Introduction to Cognitive Psychology - Department of Psychological ...

Prof. Greg Francis 8/14/12Improving memoryPSY 200Greg FrancisLecture 22How to improve your memory withoutspending $20.MemoryWe seem to be unable to control ourmemories learn things we dont want to remember unable to learn things we want to rememberIs there any reliable cue that something will beremembered? no but there are several tricks you can useto improve memory in certain situationsPurdue UniversityPurdue UniversityEncoding specificityWe know that memory is best when study and test contexts aresimilarEncoding specificityTest subjects in a neutral context(after another 3 hour interval) For example, testing in the study classroomBut variability in study promotes more general recall Smith et al. (1978) Subjects studied words twice: either in same context or different contexts (3 hourinterval between contexts)Look at proportion correct recall Highest with variable study contextsAdvice: if you want to remembersomething in lots of contexts, study inlots of contextsSession 1 Learning contextSession 2ContextClassroom 1 Classroom 2Classroom 1 0.41 0.69Classroom 2 0.53 0.39Purdue UniversityPurdue UniversityLevel of processingMemory can be influenced by depth of processing at the timeof study Craik & Tulving (1975)Subjects observe words with associated tasksquestion YES NOIn capitalletters?Rhyme withthing?Synonymfor heavy?BOOKspringbulkybooksprintbrownPurdue UniversityNumber of words recalledLevel of processingRecall is better as depth of processing increases More distinctive memories are created, which helps subsequent recall By varying depth of processing, you can construct memories that aremore likely to be recalled2520151050Capital Rhyme SynonymStudy taskPurdue UniversityPSY 200: Intro. to Cognitive Psychology 1