Chapter 7:
Learning and memory: There are several possibilities as to why retrieval may fail.

1. The information to be recalled may never have been learned in the first place.
2. Much information is not simply recorded as on a recorder, but is interpreted and structured as it is being learned.
3. Although it may have been learned, the memory may not have been retained. It may no longer be represented in the organism.
4. The information may be in there someplace, but the person may not be able to find it. In order to be able to use that which is represented, it has to be accessed.
5. The information may not be in the format for the person's task at the moment. Someone may not be able to verbally answer a question that they know well behaviorally.
6. The information might still be represented in some weakened form, but it may not be below some threshold of accessibility.
7. The information may not be accessible to consciousness

One theory is that forgetting is a function of the decay of memory traces.
Anderson likes the Power function:  Strength of memory is a linear function of log (original memory strength) and log (time since learning). Forgetting generally proceeds at a slower pace over time.

Another theory of forgetting is that of interference. Fan effect, Interaction of laboratory and real world information. These studies tended to require relatively specific propositional recall for meaningfully unrelated items. When the parts are related in a meaningful way, more information helps rather than hurts memory.
        Anderson finds coherence and redundancy as bases for inference at retrieval. There is strong evidence that inference often takes place at other times as well as at retrieval. Lawson dissertation (1974) and Greenspan and Segal (1984) showed that reaction times for some inferred propositions are faster than RTs for previously learned propositions.

Role of frame of reference: Abelson (??) example: read a story about a house. Recall when thinking about it from a burglar's perspective leads to different memory than recalling it from a buyer's perspective.

Role of environment: Changing the environment in which things are learned can effect memory. The state of the organism at time of learning leads to better memory if that state is reimposed at time of recall. If you are in a positive state you can recall more positive traits and vice versa when in a depressed state (Teasdale and Russell (1983)

Structure and memory: If the things that you have to remember are well-organized the memory is greatly aided. People naturally tend to organize information. This can be seen in many of the studies discussed in class and in the text. Any information that helps the person organize and understand the material works as an aid to memory. Thus Sulin and Dooling show that knowing a context for a vignette such as Helen Keller, or Dooling and Lachman used Christopher Columbus as an aid to organizing a metaphorical passage.

Primacy and recency effects in list learning
Sternberg--recall latencies as a function of being active.
DeGroot and recall of chess pieces.  The role of experience (expertise) and intrinsic structure.
Flashbulb memories--How accurate are they? the early thoughts and the details from on line data collection. Neisser
Autobiographical memory--Linton, not power law and not correlated strongly to emotions.
Memory errors: Illusions in memory.
Metamemory: what do we know we know? How accurate are we? We tend to antiregress from the mean. Overestimate some knowledge and underestimate others
prospective memory.
Some memories seem to be strongly ordered with a primary entrance point at the beginning, although others have other entrance points. Alphabet, numbers. Pledge of Allegiance, Preamble to the constitution.
selective memory as a function of particular brain damage. exactly what is it
Encoding specificity. Tulving and others

Intrusions: When one recalls information, she is likely to have it structured and organized in a meaningful way. Information which fits is likely to be "remembered" whether or not it was in the to-be-remembered material.

Mnemonists:  Luria's subject S.  Could report the information in different ways
Eidetic Imagery.

Interaction of laboratory and real world information
nonpropositional  (procedural) memory

To Memory 1
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