Transfer Appropriate Processing
Retrieval will be best if the processes you do at retrieval match the
process you did at encoding
The take hoe message is that when the processing at encoding
matched the processing at retrieval
Another aspect of this has to do with your expectations for the kind
of test you will see
D‟Ydewalle and Rosselle (1978) told people to expect either a
multiple choice test or open questions. Half got what they expected,
half got the other. Either way getting what they expected = did
better
Memory Errors
Humans elaborate and integrate in order to store mechanisms
Intrusion Errors
Owens, Bower, and Black (1979)
Half the participants read a story
The other half of the participants read the same passage + the
prologue
Deese-Roediger-McBermott Paradigm
Rest awake tired dream wake snooze slumber yawn
The DRM false memory task
did you remember the word sleep?
In recognition, false memory to the lure (sleep)
Can we find intrusions and distortions in more ecologically valid situations?
Eyewitness testimony
Can be wrong
Participants saw a short film clip of a car accident
How fast were the cars going when they hit each other? Or, how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each
other?
o Verb different, ones that had smashed, people said they were
going faster that those that heard hit.
Then a week later were asked if there was any broken glass,
depends on the word they were given
o If asked with the word hit
Most people were right, and did not remember glass
o If asked with smash
Many people [about 30%] were wrong and through
there was broken glass
This is an intrusion error
o Eyewitness testimony can contain intrusion and distortion
errors.
Other Memory Errors
Misinformation acceptance
o People accept additional info having been part of an earlier
experience without actually remembering that info
o Did I remember the car speeding because it was, or because
the policemen suggested it was?
Overconfidence in Memory
o Source memory of the exact source of the info
o Processing fluency the ease with which something comes to
mind
Source Misattribution
o The inability to distinguish whether the original event or some
later event was the source of info
o Did I remember the word sleep because it was actually there
or because about the worked as I looked at the study list?
o Did I read that in a book or see it in a movie, or did my friend
tell me about it
Individual Differences (Tomes and Katz)
Some people are more susceptible to misinformation than others
People high at risk for misinformation acceptance have o Poor general memory
o High scores on imagery vividness
o High empathy scores
The Structure of our LTM Knowledge
Declarative memory; knowledge of “facts”
Whether true or not, you have to believe its true.
Scripts and Schemata
o For routine events
o Restaurant example
o Allows inferences, problem of intrusions
The ACT model
A symbolic model
o Assumes that thinking and memory relies on the manipulation
of cognitive symbols
o A general framework that specifies how the mind/brain is
organized
Human Associative Memory – HAM
o John R. Anderson and Gordon Bower, 1973
ACT
o Built by Anderson onto the memory model
o Contains procedural memory
o Declarative memory, facts of the world
Declarative Memory in ACT-R
Knowledge is represented as concepts (nodes) and relations (links)
There are organized as propositions
Propositions are the smallest unit of meaning that can be true or
false.
o Roses are red
o Digs are mammals
Production Memory
Info represented as productions
A production rule: If x then do Y Production systems: with practice we get, in essence chunking
IF x then do this sequence of events
Learning!
Fan Effect
Propositions with more links will be harder to remember
o Because activation spreads to all the outgoing links Some problems in ‘search’
Fixation – using prior strategy and failing to use novel approach
Mental Sets – we have a tendency to stick to a tried and true
methods even when other strategies might be more efficient or
useful
Luchin’s Jar Problem
Capacity of Jars Amount to get
A B C
21 127 3 100
8 43 10 20
Functional Fixedness
Example : use objects shown,
o Key was, use the box too
Problem Solving: String Problem
Must put pliers on string and create a pendulum and then swing it,
while going to get the other one, then can tie them together.
Other Problem Solving Problems
NON-COGNITIVE
Lack of motivation
Emotion – especially frustration, when failing to solve a problem
Decision Making
Assume there is an election
o Liberal
o NDP
o Conservative
o Green
o BQ
How choose?
o Difficulties
Conflict Decision maker must make tradeoffs across
different dimensions (ex. car‟s power vs. gas
mileage, etc)
Uncertainty
Outcome of decision often depends on uncertain
variables or events (ex. future demand for
product, completion time).
How do people make decisions?
A logical comparison of the pros and cons
Rational Decisions
Rational (normative) model sets the standard
Expected Value
People set a value for all the alternatives
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