Long term memory

1. LONG-TERM MEMORY
Lawrence Heller, Psy.D.
• Chapter 6
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2. OVERVIEW
• Types of Long Term Memory
• Relation between encoding and retrieval
• Encoding processes and their consequences
• Retrieval strategies
• Autobiographical memory
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3. TYPES OF LONG TERM MEMORY
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4. DISTINCTIVE
CHARACTERISTICS OF LTM
• Organization of information
• Schemas
• Storage-capacity virtually limitless duration
• Encoding – impact on retention
• Retrieval mechanisms
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5. • Breaking down distinctions in Long-term Memory
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6. TYPES OF LONG-TERM MEMORY
• Declarative Memory
• “knowing that” long-term memory system
responsible for retention of factual information
about the world as well as personally
experienced episodes
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7. DECLARATIVE MEMORY
• Tulving (1972, 1983)-two distinct types of
declarative memories
• Episodic memory- one’s memory for personally
experienced events that include contextual
elements like the time and place of the occurrence
• Semantic Memory-knowledge or information about
the world that does not include contextual elements
like time and place when something was learned.
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8. DECLARATIVE MEMORY
• One of the major factors that distinguishes
semantic memories from episodic memories is that
episodic retrieval is accompanied by an experience
of recollection or a reliving of past experience. This
“time-traveling” was coined Autonoetic
consciousness-by Tulving (1983).
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9. DECLARATIVE MEMORY
• Noetic consciousness-when recalling a piece of
memory from semantic memory, there is no sense of
recollection or reliving. There is only a sense of
familiarity with the fact and the feeling “you just
know” it.
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10. PROCEDURAL MEMORY
• “knowing how”- this is the how to part
of memory.
• For example, Tying a shoe, riding a bike,
brushing your teethe are all part of
procedural memory.
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11. ENCODING, STROAGE, AND
RETRIEVAL
• Encoding- the processes involved in the acquisition
of material. For example, when you are studying for
an exam.
• Storage- of information involves the formation of
some type of memory representation, or memory
trace. For example, if you study there should be
some remnant of the study experience ( if you want
to do well on the exam it should be a pretty big
remnant!!
• Retrieval- ability to get something out of memory
once it has been encoded and stored
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12. IMPLICIT MEMORY TESTS
• Implicit tests of memory (often termed
indirect)- do not require the conscious
recollection of a specific event. Measured with
priming
• Retrospective memory tests-involve
remembering memory from your past
• Prospective memory test involves remembering
to perform some event in the future.
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13. EXPLICIT MEMORY TESTS
• Explicit tests of memory-(often termed
direct) require the conscious recollection of a
specific event. Measured by accuracy
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14. EXPLICIT MEMORY TESTS
• Types include:
• Recall-task to come up with as many of the
48 words as you can, without any hints or
cues
• Cued recall-provided some hint to help you
retrieve the encoded words
• Recognition-presented with a large set of
words that includes the previously presented
words and some new ones. The task is to
distinguish the two 14

15. ATTENTION AND REPETITION
• Repetition of information- more effective if
distributed over time, rather than massed
(the spacing effect)
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16. THE SPACING EFFECT
• How repetitions occur over time
• Massed Repetition-repeated presentations
that occur closely together in time.
• Spaced repetition-repeated presentations
spread out over time.
• Students tend to avoid spacing, choosing to cram
material for a variety of reasons.
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17. REHEARSAL
• Maintenance rehearsal- simple mental repetition
• Elaborative Rehearsal (ER)- make associations
between the information to be remembered and
other information stored in LTM and thinking
about the meaning of the information.
• ER is more likely to result in long-term memory
storage
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18. REHEARSAL
• Incidental learning conditions-participants
are not told that memory will be tested.
learned information unintentionally.
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• Intentional learning- the participants make
an active attempt to learn the material
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19. THE LEVELS OF PROCESSING
APPROACH
CRAIK AND LOCKHARD (1972)
• Modal Model Of Memory replaced the model of
memory which focused on structural aspects of
memory proposing the existence of separate storage
systems along with principles regulating the
transfer of information between them
• Emphasizes how information is processed at
encoding as the key determinant of memory
performance.
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20. THE LEVELS OF PROCESSING
APPROACH
• Craik and Lockhart (1972)
• Levels-of-processing approach/depth-of-
processing approach—argues that deep,
meaningful processing of information leads to
more accurate recall than shallow, sensory kinds
of processing.
• In general, people achieve a deeper level of
processing when they extract more meaning
from a stimulus
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21. SURVIVAL PROCESSING
• “Dying to remember”
• The finding that information processed in the
context of survival in a life or death situation is
better remembered than information not afforded
this processing (demonstrated the adaptive value of
processing).
• Material processed in the context of thoughts of
death or mortality is also relatively well
remembered. 21

22. ORGANIZATION AND
DISTINCTIVENESS
• Material that is organized and structured
tends to be better remembered.
• Distinctive encodings (i.e., those that stand
out from other events) also are more likely
to be remembered.
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23. ORGANIZATION AND
DISTINCTIVENESS
• Material-appropriate processing (i.e., organization)
and individual processing (i.e., distinctive encoding)
combine to produce optimal memory. People are
quite good at remembering actions, an example of
the enactment effect.
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24. MATERIAL-APPROPRIATE
PROCESSING
• Relational processing-the degree to which
we process items in terms of their
interrelationships and is aided to the degree
that encoding information affords
organization.
• Individual-item processing-The degree to
which we process items in terms of their
individual characteristics and is aided by
encoding that leads to distinctive processing
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25. REMEMBERING ACTION
• Enactment effect-people tend to be better at
remembering action phrases such as
“hammer the nail.” Research suggests
enacting an event results in a more
retrievable memory.
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26. THE TRANSFER-APPROPRIATE
PROCESSING PRINCIPLE
• Alternative to the levels of processing model
• Emphasizes that memory is not solely determined
by encoding processes. No one encoding process is
inherently better than any other in terms of leading
to retrievable memory representation. Rather,
memory is good to the extent that encoding
processes are appropriate for the retrieval task.
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27. THE TESTING EFFECT
• Testing oneself produces far better memory
than simply reading and re-reading
material.
• Simply repeating information to be
remembered is not an effective study
strategy.
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28. RETRIEVAL PROCESSES IN LONG-
TERM MEMORY
• Information stored in LTM (i.e., its
available)- may not be remembered because
the retrieval cues are insufficient (i.e., it’s
not accessible)
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29. ENCODING SPECIFICITY
PRINCIPLE
• A retrieval cue will be effective to the degree
that it overlaps with the information
provided at encoding. This principle seems
to state that encoding tends to be better
when the context is present and retrieval
matches the context that was present at
encoding (context-dependent effect).
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30. CONTEXT-DEPENDENCY EFFECT
• Does it extend to the physical environment?
• Does it extend to how you feel?
• Should you be in the same room?
• These context-dependency effects depend upon how
memory is tested.
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31. CONTEXT-DEPENDENCY EFFECT
• Outshining Hypothesis, (proposed by Smith, 1988)
context can be a useful cue for memory, but only
when there are few to no other cues to help you
retrieve the information.
• Context-dependency effects are more likely to be
found on free-recall tests (few retrieval cues) than
in cued recall or recognition tests (more retrieval
cues) Because the presence of other retrieval cues
tends to outshine the context cue. 31

32. AGING AND RETRIEVAL
• Self-initiated recall
• the degree to which individuals must rely on
their own processing and memory
representations to drive retrieval.
• These tend to occur for tests that require self-
initiated retrieval, such as recall.
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33. AGING AND RETRIEVAL
• On prospective memory tests, age related
memory tests, age related deficits depend
upon the extent to which the task involves
focal processing of the prospective memory
cue.
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34. AGING AND RETRIEVAL
• Implicit Memory Tests
• These do not require conscious recollection of
previously encoded information.
• You may remember something with
remembering it.
• Memory is reflected implicitly and may present
as a change or improvement in some task that
occurs even if the participant remembers
nothing about the original event. 34

35. AGING AND RETRIEVAL
• Schacter (1996) and Brown (2003,2004)
suggest that implicit memory may lie at the
heart of unconscious plagiarism and deja vu.
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36. AGING AND RETRIEVAL
• Explicit Memory Tests
• Involves the retrieval of the encoding context
surrounding an event.
• These two types of tests produce different patterns
of results in response to various variables known to
influence memory due to their reliance on different
memory processes, systems, or component
processes.
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