Chapter 5:Memory

Slides prepared by Randall E. Osborne, Texas State University-San Marcos,

adapted by Dr Mark Forshaw, Staffordshire University, UK

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The Structure and Processes of Memory

• Memory• Encoding• Storage• Retrieval

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Memory Structure

• Memory storage• Sensory memory store

– iconic memory– echoic memory

• Short-term (working) memory• Long-term storage

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Short-term Memory

• Short-term (working) memory

• Rehearsal• Chunking (normal

limit of seven chunks)

• Working memory (active)

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Long-term Memory• Long-term memory

store• Anterograde

amnesia (no memory forward)

• Retrograde amnesia (no memories backward)

• Hippocampus

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Remembering throughEncoding: Transferring

Perceptions into Memories

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Encoding• Memory is not a

recording device• Elaborative

encoding• Levels of

processing– semantic judgments– rhyme judgments– visual judgments

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Visual Imagery Encoding

• Visual imagery• Simonides

– Greek poet perfected visual imagery encoding

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Orgnizational Encoding

• Organizational encoding– noticing

relationships– creating categories– conceptual groups

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Storage: Maintaining Memories over Time

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Memories in the Brain• NMDA receptor

– flow of information from one neuron to another

• NMDA receptors become activated:– “sending” neuron releases

glutamate– “receiving” neuron excited

• Long-term potentiation (LTP) results– enhanced neural processing

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Retrieval: Bringing Memories to Mind

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Retrieval Cues• Retrieval cues - reinstating the past• Encoding specificity principle

– Cues work best when they re-create the conditions in which the information was first encoded

• State-dependent retrieval– Recalling information learned when drunk is easier when

drunk again

• Transfer-appropriate processing• Trying to recall (frontal lobes) and actually recalling

(hippocampus) are different

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Multiple Forms of Memory

• Implicit memory• Explicit memory• Procedural

memory• Semantic memory• Episodic memory• Priming

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Multiple Forms of Memory

• Priming– hippocampal region less active than

other forms of memory– frontal and occipital lobes active

during initial exposure (priming) but less active on second exposure

– priming potentially “saves” processing time

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Multiple Forms of Memory

• Semantic memory• Episodic memory

– mental time travel

• Do animals have episodic memory?

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Forgetting

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Forgetting• Transience

– forgetting with the passage of time

• Hermann Ebbinghaus– nonsense syllables

• Retroactive interference

• Proactive interference

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Forgetting

• Blocking• Tip-of-the-

tongue experience– More likely

as we age

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Answers

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• 1. Vendetta, 2. Amulet, 3. Obsidian, 4. Cartographer, 5. Cuckold, 6. Scarab, 7. Caduceus, 8. Riga, 9. Hospice, 10. Anachronism

Forgetting• Absentmindedness

– lapse in attention that results in memory failure

• Prospective memory– Remembering to do things in the future

• Amnesia– Retrograde and anterograde

• Ageing and Memory– Few of us remember early childhood well– As we age, processing speeds and efficiencies

decline

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Metamemory

• Knowing what you know and feeling of knowing

• Misattributions• Suggestibility• Intrusion Errors• Persistence

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Forgetting

• Memory misattribution– primary cause of eyewitness misidentifications– Explains déjà vu

• Source monitoring– Internal, external or reality based: checking on

yourself

• False recognition– can be reduced with distinctive information

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Forgetting

• Bias• Consistency bias• Change bias

– exaggerate difference in how we feel now versus then

• Egocentric bias– self-enhancing

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Forgetting• Suggestibility

– Inserting external information into one’s own memories

– No easy way of knowing how many of our ‘personal’ memories have been ‘tainted’ this way

• Elizabeth Loftus– misleading details: leading questions, e.g. the

barn in the video of a sports car– Fabricating entire episodes: ‘remembering’ being

lost in a shopping centre that never happened

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Persistence: Failing to Forget

• Persistence– Intrusive memories of things we wish we could

forget

• Flashbulb memories– vivid both visually and emotionally– Occurs in Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

• Role of amygdala

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Memory Failures: Schacter’s Seven Sins of Memory

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Seven Sins of Memory

• Transience• Absentmindedness• Blocking• Memory misattribution• Suggestibility• Bias• Persistence

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Seven Sins of Memory

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