Chapter Seven

Section One

The process by which we recollect prior experiences and information and skills learned in the past

1. Episodic: a memory of a specific evento Example: what you wore to school

yesterday

o When we can remember specific details, it is called a flashbulb memory

2. Semantic or Generic: the general knowledge that we remember although we do not know when we first learned the materialo Includes historical facts and the ABCs

3. Implicit or Procedural: includes the skills we have learnedo For example, riding a bike

Section Two

Regardless of the process we use, most include three basic steps: encoding, storing, and retrieving the information.

How we put the information into a form it can be stored in Visual Codes: remembering by creating a

picture in your mind Acoustic Codes: remember by repeating the

information to yourself Semantic Codes: remembering the

information by creating some type of order out of it; creating a phrase out of the letters

How we maintain the information over time so we don’t lose it Maintenance Rehearsal: repeating

information over and over again Elaborative Rehearsal: make the

information meaningful by relating it to something we already know

Organizational Systems: we organize information just as though our memory was a large file cabinet

Filing Errors: everyone has breakdowns in memory at various times and for various reasons

Returning stored information to conscious thought

Memory retrieval depends on the situation in which we first remembered the information

One study suggests if you study in the room where you take a test, you do better than those that studied elsewhere

There is thought that our mood influences our memory

We will remember information when we are in the same mood that we first remembered it in

There are instances in which we know the information but cannot bring it out

Often we will say words that may be similar to try to trigger our memory

When I cannot think of a person’s name, I go through the alphabet…when I hit the letter of the first name, I usually remember it!

Section Three

Stage One What we sense—see, hear, taste, feel,

or smell, is only kept for a fraction of a second

The ability to have eidetic imagery (a photographic memory) declines with age

Stage Two Also called working memory What we’re trying to actively remember

is stored in our short-term memory We have to rehearse the information to

keep it in our short term memory

The third and final stage We have to take steps to put stuff in

our long-term memory Mechanical repetition: maintenance

rehearsal Relating information to stuff we already

know: elaborative rehearsal Psychologists are unaware of limits to

our long-term memory

Section Four

1. Recognition: the easiest task, identifying that we have remembered something in the past

2. Recall: not only recognizing that we have come into contact with some information, but actually being able to call the information back into our mind

3. Relearning: we are often able to remember something we thought we forgot after a brief lesson (like speaking a foreign language)

1. Interference: old memories are replaced by new ones

2. Decay: when a memory fades away3. Repression: pushing certain memories

out of our consciousness4. Amnesia: severe memory loss caused

by injury, shock, fatigue, illness, or repression; infantile amnesia refers to the fact that we don’t remember things from when we were infants

1. Drill and Practice: go over the information to be remembered over and over again

2. Relate the information to something you already know

3. Form Unusual Associations: sometimes a strange association will trigger our memory

4. Construct links between what you are having trouble remembering and something that is more easily remembered

5. Use Mnemonic Devices