Week 2 - Assignment Knowledge Acquisition and Memory DevelopmentPrior to beginning work on this assignment, please read all the required readings and the Instructor Guidance, as well a
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Memory and Learning
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:
Explain how working memory and long-term memory work together to create memories.
Explain Baddeley’s model of working memory.
Describe the roles of attention and perception in memory formation.
Analyze how human cognitive architecture affects learning.
Identify strategies for learning as suggested by cognitive load theory.
Evaluate how schema construction is affected by automation.
Explain autobiographical memory and how it affects knowledge acquisition.
Describe how false memory development affects effective learning.
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Introduction
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Introduction
Have you ever
wondered why you remember some things accurately, but not others?
noticed that your memories about an event differ greatly from someone else’s memories?
wanted to improve your memory?
felt overwhelmed by the amount of information you need to remember?
considered that what you remember about persons, places, and things has a direct relationship to who you believe you are as a person?
experienced a disagreement with a friend who says you participated in an event together, but you do not remember the event?
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Technological advancements make it possible for researchers to continue to learn about the science of cognition.
These types of questions make the study of memory development and its role in learning a popular topic. Curiosity and technological advancement have furthered research in many areas of brain science and cognition, such as neuropsychology (the relationship between brain and cognition, emotion, and behaviors), neurobiology (the relationship between the nervous system and behaviors and information processing), and psychometrics (the measurement of attitudes, traits, achievement, attitudes, skills, and knowledge). In addition, psychologists who study human thought processes and the capacity for successful knowledge acquisition have multidimensional emphases often based on their personal interests. For example, some psychologists choose to focus on memory development associated with learning disabilities, the effects of emotion on false memory development, injury recovery, or motivational triggers activating increased attention and perception. The list of areas for study is endless, especially as researchers continue to better understand how the human brain functions.
A more holistic understanding of how memory processes work is an important step toward understanding the bigger picture of how humans learn. In Chapter 2, you were introduced to cognition and components that align with this theoretical model: information processing, schema development, cognitive mapping, and Bloom’s taxonomy. This chapter will explore how these concepts fit into the bigger picture of memory development. As you read, consider how your own memory development has helped or even hindered you throughout your life. Consider how memory development has affected your loved ones, whether they are young or entering later stages of life. Connecting the chapter content to your personal experiences will help you make solid connections through successful schema development. (To learn more about one researcher’s studies of working memory and the effects of its limitations, see Reinforcing Your Understanding: Making Sense of the World Around Us.)
Reinforcing Your Understanding: Making Sense of the World Around Us
Peter Doolittle is an educational psychologist and the executive director of the Center for Instructional Development and Educational Research at Virginia Tech. In his TEDTalk "How your 'working memory' makes sense of the world," he discusses the four basic components of working memory and how its limitations can affect our ability to process the world around us. Specifically, limitations of working memory contribute to how well we make sense of what is going on in each moment. Doolittle describes some strategies that can be used to make the most out of the information that’s in our environments. Consider how understanding and applying such strategies can potentially improve your own memory development.
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3.1 Working Memory
What exactly is working memory? Working memory is a cognitive system that temporarily stores and manages a limited amount of information. Working memory is often referred to as short-term memory, although short-term memory is considered only one component of the larger mechanism of holding and manipulating information included in working memory. Baddeley noted that working memory is “a brain system that provides temporary storage and manipulation of the information necessary for such complex cognitive tasks as language comprehension, learning, and reasoning” (2003, p. 189).
Working memory is essential because it regulates our attentiveness to tasks and how we manage distractions, apply strategies to our learning experiences, and form long-term memories. Long-term memory (LTM) is the virtually limitless cognitive system that permanently stores, manages, and retrieves information for later use.
According to Baddeley’s model of working memory, the maintenance of information occurs in one of three subcomponents within this system: the visuo-spatial scratchpad, which holds and manages spatial information; the phonological loop, which holds and manages auditory information; and the episodic buffer, which creates representations of the information, aligning new knowledge to previous knowledge, as shown in Figure 3.1 (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). These systems are suggested to be controlled by the central executive system.
Figure 3.1: Baddeley’s model of working memory
Baddeley and Hitch proposed a three-part model of working memory. The central executive system controls the three subcomponents by filtering all available information.
© Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
The central executive system regulates the flow of information, filtering out what is unnecessary, to improve information processing (e.g., decision making, reasoning, and knowledge acquisition). The subcomponents are used as the temporary storage place of the information.
It is also important to note as you read about memory development that research in this area is advancing and elaborating. For example, in 1956, during the noted cognitive revolution, George Miller introduced the idea that working memory was limited (Miller, 2012). Through several experiments, he and his colleagues suggested that the “channel capacity” for attending to information was seven (plus or minus two) pieces of information. This suggestion has been foundational over the years in many learning strategies, such as chunking.
However, as research and technology have continued to advance, additional researchers have suggested that this capacity is limited to approximately 2 seconds, noting that when words or chunked information was introduced with gaps of time, the ability to address the elements was limited to a 2-second timeframe, rather than to a certain number of items (Baddeley, 1990). For example, if someone is given a list of numbers, he or she will remember only a 2-second portion of the total sequence.
Further research has indicated the amount of information that we can store might vary from person to person and changes during one’s lifetime, suggesting that information storage could be dependent on the task (Cowan, 2010). Other research has aligned memory recall to the ability to rehearse the information (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). These findings continue to encourage efforts to better understand how the brain works, how to design training and instruction, and how we can learn more effectively.
The excerpts in this section are from Gathercole and Alloway (2007). These excerpts elaborate on what working memory is, how we use it, its importance in the process of accurate memory development, its limitations, and the effects of deficits in our working memory. Understanding how working memory affects learning enables us to use strategic applications and attention to approach learning more coherently.
Excerpts from Understanding Working Memory: A Classroom Guide
By S. E. Gathercole and T. P. Alloway
What Is Working Memory?
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Remembering a new piece of knowledge can often be a difficult task. Working memory helps store and compute information.
Psychologists use the term working memory to describe the ability we have to hold in mind and mentally manipulate information over short periods of time. Working memory is often thought of as a mental workspace that we can use to store important information in the course of our mental activities. A good example of an activity that uses working memory is mental arithmetic. Imagine, for example, attempting to multiply 43 and 27 together, and having it spoken to you by another person, without being able to use a pen and paper or a calculator.
First of all, you would need to hold the two numbers in working memory. The next step would be to use learned multiplication rules to calculate the products of successive pairs of numbers, adding to working memory the new products as you proceed. Finally, you would need to add together the products held in working memory, resulting in the correct solution. Without working memory, we would not be able to carry out this kind of complex mental activity in which we have to keep in mind some information while processing other material.
When We Use Working Memory
Mental arithmetic is just one example of an activity that relies on working memory. Other examples from everyday life include:
remembering a new telephone number, a PIN number, a web address, or a vehicle registration number while we are trying to find a pen and paper to write it down or to use it in some other way
following spoken directions such as “Go straight over at the roundabout, take the second left, and the building is on the right opposite the church”
calculating how much the bill will be at the supermarket checkout for the items we have in our basket
remembering the unfamiliar foreign name of a person who has just been introduced to you for long enough to enable you to introduce him or her to someone else
measuring and combining the correct amounts of ingredients (e.g., rub in 50 g of margarine and 100 g of flour, and then add 75 g of sugar) when you have just read the recipe but are no longer looking at the page
You may notice from these examples that we typically use working memory as a sort of mental jotting pad in situations when there is no other external record such as written notes or a calculator.
Limits to Working Memory
[. . .] It is unfortunately true that working memory is limited in a number of ways and can easily fail us when we need it. In particular, we need to continue to pay attention to what is being held in working memory if it is to persist over even short periods of time. Here are some of the situations that often lead to the loss of information from working memory.
Distraction. An unrelated thought springing to mind, or an interruption such as a telephone ringing or someone speaking to us, can be sufficient to divert attention from the contents of working memory so that its contents are rapidly lost.
Trying to hold in mind too much information. There is a limit to how much information can be held in working memory. For example, most of us would not be successful in attempting to multiply the numbers 739 and 891 in our heads, simply because the amount of information that has to be stored in the course of this calculation exceeds the capacity of most people’s working memory.
Engaging in a demanding task. Activities that require difficult mental processing, such as applying the rules of multiplication during mental arithmetic, reduce the amount of space in working memory to store information. This can result in a loss of other information that is already held.
Once information has been lost from working memory, it is gone for good. The only possible way forward is to start again the process of entering information into working memory. In mental arithmetic, for example, the sum would have to be recalculated from the beginning.
Working Memory Capacity Variations
[. . .] There is a personal limit to working memory, with each individual having a relatively fixed capacity that may be greater or less than that of others. So, a particular activity may be well within the capacity of one person but exceed that of another.
Working memory capacity also increases with age during childhood. Young children typically have very small capacities that increase gradually until the teenage years, when adult capacities are reached that are more than double that of 4-year-old children. The growth curve of individuals with average and low working memory capacities for their age is shown in Figure 3.2.
Figure 3.2: Changes in working memory capacity with age
The changes in working memory capacity with age for an average child are shown by the solid line. Scores of a child with a low working memory capacity are represented by the broken line.
Adapted from Understanding Working Memory: A Classroom Guide (p. 8), by S. E. Gathercole and T. P. Alloway, 2007, London, England: Harcourt Assessment, Procter House. Copyright 2007 by S. E. Gathercole and T. P. Alloway. Adapted with permission.
Differences in working memory capacity between different children of the same age can be very large indeed. For example, in a typical class of 30 children aged 7 to 8 years, we would expect at least three of them to have the working memory capacities of the average 4-year-old child and three others to have the capacities of the average 11-year-old child, which is quite close to adult levels.
The growth lines on the figure also show that, typically, individuals who have poor working memory capacities in childhood do not catch up with their peers. Although their working memory capacities increase with age, they do not do so at the same rate as other individuals so that, as they grow older, they lag behind more and more. [. . .]
Possible Causes of Low Working Memory
Why some learners have poor working memory capacity is not yet well understood. It is, however, known that low working memory is not strongly related to factors relating to the learner’s background, such as inadequacies in education experiences, or with the quality of social or intellectual stimulation in the home. It seems likely that genes play an important role in the frontal areas of the brain that support working memory.
Measuring Working Memory
There are several methods that can be used to measure the working memory capacity of children. These methods are suitable for use with children from about 4 years of age and typically involve the child attempting to both store and manipulate information in mind over brief periods of time.
Individual tests take no longer than 5 minutes to administer. Paper and pencil tests are available in the Working Memory Test Battery for Children, which is standardized for children aged 4 to 15 years. We have also developed a simple PC-based program called the Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA) that can be used from 4 to 22 years. The AWMA is designed for easy administration for classroom teachers and other professionals working in the fields of education, medicine, and health. Test scores are calculated automatically by the computer program, and the child’s performance is automatically summarized at the end of testing. Use of this test requires little training, and it was developed primarily for classroom use. [. . .]
To help teachers identify children who are at risk of having working memory problems without administering direct tests of memory, the Working Memory Checklist for Children has recently been developed. This is a rating scale on which teachers judge how frequently a child exhibits problem behaviors associated with poor working memory. A high score on this checklist indicates that a child is likely to have working memory problems that will affect his or her academic progress. [. . .]
Working Memory and Learning Difficulties
Poor working memory capacity is characteristic of learners with many kinds of learning difficulties. These include individuals with language impairments, with difficulties in reading and mathematics (including dyslexia), with some forms of ADHD, and with developmental coordination disorder. Approximately 70% of children with learning difficulties in reading obtain very low scores on tests of working memory that are rare in children with no special educational needs.
Not all learners with special educational needs have working memory problems. Individuals with problems in areas that are not directly related to learning, such as emotional and behavioral disturbances, typically have working memory capacities that are appropriate for their ages.
Why Working Memory Is Crucial for Young Learners
Working memory is important because it provides a mental workspace in which we can hold information while mentally engaged in other relevant activities. The capacity to do this is crucial to many learning activities in the classroom. Children often have to hold information in mind while engaged in an effortful activity. The information to be remembered may, for example, be the sentence that they intend to write while trying to spell the individual words. It could also be the list of instructions given by the teacher while carrying out individual steps in the task.
Children with small working memory capacities will struggle in these activities, simply because they are unable to hold in mind sufficient information to allow them to complete the task. In these situations, their working memory is overloaded. Losing crucial information from working memory will cause them to forget many things: instructions they are attempting to follow, the details of what they are doing, where they have got to in a complicated task, and so on.
Because children with poor working memory fail in many different activities on many occasions due to working memory overload, they are likely to struggle to achieve normal rates of learning and so will typically make poor general academic progress.
For such children, we recommend an educational approach in which the teacher monitors the child’s classroom learning activities and modifies them if necessary in order to ensure that he or she is working within his or her working memory capacity rather than being overloaded. This will help the child to complete and succeed in these activities and so will build up knowledge and skills across time in a way that will facilitate learning. More detailed guidance about this approach is provided in the “Supporting Children With Working Memory Problems” section.
Case Study of a Child With Poor Working Memory
Nathan is a 6-year-old boy with an impairment of working memory. His nonverbal IQ is in the normal range. He is a quiet child who is well behaved in the classroom and is relatively popular with his peers. He has been placed in the lowest ability groups in both literacy and numeracy. His teacher feels that he often fails to listen to what she says to him and that he is often “in a world of his own.”
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There are several helpful tips to aid a student’s working memory, one of which is reducing the working memory loads, if necessary. This can help the student tackle tasks one at a time, rather than conquering multiple tasks at once.
In class, Nathan often struggles to keep up with classroom activities. For example, when the teacher wrote on the board “Monday 11th November” and, underneath, “The Market,” which was the title of the piece of work, he lost his place in the laborious attempt to copy the words down letter by letter, writing “moNemarket.” It appeared that he had started to write the date, forgotten what he was doing, and begun writing the title instead. He also frequently fails to complete structured learning activities. In one instance, when his teacher handed Nathan his computer login cards and told him to go and work on the computer numbered 13, he failed to do this because he had forgotten the number. On another occasion, Nathan was encouraged to use a number line when counting the number of ducks shown on two cards but struggled to coordinate the act of jumping along the line with counting up to the second number. He abandoned the attempt, solving the sum instead by counting up the total number of ducks on the two cards.
Nathan also has difficulty with activities that combine storage of multiple items with other demanding mental processing. For example, when asked to identify two rhyming words in a four-line text read aloud by the teacher, Nathan was unable to match the sound structures of the pair of words, store them, and then recall them when the teacher finished reading the text.
Supporting Children With Working Memory Problems
As yet, no certain ways of directly improving working memory in children such as Nathan have been developed. However, there is plenty that can be done to enhance learning in children with working memory problems. The approach that we recommend involves teachers managing children’s working memory loads in the classroom, with the aim of alleviating the disruptive consequences on learning of excessive working memory loads.
The following recommendations should be used to support children with working memory impairments and monitor children’s performance in class. In each case, the aim is to minimize the chances that the child will fail to complete the intended learning activity successfully due to working memory failures.
Tip 1: Recognize Working Memory Failures
Working memory failures typically manifest themselves in frequent errors of the following kinds:
incomplete recall, such as forgetting some or all of the words in a sentence, or of a sequence of words
failing to follow instructions, including remembering only the part of a sequence of instructions, or forgetting the content of an instruction (for example, the child correctly remembers to go to Mrs. Smith’s classroom as instructed by the teacher but once there cannot remember the content of the message to be given)
place-keeping errors—for example, repeating and/or skipping letters and words during sentence writing, missing out on large chunks of a task
task abandonment—the child gives up a task completely
If these types of activity failure are observed, it is recommended that the working memory demands of the task are considered (see tip 2), and if they are believed to be excessive, the activity should be repeated with reduced working memory loads (see tip 3).
Tip 2: Monitor the Child
It is important to monitor the child’s working memory regularly in the course of demanding activities. This will include:
looking for warning signs of memory overload (see tip 1)
asking the child directly—for example, ask for details of what the child is doing and intends to do next
In cases when the child has forgotten crucial information:
repeat information as required
break down tasks and instructions into smaller components to minimize memory load
encourage the child to request information when required
Tip 3: Evaluate the Working Demands of Learning Activities
Activities that impose heavy storage demands typically involve the retention of significant amounts of verbal material with a relatively arbitrary content. Some examples of activities with working memory demands that are likely to exceed the capacities of a child with working memory deficits include:
remembering sequences of three or more numbers or unrelated words (e.g., 5, 9, 2, 6 or cat, lion, kangaroo)
remembering and successfully following lengthy instructions (e.g., Put your sheets on the green table, put the arrow cards in the packet, put your pencil away, and come and sit on the carpet)
remembering lengthy sentences containing some arbitrary content to be written down (e.g., To blow up parliament, Guy Fawkes had 36 barrels of gunpowder)
keeping track of the place reached in the course of multilevel tasks (e.g., writing a sentence down either from memory or from the white board)
Tip 4: Reduce Working Memory Loads If Necessary
In order to avoid working-memory-related failures (see tip 1), working memory loads in structured activities should be decreased. This can be achieved in a number of ways, including:
reducing the overall amount of material to be stored (e.g., shortening sentences to be written or number of items to be remembered)
increasing the meaningfulness and degree of familiarity of the material to be remembered
simplifying the linguistic structures of verbal material (e.g., using simple active constructions rather than passive forms with embedded clauses in activities involving remembering sentences, and in instructions)
reducing processing demands (see tip 5)
restructuring multistep tasks into separate independent steps, supported by memory aids if possible
making available and encouraging the use of external devices that act as memory aids for the child; these include “useful spellings” on white boards and cards, and providing number lines, printed notes, and dictaphones to store information that needs to be remembered
Tip 5: Be Aware That Processing Demands Increase Working Memory Loads
Although children may be capable of storing a particular amount of information in one situation, a demanding concurrent processing task will increase working memory demands and so may lead to memory failure. [. . .] In such cases, steps should be taken to modify the learning activity in order to reduce working memory loads (see tip 3).
Tip 6: Frequently Repeat Important Information
It is good practice when working with children with working memory deficits to regularly repeat information that is crucial to ongoing activities. This will include:
general classroom management instructions
task-specific instructions (what the whole activity consists of, broken down into simple steps)
detailed content intrinsic to an activity (e.g., the particular sentence to be written)
Children should also be encouraged to request repetition of important information in cases of forgetting.
Tip 7: Encourage the Use of Memory Aids
A variety of tools that support memory are in common use in classrooms—these include number lines, Unifix blocks and other counting devices, cards, dictaphones, personalized dictionaries with useful spellings, teacher notes on the class white board, and wall charts. These tools can help in several different ways to reduce working memory loads—they may reduce the processing demands of the activity (e.g., useful spellings and Unifix blocks), and they may also reduce the storage load of the task and so help the child keep his or her place (e.g., number lines). [. . .]
Tip 8: Develop the Learner’s Use of Memory-Relieving Strategies
Children with working memory deficits are typically aware of when they have forgotten crucial information but often do not know what to do in such situations. An important role for the teacher is to encourage the child to develop strategies for overcoming memory problems. These will include:
use of rehearsal to maintain important information
use of memory aids (see tip 7)
organizational strategies—breaking tasks down into component parts where possible
asking for help when important information has been forgotten [. . .]
Source: Gathercole, S. E., & Alloway, T. P. (2007). Understanding working memory: A classroom guide. London, England: Harcourt Assessment, Procter House. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Working memory is a fascinating component of how we make sense of and organize the world around us and how we process and assign meaning to the information we receive through our senses. By better understanding working memory, we are able to find ways to improve it and use it more effectively, as well as assist others in training or mentoring contexts. Consider what you have already learned from this text about learning. Can you think of personal situations that may have reduced your own working memory, even if only temporarily? Can you think of times you were able to improve your working memory through some strategy? (See Applying Skeptical Inquiry: Dual N-Back Training to learn more about the debates about brain training.) As you will read in this chapter, there are many variables that affect memory development.
Applying Skeptical Inquiry: Dual N-Back Training
Dual N-Back is a game that uses audio and visual signals to strengthen your brain’s ability to recognize and recall signals. In this video, Mark Ashton Smith, a psychologist who focuses on neuroscience and cognitive psychology, demonstrates Dual N-Back training. He suggests that the adaptive activities (increasing in difficulty) exercise a number of executive processes, including attentional selection, updating, and multitasking.
https://youtu.be/nOBlJI5w_vI
Visit IQ Mindware’s website (http://www.iqmindware.com/) to learn more about how this brain training works and how you can start your own training program. You can also visit Brain Scale’s website (http://brainscale.net) to access and learn more about other Dual N-Back trainings. (But be sure to review the Privacy Policy before you begin a training program.)
But you should be aware that brain training is a controversial topic among psychologists and scientists. Some researchers are skeptical of such brain training. But there is also some research that has suggested that it can improve working memory (Chein & Morrison, 2011).
Consider the following articles:
Hambrick, D. Z. (2014, December 2). Brain training doesn’t make you smarter. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com /article/brain-training-doesn-t-make-you-smarter/
Kaufman, S. B. (2013, October 9). New cognitive training study takes on the critics. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican .com/beautiful-minds/new-cognitive-training-study-takes-on-the-critics/
Olena, A. (2014, April 21). Does brain train work? The Scientist. Retrieved from http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/39768/title /Does-Brain-Training-Work-/
Questions
What would the advantages and disadvantages of this training be?
Do you think that brain training really works?
Do you think that this type of strengthening can apply to other situations, beyond the context of such exercises?
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3.2 Attention and Perception
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3.2 Attention and Perception
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One aspect of attention is the ability to filter out less-important information when working on a particular task. In this photo, a father is attempting to work while taking care of his child. His full attention is on neither task.
When it comes to memory and learning, attention and perception are key variables that can work both in our favor and against us. Attention is the cognitive process of noticing and evaluating the information in one’s environment and filtering out the information that is less important. The amount of attention individuals devote to their surroundings affects how they encode information. Recall from section 3.1, for example, how Gathercole and Alloway (2007) described distraction—the diversion of attention—as a limit to working memory. Simply put, it is harder to remember something if you were not paying attention to it. Because research has suggested that humans can process only a limited amount of information at a time, attention helps them decide what is needed and what is not. When too much information comes too quickly and it’s not possible to attend to every detail, we choose what to attend to.
How an individual discerns, understands, and interprets the information is referred to as perception. Our mental representation of the situation affects how we encode and align new knowledge and experiences to previous ones. For example, consider how you approach your studies during your journey as a student. Your personal interests, as well as past experiences, can affect your attention to the material you are studying. Your perceptions about how relevant or difficult the subject is or your self-efficacy (your ability to succeed) can affect how you encode the information discussed throughout your journey. Even your views about how qualified you think your instructor is to teach the material can affect how the information is encoded.
The series of excerpts in this section is from Brosch, Scherer, Grandjean, and Sander (2013). As you read, pay close attention to how emotions can affect how information is processed. Consider how emotional events could trigger behaviors that may not align with how others might react to the same event.
Excerpts from “The Impact of Emotion on Perception, Attention, Memory, and Decision-Making”
By T. Brosch, K. R. Scherer, D. Grandjean, and D. Sander
The Mind Game
The functioning of the human mind has often been characterized as a battle between opposing forces: reason, rational and deliberate, versus emotion, impulsive and irrational. This way of thinking can be traced back to Plato, who described the human soul as divided into cognition (what we know), emotion (what we feel), and motivation (what we want) and has been further developed by philosophers such as René Descartes (“Les passions de l’âme”) and David Hume (“A Treatise of Human Nature”). For a long time, the notion of the opposition of cognition and emotion has been guiding much research in psychology. Cognitive functions—such as perception, attention, memory, or decision making—have been investigated without taking into account emotion, which was considered as interference that is counterproductive for the correct functioning of the cognitive system. [. . .]
The Impact of Emotion on Perception and Attention
In our everyday environment, we are constantly confronted with large amounts of incoming sensory information. As the capacity of our brain is limited, we cannot process all information entering our senses thoroughly, but have to select a subset to prioritize its processing at the cost of other information. The competition for neural processing resources, in-depth analysis, and preferential access to conscious awareness is organized by dedicated attention systems (Driver, 2001).
Distinct functional subprocesses of attention have been put forward, and their respective properties have been isolated using both behavioral and brain-imaging methods. Low-level properties such as the physical intensity of a stimulus may trigger an automatic, reflexive orienting, referred to as exogenous attention. In contrast, stimuli that are important to the current behavior of the organism (e.g., when searching for one’s keys, or trying to find a friend in a crowd) are selected by a voluntary top-down deployment of endogenous attention, driven by implicit or explicit expectations for a specific object or location. [. . .]
Memory processing can be divided into three stages: encoding (the processing of information at the moment of perception), consolidation (the storage of information in the brain), and retrieval (the moment of remembering). (See Figure 3.3.) [. . .]
Figure 3.3: Memory processing
Encoding, consolidation, and retrieval are the three stages of memory processing.
© Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Perception and attention are focused on emotionally relevant information, which may result in preferential encoding of the emotional information (Phelps, 2004). As a further consequence, less attention is directed toward peripheral information, so that during encoding the emotional core aspects of a scene are well memorized, whereas the details of the surrounding context may be neglected. One example for this is the “weapon focus”; the presence of a weapon in a scene results in a good memory for the details of the weapon and other stimuli in close proximity, but a poor memory for the other details of the scene such as the face of the aggressor (Loftus, Loftus, & Messo, 1987).
The storage of information in memory is not terminated immediately after encoding. It takes some time for memory traces to stabilize in a consolidation process, which depends largely on the hippocampus (McGaugh, 2000). During the consolidation phase, memories are fragile and prone to disruption and modification. The memory trace representing an event can be strengthened (in this case, the memory will be remembered later) or weakened (in this case, the memory is forgotten or distorted). Emotion may modulate this consolidation process: A strong emotional response elicits physiological arousal by which the amygdala (the part of the brain involved with the experiencing of emotions) can modulate hippocampal activation (activation of the part of the brain associated with memory and spatial processing), leading to an augmentation of specific memory traces (Dolcos, LaBar, & Cabeza, 2004). Via this mechanism, emotionally relevant events can profit from a stronger consolidation, which increases the possibility that the event is remembered later. This enhanced consolidation may occur some time after the encoded event, making a retrospective reinforcement of emotional memory content possible. Thus, events that contain important information for the well-being of the organism may be privileged in memory and, as a consequence, be retrieved and used to plan behavior in the future (Montagrin, Brosch, & Sander, 2013). [. . .]
Source: Brosch, T., Scherer, K. R., Grandjean, D., & Sander, D. (2013). The impact of emotion on perception, attention, memory, and decision-making. Swiss Medical Weekly, 143w13786. Reproduced by permission of EMH Swiss Medical Publishers Ltd.
Can we improve our attention and perception? Research findings have suggested that self-regulation, in a variety of settings (e.g., educational, health care, and organizational), may be key in developing more effective attention and perception (Duckworth, Akerman, MacGregor, Salter, & Vorhaus, 2009). When individuals are more aware of the attention process and its effects on their encoding, then they are more apt to apply strategies that support successful information processing (Zimmerman, 2002). A self-regulated learner is one who gives effective attention (aligned with personal goals), persists in the face of difficulties, adjusts his or her strategies when needed, and has confidence in his or her ability to apply good strategies. A learner who uses such methods is positioned to move toward positive outcomes (Schunk, 2005). Additional elements of self-regulation will be discussed in Chapter 8.
Attention and perception can also be affected by other variables that, in turn, affect accurate and effective memory development. These will be further discussed in the next three sections.
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3.3 Cognitive Load Theory
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When students are given new information, it is assumed that their working memories have a limited capacity. Thus, when instructors create lesson plans, it is preferable to build upon past knowledge, which is long-term memory.
In addition to how the individual attends to and perceives information, another variable that can affect memory development is the amount of information that must be processed. This section features excerpts from Artino (2008) and discusses brain functions and limitations from the perspective of cognitive load theory (CLT). Posed by Sweller, van Merriënboer, and Paas (1998), cognitive load theory suggests that learning is more efficient when aligned with how humans naturally process information, or their cognitive architecture. Evaluating working memory, attention, and perception through this lens can help you better understand the importance of applying learning strategies to achieve successful knowledge acquisition.
This section features excerpts from Artino (2008). Artino’s focus is on CLT’s applicability to instructional design, but consider the benefits to your own career goals. Understanding how differing instructional strategies can affect learning enables us to better manage our own educational journeys and support others during their journeys. If you are a manager or supervisor, you may be called on to train your staff; cognitive load theory provides ideas on how best to do this, providing a more effective learning experience. Thus, when instructional design is addressed, remember that it is not only for the educator. It is well suited for parents, managers, business owners, counselors, and helping advocates in many fields.
Excerpts from “Cognitive Load Theory and the Role of Learner Experience: An Abbreviated Review for Educational Practicioners”
By A. R. Artino, Jr.
As part of a larger class of limited capacity theories (Goldman, 1991), cognitive load theory (CLT) provides a framework for designing instructional materials. The basic premise of CLT is that learners have a working memory with very limited capacity when dealing with new information (Sweller et al., 1998). Moreover, CLT assumes that learners have “effectively unlimited long-term memory holding cognitive schemas that vary in their degree of complexity and automation” (van Merriënboer & Ayres, 2005, p. 6). The implication of these assumptions is that learning will be hindered if instructional materials overwhelm a learner’s limited working memory resources. Accordingly, early CLT research focused on identifying instructional designs that can effectively reduce unnecessary cognitive burden on working memory, thereby supporting improved learning efficiency (van Merriënboer & Sweller, 2005). More recently, cognitive load theorists have shifted their attention to how learner characteristics, such as prior knowledge and motivational beliefs, interact with instructional designs to influence the effectiveness of CLT methods (Moreno, 2006). [. . .]
Components of Working Memory
According to Sweller et al. (1998), humans are conscious only of the information currently being held and processed in working memory and are essentially oblivious to the enormous amount of information stored in long-term memory. Furthermore, as was mentioned in Chapter 2, when handling new information, working memory is severely limited in both capacity and duration; that is, working memory can hold only about seven (plus or minus two) items, or chunks of information, at a time (Miller, 1956). Additionally, when processing information (i.e., organizing, contrasting, and comparing), rather than just storing it, humans are probably able to manage only two or three items of information simultaneously, depending on the type of processing required (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006). Finally, new information held in working memory, if not rehearsed, is lost within about 15 to 30 seconds (Driscoll, 2005).
Another important characteristic of working memory is that its capacity is distributed over two, partially independent processors (Sweller et al., 1998). This dual-processing assumption is based, in part, on Pavio’s (1986) dualcoding theory and Baddeley’s (1998) theory of working memory, both of which suggest that there are two separate channels for processing visual and auditory information. The implication of this dual-processing model is that limited working memory capacity can be effectively expanded by utilizing both visual and auditory channels rather than either processing channel alone (Sweller et al., 1998). Known as the modality effect (Mousavi, Low, & Sweller, 1995), this result has important implications for instructional designers.
Long-Term Memory, Schema Construction, and Schema Automation
Unlike working memory, the capacity of long-term memory is essentially limitless. Furthermore, information held in long-term memory is organized and stored in the form of domain-specific knowledge structures known as schemata (van Merriënboer & Ayres, 2005). Schemata categorize elements of information according to how they will be used, thereby facilitating schema accessibility later when they are needed for related tasks (Sweller et al., 1998). Thus, from the CLT perspective, “human expertise comes from knowledge stored in these schemata, not from an ability to engage in reasoning with many elements that have not been organized in long-term memory” (van Merriënboer & Sweller, 2005, p. 149).
As indicated by Sweller (2004), the relationship between working memory and schemata stored in long-term memory may be even more important than the processing limitations of working memory. This is because schemata do more than just organize and store information; they also effectively augment working memory capacity. Although working memory can hold only a limited number of items at a time, the size and complexity of those elements are unlimited (Sweller et al., 1998). Therefore, complex schemata consisting of huge arrays of interrelated elements can be held in working memory as a single entity. As a result, a student dealing with previously learned material that has been stored in long-term memory is, in effect, freed from the processing limitations of working memory—limitations that apply only to novel materials that have no associated schemata (Kirschner et al., 2006). In sum, schemata serve two functions in CLT: the organization and storage of information in long-term memory and the expansion of working memory capacity (Sweller et al., 1998).
Automation is another critical component of schema construction. Automation occurs when information stored in schemata can be processed automatically and without conscious effort, thereby freeing up working memory resources. Constructed schemata become automated after extensive practice, and existing schemata will vary in their degree of automation (van Merriënboer & Sweller, 2005). As Sweller et al. (1998) described, “with automation, familiar tasks are performed accurately and fluidly, whereas unfamiliar tasks—that partially require the automated processes—can be learned with maximum efficiency because maximum working memory capacity is available” (p. 258). On the other hand, without schema automation, a previously encountered task might be completed, but the process will likely be slow and awkward. Furthermore, consistent with CLT, entirely new tasks may be impossible to complete until prerequisite skills have been automated because there simply may not be enough working memory capacity available for learning (van Merriënboer & Sweller, 2005). Ultimately, in view of these theoretical assumptions, schema construction and automation become the major goals for instructional systems that are developed from a cognitive load perspective (Sweller et al., 1998).
Different Types of Cognitive Load
Although schemata are stored in long-term memory, their construction occurs in working memory. Specifically, when learning new material, students must attend to and manipulate relevant pieces of information in working memory before it can be stored in long-term memory (Sweller et al., 1998). Consequently, of primary importance to cognitive load theorists is the ease with which information can be processed in working memory, that is, the cognitive load imposed on working memory. According to CLT, three different types of cognitive load can be distinguished (recall these were first discussed in section 2.2):
Intrinsic cognitive load—refers to the number of elements that must be processed simultaneously in working memory for schema construction (i.e., element interactivity). Element interactivity is dependent on both the complexity of the to-be-learned material and the learners’ expertise (i.e., their schema availability and automaticity; Gerjets & Scheiter, 2003). Stated another way, “intrinsic cognitive load through element interactivity is determined by an interaction between the nature of the material being learned and the expertise of the learners” (Sweller et al., 1998, p. 262).
Extraneous cognitive load—also known as ineffective cognitive load—is the result of instructional techniques that require learners to engage in working memory activities that are not directly related to schema construction or automation (Sweller, 1994). Much of the early research in CLT revealed that many commonly used instructional designs require learners to use cognitive resources that are not related to, or helpful for, learning (e.g., searching for information that is needed to complete a learning task). Furthermore, because intrinsic cognitive load due to element interactivity and extraneous cognitive load due to instructional design are additive (Sweller et al., 1998), the end result may be fewer cognitive resources left in working memory to devote to schema construction and automation during learning. Consequently, learning may suffer (Sweller, 1994).
Germane cognitive load—also known as effective cognitive load—is the result of beneficial cognitive processes such as abstractions and elaborations that are promoted by the instructional presentation (Gerjets & Scheiter, 2003). When intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load leave sufficient working memory resources, learners may “invest extra effort in processes that are directly relevant to learning, such as schema construction. These processes also increase cognitive load, but it is germane cognitive load that contributes to, rather than interferes with, learning” (Sweller et al., 1998, p. 264).
In summary, based on the cognitive demands imposed on working memory from the three sources of cognitive load, CLT suggests that instructional designers should focus on two tasks: (a) reduce extraneous cognitive load, and (b) encourage learners to apply available resources to advanced cognitive processes that are associated with germane cognitive load (Gerjets & Scheiter, 2003). [. . .]
Source: Artino, A. R., Jr. (2008). Cognitive load theory and the role of learner experience: An abbreviated review for educational practitioners. AACE Journal, 16(4), 425–439. Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
As Sweller suggested, CLT offers a better understanding of how processing limitations can decrease one’s ability to learn effectively. By understanding limited capacity, learners can take more ownership for adapting learning experiences to more effectively support individual learning. Being able to determine what items in the instruction are most important to attend to can increase one’s own ability to regulate learning. If you are delivering instruction, whether you are creating training or help guides, working with a child, or working in a therapeutic setting, understanding CLT can help you better design the content and methods that will benefit the learner.
3.4 Autobiographical Memories
Both Chapter 2 and this chapter have recognized that cognition and effective memory development are affected by numerous variables (e.g. attention, cognitive load, and accurate schema development). Thus, it is also important to understand, in the architecture of the mind, that the different types of memories and their attributes can also affect successful learning.
For example, episodic memories are basically memories of the experiences and events that occur during our lifetimes (Tulving, 1972). Semantic memory is suggested to derive from our episodic memories. When our brains process an event, they are processing many different sensory elements. For example, a beach bonfire party might include music (sound), the warmth of your significant other’s hand (touch), and the scent of the bonfire (smell). The event can become less salient after a period of time. With this desensitization, the event’s sensory components are less likely to need support to put each sensory memory together to form the cohesive memory of the party. This process is supported by a part of the brain called the hippocampus. However, emotions, false memories (section 3.5), depression (Whalley, Rugg, Smith, Dolan, & Brewin, 2009), post-traumatic stress disorder (Vasterling, Verfaellie, & Sullivan, 2009), and anxiety (Airaksinen, Larsson, & Forsell, 2005), as well as other conditions, can each influence effective and accurate schema development.
The following section will introduce you to autobiographical memories, a type of memory supported by episodic memory (Nelson & Fivush, 2004). Autobiographical memories are recollections of past experiences that contribute to one’s sense of self. These memories include the emotions that may describe or explain individuals’ lives, their experiences, and their ideas about who they are. Autobiographical memories are stored with long-term memories but are housed within separate domains, depending on the core component that the memory captures. Autobiographical memories encompass our personally experienced past events such as emotional memories (e.g., grief, anger, or love), self-descriptions (e.g., where you live or who your parents are), and event memories (e.g., graduations or weddings). (See Figure 3.4.)
Figure 3.4: Autobiographical memories
Autobiographical memories house memories about one’s self, including emotions felt, self-descriptions, and important life events.
© Bridgepoint Education, Inc.; Images top to bottom: Kuzmichstudio/iStock/Thinkstock, IPGGutenbergUKLtd/iStock/Thinkstock, and Zinkevych/iStock/Thinkstock.
The excerpts in this section are from Fivush, Habermas, Waters, and Zaman (2011). Fivush and colleagues discuss how the meanings we give our autobiographical memories affect our learning effectiveness as well as our identity development. As you read this section, evaluate your own autobiographical memories and consider how they affect your decision making and day-to-day activities. Perhaps you remember certain events in detail, while others seem much foggier outside of the feelings and emotions those events elicited.
Excerpts from “The Making of Autobiographical Memory: Intersections of Culture, Narratives, and Identity”
By R. Fivush, T. Habermas, T. E. A. Waters, and W. Zaman
Types of Autobiographical Memories
Autobiographical memory is a uniquely human form of memory that goes beyond recalling the who, what, where, and when of an event, to include memory of how this event occurred as it did, what it means, and why it is important (Bruner, 1990; Fivush & Haden, 1997; Fivush, 2010; Labov & Waletzky, 1967; Ricoeur, 1991). More than simple episodic recall (event recollection), autobiographical memory is rich with thoughts, emotions, and evaluations about what happened and provides explanatory frameworks replete with human intentions and motivations. Autobiographical memories comprise the story of our lives, rich in interactions and relationships, and in a very deep sense, provide a sense of self through a narrative identity (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 1992). From this perspective, autobiographical memory is socially and culturally mediated in at least two ways. First, autobiographical memory emerges within social interactions that focus on the telling and retelling of significant life events (Nelson & Fivush, 2004), and second, autobiographical memory is modulated by the sociocultural models available for organizing and understanding a human life, including narrative genres and life scripts (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004; Habermas, 2007; Thorne & McLean, 2003). [. . .]
The Sociocultural Model of Autobiographical Memory
All human action is situated within specific social and cultural frameworks that define the form and meaning of that action. More specifically, cultures define the skills and activities that are deemed important in order to become a competent member of that culture. Cultures promote mediated interactions in which children are drawn into participation in these activities in order to learn these critical skills (Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978a). For example, in modern industrialized cultures, literacy is a critical skill. Beginning at birth, infants in these cultures are exposed to the signs and symbols of literacy; homes are strewn with magnetic letters and numbers, alphabet picture books, and letters and numbers printed on everything from building blocks to clothing. Well before infants are capable of understanding the significance of these symbols, they are already participating in social interactions that highlight their importance.
Autobiographical memory is also a socioculturally mediated skill (see Nelson & Fivush, 2004, for a full explication of this theory). Again, in modern industrialized societies, the ability to have and tell a story about one’s life is critical. As argued by Nelson (2001, 2003) and McAdams (1992), this skill may have become increasingly important as humans moved from traditional cultures, where individuals are defined in terms of their social relationships (e.g., parents, spouse, children) and societal and vocational role (e.g., blacksmith, shoemaker), to more industrialized cultures, where individuals moved in and out of multiple geographical locations, social relationships, and vocational roles across their lifetime. Whereas in traditional cultures, individual lives gain coherence and consistency through stability of place, roles, and relationships, in modern industrialized cultures, individual lives gain coherence and consistency through an individual narrative that weaves these disparate parts together. Thus in modern cultures, autobiographical narratives serve to create a sense of individual consistency and coherence across time (Conway, Singer, & Tagini, 2004).
DragonImages/iStock/Thinkstock
Autobiographical memory is important in the different contexts of traditional and modern industrialized societies. Traditional societies use the telling of life stories to solidify roles and relationships, whereas modern industrialized communities use these narratives to gain coherence and consistency in an individualistic society.
From the moment the individual is born, modern cultures reinforce the importance of having and telling one’s story. From birth, parents are already communicating the importance of this skill by telling their infants stories about the parents and grandparents, integrating the infant into this ongoing family narrative (Fiese, Hooker, Kotary, Schwagler, & Rimmer, 1995). As early as 16 months of age, well before infants can fully participate in these conversations, parents are already beginning to scaffold their child’s ability to narrate their past by asking and elaborating on questions about what happened (Reese, 2002). For example, the mother will ask, “Did we have fun at the park today? What did we do? Did we go on the swings?” and wait for some confirmation by the child before continuing, “Yes, and didn’t we swing high? Wasn’t that fun?” In these early, barely coconstructed narratives of the personal past, parents are already highlighting for children that telling and sharing the past is an important social activity. They also convey that there are certain ways to tell these kinds of stories, focusing not just on what happened but why it was interesting, important, and emotional. Even in the preschool years, children are called on to share their experiences with others, to tell Daddy what one had for lunch, or Grandmother what one did at the zoo. They are already expected to engage in showing and sharing, telling stories about objects brought to share, or telling stories of what one did over the weekend. Everyday conversation, even with preschoolers, is studded with references to the past; the personal past is a topic of spontaneous everyday conversation as frequently as a dozen times an hour (Bohanek et al., 2009; Miller, 1994). It is clear that personal narratives are frequent and valued parts of everyday conversation beginning very early in development.
As is apparent from this brief overview, language and narrative are critical in the development of autobiographical memory. From very early in development, children are being drawn into conversations about the past and are invited to participate in coconstructing narratives of daily events. Narratives provide a canonical cultural form for constructing coherent accounts of what occurred (Bruner, 1990; Fivush, 2007, 2010; Ricoeur, 1991). More specifically, narratives provide a chronological sequence of events that allow the teller and listener to place events on a timeline, both internal to the event (the sequence of specific actions) and placing this event in a larger temporal framework (when this event happened relative to other events, and how this event fits into a larger narrative of life events). Narratives also move beyond reporting sequences of what happened to include information about how and why. Narratives are infused with what individuals were thinking, what they were feeling, why this unfolded the way it did, and what it ultimately means. Personal narratives serve a function. Some narratives may simply be entertaining stories, but many narratives serve the function of defining self, defining relationships with others, and regulating emotional experiences through drawing moral and life lessons (Bluck & Alea, 2002; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; Pillemer, 1998). Narratives provide the framework for understanding and evaluating human experience. Thus, narratives bring a sense of personal meaning to experienced events. [. . .]
A mature autobiography normatively requires more than an assembly of unrelated memories. When reading autobiographies or listening to life narratives, we expect a more or less coherent account of how individuals understand their own development and of how they have tried to lead a meaningful life. Thus ultimately autobiographical memory is about weaving together multiple specific episodes into an overarching life narrative that explains an individual life course. [. . .]
Lastly, autobiographical narratives are critical for identity. Who we are is very much defined by the way in which we remember and reconstruct our past experiences; creating narratives of our past simultaneously creates a narrative of our self (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 2001; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007). [. . .]
Source: Fivush, R., Habermas, T., Waters, T. E. A., & Zaman, W. (2011). The making of autobiographical memory: Intersections of culture, narratives and identity. International Journal of Psychology, 46(5), 321–345. Published by John Wiley & Sons. © 2011 International Union of Psychological Science.
Autobiographical memories are an important part of developing who we are and what we believe. (Learn more about some individuals who have highly developed autobiographical memories in Applying Skeptical Inquiry: Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory.) A person’s opinion about self and the events he or she has experienced have profound consequences for how learning is approached. As you will further explore (in Chapter 6), these memories can even affect our motivation and knowledge acquisition. But importantly, this is not the only memory that affects our learning: False memories, as discussed in the following section, also affect how we organize and recall memories and, thus, the things we believe to be true.
Applying Skeptical Inquiry: Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM)
In 2006, Parker, Cahill, and McGaugh reported the first known case of highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), the capacity to remember one’s past experiences in extreme detail. Some believe it is a genetic ability. Others have suggested development causes. Watch the following 60 Minutes news report about HSAM, hosted by CBS News’s Lesley Stahl. The report features people who have HSAM and establishes that there are significant physiological differences in abilities from person to person. Although only a small number of people have HSAM, the idea that every detail of every minute of every day can be stored within the brain is a fascinating find by neuroscientists.
https://youtu.be/2zTkBgHNsWM
Questions
Would you want to be able to recall nearly every day of your life, in detail?
What benefits (and downsides) might there be to living with HSAM?
The interview suggests that past emotions are relived and are experienced just as intensely by those with HSAM. How might this affect one’s ability to live in the moment?
3.5 False Memory
Is it possible to tell someone something that never happened and still believe it is the truth? Have you ever had an argument with someone about an event because what you saw differed from his or her version of the event? The phenomenon you may have experienced is often labeled false memory. Although there are still many unknowns about how a false memory develops, one’s emotions, misinformation, and misattributions, as well as those purposeful suggestions implanted by others, could be the culprits of such memories.
Differing hypotheses about false memories are prevalent and can be found in science-based articles and research and in popular culture.
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Emotion and suggestion play large parts in a human’s recollection of an event. For example, if two people experience the same situation, they both may have different accounts of what happened due to varying emotional states. This is the emotional aspect of spontaneous false memory.
According to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (2017), “Some of our memories are true, some are a mixture of fact and fantasy, and some are false—whether those memories seem to be continuous or seem to be recalled after a time of being forgotten or not thought about” (para. 1).
Julie Shaw (2016), a German-Canadian psychologist and senior lecturer in criminology at the London South Bank University, has suggested that errors are often present in memories:
Every memory you have ever had is chock-full of errors. I would even go as far as saying that memory is largely an illusion. This is because our perception of the world is deeply imperfect, our brains only bother to remember a tiny piece of what we actually experience, and every time we remember something we have the potential to change the memory we are accessing. (para. 1–2)
Annelies Vredeveldt, a memory scientist from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, has stated that we should be careful about how we ask others questions about their memories:
It is much better to let the person tell the story of their own accord, without interrupting and without asking questions afterwards. At most, you might want to ask the person if they can tell you a bit more about something they mentioned, but limit yourself to an open and general prompt such as “can you tell me more about that?” (Shaw, 2016, para. 9–12)
Fiona Broome, blogger, author, speaker, panelist, and self-described paranormal researcher, coined the term “Mandela Effect” in 2010 to describe a collective false memory she learned about at the annual fantasy and science fiction convention Dragon Con (see her website MandelaEffect.com). During this event, she found that many, including herself, believed adamantly that South African President Nelson Mandela had died during his imprisonment in the 1980s. That year, Broome launched the site to document various examples of the phenomenon. Today, Broome continues to share phenomenon that she believes aligns to the term “Mandela Effect.”
There are valid concerns about the effects and realities of false memory development. Memories can be malleable, and thus we are susceptible to simply filling in the memory blanks (Hogenboom, 2013). Researchers find that it is quite common for people to develop false memories (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995; Loftus, 1997). It’s even suggested that “memory distortions are basic and widespread in humans, and it may be unlikely that anyone is immune” (Patihis et al., 2013, p. 1). These findings indicate that it’s important to apply shrewd reasoning when considering whether a memory is accurate, slightly skewed, or fictional.
The excerpt in this section is from Bookbinder and Brainerd (2016) and succinctly describes two types of false memories: spontaneous and implanted. The authors also reflect on what areas of working memory are affected in the development of false memories. As you review this excerpt, continue to consider how, when, or if you have ever personally experienced or been affected by a false memory.
Excerpts from “Emotion and False Memory: The Context—Content Paradox”
By S. H. Bookbinder and C. J. Brainerd
What Is False Memory?
Over the past quarter-century, false memory has been one of the most extensively studied topics in psychology. Practical motivations, in particular, have abounded as there are some high-stakes situations in which the consequences of false memories are quite serious (e.g., courtroom testimony, eyewitness identifications of suspects, histories taken during psychotherapy, recountings of battlefield events, histories taken during emergency room treatment, terrorism interrogations). The memories that are retrieved in those circumstances are affect-laden, and hence, one of the most enduring questions about false memory is how it is influenced by emotional states that accompany past experience (e.g., Howe, 2007; Loftus, 1993; Loftus & Bernstein, 2004; Stein, Ornstein, Tversky, & Brainerd, 1997). [. . .]
False memory merely refers to situations in which subjects recollect events that, in fact, they did not experience. For instance, if a friend asks what you ate at a baseball game a week ago and what you drank at lunch yesterday, you may say hot dog and milk, although you consumed neither. This illustrates three features of false memories as they are normally measured. First, misremembered events are not ones that subjects have never experienced, such as being abducted by space aliens or winning the lottery, so that they are false in the narrow sense of not being part of a particular context that is specified in the experimental design (baseball game, lunch). Second, misremembered events are usually familiar: Hot dogs, unlike baklava, are a common food, and milk, unlike suanmeitang, is a common drink. Third, misremembered events fit the gist of the target context (hot dogs are baseball food; milk is a luncheon beverage). Thus, the false memories that are measured in the modal experiment are semantic errors (errors in the memory of facts or events) that are rooted in strong meaning resemblance to actual events.
Although these are modal features that hold for most published experiments, none is universal. Researchers occasionally study false memories of events that subjects have never experienced (e.g., being in a traffic accident, being lost in a mall), that are unfamiliar or even bizarre, or that do not share semantic content with the experimental context (e.g., Santa Claus in a baseball game video, a gorilla in a ballet video; for a review, see Brainerd & Reyna, 2005). Nevertheless, the bulk of what we know about how emotion affects false memory is for familiar, previously experienced events that preserve the meaning of the events to which subjects are exposed. That still leaves very wide latitude with respect to how false memories are induced and what types of events subjects are exposed to.
Spontaneous False Memory
In our example of eating hot dogs and drinking milk, suppose that your memory errors were pursuant to recall and recognition probes such as: What did you eat at the game? Did you eat a hot dog at the game? What did you drink at lunch? Did you drink a glass of milk at lunch? Apparently, such errors must be attributable to spontaneous, endogenous distortion processes that are a normal part of how episodic memory operates; that is, they are natural concomitants of trying to remember familiar events that fit with the gist of events that were actually experienced. [. . .]
Currently, the dominant procedure for studying spontaneous false memories is a word list paradigm, the Deese/Roediger/McDermott (DRM; Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) illusion. Subjects study short lists of related words (e.g., town, state, capital, streets, subway, village, . . . ) from which a critical word (city) is missing, followed by recognition or recall tests. Recall or recognition of this missing word (usually called a critical distractor or critical lure) is the false memory measure. The key feature of the DRM illusion for this review is that it is easily adapted to study the effects of emotion. With respect to emotional content, Budson et al. (2006; see also Pesta, Murphy, & Sanders, 2001) pointed out that the DRM illusion can be compared for negatively valenced lists (e.g., mad, fear, hate, rage, temper, . . . ; critical distractor = anger), positively valenced lists (e.g., child, cute, infant, mother, doll, . . . ; critical distractor = baby), and neutral lists (e.g., blouse, sleeves, pants, tie, button, . . . ; critical distractor = shirt). With respect to emotional context, Storbeck and Clore (2005) pointed out that the DRM illusion can be compared for subjects who were in different mood states when lists were studied or tested.
Implanted False Memory
Returning to our example of eating hot dogs and drinking milk, suppose that your false memories were pursuant to probes such as: You ate a hot dog at the game, didn’t you? You drank a glass of milk at lunch, didn’t you? Now, you are confronted with clear suggestions about what you ate and drank, which are hallmarks of lawyerly questioning and police interviews. Presumably, you will be more likely to misremember than you were before. If so, it can no longer be assumed that endogenous distortion processes are responsible because external distortion is present. [. . .]
There is little doubt that suggestion reshapes memory for the events of our lives. [. . .]
Source: Bookbinder, S. H., & Brainerd, C. J. (2016). Emotion and false memory: The context–content paradox. Psychological Bulletin, 142(12), 1315–1351. Copyright © 2016, American Psychological Association.
False memory development is an important consideration for not only psychologists, but also anyone working with others. Consider a time when you felt lied to. Was it a lie or a false memory? How do we know? There are many ideas about how this occurs, but in essence, as suggested by the readings so far, if we do not effectively process what our senses are introducing, we will have decreased or inaccurate memory development. This also could be due to emotions and cognitive load issues, as we previously discussed. See Applying Skeptical Inquiry: Are Our Memories Truth or Fiction? to hear more about one psychologist’s studies. Regardless, being aware of the many variables that can affect how we process information and thereby affect learning better prepares us to strive for improved memory development.
Applying Skeptical Inquiry: Are Our Memories Truth or Fiction?
Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus studies false memories and the power of suggestion in creating false memories. In 1994, her research experiments revealed that she could convince a quarter of the study participants that they were once lost in a shopping center as children. Additional researchers have found that similar false memories could be embedded by showing photographs of hot air balloons to children and telling them about a ride that they never actually took (Wade, Garry, Read, & Lindsay, 2002). In the following TED Talk, Loftus shares some astonishing stories about information people are “sure” about—but is in fact untrue—and discusses the repercussions of false memories.
https://youtu.be/PB2OegI6wvI
Questions
Is it likely that effective memory implantation could happen to others? To you?
What ethical considerations should be applied to the possibility of false memory development?
After watching the video, and reading the material in this section, do you believe that we all have false memories? If so, how do you know what is true and what is not true? Can we know?
Chapter Summary
This chapter discussed different aspects of memory that influence how humans learn and how their memories develop. There are many variables that affect one’s ability to process and store information, such as capacity limitations, attention, and perception. As the world around us gets busier and busier, we might need to take in information at a rapid speed, but this could lead to misinterpretations, inaccurate encoding, and overall diminished memory development. These misinterpretations, often created through inaccurate perceptions, could even lead to the creation of false memories, which can then affect future knowledge development.
But we can use what we know about how we process information into our long-term memory to help ourselves and others learn more effectively. We can chunk information, focus on processing smaller bits of material at a time, and be aware of what we perceive that we see, hear, smell, or feel during our experiences. When we are in a hurry, these processes might be weakened. The key is to remember that learning is not as simple as we might perceive it to be. There are cognitive systems, emotions, and external variables that affect how we encode the information. It’s essential to find ways to successfully process new knowledge and link it to previous knowledge. By devoting more focus to how we develop knowledge, we can encourage automatism within our memories and more effectively process information for future retrieval.
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Key Ideas
Working memory regulates how effectively we learn by managing distractions, applying strategies to our learning experiences, and sending to long-term memories.
Working memory includes the visuo-spatial scratchpad, the phonological loop, and the episodic buffer.
Working memory is affected by our attention and perception, and its effectiveness is susceptible to inaccuracies.
When an accurate and foundational schema is not present, working-memory capacity can be negatively affected.
Working memory is limited.
Long-term memory has an unlimited capacity for storing new information.
Chunking information reduces cognitive overload, allowing for more efficient storage in working memory.
Working memory capacity differs from one individual to another.
Working memory is related to an individual’s performance on cognitive measures.
Working memory can be improved but is relatively stable over time.
Schemata organize and store information in long-term memory and boost working memory capacity.
Schemata are constructed in working memory and stored in long-term memory.
Effectiveness of tasks is improved through practice, which in turn automates one’s schemata.
Cognitive load theory addresses two important tasks: (a) the reduction of extraneous cognitive load and (b) the applications of available resources to cognitive processes.
Autobiographical memories, housed within long-term memory, are memories that are connected with our personal identity and sense of self.
Autobiographical memories are formed through social and cultural (sociocultural) experiences.
Research has suggested that all individuals develop false memories.
Attention and perception affect the development of accurate memories.
When too many elements are entering one’s working memory, the mind is selective about what information it attends to, and thus inaccuracies can be formed.
Memory processing can be divided into three stages: encoding, consolidation, and retrieval.
Emotional information and events may be unknowingly prioritized by a person’s mind when encoding information into memory.
Additional Resources
Your ability to create and retrieve memories is a critical part of the learning process. Memory development can be influenced by several factors, and sometimes memories can be incomplete or inaccurate. As such, memory development can affect your ability to be an effective learner. But by establishing a better understanding of the different factors that affect memory, you will be more aware of such factors when learning or helping others learn new information. Visit the following websites to further your understanding of the topics that were introduced in this chapter. Some resources may also be accessible via your university library.
Memory
American Psychological Association, a lesson plan for teaching about memory: https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/topss/lessons/memory.pdf
Psychologist World, a website that provides articles about several topics, including memory: https://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/
NeuroScience News, a website that provides articles about several topics, including memory encoding: http://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-terms/memory -encoding/
Chandler, P., & Sweller, J. (1991). Cognitive load theory and the format of instruction. Cognition and Instruction, 8(4), 293–332. Retrieved from http://visuallearning research.wiki.educ.msu.edu/file/view/Chandler+%26+Sweller+(1991).pdf
Autobiographical Memories
“Emotion and Autobiographical Memory,” an article about the role of emotions in autobiographical memories: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles /PMC2852439/
False Memories
False Memory Syndrome Foundation, an organization that seeks to spread the word about the effects of false memories in families: http://www.fmsfonline.org/
“Remember That? No You Don’t. Study Shows False Memories Afflict Us All,” an article from TIME: http://science.time.com/2013/11/19/remember-that-no -you-dont-study-shows-false-memories-afflict-us-all/
“Researchers Show How False Memories Are Formed,” an article by Pat Vaughan Tremmel: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2004/10/kenneth .html
Key Terms
attention
autobiographical memories
automation
Baddeley’s model of working memory
central executive system
cognitive load theory (CLT)
consolidation
encoding
episodic buffer
episodic memory
false memory
perception
phonological loop
retrieval
visuo-spatial scratchpad
working memory