1. Memory Storage, retrieval, eye witness testimony

2. Can we trust eye witness testimony? (p165) Piaget’s “abduction” Wording impacts an eye-witnesses response Problem of selective focus Ethnic-racial biases Power of suggestion Should we rely on them for lack of an alternative?

3. Processes of Memory en·gram engram1. a hypothetical permanent change in the brain accounting for the existence of memory; a memory trace po·ten·ti·a·tion potentiation 1. the increase in strength of nerve impulses along pathways that have been used previously, either short- term or long-term.

4. Storage Definition: maintenance of encoded information over time. – Characteristics: rely on strategies to help properly maintain encoded material. – Maintenance Rehearsal: repetition of information Relatively “poor” effectiveness – Elaborative Rehearsal: connecting new information to what you already know Relatively effective. (Example?)

5. Storage Filing Systems: categorize information (US History events). – Can hinder elaborative learning Freud’s “Eternal City”: The mind is like a city in which all things ever built still stand. – Make it difficult to navigate Filing Errors: place information in inappropriate categories.

6. Freud’s “Eternal City” Analogy, Civilization and Its Discontents Class Reading http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthes ociety/files/2010/09/civ-and-its-discon.pdf http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthes ociety/files/2010/09/civ-and-its-discon.pdf P725-727 – Beginning paragraph, “This brings us to the more general problem…”

7. Retrieval Definition: locating sorted information and bringing it back into conscious thought. Characteristics – Simple Retrieval: your name, DOB – Complex Retrieval: methods of encoding and storage to reconstruct information – Context-Dependent Memories: situation of the event’s occurrence is mimicked and the event is recalled.

8. Retrieval Godden & Baddeley, Context-Dependent Experiment 1.Group A asked to memorize a word list in a pool. 2.Group B asked to memorize outside of the water. 3.During recall, each group remembered the list better when in their initial environments

9. Retrieval State-Dependent Memories: recall based on the conscious state in which an event occurred. Emotions help you recall other times you felt the same way. (Drug comrades) Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon: feeling of remember or knowing with the inability to verbalize. – Result of poor organization or incomplete encoding