We got memory. We see now that you can recall some things, but you forgot other things relatively
quickly. But when you saw it for that second, if I had asked you the next second, what was
the word that was just up? You would have had no problem remembering it. Especially
if it was in two or three seconds. So where did it go when it was gone? Well we know you
didn't move it into long term memory, didn't come out of short term working memory, but
for all those who could write those things down after we've elapsed that short term memory
window, you did have it in a long term memory. My guess is it's not going to be a very long
term memory and then if I ask you to write down those words, in say, three months or
three years, you wouldn't be able to write many of them down at all. So where did it
go? We don't know. It does seem that you haven't fired that set of circuits that much, you
certainly haven't done it repeatedly, and so those circuits don't consolidate, and it
just seems that it decays, it's just another way of saying it's not permanent. It goes
away. Varying lengths of time, for different people, depending on the stimuli, but memory
quality or quantity wanes with time. Again, you may have some memories that are very potent,
that you remember them for a whole lifetime. There won't be a ton of those, relative to
all the experiences you have in your entire life. It may seem like a lot, some people
can tell stories for ages, but those are just some stories. I'm going to show you an example
in a minute of ineffective encoding. Some people think that they forgot, but they never
really knew to begin with. Remember we said that this all assumes that you perceived it.
It assumes that you moved it from sensory memory to short term memory, and it assumes
that you moved it from short term memory to long term memory, and some people are like,
'I don't know why I can't remember that, I was in lecture.' I don't get it, or I was
just talking to that person the other day, and I can't remember what they said. Well,
it may not be that you actually forgot it, it could be pseudo-forgetting. You never really
encoded it. Not having encoded it, you couldn't be expected to remember it. Interference theory.
Says that you forget, due to competition from other information within your memory that
you get a memory formed that's new, and there's other already existing information and sometimes
there's so much overlap, or there's similarities, or you've got nodes that activate each other
that you get confused, and sometimes you've got the other way around, you've got old information
where you get new information, and it interferes with being remembered in the other direction.
Those directions, you'll want to remember for your test. They're retroactive, and pro-active,
and I'll put up an example here. Since you all came today, if you know the difference
between retroactive interference and pro-active interference, and nothing interferes with
your recall of that information on the test, you will do well on that item that exists.
Is best I remember it being on the test. It's a little bit tricky, so you might want a mnemonic.
Why is it tricky? The people who get it right often times, they don't pick the other two
that are clearly wrong, if these two are there, what do they do? They flip flop, of which,
you know what it does? It just is an example of memory issues. They knew the type of answer
it's supposed to be, but they couldn't pick out that fine level of detail. Retroactive,
what happens when people are dressed in retro? Something from past, right? So, new interferes
with old, going back. Now I'm dressed in retro, which is a harkening back to the old. That's
one way. What's pro-activity mean? It means getting onto something right? So in this case,
something from the old is going to get onto something new. Old interferes with the recall of the
new. And this interferes with learning this interfering stuff, so you know what? We'll
just start right here on Monday, and I'll see you all then. You all have a wonderful
weekend, be safe and have fun! Again, being here the other day I said, you know, you might
really want to know this pro-active, and retro-active interference and be able to distinguish between
the two, come up with a mnemonic that will help you come up with the difference between
the two, retro active, now going back. Right, and proactive, old coming forward, so the
example given, there's some material that overlaps between biology and psychology, so
if you had studied for a biology test, and then you studied for a psychology test, and
then you take the psychology test, and you start thinking about the biology information
cause you can't get that out of your mind, this is coming forward to interfere. The old
coming forward to interfere with the newer information will be proactive. The reverse
was true, you study for the psychology test first, and then you study for the biology
test, and you start taking your psychology test, and you're remembering biology information,
because its interfering, or the newer information is interfering with the older information.
It's a technical distinction, but one worth making, and certainly one worth knowing for
your test. The idea is that information acquired at one time interferes with information acquired
at another time. I had pointed out up there that a lot of people think they've forgotten
something that they've actually never input it to being with. They just assumed that they're
going to remember something, but they didn't encode it, and so they didn't really forget
it, because they never really knew it. Never got out of sensory memory, never got out short
term memory, didn't get into long term memory, or if it did it decayed rapidly, as we saw
with the forgetting curve, information that's new and novel decays rather quickly and extensively.
So, I got a test for you to see about how well you encode information. If you'll draw
on your paper before you just the basic outline of what the front of the Pal's restaurant
looks like. Try to incorp....don't talk because then you're conferring with other people's
memories. Just see what elements of the front of Pal's you could remember, because you probably,
if you're from here see it everyday or certainly many times throughout your life time. It's
such a distraction to me that I didn't even realize that East Tennessee State University
was across the street from it, until I came to interview. All those years I'd come, I'd
just stared that building. So odd, so unique, never seen anything like it in Charlotte,
and there it was staring me in the face. Kept my attention, but how much did I really remember
of it? What's on the front of that building? What color is that building? Is there anything
else around that building? See what you got. You got the gist of it? Everybody good? Alright,
the Pal's memory test. Just made it. That's the front of a Pal's. It's the front of every
Pal's I think. I may be wrong about that, but the first thing to get is the french
fries, how many people got the french fries? Alright. Second thing to notice is the shake,
or the cup. How many people got the cup? Next thing is that gigantic weenie. How many people
got the hot dog? Next thing is that gigantic hamburger, how many people got the hamburger?
Then you got that gigantic flag, how many people got the flag? Didn't even think about
that being part of it, and how many people got everything? A couple people got everything.
So, if you think about it, having seen this building over and over and over again, but
you don't remember all the pieces on it? That's normal. Why? Because you didn't study it.
If you had studied it for a test, and repeatedly input that information with the intention
of moving it from short term to long term memory, elaborating on it, etc., etc., you'd
be more likely to remember it. The same thing happens with a penny, I won't do that example,
but if I had you draw a penny, most people don't get all the elements on the head of
a penny exactly right. They know what a penny looks like, generally speaking, but only people
who are coin collectors actually study the face of a penny, so the date, the words, the
face, the direction the face is pointing, etc., etc., there's a bunch of elements that
you wouldn't really pay attention to unless you were paying attention to them.