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Memory 21 Information Processing 22 Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Memory Improvement Fact or Falsehood? T F 1. Memory storage is never automatic; it always takes effort. T F 2. The day after you are introduced to a number of new co-workers you will more easily recall the names of those you met first. T F 3. T F 4. Only a few people have any type of photographic memory. T F 5. Although our capacity for storing information is large, we are still limited in the number of permanent memories we can form. T F 6. Our experiences are etched on our brain, just as the grooves on a tape receive and retain recorded messages. T F 7. When people learn something while intoxicated, they recall it best when they are again intoxicated. T F 8. The hour before sleep is a good time to commit information to memory. T F 9. Repeatedly imagining a nonexistent event can lead us to believe it actually happened. T F Memory aids (for example, those that use imagery and devices for organization) are no more useful than simple rehearsal of information. 10. Children typically will repress any memory of having seen one of their parents being murdered. 1. F, 2. T, 3. F, 4. F, 5. F, 6. F, 7. T, 8. T, 9. T, 10. F MODULE 21 Information Processing OUTLINE OF RESOURCES I. Introducing Memory Feature Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (p. 3) NEW Video: Psychology: The Human Experience, Module 13: What Is Memory?* II. The Phenomenon of Memory and Studying Memory: Information-Processing Models Lecture/Discussion Topics: AJ: A Case Study in Total Recall (p. 3) NEW The World Memory Championships (p. 5) UPDATED The Case of Clive Wearing (p. 5) Classroom Exercises: Remembering the Seven Dwarfs (p. 3) Forgetting Frequency Questionnaire (p. 5) Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Bias in Memory (p. 6) NEW Videos: The Mind, 2nd ed., Module 10 : Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing, Part 1 and Module 11: Clive Wearing, Part 2: Living Without Memory* Digital Media Archive, 1st ed.: Psychology, Video Clip 25: Clive Wearing: Living Without Memory* Discovering Psychology, Updated Edition: Memory (p. 6) III. Encoding: Getting Information In A. How We Encode Classroom Exercises: Rehearsal and the Twelve Days of Christmas (p. 7) Serial Position Effect in Recalling U.S. Presidents (p. 7) B. What We Encode Lecture/Discussion Topics: Mnemonic Devices (p. 9) The Keyword Method (p. 10) Classroom Exercises: Meaning and Memory (p. 8) Visually Versus Auditorily Encoded Information (p. 8) Semantic Encoding of Pictures (p. 9) Chunking (p. 11) IV. Storage: Retaining Information A. Sensory Memory Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Iconic Memory (p. 12) PsychSim 5: Iconic Memory (p. 12) NEW *Video titles followed by an asterisk are not repeated within the core resource module. They are listed, with running times, in the Preface of these resources and described in detail in their Faculty Guides, which are available at www.worthpublishers.com/mediaroom. 1 2 Module 21 Information Processing B. Working/Short-Term Memory Classroom Exercise: Memory Capacity (p. 12) PsychSim 5: Short-Term Memory (p. 12) NEW Feature Film: Memento (p. 12) NEW C. Long-Term Memory Lecture/Discussion Topic: Rajan Mahadevan’s Amazing Memory (p. 13) Video: The Brain, 2nd ed., Module 20: A Super-Memorist Advises on Study Strategies* D. Storing Memories in the Brain Exercise: Flashbulb Memory (p. 14) Videos: Psychology: The Human Experience, Module 14: Flashbulb Memories* The Brain, 2nd ed., Module 16: The Locus of Learning and Memory* The Brain, 2nd ed., Module 18: Living With Amnesia: The Hippocampus and Memory* The Brain, 2nd ed., Module 17: Learning as Synaptic Change* Scientific American Frontiers, 2nd ed., Segment 16: Remembering What Matters* ActivePsych: Scientific American Frontiers Teaching Modules, 3rd ed.: Aging and Memory: Studying Alzheimer’s Disease, Enhancing Memory: The Role of Emotion, and Memory Loss: A Case Study* NEW PsychSim 5: When Memory Fails (p. 14) V. Retrieval: Getting Information Out Student Project: Permastore (p. 14) A. Retrieval Cues Lecture/Discussion Topic: The Déjà Vu Illusion (p. 16) NEW Classroom Exercises: Expertise and Retrieval Rate (p. 15) Déjà Vu in the Classroom (p. 16) The Pollyanna Principle (p. 17) UPDATED Student Project/Classroom Exercise: Retrieval Cues (p. 15) Video: Digital Media Archive, 1st ed.: Psychology, Video Clip 24: Aging and Memory* ActivePsych: Digital Media Archive, 2nd ed.: A Journey Into Memory* NEW MODULE OBJECTIVES After completing their study of this module, students should be able to: 1. Describe Atkinson-Shiffrin’s classic three-stage processing model of memory, and explain how the contemporary model of working memory differs. 2. Describe the types of information we encode automatically, and contrast effortful processing with automatic processing, giving examples of each. 3. Compare the benefits of visual, acoustic, and semantic encoding in remembering verbal information, and describe some memory-enhancing encoding strategies. 4. Contrast two types of sensory memory, and describe the duration and working capacity of short-term memory. 5. Describe the capacity and duration of long-term memory, and discuss the biological changes that may underlie memory formation and storage. 6. Distinguish between implicit and explicit memory, and identify the main brain structure associated with each. 7. Contrast the recall, recognition, and relearning measures of memory, and explain how retrieval cues can help us access stored memories. 8. Describe the impact of environmental contexts and internal emotional stages on retrieval. Module 21 MODULE OUTLINE I. Introducing Memory (p. 268) Feature Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Ask your students: “If technological advances would allow it, would you ever want to intentionally get rid of memories of some specific events?” Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind addresses that question. Most students love this feature film, and you may want to encourage those who have not seen it to watch the entire film outside of class. The story traces Joel Barish’s stunned discovery that his former girlfriend Clementine has had their troubled relationship erased from her mind. Out of desperation, Joel seeks the same treatment. He contacts Lacuna, a company that specializes in giving troubled people a fresh start. The inventor of the memory erasure process, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, provides Joel with the help he wants. At Chapter 7, titled “Empty Your Life,” on DVD, or 28 minutes into the film, Joel charges into Dr. Mierzwiak’s office to seek treatment. The next 7:07 minutes portrays the extraordinarily complex process of memory erasure. The video provides an excellent introduction to the centrality of memory in defining our lives. Of course, some memories are very disruptive and can be accompanied by very painful emotions. By ridding ourselves of them we could relieve a lot of suffering. At the same time, they are part of our very identity. In addition, they help us to avoid the mistakes of the past, including those of failed relationships. “Consider the case of a person who has suffered or witnessed atrocities that occasion unbearable memories; for example, those with firsthand experience of the Holocaust,” the President’s Council on Bioethics writes. “The life of that individual might well be served by dulling such bitter memories . . . but would the community as a whole be served by such a mass numbing of this terrible but indispensable memory?” You may want to describe for those who have not seen the film how Joel, as his memories of Clementine begin to fade, realizes how much he still loves her, changes his mind, and attempts to reverse the process. II. The Phenomenon of Memory and Studying Memory: Information-Processing Models (pp. 269–271) Lecture/Discussion Topic: AJ: A Case Study in Total Recall You can extend the text discussion of memory whizzes with the contemporary case of AJ, currently being studied by University of California, Irvine, researchers Information Processing 3 Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh. AJ, a 40-year-old woman, has a seemingly limitless memory. A few years ago, she contacted McGaugh and said, “I have a problem. I remember too much.” Known as “the human calendar,” AJ is able to recall in full detail what she was doing on any specific date between 1974 and today. If you randomly pick a date, she recalls the day of the week, the weather, and any significant news events on topics that interested her. Given the random dates below, AJ immediately gave the responses on the right: August 16, 1977: Elvis Presley died June 6, 1978: Proposition 13 passed in California May 25, 1979: Plane crash in Chicago May 18, 1980: Mount St. Helens erupted October 5, 1983: Bombing in Beirut killed 300 January 17, 1994: Northridge earthquake December 21, 1988: Lockerbie plane crash Asked to identify the dates of Easter from 1980 to 2003, AJ provided 23 of 24 correctly in 10 minutes along with a personal event from each holiday. Her diary, which she kept from ages 10 to 34, has been useful in verifying the accuracy of her autobiographical recall. AJ's memory is “nonstop, uncontrollable, and automatic.” When asked how she knows an answer, she states, often with some frustration, that she “just knows.” Clearly, she does not need or use mnemonics. In fact, the amazing capacity to recall is sometimes a burden with one memory cuing another and another, forcing AJ to relive her life like a “movie in her mind that never stops.” The researchers believe that AJ is the first person with this form of superior autobiographical memory. In an issue of the journal Neurocase, they coined the term hyperthymestic syndrome for her condition, and they wonder if anyone else might share her amazing capacity. In the near future, the research team hopes to use MRI and other scanning techniques to learn more about the physical basis for AJ’s peculiar mental abilities. Parker, E. S., Cahill, L., & McGaugh, J. L. (2006). A case of unusual autobiographical remembering. Neurocase, 12, 35–49. Toth, A. (2006, May). Real-life total recall. APS Observer, 13. Classroom Exercise: Remembering the Seven Dwarfs Marianne Miserandino suggests a simple, effective exercise for introducing the topic of memory. It is appropriate for any class size and can be easily adapted to the level and interest of the class. Introduce the module with the suggestion that an interesting and effective way to learn about the princi- 4 Module 21 Information Processing ples of memory is to examine carefully one’s own thought processes in performing a memory task. Instruct students to take out a blank sheet of paper and to write down all the responses that come to mind in the order in which they occur. Incorrect responses will be as important as correct ones in illustrating the nature of memory. Their task is really quite simple—they are to name the seven dwarfs. Before revealing the correct answers, guide the class in a discussion of their own responses. Lead a discussion of the following topics in the direction that best suits the class. Difficulty of the task. How difficult or easy is the task? Memory is the persistence of learning over time. A few may note that the task is culture-bound and that they never learned the names. Others remember the story well but never focused on mastering this inconsequential information. Most will claim the task is difficult simply because it’s been too long since they heard the story or saw the film. A few may claim that distractions, such as the weather or disruptive classmates, prevented their success. Finally, a few Disney or trivia buffs may report having found the task to have been easy. Miserandino reports that 12 of her 66 students correctly named all seven dwarfs. These responses will enable you to introduce memory as information processing. To name the seven dwarfs, we must get the information into our brain (encoding), retain it over time (storage), and now get it back out (retrieval). The research on memory examines the factors that influence those processes. Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Did students have the feeling that they knew a name but were unable to retrieve it? If so, ask volunteers to describe as much as they can about the word. How many syllables does it have (six of the seven dwarf names have two syllables)? What letter does it start with (s and d occur most frequently)? What meaning or connotation does the word have (most of the names are vivid, state adjectives)? Generally, students will be quite accurate. Explain that this experience is called the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon, which occurs when the retrieval process does not produce a complete response but produces parts that must be constructed into a whole. Most fundamentally, it shows how forgetting may result from retrieval failure, rather than encoding or storage failure. Organization of memory by sound, letter, and meaning. Ask students to examine the order in which they recalled the names. Is there any pattern? Memory is organized by sound, letter, or meaning, and this is illustrated by people’s wrong answers in two ways. First, many of their wrong responses will be similar in sound, letter, and/or meaning to correct dwarf names. For example, wrong answers are likely to include two-syllabled names ending in a y-sound; 5 of the 7 correct names end in y and have two syllables. Wrong guesses may also begin with the letter s or d because these letters each occur as the initial letter of correct names twice. Students may also recall words similar in meaning to actual dwarf names. For example, ask how many recalled Lazy, Clumsy, Droopy, or Grouchy. Second, organization by sound, letter, or meaning will typically cause subjects to recall names in a run or pattern of similar names. Runs occur when the generation of one correct item serves as a cue that improves recall of other items with similar sounds or meanings. Virtually all students will demonstrate these runs for both correct and incorrect names. Recall versus recognition. Ask the class if they would be able to remember more names with a recognition task. Recall involves a two-step process: generation of possible targets and identification of genuine ones. Recognition is generally easier because the first step is already complete and one only has to decide if the information is correct. Most will immediately say they would do better on a recognition task. Prepare a handout (or more simply write on the chalkboard) the following list: Grouchy, Gabby, Fearful, Sleepy, Smiley, Jumpy, Hopeful, Shy, Droopy, Dopey, Sniffy, Wishful, Puffy, Dumpy, Sneezy, Lazy, Pop, Grumpy, Bashful, Cheerful, Teach, Shorty, Nifty, Happy, Doc, Wheezy, and Stubby. Instruct students to circle the correct dwarf names, cross out the ones they know are incorrect, and leave the others alone. Ask students if they were able to remember more correct names and to explain why. Did the earlier discussion of wrong names cue correct ones or do the names on the handout itself cue their recall? Miserandino reports that 91 percent of her students recognized more names than they recalled earlier. Research suggests that the order, from most likely to least likely recalled, is as follows: Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Doc, and Bashful. Respondents are more likely to recall the five rhyming names and to recall them in a run, an example of organization by sound. Subjects are least likely to remember Bashful, an example of organization—or absence of—by meaning. Finally, you might introduce the distinction between working/short-term and long-term memory. STM is transient memory. LTM can hold information for a greater time—hours, days, years. STM seems to have a capacity of seven pieces of information, plus or minus two—the same as the number of dwarfs. Through the use of chunking or other organizing schemata, the actual number of items recalled can be greater than 5 to 9. For most students, the original task was a test of recall from LTM. But now, if they have been following the discussion, the names should be in STM. Complete the demonstration by having students turn the sheets over and recall the names of the seven dwarfs. Module 21 Theoretically, everyone should be able to name them all. Miserandino, M. (1991). Memory and the seven dwarfs. Teaching of Psychology, 18, 169–171. Lecture/Discussion Topic: The World Memory Championships In the text, Myers suggests that Russian journalist Shereshevskii would be a medal winner in a memory Olympics. Your students will be interested to learn that there are annual World Memory Championships known as the Memoriad. Organized by Tony Buzan, an expert on memory and learning, and Raymond Keene, British Chess Grand Master, the first Memoriad was held in 1991. The 14th Annual World Memory Championships took place in Oxford, England, on August 13–15, 2005. Germany’s Clemens Mayer defeated Gunther Karsten, also of Germany, by a score of 6240 to 6070. Mayer set world records by mastering 170 names and faces in 15 minutes and remembering 1040 numbers after studying them for just 30 minutes. Gold, silver, and bronze medals are given to the top adults and top juniors in each category. The memory competition consists of 10 events that take place over two days. Participants are invited to memorize separate packs of cards in one hour, a single pack of cards in under five minutes, random digits in five minutes, random digits in one hour, and binary digits in half an hour. Other events include remembering a list of words in 15 minutes, a poem in 15 minutes, numerous names and faces in 15 minutes, and fictional historic/future dates in 5 minutes. How well do the competitors perform? In 2006, Ben Pridmore set a world record by memorizing a single deck of cards in 31.03 seconds. The current world record for random digits in one hour is 1949 numbers; for historic/future dates, it is 80 in 5 minutes; and for binary numbers, it is 3705 in 30 minutes. Lecture/Discussion Topic: The Case of Clive Wearing To illustrate what life without memory might be like (or as part of a discussion of memory’s physical storage), introduce the case of Clive Wearing, a highly intelligent and talented English musician who in his 40s was afflicted by encephalitis and experienced subsequent damage to his brain. (This case study is vividly portrayed in Modules 10 and 11 of The Mind series, 2/e, and in Worth’s Digital Media Archive: Psychology. Very highly recommended!) Wearing was unconscious for several weeks before awakening with a very dense amnesia. Today, he can remember nothing for more than a few minutes, a state that he attributes to having just recovered consciousness. He often writes down a spe- Information Processing 5 cific time, say 1:30 p.m., in his diary with the note, “I have just recovered consciousness.” He may make the same entry at 1:35, 1:40, etc. Similarly, if his wife leaves the room for a few minutes, he greets her return with great joy, declaring that he has not seen her for months and asking her how long he has been unconscious. In some patients—Oliver Sacks’ Jimmie, for example—new learning may be impaired, but recollection of the past is normal. Not so in the case of Clive. His recall of his earlier life is extremely patchy. He can remember a few things, such as singing for the Pope on his visit to London and the name of the college he attended at Cambridge, but all else is lost. His capacity to recall details is extremely poor. For example, he does not recognize a picture of the college, and, although he had written a book on the early composer Lassus, he has forgotten virtually everything of the composer’s life. General knowledge questions such as, “Who wrote Romeo and Juliet?” baffle him completely. Remarkably well preserved, however, is Clive’s musical ability. He can conduct a choir through a complex piece of music showing all his old skills; he even spots musicians’ mistakes. He can play the piano or harpsichord extremely well, although at first he encountered one difficulty: return signs indicating that a section needed to be repeated before continuing caught him in an apparently eternal loop. How he finally solved this problem remains unclear. The effect of Clive’s memory loss has been devastating. If he goes out alone, he is lost and cannot find his way back. He is unable to tell anyone who finds him where he has come from or where he is going. He has no apparent capacity to learn anything new. In his own words, his life is “Hell on earth—It’s like being dead— all the bloody time.” Baddeley, A. (1998). Human memory: Theory and practice (rev. ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Classroom Exercise: Forgetting Frequency Questionnaire You might introduce the module with Handout 21–1, Barry Gordon’s Forgetting Frequency Questionnaire. Gordon provides the following average answer to each item for respondents who completed the questionnaire: 1. C to D; 2. A; 3. B; 4. B; 5. D; 6. B to C; 7. B to C; 8. B to C; 9. A; 10. B; 11. A; 12. D; 13. B; 14. A; 15. B to C; 16. C; 17. B; 18. B; 19. A; 20. A Gordon cautions that a wide range of scores would be considered “normal,” with scores varying widely both within and between groups. He also suggests that the busier you are, the worse your memory may appear because you have more opportunities to forget. 6 Module 21 Information Processing Follow up by providing students with Gordon’s list of the most common memory complaints, including the percentage of people reporting each. Names 83% Where you put things (e.g. keys) 60% Telephone numbers just checked 57% Specific words 53% Not recalling that you had already told something to someone 49% Forgetting what people had told you 49% Faces 42% Directions 41% Forgetting what you started to do 41% Forgetting what you were saying 41% Remembering what you have done (e.g., turning off the stove) 38% Gordon reports that the number of memory complaints increases with age. Comparing people ages 18 to 44 with those 45 years or older, Gordon obtained the following percentages. Percentage of memory complaints by 18–44-year-olds Losing things Forgetting major events in their past Forgetting events that just occurred Making simple errors that cause accidents Getting lost in familiar places 56 29 21 14 10 Percentage of memory complaints by people 45 or older 73 39 27 22 22 Source: B. Gordon. Memory: Remembering and forgetting in everyday life. Reprinted by permission of Mastermedia Ltd. Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Bias in Memory For a simple yet revealing demonstration of inaccuracy in memory, ask students to close their eyes, imagine a loaf of bread (or another very familiar object such as a can of soda or carton of eggs), and then, with their eyes still closed, estimate its size with their hands. Have students then open their eyes and view their own estimates. Did they underestimate? overestimate? Melissa Smith and colleagues demonstrated that sighted individuals using this strategy markedly overestimated an object’s size. Remarkably, blind participants did not. A subsequent experiment revealed that visual memory was the primary cause of the overestimations in size. Blind persons are more accurate because they rely on manual representations rather than visual memory representations. In describing their respective strategies in performing this task, blind individuals were significantly more likely than sighted individuals to indicate that they imagined holding the object. Smith, M., Franz, E. A., Joy, S. M., &Whitehead, K. (2005). Superior performance of blind compared with sighted individuals on bimanual estimations of object size. Psychological Science, 16, 11–14. Video: Discovering Psychology, Updated Edition: Memory (Annenberg/CPB Project, 30 minutes) By linking the past to the present and the present to the future, memory enables us to survive. More than a century ago, Hermann Ebbinghaus initiated the experi- mental study of memory by learning lists of nonsense syllables. Because the material had no meaning or organization, his memory of it faded quickly. Today, psychologists view human memory as a dynamic information-processing system that involves the selecting, encoding, storing, retaining, and retrieving of knowledge. Researchers distinguish between short-term, or working, and long-term memory. Our short-term memory functions as we take in the sights and sounds around us and in our conversations with friends. Material in our short-term memory is quickly forgotten, however, unless rehearsed and transferred into longterm memory. Long-term memory has infinite capacity and contains everything we know about the world and ourselves. The program reviews many of the important themes of Modules 21 and 22, including mnemonic systems, memory construction, Freud’s concept of repression, and the physiological basis of memory. Special attention is paid to the role of schemas in encoding and retrieval. The video explores the use of classical conditioning both in the search for the memory engram in animals and in the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease in humans. These disorders vividly demonstrate how essential memory is to individuality and personal identity. The entire Discovering Psychology series of 26 half-hour programs is available for $389. Some video programs can also be purchased individually. To order, or simply for more information regarding individual programs, call 1-800-LEARNER. Module 21 Classroom Exercise: Rehearsal and the Twelve Days of Christmas To demonstrate the impact of rehearsal on memory, Paul Schulman asks his class to recall and to write down the gifts in the familiar song Twelve Days of Christmas. The first gift is repeated 12 times, the second 11 times, and so on. Schulman reports that recall for the entire class (especially when the class is fairly large) shows a nice decline from the first to the last gift. One exception is “five golden rings.” The gift has the distinctive feature of being sung more slowly or held longer. You can collect and tabulate the data between classes or more simply chart memory for each gift by a show of hands. Display the forgetting curve on the chalkboard. If you have relatively small classes you may combine data for multiple sections or even keep a running summary of terms. To refresh your own memory, here are the gifts: l Partridge, 2 Turtle Doves, 3 French Hens, 4 Calling Birds, 5 Golden Rings, 6 Geese A-laying, 7 Swans A-swimming, 8 Maids A-milking, 9 Ladies Dancing, 10 Lords A-leaping, 11 Pipers Piping, and 12 Drummers Drumming. 7 Sciences discussion list, archived at www.frostburg.edu/ dept/psyc/southerly/tips/archive.htm. III. Encoding: Getting Information In (pp. 271–276) A. How We Encode (pp. 271–273) Information Processing Classroom Exercise: Serial Position Effect in Recalling U.S. Presidents Many experiments have demonstrated that when people are shown a list of words, names, or dates and then immediately asked to recall the items in any order, they tend to remember the last and first items best and the middle items least. Henry Roediger and Robert Crowder demonstrated a strong serial position effect in the ability of college students to recall U.S. presidents. Their study provides an excellent basis for either a classroom exercise or a student project. Give the students 5 minutes to individually write down the names of as many presidents as they can remember. Ask them to distinguish presidents with identical last names by including the initials of their first and, if necessary, middle names. If your class is not too large, you can tally the results by a show of hands. (Students are unlikely to be embarrassed to report their own recall, or lack thereof, but you can collect their responses, redistribute, and have each student report another’s results.) Number from 1 to 43 on the chalkboard and read off the presidents’ names in order. To refresh your own memory, they are: Schulman, P. (2002, March 6). Rehearsal and memory. Message posted to Teaching in the Psychological 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Washington J. Adams Jefferson Madison Monroe J. Q. Adams Jackson Van Buren Harrison Tyler Polk 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. Taylor Fillmore Pierce Buchanan Lincoln A. Johnson Grant Hayes Garfield Arthur Cleveland Next to each number write down the number of students who recalled that president. The serial position effect will be obvious—the first and the last presidents are recalled best. If you like (and have a large enough chalkboard), you can plot the curve with 1 through 43 along the horizontal axis and the probability of recall (divide number of students who recalled the name by total class size) along the vertical axis. With this exercise you will also demonstrate the von Restorff effect. Near the middle of your curve you will have a spike. Lincoln will be recalled about as well as Washington and Bush. Teddy Roosevelt is also likely 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. Harrison Cleveland McKinley T. Roosevelt Taft Wilson Harding Coolidge Hoover F. D. Roosevelt Truman 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. Eisenhower Kennedy L. Johnson Nixon Ford Carter Reagan George H. W. Bush Clinton George W. Bush to show a spike, although smaller. Researchers have found that a unique item embedded in an otherwise homogeneous list is recalled better than the average homogeneous items. Often, the items immediately around the distinctive one are also remembered better. Look to see if that is true for Buchanan and A. Johnson. Although different explanations have been offered for the serial position effect, Roediger and Crowder suggest that their results are most congruent with the hypothesis that end points of a series serve as distinct positional cues around which memory search is begun. 8 Module 21 Information Processing If you do not wish to take the time for this demonstration in class, assign it as a student project. Have students find volunteers to complete the task, pool the data, and report the results in class. Roediger, H. L., & Crowder, R. G. (1976). A serial position effect in recall of United States Presidents. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 8, 275–278. B. What We Encode (pp. 274–276) Classroom Exercise: Meaning and Memory The importance of meaning for memory is highlighted in the text by John Bransford and Marcia Johnson’s passage on washing clothes (p. 274). Students who were told the context remembered more of the passage than those who did not. You can illustrate the effect in class with another story suggested by Marty Klein. A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill but is easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications, it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance. Before reading the paragraph, give each student on the right side of your class a slip of paper with the statement, “The context is kite flying.” Tell the students not to reveal the contents of the message. Slowly read the paragraph aloud and then ask students to write down as much of the paragraph as they can recall. Read the passage again and have students score their own responses by giving themselves one point each time their sentence resembled a sentence in the passage. By a show of hands determine the total scores obtained by the members of each group. Inform the entire class of the context and compare the groups’ scores. Those who knew the context and for whom the passage was meaningful will have remembered significantly more. Conclude the exercise by citing examples of how even a simple sentence becomes easier to recall when it is meaningful. Read the following sentences: (1) The notes were sour because the seams split; (2) The voyage wasn’t delayed because the bottle shattered; (3) The haystack was important because the cloth ripped. Alone, the statements are difficult to understand and to recall; but if you provide the following prompts, they become memorable: bagpipe, ship christening, parachutist. Klein, M. (1981). Context and memory. In L. T. Benjamin, Jr. & K. D. Lowman (Eds.), Activities hand- book for the teaching of psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Classroom Exercise: Visually Versus Auditorily Encoded Information Janet Simmons and Don Irwin have developed a classroom exercise that powerfully demonstrates the benefits of visual imagery. The top half of Handout 21–2 contains instructions for the control group; the bottom half has the imagery group’s instructions. Make half as many copies of 21–2 as you have students and cut the handouts in half. Distribute the top halves to one side of the class and the bottom halves to the other. It is important that people in each group only be aware of their own instructions. (This is subtly accomplished by handing sheets off the top of the stack to one side and sheets off the bottom to the other side.) After students have read their instructions, read aloud the following sentences, pausing long enough between each for students to record their ratings. 1. The noisy fan blew the papers off the table. 2. The green frog jumped into the swimming pool. 3. The silly snake slithered down a steep sliding board. 4. The crafty surgeon won the daily double. 5. The skiing trumpeter started a gigantic avalanche. 6. The plump chef liked to jump rope. 7. The captured crook liked to do difficult crossword puzzles. 8. The small child sat under the lilac bush. 9. The medieval minstrel strolled along the babbling brook. 10. The distressed teacher ate a wormy apple. 11. The chocolate choo-choo train chugged down the licorice tracks. 12. The marching soldier lit a cigarette. 13. The long-haired woman had a phobia about scissors. 14. The cheerful choirboy sang off-key. 15. The toothless bathing beauty hardly ever smiled. 16. The sweaty gardener was wearing a scarf and mittens. 17. The spotted dog was sleeping in the sun. 18. The lanky leprechaun wore lavender leotards. 19. The bearded plumber was flushed with success. 20. The novice camper got lost in the woods. Next have students turn the form over, number 1 to 20, and attempt to answer the following 20 questions, which you read to them. (Answers follow the questions, but don’t give the answers until all 20 have been read.) Module 21 1. Who won the daily double? (the crafty surgeon) 2. What chugged down the licorice tracks? (the chocolate choo-choo train) 3. Who liked to do difficult crossword puzzles? (the captured crook) 4. Who sang off-key? (the cheerful choirboy) 5. What blew the papers off the table? (the noisy fan) 6. Who hardly ever smiled? (the toothless bathing beauty) 7. Who slithered down a steep sliding board? (the silly snake) 8. What was sleeping in the sun? (the spotted dog) 9. Who strolled along the babbling brook? (the medieval minstrel) 10. Who was flushed with success? (the bearded plumber) 11. What jumped into the swimming pool? (the green frog) 12. Who lit a cigarette? (the marching soldier) 13. Who got lost in the woods? (the novice camper) 14. Who started a gigantic avalanche? (the skiing trumpeter) 15. Who wore lavender leotards? (the lanky leprechaun) 16. Who liked to jump rope? (the plump chef) 17. Who had a phobia about scissors? (the long-haired woman) 18. Who sat under a lilac bush? (the small child) 19. Who ate a wormy apple? (the distressed teacher) 20. Who wore a scarf and mittens? (the sweaty gardener) Then, have students score themselves as you read the correct answers (anything close counts as correct). Reveal the different instructional sets. Finally, after reassuring the students that memory does not equal intelligence, write the scores for each group separately on the chalkboard as students call them out. The differences between the groups’ scores will be highly significant with virtually no overlap. The control group typically gets from 2 to 14 correct and the imagery group from 12 to 20 right. The entire demonstration takes only 10 to 15 minutes. Classroom Exercise: Semantic Encoding of Pictures Our memory for pictures surpasses our memory for words; however, both types of memory depend on how well the material is understood. In short, meaning is important for both visual and verbal memory. To reinforce the value of semantic encoding, you can replicate part of an experiment by Gordon Bower and his colleagues. It is brief, humorous, and very effective. At the beginning of the class distribute Handout 21–3 to each student with instructions to keep Information Processing 9 it face down. (Alternatively, you can make one very large copy of the figures and hold it up for the class to see.) After everyone has a copy, tell them to turn the handout over and very briefly study the two figures. Describe “A” or “B,” but not both. For “A” state, “This is a midget playing a trombone in a telephone booth.” For “B” state, “This is an early bird who caught a very strong worm.” Immediately have students put the handout away and proceed with the class. At the end of the session, ask students to reproduce the two figures without looking at them. Then have them compare their reproductions with the actual figures. Recall of the figure given a verbal label will be significantly more accurate, because it was encoded both semantically and visually. Bower, G., Karlin, M., & Dueck, A. (1975). Comprehension and memory for pictures. Memory and Cognition, 3, 216–220. Lecture/Discussion Topic: Mnemonic Devices Mnemonic devices are of both theoretical and practical importance. They can be used to illustrate the role of meaning, imagery, and organization in successful encoding. So if time allows you only one lecture on memory, this topic is a good choice. To illustrate the power of mnemonic devices, begin your lecture with a classroom demonstration. Without telling your class why, ask volunteers to give you single words to remember (to make it easy on yourself, specify that they be words naming concrete objects). Have them give them to you at three- to five-second intervals and as they do, mentally use the “peg-word” system (cited in the text) to remember them (one-bun, two-shoe, three-tree, fourdoor, five-hive, six-sticks, seven-heaven, eight-gate, nine-swine, ten-hen). Behind your back, have a student quickly record them on the chalkboard in the order they are given. After all 10 have been given, immediately give them back both backward and forward. In addition, tell them what the third, sixth, and ninth words were. Simply done, yet dramatic in its effect. Finally, explain what you did. The first mnemonic based on visual imagery was devised by the Greek poet Simonides in about 500 B.C. A Greek who had won a wrestling match at the Olympic Games gave a banquet. Simonides was invited to give a recitation in honor of the victor. After completing his eulogy, Simonides was called out of the banquet hall. While he was away, the floor of the hall gave way, killing and mutilating all the guests. The bodies were unrecognizable. However, by remembering where most of the guests had been sitting at the time he left, Simonides could identify the victims. The experience led Simonides to devise the method of loci. He visualized a familiar room in great detail 10 Module 21 Information Processing and then imagined the items that needed to be remembered in various parts of the room. To recall the items, he would visualize the room. The system became popular with classical orators—Cicero, for example, would “place” the major points of his speeches at different spots in the room. The Russian mnemonist Shereshevskii also used this technique. It’s fun to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in class. For example, to remember 10 items on a grocery list—honey, dog food, sugar, oranges, ice cream, peanut butter, bread, pork chops, milk, and potato chips—I typically take my students on a hypothetical tour of my house. We begin in the kitchen and see honey dripping down into the toaster on the counter and a giant St. Bernard eating his dog food on top of the kitchen table. We proceed to the living room, where sugar is embedded in the shag carpet, oranges are under the davenport pillows, peanut butter is stuck between the piano keys, and ice cream is in the roaring fireplace. We proceed up the stairs, with a slice of bread on each step. Pork chops are floating in the bathtub, milk is tipped over on the dresser in the bedroom, and potato chips are stuck between the bedsheets. When we get to the supermarket we re-tour my house. Students are asked, “What’s in the toaster . . . on the kitchen table . . . in the living room carpet . . .? The chorus of responses not only reflects amusement but also genuine amazement that the list is so easily recalled in the original order. Students are typically eager to share their own memory tricks. Not all mnemonics utilize imagery. A favorite of college students is the first-letter technique, which involves taking the first letter of each word and forming a new word or a sentence from these letters. Either ROY G. BIV or “Richard Of York Gains Battles in Vain” is used to remember the colors of the spectrum. “My Very Earnest Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets” is a mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets (before Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status). One of the popular anatomy mnemonics refers to the cranial nerves: On Old Olympia’s Towering Top A Finn and German Vault and Hop (olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, auditory, glossophyngeal, vagus, accessory, and hypoglossal). The first-letter technique is most useful when the order of items is important. In the substitution technique, letters are used to replace numbers. For example, a T may be substituted for 1, N for 2, M for 3, etc. The letters may then be used to make up words or sentences. Businesses will sometimes help potential customers remember their phone number by using the letters associated with the numbers on the dial to compose a familiar word. Similarly, words are sometimes substituted for numbers such that the number of letters in each word must equal the number for which it is substituting. Most people rely on external memory aids such as shopping lists, calendar notes, and memos with regularity, and so they do not use mnemonics as often as they might. External aids are of limited usefulness. For example, a note on a calendar will be useless if you forget to look at the calendar. Moreover, as Margaret Matlin has observed, how often are students permitted to take examinations using external aids? Michael Tipper provides a Web site for accelerated learning, which includes an extensive treatment of mnemonics, all the way from memory aids for spelling words to remembering rock formations. It can be found at www.happychild.org.uk/acc/tpr/mne/index.htm. Baddeley, A. (1982). Your memory: A user’s guide. New York: Macmillan. Matlin, M. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lecture/Discussion Topic: The Keyword Method You can extend the text discussion of mnemonics with a description of the keyword method and its application to the learning of psychology. In the keyword method you think of a word that sounds like all or part of the word to be remembered. Then you create a scenario involving the associated word and the definition of the word-to-be-remembered. The keyword method has often been applied to foreign vocabulary learning. In learning Spanish words, for example, pato might first be recoded as an acoustically similar keyword, pot. Then pot is linked to the word’s meaning, duck, by means of an interactive mental image involving a duck with a pot on its head. Russell Carney, Joel Levin, and Mary Levin describe some examples of applying the keyword method to learning parts of the nervous system and their functions that are worth presenting in class. Module 21 Information Processing 11 Keyword Meaning Your Mental Picture 1. Broca’s area broken directs muscles for speech production Imagine breaking a talking doll. If it gets broken (Broca), it won’t talk (speech) anymore. 2. parietal lobe parent sense of touch Imagine that a parent (parietal) is touching his or her baby’s forehead to feel if the baby has a temperature. 3. hypothalamus hypochondriac hunger and thirst Imagine a hypochondriac (hypothalamus) thinking they’re hungry and thirsty when they’re not! 4. cerebral cortex cereal court judgment You and a friend have a dispute over a box of cereal. So, you go to cereal court (cerebral cortex) and face a judge (judgment). 5. amygdala Armageddon aggression and fear In the Bible, Armageddon (amygdala) is the final battle between good and evil. Battles are full of aggression and fear. 6. frontal association areas front impulse control Imagine a student losing patience and crowding to the front (frontal) of the line. He has lost impulse control. 7. corpus callosum corpse connects the two cerebral hemispheres Imagine a tiny corpse (corpus) lying across (connecting) the two cerebral hemispheres. 8. left hemisphere left field handles language Imagine a ballplayer in left field talking (language) continuously during a game (for example, “swing batter, swing batter,” etc.) 9. temporal lobes tempera paints hearing Imagine someone painting tempera paints (temporal) all over their ears (hearing) “These ears aren’t painted on,” she says! hippo memories Imagine a hippo (hippocampus) wearing an elephant trunk as a Halloween costume. “It helps my memory!” he says. Term 10. hippocampus Source: Carney, R. N., Levin, J. R., & Levin, M. E. (1994, August). Additional memory-enhancing activities for acquiring psychology course content. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles. Reprinted by permission of Russell Carney. Classroom Exercise: Chunking As the text indicates, information organized into chunks is recalled more easily. Chunking often occurs so naturally we take it for granted. You can easily demonstrate this in class. Ask your students if they can recite the second sentence of the Pledge of Allegiance. Everyone will think this easy and will think through the entire pledge before realizing it consists of a single sentence. As in the classroom exercise “Memory Capacity” (page 12 of this module’s resources), have students take out a clean sheet of paper and tell them you will be reading a series of unrelated numbers. As you complete each series, they are to write down as many numbers as they can recall. Then, read each of the following series of numbers, beginning with “Ready?” and ending with “Recall.” Read each chunk quickly, pausing briefly between chunks. For example, the first set would be read: “four, twenty-three” (pause) “nineteen.” When the list has been read, have students score their responses as you re-read the digits. Chunking clearly enables the retention of more digits. 12 Module 21 Information Processing 423-19 267-198 390-675-2 573-291-43 721-354-456 245-619-832-2 141-384-515-89 201-315-426-762 dition, the student’s performance is graphed and interpreted. In most cases, the students will be able to demonstrate the existence of a visual “icon,” or sensory register, by showing that more information is available to them than they can reproduce in a free recall task, but that this information decays sharply during a 500 msec. delay. B. Working/Short-Term Memory (pp. 277–278) IV. Storage: Retaining Information (pp. 277–283) A. Sensory Memory (p. 277) Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Iconic Memory The text notes that we have a fleeting photographic memory called iconic memory. To demonstrate it in class, have each student put one hand in front of his or her face and wave it up and down. What do students see? Because they momentarily see where their hand was before they moved it, they are likely to report seeing more than five fingers. We perceive the image of where our hand has moved while our iconic memory allows us to see where our hand was a moment before. If you can make your classroom completely dark, you can demonstrate iconic memory in another way (alternatively, students can do this out of class and report back their experiences). After the room is dark, turn on a flashlight and slowly move it in circles. Take two or three seconds to complete each circle. What do students report seeing? Then make circles with your flashlight by moving your arm as quickly as you can. What do they see this time? In the first case, the image of the beam creates a moving point of light. At most, students may report seeing a comet-like tail left in iconic memory. In the second case, however, the beam will appear as a continuous circle, because the image of the light beam has not yet faded from sensory or iconic memory when it comes around the second time. Matlin, M. W. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. VanderStoep, S. W., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003). Learning to learn: The skill and will of college success. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. PsychSim 5: Iconic Memory Useful for demonstrating the sensory register (very short-term memory), the program describes Sperling’s classic findings. Nine random letters are displayed in a 3 x 3 matrix, and students attempt to recall the letters under three conditions: (a) free recall; (b) cued recall, with the cue appearing at the same time as the letters; and (c) delayed cued recall, with the cue appearing 500 msec. after the offset of the letters. After each con- PsychSim 5: Short-Term Memory This activity explains basic aspects of short-term memory. First describing the common model of memory storage, the program tests students on their ability to hold information in short-term memory. Classroom Exercise: Memory Capacity Our short-term memory is limited. As the text relates, we can immediately recall roughly seven items of information (“Magical Number Seven, plus or minus two”). It is simple to demonstrate people’s immediate memory span in class. Have students take out a clean sheet of paper and tell them you will be reading a series of unrelated digits. As you complete each series, they are to write down as many digits as they can recall in the correct order. Precede each of the series, shown below, with “Ready?” and end with “Recall.” Read at a relatively steady rate—about two digits per second. 9 6 6 3 9 6 5 5 8 5 7 1 9 1 7 4 8 7 1 4 9 3 6 1 1 6 1 5 5 1 2 1 3 8 6 1 9 7 9 3 5 2 4 9 5 4 8 3 3 6 5 3 3 8 2 8 9 8 2 2 8 8 1 9 8 7 4 4 5 7 2 4 3 8 4 5 3 6 7 2 7 2 2 9 8 7 2 6 7 4 1 3 3 2 6 1 2 8 Have students score their own responses as you reread the lists. By a show of hands have them indicate the highest span level at which they got one series correct. The mean for the class should be slightly above seven. Note that our recall is a bit better for random digits than for random letters, and it is also slightly better for information we hear rather than see. Feature Film: Memento The fascinating feature film Memento provides a good introduction to a discussion of memory and memory Module 21 loss. Or, you may want to show clips from this film when you discuss the specific topic of memory storage, especially the distinction between short-term and longterm memory. In the film, Leonard, an insurance investigator, seeks revenge for his wife’s murder. At the time she was assaulted, he himself suffered serious head injury and now is unable to transfer material from short-term to long-term memory. He retains information for the moment but it quickly fades. On the other hand, his long-term memories remain largely in tact. He compensates for his loss by writing notes to himself, snapping Polaroid pictures, and even tattooing relevant facts on his body—the most prominent being “John G. raped and murdered my wife.” Although the story highlights a number of principles of memory and thus students may want to see the entire film, two clips are certainly worth showing in class. In Chapter 3, “It’s Like Waking” (beginning at 6:25 minutes and running until 11:05), Leonard describes his condition and the need to write notes to himself. In Chapter 6, “Memories Can Be Distorted” (beginning at 22:15 and running until 28:28), Teddy challenges the reliability of Leonard’s note-taking for recalling the past. Leonard discusses the malleability and unreliability of human memory more generally. C. Long-Term Memory (pp. 278–279) Lecture/Discussion Topic: Rajan Mahadevan’s Amazing Memory Students are fascinated by case studies of people with extraordinary memories. You may want to expand the text’s brief reference to Rajan Mahadevan, a University of Tennessee psychologist from India who correctly recited the first 31,811 digits of pi. Rajan’s amazing memory for numbers first became apparent when he was 5 years old. As cars pulled up to his house in Mangalore, India, for a party his parents were having, he memorized the license plates. After all the guests had arrived, Rajan recited the license plates of all 40 cars in the order in which they had been parked. In one sense, Rajan’s memory was not unexpected. As the text suggests, Rajan's father, a prominent surgeon, demonstrated a remarkable capacity to recall the writings of William Shakespeare. As a child, reports Rajan, “I used to be so lost in my own thoughts, I would talk to myself. It was hard to fit in. Other kids didn’t know what to make of me.” To win a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, Rajan began studying a computer printout of the first 200,000 places of pi, the ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle. Pi begins 3.14159 and then continues on indefinitely with no known duplication or pattern, making it the ultimate Information Processing 13 test of numerical memory. Two Columbia University mathematicians have calculated pi to 480 million decimal places. On July 5, 1981, Rajan stood before a capacity crowd in a Mangalore meeting hall and rattled off numbers so quickly that the judges could hardly keep up. For 3 hours, 49 minutes, his memory never faltered. Then came a lapse. He forgot the 31,812th digit of pi— a 5. Nonetheless, he had toppled the previous record of 20,013 digits and, until 1987, Rajan’s performance was the best in the world. In 1987, Hideaki Tomoyori of Japan recited 40,000 digits in 17 hours, 21 minutes, and in 1995, Hiroyuki Goto recited more than 42,000 in just over nine hours. It is estimated that to recite all the known digits of pi (6.4 billion) would take 133 years with no pause for coffee or sleep. Some argue that Rajan still has a more impressive memory because he recalled the digits at an average rate of 3.5 digits per second, much faster than Tomoyori or even Goto. Psychologist Charles Thompson, who has studied Rajan’s memory, is convinced that it is superior to Tomoyori’s, who made up a story—a mnemonic—to remember the numbers. In fact, he believes that Rajan may have the most remarkable numerical memory known to science since “S.” As noted in the text, “S” was S. V. Shereshevskii, a newspaper reporter whose memory was discovered during the mid-1920s by an editor infuriated by his failure to take notes. “S” had no need to; he recalled everything he’d ever seen or heard. His inability to forget proved as much a curse as a blessing. Ultimately, unable to distinguish between conversations he’d heard 5 minutes or 5 years before, the mnemonist ended up in an asylum. To give students an idea of how difficult it is to remember a random string of numbers, give them 30 seconds to memorize the following 30 numbers: 2 1 6 9 6 4 6 1 5 1 9 9 7 2 5 2 4 6 8 0 1 2 9 6 1 6 0 8 9 4. (Before class, write them on the chalkboard and cover with a screen, prepare a transparency, or distribute written copies.) After 30 seconds have passed, have students write them down in sequence. Nancy Shulins suggests that 4–9 correct is average, 10–19 is extraordinary, 20–30 is brilliant. Ask those who perform well to indicate how they did it. Thompson studied Rajan’s memory by flashing numbers on a computer screen, one per second, then asking Rajan how he remembers them, or by observing his behavior. While Rajan cannot describe the process by which he remembers pi, says Thompson, his response to the numbers on the screen is intriguing. As they appear, he taps his feet and rocks rhythmically back and forth in his chair. From time to time he jiggles his legs. “There’s something about the way the numbers sound,” he says. For example, he finds the numbers in pi from the 2901st to the 3000th places— 14 Module 21 Information Processing 81911979399520614196, etc.—particularly melodic. The series from the 3701st to the 3800th is “very jarring.” Interestingly, Rajan’s memory is exceptional only for numbers. In all other areas—names, faces, words— it is average. And unlike “S,” he can forget, although “it is hard to willfully forget numbers.” Random numbers learned in one session come flooding back during another. Maintaining the correct sequence requires discipline and concentration. Thompson, C., Cowan, T., & Frieman, J. (1993). Memory search by memorist. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. D. Storing Memories in the Brain (pp. 279–283) Classroom Exercise: Flashbulb Memory Beryl Benderly has described “flashbulb” memories this way: “It’s as if our nervous system takes a multimedia snapshot of the sounds, sights, smells, weather, emotional climate, even the body postures we experience at certain moments.” Introduce this fascinating topic by asking students to write down in a sentence or two their three most vivid memories. When David Rubin and Mark Kozen asked Duke University undergraduates to do so, they discovered that the memories were almost all personally rather than nationally important events— for example, of an injury or accident (18 percent), sports (11 percent), members of the opposite sex (10 percent), animals (9 percent), deaths (5 percent), and vacations (5 percent). Events that were surprising, consequential, or emotional were most likely to be judged as having “flashbulb” quality. The students at Duke were also asked about 20 events that the researchers thought might evoke vivid recollections. Ask your students if any of the following events have a flashbulb quality for them. The percentage of Duke students who had flashbulb recollections of these events is reported in parentheses. You might also add or substitute other events—for example, the execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006 and the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew in 2003, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Princess Diana’s death, the nights of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, or the night John F. Kennedy, Jr., crashed his plane. A car accident you were in or witnessed When you first met your college roommate Your high school graduation Your senior prom (if you went or not) An early romantic experience A time you had to speak in front of an audience When you got your admissions letter from college Your first date (the moment you met him/her) The day President Reagan was shot in Washington (85) (82) (81) (78) (77) (72) (65) (57) (52) Your first flight The moment you opened your SAT scores Your seventeenth birthday The last time you ate a holiday dinner at home Your first college class The first time your parents left you alone for some time Your thirteenth birthday (40) (33) (30) (23) (21) (19) (12) Source: D. Reuben. The subtle deceiver: Recalling our past. Psychology Today magazine, 39–46. Copyright 1985. Reprinted by permission of Sussex Publishers, Inc. Robert Livingstone speculates that incidents are most likely to be stored as flashbulb memories if they are novel and if they are “biologically significant.” If a unique event has great meaning—for example, if it accompanies great pain, joy, fear, or some other strong emotion—then a general “now store” order goes into permanent memory. Interestingly, our recall includes aspects that are unrelated to the meaningfulness of the event itself. Roger Brown and James Kulik found that flashbulb memories of President John Kennedy’s assassination were all different because respondents recalled not only the core event but also their own activities and reactions when the news first reached them. The details of a flashbulb memory are not necessarily accurate, even though the person typically believes they are. Not only do people rehearse and reconstruct an event time and again, but others’ accounts of the same event may also come to influence their recall. As the text indicates, memory can be constructive. Benderly, B. (1981, June). Flashbulb memory. Psychology Today, 71–74. Rubin, D. (1985, September). The subtle deceiver: Recalling our past. Psychology Today, 39–4 6. PsychSim 5: When Memory Fails This activity explores severe memory loss—how it happens and its impact on behavior. In the process, students learn about the different types of memories we store, as well as the areas of the brain that are involved in forming and retrieving memories. V. Retrieval: Getting Information Out (pp. 283–287) Student Project: Permastore The text describes Harry Bahrick and colleagues’ study assessing memory for old high school classmates. Although people who graduated 25 years earlier could not recall many of their classmates, they could Module 21 Information Processing 15 recognize 90 percent of their pictures and names. Bahrick proposed the term permastore for this relatively permanent, very long-term form of memory. Evidence for permastore also comes from studies of memory for a foreign language. Designed by Margaret Matlin, Handout 21–4 challenges students to locate at least one person who has studied Spanish or French, but who has not used the language in at least the last year. After recording how many years have passed since the volunteer studied the language, the student should hand him or her the handout to translate the relevant words (either Spanish or French). To score performance, here are the answers (for both lists): or assigned as an outside project. (Note there are two sides to the handout that should be copied as presented, that is, on different sides of the same sheet of paper.) Like information stored in encyclopedias, memories may be inaccessible until we have cues for retrieving them. The fact that students will remember many more sentences when a key word is added provides dramatic evidence that retrieval cues remind us of information we could not otherwise recall. The text indicates that memory is held in storage by a web of associations. To retrieve a specific memory, you first need to identify one of the strands that leads to it, a process called priming. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Classroom Exercise: Expertise and Retrieval Rate As people develop expertise in an area, central concepts become increasingly elaborated, organized, and interconnected. By organizing their knowledge in these ways, experts recall information more efficiently. Priming with a single concept cues a host of associations. Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus provides an effective 10-minute demonstration of how content knowledge facilitates retrieval of domain-specific information. Ask for four volunteers, two who report having some expertise in music (e.g., music majors or students with several years of private music instruction) and two who report knowing little about music. After they have left the room, briefly explain to the rest of the class the task you will be asking the volunteers to perform and have the observers generate predictions. Call back the volunteers one at a time and give each the simple instruction: “As fast as you can, as soon as I say ‘go,’ give me ANY seven words that relate to music. Go!” Be sure to say “music” last, because the process of spreading activation will occur as soon as you provide the cue. With a stopwatch, record the time it takes each student to provide seven words, then write the results on the chalkboard. You can calculate the mean for the two groups. However, Muir-Broaddus notes that the ranges for the two groups rarely overlap. Experts take about 7 to 10 seconds and novices about 12 to 16 seconds. Point out to your class that knowledge in an area of expertise is more accessible (i.e., more quickly retrieved), because the greater quality and quantity of knowledge facilitates spreading activation through the semantic network. Although you are likely to produce the effect with just one novice and one expert, Muir-Broaddus recommends using two for each group. Occasionally, volunteers may implement a retrieval strategy such as naming a series of notes (e.g., A, B, C, D, E, F, G), which may shorten response times. (Muir-Broaddus notes that only two or three of her 24 volunteers have used a strategy.) Such strategies can shorten response times enough to hide (in the case of novices) or inflate (in the case of railroad cat sister bed head apple heart shoe chair kitchen 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. street devil orange bird grandfather arm skirt breakfast window moon Bahrick and his colleagues found that the knowledge of a foreign language remains reasonably viable for a long period of time. In a massive study of 773 people, they examined the maintenance of Spanish over a span of 50 years. Not surprisingly, they found that the more thoroughly the language was studied, the better the performance on a subsequent test. Knowledge of Spanish declined noticeably during the first 3 years and then seemed to stabilize for another 30 years. Although some decline of reading comprehension was evident after 25 years, much of the originally learned knowledge was still usable after 50 years. People recalled about 40 percent of the vocabulary, idioms, and grammar they had learned. Martin Conway and his colleagues assessed student retention of material taught in a course in cognitive psychology. Recall for the names of researchers and specific concepts declined during the first 2 years after taking the course and remained steady at about 25 percent a decade later. Recall for broader, more general facts and the research methodology of cognitive psychology was significantly greater. They were able to recall about 70 percent of this information 10 years later. Matlin, M. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. A. Retrieval Cues (pp. 284–287) Student Project/Classroom Exercise: Retrieval Cues Handout 21–5, originally provided by J. D. Bransford, is presented so that it can be used as a classroom exercise 16 Module 21 Information Processing experts) the expected knowledge base effect. You may want to forewarn the class of the power of such strategies and, if they are used, discuss each volunteer’s response time separately (i.e., the novice who used the strategy versus the novice who did not versus the mean for the 2 experts who did not). It is more likely that an expert will follow a strategy. Point out that expertise typically facilitates not only organization and itemspecific activation but retrieval strategy as well. For example, in the course of retrieval, the expert may notice automatically activated associative relations and exploit them. The cue music may activate the word note that then activates A, B, C, D, E, F. Muir-Broaddus, J. E. (1998). Name seven words: Demonstrating the effects of knowledge on rate of retrieval. Teaching of Psychology, 25, 119–120. Classroom Exercise: Déjà Vu in the Classroom Students often ask for an explanation of the déjà vu experience—that eerie sense that “I’ve been in this exact situation before.” The text suggests that if we have been in a similar situation, though we can’t recall what it was, the current situation may be loaded with cues that unconsciously help us to retrieve the earlier experience. Drew Appleby provides a classroom demonstration of the déjà vu experience and an explanation that is compatible with that in the text. Explain to your class that they will be participating in a free-recall demonstration. (Don’t mention déjà vu.) Present the following 12 words to the class by displaying them on 4 x 6 cards (one word per card) and by stating them aloud as you hold up each card. REST SNORE SOUND TIRED BED COMFORT AWAKE EAT WAKE DREAM SLUMBER NIGHT Then ask the students to write down as many of the 12 words as they can remember. Give them about 2 minutes and then ask for a show of hands of who remembers the word AARDVARK. Most will look at you as if you have lost your mind! Then ask who remembers the word SLEEP. Anywhere from 50 to 95 percent will indicate they do. (Those who don’t may appear a bit sheepish that they can’t remember such a familiar word.) Read through the entire list again and the class will be astonished to learn that it contains neither AARDVARK nor SLEEP. Finally, ask your class why so many believed they had seen and heard SLEEP. Obviously they will recognize that all the other words were related to it. From here it is a simple matter to describe how associations can cause a person to feel that an event has occurred when it really has not. Appeals to ESP or reincarnation are hardly necessary to explain déjà vu experiences. Staff. (1989, November/December). What is déjà vu? Hippocrates, p. 96. Appleby, D. (1986). Déjà vu in the classroom. Network, 4, 8. Lecture/Discussion Topic: The Déjà Vu Illusion In his review of research on the déjà vu illusion (having a feeling of familiarity in a situation that is objectively unfamiliar or new), Alan Brown opens with this example that you may want to share with your students. Last week, I visited my boyfriend’s new apartment for the first time. As I entered his place, I could have sworn that I had been there in that situation before, and walking through his front door seemed like a repeated action. The experience is so weird and mind-boggling that I usually discard the thought, and move on, and it seems to happen at strange times with little importance (Brown, A. S., 2004. The déjà vu illusion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 256.) Ask your students to volunteer their own accounts of such experiences. Brown reports that about twothirds of individuals have had at least one déjà vu experience, and typically these individuals report that this has happened many times. More than 50 surveys of the phenomenon reveal that the déjà vu experience: • decreases with age and increases with education and income. • is more common in persons who travel, remember their dreams, and have liberal political and religious beliefs. • is most likely to be triggered by a general physical context, although spoken words alone sometimes produce the illusion. • is experienced mainly when people are indoors, engaged in leisure activities or relaxing, and in the company of friends. • is relatively brief—10 to 30 seconds—and is more frequent in the evening than in the morning, and on the weekend than on weekdays. • is responded to more positively than negatively, with people typically indicating they are surprised, curious, or confused. Since the 1800s, reports Brown, researchers have offered more than 30 scientifically plausible explanations of déjà vu. The most promising describe the illusion as arising from biological dysfunction, divided perception, or implicit familiarity in the absence of explicit recollection. From the biological perspective, incoming sensory data follow several different pathways to the higher processing centers of the brain. A neurochemical event that Module 21 slightly alters transmission speed in one pathway could lead to the illusion of déjà vu. That is, the slight delay in the speed of one pathway relative to another could cause the brain to interpret the data as independent and separate copies of the same experience, even though the two impressions are only milliseconds off. Déjà vu could also result, suggests Brown, from a perceptual experience that is subjectively split into two parts. That is, a fully processed perceptual experience that matches a minimally processed impression received moments earlier could produce a strong feeling of familiarity. The disconnection between the two perceptual impressions could result from a physical distraction or even from a mental distraction such as when we momentarily retreat into our inner thoughts and reflections. The phenomenon of inattentional blindness, in which people miss something that is right in front of them, demonstrates how perceptual experience can be split into two parts. A clearly visible item can be overlooked if one’s attention is directed elsewhere. Even though we may be oblivious to this clearly visible stimulus, it still registers as demonstrated by implicit memory tests. Finally, déjà vu may be the product of implicit familiarity without explicit recollection. For example, when we are in a setting that matches one we have previously experienced as a young child or read about in an especially vivid literary description, we may have a feeling of familiarity but no explicit recollection of the source of this feeling. Brown gives the example of seeing a lamp in your aunt’s house that may be identical to the one that used to be in your friend’s apartment. You may fail to recognize the object yet experience an implicit sense of familiarity that generalizes to the entire situation. Or the living room of your friend’s new apartment may elicit déjà vu because the room’s arrangement closely resembles the configuration of a living room you were in years before. Brown, A. S. (2004). The déjà vu illusion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 256–259. Classroom Exercise: The Pollyanna Principle The Pollyanna Principle states that pleasant items and events are usually processed more efficiently and accurately than less pleasant items. Although the principle presumably also applies to a variety of phenomena in perception, language, and decision making, it has been best documented in memory. Margaret Matlin reports that in 39 of 52 studies, pleasant items were more accurately recalled than unpleasant items. Furthermore, pleasant items were retrieved before less pleasant items. Matlin suggests a classroom demonstration of the principle. Have students take out two sheets of paper. Have them make three columns of numbers from 1 to 10 on the first sheet. In the first column they are to list Information Processing 17 10 vegetables in any order they wish; in the second, 10 fruits; in the last column, 10 current or former professors or teachers. On the second sheet, they are to arrange each of the lists in alphabetical order. After doing so, they should put the original lists aside and then rank each item on the second sheet with respect to the other members of the list. For example, they should give their favorite vegetable a rank of 1 and their least favorite vegetable a rank of 10. Finally, they are to transfer each of the ranks back to the original list. Thus, each of the 10 items on each of the three lists should have a rank. The relationship between the ordering and the ranking will be obvious. Pleasant items will be remembered before less pleasant items. In particular, have students compare the first ranks with the last three in each list. Are the former listed before the latter? Matlin and her colleagues found that when people made lists of fruits, vegetables, and professors, the preferred items “tumbled out” of memory prior to neutral or disliked items. To explain this phenomenon, she has proposed that pleasant items may be stored more accessibly in memory. As a consequence, they can be recalled more quickly and accurately. W. Richard Walker and colleagues identify two causes for people’s recollection of a positive past. First, pleasant events actually outnumber unpleasant events. Why? People seek out positive experiences and avoid negative ones. Across 12 studies, people from different racial, ethnic, and age categories consistently reported experiencing more positive events than negative ones. Second, our memory systems treat pleasant emotions differently from unpleasant ones. Unpleasant emotions fade more quickly. By minimizing negative events, we return to our normal level of happiness more rapidly. Research suggests that this “minimization” represents genuine emotional fading rather than a retrospective error in memory. Walker’s research team claims that the fading of negative experiences is evidence of healthy coping processes operating in memory. The effect should not be confused with Freud’s concept of repression. People do remember negative events; they just remember them less negatively. Interestingly, for those who suffer mild depression, unpleasant and pleasant emotions tend to fade evenly. But for most of us, Walker claims, the bias “suggests that autobiographical memory represents an important exception to the theoretical claim that bad is stronger than good and allows people to cope with tragedies, celebrate joyful moments, and look forward to tomorrow.” Matlin, M. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Walker, W. R., Skowronski, J. J., & Thompson, C. P. (2003). Life is pleasant—and memory helps to keep it that way. Review of General Psychology, 7, 203–210. 18 Module 21 Information Processing HANDOUT 21–1 Forgetting Frequency Questionnaire Use this scale to answer the following twenty questions: A = Not within the last six months B = Once or twice in the last six months C = About once a month D = About once a week E = Daily F = More than once a day 1. How often do you forget where you have put things? 2. How often do you fail to recognize places where you have been before? 3. How often do you find television or movie plots difficult to follow? 4. How often do you forget that your daily routine has changed? You forget where you normally keep something, or you forget the time something normally happens? (Your clue may be that you followed your old routine by mistake). 5. How often have you had to recheck whether you have done something that you meant to do, such as lock the door, turn on the lights, or turn off the oven? 6. How often have you forgotten when something happened, such as whether a particular event occurred yesterday or last week? 7. How often have you completely forgotten something you were supposed to do, such as take things with you? An example would be, forgetting your keys until you got to the car. 8. How often do you forget something that you were told yesterday or a few days ago, and had to be reminded about? 9. How often have you begun to read something such as a book or magazine or newspaper article without realizing that you have read it before? 10. How often do you let yourself ramble on about unimportant things? 11. How often have you failed to recognize close relatives or close friends? (Failed to recognize by sight, not forgetting their names.) 12. How often do you find that a word or name is “on the tip of your tongue,” but you can't remember it when you need to? 13. How often have you completely forgotten to do something you said you would do or that you planned to do? 14. How often have you forgotten important details of what you did or what happened to you just the day before? 15. When talking to someone, how often do you forget what you were just talking about? How often have you had to ask, "Where was I?" 16. How often have you forgotten to tell somebody something important? Forgotten to pass on a message? Forgotten to remind somebody of something? Module 21 Information Processing 19 HANDOUT 21–1 (continued) 17. How often have you mixed up the details of what someone has told you? 18. How often do you tell someone a story or joke that you have already told them? 19. How often do you get lost or take a wrong turn on an otherwise familiar route? 20. How often do you forget that you have already done something routine, such as brush your teeth or make coffee, and start to do them all over again? Source: B. Gordon. Memory: Remembering and forgetting in everyday life. Reprinted by permission of Mastermedia Ltd. 20 Module 21 Information Processing HANDOUT 21–2 Please rate the sentences I will read aloud on how easily you can pronounce them. Repeat the sentences silently to yourself. Use the following scale. 2 1 very difficult to pronounce 3 4 5 very easy to pronounce 1. 6. 11. 16. 2. 7. 12. 17. 3. 8. 13. 18. 4. 9. 14. 19. 5. 10. 15. 20. Source: Reprinted by permission from Memory Demonstration Kits by Donald B. Irwin and Janet A. Simons. 20 Module 21 Information Processing HANDOUT 21–2 Please rate the sentences I will read aloud on how well you can form a vivid mental picture or image of the action of the sentence. Use the following scale. 1 2 impossible to image 3 4 5 very easy to image 1. 6. 11. 16. 2. 7. 12. 17. 3. 8. 13. 18. 4. 9. 14. 19. 5. 10. 15. 20. Source: Reprinted by permission from Memory Demonstration Kits by Donald B. Irwin and Janet A. Simons. Module 21 Information Processing 21 HANDOUT 21–3 Cricket Software A. B. Source: Bower, G., Karlin, M., & Dueck, A. (1975). Comprehension and memory for pictures. Memory and Cognition, 3, 217. Reprinted by permission of the Psychonomic Society, Inc. 22 Module 21 Information Processing HANDOUT 21–4 Very Long-Term Memory For this project you will need to locate at least one person who studied Spanish but has not used the language in the last year. Ask the volunteer how many years have passed since he or she studied the foreign language. Then hand him or her the following list of vocabulary words, with instructions to take as long as necessary to supply the English translation. How many words does your volunteer remember? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. ferrocarril gato hermana cama cabeza manzana corazón zapato silla cocina 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. camino diablo naranja pájao abuelo brazo falda desayuno ventana luna Source: Matlin, M. W. (2002). Cognitive psychology (5th ed., p. 133). Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers. Module 21 Information Processing 23 HANDOUT 21–5a To complete this exercise, you will need a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. Please follow the instructions exactly. Spend 3 to 5 seconds reading each of the sentences below, and read through the list only once. As soon as you have finished, cover the list and write down as many of the sentences as you can remember (you need not write “can be used” each time). Begin now. A brick can be used as a doorstop. A ladder can be used as a bookshelf. A wine bottle can be used as a candleholder. A pan can be used as a drum. A record can be used to serve potato chips. A guitar can be used as a canoe paddle. A leaf can be used as a bookmark. An orange can be used to play catch. A newspaper can be used to swat flies. A TV antenna can be used as a clothes rack. A sheet can be used as a sail. A boat can be used as a shelter. A bathtub can be used as a punch bowl. A flashlight can be used to hold water. A rock can be used as a paperweight. A knife can be used to stir paint. A pen can be used as an arrow. A barrel can be used as a chair. A rug can be used as a bedspread. A telephone can be used as an alarm clock. A scissors can be used to cut grass. A board can be used as a ruler. A balloon can be used as a pillow. A shoe can be used to pound nails. A dime can be used as a screwdriver. A lampshade can be used as a hat. After you have recalled as many sentences as you can on a separate sheet of paper, turn this page over and follow the instructions at the top. Source: From The ideal problem solver by J. D. Bransford and B. S. Stein (p. 37). © 1984 by W. H. Freeman & Co. Used by permission. 24 Module 21 Information Processing HANDOUT 21–5b Do not look back at the list of sentences on the reverse side. Instead, using the following list as retrieval cues, write down at the bottom of this page as many sentences as you can. Use an additional sheet of paper if you need it. After you have finished, compare the list below with your earlier recall performance. Begin now. flashlight sheet rock telephone boat dime wine bottle board pen balloon ladder record TV antenna lampshade shoe guitar scissors leaf brick knife newspaper pan barrel rug orange bathtub Source: The ideal problem solver by J. D. Bransford and B. S. Stein (p. 38). © 1984 by W. H. Freeman & Co. Used by permission.