaps" of memories
- prone to error
memory
- the retention of information
- not static and can change over time
memory paradox
- memories can be surprisingly good in some cases and poor in others
remarkable memory capacity - kim peek
- rain man movie
- recall books word for word
- calander calculater
remarakable memory capacity - rajan mahadevan
- memorized 31, 811 digits of pi
remarkable memory capacity - hyperthemestic syndrome
- superior autobiographical memory, memory of personal life
- when, where and what of almost all experiences
- less than 100 people diagnosed
reconstructive memory
- actively reconstruct memories, not passively recalling them
- remembering a walk, saw yourself walking even though its impossible, memort includes manufactured perspective
what are memories shaped from
- top down processing
- hunches, beliefs, moods, expectations and cultural narratives
sensory memory
- each sense has a sensory memory
- maintains our perceptions in a buffer area before passing them to short term memory
- gives our brain extra time to process incoming sensations
iconic memory
- memory for visual stimuli
- last about 1 second
echoic memory
- memory for auditory stimuli
- last 5-10 seconds
sensory memory - george sperling (1960)
- flashed 12 letters, 4 in a row
- recall 4-5 letters but everyone recalled different ones
- usually recalled one row of 4
- only recall 4-5 letters before iconic memory fades
eldetic imagery
- photographic memory
- describe images perfectly
- may make some errors but have excellent recollections
short term memory
- memory system that retains information for 5-20 seconds
short term memory - construction
- sensory memory feed into short term memory and constructs
- after construction gets moved to long term memory or discards
working memory
- ability to hold information were currently thinking about, attending to or actively processing
short term memory - decay
- memories fade over time
short term memory - interference
- loss of information due to competition with other information
short term memory - retroactive interference
- new information interferes with past information
- after learning new chapter, may forget past chapters
- when 2 stimuli are simular
short term memory - proactive interference
- early learning interferes with new learning
- sensation and perception chapter is making it harder to learn about sensory memory
- when 2 stimuli are simular
short term memory - chunking
- the organization of a large body of information into smaller, more meaningful groups
short term memory - rehearsal
- repeating information
- extends the duration of short term memory
short term memory - maintenance rehearsal
- simply repeating the stimuli in the same some
- someone tell you thier phone number and you just repeat the number to yourself
short term memory - elaborative rehearsal
- link stimuli to eachother in a meaningful way
- more effective
short term memory - levels of processing
- our ability to recall information is related to how deeply we process the information
ALL POEPLE CREATE THEIR OWN MEANING OF LIFE
- visual, most shallow, what do the letters look like
- phonological, middle, words sound like
- semantic, deepest, sentance meaning
short term memory - depth processing
- present each word
1. count how many syllabeles in the word (shallow)
2. rate the word as positice/ negative (deep)
- people remember more words with the deeoer positive/ negative ratings
long term memory
- relativeot enduring store of information
- includes facts, experiences and skills over time
long term memory - permastore
- can last decades or a lifetime
long term memory - capacity
- unknown
- assumed to be 500 huge encyclopedias or 1500 pages long worth of information
long term memory - errors
- usually semantic (meaning related)
short term memory - errors
- usually acoustic (sound related)
memory tests, primacy and recency
- most likely to remember first/ last couple of words-
- primacy, remember first stimuli presented
- recency, remember latest presented stimuli
explicit memory
- includes memories we recall intentionally and have conscious awareness of
semantic memory
- general knowledge
- facts
- meanign of words
- memory not tied to a time and place
episodic memory
- recollection of events in our lives
- vivid and detailed
- connected to a time and place
- mental time - travel
implicit memory
- includes memories we dont deliberatelt remember or consciouslt reflect on
implicit memory - procedural
- memory on how to do thinks, including motor skill and habits
- riding a bike, unlocking a door
implicit memory - priming
- our ability to identifiy a stimuli more easily or quickly if we have experienced a simular stimuli
memory prosesses
- sensory, short term and long term are the what of memory
- memory processes are the how of memory
memory prosesses - encoding
- getting information into the memory
- attention maximizes
memory prosesses - storage
- keeping information in memory
memory prosesses - retrieval
- getting information out of memory
mnemonics
- devices that help to learn new information
- involve linking new information to meaningful concepts already stored in the long term memory
mnemonics - acronyms
BEDMAS
- brackets
- exponents
- division
- multiplication
- addititon
- subtraction
mnemonics - rhymes
- thirty days hath september, april, june, and november. all the rest have 31, except for february, which has 28, and you probably think it’s great. or maybe it’s fine, on leap year, it has 29
mnemonics - songs
- alphabet song
- country songs
mnemonics - pegwords
- associate each number in a list with a word that rhymes with a word that rhymes with the number
- one, bun
- two, shoe
- three, tree
- list of concepts, link to pegword
- bread, bun
- apples, tree
- candy, door
mnemonics - method of loci
- linking a list of concepts to landmarks
- grocery list, coffee, bread, candy, apples
- walk from cafe to office
- cafe, eat bread there
- walk past students in lobby, apple phones and laptops
- walk past coffee shop, drink coffee
- walk past vending machine by security, dispense candy
storage
- keeping information in memory
- depending on interpretations and expectations
storage - schemas
- organized knowledge structures ot mental models we have stored in memory
- based on our expectations
- often used to fill in the gaps
- helpful or missleading depending
- offcie schema, may expect to see desk, chair, computers, books and papers
retrieval
- reactivation or reconstruction of experiences from our memory stores
- many types of forgetting are failure of retrieval, which is reconstructive
three R's - recall
- generating previously remembered information
- short answer questions, which area of the brain is involved in fear (amygdala)
- free recall, write down as many words as you can from the list
- serial recall, write down the words in the order they appeared
three R's - recognition
- selecting previously remembered information from an array of options
- multiple choice
- old/ new recognition, on the list or not
recognition - confidence judgement
- definitly old, maybe old, definitely new, maybe new
recognition - alternative forced choice (AFC)
- 2 AFC, 2 alternatives
- 4 AFC, 4 alternatives
three R's - relearning
- we aquire something we learned before much faster
- save time when relearning
- easier to relearn a song on the guitar than to learn it for the first time
relearning - herman ebbinghaus
- tried to memorize many nonsense syllables like ZAK and BOL to test recollection across different intervals
- most forgetting occurs immediatly after learning new material, less forgetting after that
- second time aroud he learned way faster and better
retreieval faliure - tip of the tongue phenomenon
- when we are sure we know information but cant remeber what that information is
- the information can sometimes be retrieved by a related cue or hint of a word that sounds simular
- can usually recall the first letter or the syllabeles but can not spit the word out
law of distributed vs. massed practice
- studying in small increments over a long period of time (distributed) is more effective than large increments in a small amount of time (massed)
- might be good during exam but not for future rememberance
encoding specificity
- more likely to remember something when the conditions of encoding time is present during retrieval
- when the encode and retrevial match
contex dependant learning
- superior retrieval when external encoding contex matches the retrieval context
- students may do better when they write exams in the same classroom where they learned the material
state dependant learning
- superior retrievsl of memories when the organism is in the same physiological or psychological state during encoding
- people who learn a task while drinking, tend to retreive it better while drinking rather than sober
mood dependant learning
- easier to recall happy memories when happy and sad memories when sad
retrospective bias
- our surrent psycological state can distort memories of our past
- indivduals with depression think they were treated more harshly by their parents in childhood than indivuals without depression, only occurs with currently depressed people not people with pass depression
- mood influences memory
biology of memory
- memories of different types of experiences are stored in different brain regions
- memories are spread out across the brain
biology of memory - long term potentiation
- the gradual strengthening of the connections amoung neurons from repetitive stimulation
- neurons that fire together, wire together
- key role in learning
- synapses sends the neurotransmitter glutamate into the synaptic cleft
- enhances the release of glutamate into the synaptic cleft, enhancing learning
biology of memory - hippocampus
- plays a key role in forming memories
amnesia
- when implicit and explicit memories are goverened by different brain stems
- can still speak, walk and drive
- losing all details of their previous life
amnesia - retrograde
- lost of past memory
- rare
amnesia - anterograde
- loss of ability to make new memories
- more common
amnesia - patient H.M
- had radical surgey to treat epilepsy
- removed temopral lobes and hippocampi
- experienced mild retrograde and severe anterograde amnesia, but implicit memory was relatively intact
- couldnt learn new episodic/ semantic information, but could learn some skills like mirror tracing
clive wearing
- hippocampi were destroyed by a virus, resulting in complete anterograde amnesia
- when wife left room, and came back he showed affection like he hasnt seen her in years
emotional memory
- amygdala and hippocampus interact to give us emotional memory
- amygdala helps recall emotions associated with fearful events
-hippocampus helps recall the events themselves
- people with amygdala damage may remeber facts about fearful experiences without feeling fear
- people with hippocampus damage may experience fear reaction but dont remeber facts
erasing memories
- some memories are distressing
- debatable if valuble to erase traumatic memories
erasing memories - emotional arousing
- things tend to be more strongly remebered
- adrenaline and norepinephrine solidifies memories
erasing memories - pharmacological treatments
- during memory recall may affect the emotional value of memory
- drugs luke propranolol that blocks effects of adrenaline may be effective
erasing memories - lawrence cahill and james mcgaugh
- 2 stories to a boys hospital visit
- one was emotionally- neutral
- one was disturbing
- more people recall disturbing story and the boys truama
- people who took propranolol (blocked adrenaline) didnt really remeber the truamatic details
biology of memory deterioration
- memory declines after 65 years of age
alzheimers disease
- most frequent cause of dementia (50-60% of cases)
- involves memory and language losses
- consitant cortical losses
- more active less likely to get
- greater education and intellectual activity is less likley to get
memory over time
- childrens memory increases in sophistication
- memory span increases with age
memory over time - conceptual knowledge
- allows us to connect new information to previously learned information
- CIA meaning isnt relevent unless learnt about central intelligence agency
- develop meta-memory skills
- knowledge of memory limitations, helpful strategies
infantile amnesia
- cant remeber things before ages 2-3
- due to hippocampus not being fully developed
false memories
- our memories are more fallible than most think
false memories - flashbulb memories
- emotional memories that are vivid and feel exceptionsally detailed
- historical events (9/11 attack)
- memories decline over time
false memories - imagination inflation
- imagining an event inflates confidence that the event occured
false memories - source monitoring confusion
- lack of clarity about the orgins of the memory
- real life or imagination or someone else
- causes memory illusions
- cryptomnesia
- accidental plagerism
implanting false memories in the lab - suggestive memory techniques
- procedure that encourages patients to recall memories that may or may not have taken place
- lost in the mall as a child study
implanting false memories in the lab - misinformation effect
- creation of fictitious memories by providing misleading information about an event after it takes place
- smashed or contacted car accident gave different answers
- contacted was a smaller speed
- important for eyewitness testimonies, leading question can lead to inaccurate memories
eyewitness testimonys
- many people have been acquittted of a crime after DNA testign or other evidence emerged due to wrongful eyewitness testimonys
- correlation between confidenct and accuracy
eyewitness testimonies - accurate settings
- lots of time to observe the perpetrator under good lighting conditions
- when the criminal isnt diguised
- identifiying the criminal right after witnessing the crime
eyewitness testimonies non accurate settings
- observing different races
- talking to other witnesses
- only catching a breif glance of the criminal
- stressful circumstances
- focused on the weapon not crimal appearance
false memories in psychotherapy - memory recovery therapists
- claim the patient repress memories of traumatic events
- root of psychological problems
- major impkications of people being seperated from their families or locked up due to recovered memories of abuse
thinking
- any mental activity or processing of information
- includes learning, remebering, perceiving, communication, believing and deciding
thinking - cognitive misers
- our brains
- cognitive economy, invest as little energy as possible in processing
- fast and frugal thinking
- if we quickly analysed everything we would be quickly overwhelmed
thinking - thin slicing
- quick judgement on limited observations
- sometimes can be accurate
- seeing a dorm room
- a profs rating on a small clip
cognitive bias
- a systematic error in thinking
heuristics
- mental shortcuts to increase our thinking effeciency
- simplify what we attend to, minimize the information we need for decision making
heuristics - representativeness
- involves judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a sterotype
- ignores base rate, how common something is in general
heuristics - availability
- involves estimating the liklihood of an occurence based on the ease with whcich it comes to mind
- beer and peanut case
heuristics - hindsight
- our tendenct to overestimate how well we could have predicted something after it has already occurred
- "i knew it all along" effect
- john and janes break up (many signs)
top down processing
- conceptually driven processing influenced by beliefs and expectation
- streamlines cognitive functioning by utilizing pre exisiting knowledge to fill in the gaps
top down processing - concepts
- our knowledge and ideas about a set of objects, actions and characterisitcs that share core properties
- concepts make thinking more efficient
- meeting a dog for the first time and acting like youve known them for ages
- helps us get by with less cognitive effort
top down processing - schemas
- concepts we have stored in memory about how certain actions, objects and ideas relate to eachother
- allow us to know what to expect in a given situation
- may not apply to real world when you order from tablet or server
linguistic determinism
- veiw that all thought is represented verbally and language defines out thinking
linguistic determinism - extreme veiw
- thought entirely determined by language
- not the case
- children can preform tasks before they can speak
- language areas of the brain arent actuve during spatial and visual imagery
linguistic relativity
- sapir-whorf hypothesis, a less radical veiw, wherein characteristics of language influence out thought processes
- language shapes some aspects of perception, memory and thought
- dufficulty seperating language from cultural differences
decision making
- the process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives
- system 1, rapid and intuitive
- system 2, slow, deliberate and analytical
- 1, many of our decisions are made implicity and based on cognitive economy (what to eat for lunch, where to park)
- 2, many of our decisions are much larger and require more careful deliberation (where to go to university, career choice)
is careful analysis always good
- people who go with thei rgut were happier
- for emotional choices its better to rely on intuitive thinking
- in objectively more optimal cases decitions woth slow and deliberatively thought are better
framing
- the impact in decisions even when the underlying information relevant to these decisioons is identical
- tversky and kahneman (1981), save vs. loss framing
problem solving
- generating a cognitive strategy to accomplish a specific goal
- we rely on algorithms to solve problems
problem solving - algorithms
- series of defined steps that always get the right answer
- replacing the starter on a car, making peanut butter and jelly sandwich
- still other approaches
problem solving - subgoals
- break down the problem into more manageable chunks
- writing a term paper, could break into smaller chunks
- finding a topic, finding releavent papers, writing the intro ect
problem solving - analogies
- solve problems by using solutions to other problems with similar structures
- george de mestral invented velcro after observing how burrs stuck to his dogs fur by using a series of tiny hooks that attached to the fur
obstacles to problem solving - salience of surface similarities
- ignoring irrelevant surface details and focusing on meaningful details can be challenging
- algebra word problems, focus on the surface issue rather than the underlying math
obstacles to problem solving - mental sets
- phenomenon of becoming stuck in a specific problem solving strategy, inhibiting our abikity to generate alternatives
obstacles to problem solving - functional fixedness
- difficulty conceptualizing that an object typically used for one purpose can be used for another
models of mind
- psychological thought the mind worked like a computer not anymore
- embodied accounts of thinking, our knowledge is organized and accessed in a manner that enables us to simulate our actual experiences
- thinking involves reactivation of sensory experiences or simulations
language
- arbitary system of communication that combines symbols such as words or gestural signs, in rul ebased ways to create meaning
- allows for communication of information as well as social and emotional functions
- highly practiced and automatic process
features of language - phonemes
- fundamental sounds
- catagories of sounds our vocal apparatus produces
- probably around 100 total, each language only uses a subset of them
- 40-45 in english and 15-60 in most others
features of language - morphemes
- smallest units of meaning
- convey information about semantics
- prefix (start)
-suffix (end)
syntax
- rules by which sentences are putting together
- includes word order, morphelogical markers (grammical elements that modify word by adding prefixes and suffixes changing meaning) and sentence structure
features of language - extralinguistic information
- elements of communicatiom that arent part of the content of language but are critical to interpreting its meaning
extralinguistic information
- elements of communication that are not part of the content of language but are critical to interpreting meaning
- includes facial expressions, tone of voice, contex and previous statements by others
- used to help interpret ambiguous information
- used to understand sarcasm
language dialects
- variations of the same language used by groups of people from specific geographical areas, social groups, or ethnic backgrounds
- uses consisitant syntax rules but may differ from mainstream speech
- soda vs pop
why do we have language - disadvantages
- long learning period
- hefty brain power
- vocal tract we use increases risk of choking
why do we have languages - advantages
- communication of complex ideas
- coordinates social interactions
- assists in complex activities
is language arbitrary
- phonemes, morphemes and syntax are not usually related to what they refer
- allows flexibility to express complex ideas that do not have sounds associated with them
- exceptions of onomatopoeia and sound symbolism
onomatopoeia
- words that resemble the sounds to which they refer
- buzz, meow, beep, bang
sound symbolism
- the fact that certain speech sounds seem to be associated woth a particualr meaning
- suggest language isnt completely arbitrary
- auditory and other sensory systems influence how languesges evolve
learning language - high amplitude sucking procedure
- begin recognizing their native language before being born
- sucks harder on english speaking people than spanish if native language is english
learning language - babbling
- intentional vocalization that lacks meaning
- allows for development of vocal tracts
- starts to sound meaningful but isnt
- start phoneme recognition
learning words
- comprehension before production
- recognize name by 6 months
- recognize other words by 10-12 months and starts talking
learning words - overextending
- misapply words to broader senses
- calling all flying objects birds
- calling all grey haired men grandpa
- calling all vehicles cars
learning words - underextend
- failure to apply words to a broader sense
- might only call their own pet a cat
- might call a rose a flower but not other flowers like daisies and tulips
syntactic development
- putting words into phrases
- children comprehend word order
sign language
- type of language used by deaf people using visual communication
- exhibits all spoken language features
- complex set of sptactic rules
- involves some brain areas
- development is the same as spoken
- deaf babies babble with their hands
bilingualism
- the younger you are the easier it is to learn 2 languages
- usually one dominant language
- pass through the same stages as monolinguists although the sytax is slowed
- heighted metalunguistic insight (awareness of how language is structured and used) make language tasks easier
is there a critical period for language learning
- windows of time in development during which an organism must learn an ability if its going to learn at all
is there a critical period for language learning - genie
- genie, seriously neglected and abused deprived of language until adolescence
- developed rudimentary ability to communicate but never became a fluent language user
- language difficulties could stem from severe emotional and physical neglect
language learning - less is more
- younger you are better you will learn a new language
- children have limited information processing, analytical skills and specific knowledge about language
- natuarally learn more naturalistically and from the ground up
language learning - johnson and newport (1989)
- english grammar skills of adults whod immigrated to the USA from china and korea at various ages
- language learning drops off more gradually the older you get
imitation - account
- suggests babies hear language used in systematic ways and learn to use language as adults use it
- babies are reinforced by caregivers when they use language appropriatley
imitations - generativity
- allowing an infinite number of unique sentences to be created by combining words in novel ways
- couldnt possibly learn all sentence combinations through imitations and reinforcement alone
nativist
- suggest that children are born with some basic knowledge about how learning works
- noam chomskys language acquisition device
- hypothetical constrct in the brain in which nativists believe knowledge of syntax resides
nativist - poverty of the stimulus
- idea that children are not exposed to enough examples to aquire all features of language
- recent studies show that you can extract a huge amount of information about language from experience
- difficut to falsify
social pragmatics
- children infer what words and sentences mean from context and social interactions
- children use the context of a conversation to infer its topic from the actions, expressions, gestures and other behaviours of speakers
- requires assuming that infants have insight into others thoughts
social pragmatics - cooccurrences
- learning the name of an object from the caregiver pointing
- might not have to infer the intention of the pointing, child may simply learn that some word is uttered everytime and the caregiver poinys to the specific object
general cognitive processing
- proposes the ability to learn language results from general skills children apple across a variety of activities
- childrens ability to perceive, learn and recognize patterns may be all they need to learn language
- dont need a specialized language acquisition device
- specific areas of the brain like the left temporal lobe are more active in language processing that other types of learning