MEMORYChapter 8, Myers

MEMORY Memory is defined as the persistence of learning

over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

For a psychologist, evidence that learning persists:o Recall: Retrieving information that is not in

consciously in your conscious awareness, but that was learned at an earlier time (fill in the blank test

o Recognition: identifying items previously learned (multiple choice test)

o Relearning: assesses the amount of time saved when relearning material again

Different models are used to explain memory No one model accounts for all memory

phenomena.

INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

Comparison human memory to computer operations.

To remember any event, we must perform the following:o Encoding: getting information into the memory

systemo Storage: the retention of information over timeo Retrieval: the process of getting information out

of memory storage Our dual-track brain processes many thing

simultaneously through parallel processing. Connectionism: an information processing

model that views memories as products of interconnected neural networks.

THREE-STAGE MODEL Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) suggest we form

memories through 3 stages We first record to-be-remembered information

as a fleeting sensory memory We then process information into short-term

memory (STM), which can only hold a few items briefly such as seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is either stored or forgotten. o We encode this new information as a

memory through rehearsal. The information is then moved into long-term

memory, a relatively permanent and limitless storehouse which includes knowledge, skills and experiences.

THREE-STAGE MODEL OF MEMORY

WORKING MEMORY Alan Baddeley (1998) challenged Akinson &

Shiffrin’s view of short-term memory. His research evidences that short-term

memory focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Auditory rehearsal

Central Executive focuses attention

Visual-spatial information

Long-term memory

ENCODING: ACQUIRING INFORMATION Encoding can occur in two ways:

o Automatic Processing: unconscious encoding of information that does not interfere with our conscious thinkingspace – location of items time – sequence of day’s eventsfrequency – how many times things have happened

well-learned information, such as word meanings that occurs without interfering with our thinking

Results in IMPLICIT MEMORIES (also known as nondeclarative memories) These are memories that are retained independent of conscious recollection.

ENCODING: ACQUIRING INFORMATION

o Effortful Processing: encoding that requires our attention and conscious effort which results in our EXPLICIT MEMORIES (also known as declarative memories) – memories of facts, & experiences that one consciously knows & “declare” Maintenance rehearsal – simple repeating keeps information in STM

Elaboration rehearsal – thinking & making connections to other learned ideas.

Results in the formation of Explicit Memories (also known as declarative memories) These are memories of facts & experiences that we can consciously know and declare.

SENSORY MEMORY Effortful processing begins with sensory

memoryo Iconic Memory: momentary sensory memory

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

o George Sperling (1960) showed his participants displays (above) for only 1/20th of a second. He found that when he cued the participants to report one of the three rows of letters, they could do it, even if the cue was given shortly after the display had been removed.

SENSORY MEMORY (CONT’D) o eidetic imagery or photographic memory: an especially clear and persistent form of iconic memory that is quite rare

o Echoic Memory: sensory memory of auditory stimuli – even if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 to 4 seconds. o allows you to remember the words that you said at the beginning of a long sentence when you get to the end of it, or to take notes on your psychology teacher’s most recent statement even after she has finished saying it.

CAPACITIES OF SHORT-TERM & WORKING MEMORIES

Short-term memory: holds a limited amount of information for about 30 seconds unless it is processed further. o Capacity of STM is approximately 7 bits (plus or

minus 2) bits of information at one time. (ex: 7 digits of a telephone # or 6 letters or 5 words)

o If we rehearse the new information, we can hold it longer in STM

Working memory: capacity varies depending on age & other factors o Although young adults have a larger working

memory capacity & theoretically have a greater ability to multitask, research still supports more efficient production of work when a person is focused without distractions on one task at a time.

EFFORTFUL PROCESSING STRATEGIES Chunking: organizing items into familiar,

manageable units in order to recall it more easily – often occurs automatically.

How would you learn the following series of letters: F-B-I-T-W-A-C-I-A-I-B-M

FBI TWA CIA IBM (4 chunks) Mnemonics: memory tricks or strategies to

make information easier to remember o Acronyms: Phrases:

EFFORTFUL PROCESSING STRATEGIES

o Peg Word System: mnemonics that uses our superior visual imagery

First you learn the jingle… 1 is a bun, 2 is a shoe, 3 is a tree…. then you learn to count by peg words instead of numbers… next you visually associate peg words with to-be-remembered items.

EFFORTFUL PROCESSING STRATEGIES When people develop expertise in an area,

they process information not only in chunks but also in hierarches.

Organizing knowledge in hierarchies helps us to retrieve information efficiently.

When using hierarchies, we arrange concepts from general to the more specific….

EFFORTFUL PROCESSING STRATEGIES Distributed Practice: We retain information

better when our encoding is distributed over time. o Spacing Effect: the tendency for

distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed practice (cramming of information in one session)

o Testing Effect: self-testing where you enhance your memory by retrieving rather than simply reading information (also known as test-enhanced learning or retrieval practice effect)

SUMMARY: ENCODING & EFFORTFUL PROCESSING

LEVELS OF PROCESSING Shallow Processing: encoding on a basic level

based on the structure or appearance of the word

Intermediate Processing: encoding on an acoustic level by the sound of the word or “rhymes with”

Deep Processing: encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words – usually yield the best retentionSelf-Referent

Encoding: relating new information to ourselves – one of the best ways to facilitate later recall.

Procedural

MEMORY STORAGE Long-Term Memory (LTM): relatively permanent

storage with unlimited capacity into which information.o However, memories are NOT stored in precise locations in the brain; instead many parts of the brain interact as we encode, store, & retrieves information that forms our memories.

Explicit (Declarative) Memory System is divided intoo Semantic Memories: facts and general

knowledge o Episodic Memories: personally experienced

event o The frontal lobes & hippocampus are involved

in the processing and storage of explicit memories

MEMORY STORAGE (CONT’D)

o Hippocampus: houses a temporal lobe neural center that processes explicit memories which are then sent to other brain regions for storage. • Left hippocampus damage: problems with verbal recall

• Right hippocampus damage: trouble with recalling visual designs & locations.

o SLEEP supports memory consolidation. During deep sleep the hippocampus processed memories for later retrieval.

Hippocampus

MEMORY STORAGE (CONT’D)

Implicit (nondeclarative) Memory System is divided into:o Procedural Memories: motor and cognitive skillso Dispositional Memories: classical and operant

conditioning effects such as automatic associations between stimuli.

The cerebellum plays a key role in the forming & storing of implicit memories associated with classical conditioning & procedural skills. The basal ganglia, found

deep within the brain, facilitate the formation of procedural memories for skills.

MEMORY STORAGE (CONT’D) Although our cerebellum & basal ganglia help us

explain how the reactions & skills we learn in infancy reach far into our future.

However, our conscious memories of our 1st 3 years of life are blank – known as infantile amnesia. This phenomenon can be attributed to: o We do not yet have the language or words to

index our explicit memories o The hippocampus is one of the last brain

structures to mature.

MEMORY STORAGE (CONT’D) Emotions trigger stress hormones that

influence memory formation, These hormones make energy available to

fuel brain activity, signaling to the brain that something important has occurred.

Stress hormones also signal the amygdala to initiate a memory trace in the frontal lobes & the basal ganglia & to boost activity in the memory-forming areas of the brain.

Significantly stressful events can form almost indelible memories.

Emotions often persist without conscious awareness of what caused them.

MEMORY STORAGE (CONT’D) Flashbulb Memory: a clear memory of an

emotionally significant moment or event. o Such memories are noteworthy because of their

vividness & confidence with which we recall themo However, as we relive, rehearse, & discuss them,

these memories may be marked with error & misinformation.

AREAS OF BRAIN INVOLVED IN MEMORY STORAGE

SYNAPTIC CHANGES IN MEMORY FORMATION Long-Term Potentiation (LTP): the increase in the

efficiency of signals sent across the synapse within neural networks of long-term memories. o Sending neurons in memory-circuit pathways,

release neurotransmitters faster. Rceiving neurons may increase their number of receptor molecules.

o Believed to be the neural basis for learning and memory associations

o After LTP occurs, passing an electric current through the brain will not disrupt old memories, but will wipe out very recent memories. A blow to the head can have similar results.

o Research on memory improving drugs is focusing on glutamate (excitatory neurotransmitter involved in memory formation & learning

HERMAN EBBINGHOUS The first to experimentally investigate the

properties of human memory. Assumed that the process of committing

something to memory involved the formation of new associations that would be strengthened through repetition.

To observe this process, he devised a set of items to be committed to memory that would have no previous associations, the so-called nonsense syllables.

He proceeded to memorize these lists through systematic repetition & found a positive correlation between repetition and ability to recall the list items.

RETRIEVING MEMORIES Retrieval: process of getting information out

of memory storage. Recall: a measure of memory in which the

person must retrieve information learned earlier, as in a fill in the blank test.

Recognition: a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple choice test

Reconstruction: when information we try to remember has missing pieces, retrieval of such memories can be distorted by adding, dropping or changing details to fit a schema.

RETRIEVING MEMORIES (CONT’D) Priming: activating specific associations in

memory often done unconsciouslyo Often termed the “awakening of our associations”

RETRIEVING MEMORIES (CONT’D) Context-Dependent Memory: the physical setting

in which a person learns information is encoded along with the information and becomes part of the memory trace.

Putting yourself back in the context where you experienced or learned something can prime memory retrieval

Godden & Baddeley (1975): divers learned lists of words on dry land or underwater. o Words were best

recalled in the same context in which they were learned.

RETRIEVING MEMORIES (CONT’D)

State-Dependent Memory Effect: tendency to recall information better when in the same internal states as when the information was encoded.

RETRIEVING MEMORIES (CONT’D)

Mood Congruence (mood-dependent memory): tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good/bad mood.

Serial Position Effect: when trying to retrieve a long list of words, we recall the last word and the first words best, forgetting the words in the middle.

Primacy Effect: recall of the first items, thought to be a result of greater rehearsal

Recency Effect: better recall of the last items of the list – immediate after learning, these last words may still be in working memory

Forgetting & the Two Track Mind Anterograde Amnesia: destruction of the

hippocampus results in the inability to put new information into explicit memory. No new semantic memories are stored.o Research with anterograde amnesia patients

indicates that although they cannot form new explicit memories, their automatic processing ability remained intact (implicit memories were formed)

o These patients could learn a new skill but did not have any recall of learning this new skill.

Retrograde Amnesia: memory loss for a segment of the past, usually around the time of the accident (such as a blow to the head). May result from a disruption in the process of long-term potentiation

FORGETTING Encoding Failure: We cannot remember what

we have not encoded.

Decay of stored memories: gradual fading of the physical memory trace because we may have never used that information and the neuronal connections are no longer there

EBBINGHOUS: FORGETTING Ebbinghous was credited with the creation of

the first learning curve (forgetting curve) Forgetting occurred most rapidly soon after the

end of practice, and then slowed. He found that recognition was sometimes

easier than recall to measure forgetting. Overlearning Effect: Ebbinghous found that if

one continued to practice a list after memorizing it well, the information was more resistant to forgetting.

Saving Method: Ebbinghous used this to measure the retention of informationo Amount of repetitions required to relearn a

list compared to the number of repetitions it took to learn the list originally.

EBBINGHOUS FORGETTING CURVE

We forget 50% of what we learn with one hour of

learning it unless we put it into practice or are continuously supported and provided with access to knowledge

FORGETTING (CONT’D) Tip-of –the-Tongue Phenomenon: a often

temporary inability to access information accompanied by a feeling that the information is in LTM.

Relearning: measure of retention of memory that assesses the time saved compared to learning the first time when learning information again.o If the relearning takes as much time as the

initial learning, then the memory of the information has decayed.

Interference: learning some items prevents us from retrieving others, particularly when the items are similar.

FORGETTING (CONT’D) Proactive Interference: the process by which

old memories prevent the retrieval of newer memories (forward acting)o Ex: If you buy a new combination lock, your

memory of the old combination may interfere.

Retroactive Interference: the process by which new memories prevent the retrieval of older memories. (backward acting) o Ex: if someone sings new lyrics to the tune

of an old song, you may have trouble remembering the old information.

Repression (Freud): the tendency to forget unpleasant or traumatic memories hidden in our unconscious mind, that with proper therapy, can be retrieved. (motivated forgetting)

MEMORY CONSTRUCTION ERRORS Reconsolidation: we often reconstruct our

memories as we encode them. Every time we ‘replay’ a memory we replace the original with a slightly modified version.

Elizabeth Loftus is one of the strongest opponents of repressed memorieso Memories of traumatic events suddenly

recalled during therapy may result from confabulation - the active reconstruction of memory where gaps are filled in by combining and substituting memories from events other than the one we are trying to remember.

o When trying to remember details at an accident scene we often exhibit confabulation.

MEMORY CONSTRUCTION ERRORS (CONT’D) Misinformation Effect: Occurs when we

incorporate misleading information into our memory of an event.

Misattribution Error (Source Amnesia): attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. o Source amnesia along with misinformation

effect is at the heart of most false memories.

o déjà vu: the eerie sense the ‘you have experienced a situation before’. Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier memory.

CHILDREN’S EYEWITNESS RECALL Repressed or Constructed Memories of Abuse?

o Sexual & physical abuse happens: there are no characteristic group of symptoms or syndrome that would help to identify victims of sexual &/or physical abuse.

o Injustice happens: innocent people are falsely accused; other guilty people have evaded taking responsibility for their actions

o Recovered memories are commonplace: cued by some remark or experience, we recover memories of long-forgotten events. Memories that surface naturally are more likely to be verified than those retrieved by therapist aided techniques.

CHILDREN’S EYEWITNESS RECALL

o Memories of things happening before the age of 3 are unreliable.

o Memories recovered under hypnosis or the influence of drugs are especially unreliable.

o Memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting.

New Research suggests that victims of childhood abuse do not repress their abuse, rather they simply stop devoting thought & emotion to it (McNally & Geraerts, 2009)

The most common response to traumatic experiences is to have them etched on the mind as vivid, persistent, & haunting memories.

IMPROVING MEMORY Study Repeatedly Make the material meaningful Activate retrieval cues mnemonic devices acronyms The Method of Loci: memorize the layout of a

given geographic entity of discrete loci (place, location). Then attach key items to each place. Then you retrieve information by “walking” through the loci, allowing each place to cue the desired items.

Minimize interference Sleep More Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it

and to find out what you don’t know yet.