Ebbinghaus’ work on memory performance contributed astonishing knowledge to the field of scientific psychology and enthralled several succeeding researchers and psychologists (Fuchs, 1997; Slamecka, 1985; Young, 1985). Ebbinghaus was precisely known for conducting memory experiments by using nonsense syllables, and from the results of those experiments, he postulated a unitary view of learning and memory. However, Endel Tulving, provided evidence from Ebbinghaus’ original research that there existed discernible kinds of learning and memory. Prior to his experiment, Tulving received some scathing criticism on his stance regarding Ebbinghaus’ research, but he averred that there was no intention to derogate its concept (Slamecka, 1985; Tulving, 1985). Rather, Tulving’s experiment emanated from Ebbinghaus’ original research to address implications that would supplement knowledge about the psychological science of memory.
Tulving’s proposition was that there was a dissociation of memory that could be extrapolated from Ebbinghaus’ research. In order to test his hypothesized dissociation of memory, Tulving conducted an experiment in which he posed “the Ebbinghaus experiment.” In the experiment, participants had to recite the alphabets backwards. Participants were subsequently apprised to learn and go through the alphabets on a card, from Z to A, in 10.4 seconds. All participants were tested individually through 12 trials.
The task was indeed difficult and became a failure as it fomented distress among a few of the participants whose performance gradually deteriorated. Of the 6 participants, only 1 came close to reaching the criteria of the experiment (i.e., reciting the alphabets backwards in a maximum time of 10.4 seconds), with a ti...
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...all, the lack of general knowledge of the non-words made the experiment a cumbersome process, especially during the experiment’s incipient stage. However, the process was worthwhile as I experienced firsthand the dissociation of learning and memory.
Works Cited
Fuchs, A.F. (1997). Ebbinghaus’s contributions to psychology after 1885. The American Journal of Psychology, 110, 621-633.
Slamecka, N. J. (1985). Ebbinghaus: Some associations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 11, 414-435. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.11.3.414
Tulving, E. (1985). Ebbinghaus’s memory: What did he learn and remember? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 11, 485-490.
Young, R. K. (1985). Ebbinghaus: Some consequences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 11, 491-495. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.11.3.491
Over the years, memory have been researched and debated, however there are two theories that have explained extensively and are highly recognised by psychologist in the cognitive field of psychology and scientist alike, on how we process experiences and turn them into memories. These theories include the Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) Multi-store Model of Memory and Baddeley and Hitch (1974) Phonological Loop Model of Memory. This essay aims to compare, contrast and evaluate these models of memory, with supporting evidence and empirical research.
Roediger III, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating False Memories: Remembering Words Not Presented in Lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cogntion, 21, 803-814.
The original study took place at Yale University. Milgram came up with an advertisement to gain participants to contribute to his study. He offered them four dollars and told them it was a study about memory. Three people took place during each experiment. The three subjects were the experimenter the “learner” and the “teacher”. The experimenter was a dressed as a biology teacher and the “learner” was trained to act out his role. Of the three participants the teacher was only person that didn’t know about the actual study. The “teacher” and the “learner” were placed in separate rooms so that they were unable to see one another. The teacher’s role was to ask the “learner” a number of questions and punish the “learner”” for answering incorrectly. The “teacher” was advised to issue a shock to the “learner” each time he answered incorrectly. The participant was also told to administer +15-volts of shock for each additional question answered incorrectly.
The experiment consists of two people that take part in a study of memory learning, one of them referred to as the "Teacher" and the other as the "Learner." The experimenter explains that the study's main goal is to observe the effect of punishment on learning. The learner will be seated in something similar to the electric chair, his arms will be strapped and an electrode will be attached to his wrist. The learner will be told that he will be tested on his ability to remember the second word of a pair when he hears the first one again. If he makes a mistake, he will then receive electric shocks of increasing intensity.
Ebbinghaus began travelling the continent both lecturing and studying. During his travels he stumbled upon a copy of Psychophysics by Gustav Theodor Fechner. This sparked an interest in "higher mental processes" and the problem that Wilhelm Wundt failed to solve experimentally. Wundt was the first to establish a laboratory for psychological experimentation. This left Ebbinghaus to study the error Wundt made regarding these higher mental processes. He began doing so using himself as the subject of the experiments. This would eventually result in his well known work translated as On Memory in 1885.
Eysenck, M.W., 2003. Psychology For AS Level 2nd ed., Hove & New York: Psychology Press.
Overall, this article was very informative. I believed Loftus and Bernstein did a great job analyzing these different methods of research. I would of like the article more if the findings in thus research were more elaborate on the process. Finally, the reader is left with various detailed procedures but no definite answer on how to really tell false or true memories.
Watson, J. M., Bunting, M. F., Poole, B. J., & Conway, A. R. (2005). Individual differences in susceptibility to false memory in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 31(1), 76-85.
The question then becomes whether declarative and non-declarative memory are in fact separate or different manifestations of the same neural process. From research on H.M., we find evidence for the existence of a declarative memory system that is independent of non-declarative memory and other forms of intelligence. H.M. had the capacity to hold information in his head for a period of time, suggesting that his working memory was intact (Squire and Wixted, 2011). Further evidence that not all memory is the same is the fact that H.M. acquired a motor skill despite not being able to remember actually learning the skill, thus showing the difference between episodic and semantic memory. Amnesiacs are able to acquire the perceptual skill of reading mirror-reversed words at a normal rate compared to controls (Cohen and Squire, 1980), demonstrating that the ability to learn new perceptual skills also remains intact. Of the forms of non-declarative memory, procedural memory involves the cerebellum, motor cortex, and basal ganglia (General Intro the Neurobiology…). Thus, non-declarative memory can, in a way, be seen as a more primitive form of memory that is not acquired through the integration and consolidation of neural events in the medial temporal lobe, but rather through learned associations outside of the
Roediger, H. L. III, & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803-814
In opposition, this study may not be supported by healthy skepticism. The first argument presented on K.C., is a rare finding that has never been seen before. It is difficult to support a claim on one single account of the episodic memory being lost. The second argument, on the brain study, is equally hard to accept. Tulving, the researcher
Atkinson, R.C. & Shiffrin, R.M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control process.
Wheeler, M. A., Stuss, D, t., & Tulving, D. (1997). Toward a theory of episodic memory: The frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness: Psychological Bulletin, 121, 331-354
Tulving, E. and Craik, F. (2000) The Oxford handbook of memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weiner, I. Healy, A. Freedheim, D. Proctor,R.W., Schinka,J.A. (2003) Handbook of Psychology: Experimental psychology,18, pp 500