4 forgetting

• H.M.

  • Still had general knowledge about the world- his semantic memory was seemingly intact
  • Ability to gain new semantic memories was impaired
  • Skill learning was still intact. Able to develop skills even though he could not gain semantic memories
• Priming


  Word fragment completion task where a memory trace is left in the brain even though the person is not consciously aware of it
• Habits

  Behavioural control shifts from goal dependence to context dependence
• Procedural or implicit memory


  Allows us to carry out common tasks without thinking about it. Different from explicit and comparative memories
• Types of forgetting


  • Transience/memory decay
  • Interference
  • Blocking/retrieval failure
  • Absentmindedness/encoding failure
• Trace decay


  A change in the biology of the memory trace
• Retroactive interference


  New learning interferes with old
• Proactive interference


  Old learning interferes with new