AP PsychologyUnit: Memory, Cognition, & LanguageBy Timothy D. Bradley, Jr.

Learning Objectives• EQ 1: How do humans encode, store, and retrieve

information from memory?• EQ 2: How can humans enhance memory?

EncodingStorageRetrievalSensory memorySemantic memory

Episodic MemoryProcedural MemoryRecallRecognition

Vocabulary

MemoryDefinition: The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Take out a piece of paper…..

•Name the seven dwarves…..

Now name them…..

Was it easy or hard?• It may have depended

on several things….• Have you ever seen the

movie?• Did you like the movie?• When was the last time

you have seen the movie?

• Are you having difficulty concentrating?

Explicit Memories• the conscious, intentional recollection of previous

experiences and information. • People use explicit memory throughout the day,

such as remembering the time of an appointment or recollecting an event from years ago.

• Episodic Memories – Specific Life Events

• Semantic Memories – Facts, Words, Concepts

Implicit Memories• a type of memory in which previous experiences aid

in the performance of a task without conscious awareness of these previous experiences

• Procedural Memories• Conditioned Memories

The Memory Process1. Attention: (Many times this step is not included)2. Encoding: The processing of information into the memory

system.3. Storage: The retention of encoded material over time.4. Retrieval: The process of getting the information out of

memory storage.

Encoding

• Encoding is translating sensory information into a form in which it can be stored.

• Visual coding enables information to be stored as pictures.

• Acoustic coding enables information to be stored • as sounds.• Semantic coding enables information to be stored as

meanings.

Storage

• Storage is the maintenance of encoded information over time.

• Storage is achieved through two types of rehearsal: – Maintenance rehearsal uses repetition to aid storage.– Elaborative rehearsal aids storage by fitting new information

into an organizational system (giving meaning).– Elaborative rehearsal is generally more secure than

maintenance rehearsal.

Memory Aids:• Mnemonic Devices: techniques a person can use to help

them improve their ability to remember something.• Name mnemonics: ROY G. BIV = colors of the spectrum

(Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.)• Word/Expression mnemonics: Order of the Planets

• "Mary Very Easily Makes Jam Saturday Unless No Plums." • Ode/Rhymes: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”• Models• Method of Loci

• Chunking: Organizing items into familiar, manageable units.

1-4-9-2-1-7-7-6-1-8-1-2-1-9-4-1

Retrieval• Retrieval is locating stored information and returning

it to conscious thought.• context-dependent: retrieved more readily when the

person is in a similar situation or environment as when the information was learned.

• state-dependent: retrieved more readily when the person is in a similar emotional state as when the information was learned.– Mood Congruence Effect

Recall Versus RecognitionRecall

• you must retrieve the information from your memory

• fill-in-the blank or essay tests

Recognition• you must identify

the target from possible targets

• multiple-choice tests

Memory Activity1 2 3 4 5

Nine Swap Cell Ring Lust

Plugs Lamp Apple Table Sway

Army Bank Fire Hold Worm

Clock Horse Color Baby Sword

Desk Hold Find Bird Rock

Reading• Read page 197 “The Primacy and Recency Effect”• Complete the Graphic Organizer under Serial Position Effect.

Recalling Information• Serial Positioning Effect• Primacy Effect• Recency Effect

Learning Objectives• EQ 1: How do humans encode, store, and retrieve

information from memory?• EQ 2: How can humans enhance memory?

EncodingStorageRetrievalSensory memoryShort Term Memory

Long Term MemoryIconic MemoryMaintenance RehearsalElaborative RehearsalForgetting

Vocabulary

Three Box Model of Memory

Sensory Memory• A split second

holding tank for ALL sensory information

• Iconic Memory

• Echoic Memory

Short Term Memory• The stuff we encode

from the sensory goes to STM.

• Events are encoded visually, acoustically or semantically.

• Holds about 7 +/- 2 items for about 20 seconds.

• We recall digits better than letters.

Short Term Memory Activity

Interference Theory• Retroactive Interference: new information blocks out old

information.Examples???

• Proactive Interference: old information blocks out new information.

Examples???

Long Term Memory• Unlimited storehouse of

information.• Explicit (declarative)

memories• Implicit (non-

declarative) memories

Forgetting

Storage• Rehearsal: the

conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.

Ebbinghaus' Retention Curve: Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced a list of nonsense syllables on day 1, the fewer repetitions needed to relearn them on day 2. In other words, the more time we spend learning new information, the better we retain it.

Spacing Effect: the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice (i.e., cramming doesn't work well)

Forgetting

Three Box Model of Memory

Constructive Memory• Memories are not always what they seem.• Elizabeth Loftus• A constructed memory is a created memory.• Misinformation effect

Thinking and Language

Thinking• Cognition

• mental activity associated with processing, understanding, and communicating information

• Cognitive Psychology• the study of these mental activities

• concept formation• problem solving• decision making• judgment formation

• study of both logical and illogical thinking

Thinking• Concept

• mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people• address

• country, city, street, house• zip codes

• Prototype• the best example of a category

• matching new items to the prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin.)

• Prototype is a mental image or best example of a category-formed on the basis of frequently experienced features.

Types of Concepts

• There are two types of concepts• Natural concepts: imprecise mental classifications that

develop out of our everyday experiences.• Most of the concepts in our everyday life

• Artificial concepts: concepts defined by a set of rules or characteristics, such as dictionary definition or mathematical equations.

• Most of the concepts learned in school

Cognitive Maps

• As we saw before, cognitive maps are mental representations of a given place or situation.

• Just the mental image is not enough however. Along with the visual cortex, the frontal lobe of the brain provides us with information on the episode, the context and stimulus of a situation.

• Ex. Answering the phone at a friends house

Making Inferences

• To help us figure out the episode, the context and stimulus of a situation we do have tools:• Schema: General frameworks that provide expectations about

topics, events, objects, people and situations.

• Assimilation vs. Accommodation• Assimilation: The process by which people translate incoming information

into a form they can understand• Accommodation: The process by which people adapt current knowledge

structures in response to new experiences

• Script: Schemas about sequences of events and actions expected to occur in particular settings.

Problem Solving

• When we are faced with a problem, we have a few options for figuring out a solution.• Algorithms: Problem solving procedures or formulas that

guarantee a correct outcome if correctly applied

• Heuristics: Simple, basic rules that serve as shortcuts to solve complex mental tasks.

• They do not guarantee a correct solution

Thinking

• Algorithm• methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees

solving a particular problem• contrasts with the usually speedier – but also more error-

prone use of heuristics

Friendship Algorithm

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0xgjUhEG3U

Thinking

• Heuristic• rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make

judgments and solve problems efficiently• usually speedier than algorithms • more error-prone than algorithms• sometimes we’re unaware of using heuristics

Thinking

Unscramble

S P L O Y O C H Y G• Algorithm

• all 907,208 combinations• Heuristic

• throw out all YY combinations• other heuristics?

Thinking• Insight

• sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem• contrasts with strategy-based solutions

• Confirmation Bias• tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions

• E.g. MMR Vaccines cause Autism

• Fixation• inability to see a problem from a new perspective• impediment to problem solving

Thinking- Insight

• Wolfgang Kohler’s experiment on insight by a chimpanzee

The Matchstick Problem

• How would you arrange six matches to form four equilateral triangles?

The Candle-Mounting Problem

• Using these materials, how would you mount the candle on a bulletin board?

One problem with heuristic are mental sets. When faced with problems, we have a tendency to approach

it in a familiar way.

• Mental Set• tendency to approach a problem in a particular way• especially a way that has been successful in the past but may or may not

be helpful in solving a new problem

Problems with Heuristics

Problems With Heuristics

• Another problem with relying on heuristics is called functional fixedness, a sort of mental set issue.• Functional Fixedness:

• The inability to perceive a new use for an object associated with a different purpose.• tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions

The Matchstick Problem

• Solution to the matchstick problem

The Candle-Mounting Problem

• Solving this problem requires recognizing that a box need not always serve as a container

Problems With Heuristics--Judging and Decision making

• Along with mental sets, bias can make heuristics a faulty decision making tool.• Confirmation bias: a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way

that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors

• Hindsight bias: Tendency to second guess a decision after the event has happened.

• Representative bias (Representive Heuristic): rule of thumb for judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes – Ex. The tall guy must play basketball

• may lead one to ignore other relevant information;

Availability bias (Availability Heuristic): Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory. If instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common

• Example: we worry more about airplane crashes than car crashes

Thinking

• Overconfidence• tendency to be more

confident than correct • tendency to overestimate

the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgments

Thinking• Framing

• the way an issue is posed• how an issue is framed can

significantly affect decisions and judgments• Example: What is the best

way to market ground beef- As 25% fat or 75% lean?

Thinking• Belief Bias

• the tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning

• sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid

• Belief Perseverance• clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on

which they were formed has been discredited

• Can you think of example of either?

CREATIVITY• Convergent Thinking: It generally means the ability

to give the "correct" answer to standard questions that do not require significant creativity, for instance in most tasks in school and on standardized multiple-choice tests for intelligence.

• Divergent Thinking: a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions

Artificial Intelligence

• Artificial Intelligence• designing and programming computer systems

• to do intelligent things • to simulate human thought processes

• intuitive reasoning• learning• understanding language

Artificial Intelligence

• Artificial Intelligence• includes practical applications

• chess playing• industrial robots• expert systems

• Efforts to model human thinking inspired by our current understanding of how the brain works

Artificial Intelligence

• Computer Neural Networks• computer circuits that

mimic the brain’s interconnected neural cells

• performing tasks• learning to recognize

visual patterns• learning to recognize

smells

Language• Language

• our spoken, written, or gestured works and the way we combine them to communicate meaning

• Phoneme• in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

• Morpheme• in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning• may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)

• Grammar• a system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others

Language

• Semantics• the set of rules by which we derive meaning from

morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language• Also, the study of meaning

• Syntax• the rules for combining words into grammatically

sensible sentences in a given language

Language We are all born to recognize speech sounds from all

the world’s languages100

908070605040302010

0

Percentage ableto discriminateHindi t’s

Hindi-speaking

adults

6-8 months

8-10months

10-12months

English-speaking

adultsInfants from English-speaking homes

Language Acquisition

• One of the defining characteristics of humans is the use of complex language-our ability to communicate.

• Newborn children know zero words in English, or any other language. Yet they have innate abilities to become fluent speakers of any language they hear spoken, or signed regularly.

Innateness-Theory of Language

• According to the innateness-theory of language, children acquire language not only by imitating but also by following preprogrammed steps to acquire language.

• Noam Chomsky-Language Acquisition Device-LAD: a mental structure that facilitates the learning of language because it is preprogrammed with fundamental language rules.

• Globally, all children follow the same pattern of language acquisition.

• LAD is flexible-any language is possible

Language

• Babbling Stage• beginning at 3 to 4 months• the stage of speech development in which the infant

spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language

• One-Word Stage• from about age 1 to 2• the stage in speech development during which a child

speaks mostly in single words

Language

• Two-Word Stage• beginning about age 2• the stage in speech development during which a child

speaks mostly two-word statements

• Telegraphic Speech• early speech stage in which the child speaks like a

telegram – “go car” – using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting “auxiliary” words

Language

Summary of Language Development

Month(approximate)

Stage

410

12

24

24+

Babbles many speech sounds.

Babbling reveals households language.

One-word stage.

Two-world, telegraphic speech.

Language develops rapidly intoComplete sentences.

Language• Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience fills

them as it modifies the brain

Genes

Environmentspoken language

heard

BrainMechanisms for

understanding andproducing language

BehaviorMastery of

native language

provides input to

design

Language

• Learning a new language gets harder with age

100

90

80

70

60

50 Native 3-7 8-10 11-15 17-39

Percentage correct ongrammar test

Age at school

Language• Linguistic Relativity

• Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think