BUILDING MEMORIES II: Elaborative Encoding Themes –Elaboration adds potential retrieval paths –May be item-specific or relational –May be intentional or not –Effective elaboration boosts “distinctiveness” of memory Cue strongly elicits target and not other competitors

ITEM-SPECIFIC ELABORATION The levels-of-processing tradition –“depth” and memory (Craik & Tulving, 1975) –Further elaboration helps only “positive” targets. Why?

Depth or Distinctiveness? –Reducing semantic distinctiveness: Moscovitch & Morris (1976): “semantic” questions free recall of target words varied.85 constant.50 –Increasing phonemic distinctiveness: Eyesenck (1979): P(recog) 48 semantic questions pronounce normally (e.g., comb like home) mispronounce (e.g., glove like home).42

Other roads to distinctiveness –Visual imagery (Paivio, 1969) Via concreteness Via instructions –Self-reference (Rogers, 1977) –Action and movements –Incidental associations and coding

Transfer-appropriate processing –Encoding that’s distinctive for one kind of cue may not be for another Morris, Bransford & Franks (1977): Cue Type itemrhyme semantic questions phonemic questions –Roediger’s work on conceptually- versus data-driven processing

RELATIONAL ELABORATION The list-organization tradition (Bousfield, 1953) –“organized” lists are recalled better –Blocking by category increases recall –Categories “cluster” in recall Clustering increases over trials Even unrelated lists start clustering over trials (Tulving, 1962: subjective organization) –Providing category names as cues improves recall (Tulving & Pearlstone,1969) Effect limited to nonrecalled categories

Relational encoding in text –Thorndike (1977) (& Binet 1902) “importance” effect and overall recall reduced as text is “disorganized” “Material-appropriate” processing (McDaniel, et al., 1996) Strategy Text TypeQuestionsOutline Narrative Expository +31% +13% +28% +64%

Combining item-specific and relational encoding Additive effects –Einstein & Hunt (1980): lists of 6 categories of six nouns each Sort list by: meaning 1 st letter none Rhyme Pleas? None & Pattern of clustering and intrusions different for item- versus list-depth

Item-specific and relational encoding (cont’d) Interactive effects –Marschark (1985): concrete sentence advantage only for “scrambled” text –Marschark (1992): only unrelated word lists show concreteness advantage when sorting into categories “the presence or absence of concreteness effects in free recall depends on the relative salience of distinctive and relational information..”

MNEMONICS AND MEMORY SKILL Deliberate strategies to make encoding distinctive Utilize prior knowledge in learning May be item-specific or relational Effective mnemonics have: –Associability (cue is rich in potential associative “hooks”) –Bidirectionality (from target to cue at study, from cue to target at test) –Constructability (cue is accessible at time of study and test) –Discriminability (cue won’t be confused with others being used) (Bellezza, 1996) So, what does scurrilous mean? A sampler of classic mnemonics

ELABORATIVE ENCODING ADDS RETRIEVAL PATHS irrelevant associations elaboration retrieval cue target memory elaboration

VISUAL IMAGERY AND MEMORY IMAGERY INSTRUCTIONS AID MEMORY –interactive images: MAN - THUMB “CONCRETE” WORDS AID MEMORY –DOORbetter than NOR FISHWISH MUGSMUG SUBJECTIVE CLARITY OF IMAGE CAN AID MEMORY –“An old cannon sat on the river bank; a silver coin can be seen.. –%recalled shining on top of it.69 hidden inside the barrel.56 on the ground across the river.55 (Keenan & Moore, 1979)

read definition, use in context ___% corr add the “linkword” mnemonic ___% corr IMAGERY-LINK MNEMONICS Face-Name Associations New Vocabulary (Sweeny, 1983) SCURRILOUS PEDUNCLE next week: link the name with a distinctive facial feature ebbing house? 14 59

USING MNEMONICS IN EVERYDAY TASKS MNEMONICS WORK BY ENCOURAGING – attention and rehearsal –effective use of prior knowledge for encoding and retireval –elaborative encoding for distinctive memories LIMITS TO MNEMONIC TECHNIQUES: –can require extensive training to acquire and effort to use –are often task-specific, and may show little “transfer” –may become irrelevant as material is practiced

Memory as a skill –Tradition of study of “memory experts” Luria’s S Hunt’s VP Ericcson’s SF and JC Thompson’s Rajan –The bottom line(s) years of specific practice Encoding as where it’s at The debate about “talent”