PSYB57H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Scuba Diving, Spreading Activation, Episodic Memory
Chapter 6: Interconnections Between Acquisition and Retrieval
Learning as Preparation for Retrieval
•When you are learning, you’re making connections between the newly acquired material and other
representations already in your memory. The connections serve as retrieval paths: when you want to
locate information in memory, you travel on those paths, moving from one memory to the next until you
reach the target material
•Retrieval paths have a starting point and an ending point
Context-Dependent Learning
•When learning and testing circumstances match, similar thoughts come to mind and the person is at a
retrieval advantage
•For example, a scuba diver learning underwater may have “cold-related” thoughts, and so those
thoughts will be in the diver’s mind during the learning episode. If the scuba diver is back underwater
when being tested, “cold-related” thoughts will be back, and these thoughts are connected to the target
materials, and that gives us what we want: the cold triggers certain thoughts, and, thanks to the
connections formed during learning, those thoughts can trigger the target memories
•The same goes for the study where students who learned in a quiet environment tested better in a quiet
environment, and students who learned in a noisy environment tested better in a noisy environment
•Smith, Glenberg and Bjork report the same pattern if learning and testing take place in different rooms,
varying in visual appearance, sounds, and even scents. However, the twist to this study was that by just
thinking about the initial room before testing, participants performed as well as those for whom there
was no room change
•This suggests that it is not the physical context but the psychological context
Changes in Your Approach to the Memory Materials
•Context reinstatement: improved memory performance if we re-create the context that was in place
during learning
•The context has its effect only because it influences how you think about the materials to be
remembered; it’s these thoughts, and the perspective you had during learning and during the test, that
matter for memory, not the physical environment per se
•Similar results can be achieved with no change to the physical context but by manipulating someone’s
perspective directly
•Retrieval cue: a hint to help recall
•Two separate influences on memory: an advantage for thinking about meaning, and an advantage for
matched learning and test conditions
•The match effect wins over the levels-of-processing effect: participants do better in “not so deep, but
matched circumstances” than “deep, but unmatched circumstances”
Encoding Specificity
•What’s preserved in memory is some record of the target material and also some record of the
connections you established during learning
•Encoding specificity: what you encode (i.e., place into memory) is indeed specific - not just the
physical stimulus as it was encountered, but the stimulus together with its context
•It’s the whole that people learn, not the parts; so being shown “the” after “other”, you would say that you
have not seen “the” before, even the “the” appears in “other”
The Memory Network
•According to many theorists, memory is best thought of as a vast network of ideas
•Think of these representations as nodes within the network. These nodes are then tied to each other
via connections called associations, or associative links. (Nodes being lightbulbs that can be turned
on by incoming electricity through the associative links being wires)
Spreading Activation
•Once a node has become activated, it can in turn activate other nodes connected to it, via associations
•Nodes receive activation from their neighbours, and as more and more activation arrives at a particular
node, the activation level for that node increases
•Eventually, the activation level will reach the node’s response threshold, and the node fires (firing will
make the node a source of activation; and also summon attention to that node, this is what it means to
“find” a node within the network)
•Subthreshold activation (activation levels below the response threshold): two subthreshold inputs
may summate (add together), bringing the node to threshold
•If a node has been partially activated recently, it is “warmed up”, and even a weak input can bring it to
threshold
•Spreading activation: activation travels node to node via the associative links, and as each node
becomes activated and fires, it serves as a source for further activation, spreading onward through the
network
•How does one navigate through the maze of associations? Initial proposal: you do not “choose” at all.
Instead, activation spreads out from its starting point in all directions simultaneously, flowing through
whatever connections are in place
Retrieval Cues
•“South Dakota’s capital is also a man’s name” is better than “What’s the capital of South Dakota?”
because the first one will make active the man’s name node, spreading activation from this source at
the same time that activation is spread out from the South Dakota nodes. Therefore, the nodes for
Pierre will now receive activation from two sources simultaneously, and this will probably be enough to
bring the node’s activation to threshold levels
Context Reinstatement
•Thoughts during learning become associated with the materials being learned. Being asked “what was
on the list?”, activation may flow outward from the nodes representing your general thoughts about the
list. Perhaps enough of this activation will reach the nodes for the words on the list you are trying to
recall, perhaps not
•If you are back in the same circumstances you were in when learning, certain thoughts will be triggered,
thoughts that may be linked to the nodes representing the learned material. These nodes will then
receive a double input, making activation more likely, leading to the memory advantage that we
associate with context reinstatement
•The explanations we’ve just offered rest on a key assumption: the summation of subthreshold
activation. The insufficient activation received from one source can add to the insufficient activation
received from another source. Either source of activation on its own would not be enough.
Semantic Priming
•Lexical-decision task: participants are shown a series of letter sequences on a computer screen.
Some of the sequences spell words; other sequences aren’t words. Participants hit “yes” if the
sequence spells a word and “no” otherwise
•Shown word pairs such as “bread, butter” and “house, fime”, the answers should be “yes” and “no”. For
the first pair, “butter” should receive a subthreshold activation from “bread” and require less time for a
response. Participants’ lexical decision responses were faster by almost 100 ms if the stimulus words
were related
•Trials with related words will produce semantic priming, priming resulting from the fact that the two
words in the pair are related in meaning
Different Forms of Memory Testing
•Recall: we’re presented a retrieval cue that broadly identifies the information that we seek, but we need
to come up with the information on our own; “Can you remember the words to that song?”
Document Summary
Learning as preparation for retrieval: when you are learning, you"re making connections between the newly acquired material and other representations already in your memory. The memory network: according to many theorists, memory is best thought of as a vast network of ideas, think of these representations as nodes within the network. These nodes are then tied to each other via connections called associations, or associative links. (nodes being lightbulbs that can be turned on by incoming electricity through the associative links being wires) Initial proposal: you do not choose at all. Instead, activation spreads out from its starting point in all directions simultaneously, owing through whatever connections are in place. Pierre will now receive activation from two sources simultaneously, and this will probably be enough to bring the node"s activation to threshold levels. Context reinstatement: thoughts during learning become associated with the materials being learned.
