1. Memory: Temporal Effects, Subjectivity, Retrospectivity-Prospectivity, and so much more!

2. Overview of talk Background and Introductions
Temporal aspects of memory
Activity
Prospective memory
Overview
Experiment 1 review

3. Temporal Aspects of memory
What is memory?
What is forgetting
Encoding?
Retrieval?
What happens in between memories?
Interference?
What is interference?
Emotion?
Information?

4. Temporal Aspects of memory
Activity (10 minutes)
Write about an experience (1-2 paragraphs for each) that occurred or will occur:
5 years ago
5 day ago
5 days from now
5 years into the future
Once you are done, lets hear from you all!!!

5. Temporal Aspects of memory
Episodic memory
Memory of autobiographical events…A type of declarative memory
Solomon Asch:
“the very meaning of a message can change as a function of the source to which it is attributed.”
The meaning of the statement is dependent on not only who says it, but also on how the recipient of the message interprets it.
How subjective are our memories?
Trope & Liberman, 2011

6. Construal Theory Solomon Asch:
“that the very meaning of a message can change as a function of the source to which it is attributed.”
“A little rebellion….is a good thing”

7. Construal Theory Solomon Asch:
“that the very meaning of a message can change as a function of the source to which it is attributed.”
“A little rebellion….is a good thing”

8. Temporal Aspects of memory
Construal: person perceives, comprehends, and interprets the world around him or her.
Construal level theory (CLT) proposes that we do so by forming abstract mental construals of distal objects.
we cannot experience what is not present, we can make predictions about the future, remember the past, imagine other people’s reactions, and speculate about what might have been.
Predictions, memories, and speculations are all mental constructions, distinct from direct experience.
What are mental constructions?
Trope & Liberman, 2011

9. Temporal Aspects of memory
Psychological distance is egocentric
Its reference point is the self
Transcending the self in the here and now entails mental construal, and the farther removed an object is from direct experience, the higher (more abstract) the level of construal of that object.
Similar distances from reference point are related to each other
“Subjective reality impacts person”
Trope & Liberman, 2011

10. Mental Construals – Temporal Aspects
5 years ago
5 days ago
5 days from now
5 years from now
More abstract
Less abstract
More abstract
Trope & Liberman, 2011

11. Prospective Memory
Overview (Give me a description…It seems you all know by now)
Activity (in groups of 3-5 people)
Develop a theory of prospective memory
Draw a diagram of how it might work
Create an experiment
Dependant variables?
Independent variables?

12. Prospective Memory Typical paradigm Multiple Blocks
Block 1 (Baseline)
Ongoing task (LDT)
Block 2 (PM Blocks)
PM task
What makes it difficult?
Types of processing
Semantic
Orthographic
Effort = Depletion of cognitive resources
Dependent Measures
Response Times
(in ms)
Low Effort
High Effort
Ongoing Task Accuracy
(in proportions)
PM Task Accuracy

13. Prospective Memory Theories of PM - What we know?
Multiprocess Theory (Einstein & McDaniel, 1995)
Cue focality
Monitoring
Spontaneous Retrieval

14. Prospective Memory Theories of PM - What we know?
Multiprocess Theory (Einstein & McDaniel, 1995)
Cue focality
Monitoring
Spontaneous Retrieval
Transfer Appropriate Processing (TAP)
Match in processing
Mismatch in processing

15. Prospective Memory Theories of PM - What we know?
Multiprocess Theory (Einstein & McDaniel, 1995)
Cue focality
Monitoring
Spontaneous Retrieval
Transfer Appropriate Processing (TAP)
Match in processing
Mismatch in processing
Effects of Effort (Marsh et al., 2005)
High Effort = lower performance
Low Effort = high performance

16. Prospective Memory Theories of PM - What we know?
Multiprocess Theory (Einstein & McDaniel, 1995)
Cue focality
Monitoring
Spontaneous Retrieval
Transfer Appropriate Processing (TAP)
Match in processing
Mismatch in processing
Effects of Effort (Marsh et al., 2005)
High Effort = lower performance
Low Effort = high performance
Why so many theories?

17. Prospective Memory Experiment
BAM! Let’s throw all of these ideas together!
Why? Because we can?.....Well yes, and it might provide insight into what ACTUALLY happens in the real life???
That is called ecological validity!
Transfer Appropriate Processing & Effort
What happens when we manipulate:
Difficulty (processing types)
Cognitive resources/depletion (effort)

18. Flow of Experiment LOW EFFORT hatch Always first block sploof house
Baseline LDT (Block 1)
sploof
Semantic Instructions
house
MED EFFORT
Distractor (2 min)
roos
front
Semantic PM Block (Block 2)
Counterbalanced
Within-subjects
bail
Orthographic Instructions
HIGH EFFORT
blue
Distractor (2 min)
shirt
shorr
Orthographic PM Block (Block 3)

19. Flow of Experiment LOW EFFORT hatch Dependent Measures
Response Times***
(in ms)
Low Effort
High Effort
Ongoing Task Accuracy
(in proportions)
PM Task Accuracy
Baseline LDT (Block 1)
sploof
Semantic Instructions
house
MED EFFORT
Distractor (2 min)
roos
front
Semantic PM Block (Block 2)
bail
Orthographic Instructions
HIGH EFFORT
blue
Distractor (2 min)
shirt
shorr
Orthographic PM Block (Block 3)

20. Results – PM Accuracy *
Main Effect of Condition: F(1,38)=22.88, p<.001, η2=.376
TAP conditions (M=.78, SE=.03) regardless of effort have significantly higher PM accuracy than TIP conditions, M=.59, SE=.03, p<.001.

21. Results – Ongoing Task Performance
What distribution do we typically use? Hint hint…Central Tendency….

22. Results – Ongoing Task Performance
What distribution do we typically use? Hint hint…Central Tendency….
Two Parameters: MEAN and VARIANCE (STANDARD DEVIATION)

23. Results – Ongoing Task Performance
According to the Worst Performance Rule (Coyle, 2003), slower RTs are more predictive of cognitive functioning (e.g., IQ)
The ex-Gaussian Distribution
Three Parameters: MEAN and VARIANCE (STANDARD DEVIATION)
AND TAU

24. Results – Ongoing Task Performance
A main effect of Effort, F(1,28) = 10.03, p = .004, hp2 = No other MEs or Interactions were significant.

25. Results – Ongoing Task Performance
A main effect of PM Task Type was significant, F(2,56) = 19.09, p < .001, hp2 = No other MEs or Interactions were significant.

26. Results – Ongoing Task Performance

27. Conclusions Match in processing resulted in higher PM cue detection.
Monitoring occurred during MATCH in processing ONLY when cognitive resources were depleted (High Effort) AND for all MISMATCH conditions.
The t parameter showed differences between PM conditions that the m and s did not.
PM performance and processes are affected by processing type and the amount of available cognitive resources.

28. Critical Question(s) Is this really how the brain/mind works?
Seriously???
Any other questions???
Drew Abney