1. FACTORS INFLUENCING MEMORY
VCE PSYCHOLOGY
FACTORS INFLUENCING MEMORY
Study design dot point
The factors influencing a person’s ability and inability to remember information, including context and state dependent cues, maintenance and elaborative rehearsal and serial position effect.

2. Forgetting An inability to recall previously stored information
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1890)
The Forgetting Curve

3. Help me encode… Rehearsal and memory
Make it meaningful!
Connect to existing information
Be active in the process, engage and question
We use a technique known as rehearsal to help us to encode material in our brain that we want to remember.
Maintenance rehearsal relates to short-term memory and
Elaborative rehearsal relates to long-term memory.
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4. Rehearsal Maintenance rehearsal:
simple rote repetition of information to help retain it in short term memory.
Maintenance rehearsal does not add meaning to the information or link it to other material already in long-term memory, it just holds it in short-term memory for a longer time. When we stop maintenance rehearsal, the information will be lost from our immediate awareness within 12–30 seconds.
Elaborative rehearsal:
adding meaning to information or linking it to information already stored in long term memory. Helps information to be encoded into long term memory.
By thinking of examples of concepts as we are learning them, we tend to process the information at a deeper level. We also create cues to help us locate and retrieve this information from long-term memory at a later time.
Salience, or personal relevance, is another way we can improve encoding of information. This means mentally involving ourselves in an example connected with the material being learnt.
e.g. making an acronym or story from words to be remembered
M R E M
Activity :

5. Mnemonic devices
Techniques used to aid memory, by improving encoding and retrieval
Narrative chaining: placing words to be recalled in a story-like sequence of events
e.g.
Acronyms: Placing the first letter of each item to be recalled to create a word e.g. ARRMR
Acrostics: Placing the first letter of each item to be recalled into a sentence e.g. Every good boy deserves fruit
Some techniques are better than others! Check out this clip from Modern Family:

6. Help me retrieve ‘Retrace your steps’ Visualise
Think of related information
Find a cue!

7. Cues
The encoding specificity principle (Tulving & Thomson, 1973) states that the associations formed at the time of encoding new memories will be the most effective retrieval cues.
The two main conditions that assist retrieval are the learner’s external environment (the context) and the internal environment (the internal state). Consequently, we refer to these conditions as context-dependent cues and state-dependent cue
Context dependent cues: the place/setting in which a memory acts as a retrieval cue for the desired information
Environmental cues include sounds, smells, temperature, sights and other environmental stimuli that were linked to the material being learnt at the time
e.g. This will often happen if you return to a street where you lived as a child, or if you are taken to the scene where you witnessed a crime.
State dependent cues: the physiological or psychological condition in which a memory was made acts as a retrieval cue for the desired information
e.g. it has been found that when we are happy we are more likely to remember happy events, but if we are sad we tend to have unhappy memories.
State-dependent learning and retrieval cues might help explain why some people have difficulty recalling information when they are in examinations. In the exam they might be highly aroused, whereas when the learning of the material took place they were in a more relaxed emotional state.

8. Godden and Baddeley (1975)
Godden and Baddeley (1975) found that divers who had learnt a list of words on land recalled them almost twice as well when they were tested on land than when tested under water. However, divers who learnt the words under water recalled the words almost twice as well when tested under water. In this study, the context in which the learning took place served as a retrieval cue.

9. What information am I least likely to forget?
Emotional memories
Lots of links, interconnected
Frequently used links
More meaningful
First and last words and messages (Serial Position effect)
Serial Position Effect
A number of research studies have identified the serial position effect as a factor in memory recall.
This is where the immediate free recall of items at the beginning or at the end of a list are remembered better than those in the middle of the list (Glazner &Cunitz, 1966; Postman & Phillips, 1965). The serial position effect provided evidence that there might be short-term and long-term memory systems. The serial position effect was demonstrated when participants were given a listof 20 words to learn and then asked to recall them immediately. When the recall ofwords was graphed, a pattern referred to as the serial position curve emerged.

10. Serial position effect
To observe the serial position effect, the words or items in the list need to have
similar characteristics and significance for the learner. For example, they might all
be three-letter words such as ‘cat’, ‘pen’ and ‘try’. On the other hand, a word such
as ‘elephant’ placed in the middle of a list of three-letter words will be remembered
because it stands out from the rest of the list (the von Restorff effect).
Experiments testing the serial position effect with
different kinds of information, such as numbers or
even sketches of objects, have consistently found a
similar U-shaped curve with a strong recency effect
Superior recall for words at the start and end of a list.

11. Serial position effect
Why does the primacy effect occur?
Why does the recency effect occur?
What is the delayed serial position effect?
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

12. Delayed serial position effect
Superior recall for words at the start of a list, due to last words not being in STM after a delay.

13. than items presented earlier on in the list
EFFECT
DESCRIPTION
ENCODING
EXPLANATION
Primacy effect
Superior recall for items at the beginning of a list compared to items in the middle of a list
Items at the beginning of a list are stored in and retrieved from long-term memory.
Items have probably been rehearsed and transferred into long-term memory before the capacity of the short-term memory was full.
If list lasts longer than approximately 30 seconds (duration of short-term memory), it is likely that items from the start of the list will be forgotten unless they have been stored in long-term memory.
The primacy effect will still occur if there is a delay of more than 12–30 seconds between learning and reporting items.
Recency effect
Superior recall for items at the end of a list compared to those in the middle of the list.
Items at the end of a list are retained in short-term memory. There is a tendency to get more of these items correct
than items presented earlier on in the list
Items from the end of the list are recalled first.
The recency effect will still occur even if the list of items is increased.
 Maintenance rehearsal has probably been used.
The recency effect will not occur where there is a delay of more than 12–30 seconds between learning and reporting the items (delayed free recall).
Asymptote
On a graph, this shows inferior recall for items in the middle of a list compared to those at the start and end of a list.
Items are either not stored in long-term memory or are displaced from short-term memory
As short-term memory reaches capacity, items are displaced before they can be adequately rehearsed and stored in long-term memory.

14. Fast five – Question 1
What kind of rehearsal involves rote repetition?
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

15. Fast five – Question 1 (Answer)
What kind of rehearsal involves rote repetition? Answer: Maintenance
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

16. Fast five – Question 2
What kind of rehearsal involves making meaningful links with the new information to be stored?
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

17. Fast five – Question 2 (Answer)
What kind of rehearsal involves making meaningful links with the new information to be stored? Answer: Elaborative
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

18. Fast five – Question 3
Which type of cues utilise the environment it was learnt in to help recall?
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

19. Fast five – Question 3 (Answer)
Which type of cues utilise the environment it was learnt in to help recall? Answer: Context
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

20. Fast five – Question 4
What is superior recall for words at the beginning of a list known as?
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

21. Fast five – Question 4 (Answer)
What is superior recall for words at the beginning of a list known as? Answer: Primacy effect
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

22. Fast five – Question 5
Which effect is not present on delayed serial position effect?
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

23. Fast five – Question 5 (Answer)
Which effect is not present on delayed serial position effect? Answer: Recency effect
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017

24. Multiple choice activity
When Peter was in high school, he spent every weekend working in a bakery. Thirty years later, whenever Peter feels hungry and thinks about freshly baked bread, he recalls his experience in the old shop.
What is prompting Peter’s memory?
an acrostic
an acronym
state-dependent cues
context-dependent cues
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017
(VCAA 2013 Exam Section A Q45)

25. Multiple choice (Response)
When Peter was in high school, he spent every weekend working in a bakery. Thirty years later, whenever Peter feels hungry and thinks about freshly baked bread, he recalls his experience in the old shop.
What is prompting Peter’s memory?
an acrostic
an acronym
state-dependent cues
context-dependent cues
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017
(VCAA 2013 Exam Section A Q45)

26. Helping me remember Bringing it together Study design dot point
The factors influencing a person’s ability and inability to remember information, including context and state dependent cues, maintenance and elaborative rehearsal and serial position effect.
© Kristy Kendall & Edrolo 2017