Cognitive Processes PSY 334

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Cognitive ProcessesPSY 334

• Chapter 6 Human Memory Encoding and Storage

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Factors Influencing Memory

• Study alone does not improve memory what
  matters is how studying is done.
• Shallow study results in little improvement.
• Semantic associates (tulip-flower) better
  remembered than rhymes (tower-flower), 81 vs
  70.
• Better retention occurs for more meaningful
  elaboration.

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Elaborative Processing

• Elaboration embellishing an item with
  additional information.
• Anderson Bower subjects added details to
  simple sentences
• 57 recall without elaboration
• 72 recall with made-up details added
• Self-generated elaborations are better than
  experimenter-generated ones.

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Self-Generated Elaborations

• Stein Bransford subjects were given 10
  sentences. Four conditions
• Just the sentences alone 4.2 adjectives
• Subject generates an elaboration 5.8
• Experimenter-generated imprecise elaboration
  2.2
• Experimenter-generated precise elaboration 7.8
• Precision of detail (constraint) matters, not who
  generates the elaboration.

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Advance Organizers

• PQ4R method use questions to guide reading.
• 64 correct, compared to 57 (controls)
• 76 of relevant questions correct, 52 of
  non-relevant.
• These study techniques work because they
  encourage elaboration.
• Question making and question answering both
  improve memory for text (reviewing is better than
  seeing the questions first).

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Meaningful Elaboration

• Elaboration need not be meaningful other sorts
  of elaboration also work.
• Kolers compared memory for right-side-up
  sentences with upside-down.
• Extra processing needed to read upside down may
  enhance memory.
• Slamecka Graf compared generation of synonyms
  and rhymes. Both improved memory, but synonyms
  did more.

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Incidental Learning

• It does not matter whether people intend to learn
  something or not.
• What matters is how material is processed.
• Orienting tasks
• Count whether work has e or g.
• Rate the pleasantness of words.
• Half of subjects told they would be asked to
  remember words later, half not told.
• No advantage to knowing ahead of time.

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Flashbulb Memories

• Self-reference effect -- people have better
  memory for events that are important to them and
  close friends.
• Flashbulb memories recall of traumatic events
  long after the fact.
• Seem vivid but can be very inaccurate.
• Thatchers resignation
• 60 memory for UK subjects, 20 non-UK

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Neural Correlates of Encoding

• Better memory occurs for items with stronger
  brain processing at the time of study
• Words evoking higher ERP signals are better
  remembered later.
• Greater frontal activation with deeper processing
  of verbal information.
• Greater activation of hippocampus with better
  long-term memory.