Chapter One Notes OVERVIEW AND HISTORY OF MEMORY RESEARCH A SMATTERING OF DEFINITIONS Memory Memory has three definitions:

: o Memory is the location where information is kept, as in a storehouse or memory store o Memory can refer to the thing that holds the contents of experience, as in a memory trace or engram Each memory is a different mental representation o Memory is the mental process used to acquire (learn), store, or retrieve (remember) information of all sorts Memory processes use information in specific ways to make it available later or to bring back that information into the current stream of processing, the flow of ones thoughts Learning Learning: any change in the potential of people to alter their behaviour as a consequence of experience. Memory and learning are closely related first you learn and then you can rmr. Synopsis Memory is used to refer to the storage of info and the processes used to retrieve it. Learning is a term that has a greater association with studies of conditioning METAPHORS FOR MEMORY Memory is not open to direct inspection so we talk in indirect ways using metaphors. Some metaphors express that a memory is a recorder of experience (e.g. tape recorder or video camera). Others imply that different types of memories, knowledge, and different times in our lives are stored in different places (e.g. memory is like a house, linrary or dictionary). Another concept is that memories can become interwined and interconnected, like a switchboard or network. Memory is not passive; some metaphors capture some of its more dynamic characteristics: o E.g. the process of retrieving a specific memory from the chaotic jumble we have accumulated in our lives has led to the idea of searching for memories as looking for something in a junk drawer or trying to catch a bird in an aviary. o Memories are harder to get at over time, as if being led away on a converyer belt. Memory retrieval is further complicated by the fact that much of what gets stored is forgotten leaving only a portion of the original, and this loss of knowledge requires people to recreate the missing pieces in the memory using a constructive process. Synopsis We use a variety of metaphors to capture various aspects of memory, such as its recording of experience and its organization and chaos. HISTORY OF MEMORY RESEARCH A true systematic, quantified, and rigourous assessment of the nature and limitations of human memory did not begin until the end of the nineteenth century. The Ancients One of the first philosophers to influence our understanding of memory was Plato. o He was seminal rationalist philosopher emphasized rational thought as a means of deriving an understanding of the world, and deemphasized empirical observation, which he argued could be distorted by difficulties with perception.

He was also a dualist believed that the mind was separate entity from the body Believed we have innate, inborn knowledge that serves as a foundation of all human thought, and memory serves as a bridge between the perceptual world and a rational world of idealized abstractions. o He also gave the was tablet metaphor (can make impression on it, but also erased which is like forgetting) Aristotle Platos pupil o He was an empiricist believed reality itself was the basis of inquiry, not an abstract, perfect realm. o Most powerful contribution: theory that memories are primarily composed of associations among various stimuli or experiences. There is a pervasive idea that understanding how various elements are mentally linked to one another can capture the structure and processes of memory. o These linking relationships often follow Aristotles three laws of association: Similarity Contrast (oppsite on some critical dimension and thus form a similarity in that the dimension is present and is important) Contiguity (occurred near one another in time) Important modern precursors Although premodern thinkers developed ideas about how the memory worked, their studies were not persued o E.g. Robert Hooke developed memory theory with surprising number of modern insights but did not continue his research in this area. Darwin and Evolution Darwin had tremendous inpact on scientific thinking in general. o Best known for theory of natural selection Central concept: within a species, various changes occur as a result of variation that can be either passed down to or removed from subsequent generations through the process of natural selection. Through this process, species can develop features or abilities that allow it to become more adaptive to its env. Many memory theorists believe that memory developed through evolution to capture many of the major characteristics of the environment and to perform specific tasks different types of memories capture meaningfully different types of info that we need to rmr from our experience Our thoughts and memories have an imp genetic component because our brain has brainbuilding DNA, and all our thoughts and memories depend on our biologically constructed brain. Any psychological state corresponds to some neural state. However, DNA doesnt cause our brains to have the exact configuration we have at the moment, because our long history of experiences is responsible for this. o Similarly, although our thoughts depend on neural processes, it doesnt mean the simplest way to understand memory is understanding the underlying neurophysiology Philosophy of Mind Imp group of modern thinkers that influenced contemporary ideas of memory are British empiricists: George Berkeley, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and David Hume. o Most significant idea: idea of association, which maintains that memories are largely composed of interconnections between various simple concepts or ideas. o o

Things in the world are rarely seen as isolated things. We usually rmr other experiences that also included these things. E.g. eating specific cookie reminds me of childhood because mom used to buy those types of cookies Although these ideas have been highly influential, the philosophical antagonists of the empiricists, the rationalists, had influence too. (includes Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant) o Empiricists characterized memory as a passive collection of associations built up from environment o Rationalists believe the mind is actively involved in the building of ideas. Early memory researchers in psychology Psychology as an independent discipline arose in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Ebbinghaus One of the first true students of memory in a scientific form Best known for Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology conveyed detailed studies of memory using himself as experimenter and subject because formal methods of obtaining research participants were not available. Tried to study memory in as pure a form as possinle, in the absence of prior knowledge o To do this, devised a form of test stimulus called nonsense syllable consonant-vowelconsonant trigram that has no clear meaning in the language (e.g. PAB, SER, NID) o Made 2,300 trigrams. Memorized nonsense syllables and then tested himself. For memory retrieval he would give himself the first nonsense syllable and he would then recall the rest of the series. Using this simple approach, he discovered wide range of basic principles of human memory concepts of learning curve, forgetting curve, overlearning, amd savings. Learning curve: a change in memory performance over time as info is being acquired. Is affected by many things, such as the amount of info that has to be learned o Most learning curves are negatively accelerated functions, with the most learning occurring early on and less learning occurring later (per unit of time). o Ebbinghaus showed that how a person went about learning (in terms of distribution of practise) influenced how well information was learned. Memory is better when practise is spread out over time rather than lumped together, known as distributed pactice and massed practice, respectively. Forgetting curve: opposite of learning curve; conveys the loss of old info rather than acquisition of new info. However, is similar to learning curve in that it is also a negatively accelerating function most of what is forgotten is lost during initial period, and as time goes on, the process of forgetting continues but at a slower pace. More time passes, slower rate of forgetting Overlearning: continuing to study info even after perfect memory retrieval has been achieved. This results in a greater resistance to forgetting. Ebbinghaus found that after seemingly complete forgetting, subsequent attempts to relearn the info required less effort than the first time. Savings: a reduction in the amount of effort needed to learn a set of info on a subsequent attempt after some forgetting has already occurred. o Savings are imp because although they arent consciously available, they exert unconscious influence on behaviour serve as a platform on which to build a new set on consciouslt available memories Bartlett Opposite of Ebbinghaus; o Ebbinghaus interested in operations of memory independent of prior knowledge

o Bartlett directly interested in how prior knowledge influenced memory Found that prior knoeldge has profound influence on memory. Suggested that what is stored in memory is fragmentary and incomplete and when people are remembering they are reconstructing the info from the bits store and from other prior knowledge that the person has about such circumstances. Reconstruction is guided by schemas. o Schema: general world knowledge structures about commonly experienced aspects of life. o Exp: read ppl story and made them recall it months or years later and found that as memories for story became more efragmented, the story content was altered to make it more consistent with a stereotypical story. Gestalt Psychology Two important movements in psychology are the Gestalt and behaviourist movements. Gestalt movement advanced by Kohler, Wertheimer, and Koffka suggested that strictly reductionist approaches to mental life were incomplete. Instead, you need the idea that complex mental representations and processes have a quality that is different from the component parts that make them up. o Didnt reject reductionism, but argued that an understanding of more complew phenomena was important in its own right because it could be qualitatively different. E.g. melody is qualitatively diff from the notes that make it up, although it is very dependant on them One influential Gestalt idea: whole is different from the sum of its parts. i.e memories are built up of a configuration of simpler elements to take on a new quality. Onserved beh of a person depends both on the context in which people find themselves as well as a frame of reference. o This is shown in context effects of memory and perspective effects, such as the hindsight bias Second influential Gestalt idea: mental representations are isomorphic their mental structure and operation are analogous to the structure and function of info in the world o This is shown when spatial memory is discussed. o Structure of a memory trace reflects the structure of the event as it would be experienced, although not in a complete form. o Gestaltians believe isomorphism has functional purpose. o Today people talk about mental representations as second-order isomorphs. First order: representation that has the same physical characteristics as the thing it represents. E.g. photographs, statues Second order: memory trace functions as is it has the same structre as external events, but doesnt actually function the same. E.g. clock, having a mental map that has properties similar to an actual map Behaviourism Encoding, storage, and retrieval of relatively simple contingencies in the world fall under the heading of conditioning domain of behaviourists Behaviourism: a school of psychological thought, dominant in the mid-twentieth century, that placed a heavy emphasis on studying observable behaviour and actively avoided making assumptions about or studying thought Two salient forms of conditioning: o Classical conditioning: form of memory that allows one to prepare for contingencies that are present in the env

First described by Ivan Pavlov (won Nobel prize on digestion) Operant conditioning: allows one to remember the consequences of ones own actions. First described by Edward Thorndike Tolman did a number of studies with rats running in mazes. When a rat is running through a maze it is learning to make specific turns at specific junctions. Each turn is reinforced or not, and if this is true then any change in the maze would need the rat to relearn it. o However, Tolman found that rats didnt need relearning but adapted to changes very quickly. This suggests rats possess a mental representation in memory for spatial location called mental map that they consult to adapt to changes in the maze. o Tolman was a molar behaviourist interested in larger behaviours as opposed to more microscopic behaviours like many others. E.g. of molar beh: getting to the end box of a maxe or going to a movie, whereas microscopic beh might be an instruction to turn left. Verbal Learning Verbal learning: a research tradition in memory that existed in the context of behaviourist psychology and stemmed from Ebbinghauss work with nonsense syllables. People working in this tradition often used tasks such as the learning of paired-associate lists of words. Verbal learners tried to preserve behaviourist attitudes so had clearly defined stimulus and response components. o Memorization = attachment of responses to stimuli o Forgetting = loss of response availability Dominant method: paired associate learning paradigm people memorize pairs of items (often words, letters, nonsense syllables) and during testing they are presented with first item and asked to produce the second. First item = stimulus, second item = response Many variations to this theme: o P must learn second list of items. If second list was unrelated to first, it is called A-B C-D paradigm, and if second list retained initial cues with first list, it is called A-B A-D paradigm (much harder). o Alternatively, one couls have the second list be combinations of the A items with synonyms of B items, called an A-B A-B paradigm or a recombination of the A and B items from the first list, an A-B A-Br paradigm |(very hard) Researchers often do this to look at the effects of interference of prior learning on new learning Early Efforts in Neuroscience Lashley asked: Is it possible to locate ind memories in the brain? o Conducted series of studies in search of engram neural representation of a memory trace. o Trained rats to run a maze and then surgically removed parts of rats brains. If memories were localized in one part, then destroying that part would destroy the memory Outcome: lesioned rats stil perform better than control rats (first time maze). The critical factor was how much tissue was removed, not where. This led Lashley to conclude that engrams are not localized in one part of the brain but are distributed throughout the cortex. (recent studies show some forms of memory are localized but general conclusion is that many diff and distributed brain parts are used in memory processing) Hebb wrote The Organization of Behaviour to try to understand how interconnections among neurons influence info processing. o

Said memories were encoded in nervous system in two-stage process. First stage: neural excitation would revererate around in cell assemblies. A collection of cells that corresponds to new patterns or ideas would be stimulated and this stimulation would continue for some time Second stage: interconnections among these neurons would physically change, with some connections actually growing stronger. (similar to the idea of longterm potentiation) Believed it took some time for memories to move from stage 1 to 2. This is why when people suffer from brain trauma they may lose recent memories. The Cognitive Revolution Cognitive revolution: the period in time during the 1950s and 1960s when there was a shift from behaviourisn to an accepted study of mental processes (cognitive psychology) Miller provided important findings, such as his work on STM capacity in the paper The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two demonstrated how STM is a limited system o Also showed that how people mentally organize info has an influence on memory. i.e. the more highly organized a set of info was, the better the memory. How info is actively thought about can affect later memory. o Knowledge in LTM can influence current memory performance in profound ways THE MODAL MODEL OF MEMORY Modal model: standard model of memory developed by Atkinson and Shriffin (1968). This model is composed of four components: (1) the sensory registers, (2) a short-term store, (3) control processes, and (4) a lot-term store o Serves as heuristic for how memory works Sensory registers: collection of memory stores which each correspond to a different sensory modality. Sensory registers generally have a very large capacity but very short duration (long enough to see if it is worthy of further attention) o If we didnt have sensory registers, our minds would be constantly locked into only the very current state of affairs and we would not be able to detect patterns that involve brief memories, such as determining that two frames of a film can be interpreted as continuous movement or that a sequence of sounds forms a word Once info has been attended to, it needs to be kept in the current stream of though so goes to short-term memory: information is held for a period of generally no longer than 30s unless rehearsed. Control processes can operate on info in this memory store. Finally, STM has a very limited capacity of 7 2 chunks of info. o This info is either in conscious awareness or just beyond it Third component: control processes that actively manipulate info in STM. This can include rehearsing info to transferring knowledge to or from LTM, or perhaps even reasoning o Is an active participant in reality rather than just a passive absorption and retrieval mechanism Fourth component: long-term memory: information is held for longer periods of time and has a functionally unlimited capacity MULTIPLE MEMORY SYSTEMS Memory is not unitary, is composed of several different subcomponents. Each subcomponent is evolved to handle a different job. Some LT memories are implicit and act on us outside of consciousness. Others are explicit and can enter conscious awareness. LTM can also differ in terms of whether they refer to specific events or to general knowledge.

Tulvings Triarchi Theory of Memory divides LTM into three classes: procedural, semantic, and episodic. Procedural memory is an old memory system, even primitive organisms have it Procedural has been refered to as nondeclarative, and episodic and semantic are declarative LONG-TERM STORE Declarative memory (explicit memory) Nondeclarative Memory (implicit memory)

Episodic semantic procedural classical priming Memory memory memory conditioning Declarative memory: a portion of memory that is open to conscious inspection and verbalization. Easy to articulate and talk about o Divided into two categories: Semantic memory: memory for general world, encyclopedic knowledge that is generally shared with ones community and is not tied to a time or place. E.g knowing what bird is Highly interrelated and are forgotten slowly once extablished Tulving believes it is noetic because it requires conscious awareness. i.e. you have to be consciously aware to know that an object is a bird and is similar to members of that category. Episodic memory: memory for the individual events a person experiences, and are tied to a specific time and place. Memories are compartmentalized and forgotten rapidly. Uses autonoetic knowledge because it require knowledge of the self Nondeclarative memory: info in LTM that is difficult to articulate but still has profound influences on our lives o Nondeclarative is called anoetic by Tulving because it does not require conscious thought There is also a difference in how people use their memories explicit-implicit distinction roughly corresponds to declarative-nondeclarative distinction. The imp point here is how info is retrieved, not the content. o Explicit memory: memory that involves conscious awareness that is, a person is aware tat she is using her memory to perform some task o Implicit memory: memory that is unconscious and out of awareness- that is, a person is now aware that they are using his or her memory to perform some task Familiar things are recognized more quickly, preferred in choices, and guide our thinking examples of the influence of implicit memory RECURRING ISSUES Neurological Bases Early in cognitive age, much of study of human thought and memory was dominated by computer metaphor (distinction between hardware and software) o Idea was that the softwar can be studied without a detailed understanding of the underlying hardware However some aspects of memory can only be understood if you are familiar with the underlying neurophysiology.

Emotion Importance of emotion has been shown in both behavioural and neurological data Multiple Memory Sources Memory often uses multiple sources than a single source. o E.g. fuzzy trace theories of memory: there are at least two memory traces involved in the act of remembering: one contains detailed info about a specific instance, the other is a more general, categorical trace that captures general info. What is rmred is a combination of these Info in detailed memory dominates when person has good memory of specific events, and vice versa. Embodied Cognition Embodied cognition: theoretical idea that cognitive processes are strongly influenced and guided by the fact that we inhabit bodies that interact with the world in certain ways. That is, our bodily interactions with the world are incorporated into how we think about things. o People use context to help guide the encoding and retrieval of info o Memory often operates in realtime as events are unfolding in the world. o Memory is influenced by both the structure of the perceptual info it receives as well as the types of activities a person will likely perform in the future e.g. rmring how to navigate around a town Scientific Rigor and Converging Evidence Taking a rigorous, scientific approach can help us have an objective view. Opinions/theories are better supported when evidence comes from different methods of collecting and analyzing data that are all consistent with the same explanation.