Maintenance rehearsals
Helps maintain information in STM/WM. But it is not an effective way of
transferring information into LTM
Keeping information information alive at the mind
Useful for short term action
Elaborative rehearsal
Occurs when you think about the meaning of an item and make
connections between the item and something you know
More effective at transferring info to LTM
o Visualize the drink
o Relate it to an altered version of something u usually order
o Taste it when she’s not looking
o Practice retrieving the order
o Write it down (even if you don’t look at the writing later)
Level of processing theory
Craik & lockhart 1972
o Memory depends upon the depth of processing that an item
receives
o Shallow processing= little attention to meaning (highlighting
notes for class)
o Deep processing= close attention, meaning, relating it to other
things
3 conditions for remembering word lists (craik % Tulving 1975)
1) Is word printed in capital letters (shallow)
2) Does it rhyme w word xxxx (deep processing)
3) Does it fit into this sentence
a. E.g. he saw a ___ on the street (deepest processing, you have to
understand the word to know if it fits in the sentence
Levels of processing theory
Research showing encoding influences retrieval
Forming visual images- boat tree, if you can form an image, it can help
your memory with something
Draw an image of what it looks like, to generate what it
would look like in your head
2. linking words to yourself
Self- reference effect
Memory is better if you are asked to relate a word to yourself
Rogers et. Al 1977
1. Participants read a question for sec
2. Then, they were presented w a word
3. Respond yes if word was answer to question, no if word wasn’t
4. Word recall test.
Ex. Participants were more likely to remember words that they rated as
describing themselves.
Relate things you’ve learned in this class to things that happened to
you before, helps
Generating information
You are more likely to remember information that you generate during
study than information that you simply try to remember.
Why? Mental activity at time of study promotes future recall.
o Having questions generated for you would not help you as much
as you thinking about the questions yourselves.
Any ideas that you generate during study can serve as retrieval cues
when you need to remember the information later.
Organizing information
Jenkins &Russell
Participants spontaneously organize items as they recall them
List of words- random words apple, hammer, cloud, tree, screwdriver,
orange. Grass
Retrieval cue- a word or other stimulus that helps a person remember
information stored in memory
o The keys- the meaning, or organization, ends up as a cue for
things that end up in the list.
Spacing/ variability
Massed practice= practice concentrated within time
Spaced practice= practice spread out over several sessions
o Better long term retention
o Learning occurs in a shorter amount of practice time
Constant practice= repeatedly practicing the same skill under the
same conditions
Variable practice= practicing a skill in varied conditions
o Can lead to better performance, especially when there is a
variability in retrieval
Retrieval practice/ testing
Which results in a stronger memory?
o Re-reading the material
o Being tested on the material
Tsting memories strengthened memories, i.e. it increaesed the
likelihood of retrievin the memories at a later time
o This is true regardless ofwhether the subject succeeds in
retrieving the information at the timeof (practice) testing!
Roediger &karpicke
Not much of a difference after 5 minute delay
Testing produces better memory (than rereading) after 2 days& 1 week
delay
Testing effect= enhanced performance due to testing
Retrieval: getting info out of Long term memory
Remember encoding? Organizing information?
o The word apple’ might serve as a retrieval cue for other fruit
cords. Eg. Grape
People, locations, songs, smells, anything! Can be a retrieval cue
Simple example of the effectiveness of retrievavl cues: free recall
Encode these words into memory
Free recall- recalling words without any cues
Cue recall- recalling words with some cues
Recognition- recognizing the word list within a bunch of other words
Matching conditions at encoding and retrieval
Retrieval success can be increased by matching the conditions at
retrieval to the conditions that existed at enconding
o Endoing specificity (context)
o State dependent learning (itnernal mood, etc)
o Transfer- appropriate processing (matching task)
Encoding specificity- information is encoded wiith contextual information
automatically
Godden & baddeley
o Diving experiment
Partipants memorized a list of spoken worrds
o On land
o Or under water
½ switched locations & /2 stayed during test
Participants recalled more in the enironment they encoded in
State dependent learning
Information is better retrieved when the internal state at retrieval
matches the internal state at encoding
Eich& metcalfe
o Induced positive or negative moods before word list learning
Lsitening to sad happy music& thinking sad/ happy
thoughts
o Two days later, same procedure used to induve positive or
negative moods
More is retrieved if the state at retrieval matches that of encoding
Transfer- appropriate processing
Information retrieval is enhanved in taskes that match tasks in which
information was encoded.
Morris, branford,, & franks
o Encoding conditions
1. Meaning condition (task focused on meaning of word)
2. Rhyming condition (task focused on sound of the word)
All participants heard a sentence w 1 word replaced by the word
“blank”, 2 second pause, target word.
1. Sentence provided- the___ had a silver engine (target word:hound)
2. ___ rhymes w legal (target word: regal)
Morris et al.
For retrieval, all participants had a rhyming recognition task
Encoding retrieval
Meaning task rhyming recognition test 33%
Rhying task rhyming recognition test 49%
1) Maching encoding and retrival tasks results in better retrieval
2) “Deeper processing” meaning and variability at enoding does not
always result in better retrieval
