Chapter 7

Human Memory

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Human Memory: Basic Questions

How does information get into memory? How is information maintained in memory? How is information pulled back out of memory? Memory timeline

– Short term – recent?– Long term – remote?– Operational definitions

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Encoding: Getting Information Into Memory

The role of attention Focusing awareness Selective attention = selection of input

– Filtering: early or late? –

Multitasking – issues of driving performance and cell phone use – study by Strayer and Johnson (2001) –

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Divided attention and driving performance – Strayer & Johnson (2001)

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Levels of Processing: Craik and Lockhart (1972)

Incoming information processed at different levels: F Deeper processing = longer lasting memory codes

Encoding levels:– Structural = shallow– Phonemic = intermediate– Semantic = deep– Study results –

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Table of ContentsRetention at three levels of processing – Craik & Tulving (1975)

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Enriching Encoding: Improving Memory

Elaboration = linking a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding– Thinking of examples

Visual Imagery = creation of visual images to represent words to be remembered– Easier for concrete objects: Dual-

coding theory – Paivio et al. (1968) >>>>>>>>>>>

Self-Referent Encoding– Making information personally

meaningful

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Storage: Maintaining Information in Memory Analogy: information storage in computers ~

information storage in human memory Information-processing theories – Atkinson &

Shiffrin (1977)– Subdivide memory into 3 different stores

• Sensory, Short-term, Long-term

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Sensory Memory

Brief preservation of information in original sensory form

Auditory/Visual – approximately ¼ second– George Sperling (1960)

• Classic experiment on visual sensory store

• Partial report procedure –

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Short Term Memory (STM)

Limited capacity – magical number 7 plus or minus 2– Chunking – grouping familiar stimuli for storage as a single

unit

Limited duration – about 20 seconds without rehearsal– Peterson and Peterson (1959) – – Rehearsal – the process of repetitively verbalizing or

thinking about the information

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Short-Term Memory as “Working Memory”

STM not limited to phonemic encoding Loss of information not only due to decay Baddeley (2001) – 4 components of working memory

– Phonological rehearsal loop– Visuospatial sketchpad– Executive control system– Episodic buffer

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Long-Term Memory: Unlimited Capacity

Penfield’s neural stimulation – p. 284 – data was reinterpreted

Permanent storage?– Flashbulb memories– Brown and Kulick

(1977) – study of assassinations

– Talarico & Rubin (2003) –9-11 study

– Recall through hypnosis

Debate: are STM and LTM really different?– Phonemic vs.

Semantic encoding– Decay vs.

Interference based forgetting

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How is Knowledge Represented and Organized in Memory? Clustering and Conceptual Hierarchies –

Schemas and Scripts – Shank & Abelson (1977)

Semantic Networks – Collins & Loftus (1975) –

Connectionist Networks and PDP Models – McClelland and colleagues - pattern of activity – neuron based model

Table of ContentsA semantic network..

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Retrieval: Getting Information Out of Memory

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon – a failure in retrieval– Retrieval cues – Brown & McNeil (1966) study – resolve

block 57% of the time with first letter of failed to retrieve word

Recalling an event– Context cues – Godden & Baddeley (1975) – context-

dependent memory study with scuba divers– Bartlett memory research – War of the Ghosts –

Reconstructing memories – Loftus studies– Loftus & Palmer (1974) I: smashed (40.8); collided (39.3); bumped (38.1);

hit (34.0); contacted (31.8) II: smashed (32%) hit (14%) control (12%) (broken glass?)

– Misinformation effect• Source monitoring, reality monitoring • cryptomnesia

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Depiction of actual accident

Leading question:“About how fast were the carsgoing when they smashed intoeach other?”

Memoryconstruction

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Seven Sins of Memory – Daniel L. Schacter Transience – loss of

memory over time Absent Mindedness –

breakdown of interface between attention & memory

Blocking – thwarted search for information to retrieve

Bias – influence of current knowledge and belief on how we remember our past

Misattribution – assigning a memory to the wrong source

Suggestibility – memories implanted as a result of leading questions, comments or suggestions when a person is trying to recall a past experience

Persistence – repeated recall of disturbing information or events that one may want to forget

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Forgetting: When Memory Lapses

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve Retention – the proportion of material retained –

– Recall – Recognition – Relearning

Hill of reminiscence – time frame of remembering

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Why Do We Forget? Ineffective Encoding Decay theory Interference theory

– Type of material– Proactive– Retroactive

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Retrieval Failure

Encoding Specificity Transfer-Appropriate Processing Repression and the memory wards -

– Authenticity of repressed memories?– Memory illusions– Controversy

False memories – Roediger & McDermott (1995) procedure –

Loftus & Pickrell’s (1995) lost-in-the-mall study

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The Physiology of Memory

Biochemistry– Alteration in synaptic transmission

• Hormones modulating neurotransmitter systems• Protein synthesis

Neural circuitry– Localized neural circuits

• Reusable pathways in the brain• Long-term potentiation – changes in postsynaptic neuron

Anatomy– Anterograde and Retrograde Amnesia –– case of H.M. – resection in 1953

• - Cerebral cortex, Prefrontal Cortex, Hippocampus,• Dentate gyrus, Amygdala, Cerebellum

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Are There Multiple Memory Systems?

Implicit vs. Explicit Declarative vs. Procedural Semantic vs. Episodic Prospective vs. Retrospective –

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Retrospective versus prospective memory

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Improving Everyday Memory Engage in adequate rehearsal – overlearning Testing effect –– Roediger & Karpick (2006) Serial position effects – Distribute practice and minimize interference - Emphasize deep processing and transfer-

appropriate processing Organize information Encoding specificity – vary location of studying Use verbal mnemonics – narrative stories –

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Use visual mnemonics – method of Loci – Akira Haraguchi, 60, needed more than

(10/3/2006) 16 hours to recite pi (π) to 100,000 decimal places, breaking his personal best of 83,431 digits set in 2005.

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Eyewitness Accounts

Use of Eyewitness in court cases – Cutler & Penrod (1995), Loftus (1993)

What did Jennifer See? Post information distortion Source confusion Hindsight bias Overconfidence