Memory & Attention

Attention

Definition: selective focus / processing of fraction of info

Dichotic listening task

  • Different words in each ear
  • Selectively attend to attended channel
  • Still hear unattended channel (e.g. notice change in voice, name) -> cocktail party effect
    => bottleneck late in processing

Visual search task

  • Find letters / colours
  • Quick to find 1 feature => parallel processing
  • Slower to find 2 features => serial processing

Divide attention

  • Succeed if enough resources for both tasks
  • Easier if less similar tasks
  • Easier if more practice

Blindness

  • Inattentional: don't notice something visible (but unexpected)
  • Change: don't notice visual change (surprisingly)
  • Because focusing on something else - not being processed

Short / long term memory

Evolutionary advantage - apply to new situations

Short-term memory

  • 30s, limited capacity (5-9 items)

Serial position effect

  • U shaped graph for recall of word list

Working memory

  • Temporary processing workspace

Primacy effect: remember first words
=> long term memory

Recency effect: remember last words
=> short term memory

Transfer from short -> long term via rehearsal

  • Maintenance rehearsal: repeat
  • Elaborative rehearsal: add meaning - best for retention
  1. Phonological loop: sound
  2. Visuospatial sketchpad: visual & spatial
  3. Episodic buffer: temporary integration & processing
  4. Central executive: management & sequencing

Long-term memory

  • Unlimited in capacity

Encoding: put into short term memory

Rehearsal: keep in short term memory

Explicit / implicit memory

Explicit

  • Conscious, deliberate recall

Implicit

  • Recall unconsciously
  • e.g. skills

Tests

  • Recall test (list of words)
  • Cued recall test (with hints)
  • Recognition test (pick from options)

Tests

  • Word completion test
  • Skill test

Amnesia

Retrograde: cannot remember events before cause

  • Thalamus damage

Anterograde: cannot form memories after cause

  • Have implicit memory, no explicit memory
  • Hippocampus, thalamus damage

Brain

  • Central executive: planning & sequencing in frontal lobe
  • Visuospatial sketchpad: visual areas in occipital lobe

Brain

  • Hippocampus: consolidation of short term memory
  • Thalamus: sensory relay - affects new memories + recall
  • Amygdala: remember emotive events more
  • Strengthened synaptic connections
    (activated more easily when repeated)
    -> more likely to remember

Forgetting

1. Failure to encode

2. Retrieval failure
In long term, cues not strong enough

3. Decay
In long term, fades with disuse

4. Interference
Other items in memory interfere with retrieval

Difficult to distinguish from decay

  • same symptoms
    -> stronger cue may trigger retrieval

Proactive interference

  • Trouble forming new memories
    because old memories interfere
  • e.g. hard to remember new ph no

Retroactive interference

  • Cannot remember old memories
    because new memories interfere
  • e.g. no longer remember previous ph no

Reversing forgetting

  • Hypnosis & truth serums: don't work (but people may give more detailed answers)
  • Repression: no evidence, remember more if traumatic

Improving memory

Improve encoding

  • Elaborative rehearsal: complex, visual mental image
  • Depth encoding: meaning & connection

Improve retrieval

  • Context reinstatement: form memories in same place as retrieval
  • Retrieval practice: actively try to remember

Methods

  • Scientifically proven
  • Elaborative encoding, deep processing
  • Context reinstatement (can go back to refresh memory)
  • Use visuospatial sketchpad, amygdala (emotion)

Method of loci aka memory palace

  • Visuospatial mnemonic
  • Familiar place, leave items in order

Aboriginal Australian method

  • Storytelling in landscape

Studies

Butterfly names

  • 76 medical students, 20 butterfly names
  • Method of loci (mind palace) + Aboriginal Australian method (stories in rock garden) + control
  • Both better than control
  • AA method better for recall in order, less forgetting, improved memory score

Nutrition

  • Monash students - tricarboxylic acid sequence
  • AA method (garden with narrative)