6014 Study of Memory TG

The Psychology USER'S GUIDE Learningof

THE STUDY OF MEMORY

FILMS FOR THE HUMANITIES & SCIENCES® Introduction This guide is designed to be read before viewing the video The Study of Memory. It gives a brief overview of the content and structure of the video to assist with study planning and lesson preparation. It also includes some of the charts and diagrams used in the video, and these (and anything in the booklet) can be photocopied for teaching purposes. Running time without breaks for activities: 74 minutes.

Structure of the Video The video is designed to span several sessions—it contains too much information moving too quickly to be useful if watched from start to ﬁnish in one sitting. It could be divided into several separate parts:

• Types and processes of memory; early theories (17 minutes) • Modern theories of memory (23 minutes) • The study of everyday memory (12 minutes) • Theories of forgetting (12 minutes) • Physiological bases of memory (3 minutes) • Improving memory (9 minute)

Ideally, a suitable section will be watched in one session, making liberal use of the Pause or Stop button for discussion and/or note-taking. We have included many breaks for thought, discussion, or activities which are listed in this guide. The Stop the Video pauses are 7 to 10 seconds long to allow you to turn off and switch on again.

Warning: There is a rather gory view of primitive brain surgery during the piece on theories of the ancient Greeks. Perhaps you should assure viewers that this is only a plastic brain and plenty of tomato sauce! We hope you ﬁnd the video a useful teaching tool. However, it will not replace the need for reading and research or the need for discussion. Some ideas for further reading are included at the end of the guide.

page 1 Timing and Content of the Video

Introduction: Episodic, Semantic, and Procedural Memory Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval

01.00 Break. What would life be like with absolutely no memory? Find an example of a situation where you do not need memory. Notes: This early break is designed to provoke thought and discussion about the necessity of memory for survival. The questions are shown for 7-10 seconds so that you have time to switch off and on again to continue.

08.20 Past studies of Memory: Ancient Greeks, Ebbinghaus, Bartlett

14.30 Break. Read “War of the Ghosts.” Recall using Serial Reproduction. Compare your results with those of Bartlett. Notes: “War of the Ghosts” and some of Bartlett’s ﬁndings are found later in the guide. The exercise illustrates Bartlett’s theory and method, and a link could be made to the current return to the study of everyday memory.

Modern Theories of Memory: Explanations and Evaluations

17.30 Two-Process

19.15 STM Exercise: Remembering number sequences. Notes: Writing materials are needed for this exercise, which does not require you to stop the video. Viewers are asked to remember an increasingly large number of numbers and write them down on the word GO. It demonstrates the limited nature of STM when there is no time for rehearsal and consolidation. The number sequences are listed later in the guide.

24.00 Primacy/Recency Exercise. Notes: Viewers are asked to watch a word list as it appears at two-second intervals on the screen. When the list is complete, they write down the words they remember in any order (list replicated later in guide). The video

page 2 says “remember in order”; for the best effect it should be “remember in any order.” If a group is watching, they can tally the scores and plot themon a frequency graph. This demonstration can be used as a piece of coursework if carried out under controlled conditions.

25.00 Break. How does the Primacy /Recency Effect give evidence for the STM/LTM model? Notes: This discussion can be a useful starter for analysis and evaluation in a piece of coursework.

27.15 Levels of Processing

29.30 Parallel Distributed Processing

30.50 Break. Think about the processes you went through to try to ﬁnd the name of this person. Notes: The viewer is given clues to identify a famous person. The answer is easy to come up with, but the way it is arrived at is a good demonstration of the parallel thinking explained in the PDP Model. Considering this question could also be seen as a good exercise is assessing metamemory, i.e., understanding how our own memory works.

34.40 Break. Write down your response to the word "dog." Notes: This exercise demonstrates how, according to PDP theory, the stimulus of one piece of information can activate many units related to this stimulus and allows spontaneous generalizations to be made about items.

37.45 The Working Memory Model

41.00 Break. What questions about memory do we still not have an answer for? Notes: Having looked at the four main modern cognitive theories of memory, the viewer is invited to look at where we have got to in terms of explaining memory problems. We would expect the answer to be “not very far” and to cover everything from simple “Why do I sometimes forget names?” to the more complex problems of diseases such as Alzheimer’s. This leads into the current move towards study of memory in everyday life, which may help with the former, and, later in the

page 3 video, to the biochemical neurophysiological studies which will, hopefully, help with the latter.

The Study of Everyday Memory

43.40 Discourse Analysis

45.50 Current research areas in everyday memory

48.20 Eye Witness Testimony Exercise. Seven questions related to a ﬁlm clip shown earlier, listed later in the guide, are read and appear on the screen. Viewers should write down their answers.

49.30 Break. How accurately did you recall the details of the scene? Was your memory distorted by the way the questions were framed? Notes: This gives viewers time to check their answers and discuss where they went wrong, and more importantly, discuss why their memory for something seen recently may not be accurate. Discussion could include the implications of leading questions in real life, short term memory, and many of the theories of forgetting discussed later in the video, e.g., Trace Decay Theory, Interference Theory.

The Study of Forgetting 52.30 Ebbinghaus: The Curve of Forgetting

53.30 Trace Decay Theory

55.00 Interference Theory

56.40 Amnesia

57.30 Repression

58.30 Context and State Dependency

60.00 Physiological and Biological Bases of Memory

page 4 64.00 Summary of the Study of Memory

65.00 Improving Memory, including Use of Mnemonics, Imagery, Eidetic Memory, Acronyms, Rhymes, Method of Loci, Peg Words, Organization

Aims of the Video ¥ To explain, illustrate, and evaluate past theories of remembering and forgetting—in particular, to look at current research in memory relating to the laboratory-based versus ecological studies argument. ¥ To apply the knowledge that psychologists have acquired to suggest ways of improving memory, particularly for students.

page 5 The Rationale Behind the Breaks The breaks allow viewers to play an active part in the video. The screen bears a relevant message for 7-10 seconds to allow time to turn off and on again after completion of the task.

What We Haven’t Included, and Why! • In this rapidly changing area of research, there are many issues such as emotions, the self, and collective memories which now appear in the journals. We couldn't cover all of these, and they may be inaccessible to students if the reports have not yet reached the textbooks. These issues are not essential to an understanding of cognitive issues in memory, but students (and teachers) should be aware of the lively debates currently going on.

• We have outlined this radical change in thought from laboratory-based work to the study of memory in everyday life.

• There are aspects of everyday memory currently being researched which have had to be omitted, such as Jim Reason’s work on absentmindedness and the expansion of Schema Theory. (See Cohen, Kiss, and Le Voi.)

• Various features of forgetting could have been mentioned, such as Tip of the Tongue phenomenon, Korsakoff’s syndrome, and Psychogenic Amnesia, but we'll leave the teacher to discuss these!

Non-Greek-speaking viewers may be interested in a translation! Afto toh tripanee thelee = This drill needs sharpening! Tora poo eeneh aftee ee mneemee = Now where's that memory! Aftee ee sos na eeneh = This may be it!

page 6 Practical Work There are a wealth of possible practical demonstrations and experiments to carry out in this area. Many are well documented in publications on coursework such as the Primacy/Recency Effect, Nonsense Material versus Meaningful Material, and the effects of aging or time delay on memory. Most of these use word lists and, although they invariably “work,” they could be accused of being unimaginative for the marker of a class set!

We have outlined here an imagery demonstration. Group 1 is asked to remember a group of word pairs, then must recall one of the words, having been given the other as a prompt. Group 2 is asked to remember the same group of word pairs, having been trained to use bizarre imagery to link the two words (e.g., SHOE-BOAT: imagine a ﬂoating shoe with oars).

Word Pairs Prompt List It is usually found that those using Train Grass Grass imagery to link the words recall more. Monkey Sun Sun The results can be confounded, Ink Alligator Ink especially if testing psychology Ball Table Ball students who can produce demand Book Nail Nail Shirt Piano Shirt characteristics because they know Hammer Case Hammer about Paired Association studies; or Bag Snake Bag Group 1 may use imagery without Angel Tie Tie being told to, because they have Cloud Stamp Stamp trained themselves to do so. Plant Radio Plant However, the demonstration is simple Label Pen Label to do, and gives plenty to discuss in terms of problems with experimental method!

There are more practicals possible using real-life situations, which are in keeping with the move towards the study of everyday memory. Eye Witness Testimony offers many possibilities, but students must be made aware of the Ethical Guidelines published by The British Psychological Society (see References). Although there is strict copyright on our video, you are welcome to use the robbery ﬁlmclip as a basis for a practical in this area.

The area of Organization is a good source of “easy to carry out” experiments, e.g., comparing the memory efficiency of shoppers who make categorized lists versus random lists.

page 7 War of the Ghosts One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals. While they were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war cries and thought, “Maybe this is a war party.” They escaped to the shore and hid behind a log.

Then some canoes came up and they heard the noise of paddles and saw one of the canoes coming up to them. There were ﬁve men in the canoe, and they said “What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people.”

One of the young men said, “We have no arrows.”

“Arrows are in the canoe,” they said.

“I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I've gone. But you,” he said, turning to the other, “may go with them.”

So one of the young men went and the other returned home.

And the warriors went up the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The people came down to the water and they began to ﬁght and many were killed. But presently the young man heard one of the warriors say, “Quick, let us go home, that Indian has been hit.”

Now he thought, “Oh, they are ghosts.” He did not feel sick, but they said he had been shot. So the canoes went back to Egulac and the young man went ashore to his house and made a ﬁre. And he told everybody, “Behold, I accompanied the ghosts and we went to ﬁght. Many of our fellows were killed. They said I was hit and I did not feel sick.”

He told it all and then he became quiet. When the sun rose he fell down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became distorted. The people jumped up and cried. He was dead.

page 8 This is a Native American story and difficult to understand, let alone remember! Bartlett found on analysis that we make a number of systematic changes to this type of story material when we pass it on. These include:

• Shortening: Omission of detail, especially that which doesn't ﬁt in with our understanding of the story or culture.

• Change in Focus: Making one part of the story the most signiﬁcant bit, even if it wasn’t in the original.

• Affective inﬂuence: Allowing our own feelings and reaction to the story to inﬂuence what we remember.

• Change of Facts: Any numbers or proper names may be left out or changed to ﬁt in with more familiar ones.

• Conventionalize: Expressions and cliches tend to change to ﬁt in with our own culture and social expectations.

• Rationalize: New material may be introduced, or the order of events changed, to make it make sense to us.

A typical end story after many repetitions may be:

“Some men were going to hunt seals (primacy effect!) and then they went to a fight and lots got killed. One man went home and told everyone what a good fight it had been but something black came out of his mouth. He didn’t feel ill but he fell down on the floor dead.”

This can make an interesting practical using Bartlett’s story, or one of similar style. The story can be passed on through several people, and the ﬁnal versions recorded and collected. These can then be analyzed for examples of certain pre-deﬁned categories. A simple scoring system, such as one mark for every variation from the original, could be devised. If it is a modern culturally-relevant story, then some of the above categories would not be used as much; it may be easier to choose 3 or 4 categories and develop clear criteria of what constitutes an example of a particular category. The results will provide evidence for Bartlett, and a good example of qualitative analysis producing rich and interesting data. Discussion can include some of the debate on the importance of studying everyday memory. page 9 Word List Used in the Video Number Sequences 1. Coin 7. Book 13. Cat Used in the Video 2. Hat 8. Cake 14. Mug 852 2918736 3. Tree 9. Boat 15. Key 3769 53862479 4. Button 10. Card 16. Torch 41805 613741786 5. Sky 11. Knife 17. Flower 6. Paper 12. Desk 18. String 726341 5926381527

A Memory Self-Rating Questionnaire Do you forget very quite some rarely never telephone numbers? often often times

Do you forget some quite very never rarely appointments? times often often

Do you forget the way very quite some rarely never to a particular place? often often times Do you forget to do some quite very never rarely homework assignments? times often often

Do you forget very quite some rarely never a friend’s birthday? often often times Do you forget some quite very someone’s name? never rarely times often often Do you forget an item very quite some rarely never on your shopping list? often often times

Do you forget the score very quite some rarely never when playing games? often often times Do you forget the some quite very never rarely author of a book? times often often Do you forget to return some quite very what you have borrowed? never rarely times often often

Very often = 4; Quite often = 3; Sometimes = 2; Rarely = 1; Never = 0 Your score reﬂects only what you believe your memory to be like!

This questionnaire could be used to look at differences in metamemory between two groups (e.g., conﬁdent vs. those lacking in conﬁdence; technical workers vs. caring professions).

page 10 Eye Witness Testimony: The Robbery Filmclip

The clip begins at approximately 16.00. The questions begin at approximately 46.45. The clip is shown again for answers to be checked at 48.00.

Questions 1. What was the shopkeeper doing when the robbers entered the shop? 2. Did the robber in sneakers enter the shop ﬁrst? 3. How old were the youths who robbed the shop? 4. What weapon did the second attacker hit the male shopper with? 5. Did the shopkeeper shout for help before or after the till was opened? 6. At what stage did the witness lose his glasses? 7. In what direction did the car turn to make its getaway?

References Baddeley, Alan (1990), Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd.

Baddeley, A., Cohen, G., Neisser, Ulric (1992), Peer Commentaries on Edwards, Potter & Middleton's Account of Discourse Analysis of Memory The Psychologist Vol 5: 10

Conway, M., In Defense of Everyday Memory, American Psychologist 1991, 46, 19-26

Conway, M., Development & Debate in the Study of Human Memory, The Psychologist 1992, 5, 439-455

Cohen G., Eysenck, M.W., Le Voi, M.E. (1986), Memory: A Cognitive Approach. Open University Press

Cohen G., Kiss, J., Le Voi, M.E. (1993), Memory: Current Issues, 2nd edition. Open University Press

page 11 Eber J., Szuchman L., Rothberg, S., Dimensions of Self-report about Everyday Memory in Young and Older Adults, International Journal of Aging and Human Development 1992, 34, 311-323

Edwards, D., Potter J., Middleton, D. (1992), Toward a discursive psychology of remembering, The Psychologist Vol 5: 10, 441-446

Eysenck, M. W. (1993), Principles of Cognitive Psychology, LEA Ltd.

Gathercole, S., Collins A., Everyday Memory Reasearch and its Applications, Journal of Applied Psychology 1992, 6, 461-5

Gruneberg, M., Morris, P., Sykes, R., The Obituary on Everyday Memory and its Practical Applications is Premature. American Psychologist 1991, 46, 74-76

Hayes, N. (1994), Foundations of Psychology, Routledge & Kegan Paul

Klatsky, R. Let’s Be Friends, American Psychologist 1991, 46, 43-45

Malin, T. (1994), Cognitive Processes: Introductory Psychology Series, Macmillan

McKenna, E. (1994), Business Psychology & Organisational Behaviour — A Student's Handbook. LEA Ltd.

Naven-Beniamin, M., The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge: exploring initial beneﬁts to memory research and the educational setting, Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology 1990, 4, 295-320

Roediger, H., They Read an Article? A commentary on the everyday memory controversy. American Psychologist 1991, 46, 37-40

Russell, P. (1979), The Brain Book, Routledge & Kegan Paul

The British Psychological Society (1990), Code of Conduct: Ethical Principles and Guidelines. British Psychological Society

Thompson, R. (1968), The Pelican History of Psychology, Penguin page 12 Further Reading Baddeley, A. (1982) Your Memory: A User’s Guide. Sidgwick & Jackson

Buzan, T. (1988) Make the Most of Your Memory. Pan Books

Buzan, T. (1988) Master Your Memory. David & Charles

Coolican, H. (1994) Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology (2nd ed.). Hodder & Stoughton

Gross, R.D. (1990) Key Studies in Psychology. Hodder & Stoughton

Gross, R.D. (1992) Psychology - The Science of Mind and Behaviour (2nd Ed.). Hodder & Stoughton

McIlveen, R., ed. (1992) BPS Manual of Psychology Practicals. British Psychological Society

Rathus Spencer, A. (1991) Essentials of Psychology (3rd ed.). Holt Rinehart & Winston

Wingﬁeld, A., Byrnes, D. L. (1981) The Psychology of Human Memory. Academic Press

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