PS1507 MEMORY Working memory Learning and remembering

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PS1507 MEMORYWorking memoryLearning and
remembering

• Lecture 3
• Caroline Green

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Visuo-Spatial Working Memory

• Temporarily holds and allows manipulation of
  visual images
• Visual cache inner scribe (Logie, 1986,1995)

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Where are the WM stores?

• PET scans (Smith, Jonides Köeppe(1996))
• Phonological loop predominantly left hemisphere
  (fMRI imaging storage- a left inferior
  parietal area, rehearsal- left prefrontal areas.)
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad predominantly right
  hemisphere

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Central Executive

• Limited capacity supervisory attentional system
  involved in rehearsal, reasoning,
  planning,decision making
• Possibly located in frontal lobes, but also
  prefrontal activity involved.

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Working (short-term) memory
Maintenance rehearsal
Phonological rehearsal loop
Executive control system
Visuospatial sketchpad
Episodic buffer
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Working Memory in Everyday Life

• Short-Term Memory
• Acquiring Language
• Mental Arithmetic
• Reading Comprehension
• Mental Workload
• Keeping track moment to moment
• Reasoning and decision making
• Mental imagery
• Creative Thinking

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Learning and Remembering

• Seven sins of memory(Schacter(1999))
• Transience
• Absent-mindedness
• Blocking
• Misattribution
• Suggestibility
• Bias
• Persistence

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Three sins of omission

• Transience weakening or loss of memory over
  time
• Absent-mindedness lack of attention to what we
  need to remember
• Blocking unable to find info. we are trying to
  retrieve

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Four sins of commission

• Misattribution assignment of a memory to the
  wrong source
• Suggestibility memories implanted via leading
  questions, comments and suggestions
• Bias the influence of our current
  knowledge/beliefs on how we remember our past
• Persistence repeated recall of info. we would
  prefer to forget

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Learning and Remembering

• Memory declines over time (Ebbinghaus,1885)
• Learned list of nonsense syllables. Varied delay
  between initial learning and relearning them to
  same standard of retention.
• Method of Savings

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Method of Savings

• Learned list tested until list perfect took
  20 trials
• Later testing took 10 trials of relearning
  until list perfect
• Called method of savings because saved 10 trials
  on second learning, so shows some of list
  remembered. The fewer the trials on second
  learning, the better the remembering of the first
  list.

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Forgetting

• Greater delay more relearning required.
  Forgetting very rapid at first, slows down as
  delay increases. Most dramatic drop in first nine
  hours, especially in first hour.
• Application to real-life memories e.g. knowledge
  learned at school/university,. Names, faces ,
  personal events.
• Applies as a general principle of forgetting.

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Amount of learning versus amount learned
Ebbinghaus
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15
10
Time to Re-learn on Day 2
5
0
8
16
24
32
42
53
64
Repetitions of Learning on Day 1
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Total time hypothesis

• Virtually straight line relationship
• between repetitions of learning and time to
  relearn.
• Obeys simple rule that amount learned depends on
  time spent learning.

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Distributed learning is better!

• Dividing learning evenly across 2 days much more
  effective than putting all learning into 2nd day.
  Distribution of practice effect.
• Learning little and often is best. Especially
  important in studying academic material (Zimmer
  and Hocevar, 1994)
• Longer breaks between practice sessions
  facilitate memory in complex tasks more than
  simple tasks. (Donovan Radosevich,1999)

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Repetition and Memory

• Repetition of stimuli different from Rehearsal.
• e.g. Stamps and Coins

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References

• Schachter, D.L. (1999) The seven sins of memory.
  American Psychologist, 543, 182-203
• Schachter, D.L. (2003) How the Mind Forgets and
  Remembers. The seven sins of memory. London,
  Souvenir Press Ltd.

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Web sites

• http//www.brainconnection.com/topics/?mainfa/wor
  king-memory
• http//www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file/n
  rn/journal/v4/n10/abs/nrn1201_fs.html (recent
  overview by Baddeley)
• http//cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Baddeley_00.html
  (episodic buffer)
• http//www.psypress.co.uk/ek5/resources/demo_ch06-
  sc-02.asp
• (working memory)

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Web sites

• http//www.brain.web-us.com/memory/hermann_ebbingh
  aus.htm
• http//www.mtsu.edu/studskl/memprinc/disprac.html
  
• http//www.brain.web-us.com/memory/improving_memor
  y.htm
• http//www.abdn.ac.uk/diss/library/ejournal/a4.htm