Strategies for Memory Improvement LO: 1)To understand explanations in forgetting memory 2)Discuss suitable ways to improve memory

Starter: On your mini-whiteboards write down 5 factors affecting schemas in Eye-witness Testimonies. You should have: Anxiety/shock Age Consequences Time delay Individual differences

Key terms for today… Visual Auditory Kinaesthetic Interpersonal Intrapersonal

Last week We looked at how memory can be re-constructed through the use of both leading and non-leading questions Now we will be looking at other reasons why we remember and forget certain things and how we can improve our memory

What is flashbulb memory? Interpersonal? Intrapersonal? High semantic meaning Kinaesthetic

Emotions Can depression affect memory? How and why?

Caused by…..How it affects memory

How do you remember things/revise??

Verbal Mnemonics Word or sentence is formed from the initial letters of other words –Acronyms (ROYGBIN) –Acrostic (poem or sentence i.e. Planets) –Rhymes – group of words with identify and rhythm i.e. ‘How many days has September?’

Memorise this: TVCIALTMSTMNASABBCITV 20 seconds!!

Now try this... TV CIA LTM STM NASA BBC ITV Is it easier?? What is this called?

Chunking Postcodes Chase et al 1981 –One mnemonist SF managed to remember more than 80 digits because he could give meaning to groups of digits due to his knowledge of running times– though he had to practice lots!

LOCI (visual Mnemonic) Identify a set of places that you can imagine walking through, e.g. rooms in your house. Number of places used depends on what needs to be remembered. Convert each item that needs remembered into a mental image and place it mentally in a location. When you are ready to recall, you imagine walking through the various locations you used. The locations act as retrieval cues because you already know them well. An example: WMM

In pairs… Tell the person sitting next to you how many windows your home has. How did you do it?

1) How many folds would it take to make this into a complete cube? 2) How many sides would the cube have when folded?

LO: To consolidate knowledge of emotional factors in memory including flashbulb memories and repression

Starter: Recap on reconstructive memory Put the verbs in order in terms of which group would estimate the fastest to the slowest speed _____________ _____________ _____________ ______________ _____________ Hit Collided Smashed Contacted Bumped

Answers: Smashed Collided Bumped Hit Contacted

Key factors What factors below do you think will negatively affect your ability to give correct eyewitness testimony? Being oldbeing youngbeing malebeing femalebeing educated being uneducated If the situation was dangerous if you had a clear view if you are given leading questions after the event How much you an anxious personprejudice people How important your testimony is going to be

Schemas in reconstructive memory Schema Try to answer the following questions on the picture you saw at the beginning of this topic. were there other people in the carriage How many people were fighting? Who was carrying a knife? Our preexisting beliefs may affect our memory of events. Allport’s study showed that people’s schema (or pre-existing beliefs about what is likely to happen in a given scenario) effected how they recalled the event. Bartlett – Reconstructive memory – we combine memory of the event with our own schema so that we create a new memory. List (86) – Gave people a list of events that might happen in a shoplifting incident and got them to rate how likely these were to occur. She then made a video showing 8 different shoplifting incidents including some items people rated as high probability and some as low probability. She then showed video to new subjects and a week later asked them to recall what they had seen. She found that participants were more likely to recall high probability events and often reported high probability events even if they had not occurred in the video. With your partner list the top 10 high probability events that might happen in a school fight (these would be our schema of school fights).

Keyword method (visual Mnemonic) Atkinson & Raugh (1975) –For associating bits of information i.e. picturing the two things together A (weird) example... –Horse in Spanish is ‘caballo’ pronounced “cab-eye-yo” –Picture a horse with a giant eye on it’s back –Conjuring up the visual image should help recall the word Can you think of any examples you have used?

+ + S Labeling Lay Bell ing

+ + St Demonisation Demon Eyes -ation

+ + P Stereotype Stereo Tie

+ FMFM + Meritocracy erit Ocre Sea

How do these techniques work? Organisation To improve your LTM it is helpful to create hierarchies to organise material into meaningful patterns. –Putting items in order –Organisation makes memories more accessable Bower (1969) –asked participants to learn a list of words. The experimental group saw the words organised in conceptual hierarchies, while the control group saw the words presented randomly. –In a total of four trials, participants saw 112 words and the experimental ‘organised’ group recalled on average 65% correctly whereas the control group recalled only 19% correctly.

Conceptual Hierarchy MineralsMetalsRarePlatinumCommonCopperStonesAlloysBronzePreciousSapphireMasonryMarble

Elaborate rehearsal The information must be made elaborated on – making them meaningful –e.g. linking it to pre-existing knowledge. Elaborated memories are easier to recall because several routes can be used to reach items in memory. The amount of rehearsal is important but the nature (elaboration) is more important!

Dual Coding Hypothesis Pavio (1971) –Proposed words and images processed separately –Based on studies of patients with damage to temporal lobes and could not process images –According to Pavio, concrete words, which can be made into images are double encoded in memory. –Once as verbal symbol, once as image-based symbol Double coding increases likelihood of remembering!..... Link to phonological loop.

Your task… Design a leaflet for year 11 students giving them advice on successful memory improvement and revision strategies. WHAT TO DO: –Select at least 3 strategies that you think would work and for each: –Explain how it works –Apply it to a subject (e.g. you could use this when revising your History work by…) –Why it is a good strategy. Put your information together in a user-friendly leaflet. The best one will be distributed to my year 11 students.

Examples: Visual imagery-Spider diagrams and mind maps Organisation of information into hierarchies Verbal mnemonics – Acronyms, Rhymes, Chunking Active / deep processing – Adding a deeper meaning to information (Elaborative)

Bartlett – Reconstructive memory Reconstructive Memory Repeated Reproductions – This involved showing participants a story or drawing and asking them to reproduce it shortly after, then repeatedly over weeks, months and years. A key feature of the stimulus material was that it belonged to a culture that was exceedingly different to that of the participants. He kept a record of the participants ‘reproductions’ and none of them knew the purpose of the study. To investigate how memory is reconstructed when recall is repeated over a period of weeks and months. In particular, it was to see how cultural expectations affect memory and lead to predictable distortions. Procedure Aims The key findings were:  The story was shortened, mainly by omissions  The language and phraseology was changed to language and concepts from the participant’s own culture. For example, using ‘boats’ instead of ‘canoe’.  The recalled version soon became very fixed, though each time it was recalled there were slight variations. Findings Criticisms Conclusions

Homework: Bartlett – reconstructive memory – Research this for homework and display it any way that you want to for next week. You may display it in the form of an A3 poster A PowerPoint presentation A movie A slideshow Even a song! Any other ideas are welcome