HPS203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Word Stem, Anterograde Amnesia, Implicit Memory
Topic 4: Acquisition & Retrieval
Context-dependent learning
- New material is most likely to be recalled when the person is in the same physical, mental,
emotional or biological context as when material was learnt
- Godden and Baddeley 1975 explained it with their study
- They had scuba divers learn material while sitting on dry land or 20ft underwater
- Found the thoughts are connected: the cold triggers certain thoughts and they can trigger
the target memories
- If the diver is on land not all memory is lost, they might have some other links to other
memory connections that will lead to the target memories but at a disadvantage
- The logic states that divers that learn material while underwater will remember material best
if they are again underwater as this setting allowed them to use connections established
earlier
Context reinstatement
- Recreating the context that was present during learning, will improve memory performance
- Recall performance is best if your state at the time of testing matches your state at the time
of learning
- Memory performance will improve if the context of learning is re-created
- Fisher and Craik 1977 study on word pairs demonstrated this
- Participants were instructed to learn second word in each pair and to use the first word as
an aid to remember. For half other word was semantically associated with target word, other
half rhymed with target word
- Participants were given a retrieval cue to help recall the word
- Thinking about meaning led to better memory, if thought of at the time of learning and when
cues were provided
- Same for sound, people that thought about sound if cues were provided concerning sound
recall improved
Encoding specificity
- The tendency when memorizing, to place in memory both the materials to be learned as
well as the context of the materials
- Barclay, Bransford, Franks, McCarell & Nitsch 1974 study
- ‘The man lifted the piano’ context: heavy
- ‘The man tuned the piano’ context: music
- Found in both cases cue was effective only if it was congruent with what was stored in
memory
- As a results, materials will be recognised as familiar later on only if they appear again in a
similar context
The memory network
- Ideas represented by notes in network
- Nodes linked through associations
- Nodes activated by strong input signal
- Activation reaches response threshold
- Node ‘fires’
- Activates other nodes
Document Summary
New material is most likely to be recalled when the person is in the same physical, mental, emotional or biological context as when material was learnt. Godden and baddeley 1975 explained it with their study. They had scuba divers learn material while sitting on dry land or 20ft underwater. Found the thoughts are connected: the cold triggers certain thoughts and they can trigger the target memories. If the diver is on land not all memory is lost, they might have some other links to other memory connections that will lead to the target memories but at a disadvantage. The logic states that divers that learn material while underwater will remember material best if they are again underwater as this setting allowed them to use connections established earlier. Recreating the context that was present during learning, will improve memory performance. Recall performance is best if your state at the time of testing matches your state at the time of learning.
