Cognition:

•Studying and Building Memories

•Memory Storage

•Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Memory Improvement

•Thinking, Concepts, and Creativity

•Solving Problems and Making Decisions

•Thinking and Language

IntroductionMemory Capacity ActivityTED Talk: The Fiction of Memory by

Elizabeth Loftushttps://www.ted.com/playlists/196/

the_complexity_of_memory

Module 31: Studying & Building Memories

MEMORY: The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Sensory Memory works as a filter. It allows us time to determine what to pay attention to.

Working Memory

Information Processinghttps://education-portal.com/academy/

lesson/information-processing.html

Building Memories: EncodingExplicit Memory: Memory of facts and experiences

that one can consciously know and “declare.”

Effortful Processing: Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Automatic Processing: Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

Implicit Memory: Retention independent of conscious recollection (skills we learn).

Categorizing Memoryhttps://education-portal.com/academy/

lesson/categorizing-memory.html

How does sensory memory work? Iconic Memory: A momentary sensory memory of

visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Echoic Memory: A momentary sensory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.

Short-Term or Working Memory Use it or lose it!!!!!

Chunking = Grouping items to make them easier to remember

Working with information…..

https://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/improving-short-term-memory.html

Short-Term or Working Memory Use it or lose it!!!!!

Mnemonic Devices = Techniques for using associations to memorize and retrieve information

Working with information…..

Famous Mnemonic DevicesRead each sentence or phase and record what it

stands for.

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally-

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain-

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge-

King Phillip Cried Out For Good Soup-

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us

Noodles-

Super Man Helps Every One-

Famous Mnemonic DevicesRead each sentence or phase and record what it

stands for. Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally- (Parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition,

subtraction)

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain- (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet)

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge- (E,G,B,D,F)

King Phillip Cried Out For Good Soup- (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles-(Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) Super Man Helps Every One- (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario)

Module 32: Memory Storage and Retrieval

Retaining Information in the BrainMemories are NOT stored in one part of the

brain.

Memory and the BrainWe are still learning about the role of the brain in MEMORY. To what extent the brain isinvolved is still beingdetermined.

Storage:Long-Term Memory hippocampus--neural center in limbic system

that helps process explicit memories for storage

Processes explicit memories – then sent to multiple different regions.

Hippocampus

Long-Term Memory

Types of Long-Term Memory

Episodic memory – memory of our own life (Personal facts)

Semantic memory – knowledge of language, including rules, words, and meanings

Declarative memory – Stored knowledge called forth consciously as needed; includes episodic and semantic

Procedural memory – Storage of learned skills that does not require conscious recollection

DID YOU KNOW!Flashbulb Memories are vivid recollections of events that are shocking or emotional

The SQ3R method of studying improves your ability to recognize and recall information

Photographic memory – ability to form sharp, detailed visual images of a picture or page and to recall exactly what you saw.

FACT: 59-year-old Akira Haraguchi recited from memory the first 83,431 decimal places of pi, earning a spot in the Guinness World Records.

FACT: Super card sharks can memorize the order of a shuffled deck of cards in less than a minute

FACT: According to evidence, it's impossible to recall images with near perfect accuracy

DOES IT EXIST?

Superior Autobiographical Memoryhttp://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-gift-of-

endless-memory/

Module 33: Forgetting, Memory, Construction, and Memory

Improvement

Motivated Forgetting

• Self-serving personal histories

• Repression

FORGETTING

Types

Decay – fading away of memory over time

Amnesia – loss of memory as a result of a blow to head or brain damage. Other causes: Stress/Drugs

Interference – blockage of a memory by previous or subsequent memories or loss of a retrieval cue

•Proactive Interference: prior learning interferes with learning new information• Retroactive Interference: newly learned information interferes with previously learned information

Memory Construction ErrorsMisinformation and Imagination Source amnesia (source misattribution)Déjà vuDiscerning True and False MemoriesRepressed or Constructed Memories

• Eyewitness Testimony• It is often wrong• Involves recognition • Memory of event is often distorted• Eyewitnesses can be misled by questioning

Improving Memory• Rehearse repeatedly• Make the material meaningful• Activate retrieval cues• Use mnemonic devices• Minimize interference• Sleep more• Test your own knowledge, both to

rehearse it and to help determine what you do not yet know

Module 34: Thinking, Cognition, and Creativity

Creativity • Ways to boost creativity

–Develop your expertise–Allow time for incubation–Set aside time for the mind to roam freely

–Experience other cultures and ways of thinking

Problem Solving: Strategies and Obstacles• Algorithms

–Step-by-step

• Heuristic• Insight• Confirmation bias

• Mental set

Forming Good and Bad Decisions and Judgments

• Intuition– Automatic unreasoned feelings and thoughts– Seat of their pants

• The Representative Heuristic– Prototype– Likelihood of something

Overconfidence• Belief perseverance

– Consider the opposite• Framing

Language and Language Acquisitions

https://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/what-is-language.html

https://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/language-acquisition.html

Language Development• Receptive language• Productive language

–Babbling stage–One-word stage–Two-word stage–Telegraphic speech

Language and the Brain• Aphasia• Broca’s Area• Wernicke’s Area

Language What is language?

https://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/what-is-language.html

Language Acquisitionhttps://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/

language-acquisition.html