1. Retrieval and Forgetting
AP Psychology
Credit Todd Daniel of Great Ideas in Psychology Podcast (available on Itunes U) for the idea of starting a Psychology class like this.
Retrieval and Forgetting

2. Forgetting
An inability to retrieve information due to poor encoding, storage, or retrieval.
Biological Reasons
Experience Factors
OBJECTIVE 18| Explain why we should value our ability to forget, and distinguish three general ways our memory fails us.

3. Biological Factors Damage to the Hippocampus
Difficulty forming new memories
Diminished in Alzheimer’s patients
Neurotransmitters play a role
Acetylcholine
Alzheimer’s patients show low levels Acetycholine
Decay theory
Memories deteriorate because of the passage of time
Distractor Studies – information fades from STM

4. Decay Theory
Poor durability of stored memories leads to their decay. Ebbinghaus showed this with his forgetting curve.
OBJECTIVE 20| Discuss the concept of storage decay, and describe Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve.

5. Retaining Spanish
Bahrick (1984) showed a similar pattern of forgetting and retaining over 50 years.
Andrew Holbrooke/ Corbis

6. Biology Continued - Amnesia
Memory loss caused by accidents, surgery, poor diet, or disease
Retrograde amnesia
Loss of memory from prior to an accident or injury
Like a computer crashing without saving your essay.

7. Retrieval Failure
Although the information is retained in the memory store, it cannot be accessed.
Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) is a retrieval failure phenomenon. Given a cue (What makes blood cells red?) the subject says the word begins with an H (hemoglobin).

8. Experiences can affect Memory
Interference
Retroactive interference
Occurs when new information interferes with information already in memory
The ‘retro’ old info is interfered with by the new

9. Interference
First, consistent with cognitive dissonance theories, we are able to induce optimism or pessimism with the initial (random) wage assignment. With respect to the first-stage task, this implies that we can successfully manipulate one’s ability-beliefs in the lab. Secondly, subjects who received this low piece-rate in stage one were willing to accept significantly lower offers in a second-stage ultimatum game. This finding is striking, demonstrating the presence of both belief manipulation and spillovers of those beliefs into behavioral outcomes in an unrelated and distinct experimental environment.

10. Retroactive Interference
Sleep prevents retroactive interference. Therefore, it
leads to better recall.

11. Interference Proactive interference
Occurs when information already in memory interferes with new information
Because of proactive interference, new learning is disrupted by old habits.
Psychologists have found that recall of later items can be improved by making them distinctive from early items. For example, people being fed groups of numbers to remember did much better when they were suddenly fed a group of words instead. This is called release from proactive interference

12. Interference Learning some new information may disrupt
retrieval of other information.
OBJECTIVE 21| Contrast proactive and retroactive interference, and explain how they can cause retrieval failure.

13. I need a volunteer that knows their colors.
Don’t read the words, just say the colors they’re printed in and as fast as you can

14. Red
Yellow
Green
Blue

15. Interference
When you look at the words you see both its color and meaning.
When they are in conflict you must make a choice
Experience has taught you that word meaning is more important than color so you retrieve that information.
You are not always in complete control of what you pay attention to.

16. Interference

17. Experience and Forgetting
Situational factors
Recall of information is better if environment is the same as when information was learned
State-dependent memory
Recall of information is better if person is in the same physiological state as when information was learned
Reconstruction
Memories can be altered with each retrieval
We do this to keep the schemata of our self and our environment

18. Context Effects
Scuba divers recall more words underwater if they learned the list underwater, while they recall more words on land if they learned that list on land (Godden & Baddeley, 1975).
Fred McConnaughey/ Photo Researchers

19. How to Reduce Forgetting
Develop motivation
Practice memory skills
Be confident in your ability to remember
Minimize distractions
Stay focused
Make meaningful connections to what is in long-term memory
Use mental imagery
Use retrieval cues
Rely on more than memory alone
Be aware of possible distortion due to schemata

20. Some “forgetting” isn’t a retrieval problem at all. Encoding Failure
We cannot remember what we do not encode.
OBJECTIVE 19| Discuss the role of encoding failure in forgetting.

21. Which penny is real?

22. Motivated Forgetting
Motivated Forgetting: People unknowingly revise their memories.
Repression: A defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.
OBJECTIVE 22| Summarize Freud's concept of repression, and state whether this view is reflected in current memory research.
Culver Pictures
Sigmund Freud

23. Why do we forget?
Forgetting can occur at any memory stage. We filter, alter, or lose much information during these stages.