psyco 350 lec #1 – slide 1 lecture 1 – psyco 350, b1 winter, 2011 n. r. brown

Psyco 350 Lec #1 – Slide 1

Lecture 1 – Psyco 350, B1Winter, 2011

N. R. Brown


Outline

• Introduction – Memory Defined

– Memory in Context

• A very little bit of history

• Information Processing & the Modal Model


Memory as Everything -- I

“Memory is perhaps the most central aspect of human thought. Any question about human behavior, cognition, development, and nature requires an understanding of memory. Our memory makes us who we are, and it is one of the most intimate parts of ourselves… Many feel that the study of human memory is the closest on can get to a systematic study of the human soul.”

-- Radvansky, p. 1


Memory as Everything -- II

"we owe to memory almost all that we have or are;... our ideas and conceptions are its work, and ... our everyday perceptions, thoughts and movement is derived from this source. Memory collects the countless phenomena of our existence into a single whole..."

"every waking moment is full of memories. Every thought, every learned response, every act of recognition is based on memory. It can be reasonably be argued that memory is the mind.“ -- Gray


Memory as Everything – A Simple Demonstration


Memory as Everything – A Simple Demonstration• (read &) store 1st #:• (read &) store 2nd #:• Retrieve-execute:• retrieve top ones digit:• retrieve bottom ones digit:• retrieve addition fact:• store ones sum:• retrieve-execute:

– retrieve top tens digit:– retrieve addition fact:– store new top tens digit:

• retrieve top tens digit• retrieve bottom tens digit:• retrieve addition fact:• store tens sum• Retrieve, combine sums• State answer:


Memory is Everything

1. Name all of Canada’s provincial and territorial capitals.

2. How many of Canada’s provincial and territorial capitals have you visited?

3. Recall the addition problem we just solved.


Memory – Dictionary Definitions

mem·o·ry 1.The mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience. 2.The act or an instance of remembering; recollection: spent the afternoon lost in memory.

3.All that a person can remember: It hasn't happened in my memory.

4.Something remembered: pleasant childhood memories. 5.The fact of being remembered; remembrance: dedicated to their parents' memory. 6.The period of time covered by the remembrance or recollection of a person or group of persons: within the memory of humankind. 7.Biology. Persistent modification of behavior resulting from an animal's experience. 8.Computer Science.

a.A unit of a computer that preserves data for retrieval. b.Capacity for storing information: two gigabytes of memory.

9.Statistics. The set of past events affecting a given event in a stochastic process. 10.The capacity of a material, such as plastic or metal, to return to a previous shape after deformation. 11.Immunology. The ability of the immune system to respond faster and more powerfully to subsequent exposure to an antigen.

-- American Heritage Dictionary

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Memory – A Dictionary Definition

mem·o·ry 1.The mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience. 2.The act or an instance of remembering; recollection: spent the afternoon lost in memory.

3.All that a person can remember: It hasn't happened in my memory.

4.Something remembered: pleasant childhood memories. 5.The fact of being remembered; remembrance: dedicated to their parents' memory. 6.The period of time covered by the remembrance or recollection of a person or group of persons: within the memory of humankind. 7.Biology. Persistent modification of behavior resulting from an animal's experience. 8.Computer Science.

a.A unit of a computer that preserves data for retrieval. b.Capacity for storing information: two gigabytes of memory.

9.Statistics. The set of past events affecting a given event in a stochastic process. 10.The capacity of a material, such as plastic or metal, to return to a previous shape after deformation. 11.Immunology. The ability of the immune system to respond faster and more powerfully to subsequent exposure to an antigen.

-- American Heritage Dictionary

https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dmemory


Memory Definitions -- Psychologists

“First, memory is the location, where information is kept…a memory store

Second, memory can refer to the thing that holds the content of experience… a memory trace

Third, memory is the mental process used to acquire (learn), store, and retrieve (remember) information of all sorts.” -- Radvansky, p.1


Memory Definitions -- Psychologists"Memory is .. an individual's entire store of

information and the set of processes that allow the individual to recall and use that information when need." -- Gray

“Mental capacity to store and later recognize and recall events that were previously experienced.”

-- Zimbardo

“Memory does not comprise a single entity, but rather consists of a range of different systems that have in common the capacity for storing information.”

– Baddeley


Memory Definition – Some Basic Points

• Memory as “container”

• Memory as “contents”

• Memory as “process” – encoding: create contents (i.e. memory traces)

from experience

– storage: rehearse, organize/modify contents

– retrieval: accesses content

• Contents reflect prior experience


Memory in Context: Who cares about memory research & why

• In Psychology -- (all of them):

• Outside of Psychology:


A Very Little Bit of History


Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)

• Father of Memory Research

• Memory stripped of meaning

• Inventor of the nonsense syllable (DAX, FOZ, KIR)

• Discoverer of:– Learning curve

– Forgetting function


Fredrick Bartlett (1850-1909)

• Impact of prior knowledge and meaning on memory.

• Most important ideas:– reconstruction

– schemata


Verbal Learning

• Emerged from Behaviorism

• Focus:– relationship between external variables and

human memory performance

– forgetting and theories of forgetting

• Approach: – Rigorously conducted, list learning (often paired

associate) experiments


Historical PrecedenceEbbinghaus

Behaviorism

Bartlett

Verbal Learning

Information Processing

Cog Psych

Contemporary Memory

Research


And Now …

Cognitive Research

Memory Research



• Core metaphor:

human mind as serial computer

• To understand/describe computer behavior, specify:– hardware

– software

– available data



• To understand/describe human behavior, specify:– the cognitive architecture (hardware)

• identify components & their general function:• characterize components in terms of:

–capacity–speed–accuracy

– a cognitive task analysis (software & data)



Cognitive Task Analysis (software & data):

• What are the mental operations required to perform a task?

• How are the operations sequenced?• What information is involved in task?• How is the information accessed?• How is it represented?• How is it altered during the processing?


A Simple Computer Architecture

• Input devices/registers

• Active memory and processing

• Inactive (but accessible) memory


Modal Model of Memory

• The standard model of memory

• Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)

• Four components– Sensory registers

– Short-term memory

– Long-term memory

– Control processes


Modal Model of Memory


Modal Model: Component Functions

1. Sensory stores:function: buffers sensory input for selection and identification

2. Short-term Memory

function: temporal storage during processing

3. Long-term Memory

function: store declarative & procedural knowledge

declarative -- knowing that

procedural -- knowing how

4. Attention

function: Selection and transfer from sensory stores

Maintenance of information in STM

Selection and scheduling of tasks


Multiple (Long-term) Memory Systems

• Long-term memory involves several sub-components

• Different memory systems for different types of information


Multiple Memory Systems

• Memory– Declarative Memory (explicit memory)

• Semantic memory –“permanent,” decontextualized knowledge

• Episodic memory–“forgettable” event memories

– Nondeclarative memory (implicit memory)• Procedural memory• Classical conditioning• Priming


Memory as Everything – A Simple Demonstration• (read &) store 1st #: [84] blue = WM• (read &) store 2nd #: [57]• Retrieve-execute: [2-digit addition strategy] red =

procedural• retrieve top ones digit: [4] memory • retrieve bottom ones digit: [7]• retrieve addition fact: [4+7=11] green = semantic• store ones sum: [1] memory• retrieve-execute: [carry operation]

– retrieve top tens digit: [8]– retrieve addition fact: [8+1=9]– store new top tens digit: [9]

• retrieve top tens digit [9]• retrieve bottom tens digit: [5]• retrieve addition fact: [9+5=14]• store tens sum [14_]• Retrieve, combine sums[14; 1 141]• State answer: “141”


Memory is Everything

1. Name all of Canada’s provincial and territorial capitals.

2. How many of Canada’s provincial and territorial capitals have you visited?

3. Recall the addition problem we just solved.

psyco 350 lec #1 – slide 1 lecture 1 – psyco 350, b1 winter, 2011 n. r. brown

Documents

understanding of memory

gigabytes of memory

memory of humankind

parents memory

study of human memory

addition fact

ones digit

store tens sumretrieve