Memory Retrieval

Flip It Video: Improving Retrieval

After the magic of brain encoding and storage, we still have the daunting task of retrieving the information. What triggers retrieval?

Retrieval Cues

• 32-6 How do external cues, internal emotions, and order of appearance influence memory retrieval?

Imagine a spider suspended in the middle of her web, held up by the many strands extending outward from her in all directions to different points. If you were to trace a pathway to the spider, you would first need to create a path from one of these anchor points and then follow the strand down into the web.

The process of retrieving a memory follows a similar principle, because memories are held in storage by a web of associations, each piece of information interconnected with others. When you encode into memory a target piece of information, such as the name of the person sitting next to you in class, you associate with it other bits of information about your surroundings, mood, seating position, and so on. These bits can serve as retrieval cues that you can later use to access the information. The more retrieval cues you have, the better your chances of finding a route to the suspended memory. To remember to do something (say, to write a note tomorrow), one effective strategy is to mentally associate the act with a cue (perhaps a pen left in the middle of your desk) (Rogers & Milkman, 2016).

“Memory is not like a container that gradually fills up; it is more like a tree growing hooks onto which memories are hung.”

Peter Russell, The Brain Book, 1979

The best retrieval cues come from associations we form at the time we encode a memory—smells, tastes, and sights that can evoke our memory of the associated person or event. To call up visual cues when trying to recall something, we may mentally place ourselves in the original context. After losing his sight, British scholar John Hull (1990, p. 174) described his difficulty recalling such details:

I knew I had been somewhere, and had done particular things with certain people, but where? I could not put the conversations . . . into a context. There was no background, no features against which to identify the place. Normally, the memories of people you have spoken to during the day are stored in frames which include the background.

Priming

Often our associations are activated without our awareness. Philosopher-psychologist William James referred to this process, which we call priming, as the “wakening of associations.” After seeing or hearing the word rabbit, we are later more likely to spell the spoken word hair/hare as h-a-r-e, even if we don’t recall seeing or hearing rabbit (Figure 32.5).

priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.

Figure 32.5 Priming associations unconsciously activates related associations (Bower, 1986).

Seeing or hearing the word rabbit activates the concept and thus primes spelling the spoken word hair/hare as h-a-r-e.

Priming is often “memoryless memory”—an implicit, invisible memory, without your conscious awareness. If, walking down a hallway, you see a poster of a missing child, you may then unconsciously be primed to interpret an ambiguous adult-child interaction as a possible kidnapping (James, 1986). Although you no longer have the poster in mind, it predisposes your interpretation. Meeting someone who reminds us of a person we’ve previously met can awaken our associated feelings about that earlier person, which may transfer into the new context (Andersen & Saribay, 2005; Lewicki, 1985).

Priming can influence behaviors as well (Herring et al., 2013). Adults and children primed with money-related words and materials were less likely to help another person when asked (Gasiorowska et al., 2016; Vohs et al., 2006). In such cases, money may prime our materialism and self-interest rather than the social norms that encourage us to help (Ariely, 2009).

Context-Dependent Memory

Have you noticed? Putting yourself back in the context where you earlier experienced something can prime your memory retrieval. Remembering, in many ways, depends on our environment (Palmer, 1989). When you visit your childhood home or neighborhood, old memories surface. As Figure 32.6 illustrates, when scuba divers listened to a word list in two different settings (either 10 feet underwater or sitting on the beach), they recalled more words if tested in the same place (Godden & Baddeley, 1975).

Figure 32.6 The effects of context on memory

In this experiment, words heard underwater were best recalled underwater. Words heard on land were best recalled on land (Godden & Baddeley, 1975).

The vertical axis shows the percentage of words recalled (from 0 to 40 in 10% intervals), and the horizontal axis shows the context for hearing and recall.. There are four bars – two green (different contexts for hearing and recall) and two red (same contexts for hearing and recall). The graph shows that recall is greater when learning and testing contexts were the same. For different contexts for hearing and recall, on water/land the percentage of words recalled was 22, while on land/water it was 20.5. When the context was the same for hearing and recall, on water the percentage of word recalled was 30.5 while on land in was 39.

By contrast, experiencing something outside the usual setting can be confusing. Have you ever run into a former teacher in an unusual place, such as at the store or park? Perhaps you recognized the person but struggled to figure out who it was and how you were acquainted. The encoding specificity principle helps us understand how cues specific to an event or person will most effectively trigger that memory. In new settings, you may not have the memory cues needed for speedy face recognition. Our memories are context-dependent, and are affected by the cues we have associated with that context. Thankfully, overlearning—mastering the material beyond barely knowing it—can nevertheless enable you to do well when taking an AP exam in a new room.

encoding specificity principle

the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it.

TRY THIS

Ask a friend two rapid-fire questions: (a) How do you pronounce the word spelled by the letters s-h-o-p? (b) What do you do when you come to a green light? If your friend answers “stop” to the second question, you have demonstrated priming.

In several experiments, Carolyn Rovee-Collier (1993) found that a familiar context could activate memories even in 3-month-olds. After infants learned that kicking would make a crib mobile move via a connecting ribbon from their ankle, the infants kicked more when tested again in the same crib than when in a different context.

State-Dependent Memory

Closely related to context-dependent memory is state-dependent memory. What we learn in one state—be it drunk or sober—may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state. What people learn when drunk they don’t recall well in any state (alcohol disrupts memory storage). But they recall it slightly better when again drunk. Someone who hides money when drunk may forget the location until drunk again.

Moods also provide an example of memory’s state dependence. Emotions that accompany good or bad events become retrieval cues (Gaddy & Ingram, 2014). Thus, our memories are somewhat mood congruent. If you’ve had a bad evening—your plans with friends fell through, your favorite jeans have disappeared, your Internet went out 10 minutes before the end of a show—your gloomy mood may facilitate recalling other bad times. Being depressed sours memories by priming negative associations, which we then use to explain our current mood. In many experiments, people put in a buoyant mood—whether under hypnosis or just by the day’s events (a World Cup soccer victory for German participants in one study)—recall the world through rose-colored glasses (DeSteno et al., 2000; Forgas et al., 1984; Schwarz et al., 1987). They recall their behaviors as competent and effective, other people as benevolent, happy events as more frequent.

mood-congruent memory

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.

Have you ever noticed that your mood influences your perceptions of your parents? In one study, adolescents’ ratings of parental warmth in one week gave little clue to how they would rate their parents six weeks later (Bornstein et al., 1991). When teens were down, their parents seemed cruel; as their mood brightened, their parents morphed from devils into angels. We may nod our heads knowingly. Yet, in a good or bad mood, we persist in attributing to reality our own changing judgments, memories, and interpretations. In a bad mood, we may read someone’s look as a glare and feel even worse. In a good mood, we may encode the same look as interest and feel even better. Moods magnify.

“I can’t remember what we’re arguing about, either. Let’s keep yelling, and maybe it will come back to us.”

The man has his arms crossed and the woman has her hands on her hips. The caption reads, “I can’t remember what we’re fighting about, either. Let’s keep yelling, and maybe it will come back to us.”

Mood effects on retrieval help explain why our moods persist. When happy, we recall happy events and therefore see the world as a happy place, which helps prolong our good mood. When depressed, we recall sad events, which darkens our interpretations of current events. For those of us predisposed to depression, this process can help maintain a vicious, dark cycle.

“ When a feeling was there, they felt as if it would never go; when it was gone, they felt as if it had never been; when it returned, they felt as if it had never gone.”

George MacDonald, What’s Mine’s Mine, 1886

Serial Position Effect

Another memory-retrieval quirk, the serial position effect, explains why we may have large holes in our memory of a list of recent events. Imagine it’s your first day on a job, and your manager is introducing co-workers. As you meet each person, you silently repeat everyone’s name, starting from the beginning. As the last person smiles and turns away, you feel confident you’ll be able to greet your new co-workers by name the next day.

serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and first (primacy effect) items in a list.

Don’t count on it. Because you have spent more time rehearsing the earlier names than the later ones, those are the names you’ll probably recall more easily the next day. In experiments, when people viewed a list of items (words, names, dates, even experienced odors) and immediately tried to recall them in any order, they fell prey to the serial position effect (Reed, 2000). They briefly recalled the last items especially quickly and well (a recency effect), perhaps because those last items were still in working memory. But after a delay, when their attention was elsewhere, their recall was best for the first items (a primacy effect; see Figure 32.7).

Figure 32.7 The serial position effect

Immediately after Pope Francis made his way through this receiving line of special guests, he would probably have recalled the names of the last few people best (recency effect). But later he may have been able to recall the first few people best (primacy effect).

The vertical axis shows the percentage of words recalled (from 0 to 100 in 10% intervals) and the horizontal axis shows the position of the word in the list (from 1 to 13). There are two lines: immediate recall (in red) and later recall (in blue). The curve for immediate recall shows that first and last items are recalled best. It is therefore U-shaped. The blue line shows that for later recall only the first items are recalled well. The line therefore has a negative slope.

Check Your Understanding

Ask Yourself

• What sort of mood have you been in lately? How has your mood colored your memories, perceptions, and expectations?

Test Yourself

• You have just watched a movie that includes a chocolate factory. After the chocolate factory is out of mind, you nevertheless feel a strange urge for a chocolate bar. How do you explain this in terms of priming?
• When we are tested immediately after viewing a list of words, we tend to recall the first and last items best, which is known as the ______________ ______________ effect.

Answers to the Test Yourself questions can be found in Appendix E at the end of the book.