1. Unit 7
Cognition

2. Unit 7 Layout Day 1 – Studying and Building Memory (Module 31)
Day 2 – Systems of Memory (Modules 32 & 33)
Day 3 – Thinking, Concepts, and Creativity (Module 34) + Vocab Quiz
Day 4 – Problem Solving and Decision Making (Module 35)
Day 5 – Thought and Language (Module 36)
Day 6 – Review and Unit 7 CUA

3. Module 33 – Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Memory Improvement
SWBAT describe information processing as relates to memory and encoding processes

4. Forgetting Two types of forgetting Two patients Anterograde amnesia
An inability to form new memories (antero = forward in Latin)
Retrograde amnesia
An inability to retrieve old memories (retro = backward in Latin)
Two patients
Henry Molaison – 55 years after brain surgery, was intelligent, did crossword puzzles, but couldn’t remember who his neuroscientist was
Jimmie – believed he was 19 years old, when shown a mirror of himself at 70, panicked until he was distracted and he forgot he saw himself

5. Forgetting as an Encoding Error
Under this circumstance, the brain fails to encode properly

6. Forgetting as a Retrieval Error
Under this circumstance, the brain fails to retrieve information properly

7. Retrieval Error Retrieval can be affected or interfered with
Two types:
Proactive interference:
Old information interferes with recall of NEW information
Proactive = forward acting
Retroactive interference:
New information interferes with recall of OLD information
Retroactive = backward acting

8. Forgetting as Storage Decay
The Ebbinghaus curve works in reverse, too: if learning increases rapidly and then levels off with repetition, so too does forgetting

9. Retrieval Failure “Motivated forgetting”
Individuals will remember things in different ways in order to create self- serving histories
After all, we rarely want to be the villains of our own story
Sigmund Freud argued that we repress painful or unacceptable memories that harm our self-concept

10. Memory Construction Error
Loftus memory study
When you provide someone with a leading question they will tend to change their memory to accommodate the information from that question

11. Source Problems Source amnesia Déjà vu
Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, hear about, read about, or imagined
Creates false memories
Déjà vu
French for “already seen”
We might feel “familiarity” (temporal lobe processing) before “detail” (hippocampus), causing a feeling of having lived this already3