PSY 368 Human Memory

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PSY 368 Human Memory

• Neuropsychology Memory
• Review for Exam 2

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Announcements

• Focus Questions for Weldon and Roediger (1987)
  Due Monday Today
• Exam 2 Wednesday (March 28)

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Alzheimers Disease

• Alzheimers disease
• Cortical, progressive dementia

• Criteria
• deficit in two or more areas of cognition, at
  least one of which is memory
• interferes with social or occupational
  functioning
• decline from premorbid level
• gradually progressive course
• rule out other causes

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Alzheimers Disease

• Alzheimers disease (video clip 19, 7mins)
• Cortical, progressive dementia
• Disease is associated with the development of
  neuro-fibrillary tangles and plaques

• To stay healthy, neurons must communicate with
  each other, carry out metabolism, and repair
  themselves.
• AD disrupts all three of these essential jobs.

Pet Scan of Normal Brain
Pet Scan of Alzheimers Disease Brain
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Alzheimers Disease

• Alzheimers disease

• Signs of AD are first noticed in the entorhinal
  cortex, then proceed to the hippocampus.
• Affected regions begin to shrink as nerve cells
  die.
• Changes can begin 10-20 years before symptoms
  appear.
• Memory loss is the first sign of AD.

Preclinical AD
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Alzheimers Disease

• Alzheimers disease

• AD spreads through the brain. The cerebral cortex
  begins to shrink as more and more neurons stop
  working and die.
• Mild AD signs can include memory loss, confusion,
  trouble handling money, poor judgment, mood
  changes, and increased anxiety.
• Moderate AD signs can include increased memory
  loss and confusion, problems recognizing people,
  difficulty with language and thoughts,
  restlessness, agitation, wandering, and
  repetitive statements.

Mild to Moderate AD
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Alzheimers Disease

• Alzheimers disease

• In severe AD, extreme shrinkage occurs in the
  brain. Patients are completely dependent on
  others for care.
• Symptoms can include weight loss, seizures, skin
  infections, groaning, moaning, or grunting,
  increased sleeping, loss of bladder and bowel
  control.
• Death usually occurs from aspiration pneumonia or
  other infections. Caregivers can turn to a
  hospice for help and palliative care.

Severe ADs
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Alzheimers Disease

• Alzheimers disease

• The brains of people with AD have an abundance of
  two abnormal structures

• Beta-amyloid plaques
• Dense deposits of protein and cellular material
  that accumulate outside and around nerve cells
• Neurofibrillary tangles
• Twisted fibers that build up inside the nerve
  cell

An actual AD plaque
An actual AD tangle
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Alzheimers Disease

• Alzheimers disease
• Relatively intact articulatory loop of WM
• three types of memory problems
• WM verbal and spatial memory impairments
• Episodic memory impaired (e.g., free recall)
• Executive function
• Semantic memory is also impaired
• Naming and word generation impaired in AD
• Note pure amnesics do not have the latter two
  impairments

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Exam 2 Review

• Chapter 5 Memory Processing
• Chapter 6 Forgetting
• Chapter 7 Implicit Memory
• Chapter 8 Neuropsychology and Memory
• Chapter 9 Recognition

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Exam 2 Review

• Chapter 5 Memory Processing
• Craik Lockhart (1972), Levels of processing
  (slide 16)
• Craik Tulving (1975) good experimental
  evidence supporting LOP (deeper processing
  remembered better) (slide 17)
• Transfer Appropriate Processing
• Morris, Bransford, Franks (1977) good
  experimental evidence supporting TAP (match of
  processing at encoding and retrieval more
  important than LOP) (slide 18-21)
• Context effects (similar context at encoding
  test, better memory)
• Encoding Specificity Principle (Thompson
  Tulving, 1970) (slide 22-23)

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Exam 2 Review

• Chapter 6 Forgetting
• Ebbinghaus and forgetting function (slide 24)
• Permastore (see Bahrick studies) (slides 25-27)
• Retrospective vs. Prospective memory
• Theories of forgetting
• Failure of Consolidation
• Decay
• Context/cue mismatch
• Interference (retroactive and proactive) (slides
  28-29)

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Exam 2 Review

• Chapter 7 Implicit Memory
• Implicit memory tasks (vs. explicit tasks)
  (slides 30-31)
• Process Dissociation Procedure (Jacoby, 1991)
  (slides 32-34)
• Theoretical accounts
• The activation view
• Multiple memory systems (slide 35)
• Transfer appropriate processing
• Blaxton (1989) (data vs. conceptual driven, or
  direct vs. indirect) (slides 36-40)
• Bias view

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Exam 2 Review

• Chapter 8 Neuropsychology and Memory
• Methods of study (slide 41)
• Neurons and the Brain (slides 42-45)
• Hippocampus
• Memory Disorders
• Amnesia (slide 46)
• Anterograde
• retrograde
• Alzheimers Disease (todays lecture, slides 3-9)

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Exam 2 Review

• Chapter 9 Recognition
• Recall vs. Recognition
• Signal Detection Method (slide 47)
• Single vs. dual process theories (slides 48-51)
• Tagging Model
• Strength Theory
• Generate-Recognize Model
• Remember/Know Processes Model
• Face Recognition (slide 52)

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Level of Processing

• Craik Lockhart (1972)

• Considered level of processing at study to be
  more important for memory than intent to learn
• Levels of processing how deeply the item is
  processed
• The depth of processing helps determine the
  durability in LTM.

Level of Processing Example
1) Visual Form DOG includes the letters D, O, and G
2) Phonology Rhymes with FOG
3) Semantics (Meaning) A four-legged pet that often chases cats and chews on bones
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Levels of Processing

• Craik and Tulving (1975)

• Task
• Participants viewed words and were asked to make
  three different types of judgments
• Visual processing (e.g. Is LOG in upper case?
  Y/N)
• Phonological (e.g. Does DOG rhyme with LOG?
  Y/N)
• Semantic (e.g. Does DOG fit in the sentence
  The ___ chased the cat? Y/N)
• Finally, participants were asked to recognize the
  words they had seen before in a surprise test
  including both old and new words.

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Transfer-appropriate processing

• Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977)
• Task
• Participants made either a phonological or
  semantic judgment about each item on a word list.
• Study eagle (yes/no fits clue)
• Deep - The ____ is the US national bird.
• Shallow - rhymes with legal
• The learning was incidental participants were
  not told that they would have to later recall the
  words.
• This constrains (limits) the learning strategies
  used.

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Transfer-appropriate processing

• Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977)
• Task
• The final test was either
• A standard recognition test for the learned
  words.
• A rhyming recognition test for learned words
• e.g., Was a word presented that rhymed with
  regal?.

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Transfer-appropriate processing
Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977)
Encoding Recognition test Rhyming test
Does ____ rhyme with legal? (eagle) 63 49
Does ____ have feathers? (eagle) 84 33

• Results
• Standard recognition test Deeper processing led
  to better performance.
• Rhyming recognition test The shallower
  rhyme-based encoding task led to better
  performance because it matched the demands of the
  testing situation.

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Transfer-appropriate processing
Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977)
Encoding Recognition test Rhyming test
Does ____ rhyme with legal? (eagle) 63 49
Does ____ have feathers? (eagle) 84 33

• Conclusion
• The take-home message is that when the processing
  at encoding matches the processing at retrieval,
  performance will be better.
• It only makes sense to talk about a learning
  methods efficiency in the context of the type of
  final test.

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Encoding Specificity Principle

• Thompson and Tulving (1970)
• Examined effectiveness of cue
• Had people learn lists of strong or weak
  associates.
• Strong vs. weak cues (flower)
• Strong bloom
• Weak fruit
• Study no cue vs. weak cue
• Test no cue, weak cue, or strong cue

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Encoding Specificity Principle
Thompson and Tulving (1970)

• The best retrieval cue for a word like flower
  would be a strong associate like bloom.
  fruit is weakly associated to flower, and
  would be unlikely to pull it out.

• Thompson and Tulving showed that this can be
  reversed if you change the study context.

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Forgetting
Ebbinghaus (1885)
Rapid forgetting for short delays - slower for
longer delays
Memory Performance
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What do we forget?

• Permastore
• Describes the leveling off of the forgetting
  curve at long delays.
• Beyond this point, memories appear impervious to
  further forgetting.

• Bahrick (1984)
• Permastore
• Rapid forgetting of foreign language for 3 yrs,
• Then of a asymptotes (levels off) after about 2
  years,
• Stays fairly constant even up to 50 yrs.
• The overall level of retention is determined by
  the level of initial learning.

PERMASTORE
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Permastore

• Bahrick, Bahrick Wittlinger (1975)

• Tested nearly 400 high-school graduates on their
  ability to recognize and name classmates after
  delays of up to 30 years.

• Questions
• Recall
• Can you list all your classmates?
• Can you name all these faces?
• Recognition
• Is this the name of a classmate?
• Is this the face of a classmate?
• Match these names and faces

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Permastore

• Bahrick, Bahrick Wittlinger (1975)

• Tested nearly 400 high-school graduates on their
  ability to recognize and name classmates after
  delays of up to 30 years.

Recognition Name Matching

• Results were mixed
• Relatively unimpaired
• Ability to recognize their classmates
  faces/names.
• Ability to match up names to the appropriate
  portraits.

Recall Name the picture

• Extensively impaired
• Ability to recall a name, given a persons
  portrait.

3.3 mons.
47 yrs.

• Conclusion
• Recall, but not recognition, of well-learned
  personal material, closely follows the forgetting
  curve first demonstrated by Ebbinghaus (1913).

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How do we forget?

• Retroactive Interference (RI)

• Forgetting caused by encoding new traces into
  memory in between the initial encoding of the
  target and when it is tested.
• Introducing a related second list of items
  impairs recall of the first list compared to a
  control condition.

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How do we forget?

• Proactive Interference (PI)

• The tendency for older memories to interfere with
  the retrieval of more recent experiences and
  knowledge.
• The number of previous learning experiences (e.g.
  lists) largely determines the rate of forgetting
  at long delays.

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Memory Tasks
Test Instructions
indirect direct
incidental implicit memory expts. Levels of Processing expts.
intentional ? explicit memory expts.
Study Instructions
Implicit Memory Often defined as "memory without
awareness

• Also Non-declarative procedural (Squire,
  Knowlton, Mesen, 1993)

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Implicit Memory Tasks
Often defined as "memory without awareness

• Perceptual Tasks
• Word identification
• Word stem completion
• Word fragment completion
• Degraded word naming
• Anagram solution
• Lexical decision

Non-Verbal Tasks Picture fragment naming Object
decision task Possible/impossible object decision
Conceptual Tasks Word association Category
instance generation Answering general knowledge
questions
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Mixing Measures

• Tasks are not process pure (Jacoby, 1991)
• Indirect measures of memory may be contaminated
  by intentional uses of memory
• E.g., in stem completion task, subjects might
  remember items from previous list and use them to
  complete the stems
• Direct measures may be influenced by unconscious
  or automatic influences (Jacoby, Toth,
  Yonelinas, 1993)
• Process-Dissociation Procedure was developed to
  separate automatic (unconscious) and conscious
  processes

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Process Dissociation Procedure

• Jacoby (1991)
• Read a list of words List 1
• Hear a list of words List 2
• Two recognition tests
• Both tests include List 1, List 2 and novel
  words.
• Inclusion complete task with studied or any
  item
• Respond old if word was on either list.
• Exclusion complete task with item NOT studied
  (exclude studied items)
• Respond old only if word was on List 2.

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Process Dissociation Procedure
Jacoby (1991)

• Can calculate C and A for each condition in the
  experiment
• C (Proportion of studied items in inclusion) -
  (Proportion of studied items in exclusion)
• A (Proportion of studied items in exclusion) /
  (1-C)
• The C and A values are estimated as proportions -
  values between 0 and 1.0
• Data
• Proportion of studied items in inclusion C
  (1-C)(A)
• Proportion of studied items in exclusion
  (1-C)(A)

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Multiple Memory Systems

• What is a system?

Schacter and Tulving (1994)
System Other Name Subsystems Characteristics
Procedural Nondeclarative Motor skills Non-conscious operation (indirect)
Procedural Nondeclarative Cognitive skills Non-conscious operation (indirect)
Procedural Nondeclarative Simple conditioning Non-conscious operation (indirect)
Procedural Nondeclarative Simple associative learning Non-conscious operation (indirect)
Perceptual representation Nondeclarative Visual word form Non-conscious operation (indirect)
Perceptual representation Nondeclarative Auditroy word form Non-conscious operation (indirect)
Perceptual representation Nondeclarative Structural description Non-conscious operation (indirect)
Primary memory Working memory Visual Conscious operation (direct)
Primary memory Working memory Auditory Conscious operation (direct)
Semantic Generic Spatial Conscious operation (direct)
Semantic Factual Relational Conscious operation (direct)
Semantic Knowledge Conscious operation (direct)
Episodic Personal Conscious operation (direct)
Episodic Autobiographical Conscious operation (direct)
Episodic Event memory Conscious operation (direct)
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Transfer Appropriate Process
Blaxton (1989)

• Goal to demonstrate
• data-driven processing can affect direct tests
• data-driven processing do not necessarily affect
  indirect tests

Data-driven Conceptually-driven
Direct Graphic-cued Recall Free Recall
Indirect Fragment Completion General Knowledge
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Transfer Appropriate Process
Blaxton (1989)
Ss saw or heard lists of words (key IV here)

• Target word bashful
• graphic-cued recall looks like bushful
• free recall
• frag completion b_sh_u_
• General knowledge Name one of the 7 dwarfs

Data-driven Conceptually-driven
Direct Graphic-cued Recall Free Recall
Indirect Fragment Completion General Knowledge
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Transfer Appropriate Process
Blaxton (1989)

• Predictions
• Systems view modality match should affect only
  indirect tests (if indirect tap separate system,
  then modality should affect them in the same way)
• for both implicit tests visual gt auditory
• for both explicit test visual auditory

Data-driven Conceptually-driven
Direct Graphic-cued Recall Free Recall
Indirect Fragment Completion General Knowledge
Same pattern of results regardless of modality
Visual better than auditory for both
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Transfer Appropriate Process
Blaxton (1989)

• Predictions
• TAP View modality match should affect
  data-driven tasks only. (priming depends on match
  between study/test processing match not on
  indirect vs direct)
• for both data-driven tests visual gt auditory
• for both conceptually-driven tests visual
  auditory

Data-driven Conceptually-driven
Direct Graphic-cued Recall Free Recall
Indirect Fragment Completion General Knowledge
Visual should be better than auditory
Visual and auditory should be about the same
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Transfer Appropriate Process

• Results
• Priming Effect (V gt A) for data-driven tasks
  only
• indirect frag completion
• direct graphemic-cued recall
• Not all indirect tests display priming effect.
• Gen Know (indirect, conceptual) V A

Blaxton (1989)
Conclusions Support view that processing rather
than system is what is important
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Methods of Study

• Neuroscientists typically study memory in animals
• Can record electrical or chemical signals
  directly from individual neurons, or carefully
  remove small portions of the brain
• Psychologists typically study memory in humans
• More limited techniques
• Experiments of nature Case studies
• Lesions
• Direct electrical stimulation
• Neuroimaging techniques

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The Neuron

• Dendrites
• Cell body
• Axon
• Myelin sheath
• Terminal buttons
• Synapse
• Billions of synapses

nice reference web page
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Neurons and Memory

• Hebbian Learning
• Cells that fire together wire together
• Connections between neurons are weighted
• Weights can be changed based on feedback from
  later cells
• Basic assumption of most computational neural
  network models (connectionism)

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Structure of the brain
Other Crucial Parts

• Limbic system controls emotions and instinctive
  behavior (includes the hippocampus and parts of
  the cortex)
• Thalamus receives sensory and limbic information
  and sends to cerebral cortex
• Hypothalamus monitors certain activities and
  controls bodys internal clock
• Hippocampus where short-term memories are
  converted to long-term memories

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Hippocampus

• Important for formation of new episodic memories
• Important for encoding perceptual aspects of
  memories
• Novel events, places, and stimuli
• Important for declarative memory
• Especially as part of medial temporal lobe
• Supported by case of HM
• Video (location, 1 min)
• Video (damage, 7 mins)

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Amnesia

• Loss of memory ability - usually due to lesion or
  surgical removal of various parts of the brain
• Relatively spared performance in other domains
• A pure amnesia is relatively rare
• Two broad categories
• Retrograde loss of memories for events prior to
  damage
• Anterograde loss of ability to store new
  memories of events after damage

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Signal Detection Theory

• Recognition accuracy depends on
• Whether a signal (noise/target memory) was
  actually presented
• The participants response
• Thus, there are four possible outcomes
• Hits
• Correctly reporting the presence of the signal
• Correct Rejections
• Correctly reporting the absence of the signal
• False Alarms
• Incorrectly reporting presence of the signal when
  it did not occur
• Misses
• Failing to report the presence of the signal when
  it occurred

CORRECT
INCORRECT
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How does Recognition work?

• Two classes of theories
• Single process theories - retrieval is one
  process regardless of task
• Dual process theories - two processes needed for
  retrieval - can be task dependent

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Dual-process theories

• Generate-recognize model (G-R)
• Recall is made up of two processes
• First, generate a set of plausible candidates for
  recall (Generation stage)
• Second, confirm whether each word is worthy of
  being recalled (Recognition stage not the same
  as the recognition test)
• Recognition is made up of only one process
• Because the experimenter provides a candidate,
  recognition does not need the generation stage

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Dual-process theories

• Remember versus Know Process Model

• (Tulving , 1985 Gardiner, 1988)
• Relatively recent change in recognition
  methodology
• Does someone
• Specifically remember
• Conscious recollection of the informations
  occurrence at study
• Just somehow know
• Knowing that it was on the list, but not having
  the conscious recollection, just a feeling of
  knowing

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Dual-process theories

• Remember/Know processes
• Make R/K judgment for Old items
• Remember consciously recollect details of the
  items presentation
• Know sure an item was presented, but cant
  recall any of the details of presentation

• R/K differ by
• Picture superiority effect
• R P gt W
• K W gt P

• Generation effect
• R G gt R
• K R G

• Word frequency effect
• R L gt H
• K H L

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Face Recognition

• Evidence for special ability
• Prosopagnosia
• Newborn preferences
• Face inversion effect
• Pop-out effect for faces