Memory

Memory is the basis for knowing your friends, your neighbors, the English language, the national anthem, and yourself.

If memory was nonexistent, everyone would be a stranger to you; every language foreign; every task new; and even you yourself would be a stranger.

Phenomenon of Memory

Memory is defined as any indication that learning has persisted over time. – It is our ability to store and retrieve information.

In simplest terms, human memory takes essentially meaningless sensory information and changes it into meaningful patterns that you can store and use later.

Flashbulb Memory

A unique and highly emotional moment may give rise to a clear, strong, and persistent memory called flashbulb memory. – However, this memory

is not free from errors.

3 Tasks of MemoryInformation Processing Model

Keyboard(Encoding)

Disk(Storage)

Monitor(Retrieval)

Sequential Process

3 Tasks of Memory: Encoding

Encoding: The processing of information into the memory system. Putting the incoming information

into a useful format. Requires us to select an incoming

stimulus, identify its distinctive features, and mentally tag or label it to make it meaningful.

Most of our everyday encoding is automatic and rapid.

Encoding: Automatic Processing

Occurs with little or no effort, we encode incidental information, such as time, frequency and space.– Does not interfere with

our thinking about other things.

– It is very difficult to shut off

Encoding: Effortful Processing

While some information is encoded automatically, other types are only remembered with effort and attention.

Rehearsal helps; the conscious repetition of information to maintain it in consciousness or encode it for storage.– The amount remembered

depends on the time spent learning.

Rehearsal

Maintenance Rehearsal: helps maintain information temporarily in working memory. Keeps it fresh and from being crowded out.Elaborative rehearsal: Used to get information into long term memory. – Actively connects it

knowledge already stored.

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Studied rehearsal by using nonsense syllables.

TUV YOF GEK XOZ– The more times practiced on

day 1 the fewer repetitions it

took to relearn on day 2.Spacing Effect: Distributed study or practice will lead to better long term retention than cramming.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

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Types of Encoding

Visual: the encoding of picture images.

Acoustic: the encoding of sound, especially words.

Semantic: the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.– The deepest form, allows

for better retention.

Mnemonic Device

System for remembering in which items are related to easily recalled sets of symbols, such

as acronyms, phrases, or jingles. Type of retrieval cue.

“i” before “e” except after “c”

Roy G. Biv

“Like a Rock”

“Every Good Boy Does Fine!”

EXAMPLES

Chunking

In memory, a chunk is any pattern or meaningful unit of

information. – Allows us to get

more material into the seven slots of working memory.

Three-Stage Processing Model

The Atkinson-Schiffrin (1968) three-stage model of memory includes:

1) sensory memory2) short-term memory 3) long-term memory

Each of the three stages encodes and stores memories in a different way, but they work together to transform sensory experience into a lasting record that has a pattern of meaning.

3 Stages of Memory

Stage 1: Sensory Memory

The most fleeting. Typically holds sights, sounds, smells, textures and other sensory impressions for only a fraction of a second.– Holds the incoming

information long enough to be screened for possible entry into working memory. Do we need to pay attention to it?

– About 1/4 of a second.

Capacity of Sensory Memory

George Sperling tried to find out how much information our sensory memory can hold.– Found it holds far more information than

ever reaches consciousness.

Flashed letters on a screen and asked subjects to remember them. Used a tone to indicate which row they should recall.– Partial report. Most people achieved

almost perfect accuracy.– Much better than when they tried to

recall the entire group of letters.

Sensory Registers

There is a separate sensory register for each of our senses. All feed into working (short-term) memory.– Iconic memory: The register for vision. Holds

encoded light patterns.– Echoic Memory: holds encoded auditory stimuli.– Tactile sensory memory: touch.– Olfactory sensory memory: Smell– Gustatory sensory memory: Taste.

Stage 2: Short Term Memory

STM: Activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten.

Working memory is a similar concept that focuses more on the processing of briefly stored information.

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Stage 2: Working Memory

Working memory preserves recently perceived events or experiences for less than a minute without rehearsal.– A useful buffer for temporarily

holding items such as a phone number you have just looked up.

Where we process conscious experience. – Provides a “mental work

space.”

Capacity of STM

The magic number 7.– Working memory holds

about 7 items, give or take two. (George Miller, 1956).

– Does vary person to person.

– Roughly the same for numbers, letters, words, shapes, sounds etc.

Much smaller capacity than the other two stages.

Three Parts of Working MemoryCentral Executive: Directs attention to material retrieved from long-term memory or to important input from sensory memory.

Phonological loop: temporarily stores sounds - helping you to remember the mental “echo” of a name or to follow a melody.

Sketchpad: used to store and manipulate visual images.

Stage 3: Long Term Memory

LTM receives information from working memory and can store it for much longer periods. – Our capacity for storing long-term

memories is essentially limitless.Words and concepts are encoded by their meanings, which interconnects them with other items that have similar meanings.– Like a huge web of interconnected

associations.– Good retrieval cues can help you

quickly locate the item you want amid all the data stored there.

Levels of Processing Theory

The more connections you can make with new information while it is in working memory, the more likely you are to remember it later.

– Deeper Processing: establishing more connections

with long-term memories. • Makes new information more

meaningful and memorable.

• Often tied to the level of judgment you make about information.

Level of Processing Example

1. Is the word in capital letters?

2. Does the word rhyme with tape?

3. Does the word represent a fruit?

GRAPE

Two Parts of LTM

Procedural Memory: Mental directions for how things are done.– Used to remember the

“how to” skills.

Declarative Memory: stores specific information, such as facts and events.– Requires more conscious

mental effort

Subdivisions of Declarative Memory

Episodic Memory: the portion of declarative memory that stores personal experiences.– Memories of events in your

life.– Also stores temporal coding

that identify when the even occurred and context coding that indicates where it took place.

Subdivisions of Declarative Memory

Semantic Memory: stores the basic meanings of words and concepts. – Usually does not contain

information about the time and place the memory contents were acquired.

– More like an encyclopedia than an autobiography.

3 Types of MemoryE.S.P.

Which is involved?

1.First Kiss 10.Use a computer

2.Riding a bike 11.Spell C-A-T

3.Walking through a maze 12.Driving a car

4.List the 50 states 13.H20

5.Define Memory 14.Describe a fight to someone

6.Cut and Paste an art project 15.First day in high school

7.Writing notes off an overhead

8.Formula for classical conditioning

9.Witness a car accident

LTM and the Brain

Consolidation is the process by which short-term memories are changed to long-term memories over a period of time.– Most long-term memories make an

intermediate stop in the hippocampus (in the Limbic System) on their way to long term storage.

Different aspects of memory involve

different parts of the brain. – Karl Lashley experiments;

looking for the engram or memory trace.

Long-Term Potentiation

Memories begin as neural impulses.

Long-term potentiation (LTP): An increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation.– Increases the sensitivity

and efficiency of synapse.

– Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Memories and Emotion

The amygdala strengthens memories that have strong emotional associations.– Aids access and retrieval.

– Stronger emotional experiences make for stronger, more reliable memories.

– Think flashbulb memories.

Moods and Memory

State-dependent memory: What we learn in one state may be more easily recalled when we enter that state again.

Memories are somewhat mood-congruent. That is, we are more likely to recall experiences that are the same as the mood we are currently in.– For example, how you rate your

parents today may not be the same as how you rate them in January.

Retrieval Cues

To get information off the internet you need a way to retrieve it.– It is similar with our

memories.

Retrieval cues guide us to where to look.

Priming: refers to the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.

Why We Forget

Encoding Failure: We failed to encode the information in the first place and it never entered our long-term memory.– Quick, draw a nickel.

Storage Decay: Memory seems to fade due to fading of the memory trace.

Interference

Proactive Interference: Something you learned earlier disrupts your recall of something you experienced later.– You can’t remember your new

phone number because the old one keeps getting in the way.

Retroactive Interference: New information makes it harder to recall something you learned earlier.– Learning Chinese makes it harder

to remember the Japanese you already knew.

Repression

We unknowingly revise our own histories, helps protect and improve our self-image.

Repression: Freud’s idea that our memories self-censor painful information.– Most psychologists believe

it rarely, if ever, occurs.

Forgetting

We do not store information as exactly as a tape recorder or video camera.

We tend to remember the “gist of things” rather than a perfect representation of what happened.– We fill in memory gaps with

plausible guesses and assumptions.

Misinformation Effect

When we are exposed to subtle misinformation, many people misremember.– Later we find it find it nearly

impossible to discriminate between our memories of real and suggested events.

– We imagine things into our memories.

Source Amnesia: Attributing an event we have experienced to the wrong source.Both are linked to false memories.

Improving Memory

Overlearn: Study things repeatedly

Spend time rehearsing: Speed reading doesn’t work!

Make the material personally meaningful: Semantic encoding.

Use Mnemonic devices: Use vivid imagery

Activate retrieval cues: Try to get back to the original mood or location.

Recall events while they are fresh, before your encounter misinformation.

Minimize interference: study before sleeping, spread out the studying of different topics.

Test your knowledge: especially your recall.

Get it right the first time.