Retrieval & Retrieval Failure

 What is the serial position effect?  What are flashbulb memories?  What is the forgetting curve?  What is the difference between retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia?

 Retrieval clues are words meanings, sounds, and other stimuli that are encoded at the same time as a new memory.  Encoding specifity occurs when retrieval surroundings become encoded as retrieval cues for specific memories.

 Memories are retrieved through recall and recognition.  Recall is a type of memory retrieval in which the information to be retrieved must be “pulled” out of memory with few or new cues.  The serial position effect occurs when the first items and last items in a list of information are recalled more items in the middle of the list.  Recognition involves matching information with images or facts.

 Memory for particularly emotional or traumatic events can lead to the formation of flashbulb memories—memories that seem as vivid and detailed as if the person were looking at a snapshot, of the event but that are no more accurate than any other memories.

 Mnemonic devices such as acrostics, acronyms, linking, and rhythmic organization can help us recall information stored in LTM.  For example many people remember HOMES to remember the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior.

 Memories are revised, edited, and altered on an almost continuous basis.  Memories are reconstructed from the various bits and pieces of information that have been stored away in different places at the time of encoding in a process called constructive processing.  Hindsight basis occurs when people falsely believe that they knew the outcome of some event because they have included knowledge of the event’s true outcome into their memories of the event itself.

 Rather than improving memory retrieval, hypnosis make s the creation of false memories more likely.  False memory syndrome is the creation of false or inaccurate memories through suggestion, especially while hypnotized.  Kathy Pezdek and colleagues assert that false memories are more likely to the formed for plausible false events than for implausible ones.

 Hermann Ebbinghaus and the Forgetting Curve: Information is mostly lost by 1 hour after learning but then gradually fades away. This is known as the curve of forgetting.  Encoding failure is the failure to encode information which will not produce a memory.  Memory Trace Decay Theory is a theory that assumes the presence of physical memory trace that decays with disuse over time.

 Forgetting in LTM is most likely due to proactive or retroactive interference.  Proactive Interference: prior learning interferes with new learning.  Retroactive Interference: new learning interferes with retrieval of previous learning.

 In Retrograde Amnesia, memory for the past ( prior to injury) is lost and can be a loss of only minutes or a loss of several years.  ECT, or electroconvulsive therapy, can disrupt consolidation and cause retrograde amnesia.  In Anterograde Amnesia, memory for anything new becomes impossible although old memories may still be retrievable.

 Most people cannot remember events that occurred before the age of 2 or 3. This is called infantile amnesia and is most likely due to the implicit nature of infant memory.  The primary memory difficulty in Alzheimer’s disease is anterograde amnesia can also occur as the disease progresses.  There are various drugs that are in use or being researched for use in slowing or stopping the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.