Lecturer: Dr. Benjamin Amponsah, Dept. of Psychology, UG, Legon - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

College of Education School of Continuing and Distance Education

2014/2015 – 2016/2017

Lecturer: Dr. Benjamin Amponsah, Dept. of Psychology, UG, Legon Contact Information: bamponsah@ug.edu.gh

Session Overview

• This section discusses factors that facilitate retrieval
• f information from the long-term memory as
• pposed to the short-term. This is based on the

appreciation of the fundamental dichotomy in the memory system that gives rise to the notion of short- and long-term memory retentions. Retrieval from these storages must follow different rules.

Slide 2

Session Objectives

At the end of the session, the student will

• Understand the view that long-term memory

retrieval is the ultimate aim of memory

• Understand why cues are important in the retrieval

process

• Appreciate the two competing theories of retrieval

from the long-term memory

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Session Outline

The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:

• Topic One: Retrieval from the long-term memory
• Topic Two: Is Retrieval Process One or Two?
• Topic Three: Decision Making during Retrieval
• Topic Four: Retrieval Failure

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RETRIEVAL FROM THE LONG-TERM MEMORY

Topic One

Slide 5

Reading List

• Ashcraft, M. H. (2006). Cognition (4th edn.), London: Pearson

Education Int.

• Galotti, K. M. (2004). Cognitive Psychology: In and out of the

laboratory (3rd Edn.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

• Hunt, R. R. & Ellis, H. C. (1999). Fundamentals of Cognitive

Psychology (6th edn.), New York: McGraw-Hill.

• Willingham, D, B. (2001). Cognition: The thinking animal. NJ:

Prentice-Hall.

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RETRIEVAL

• Retrieval is the process by which stored

information is brought back to conscious awareness.

• Retrieval is what makes memory practical and

the only time we really use our memories is when we retrieve a stimulus that is no longer present in our consciousness which is dependent on cues.

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Retrieval

What makes a Cue Effective?

• Retrieval process is critically dependent upon the

use of cues. So what is an effective cue?

• The obvious answer is that a good cue is any

information that helps us to remember.

• Cue – a stimulus that signals, prompts or hints

during retrieval or anything that excites to action.

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Why are Cues effective?

• There are two competing ideas of cue effectiveness in
• memory. These are:

– Associative Strength Theory of Cue effectiveness – Encoding Specificity Hypothesis of Cue Effectiveness

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Associative Strength Theory

• Associative Strength Theory of Cue Effectiveness

– The basic premise of Associative strength is that a cue is effective if it has occurred frequently with the to-be- remembered event in the past. Such cues are said to be strongly associated with the event. – For example, whistle frequently occurs with train, and whistle is a very good cue to help remember train. – Other common words with associative strength in our environment are Commonwealth and Vandals; black and white, rice and beans, Kofi and Ama and so on.

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Associative Strength Theory

• To determine how strongly associated two words are, free-

association norms are used.

• In free-association, a person simply responds with the first

word which comes to mind when given the target word.

• Associative strength is determined by the number of persons

who give a particular response. The greater the number of persons who give a common response, the higher the associative strength becomes.

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Associative Strength Theory

• The essence of this theory is to show that strongly associated cues

produce better memory than weakly associated cues.

• Associative-strength theory works on a memory structure

consisting of an associative network interrelating all of the items in memory.

• Retrieval begins with the activation of the representation of the

cue itself.

• Activation refers to the transfer of information from long-term to

short-term memory. In other words, activation is a concept describing the transformation of information from a latent state to a conscious state.

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Associative Strength Theory

• The strength of association between a cue and another item is

represented by the distance between the two in the associative

• network. See Figure 10.1

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Example of Spread of Activation

• Figure 10.1. Strongly associated items are closer together (bird/feathers;

bird/sings; bird/flies etc.).

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Associative Strength Theory

• How then does Associative Strength develop?
• Historically, the consensual answer to this question has

been the frequency of previous pairing of two events. After many pairings, the occurrence of one event quickly and automatically brings the other to mind.

• The idea certainly sounds reasonable, but surprisingly

Tulving (1971) disagreed and proposed an alternative explanation.

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Encoding Specificity Theory

Encoding Specificity Hypothesis of Cue Effectiveness

• Tulving agrees with the premise that past experience is very

important to current performance and virtually, all psychologists agree with this principle.

• Tulving’s argument is that any given event occurs only once and

does not allow frequent pairings with other events, but rather every event has one and only one episode.

• If this is true, (and at some level it is), then associative strength

theory with its emphasis on frequency of past occurrence must be inadequate.

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Encoding Specificity Theory

• For Tulving, effective retrieval cues are those which were

present when the event occurred.

• That is, a cue will be effective if it was specifically

encoded with the target event.

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IS RETRIEVAL ONE OR TWO PROCESS?

Topic Two

Slide 18

Processes of Retrieval

Is Retrieval Process One or Two? – Both Associative strength and Encoding specificity are instances of single-process retrieval theory (because retrieval in both processes relies on cues – single process). – Single-process theories propose that once output conditions (cues present at encoding) are met, retrieval occurs automatically.

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Processes of Retrieval

– From this perspective retrieval is a simple psychological process. We don’t think about it. It just happens. – To some extent, this is true. – Example: Think about trying to remember a forgotten

• name. The name suddenly pops up into awareness

and is recalled.

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Processes of Retrieval

Generation-Recognition Process

• In another sense, recall is not all that easy. You probably generated

so many names, recognized some of them as incorrect, rejected several alternatives and so on. It took you some time in this generation process before you finally retrieved the desired response.

• This example indicates the complexity of the retrieval process.

Simply, retrieval involves more than automatic activation of the target information.

• This alternative view, referred to as Generation-Recognition

process, suggests that two processes are involved in retrieval.

Slide 21

Processes of Retrieval

– The first process is the Generation of an item,

• Several information is activated from memory

– The second process of Recognizing the generated item is proposed (recognition decision).

• The target information is identified and selected.

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DECISION MAKING DURING RETRIEVAL

Topic Three

Slide 23

Changes in Retrieval Cues

• If retrieval cues are changed from Input to Output, what happens

to Recall? Naturally, recall suffers.

• If grape-jam is seen at input, changing the test cue to

traffic ------ makes it difficult retrieve jam.

• Similarly, if a person’s name is associated with his face (cue), and

then at a later meeting the face has changed, (e.g., plastic surgery, growing beard, hair style etc.,), the name may be difficult to recall.

• This is because the cues have changed from input to output, it

becomes difficult to generate a response.

Slide 24

Changes in Retrieval Cues

• The Figure 11.1. below demonstrates performance outcome
• f changing retrieval cue from input to output.

Slide 25

Changes in Retrieval Cues

• Results from a number of studies showing the effect of

recognition accuracy of changing a cue from input to test so that the test cue biases a different meaning for the target noun (Hunt & Ellis, 1999).

• How do we explain this finding using the single and the two-

process theories?

• For single-process theorists, the answer for the difficulty in

recall is simple: the new cue disrupts the old cue.

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Changes in Retrieval Cues

• The counter-argument by the two-process view is that the

cue change does not disrupt the old encoding. Rather, the memory of the old item is different from the new test item.

• For example, failure to recognize a friend after he grows beard

is not because you cannot remember what he looked like before the beard, but rather he looks much different.

• When you see grape-jam at input and fail to recognize

traffic-jam at output, it is because the two jams are very different, not because of failure to retrieve the word.

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RETRIEVAL FAILURE

Topic Four

Slide 28

Forgetting

Retrieval Failure: Forgetting

We examine several theories that explain aspects of human forgetting with the view of providing some insights and finally to help us minimise our forgetting.

• Theories of forgetting

– Memory is important and critical for our survival. Fortunately, the memory system is also very efficient that it hardly fails. However, when it fails the results is usually frustrating and sometimes catastrophic .

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Inability to Forget – Total Recall

• However, before we consider forgetting, let us look at one human

being who is amazingly not affected by the routine of daily forgetting or inability to forget – Total recall.

• Inability to forget (Total recall)
• The Case of S. V. Shereshevskii
• The most celebrated case of extraordinary memory and also one of

the most documented is that of S. (S. V. Shereshevskii), whose capabilities were studied by the distinguished Russian psychologist

• A. R. Luria (1968).

Slide 30

Inability to Forget

• The semiclinical study began in the mid-1920s when S. was working

as a newspaper reporter. He changed jobs several times and finally became a professional mnemonist.  S’s memory allowed him to listen while other reporters were busily scribbling notes.  S could repeat up to 70 digits or words provided they were presented about 3 seconds apart in a silent room.

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Inability to Forget

 He could also recall them backwards as easily as forward preserving the serial order.  Even after 15 years, he was unerring (even after memorizing 100 other lists).

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Why We Forget

WHY DOES FORGETTING OCCUR?

• We are going to discuss several theories in

connection with why we forget.

Slide 33

Why We Forget

• Decay theory

– Decay occurs only at the level of Sensory Register and STM levels – Memory simply fades away due to lack of rehearsal

• Interference

– A crucial factor in predicting memory accuracy is the retention interval – What happens between learning and retrieval? – These events are called interference.

• There are two sources of interference known to disrupt memory -

retroactive and proactive interference.

Slide 34

Why We Forget

• Retroactive Interference (backward)
• The interference that the learning of new material has upon the

recall of material learned previously. Retroactive simply means backward in time.

• Proactive Interference (forward)
• Proactive interference is the effect of previously learnt material on

the recall of new material. It is “proactive” in the sense that information acquired in the past has its effects felt “forward” in time.

Slide 35

Figure 11.1. An example of experimental paradigm that can be used to create proactive and retroactive interference.

Why We Forget

• Cue-Dependent Forgetting

– One reason for this forgetting or access failure is that cues are inappropriate or ineffective. – Cue-dependent forgetting is a matter of retrieval failure attributable to poor cues.

• Misinformation Effect

– Misinformation effect is the distortion of memory by misleading post-event information.

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Why We Forget

– According to Loftus and Loftus (1980), misleading information can be incorporated into the memory structure in such a way that the original information is irrevocably altered (overwritten or destroyed).

• Physiological conditions

– Apart from sources that are basically psychological, we also have other causes of forgetting that are due to physiological causes.

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Why We Forget

– Diseases like Alzheimer (a degenerative disorder that affects the brain and causes dementia) and – Korsakoff syndrome (a clinical syndrome characterized by dense anterograde amnesia) are examples of diseases that can impair brain function especially, memory.

Slide 39

Why We Forget

• Forgetting Caused by Repression

– Repression is the active forgetting (effort) of an episode that is very painful or emotionally charged. The person forgets the episode for the sake of self- protection.

Slide 40

Minimizing Forgetting

How to Minimize Forgetting

Developing facility in memory is generally not complicated; you just need to concentrate on certain basic ideas we have already discussed.

Slide 41

Minimizing Forgetting

• Concentration is the first step

– You concentrate while paying attention to

• rganization, elaboration and distinctiveness during

encoding.

• Practicing Principles of Retrieval

– Concentrate on the principles of retrieval, develop and use good cues. – Practice retrieval by reciting orally,

Slide 42

Minimizing Forgetting

• Knowledge of Results (feedback)
• Recitation

– Recitation refers to summarizing aloud while you are

• learning. Recitation forces you to practice retrieving

information.

• Spaced Practice
• Sleep after studies
• Review what you have studied

Slide 43

Sample Questions

• Illustrate with practical examples the encoding

specificity hypothesis of cue effectiveness,

• Does it make sense to make a distinction between

the single-process theory and two process theory?

• What do you understand by generation recognition

model?

• Do we really forget?
• Explain interference theory of forgetting.

Slide 44

References

• Luria, A. R. (1968). The mind of a mnemonist. New

York: Basic Books.

• Tulving, E. (1962). Subjective organization in free

recall of “unrelated” words. Psychological Review , 69, 344-354.

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