Chapter 6: Basic Processes in Long-Term Memory: Encoding and Retrieving Information

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Ever walk into a room and it just like triggers a memory you totally forgot you even had.

Like boom, out of nowhere.

Exactly.

And suddenly you're back in your third grade self, spilling juice everywhere.

What in there?

Well, get ready to unlock those memory vaults because today's deep dive is all about how our brains build those memory palaces, storm away, and, let's be honest,

sometimes lose the map completely.

And we're diving deep into some fascinating research on how it all works.

Through tackling the big question, why do some memories stick with us forever while others vanish into thin air?

Right, like how do I still remember the lyrics to that cheesy 90s song but I can't remember what I had for breakfast.

The struggle is real.

But seriously, there's some really cool research out there that suggests our memories aren't just stuck in our heads, they're intertwined with the actual places where those memories were made.

You mean like where we physically were when something happened?

Exactly.

Think about it, that smell of your grandma's famous cookies can instantly teleport you back to her kitchen.

Or how a familiar song can unearth memories you haven't thought about in years.

It's true, certain songs just catapult me back to like high school dances and stuff.

Right, it's called context -dependent memory, and it basically means our surroundings play a much bigger role in memory recall than we realize.

So it's not just what we're trying to remember, but where we were when we learned it.

You got it.

And there's a classic study that proves this, using, of all things, scuba divers.

Scuba divers!

Okay, now you have my attention.

So they had these scuba divers learn lists of words.

Some learned them underwater, others on dry land.

Then they tested their recall again, some underwater, others on land.

Wait, so the divers who learned the words underwater, they did better when they were tested underwater.

Exactly.

The environment where they learned the words actually made a huge difference in how well they could remember them.

Those who learned on land did better on land.

And the same for the underwater learners.

Wow.

So you're telling me if I want to ace that history test, I should camp out in the classroom and study there?

It couldn't hurt.

But seriously, this study shows just how important encoding specificity is.

That basically means the more similar the situation is when you try to remember something to when you first learned it, the easier it's going to be to access those memories.

So every little detail matters, the sights, the sounds, maybe even the chlorine smell of the pool, in the case of those divers.

Precisely.

Each little thing becomes a potential clue, a little thread that helps pull that whole memory back into focus.

OK, that makes so much sense.

But let's switch gears for a second.

We've been talking about remembering facts, but what about those memories that seem automatic?

Like I don't have to consciously think about riding a bike every time I hop on.

It's just there.

Ah, you've just hit on a key distinction, explicit versus implicit memory.

Explicit memory is like your mental encyclopedia, facts, events, all those things you consciously try to remember.

OK, so that makes sense.

Explicit memory is like, what's the capital of France?

Or where do I put my keys?

What's implicit memory then?

Implicit memory is more like behind the scenes stuff.

It's about how past experiences influence what we do, even when we don't consciously remember them.

Think muscle memory habits.

So even if I haven't touched a bike in years, those implicit memories are still kicking around somewhere, helping me ride without even thinking about it.

Exactly.

Or like remembering how to tie your shoes.

You don't really think about the steps, your hands just do it.

And there's this incredible case study.

Ooh, I love a good case study.

Tell me more.

It involves this neuropsychologist, Edouard Clapperad, and one of his patients who had amnesia.

This patient had severe memory problems, couldn't form new memories because of brain damage.

Wow.

So how do you even study someone's memory if they can't form new memories?

Right.

It was a challenge, but also super insightful.

Clapperad wanted to see if implicit memory could still work, even when explicit memory was basically offline.

Okay, this is already fascinating.

What did he do?

Well, he decided to, you know, get a little creative with his methods.

He hid a pin in his hand before shaking the patient's hand.

Ooh, sneaky.

Did the patient remember getting pricked?

That's the thing.

The next time they met,

the patient couldn't consciously remember Clapperad or the pin prick.

But guess what?

What?

When Clapperad went to shake her hand again, she hesitated and refused, saying, sometimes pins are hidden in people's hands.

No way.

She didn't remember the event itself, but something in her brain still made that connection.

It's like her hand remembered even if her conscious mind didn't.

That's kind of creepy, but also amazing.

Totally.

It shows how powerful those implicit memories can be.

But you know, now that we're talking about different types of memory, I'm curious, is there anything we can actually do to, you know, improve our memory, especially when it comes to learning new stuff?

Right.

Like, we've all been there, cramming for a test, only to forget everything the next day.

So what's the secret?

Well, luckily, there's some good news on that front.

And it starts with understanding something called the spacing effect.

Spacing effect.

OK, you're going to have to break this one down for me.

What is it?

And more importantly, how can I use it to, you know, actually remember things?

So the spacing effect is this super cool phenomenon where our brains actually remember stuff better when we, well, space out our study sessions instead of cramming everything in at once.

OK, that makes sense.

I always feel like my brain is about to explode after an all nighter, like trying to stuff a week's worth of laundry into a tiny gym bag.

Not going to happen.

Exactly.

It's like overloading a circuit, right?

You're not giving the information any time to really sink in.

And there's tons of research on this, but one study in particular really drives the point home.

So Pepita and a bunch of other researchers, this was back in 2008, they had over a thousand people.

A thousand people?

That's a lot of brains.

Right.

They had them all learning these obscure facts.

And get this, they tested them over a whole year, changing up how often they study the facts and how long they had to remember them.

OK, so what kind of obscure facts are we talking about here?

I got to know.

All right.

Get this.

What European country do you think eats the most spicy Mexican food?

Hmm.

Spicy Mexican food.

OK, I'm going to go with Spain, maybe.

Lots of sunshine.

Got to cool down somehow.

Good guess.

But it's actually Norway.

Norway.

Seriously.

Who knew there were such chili fans?

Right.

Anyway, this study, they found that the best spacing between those study sessions actually depended on how long you wanted to remember something for.

Wait, so you're saying if I'm trying to remember something for a whole year, I should space out my studying more than if I just need it for like a week.

Exactly.

The longer you want to hold on to that memory, the longer those gaps between study sessions should be.

Think of it like giving your brain time to breathe and actually absorb the information.

This is blowing my mind.

All those years of cramming were basically for nothing.

So spacing is the key.

What's the best way to actually study during those sessions?

Ah, that's where things get even more interesting.

We're talking about different ways of rehearsing information.

See,

just saying something over and over, we call this maintenance rehearsal.

It doesn't really cut it in the long run.

It's like trying to remember a phone number by just repeating it in your head.

Oh yeah, totally.

I do that all the time.

And then five minutes later, poof, it's gone and I have to ask for the number again.

Right.

Because you're not really engaging with the information on a deeper level.

That's why we want to focus on elaborative rehearsal instead.

This means really thinking about the meaning, connecting it to things you already know, maybe even thinking about how it applies to your own life.

Okay, so instead of just reading a definition a million times, I should try to come up with like my own example or relate it to something I've learned before.

Now you're getting it.

Make that information meaningful to you.

There's a classic study that illustrates this perfectly.

Hyde and Jenkins, back in 1969, they had people learn lists of words, but they changed up how those people were learning the words.

Some just counted the letters in each word.

Kind of boring, right?

Right, very surface level.

While others actually judged how pleasant each word seemed, you know, like sunshine versus gloomy, which group do you think remember the words better later on?

I'm going to go with the pleasant word group.

Thinking happy thoughts just seems more memorable.

You got it.

The pleasantness group, they totally outperformed the letter counters because they were engaging with the meaning, forming those connections in their brains.

It's like building a stronger foundation so the memories are less likely to just crumble away.

Exactly.

Speaking of making memories stick, there's one more study I got to tell you about because it completely changed how I think about learning.

It's all about this thing called the testing effect.

Testing effect.

Does that mean taking tests actually helps me remember things better?

Because I have a feeling you're about to turn my world upside down.

You're right on the money.

It might sound kind of crazy, but trust me, the research is solid on this one.

This was a study by Roediger and Karpik in 2006.

They had folks study a passage, right?

But here's the twist.

One group studied it multiple times, while the other group, get this, they studied it just once and then took multiple tests on it.

Wait, hold on.

The group that took more tests, they remembered more, even though they studied less.

You got it.

And not just a little bit more, significantly more.

A week later, the testing group, they were remembering way more than the group that just kept rereading their notes.

So all that time I spent highlighting and rereading, I should have been quizzing myself instead.

It seems counterintuitive, but actively trying to retrieve information from your memory, even when it's tough, it just strengthens those connections in your brain way more than passively reviewing.

OK, I'm officially adding quiz yourself more to my to -do list.

This is game changing.

But we've been talking about studying and facts.

What about those other types of memories, you know, the ones that really stick with us, the emotional ones?

Ah, you're talking about those memories that feel like they're just like seared into our brains.

Like you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard about some major event.

Exactly.

Or even those happy memories that can instantly brighten your day or those not so happy ones that can bring back a rush of, you know, tougher emotions.

Are those types of memories actually more accurate or do they just feel stronger because of all the emotion tied to them?

That is the million dollar question, isn't it?

And you know, it certainly feels like those emotionally charged memories have this special clarity to them.

But the answer is a bit more, let's say, nuanced than you might think.

OK, so you're telling me it's not as simple as saying emotional memories are just like etched into our brains forever.

Right.

It's easy to think that because those memories feel so vivid, they must be super accurate.

But the truth is, they're still vulnerable to fading and changing over time, just like any other memory.

So even those super intense memories, they can get a little fuzzy or around the edges.

Exactly.

Think of it like, you know, those old photo albums.

Some photos are crystal clear, others are faded, maybe a little blurry.

Oh, totally.

Like those old Polaroids, some of them just fade over time, even the important ones.

And it's kind of like that with memories, too, even the ones tied to strong emotions.

But here's the thing.

Those emotions, they act like a highlighter, making those memories stand out more.

So it's not that emotional memories are necessarily more accurate.

They just feel more intense.

That's the gist of it.

They just really grab our attention.

There's actually this concept called the remember no paradigm,

basically remember judgments.

Those are when you can really vividly recall the experience, almost like you're reliving it.

Oh, like when a certain smell takes you right back to your childhood.

Exactly.

But then there are no judgments, which is when you recognize something as familiar, but you don't have that same vivid experience.

Like you know you ate breakfast today, but you probably can't picture yourself actually eating it.

OK, yeah, that makes sense.

So where do these emotional memories fit in?

Well, studies have found that people tend to have more of those remember judgments, those

reliving it memories for negative events, kind of just neutral ones.

Interesting.

Why do you think that is?

It could be that our brains are kind of hardwired to remember those negative experiences more intensely as a way to avoid danger in the future.

Makes sense, right?

Remember the bad stuff so you don't repeat it.

But are those negative memories actually more accurate, though?

That's the thing.

Not always.

There's this study by Shira and some other researchers back in 2004.

They showed people a bunch of images, some negative, like car crashes and some neutral, like everyday objects.

OK, I'm picturing car crashes versus like staplers and coffee mugs.

Right.

And later on, they tested their memory for all these images.

And just like you'd expect, people had more remember judgments for the negative images.

They felt like they could remember those car crashes way more vividly.

So people thought they remembered those negative images better, but were they actually more accurate?

That's the wild part.

When they actually tested for accuracy, did they actually correctly identify the images they had seen before?

Both the negative and neutral images were remembered at basically the same rate.

Whoa.

So even though those emotional memories feel more real, more accurate, our brains are still capable of messing them up.

Exactly.

Which is why it's so important to be aware of that.

Just because a memory feels super real doesn't mean it's 100 % accurate.

But that actually brings us to another important thing to think about with memory forgetting.

Ugh, yes, forgetting.

The worst.

But also probably inevitable, right?

So why do we forget things?

Is it that the information is actually gone from our brains or is it just hiding somewhere waiting for the right cue to resurface?

Great question.

And it turns out it's often less about the information being completely erased and more about those retrieval cues we were talking about earlier.

Imagine your brain is like this huge library.

I like that analogy.

My brain.

A giant library of memories.

Right.

And all those memories are like books on those shelves.

Sometimes it's not that the book is missing from the library.

You just can't find it at that moment.

The information is available.

It's just not very accessible.

Well, maybe my brain is less like a well -organized library and more like my actual bookshelf at home.

A little messy, disorganized.

Maybe.

We encode all this information, but without those strong retrieval cues, it's like trying to find a book without knowing the title or the author.

So how do we keep our mental libraries from turning into total chaos?

It goes back to encoding specificity.

The more we can do to enrich our memories when we're first learning something, linking it to what we already know, making it personally relevant, the stronger those retrieval cues will be.

It's like creating a detailed index card for each book in our mental library, right?

The more info we include on that card, the easier it'll be to find that book later.

That's a great way to put it.

And that's really what it's all about.

This whole deep dive has honestly been a game changer.

I feel like I have a whole new understanding of how my memory works.

We covered so much ground, from how our surroundings can influence what we remember to those tricky emotional memories, and even how taking tests can actually help us learn.

And I think we've really only just scratched the surface.

Memory is incredibly complex.

There's still so much more for us to discover.

Well, I'm ready to keep exploring.

But for now, what's the one key takeaway you want our listeners to remember from this deep dive?

Don't just think of memory as something you either have or you don't.

It's an active process that we can all improve and shade.

I love that.

So pay attention to what you remember easily, what trips you up, and then use that to your advantage.

Exactly.

And hey, don't forget to space out those study sessions.

Words to live by.

A huge thank you to our expert for joining us on this journey into the amazing world of memory.

And to our listeners, thanks for being here.

We'll see you next time for another deep dive into the wonders of the human mind.