MemoryModule One: Booklet #8

Memory

• The storage and retrieval of what has been learned or experienced

• Involves 3 processes:

– Encoding

– Storage

– Retrieval

Encoding (Getting info into your brain)

• Transforming of information so the nervous system can process it (Encoding is the process whose purpose is to assign a meaning to the information to be memorized. How effectively you can retrieve information depends on how deeply you have encoded it, and how well you have organized it in your memory.)

• Use your senses (hearing, sight, touch, taste, temperature, …) to encode and establish a memory

• Uses 3 types of codes:

• Acoustic codes

– When you try to remember something by saying it aloud, or to yourself, repeatedly

• Visual codes

– When you attempt to keep a mental picture

• Semantic codes

– Try to make sense of things

Storage (Retaining and keeping info)

• The process by which information is maintained over a period of time

• Information can be stored for a few seconds or for much longer

Retrieval (Recalling stored info)

• Process of obtaining information that has been stored in memory

• The ease in which information can be retrieved depends on how efficiently it was encoded and stored (as well as other factors such as genetic background)

THREE STAGES OF MEMORY

1) Sensory Memory

• Very brief memory storage immediately following initial reception of a stimulus

• Senses of sight and hearing (along with other senses) are able to hold an input for a fraction of a second before it disappears

• Are two types of sensory memory:

– Iconic memory

• Visual sensory memory

– Echoic memory

• Type of sensory memory that holds auditory information for 1 to 2 seconds)

• Sensory memory serves three functions:

– Prevents you from being overwhelmed by all the various incoming stimuli

• Anything you don’t pay attention to vanishes in seconds!

– Gives you decision time

• The information is there just long enough for you to decide whether this information is worth paying attention to (if it is then it goes to short-term memory)

– Allows for continuity and stability

• Makes images smooth and continuous and play back auditory information so can recognize sounds as words

2) Short-Term Memory

• Memory that is limited in capacity (i.e. amount) to about seven items and in duration by the subject’s active rehearsal

• Consists of the things you have in your conscious mind at any one moment

• Does not necessarily involve paying close attention

• Contains information that is of possible interest

• Maintenance Rehearsal

– System for remembering involving repeating information to oneself without attempting to find meaning in it

– Short-term memory lasts a bit less than 20 seconds without rehearsal

• Ex. Saying phone number aloud!!!

• Chunking

– The process of grouping items to make them easier to remember

– Short-term memory can only hold about seven unrelated items

– One of the tricks of memorizing a lot of information quickly is to chunk together the items as fast as they come in, if we connect items in groups, we have fewer to remember

• Primacy-Recency Effect

– You are better able to recall information presented at the beginning and end (the first stuff you have had time to rehearse, the last stuff is still recent, and the middle is lost because you were trying to rehearse the first ones and ember the new ones!)

• Working Memory

– System for processing and working with current information

– Includes both short-term memory (events that just occurred) and information stored in long-term memory now recalled for current information

3) Long-Term Memory

• It is storage of information over extended periods of time

• Stored according to categories or feature (often likened to filing cabinet)

• Capacity seems to be limitless

• Contains representations of countless facts, experiences and sensations

• Involves all of the previously described processes (pass through sensory memory, to short-term memory and then into long-term memory)

• Although things may become less accessible, elements will still be stored in long-term memory

• There are four types of long-term memory….

a) Semantic Memory

Knowledge of language, including its rules, words, and meanings

Share this knowledge with other speakers of our language

• b)Episodic Memory

Memory of one’s life, including time of occurrence

Stored here are things where time of occurrence is important

Example: When you woke up this morning

• c) Declarative Memory

Memory of knowledge that can be called forth consciously as needed

Involves booth episodic and semantic memory

Information you call forth consciously and use as you need it

• d) Procedural Memory

Memory of learned skills that does not require conscious recollection

Example: As we gain a skill, we gradually lose the ability to describe what we are doing

IMPROVING MEMORY

• Techniques for improving memory are based on efficient organization of the thins you learn and on chunking information into easily handled packages

Meaningfulness and Association

• One way to remember is through elaborative rehearsal

– Linking of new information to material that you already know

– Relate new information to what you already know

– The more meaningful something is, the easier it will be to remember

• You remember things more vividly you associate then with things already stored in memory or with a strong emotional experience

• The more categories a memory is “indexed” under, the more accessible it is and each association can serve as a trigger for the memory

• The more senses and experiences you use when trying to memorize something, the more likely it is that you will be able to retrieve it

• Good ways to protect a memory from interference:

– Overlearn it (to keep on rehearing it even after you think you know it well)

– Avoid studying similar material together

– Space out your learning

Mnemonic Devices

• Techniques for using associations to memorize and retrieve information such as:

– Methods of Loci

– Rhymes

– Mental Pictures

– Giving a word for each picture