Cognition and Memory Slides.pptx

Introduction to

Memory

•

_{Stages of Memory}

•

_{Information Processing}

model

•

_{Working memory/Short}

Memory

Memory is the basis of knowing your friends, your neighbors, the English language, the national anthem, and

yourself.

Memory is any indication that learning has persisted over time. It is our ability to

store and retrieve information.

If there was no memory every one would be a stranger to you, every language foreign, every task new, and even you

How does Memory fit in with

what we have already

studied?

•

Nurture—how can you learn from

experiences without being able to

remember??

•

Encoding memories in the brain

(Hippocampus-explicit,

Cerebellum-implicit)

•

Sensory stimuli transduced and

compared to what you already know

•

Classical conditioning and extinction

•

Thinking and heuristics (problem

Stages of Memory

Keyboard (Encoding)

Disk (Storage)

Monitor (Retrieval)

Information Processing Model

Atkinson-Schiffrin (1968) three-stage model of memory includes a) sensory memory, b) short-term memory and c)

long-term memory.

Problems with the Model

1. Some information skips the first two

stages and enters long-term memory

automatically.

2. The model is linear and doesn’t account

for all memory stores (some people

whose memories do not seem to decay

may have more memory stores than

others)

3. Some rare cases people have damage to

STM and LTM is not affected (how

possible?)

4. The nature of short-term memory is

Working Memory

Alan Baddeley (2002) proposes working memory to contain auditory and visual processing areas

Encoding: Getting Info. in



_{Types of processing}



_{Memory effects}

Encoding: Getting

Information In

How We Encode

1. Some information (route to your school) is automatically processed. 2. However novel information (friend’s

Automatic Processing

Enormous amount of information is processed effortlessly (parallel

processing) by us, like:

1. Space: While reading a textbook you

automatically encode place of a picture on a page.

2. Time: We unintentionally note the

events that take place in a day.

3. Frequency: You effortlessly keep track

Effortful Processing

Novel information committed to memory requires effort, like learning a

concept from a text. Such processing leads to durable and accessible memories.

Rehearsal

rehearsal by using

nonsense syllables: TUV YOF GEK XOZ

He also came up with the “forgetting

Rehearsal

The more times the nonsense syllables were

practiced on Day 1,

the fewer

repetitions were required to

Memory Effects

1. Next-in-line-Effect: that a person in a group

has diminished recall for the words of others who spoke immediately before or after this person, because we are concentrating on what we are going to say

2. Spacing Effect: We retain information better

when our

rehearsal is distributed over time.

3. Serial Position Effect: When your recall is

Spacing Effect

Distributed rehearsal (spacing effect) is better than massed practice.

DON’T CRAM FOR TESTS

Serial Position Effect

1. TUV 2. ZOF 3. GEK 4. WAV 5. XOZ 6. TIK 7. FUT 8. WIB 9. SAR 10. POZ 11. REY 12. GIJ

Better recall

Ways We Encode

1. Encoding by meaning 2. Encoding by images

(mnemonics)

3. Encoding by organization

Read the directions on your page to

yourself

Encoding “Meaning”

--

Semantic encoding

is a specific type of

encoding in which the meaning of

something (a word, phrase, picture,

event, whatever) is encoded as opposed

to the sound or vision of it.

--We have better recall for things that we

semantically encode and make

Results

Encoding Imagery

•

Visual images easily encode

•

Especially extremely positive or

negative images

•

Do you remember

Mnemonics

Imagery is at the heart of many memory aids. Mnemonic techniques that use vivid

imagery in aiding memory.

1. Method of Loci (Location

method)

--this method involves matching items to

be memorized with a well known location

--Essentially, you would imagine yourself

walking through a very familiar area (the

road to the store, the various rooms of your

house, etc) and place the items to be

remembered in each location

--The strength of this method is that our

brains are better organized to store

1. Method of Loci (Location

method)

Using the method of

loci, remember these

words

Cap

Rubber band

Mouse

2. Link Method

Involves forming a mental image of items

to be remembered in a way that links them

together.

•

6 Red Apples

•

Large Loaf of Bread

•

Carton of Milk

•

Bar of Foamy Soap

•

Pair of Yellow Socks

1st Link: Apples smashed on a shopping cart/trolley

3rd Link: Giant milk carton kicking a loaf of bread

5th Link: Soap Man puts on his fuzzy yellow socks

Complex information broken down into broad concepts and further subdivided

into categories and subcategories.

Organizing Information for

Encoding

1. Chunkin g

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar,

manageable unit. Try to remember the number below.

1-7-7-6-1-4-9-2-1-8-1-2-1-9-4-1

If you are well versed with American history, chunk the number and see if

Chunking

Acronyms are another way to chunk information and remember it.

HOMES = Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior

PEMDAS = Parentheses, Exponent, Multiply, Divide, Add,

Subtract

ROY G. BIV = Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo,

Hierarchy

Complex information broken down into broad concepts and further subdivided

Encoding Summarized in a

Storage: Retaining

Information

• _{Sensory memory} • _Echoic

• _Iconic • _Haptic

• _{Working Memory (Short Term)} • _{Long term memory}

• _LTP

Take out a piece of paper and

name as many presidents as

Storage: Retaining

Information

At the heart of memory is storage. Three stores of memory are shown

below:

Sensory Memory

Working Memory

Long-term Memory

Encoding

Retrieval Encoding

Events

Sensory Memory

Sensory Memory

Working Memory

Long-term Memory

Encoding

Retrieval Encoding

Events

Types of Sensory Memory

• Echoic memories are memory of brief

auditory stimuli

• Iconic memories are memory of brief

visual stimuli

• Haptic memories are memory for tactile

sense of touch

• Typically, echoic memories are stored for

slightly longer periods of time than iconic memories (visual memories)

• All are sensory memories, not types of

Sensory Memories

Iconic

0.5 sec. long Echoic 3-4 sec. long

Haptic

< 1 sec. long

Working Memory

Sensory Memory

Working Memory

Long-term Memory

Encoding

Retrieval Encoding

Events

Listen to these

numbers

When I say “recall”,

write them down on

Working Memory

Working memory, a new name for short-term memory, has limited capacity (7±2)

and short duration (20 seconds). M U T G I K T L R S Y

P

Chunking

F-B-I-T-W-A-C-I-A-I-B-M

Capacity of working memory may be increased by “Chunking.”

Long-Term Memory

Sensory Memory

Working Memory

Long-term Memory

Encoding

Retrieval Encoding

Events

Long-Term Memory

Unlimited capacity store. Estimates on

capacity are similar to 2.5 petabytes (million gigabytes). If your brain worked like a digital recorder, you could hold 3 million hours of TV

shows

The Clark’s nutcracker can locate 6,000 caches of buried pine seeds during winter and spring.

Synaptic Changes

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) refers to synaptic enhancement after learning (lynch, 2002).

Increase in neurotransmitter release or

receptors on the receiving neuron indicates strengthening of synapses.

They learn to fire

the action potential more efficiently

Stress Hormones & Memory

Heightened emotions (stress related or otherwise) make for stronger memories.

Continued stress can disrupt memory. Cortisol is the stress hormone.

Flashbulb Memory

An unique and highly emotional moment can give rise to clear, strong, and

persistent memory called flashbulb

memory. Though this memory is not free

from errors.

Storing

Retrospective Memories

Explicit Memory refers to facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare.

Implicit memory involves learning an action, and the individual does not know or declare

Explicit Memory

Refers to memories that you can

explain how you know them, or declare.

Facts, experiences, life events. They

Implicit Memory

These memories are procedural and allow you to do something or carry out some task.

They are processed using the cerebellum

Prospective memory

•

The ability to remember to do

something in the future

– For example; remembering to take

medicine at night before going to bed,

•

At least half of everyday forgetting is

due to prospective memory failures

•

“Remembering to remember”, often

triggered by a cue. Pass a mailbox

and remember you need to mail

Two types of Amnesia

However, if the damage occurred somewhere in the cerebral cortex, he may not be able to

access old memories which were formed before the accident due to retrograde

amnesia

After losing his hippocampus in surgery, a man remembers everything before the operation but cannot make new memories.

Retrieval: Getting Info

Out

 _{Measures of Memory}  _Recognition

 _Recall

 _Relearning

 _Cues

 _Context

 _{“Stroop” Effect}

Measures of Memory

In recognition the person has to identify an item amongst others e.g., a

multiple-choice test requires recognition. 1. Name the capital of

France

a. Brussels b. Rome

Measures of Memory

In recall the person must retrieve

information using effort, e.g., a fill-in-the blank test requires recall.

Measures of Memory

In relearning the individual shows how much time (or effort) is saved when

learning material a second time.

List Jet Dagger Tree Kite … Silk Frog Ring

It took 10 trials to learn this list

List Jet Dagger Tree Kite … Silk Frog Ring

It took 5 trials to learn the list

1 day later Saving

Retrieval Cues

Memories are held in storage by a web of associations. These associations are like

anchors that help retrieve memory.

Fire Truck

truck red fire

heat smoke

smell water

hose

Priming

To retrieve a specific memory from the web of associations, you first need to activate one of the strands that lead to it,

Context Effects

Scuba divers recalled more words underwater if they learned the list

underwater, and recalled more words on land if they learned the list on land (Godden &

The Stroop Effect

• When we look at a word, we

automatically recall information about that word's meaning.

• When asked to name the colors of

the print in which the words

appeared, the meanings of those words interfered with our task, and you found yourself having difficulty completing the task.

• This is a good example of the

capacity of your “working memory”. Similar to when you used your

Déja Vu

Déja Vu means “"I've experienced this before.” Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an

earlier similar experience.

Moods and Memories

Tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current mood. Emotions, or moods serve as retrieval

cues. “Mood congruent memories”

Forgetting

 _Forgetting  _Failure

 _{Storage Decay}  _Interference

 _Motivated

 _{False Memories}

Forgetting

Inability to retrieve information,

due to poor:

-encoding

-storage or

Encoding Failure

Retrieval Failure

Although the information is retained in the memory store it cannot be accessed.

Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) is a retrieval failure phenomenon. Given a cue (What makes the

blood cells red?) the subject says the word begins with an H (hemoglobin). Priming can

Storage Decay

Poor durability of stored memories leads to their decay. Ebbinghaus showed this with his

Interference

Learning some info. may disrupt retrieval of other info.

Proactive (can’t get the new info.) and

Retroactive Interference

Motivated Forgetting

Motivated Forgetting:

People unknowingly revise their memories.

Repression: Defense mechanism that

banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts,

feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Freud believed this was at the heart of all

Why do we forget?

Forgetting can occur at any

memory stage; we filter, alter, or lose

much information during these

While tapping our memories, we filter or fill in missing pieces of information to make our recall more coherent.

Misinformation Effect: Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Leads to memory construction

False Memory Syndrome

A condition in which a person’s identity and

relationships center around a false but strongly believed memory of traumatic experience

sometimes induced by well-meaning therapists.

Eyewitnesses reconstruct memories when questioned about the event.

Misinformation and Imagination

Effects

•

Group A: How fast were the cars

going when they hit each other?

•

Group B: How fast were the cars

speeding when they smashed into

each other?

Memory Construction

A week later they were asked; Was there any broken glass? Group B (smashed into)

reported more broken glass than Group A (hit).

14 32 0 10 20 30 40 50

Group A (hit) Group B (Smashed into)

Constructed Memories

Loftus’ research in eyewitness testimony has shown that if false memories are implanted in individuals, they construct (fabricate) their memories. Your brain will

create a story to fill in the gaps.

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Source Amnesia

Source Amnesia:

Attributing an

event to the wrong source we

have experienced, heard, read,

Improving Memory

1. Study repeatedly to boost recall long-term recall.

2. Spend more time rehearsing or

actively thinking about the material. 3. Make material personally meaningful. 4. Use mnemonic devices:

 _{associate with peg words — something}

already stored

 _{make up story}

Improving Memory

5. Activate retrieval cues — mentally recreate situation and mood.

6. Recall events while they are fresh — before you encounter misinformation. 7. Minimize interference:

1. Test your own knowledge

2. Rehearse and determine what you do not

yet know ©

Thinking

Thinking or “cognition” refers to a process that involves knowing, understanding,

Cognitive Psychologists

Thinking involves a number of mental activities listed below, and cognitive psychologists study them with great

detail. 1. Concepts

2. Problem solving 3. Decision making 4. Judgment

Some famous cognitive scientists you will need to know:

• _{Albert Bandura (social learning theory, Bobo Doll,}

modeling)

• _{Julian Rotter (locus of control)}

• Martin Seligman (learned helplessness, positive

psychology)

• Aaron Beck (cognitive triad)

– _{Depression stems from a negative view of the world in}

general, of oneself and of the future.

• _{Albert Ellis (rational emotive therapy)}

Concepts

Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. There are a variety of

Development of Concepts

We form some concepts by definitions, e.g., triangle has three side.

But mostly we form concepts by a mental image or a best example (prototype), e.g., robin is a prototype of a bird but penguin is not.

Triangle (definition) _{Bird (mental image)}

Different types of categories

•

SUPERORDINATE CATEGORY

– Basic Category

• _{subordinate category}

For example:

•

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

– Guitars

Category Hierarchies

How do Categories affect our Schemas

(the way we see the world)?

Once we place an item in a

category our memory shifts

toward the category’s

prototype.

We are more likely to think of

the characteristics of the

prototype rather than the

individual characteristics of that

particular object (this is why

Insight

Insight involves sudden novel realization of a

solution to a

problem. Insight is in humans and animals.

Insight

Brain imaging and

EEG studies suggest

that when an insight

strikes

(“Aha experience”)

it activates the right

temporal cortex

(Jung-Beeman, 2004). The

time between not

knowing the solution

Creativity

•

Difficult to define

•

Convergent (one answer) and

divergent (many answers) thinking

Problem Solving

There are two ways to solve problems:

Algorithms:

Methodical,

logical rule or procedure

that guarantees solving a

Algorithms

Algorithms exhaust all possibilities before arriving at a solution. They take a long

time. Computers use algorithms.

S P L O Y O C H Y

G

If we were to unscramble these letters to form a word, using an algorithm approach would

For example, Lets say I want to buy

some soft tortillas…

•

If I start at aisle one and look up and

down each shelf of every aisle,

eventually I will find the tortillas

•

What is the advantage?

Heuristics

Simple thinking strategies that often allows us to

make judgments and solve problems efficiently. Speedier

but more error-prone than

Heuristics

Heuristics make it easy for us to use simple principles to arrive at solutions to

problems.

S P L O Y O C H Y

G

S P L O Y O C H G Y

P S L O Y O C H G Y

P S Y C H O L O G Y

Now, to find my tortillas

•

What are some heuristics I could use?

– Look in the ethnic foods section – Look at the signs above the aisles

– Think about where they are in another

store

Obstacles in Solving

Problems

Confirmation Bias: A tendency to search for information that confirms a personal

bias.

• _{A reporter who is writing an article on an}

Fixation

Inability to see a problem from a fresh

perspective. Impediment to problem

solving. Two examples are

mental set

and

functional fixedness.

The Matchstick

Problem: How

would you arrange six matches to form

Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way especially a way that has

Using these materials, how would you mount the candle on a bulletin board?

Functional Fixedness

Functional Fixedness

A tendency to think of the only familiar functions for objects.

If you don’t have a screwdriver, a dime may work

Using and Misusing Heuristics

Two kinds of heuristics have

been identified by cognitive

psychologists.

Representative

and

Probability that that person is a truck driver is far greater than an ivy league professor just because there are more truck drivers than such

professors.

Representativeness Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of things or objects in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match a

particular prototype.

“it reminds me of…”

If you were to meet a man, slim, short, wears glasses and likes poetry. What do you think would his profession would be?

Representativeness Heuristic

•

This is a form of stereotyping

• We judge people according to the

likelihood that they fit our

Availability Heuristic

Why does our availability heuristic lead us astray?

Whatever increases the ease of retrieving information increases its perceived

availability.

“what comes to mind easiest”

How is retrieval facilitated?

1. How recently we have heard about the event.

Availability Heuristic

Making Decision & Forming

Judgments

Each day we make

hundreds of judgments and

decisions based on our

Overconfidence

It is a tendency to overestimate the

accuracy of one’s beliefs and

Exaggerated Fear

Opposed to

overconfidence is our tendency for

exaggerated fear

about how things may happen. Such fears may be ill-founded.

9/11 crashes led to decline in air travel

due to fear.

Framing Decisions

How an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Example: What is the best way to market ground beef — as 25% fat or 75% lean?

Belief Bias

The tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning sometimes by

making invalid conclusions. God is love.

Love is blind

Ray Charles is blind. Ray Charles is God.

Belief Perseverance

Our tendency to cling to our beliefs in the face of contrary evidence.

Ex: Once someone has let you down, it is

difficult to believe that they will come through when you need them, even if they have

Language and Thought

• _{Language and structure}

• _Grammar

• _{Stages of language development}

• _{Theories of language development}

• _{Linguistic determination, schemas}

• _{Parts o the brain with language}

Language

•

Is there another word for synonym?

•

Whose cruel idea was it for the word

“lisp” to have an “s” in it?

•

What if there were no hypothetical

questions?

Language

Our spoken, written, or gestured word, it is the way we communicate meaning to

ourselves and others.

Language transmits culture.

Language Structure

Phonemes: The smallest distinctive sound

unit in a spoken language. For example:

Language Structure

Morpheme: The smallest unit that carries

meaning may be a word or a part of a word. For example:

Milk = milk

Pumpkin = pump . kin

Grammar

A system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and

understand others. Grammar

Semantics

Set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences.

For example:

Semantic rule tells us that adding –ed to the word laugh means that it happened in

Syntax

The rules for combining words into

grammatically sensible sentences. For example:

In English syntactical rule is that adjectives come before nouns; white house. In

Grammar - Context

The artist painted me on the porch.

The artist painted me on the porch.

Overgeneralization

•

Child will generalize grammar

rules so they apply the rules too

broadly.

•

Example: “I dugged in the

Language Development

Children learn their native languages much before learning

to add 2+2.

We learn on average (after age 1) 3,500

words a year, amassing 60,000 words by the time we graduate high school.

When do we learn language?

Babbling Stage:

beginning at 4 months the infant

spontaneously utters various

sounds, like ah-goo. Babbling is not

When do we learn language?

One-Word Stage: Beginning at or around

the first birthday, a child starts to speak one-word and makes family adults

understand him.

When do we learn language?

Two-Word Stage: Before the 2nd year

a child starts to speak in two-word

sentences. This form of speech is

called telegraphic speech in which

the child speaks like a telegram —

When do we learn

language?

Longer phrases: After telegraphic speech

children start uttering longer phrases

(Mommy get ball), with syntactical sense and by early elementary school they are enjoying humor.

Theories of Language

Development

1. Operant Learning/Social Learning

:

Skinner (1957, 1985) believed that

language development can be

explained on the basis of learning

principles, such as association,

imitation and reinforcement.

NURTURE

Theories of Language Development

2. Inborn Universal Grammar:

Chomsky

(1959, 1987) opposed Skinners ideas

and suggested that rate of language

acquisition is so fast that it cannot be

explained through learning principles,

and thus most of it was inborn.

Chomsky’s theory is that language

learning is facilitated by a predisposition

that our brains have for certain

structures of language. NATURE

Theories of Language

Development

3. Statistical Learning and Critical periods: We learn to recognize breaks in words before our first birthday

These statistical analysis are learned during critical periods of child development and if go unstimulated, will lose ability to fully master language

---Lenneberg (1967) believed human language acquisition

is an example of biologically

constrained learning, governed by a critical period of development, must occur before puberty b/c of brain

Genes, Brain & Language

Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience modifies the

Language & Age

Language & Thinking

Thinking and language intricately intertwine.

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Language influences

Thinking

Linguistic Determinism: Whorf’s (1956) suggested that language determines the way we think, sometimes referred to

linguistic relativity

-Hopi, he noted, did not have past tense for verbs therefore Hopis could not think readily about the past.

Language influences

Thinking

When a language provides words for

objects or events we can think about these objects more clearly and retain them. It is

easier to think about two colors with two different names

Whorf observed…

• On inspecting a chemical plant he once observed

that the plant had two storage rooms for gasoline barrels, one for the full barrels and one for the

empty ones. He further noticed that while no

employees smoked cigarettes in the room for full barrels no-one minded smoking in the room with empty barrels, although this was potentially much more dangerous due to the highly flammable

vapors that still existed in the barrels. He

concluded that the use of the word empty in

Thinking in Images

To a large extent thinking is language based. Like when alone we talk to ourselves. However, we also

think in images. That is, the words we possess determine the things that we can know. If we have

an experience, we are confined not just in our

communication of it, but also in our knowledge of it, by the words we possess.

2. When we are riding our bicycle.

1. When we open the hot water tap.

Images and Brain

Imagining a physical activity activates the same brain regions as when actually

performing the activity.

Animals & Language

Do animals have a language?

Do animals think?

Common cognitive skills in humans

and apes. 1. Concept

formation. 2. Insight

3. Problem Solving 4. Culture

5. Mind?

African grey parrot sorts red blocks from green balls.

Insight

Chimpanzees show insightful behaviors when solving problems.

Do Animals Exhibit

Language?

There is no doubt that animals

communicate. Vervet monkeys, whales and even

honey bees

communicate with members of their

specie and other

species. 200-word vocabularyRico (collie) has a

The Case of Apes

Chimps do not have vocal apparatus for human-like speech (Hayes & Hayes,1951). Gardner and

Gardner (1969) therefore used American Sign Language (ASL) to train Washoe (a chimp), who

learned 182 signs by age 32.

This is the

Gestured Communication

Animals show communication through gestures as do humans. It is possible that