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A closer look at:

Retrieval

+Yesterday and today you learned about…

Stage 1: Encoding.

Stage 2: Storage.

Once information is encoded and stored successfully, you must be able to get it back out, or retrieve it!

+The two retrieval tasks

Recall: retrieve memories not in conscious awareness (example: a fill-in-the-blank or essay test)

Recognition: identify items previously learned (example: a multiple choice test)

Harry Bahrick study (1975): people who had graduated 25 years earlier could not recall many of their old classmates but they could recognize 90% of their pictures/names!

+Relearning Time as a Measure of Retention

In the late 1800s, Hermann Ebbinghaus studied another measure of memory functioning: how much time does it take to relearn and regain mastery of material?

He studied the memorization of nonsense syllables (THB YOX KVU EHM) so that depth of processing or prelearning would not be a factor.

The more times he rehearsed out loud on day 1, the less time he needed to relearn/memorize the same letters on day 2.

+“Every memory we have is held in a web of associations.”

+Retrieval cues

Imagine a spider suspended in the middle of her web, held up by the many strands extending outward from her in all directions to different points. If you were to trace a pathway to the spider, you would first need to create a path from one of these anchor points and then follow the strand down into the web.

Retrieval cues: bits of information associated with others (tastes, sights, smells, etc.)

+Priming

The activation of particular associations in memory, which usually aids retrieval; “memoryless memory”

People primed with money-related words were less likely to then help another person.

Priming with an image of Santa Claus led kids to share more candy.

People primed with a missing child poster then misinterpreted ambiguous adult-child interactions as kidnapping.

“Bark”

+ Context-Dependent Memory Part of the web of

associations of a memory is the context. What else was going on at the time we formed the memory?

We retrieve a memory more easily when in the same context as when we formed the memory.

Words learned underwater are better retrieved underwater.

+Déjà vu = “already seen”

Sometimes being in a context similar to one we’ve been in before may trigger déjà vu

Every situation has many cues that might unconsciously help you retrieve an earlier, similar experience.

Or, a new situation might be moderately similar to several events.

The right question to ask: “Why do I feel as though I recognize this situation?”

+ State-Dependent Memory

Our memories are not just linked to the external context in which we learned them.

Memories can also be tied to the emotional and/or physiological state we were in when we formed the memory.

Mood-congruent memory refers to the tendency to selectively recall details that are consistent with one’s current mood.

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The end!