Psychology 2135A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Episodic Memory, Spreading Activation, Psych
6 Sep 2018
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Psych 2135
June 11-15, 2018
Chapter 7: Interconnections Between Acquisition and Retrieval
Learning as preparation for retrieval
Context dependant learning
- Data shows that the context in which you learn in helps build pathways to the
information in which you want to remember
- Similar results have been obtained from studies of college students and their reading
habits of articles
- Data shows that recall is best done in the room in which the initial learning took place
- What matters is not the physical context but the psychological context
- Context reinstatement: a strategy of recreating the thoughts and feelings of the learning
episode
Encoding specificity
- Suggestion that what is preserved in memory is some record of the target material and
also some record of the connections you established during learning
- Your brain contains the target information and the highways you’ve now build, leading
toward that information
o These highways can influence the search for the target information but also the
meaning of what is remembered
o Meaning plus that set of connections
- Encoding specificity reminds that what you encode is indeed specific – the stimulus with
its context
The memory network
- Memory is best thought of as a vast network of ideas (nodes)
- The nodes are tied to each other via connections well call association or associative links
Speeding activation
- Theorists speak of a node becoming activated when it has received a strong enough
input signal
- Once a node has been activated, it can in turn activate other nodes
- 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 its response threshold and then fires
- Activation levels below the response threshold – subthreshold activation – means that
two of them may add together or summate and bring the node to threshold
- Activation travels from node to node via the associative links
o Process of spreading activation
Document Summary
Data shows that the context in which you learn in helps build pathways to the information in which you want to remember. Similar results have been obtained from studies of college students and their reading habits of articles. Data shows that recall is best done in the room in which the initial learning took place. What matters is not the physical context but the psychological context. Context reinstatement: a strategy of recreating the thoughts and feelings of the learning episode. Suggestion that what is preserved in memory is some record of the target material and also some record of the connections you established during learning. Encoding specificity reminds that what you encode is indeed specific the stimulus with its context. Memory is best thought of as a vast network of ideas (nodes) The nodes are tied to each other via connections well call association or associative links.
