Long-Term Memory Influences on Retrieval

Cognitive Psychology: Theory, Process, and Methodology - Dawn M. McBride, J. Cooper Cutting 2019


Long-Term Memory Influences on Retrieval

Questions to Consider

· How does our memory influence us unintentionally?

· Why does forgetting occur and what can you do to prevent it?

· Which methods of encoding information are effective in increasing retrieval from long-term memory?

· Which methods of retrieving information are effective in increasing memory performance?

· In what ways do encoding and retrieval interact to affect long-term memory?

· How effective are mnemonics in increasing long-term memory retrieval?

· Does photographic memory exist?

Introduction: Superior Memory

Imagine that you could remember everything you ever experienced, everything you ever read, and everything you ever learned. Does that sound like the kind of memory you would want? You would probably score higher on exams in your courses, but you would also remember the pain of every bad event from your life, remember lots of useless knowledge that you do not care about, and would not be able to revise your older memories based on new experiences. Our memory is not designed to work perfectly because it does not need to in order for it to help us make it through our lives. However, it is designed to remember things that are important to us if we do the right things to help strengthen those memories. That is what this chapter is about: factors that affect retrieval from long-term memory and how we can use those factors to our advantage in improving our memories.

Although no one’s memory is perfect, there are individuals who have learned to train their memories such that they can perform extraordinary feats of memory. Andi Bell, who is the 1998, 2002, and 2003 World Memory Champion, can recall the order of playing cards in ten shuffled decks after only twenty minutes of study time. He can achieve the same perfect recall for a single deck of cards with less than two minutes of study time. How do individuals like Andi Bell accomplish such amazing memory tasks? Do they have a photographic memory such that the cards are stored as pictures in their minds? The answer is no. Memory champions like Andi Bell instead work hard to train their memories using mnemonic techniques that take advantage of the way our memories work to remember extraordinary amounts of information. These techniques have been used by humans throughout our history to help us remember important information. For example, ancient Romans used mnemonics to help them remember speeches. These skills were so important that those most respected in society for their intellect were those who had the best memory skills. However, anyone willing to work to develop memory skills can learn to use them. Joshua Foer eloquently describes how they work, along with his story of using these techniques to win the 2006 U.S. Memory Championship, in his book Moonwalking with Einstein (2011). But what if you do not wish to put in the amount of effort required to win a memory championship, and you simply want to better remember some of the techniques you are trying to learn for this course? In this chapter, we examine some simple techniques you can use to aid your retrieval from long-term memory (these tools are bolded in the text to draw your attention to them as memory aids you might find useful), as we describe some of the important factors that influence memory.

Retrieval From Long-Term Memory

In this chapter we will describe some methods for improving retrieval from long-term memory. But we have not yet discussed different means of retrieval from memory so we will begin with an overview of different types of memory tasks. Table 6.1 provides an overview of the tasks discussed in this chapter.

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How do researchers measure memory retrieval? The answer depends on the type of retrieval they are interested in. Are they measuring intentional retrieval or unintentional retrieval? This is one important distinction. Are they interested in memory retrieval using cues or without the help of cues? Whether the retrieval task includes cues to guide retrieval is another distinction between retrieval tasks. We focus first on some standard intentional-retrieval tasks (also called explicit-memory tasks) designed to measure episodic and semantic memories: free recall, cued recall, and recognition. Then we describe some unintentional retrieval tasks known as implicit-memory tasks that were designed to measure certain kinds of procedural memories. Finally, we consider a common form of everyday memory task: retrieving an intention to complete a future task (e.g., remembering to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work, remembering to take medication after you eat dinner), known as prospective memory.

Recall Tasks

Recall tasks are intentional-retrieval tasks that either provide specific cues to aid retrieval (cued-recall tasks) or do not provide specific cues, as in free-recall tasks. In free-recall tasks, one is asked to retrieve information without any additional context for the information. In a standard episodic-memory experiment, this typically involves having subjects study a list of items and then (after some delay) asking them to recall the items without any additional information. Free-recall tasks can also be used for retrieval of semantic memories. When you complete a short-answer question for an exam, you are typically completing a free-recall task. If someone asks you, “What is the capital of Romania?” you are being asked to free recall a semantic memory that you may be able to retrieve if at some point in the past you have learned that the capital of Romania is Bucharest. If you’d been asked, “What is the capital of Romania? It starts with a B,” this would be a cued-recall task because the first letter that is given serves as a cue for remembering the correct city name. Different kinds of information can be given as cues in a cued-recall task. In the previous example, the starting letter serves as a cue. But suppose instead you are asked to retrieve a list of words that you studied such as lemon, banana, soda, vodka, pineapple, orange, water, wine. In this case, you are asked to retrieve episodic memories, but the cued-recall task could ask you to first recall all the drinks and then recall all the fruits. The cues in this test are the categories of the items being retrieved. Thus, there are many ways to construct a cued-recall task.

Recognition Tasks

Unlike recall tasks, in recognition tasks one is not asked to generate any information. Instead, one is asked to verify whether information has been experienced before. When you see the face of someone you know you have met before across a room of strangers, you are recognizing that the face is one you know, whereas the other faces in the room are ones you do not know. When you take a multiple-choice exam, you are completing a recognition test, because you are presented with the correct answer among other choices and you need to “recognize” which answer provided is the correct one. In a standard recognition task in a memory study, subjects are asked to study a set of items. They are then given a list of items (typically one at a time) with some items that were on the list and some that were not on the list. Subjects are asked to judge whether each item was on the list (an “old” item) or not on the list (a “new” item). This is known as a yes-no recognition test. In another variant of this type of test, subjects are presented with two items at a time, one old item and one new item, and their task is to choose the item that is old. This is known as a two-alternative forced-choice test. Subjects may also be asked about how the items “feel” to them when judging the items. For example, they may be asked to rate their confidence in their judgment (e.g., on a 1-to-5 scale). Or for items they judge to be old, they may be asked about whether they “remember” the item (i.e., they can remember details about the item such as position in the list or perceptual details) or if they just “know” the item was on the list (i.e., they cannot retrieve the details of its presentation, but they are sure the item was on the list).

Comparing Recall and Recognition Tasks

The likelihood of intentionally retrieving an episodic memory sometimes depends on the type of retrieval task that is given: recall or recognition. In fact, researchers have found that in some cases, retrieval in different conditions is heavily influenced by the retrieval task used. For example, Eagle and Leiter (1964) showed that recall and recognition are affected in different ways by subjects’ knowledge of the upcoming memory test when items are studied. In their study, different groups of subjects were given different instructions when they studied the list. Half of the subjects were told they would need to remember the words for a memory test. In other words, they performed an intentional learning task. The other half of the subjects were given a task to perform on the list items (e.g., classify them by parts of speech) and was not informed about the later memory test. This group performed an incidental learning task. The results in this experiment showed that recall was higher for the intentional study condition than for the incidental study condition. However, recognition was better for items studied in the incidental study condition than the intentional study condition (i.e., they found an interaction between study condition and type of test). These results showed that knowing about the upcoming memory test helped when that test was a recall test but hurt when the test was a recognition test (see Figure 6.1). A similar effect was shown when common (e.g., boat) and uncommon (e.g., feat) words were studied. Common words were more likely to be recalled, but uncommon words were more likely to be recognized (Kinsbourne & George, 1974). Thus, the retrieval test used to measure memory can influence one’s ability to remember. Implicit-memory tests illustrate this point even further.

Figure 6.1 Results From Eagle and Leiter’s (1964) Study

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Implicit-Memory Tasks

How does our memory influence our behavior without us intending it to or (in some cases) without us even knowing it is influencing us? Can we be “primed” to respond a certain way to a task based on a previous experience? This type of memory retrieval seems quite different from the recall and recognition retrieval tasks described earlier because the retrieval is not intentional as it is in those tasks. This type of retrieval involves a form of procedural memory, introduced in Chapter 5. Consider this example: Suppose you are walking across campus and you pass someone who looks familiar to you. You were not likely looking at each face you passed, thinking about whether you knew them. Instead, you retrieved the memory of the person’s face unintentionally (which may have then prompted explicit retrieval of meeting him or her at a party last weekend). The experience of meeting that person before prompted the feeling of familiarity with the person’s face using implicit memory when you passed him or her on campus. Implicit-memory tasks are designed to measure memory without intentional retrieval. Implicit-memory tasks typically involve a cue, as in the cued-recall tasks described earlier, or identification, as in the recognition tasks described earlier, but no instruction to retrieve a memory is given as it is in explicit-memory tasks. Instead, subjects are asked to complete a task that makes no reference to a previously studied episode. Subjects may be asked to complete word stems (e.g., app-) with the first word they think of that starts with those letters (e.g., apple) in a stem-completion task, or they may be asked to identify words or pictures that are flashed very briefly on a computer screen in a perceptual-identification task. The key is that some of the stems or items in these tasks correspond to items presented earlier in the experiment. Implicit memory is measured in these tasks by the advantage (e.g., completion rates, speed of identification) shown for studied items compared with unstudied items. In other words, having studied some items earlier makes one more likely to complete stems with those items or likely to identify them more quickly. Other forms of implicit-memory tests involve conceptual cues, such as categories or semantic knowledge questions where category exemplars or the answers to the questions have been presented as studied items.

Implicit memory: procedural memory that alters performance based on previous experiences

An interesting example of an implicit task was used in research by Larry Jacoby and colleagues (Jacoby, Woloshyn, & Kelley, 1989). They presented both famous and nonfamous names for subjects to study. They then asked subjects to identify famous names among a list of famous and nonfamous names; some were famous and nonfamous names that had been presented in the study list, and some were new famous and nonfamous names. Their results showed that having seen the nonfamous names in the study list made the subjects more likely to call them famous later on, showing that their implicit memory of the names they had studied influenced their judgments of fame. In other words, names became “famous” simply because they had been studied previously and retrieved unintentionally. We discuss additional examples of implicit tests in Chapter 7 and connect implicit memory more to neurological functions in that chapter.

Prospective-Memory Tasks

Have you ever forgotten to take medication that you were supposed to take at a certain time? Or forgotten to turn in an assignment even though you had it completed on time? These examples represent failure of another type of LTM retrieval: prospective memory. Prospective memory refers to remembering to perform a task at some point in the future. Tasks like remembering to stop at the store on your way home to buy milk, call your mother on her birthday, or take medication at 9:00 p.m. every night are prospective-memory tasks. You likely rely on your prospective-memory abilities often in completing academic tasks such as remembering to study for an upcoming exam, remembering to register for courses at a certain time, and remembering to hand in a paper on the day it is due. At this point, it is unclear how much prospective memory differs from the other forms of memory we have already discussed. It is an intentional task but requires that one remember the intention to perform the task. Thus, accurate retrieval of an intention depends on how that retrieval is initiated. This can occur through cues in our environment. For example, seeing a picture of someone blowing out candles on a cake in a TV commercial might cue your retrieval of your intention to call your mother on her birthday. Or the sight of the store on your route home can cue your retrieval of your intention to stop and buy milk. This type of prospective-memory task is known as an event-based task because some type of event (e.g., seeing the commercial or the store) cues the retrieval of the task you intend to perform. Another type of prospective memory is time based in that you intend to perform that task at a specific time in the future. For example, taking medication at 9:00 p.m. is a time-based task and involves monitoring of the time in some way to perform it accurately. You might happen to glance at a clock near 9:00 p.m. or notice that a 9:00 p.m. TV show is starting to cue you to the time that aids in your retrieval of the task (i.e., taking your medicine). There is some evidence that event-based tasks are easier to remember (Sellen, Louie, Harris, & Wilkins, 1997), but this question is still being investigated.

Prospective memory: memory for future intentions

Prospective-memory tasks have been studied by researchers in two ways: as they occur in everyday life (e.g., remembering to call someone at a specific time) and as they occur in laboratory tasks (e.g., remembering to press a key when one sees a specific word in a task). In both cases, the prospective-memory tasks are designed to simulate typical prospective-memory tasks that people perform in their everyday lives (e.g., remembering to call your mother on her birthday). To allow more control over the factors that can influence prospective-memory performance, Einstein and McDaniel (1990) developed a frequently used laboratory procedure to study prospective-memory tasks. In this lab-based method, a prospective-memory task is embedded within an ongoing task to simulate the remembering of a prospective-memory task within the typical tasks of everyday life. The prospective-memory tasks given in studies employing Einstein and McDaniel’s methodology typically involve asking subjects to make a certain response (e.g., press the 5 key) when they encounter a specific word (e.g., rabbit) or specific type of word (e.g., animals). The subjects are then asked to perform an ongoing task (e.g., rate the pleasantness of words or decide if a string of letters is a word) while they attempt to remember the prospective-memory task. Using this methodology, researchers are exploring questions about how prospective memory works, such as: How much attention is needed to perform the prospective-memory task (e.g., Einstein et al., 2005)? Does prospective-memory performance decline with age (e.g., Kvavilashvili, Kornbrot, Mash, Cockburn, & Milne, 2009)? What are the effects of delay on prospective-memory performance (e.g., McBride, Beckner, & Abney, 2011)?

Stop and Think

· 6.1. Describe the primary difference between recall and recognition tasks.

· 6.2. In what way do implicit-memory tasks measure memory without intention?

· 6.3. How do prospective-memory tasks differ from other forms of intentional retrieval?

· 6.4. Provide an example of each of the following memory tasks from your life: free recall, cued recall, recognition, implicit memory, prospective memory.

Why We Forget

Why do we forget things? Why aren’t we able to retrieve important information when we need it? The process of forgetting has been studied for as long as there has been a field of experimental psychology. Forgetting is a natural process that occurs when information is unable to be retrieved from memory. The inability to retrieve information generally seems to increase as the time since the information was learned increases. Ebbinghaus (1885) first showed that forgetting follows a typical pattern where a lot of information is forgotten very quickly after study, but then the rate of loss slows as the length of time since study increases. Figure 6.2 illustrates this classic pattern. This pattern of forgetting has held up over many studies in the time since Ebbinghaus’s experiments.

Early in the study of memory, researchers suggested that memories simply decay over time, the way the colors in a printed photograph fade over time. However, this idea does not describe the mechanism by which information is lost from memory, and its popularity as a cause of forgetting has decreased over the decades of memory research (Wixted, 2004). One mechanism by which forgetting does seem to occur is interference. Interference occurs when other information prevents the retrieval of the target information (see Chapter 5 for further discussion of interference). For example, if you learned that the capital of Brazil is Brasilia and then later learned that the largest city in Brazil is São Paulo, you might have interference when you attempt to retrieve the name of the capital of Brazil and mistakenly retrieve São Paulo. However, interference can occur even if you do not retrieve any city name in this case. The vast amount of information you encounter in your daily life can serve as interference in preventing retrieval from memory.

Another proposed cause of forgetting is lack of consolidation. Consolidation is a neural process by which memories are strengthened and more permanently stored in the brain. Initially, memory storage relies on a brain structure called the hippocampus, long known for its importance in memory functioning. However, over time, memories are stored elsewhere in the cortical areas of the brain, allowing for more permanent storage (McGaugh, 2000). This is the process of systems consolidation and can take days, weeks, or months to complete (Wixted, 2010). However, a second type of consolidation occurs on a shorter time scale: synaptic consolidation. Synaptic consolidation occurs within and across neurons, the individual cells that make up the tissue in the brain. Sleep seems to be important in aiding the consolidation process (Stickgold, Hobson, Fosse, & Fosse, 2001); thus, sleeping between a study episode and testing will aid long-term memory. This has been shown in numerous studies where subjects are asked to learn some information, followed by half of the subjects being asked to sleep while the other half stay awake. After the same delay, both sets of subjects are tested on the learned information. The group that slept generally shows less forgetting than the group that did not sleep. See Figure 6.3 for results from the classic study by Jenkins and Dallenbach (1924) with this design.

Consolidation: neural process by which memories are strengthened and more permanently stored in the brain

Figure 6.2 The Classic Forgetting Function

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Wixted (2010) has argued that both interference and consolidation failures contribute to forgetting. Thus, one way to increase retrieval from long-term memory (and improve memory performance) is to facilitate consolidation (e.g., by sleeping after studying) and prevent interference as much as possible. In other words, sleeping between the study and test of information you want to remember will help you retrieve that information from long-term memory. Many additional factors aid in efforts to improve your memory, and we discuss each of these in this chapter along with their effects on long-term memory retrieval.

Encoding Effects

Of the three main processes of memory—encoding, storage, and retrieval (see Chapter 5 for more description of these processes)—encoding and retrieval are the processes most under our control, and therefore, these processes can be conducted in ways that help us remember information. We begin with a discussion of encoding processes (i.e., how we process information coming into our memory system) to highlight encoding techniques that aid in retrieval from long-term memory. In general, the more active and effortful encoding processes are, the better we remember. But how do we make these processes “active and effortful”?

Figure 6.3 Results From Jenkins and Dallenbach’s (1924) Study

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Stop and Think

· 6.5. Why does forgetting occur?

· 6.6. How do systems consolidation and synaptic consolidation differ?

· 6.7. What is one way you can increase your retrieval from long-term memory as you study for an upcoming exam?

Levels of Processing

In the 1970s, researchers discovered something interesting about memory performance: The “deeper” information was encoded, the better it was remembered. To illustrate this principle, consider this example.

For the following words, note whether each word is in capital letters (yes or no):

· TREE fork

· BIRD DEER

· nail FISH

· moon baby

· HILL card

Now cover up the words and count backward by threes from sixty to zero. When you get to zero, try to recall all of the words. How did you do? Count how many words you got right. Now, let’s try it again with a different task. For the following words, note whether each word represents a living thing (yes or no):

· pail pole

· girl kite

· well toad

· bear lamp

· goat crab

Now cover up the words and count backward by threes from sixty to zero. When you get to zero, try to recall all of the words. How did you do on this list? Count how many words you got right. (Hold on to your recall lists from this example; we will come back to these data in the Serial Position Curve section of this chapter.) Did you remember the words better on the first list or the second list? Most people remember more words on the second list where they are deciding if each item is a living thing because it involves “deeper” encoding of the words.

Depth of encoding in this case means processing of the meaning of the information (also called elaborative encoding). For example, Craik and Tulving (1975) had subjects study words (e.g., SHARK) while answering different questions about the words. Some questions involved fairly shallow processing (e.g., Is the word in capital letters?). Other questions involved a moderate level of processing (e.g., Does the word rhyme with PARK?). And other questions involved deep processing (e.g., Is the word a type of FISH?) that required the subjects to consider the meaning of the words. Craik and Tulving (1975) showed that as the depth of processing at encoding increased, memory performance on a later recognition test increased. Figure 6.4 illustrates their results. Studies like this one helped show the now classic level-of-processing effect in memory: Encoding information according to its meaning aids long-term memory.

Elaborative encoding: processing of information according to its meaning to allow for longer storage in memory

Shallow processing: encoding information according to its surface features

Deep processing: encoding information according to its meaning

Level-of-processing effect: an effect showing better memory for information encoded with deep processing than with shallow processing

Spacing effect: an effect showing better memory when information is studied in smaller units over time instead of all at once, as in cramming

The level-of-processing effect seems to work because long-term memory is organized primarily according to the meaning of information (e.g., see Figure 5.1). Thus, information that is encoded according to meaning connects better with knowledge already stored in long-term memory, making it easier to retrieve that information later on. One issue, however, with this encoding technique is that an exact definition of depth has never been fully described. Clearly, meaning is important, but what type of meaning is most important? Is a categorization task (e.g., Is this word a FISH?) deeper or shallower than a sentence-completion task (e.g., Does the word fit in this sentence: “He ate the _________ for dinner last night”?) or than a living/nonliving judgment (e.g., Is a SHARK a living thing?)? How do we know how “deep” encoding is? Researchers have not been able to clearly answer these questions. In addition, it seems that the type of retrieval used in remembering the information is also important in defining which encoding tasks are best (see the Encoding-Retrieval Interactions section later in this chapter). Thus, using deep encoding techniques may only aid memory in certain situations.

Spacing Effects

When you have a big exam coming up, how do you study for it? Do you study for a couple of hours each day for several days before the exam or study all day the day before the exam? Research in memory (e.g., Melton, 1970) has shown that the first study plan often results in better memory than the second study plan. This is called the spacing effect. This result holds even when the total amount of study time is equivalent across the two study plans. In other words, studying for one hour every day for the week before an exam (a total of seven study hours) should result in better memory for the material than studying for seven hours the day before the exam (see Figure 6.5). This result represents the difference between spaced and massed encoding repetitions: Spaced repetitions result in better memory than massed repetitions.

Figure 6.4 Results From Craik and Tulving’s (1975) Experiment 1

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One reason studying over time is typically better than cramming is that multiple study episodes provide more varied retrieval cues (i.e., pieces of the circumstances that existed when information was encoded, such as things in the environment or thoughts you had about the information) that can be useful when information is retrieved from long-term memory. If you study at different times, you are likely changing some of the circumstances that exist during study, such as your environment, your mood, your thoughts during study, and perhaps even your study technique. All of this contextual information is stored with the material you are studying. When you attempt to retrieve the information, these contextual cues can help you connect to information you are trying to remember. This process is described further in the Encoding-Retrieval Interactions section.

Figure 6.5 Massed Versus Spaced Repetitions

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Serial Position Curve

Memory research has shown that the first information encoded and the last information encoded tend to be remembered better than information encoded in the middle. This has generally been shown in encoding lists of items (e.g., words). For example, words studied at the start of a list and words studied at the end of a list are the ones most likely to be retrieved from memory. When the first information encoded shows a memory advantage, this is known as a primacy effect. When the last information encoded shows a memory advantage, this is known as a recency effect. Look back at the recall data you created for the demonstration in the Levels of Processing section. Were you able to recall most of the items from the beginning of the lists? If so, you have illustrated the primacy effect. How about the items at the end of the lists? Did you recall most of those? If so, you have illustrated the recency effect. However, the recency effect may have been weakened in this example because you did the backward counting after each list that may have wiped out this effect.

Primacy effects are quite strong and seem to be due to the greater likelihood of storage in long-term memory for information studied first. There is nothing to interfere with the first items of a list, and they are more likely receiving deeper encoding than later items in a list. Recency effects, on the other hand, may be due to retrieval from short-term memory and can be eliminated with a delay or intervening task (such as backward counting) between the end of an encoding episode and retrieval of that episode. Consider, for example, an experiment conducted by Glanzer and Cunitz (1966). These researchers asked subjects to study lists of fifteen words. After study of each list, they were asked to immediately recall the list, complete a distractor task for ten seconds and then recall the list, or complete a distractor task for thirty seconds and then recall the list. Their results for the immediate recall condition showed what is known as a serial position curve with items in the beginning of the lists illustrating the primacy effect and items at the end of the lists illustrating the recency effect (see yellow line in Figure 6.6. For the two distractor task conditions, the recency effect was reduced. The recency effect was reduced the most for the longest delay condition (thirty seconds, see the red line in Figure 6.6). Figure 6.6 shows the mean recall results by list position for these three conditions. However, a study by Bjork and Whitten (1974) also showed that recency effects can be produced after a distractor-filled delay before the recall task, suggesting that long-term memory may also contribute to recency effects seen in the serial position curve.

Primacy effect: an effect in memory showing the best memory for information encoded first

Recency effect: an effect in memory showing the best memory for information encoded last

Serial position curve: an effect in memory showing the best memory for information encoded at the beginning and end of an encoding session

Primacy and recency effects are useful in attempting to determine when to study the most important information. Studying the most important information first should result in better memory for this information. Recency effects are useful if the test will occur after only a very short delay (e.g., looking over your notes right before the test is handed out). In summary, the first information encoded will show the best memory. The last information encoded will show a memory advantage primarily if the delay between encoding and retrieval is very short.

Stop and Think

· 6.8. Describe three methods of encoding that can increase retrieval from long-term memory.

· 6.9. What is a serial position curve?

· 6.10. Describe two ways of studying information that would qualify as deep encoding.

· 6.11. Based on what you have learned in this section, in what ways can your study techniques for your courses be improved?

Figure 6.6 Results From Experiment 2 of Glanzer and Cunitz’s (1966) Study Showing the Serial Position Curve

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Retrieval Effects

In many cases, retrieval from long-term memory depends on what occurs at retrieval. Retrieval practice that comes after study and before the final test can affect retrieval. In addition, the way retrieval practice is used can affect memory performance. Each of these factors is discussed in this section.

The Testing Effect

What techniques do you use to study for exams? Do you read over your notes? Reread the assigned readings? Highlight important concepts in the text or in your notes? Take the practice quizzes in your text or on the online learning site? If you are like most students, then you probably reread your notes and/or the text and highlight important concepts (Roediger & Pyc, 2012). However, of these techniques, recent research has shown that taking the practice quizzes is the most effective way to improve later retrieval because it provides retrieval practice. This effect is known as the testing effect. Reviewing information by means of an intervening test aids later retrieval. For some time, researchers have suggested that retrieving information from memory strengthens those memories (e.g., Bjork & Bjork, 1992). However, a series of studies has shown just how effective retrieval practice can be in increasing later retrieval from long-term memory. In one of the first of these studies, Roediger and Karpicke (2006a) asked subjects to read two passages (one about the sun and the other about sea otters). For one of the passages, the subjects were asked to reread the passage for seven minutes, and for the other passage, the subjects were asked to recall the information in the passage for seven minutes to provide retrieval practice. They were then asked to complete a final recall test of the information in the passage (regardless of which task they did after the first reading) either five minutes later, two days later, or one week later. Their results, shown in Figure 6.7, clearly show that for the longer delays (two days and one week), subjects remembered much more of the information when they recalled the passage after the first reading than when they simply reread the passage after the first reading.

Testing effect: an effect in memory showing better memory for information that has been tested in the retention interval as compared with other encoding of the information

The testing effect has been the topic of a number of memory studies in recent years. One possible reason for the effect is suggested to be the depth of encoding involved in the additional recall task (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006b), because the intervening recall task involves more effortful processing than simply rereading the passage. However, additional mechanisms for the testing effect have also been proposed. For example, retrieval practice may strengthen memories by strengthening the connection between the cues for retrieval (e.g., thoughts about the material) and the information to be retrieved (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011). As yet, researchers do not know if one (or more) of these mechanisms is the primary underlying cause of the testing effect. It is clear, though, that practicing retrieving information is an effective means of increasing the likelihood of retrieving that information in the future.

Photo 6.1 The testing effect shows that practicing the retrieval of information (e.g., quizzing yourself) will enhance later recall of that information more than re-reading the information (e.g., re-reading your notes).

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MARKA/Alamy Stock Photo

Using the Testing Effect

From the previous section, it is clear that retrieval practice aids long-term memory as long as the retention interval is long enough. However, the way retrieval practice is used as a learning tool can influence its effectiveness. One method ties back to a concept discussed with encoding effects: spaced practice. The other method relates to the type of retrieval practice that occurs: using explanatory questioning.

Figure 6.7 Results From Experiment 1 of Roediger and Karpicke’s (2006a) Study

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With regard to spacing retrieval practice, Roediger and Pyc (2012) summarize research showing that long-term memory is better when retrieval practice is mixed in content and type than if one topic is practiced in large blocks of problems. In other words, the best way to use retrieval practice as an aid to memory is to interweave practice of different topics and types of material. Thus, if you are preparing for multiple exams in the future (as most students are throughout the semester), it is best to do some retrieval practice of each topic at each of your study sessions to maximize the effects of that retrieval practice.

In addition, the type of retrieval practice you do can influence its effectiveness. According to the research summarized by Roediger and Pyc (2012), learning that involves processing known as explanatory questioning will be most effective. This type of learning involves the student considering why an answer is correct (explaining it to oneself) and considering what the student already knows and does not know. For example, if you were to attempt to recall all of the techniques to improve memory performance discussed so far in this chapter and you could only recall three of them, it would be helpful to consider to yourself (1) why the techniques work (i.e., how they increase retrieval from long-term memory) and (2) which techniques you did not recall so that you can study those techniques again before your next retrieval attempt. Thus, if you incorporate retrieval practice into your study techniques, you should consider the type of retrieval practice you do. Mixing the topics in each study session, doing an active analysis of why answers are correct or incorrect, and considering which material you could not correctly retrieve will be most effective in increasing your later retrieval of that information for an exam. You should also consider the type of test you will be taking (e.g., multiple choice, short answer) because encoding and retrieval can interact to affect long-term memory, as we discuss in the next section.

Stop and Think

· 6.12. What is retrieval practice? What effect does it have on long-term memory?

· 6.13. Which study-test delays show a memory advantage due to retrieval practice?

· 6.14. What types of retrieval practice are the most effective? Which of the encoding effects described in the Encoding Effects section do you think may be involved in the more effective retrieval practice techniques?

Encoding-Retrieval Interactions

The interaction between encoding and retrieval processes has been a topic of numerous research studies in memory in recent decades (e.g., Meier & Graf, 2000; Mulligan, 2012; Roediger, 1990). Based on the results of these studies, it is clear that matching the circumstances of encoding and retrieval aids memory. This phenomenon is known as the encoding specificity principle. These circumstances can involve the stimuli in the environment; one’s mood, thoughts about the information, and physiological state; and processing type. We now consider three examples of this phenomenon: environmental effects, mood effects, and processing effects.

Encoding specificity principle: the idea that memory is best when the circumstances of encoding and retrieval are matched

Environmental Context Effects

Studies of memory in the past few decades have shown that a match in environment between study and test aids memory. Godden and Baddeley (1975) conducted one of the classic studies showing this effect with divers. This subject sample (see Figure 6.8) allowed for two study conditions, underwater or above water, and two test conditions, underwater or above water. Thus, half of the subjects heard a list of words underwater while diving and half heard a list of words above water after diving. Then half of each of these groups (underwater study, above-water study) were tested in each environment (underwater test, above-water test). Overall, no effects of study condition or test condition alone were found on recall performance. In other words, being underwater did not reduce recall. However, the study and test conditions interacted such that there were different results when the study and test conditions matched and when they did not match. Figure 6.9 shows these results. Memory performance was higher when the study and test conditions matched (i.e., underwater study and test, above-water study and test) than when they did not match (i.e., underwater study and above-water test, above-water study and underwater test). These results show the importance of matching the environment of study and test.

What do these results mean for you and your study habits? These results suggest that a match in environment between your study locations and your testing locations will provide the best condition for memory retrieval. If you are not tested with music playing, then you should not study with music playing. If you are tested in a large, quiet room, then you should study in a large, quiet room. In fact, studying in your classroom will provide the best match in environment, and luckily, this is where your first learning of the material takes place (in the classroom your class is in), so you are already getting some advantage from this environmental match when you attend class.

Figure 6.8 Divers Participated in Godden and Baddeley’s (1975) Study With Study and Test Taking Place Above Water or Underwater

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Source: Photo from David De Lossy/Photodisc/Thinkstock.

Figure 6.9 Results From Experiment 1 of Godden and Baddeley’s (1975) Study

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Some studies (e.g., Isarida, Isarida, & Sakai, 2012) have shown that other contextual cues (e.g., how meaningful the information is) can reduce the effects of environmental matches between study and test on memory. Because other types of context provide better cues for retrieval, the environmental cues become less important. However, given the number of studies showing environmental-context match effects in both recall and recognition (see Smith & Vela, 2001), matching the environment from study to test may help you when other contextual cues fail to aid your retrieval of information you need during an exam. You might also consider other contextual cues such as what you are eating/drinking during encoding and retrieval. A match in these cues can aid retrieval as well. For example, if you drink caffeine when you study (many students do), then you should also drink caffeine just before your exam as well to help you remember more easily!

Mood-Dependent Effects

Just as a match in environment between study and test can aid memory, so can a match in mood between study and test. Numerous research studies support this idea (Eich, 1995). One research method used in investigating such effects involves the induction of a particular mood in subjects (e.g., happy mood or sad mood). This is often accomplished by playing a “happy” or “sad” piece of music or having subjects read sentences that are either on positive or negative topics. The mood induction is used both at study and at test so that matches and mismatches in mood between study and test can be compared (as in the match and mismatch of the environments in the Godden & Baddeley, 1975, study). Figure 6.10 illustrates this procedure. The findings from many of these studies show that a match in mood from study to test results in better memory for studied information than when mood at study and test are different. This means that it is helpful to be somewhat anxious while you study for a test if you will be anxious while you are taking the test.

In many cases, it may be difficult for students to match a mood during study for a test and the taking of that test. Study sessions often take place in quiet, calm environments, whereas students are often anxious while taking a test with other anxious students around them. However, before you become discouraged that the mood-dependent effect may not work for you, consider that many studies have failed to find the mood-dependent effect, especially when the test involves recognition memory. In addition, Eich (1995) suggested that in order for mood-dependent effects to occur, a strong and stable mood (e.g., a mood that can be clearly identified with a specific valence and arousal level and that does not quickly fade or change) must be present at both study and test, along with active encoding (e.g., deep processing) of information. Thus, this effect may work to your advantage only if you use the deep and active encoding strategies described in this chapter and if your moods tend to be stable and similar across study and testing situations. The effect also might only aid your memory when you are completing recall tests (e.g., short-answer tests).

Transfer-Appropriate Processing

Similar to the effects already described, a match in the type of processing between study and test will also aid memory. This match in processing is called transfer-appropriate processing and seems to have a stronger effect on memory than either environmental or mood-dependent effects. In other words, unlike depth-of-processing effects where encoding is the only influencing factor on memory performance, in transfer-appropriate processing effects, both encoding and retrieval together influence memory performance. Transfer-appropriate processing effects were shown in research by Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977). They varied level of processing at study: Subjects performed a sentence-completion task (deep processing) or a rhyming task (shallow processing). They were then given either a typical recognition test (“Was this a studied item—yes or no?”) or a rhyming recognition test (“Does this item rhyme with a studied item—yes or no?”). The results of the study are shown in Figure 6.11. When subjects studied the items with meaning-based (deep) processing, standard recognition, which relies on such processing, resulted in higher memory scores. However, when subjects studied the items with rhyme-based processing, the rhyming recognition test resulted in higher memory scores.

Transfer-appropriate processing: an effect in memory showing that matches in processing between encoding and retrieval improve memory

Figure 6.10 Research Procedure for Testing Mood-Dependent Memory Effects

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Figure 6.11 Results From Morris et al.’s (1977) Experiment 1

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Transfer-appropriate processing effects have been shown in a number of studies using different types of processing. Roediger (1990) described studies extending this effect to different types of explicit cued-recall tasks (recall tests where cues are given to aid intentional retrieval of studied items) and implicit-memory tasks (tests relying on unintentional retrieval of studied items). The type of test (explicit and implicit) did not affect results very much, but a match in processing between study and test resulted in better memory. For example, in Blaxton’s (1989) study, subjects studied items by either reading them as they were presented (e.g., cold) or generating them from words that had the opposite meaning (e.g., hot — ?). In other words, the study task involved a visual presentation of the words that did not involve automatic processing of meaning (saying the words out loud) or the meaning of the words with no visual presentation of the words (generating opposites). Memory depended both on study task and type of test. For tests that involved the visual form of the studied items like recalling them from cues of similar looking words (e.g., cost) or solving word fragments (e.g., c_l_), the read study task resulted in better memory. But for tests that involved the meaning of the studied items like free recall and answering general knowledge questions (e.g., What type of environment do penguins live in?), the generation study task resulted in better memory. These results show that the processing match between study and test is important, regardless of the type of memory test used for retrieval.

Even more recently, researchers examining prospective memory (remembering to perform a future task; see description earlier in this chapter) have shown that transfer-appropriate processing can influence accuracy in performing this type of memory task. In one such study, Meier and Graf (2000) used two different types of prospective-memory tasks: respond when you see an animal word as a meaning-based prospective-memory task, and respond when you see a word with three e’s as a visual-form prospective-memory task. In addition, two different ongoing tasks were used in which the prospective-memory task was embedded (decide if words represent natural or fabricated things as a meaning-based ongoing task and decide how many enclosed spaces are included in the letters of the word as a visual-form ongoing task). They found that subjects remembered to respond to the prospective-memory cue words (animals or words with three e’s) more often if the ongoing task matched the type of processing. Figure 6.12 presents these results. Thus, from these studies it is clear that a match in processing between tasks (study and test, ongoing- and prospective-memory tasks) is an important factor in memory retrieval, regardless of the type of memory test one is performing.

Of the encoding specificity effects discussed in this chapter, you can best use to your advantage transfer-appropriate processing in improving your study habits and memory for information. One thing you might consider is to conduct your retrieval practice (see the Retrieval Effects section earlier) with the type of test you will take in mind. If your test is multiple choice, then multiple-choice retrieval practice (i.e., recognizing the correct answers among incorrect choices) will be the best study activity. However, if your test will involve short answers, then retrieval practice that involves recall of the information from cues will be the best study activity. In other words, match the type of processing you use in your study habits with the type of processing you will need to retrieve the information in an exam. And if your exam involves more than one type of problem (e.g., multiple choice and short answers), then you may want to do both types of study activities to aid your test performance.

Stop and Think

· 6.15. Explain the encoding specificity principle. Describe some ways you can use this principle to improve your memory during test taking.

· 6.16. Godden and Baddeley (1975) found that when people both studied and were tested above water, they remembered more than when they studied above water and were tested underwater. Explain why these results were not due simply to poorer memory when tested underwater.

· 6.17. Explain why it might be difficult for many students to use the mood-dependent memory effect to improve exam performance.

· 6.18. Imagine that you have an exam on the material covered in this chapter. Describe some ways that you would prepare for the exam using the concepts covered in this chapter.

Summary of Encoding-Retrieval Interactions

As you saw in this section of the chapter, both study (i.e., encoding) and test (i.e., retrieval) activities are important to consider when attempting to improve retrieval from long-term memory. Matching the circumstances between study and test, whether this be the environment, your mood, or the processing you do, will increase memory performance. The reason this is important for memory is that you are increasing the overlap in the study and retrieval cues that can help you retrieve information from memory. Even in free-recall memory tests where you are simply asked to recall the studied information without any cues given to guide you, you can provide your own cues by reinstating the context present at study (e.g., things in the environment, the thoughts you had at study during processing). Table 6.2 summarizes the memory retrieval aids we have discussed in this chapter to help you consider which factors that influence long-term memory you might use to help improve your own memory performance. We end this chapter with a further discussion of the way mnemonics can help individuals improve memory performance when they train their minds to use such techniques (see the introduction to this chapter).

Figure 6.12 Results From Meier and Graf’s (2000) Study

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Mnemonics

The suggestions in Table 6.2 may help you perform better on your course exams. However, they are not likely to give you the kind of memory performance described at the beginning of the chapter for the memory champions (e.g., memorizing the order of a deck of cards with just a couple of minutes of study). This sort of memory ability requires training and practice using techniques known as mnemonics. Mnemonics are memory techniques that have been used by humans for thousands of years to remember information. They rely on the mechanisms of long-term memory to store information in a way that makes it more memorable. For example, read the following sentences, close your eyes briefly and imagine the scenes as you read, count backward by threes from one hundred, and then try to recall the sentences:

Mnemonics: memory techniques that aid memory performance

· The cat walked down the street.

· The mailbox was by the curb.

· The giraffe ate the leaves in the tree.

· The hammer sat on the table.

· He wrote on the paper.

· The child laughed at the clown.

How many of the sentences could you remember? Let’s try it again. Follow the same procedure with the following sentences:

· The cat rode a bicycle down the street.

· The mailbox danced by the curb.

· The giraffe climbed the tree.

· The hammer sang a song to the table.

· He wrote on the cow.

· The child laughed at the purple sky.

How many of these sentences could you remember? Most people remember the second set better because they invoke strange images that you are more likely to remember. The human mind notices unusual things, and some types of mnemonics use this phenomenon to help you remember. This is known as the bizarreness effect (e.g., McDaniel, Einstein, DeLosh, May, & Brady, 1995; see Chapter 8 for more discussion of this effect and the role of imagery in memory).

The method of loci is a mnemonic technique often used by the memory champions described by Foer (2011) in his book and involves using images to remember items. One can use this technique by creating images in well-known locations involving items one needs to remember. For example, suppose you wanted to remember the following list of grocery items needed at the store: peanut butter, blueberries, cookies, cheese, bread, sliced turkey, mayonnaise, milk, and apples. To help you remember these words, imagine the place you grew up in that you are most familiar with (e.g., house, apartment). Picture yourself walking up to the front door and think about what it looks like there. Picture yourself holding a jar of peanut butter and smearing it all over the door. Then you go in the door. Go to the first room you encounter. Imagine you are sitting down in this room and having a conversation with a blueberry. Next go to the bathroom. In the bathroom, picture the sink filled to the top with your favorite cookies. Continue moving through the place you are picturing, creating odd images with the objects on the list. Then take a break for ten to fifteen minutes and do not think about the objects in that time. When you come back, try to walk through the place you imagined and recall the objects as you go. You will likely find that you can recall each object quite easily and may remember these objects for some time (try the recall again tomorrow by walking back through the place you imagined again).

Memory champions such as those described by Foer (and Foer himself) create images in their minds of the objects in locations within what Foer calls a “memory palace,” which can be any location with set points that can be navigated in one’s mind. A familiar route one drives can serve as a “memory palace” as well as one’s own home. Foer describes developing and practicing this technique each day for about a year. After that time he was able to use this technique to win the U.S. Memory Championship in 2006.

One thing you might notice about this technique is that it works well for remembering lists of items, but it is not going to make your memory better for every type of information you try to remember. That is one of the drawbacks to using mnemonic techniques. They work well for lists of items but not as well for general knowledge and specific episodes one wishes to remember.

Superior Autobiographical Memory

Until very recently, despite studies looking for such evidence, there was no scientific evidence of what people think of as photographic memory—the type of memory where people claim they can just “picture in their minds” specific episodes or information. Researchers have yet to find clear scientific evidence for this form of memory. However, some recent studies suggest that for a very few individuals, a type of superior autobiographical memory may exist. Autobiographical memories are memories of your day-to-day life (e.g., what you had for breakfast this morning, the day you broke up with your last boyfriend or girlfriend). (Chapter 5 describes this type of memory in more detail.) Parker, Cahill, and McGaugh (2006) describe a case study (see Chapter 1 to review the different methods of study used in cognitive psychology) of a woman identified as AJ who claimed to be able to report what occurred on any date past 1980 (during her lifetime). The researchers tested AJ in the lab and found that she did in fact have superior autobiographical memory. She was able to report with near perfect accuracy events from her life and historical events when given a date chosen by the researchers. The researchers verified her personal events from diaries she kept spanning twenty-four years of her life. Because AJ did not know which dates she would be tested on, it is unlikely that she used the mnemonic techniques described in this chapter. In fact, her performance for memorization of lists was below normal levels when tested by the researchers. Thus, her superior autobiographical memory appears to be an untrained ability with an unknown cause.

Stop and Think

· 6.19. What are mnemonics? In what way are they useful in improving memory performance?

· 6.20. Describe how you might use the method of loci to remember a list of items.

· 6.21. What is superior autobiographical memory?

· 6.22. Based on what you learned in this chapter, what techniques do you think will be most useful to you in improving your memory abilities?

Cahill and McGaugh and colleagues have identified ten additional individuals with superior autobiographical memory (LePort et al., 2012). The researchers tested these individuals and found similar memory abilities to those of AJ. All eleven individuals then had MRIs taken of their brains to allow the researchers to examine the size and shape of different brain structures. The results showed that these individuals differed from normal control subjects in the size and shape of their temporal lobe, which is known to be involved in autobiographical memory, and the caudate nucleus, which is known to be involved in skills and habits. The researchers also suggested that the subjects showed some tendencies toward obsessive memory and other habits (e.g., they habitually recall past events in their lives). Thus, these brain structure differences might be responsible for the superior autobiographical memory shown by these subjects, or they could be a result of the abilities these individuals possess. This study suggests that neuroimaging techniques may be useful in better understanding how individuals with exceptional memory abilities differ from individuals that show typical memory abilities (e.g., see Maguire, Valentine, Wilding, & Kapur, 2003, for an example of this method of investigation for superior memory in memory champions).

Thinking About Research

As you read the following summary of a research study in psychology, think about the following questions:

1. Can you connect the researchers’ hypothesis in this study to any of the encoding effects discussed in this chapter? In what way(s) are they connected?

2. Can you think of an alternative explanation for the results of the study beyond the explanation offered by the researchers? What type of study might allow the alternative explanation to be ruled out?

3. What type of research design are the researchers using in this study? (Hint: Review the Research Methodologies section in Chapter 1 for help answering questions 3 and 4.)

4. What is the independent variable in this study? What is the dependent variable in this study?

5. What do the results of this study suggest about the purpose of human memory?

Study Reference

Nairne, J. S., Van Arsdall, J. E., Pandeirada, J. N. S., Cogdill, M., & LeBreton, J. M. (2013). Adaptive memory: The mnemonic value of animacy. Psychological Science, 24, 2099—2105.

Note: Study 2 from this article is described here.

Purpose of the study: The authors of this study argued that animacy (whether or not something is an animate object) is an important factor in long-term memory retrieval. They suggest that this idea is consistent with an adaptive and evolutionary view of memory, as predators of early humans and potential mates are animate objects that would be important to encode and remember. They tested this idea in a study comparing memory for animate (e.g., wolf) and inanimate (e.g., kite) objects, where the groups of items were matched on many other factors (e.g., familiarity of the words, ease of imaging a picture of the items). They hypothesized that the animate objects would be remembered better than the inanimate objects.

Method of the study: Subjects were 54 college students. They were asked to study 24 words in a random order. Half of the words were names of animate objects and half were names of inanimate objects. The words were shown for 5 seconds each, and subjects were asked to try to remember them. After the study list, subjects were asked to complete a digit distractor task for 1 minute. They were then asked to recall the words from the study list in any order. Subjects then repeated the entire procedure (study list, distractor, and recall) two more times to examine effects of repeated exposure and testing of the words.

Results of the study: The results of the study showed that animate objects were recalled at a higher rate than inanimate objects for all three recall tests. Figure 6.13 shows the mean recall results overall and for each of the three recall tests.

Conclusions of the study: The results supported the researchers’ hypothesis that animate objects are better remembered than inanimate objects. These results are consistent with an evolutionary perspective of memory development.

Figure 6.13 Mean Recall Results From Nairne et al.’s (2013) Study 2

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Source: Nairne et al. (2013, figure 2).

Chapter Review

Summary

· How does our memory influence us unintentionally?

Implicit-memory retrieval involves unintentional retrieval of information. Implicit memory can be based on episodes (such as a study list) or procedures (such as a skill like driving a car).

· Why does forgetting occur and what can you do to prevent it?

Forgetting likely occurs due to interference from other information during retrieval and lack of consolidation of memories as they are stored.

· Which methods of encoding information are effective in increasing retrieval from long-term memory?

Encoding information deeply (based on meaning), spaced over time, and with important information first will aid retrieval from long-term memory.

· Which methods of retrieving information are effective in increasing memory performance?

Retrieval practice (i.e., practicing retrieval of information you wish to remember over the long term) will aid later retrieval from long-term memory.

· In what ways do encoding and retrieval interact to affect long-term memory?

A match in circumstances (e.g., mood, environment, physiology, processing) between study and test will result in more cue overlap from study to test, aiding long-term memory retrieval.

· How effective are mnemonics in increasing long-term memory retrieval?

If one trains in the use of mnemonics, these techniques can significantly improve memory for lists of information. However, they will not necessarily improve memory for all types of information.

Chapter Quiz

1. Enter the letter of each effect name with the type of effect it is below.

1. encoding effect

2. retrieval effect

3. encoding-retrieval interaction effect

§ ___ level-of-processing effect

§ ___ mood-dependent memory effect

§ ___ encoding specificity principle

§ ___ serial position curve

§ ___ testing effect

§ ___ transfer-appropriate processing

§ ___ spaced repetition effect

2. Which of the following effects shows that long-term memory encoding is based on the meaning of information?

1. transfer-appropriate processing

2. mood-dependent memory effect

3. testing effect

4. level-of-processing effect

3. Which of the following effects shows that long-term memories can be strengthened by retrieving them?

1. transfer-appropriate processing

2. mood-dependent memory effect

3. testing effect

4. level-of-processing effect

4. Which of the following effects shows that long-term memory retrieval is based on the match in processing type from study to test?

1. transfer-appropriate processing

2. mood-dependent memory effect

3. testing effect

4. level-of-processing effect

5. Which of the following effects shows that long-term memory retrieval is based on the match in mental state (e.g., happy, sad, anxious) from study to test?

1. transfer-appropriate processing

2. mood-dependent memory effect

3. testing effect

4. level-of-processing effect

6. Consolidation that occurs slowly over time is called _____________ consolidation.

1. synaptic

2. systems

3. neuron

4. cortex

7. Which of the following processes is a likely cause of normal forgetting (choose all that apply)?

1. interference

2. decay over time

3. death of neuron cells

4. lack of consolidation

8. Is there scientific support for “photographic memory”? Explain your answer.

9. Would you like to have superior autobiographical memory? Why or why not?

10. Describe three study techniques that would improve your test performance.

11. Describe a prospective memory from your life.

Key Terms

· Consolidation 139

· Deep processing 142

· Elaborative encoding 142

· Encoding specificity principle 148

· Implicit memory 137

· Level-of-processing effect 142

· Mnemonics 155

· Primacy effect 144

· Prospective memory 138

· Recency effect 144

· Serial position curve 144

· Shallow processing 142

· Spacing effect 142

· Testing effect 146

· Transfer-appropriate processing 151

Stop and Think Answers

· 6.1. Describe the primary difference between recall and recognition tasks.

In recall tasks, one attempts to retrieve information without any additional cues or with some cues connected with the information to help guide one’s retrieval. In recognition tasks, one is presented with information that one must judge in terms of whether one has studied it or not.

· 6.2. In what way do implicit-memory tasks measure memory without intention?

In implicit-memory tasks, subjects are given a task related to a study episode but with no instruction to retrieve the study episode.

· 6.3. How do prospective-memory tasks differ from other forms of intentional retrieval?

Prospective-memory tasks involve remembering to complete a task in the future. The person retrieving the task must put himself or herself into a retrieval mode at the appropriate time to retrieve the task, instead of having someone else (e.g., an instruction from a researcher) initiate retrieval.

· 6.4. Provide an example of each of the following memory tasks from your life: free recall, cued recall, recognition, implicit memory, prospective memory.

Answers will vary.

· 6.5. Why does forgetting occur?

Forgetting likely occurs due to interference from other information stored in long-term memory and from lack of consolidation, where memories are strengthened as they are stored in neuron connections and in different areas of the brain.

· 6.6. How do systems consolidation and synaptic consolidation differ?

Systems consolidation is a slow process (days, weeks, months) where the storage of the pieces of memories shifts from the hippocampus to the cortical areas of the brain. Synaptic consolidation is a faster process (hours, days) that occurs in the connections (i.e., synapses) between the neuron cells in the brain.

· 6.7. What is one way you can increase your retrieval from long-term memory as you study for an upcoming exam?

Sleeping between study and test will aid consolidation and strengthen long-term memories.

· 6.8. Describe three methods of encoding that can increase retrieval from long-term memory.

Encoding based on meaning (level of processing), spaced over time (spaced repetition), and with important information first (serial position curve) will increase retrieval from long-term memory.

· 6.9. What is a serial position curve?

The resulting curve when memory performance is graphed according to an item’s position in an encoded list: The first items and the last items tend to show higher performance.

· 6.10. Describe two ways of studying information that would qualify as deep encoding.

Answers will vary, but anything that focuses on the meaning of the information qualifies.

· 6.11. Based on what you have learned in this section, in what ways can your study techniques for your courses be improved?

Answers will vary depending on current study techniques; see Table 6.2 for a summary.

· 6.12. What is retrieval practice? What effect does it have on long-term memory?

Retrieval practice is the activity of retrieving information one wishes to remember over the long term. It will increase later memory performance for the practiced information (compared with simply rereading the information).

· 6.13. Which study-test delays show a memory advantage due to retrieval practice?

Longer study-test delays show the testing effect (better memory for information that received retrieval practice). Short delays (e.g., five minutes) have not shown a benefit of retrieval practice.

· 6.14. What types of retrieval practice are the most effective? Which of the encoding effects described in the Encoding Effects section do you think may be involved in the more effective retrieval practice techniques?

Active, explanatory, questioning practice activities and spaced retrieval practice will result in the most benefit to long-term memory retrieval. These techniques connect with the level of processing (deep encoding) and spaced repetition effects.

· 6.15. Explain the encoding specificity principle. Describe some ways you can use this principle to improve your memory during test taking.

The principle states that a match in circumstances from study to test will improve memory performance. Answers will vary for specific techniques.

· 6.16. Godden and Baddeley (1975) found that when people both studied and were tested above water, they remembered more than when they studied above water and were tested underwater. Explain why these results were not due simply to poorer memory when tested underwater.

Because they also included a group that studied and was tested underwater that produced similar memory results to the group that studied and was tested above water, they can rule out this alternative explanation of their results.

· 6.17. Explain why it might be difficult for many students to use the mood-dependent memory effect to improve exam performance.

This effect might be difficult to implement because it relies on a match in mood from study to test. Many students are calm when they study but anxious when tested, so it can be difficult to match mood from study to test.

· 6.18. Imagine that you have an exam on the material covered in this chapter. Describe some ways that you would prepare for the exam using the concepts covered in this chapter.

Answers will vary.

· 6.19. What are mnemonics? In what way are they useful in improving memory performance?

Mnemonics are techniques for improving memory for a set of items. They rely on well-known or unusual images to remember the information.

· 6.20. Describe how you might use the method of loci to remember a list of items.

Answers will vary, but the method works by forming images in a well-known place with the items one wishes to remember.

· 6.21. What is superior autobiographical memory?

A seemingly rare ability found in a few individuals with extremely strong memories of episodes in their lives. These individuals are able to report what occurred in their lives when questioned with a random date in their lives.

· 6.22. Based on what you learned in this chapter, what techniques do you think will be most useful to you in improving your memory abilities?

Answers will vary depending on current study techniques; see Table 6.2 for a summary.

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