1. Forgetting

2. DO NOW How would damage to the hippocampus affect an individual’s memory? – Think about Patient H.M.

3. Two Types of Amnesia

4. Memory and the Hippocampus Hippocampus turns STM into LTM

5. Biological Forgetting Factors Damage to the Hippocampus – Difficulty forming new memories – Diminished in Alzheimer’s patients – Head injuries/concussions Neurotransmitters play a role – Acetylcholine - Alzheimer’s patients show low levels of this – Alcohol and other drugs (black outs) Stress Hormones – enhance memories – stress is a reaction to danger, our brain wants us to remember dangerous things to protect us in the future

6. Forgetting as Encoding Failure

7. Encoding Failures People fail to encode information because: – It is unimportant to them – It is not necessary to know the information

8. Which is the Right Penny? (From Nickerson & Adams, 1979)

10. Forgetting as Storage Failure

11. DECAY THEORY: Memories deteriorate due to the passage of time EBBINGHAUS CURVE aka. FORGETTING CURVE

12. Forgetting as Retrieval Failure

13. Interference A retrieval problem when one memory gets in the way of remembering another Two types of interference: – Proactive interference – Retroactive interference

14. Proactive Interference When an older memory disrupts the recall of a newer memory. – Remembering last year’s locker combination, not this years – Calling a significant other by your ex’s name

15. Retroactive Interference When a more recent memory disrupts the recall of an older memory. – Can remember your current class schedule but not schedules from past years – Can remember how to do tasks on your current phone but not an older one

16. Figure 7.19 Retroactive and proactive interference

17. Motivated Forgetting - REPRESSION Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory Process of moving anxiety-producing memories to the unconscious Supposed means of protecting oneself from painful memories Not well-supported by research; stressful incidents are actually more likely to be encoded

18. Figure 7.20 Estimates of the prevalence of childhood physical and sexual abuse

19. 19 Tip-of-the-Tongue (ToT) State: – A feeling that one knows a response yet is unable to produce it Brown and McNeil (1966) – Is the feeling of knowing an illusion? – Task: Retrieve the word corresponding to its provided definition – e.g. “A musical instrument comprising a frame holding a series of tubes struck by hammers” Participants were asked to indicate if they were in a ToT state – If so, guess the number of syllables and any other information about the word (e.g. first letter) – Results: Participants are better at remembering associated information than they were at producing the actual word (e.g. XYLOPHONE) Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon