PSGY2005/4026 Mem2

Memory Lecture 2
Introduction
1 False memories? The reconstructive nature of human memory.

Encoding
2 Encoding failures: Things that never make it to Long Term Memory.
3 Effective encoding: Techniques to get information into LTM.
Storage
4 Storage failures: The passive loss of information from LTM.
5 Active forgetting: Inhibitory processes in memory.
Retrieval
6 Types of retrieval: Getting information out of LTM.
7 Improving retrieval: Techniques in the laboratory and the real world.
Bringing it all together
8 Autobiographical memory: Remembering our selves and our lives.
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Lecture 2: Encoding Failures?
Encoding: What gets into memory?
We need to consciously encode information in order to subsequently
remember it - or do we?
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Lecture 2: Encoding in the Real World
Sleep Learning?
Simon & Emmons (1956)
During sleep participants hear questions and answers every five minutes.
Participants' EEGs are recorded throughout the night to monitor their
sleep. Subsequently they are asked the questions they heard overnight.
Overall: Performance is above chance. Learning has occurred.
But scores divided by EEG sleep state:
Awake but Relaxed 80%
Drowsy 50%
Drowsiness/light sleep transition 5%
Asleep No effect
Bruce, Evans, Fenwick & Spencer (1970)
Present material to sleeping subjects then awaken them immediately. No
evidence for memory.
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Learning while unconscious?
The absence of learning about external events while asleep, does not imply
that we can’t remember internal events such as dreams (Pace-Schott et al,
2003), or that sleep itself might not play an important role in the
consolidation of memories (e.g. Hahn et al., 2006; Paller & Voss, 2004).
Memory During Anaesthesia? - Levinson (1965)
10 dental surgery patients.
Mock Crisis During Surgery:
“Just a moment! I don't like the patient's colour. Much too blue. Her lips
are very blue. I'm going to give a little more oxygen... There, that's better
now. You can carry on with the operation.”
One month later patients were hypnotised
Four patients produced almost verbatim reports of the anaesthetist's
comments. Four produced partial reports and only two produced no recall
at all under hypnosis.
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Explicit Memory from Anaesthesia?
Some Major Problems with Levinson (1965)
• Serious ethical questions
• No control condition
• Suggestibility under hypnosis
• Experimenter not blind to hypothesis/condition
• No measure of degree of anaesthesia
But is the phenomenon possible?
Yes - raises at least two issues:
1. Anaesthesia may not be total - cocktail issue:
Anaesthetic (hypnotic agent)
Analgesic (removes pain)
Muscle relaxant
2. Different tests of memory may reveal different
evidence for memory from anaesthesia.
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Explicit Memory from Anaesthesia?
Some Major Problems with Levinson (1965)
• Serious ethical questions
• No control condition
• Suggestibility under hypnosis
• Experimenter not blind to hypothesis/condition
• No measure of degree of anaesthesia
But is the phenomenon possible?
Yes - raises at least two issues:
1. Anaesthesia may not be total - cocktail issue:
Anaesthetic (hypnotic agent)
Analgesic (removes pain)
Muscle relaxant
2. Different tests of memory may reveal different
evidence for memory from anaesthesia.
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Explicit vs. Implicit Memory
Explicit memory requires conscious recollection of prior
experiences.
Implicit memory is revealed on tasks that do not require reference
to a specific episode.
(Graf & Schacter, 1985)

Typical Explicit Memory Tasks

Free Recall: Subject attempts to remember target information
without any assistance from the experimenter.
Cued Recall: Subject attempts to remember the target information in
the presence of some specific cue (e.g. an associate of the word he or
she is trying to remember).
Recognition: Subject is presented with a stimulus and must decide
whether it is one that he or she was asked to remember.
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Explicit vs. Implicit Memory
Typical Implicit Memory Tasks

Word stem completion: W R O _ _

Word fragment completion: I_C_N_E_U_N_I_L

Degraded picture naming:

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Implicit Memory from Anaesthesia?
Iselin-Chaves et al., (2005)
Depth of anaesthesia carefully monitored using EEG bispectral index
BIS ranges from 100 (awake) to 0 (minimal brain activity)
Participants listen to two lists of 20 words, each presented 25 times.
One word presented each 4 seconds - 70 minutes of presentation.
Words are all six letters long, and each word shares a stem (first three
letters) with at least four other (french) words.
e.g. CHA - chaque, chacun, chaton, chacal, chatte
Jacoby (1991) - Process Dissociation Procedure
Inclusion Test - Produce items from any source.
Exclusion Test - Only produce items that you didn’t study previously.
Inclusion = R + A (1-R) R is conscious Recollection
Exclusion = A(1-R) A is unconscious or Automatic memory
Therefore
R = Inclusion - Exclusion and A = Exclusion / (1-R)
(where Inclusion, Exclusion, A and R are all expressed as probablilities)
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Remembered Items 1
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We only remember what we attend to
Memory for Common Objects is often surprisingly poor:
Nickerson & Adams (1979) classic American example.
Richardson (1993) describes British examples, see
also Martin & Jones (1995) or Morton (1967).
Rinck (1999) provides a related German finding.

'Weapon Focus' (Loftus, 1979; Loftus, Loftus & Messo, 1987)

The idea that arousal (during a crime) causes attention focusing such that
only 'central information' is attended to. For example, the attacker's knife
rather than face.
Experimental demonstrations (e.g. Christianson & Loftus,1991)
Change in eye movements in stressful situations is relatively easy to
demonstrate e.g. Chapman & Underwood (1998) though memory
changes can be more subtle (Wessel et al., 2000).
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Expertise and Short Term Memory
Chase & Ericsson (1981)
Participant S.F.
Simple digit span task with
250+ hours of training/testing

Based on chunking:
so 3492 =
"3 minutes 49 point 2
seconds - near world
record mile time"
Does this improve
memory generally
No.
Letter span still at 6
items.
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Encoding Failures

Very little explicit information is encoded for free!

No evidence for sleep learning.

No evidence for explicit recall after competent anaesthesia

But some implicit learning may be possible without effort, even

under light anaesthesia.

Dramatic memory failures are easily observed for details that

people have never attended to.

Even enhancing encoding in one domain does not produce

generalisation to other domains, and can make memory worse.
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Some Encoding References
Andrade, J. (2005) Editorial: Does memory priming during anesthesia matter?
Anesthesiology, 103, 919-920.
Deeprose, C. and Andrade, J. (2005) Is priming during anesthesia unconscious?
Consciousness & Cognition, 15, 1-23.
Hahn, T. T. G., Sakmann, B., & Mehta, M. R. (2006). Phase-locking of hippocampal
interneurons’ membrane potential to neocortical up-down states. Nature
Neuroscience, 9, 1359-1361.
Iselin-Chaves, I. A. et al., (2005). Investigation of implicit memory during isoflurane
anesthesia for elective surgery using the process dissociation procedure.
Aneshesiology, 103, 925-933.
Pace-Schott, E. F., Solms, M., Blagrove, M., & Harnad, S. (Eds.) (2003). Sleep and
dreaming: Scientific advances and reconsiderations. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Richardson, J. (1993). The curious case of coins: Remembering the appearance of familiar
objects. The Psychologist, 6, 360-366.
Rinck, M. (1999). Memory for everyday objects: Where are the digits on numerical
keypads? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 13, 329-350.
Wessel, I., van der Kooy, P., & Merckelbach, H. (2000). Differential recall of central and
peripheral details of emotional slides is not a stable phenomenon. Memory, 8, 95-109.