Psychology 394U: Cognitive Concepts in Clinical and Social

Psychology

First Day’s lecture

Gordon Bower

Why Study Learning and Memory?

• Fascinating intellectual puzzles; importance of memory in getting through daily life

• Significant Applications of its concepts to– Conceptual Development

– Social and Personality Psychology

– Education, Training, Rehabilitation

– Behavior Mod, Cognitive Behavior Therapy

– Health Promotion Campaigns, Behavioral Med

– Brain Sciences, Psychopharmacology

Some Topics We’ll Touch On

• Our memories and our sense of personal identity• How memories reveal our interests & knowledge• Memory constructs & revises our autobiography• How accurate is memory? Distortions, illusions, biases in

reconstruction• How do emotions influence memory? Memory arouses emots.• Do unconscious memories influence our behavior?• Memory in social stereotypes; person-memory; implicit

attitudes.• The role of memory in the construction of personality• Memories contribute to clinical disorders - anxiety, depres’n

So, what is memory?

• Common things we remember

• Qualitatively different modes of remembering

So, what is memory?

• Common things we remember

• Qualitatively different modes of remembering

• Preliminary classification of types of memory-- personal (episodic), “generic” knowledge, and procedural

Classification of Types of Memory

• Episodic or personal memory: for autobiographic events in time & space; imagery; re-experiencing (“being there”); time travel; often fits in the linguistic frame “I remember X”(e.g., “seeing the thief as he was stealing my car”).

• Generic (“semantic”) memory underlying knowledge: facts, abstract propositions, schema & images. Typically no re-experiencing of context of learning. Fits into frame “I recall THAT X”.

• Procedural skills: cognitive & motor skills (are generative), rote linguistic (not generative). Typically no re-experiencing of learning it. Fits into frame “I recall HOW TO do X”.

So, what is memory?

• Common things we remember

• Qualitatively different modes of remembering

• Preliminary classification of types of memory-- personal (episodic), “generic” knowledge, and procedural

• The phases of a prototypic “memory experience” (encoding, storage, retrieval). Reconstructing fragments

Event Sequence of a Prototypical “Learning Episode”

Time Events/Inferred State Psychologists’ Label0 S’s prior state of knowledge “Pretest’ &Prior Knowledge1 E presents Event X to S Presentation/Study Trial2 S experiences Event X Perception, Encoding3 S’s new state of knowledge Trace Formation & Storage. ………. …………. ……….. Trace Retention

(Maintenance). ………… …………N S’s altered state of

knowledgeN+1 E cues S to test S’s

knowledge about Event XTrace Retrieval

N+2 S produces response orconstructs answer

Trace Utilization

S = the subject or learner; E = the environment, “teacher” or “experimenter”“Memory trace” = the internal representation of the encoded Event X

Existence of a memory trace of Event X is always an inference from inputs & outputs

Other terms: Acquisition (phase 1, 2, 3 above); Repetition (repeating the above cycle)

Retention: usually refers to “successful” remembering

Forgetting (obverse of retention; assumes initial learning)

Retrieval Cue(s): a question; partial description of event to be filled out

Interfering Events: presentations before or after Time 1 of this episode

Trace Utilization (at least in people) may combine knowledge of Event X with any

number of other facts and/or reasoning processes, e.g., I tell you the population of Austin,

then later ask you to estimate how many country-music musicians live in Austin? (and

suppose 5% are known to be country-music musicians).

So, what is memory?

• Common things we remember• Qualitatively different modes of remembering• Preliminary classification of types of memory-- personal

(episodic), “generic” knowledge, and procedural• The phases of a prototypic “memory experience”

(encoding, storage, retrieval). Reconstructing fragments• Other constructs:

– short-term vs long-term memory; – Explicit (aware, direct) vs.

Implicit memory (unaware, indirect)• Brain correlates of different types of memory.

Jones’ Chapter 1

• Therapists often probe clients’ memories

• Wide-spread beliefs about memory

Jones’ Chapter 1• Psychotherapists often probe clients’ memories • Wide-spread beliefs about memory• Yapko’s survey of therapists : Agree or disagree ?

– The mind is like a computer, accurately recording events– Events we know occurred but can’t remember are repressed

memories.– If we can’t remember our childhood, it was probably traumatic.– One’s certainty about a memory indicates its accuracy.– Memories from the 1st year of life are accurately stored and are

retrievable.– Hypnosis enables people to accurately remember things they

otherwise could not.– Hypnosis can be used to recover memories of actual events as far

back as birth.

Jones’ Chapter 1• Psychotherapists often probe clients’ memories • Wide-spread false beliefs about memory• Yapko’s survey of therapists: Agree or disagree ?

– The mind is like a computer, accurately recording events (33% agree)– Events we can’t remember are repressed (59%)– If we can’t remember our childhood, it was probably somewhat traumatic

(49%)– One’s certainty about a memory indicates its accuracy (24%)– Memories from the 1st year of life are often accurately stored and are

retrievable (41%)– Hypnosis enables people to remember things they otherwise could not. (75%) – Hypnosis can be used to recover memories of actual events as far back as birth

(54%)

How Permanent are Memories?

1. Everything we learn is permanently stored in the mind, although sometimes details are not accessible. With hypnosis or other special techniques, these inaccessible details can eventually be recovered;

OR

* 2. Some details that we learn may be permanently lost from memory. Such details would never be able to be recovered by hypnosis, or any other special technique, because these details are simply no longer there.

Debra Poole’s Survey of Licensed PhD Psychotherapists

• Widespread use of suggestive memory techniques• 41% used dream interpretation to recover accurate memories

of life events.• 40% used family photos & journaling to boost clients’ recall.• 32% used hypnosis extensively to enhance recall• Extensive disagreement among them regarding

appropriateness of the different suggestive techniques.• All 3 methods are known to increase suggestibility, reduce

recall accuracy, and boost confidence in the “memory”.

Jones’ Chapter 1

• Psychotherapists often probe clients’ memories • Wide-spread false beliefs about memory

– Accurate?Repressed?Early?Hypnosis?Trauma?

• The typical gap between clinical and experimental psychology training and knowledge.

• Book written to inform therapists about memory

Jones’ Chapter 2• Brief history of “memory” studies: 3 lines --The

Neurologists (Broca, Kosakoff, Claparede); Unconscious “hysteria” (Freud, Charcot, Janet); Laboratory studies (Ebbinghaus)

• Behaviorism, then “cognitive revolution”• More recently it’s moving beyond lab studies• Memory terminology: short/long term; multiple memory

systems & brain correlates• Autobiographic memory --- episodic & semantic; different

levels --life periods, themes, generic events, specific episodic event-memories.