Three-Step Memory Process

Encoding Storage Retrieval

• integrating information into

the memory system

•preserving encoded material

in memory

• accessing memory from

storage

You meet a hot lady and learn her name.

You say her name over and over in

your head to memorize it.

You have to recall her name when you want to snapchat

her.

Computers Do This Same Process!

Encoding Storage Retrieval

You type into a computer.

You hit “save” to preserve your

document.

You can “open” your file at a later date.

We are going to focus on this

element ofmemory today.

Story Time!• You go to your favorite restaurant

tonight for dinner, Jerry’s Pizzeria. You are seated at a table with a white tablecloth. You study the menu. You tell the server you want a large pan style pizza with cheese, pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms. You also order a salad with blue cheese dressing and a cherry coke from the drink list. Twenty-five minutes later the server returns with meal. You enjoy it all, except the pizza is a little burnt.

Story Questions1. What kind of salad dressing did

you order?2. Was the tablecloth red checkered?3. What did you order to drink?4. What was the restaurant name?5. Did the server give you a menu?6. Was the server a man?7. What toppings did you order on

the pizza?8. Did the meal take less than a half

hour to arrive? How long did it take?9. How much did you tip the waiter?10.When did you go to the restaurant?

Story Questions1. What kind of salad dressing did

you order? Blue Cheese

2. Was the tablecloth red checkered? White

3. What did you order to drink? Cherry Coke

4. What was the restaurant name? Jerry’s Pizzeria

5. Did the server give you a menu? No, it was already provided

Story Questions6. Was the server a man?

We do not know

7. What toppings did you order on the pizza?

Pepperoni, sausage and mushrooms

8. Did the meal take more or less than a half hour to arrive? How long did it take?

Less …25 minutes

9. How much did you tip the waiter? The story does not say that the waiter was

tipped

10. When did you go to the restaurant? Tonight

Retrieval: Accessing memory from storage

If I asked you if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you would access your memory and tell me – this is the act of

retrieval.

Memory Retrieval• Priming: A stimulus inducing the recall of a

memory– “When I hear ___________, I think of ___________.”– When I ask you about white people, what terms

come to mind? What about hispanics? Or blacks? Or asians?

– Mnemonic Devices are examples of priming (In 1492 Columbus sailed …)

• Examples:• What associations do the pictures below bring up in

your mind?

Memory Retrieval• Context Effects: recall rate

is improved if remembering is occurring in the same location as where the memory was formed– If you go to your old house, it may

conjure up old memories.– Visit your middle school and you

may suddenly remember your old locker combination.

– If I have half of you take your next exam in a different room, you will likely score worse than if you took it in your normal Psych room.

– Déjà vu is probably just cues from the current situation triggering retrieval of an earlier experience

– Land/Water Experiment

Memory Retrieval• Mood-Congruent

Memory: memory recall tends to be consistent with the mood you are in– If you’re jubilant, you’ll think of

other happy memories!

– If you’re depressed, you’ll tend to think of other sad memories. This happens less often than the happy memories (when we’re sad we try to regulate our mood by not thinking about negative things)

• FIRST… list as many of the states in the country as you can remember.

• NOW… try again, using this image asa resource.

Memory Retrieval

• Recall: memory retrieval conducted without any cues or references– When I first asked you to

name all the states– Ex: essay, short answer,

fill-in-the-blank question– ______ was the twenty-sixth

president of the United States.

• Recognition: memory retrieval conducted by identifying learned items– When I gave you the pictures of the

states as hints– Ex: multiple-choice question– Who was the twenty-sixth president

of the United States?– A: George Washington

B: Teddy Roosevelt C: Dwight Eisenhower D: Calvin Coolidge

Memory Retrieval

Retrieval Failure• Failure to Encode: sometimes we fail to encode

because there is just too much information and we don’t notice small details

Is this what a penny looks like?(consider the words, orientation of

the picture, color, shape, etc.)

Retrieval Failure• Hermann Ebbinghaus Study / Curve of

Forgetting: taught himself nonsense syllables (dak, bax, etc.) then measured how much he still remembered at later time intervals

Key Point? Forgetting is rapid at first, then stabilizes over time

Retrieval Failure• Amnesia: memory loss

– When people say they “forgot” something, their brain still has the information; they’re just having trouble accessing it

– Literal memory loss can be caused by brain trauma, alcohol abuse, etc…

– Old age can also cause memory loss as the brainbegins to wither and decay;neural networks becomedestroyed and “routes”to information are lost

• Proactive Interference:– Old learning

interfering with memory of new learning

– PEDAL(Prior Disrupts Later)

• Ex: you call your new girlfriend your old girlfriend’s name

• Retroactive Interference:– New learning interfering

with recall of old learning

• Ex: you call your old girlfriend your new girlfriend’s name

• Ex: miss test day, next day start new unit, following day go to take original test but keep thinking of new material

Retrieval Failure

• Repression is a defense mechanism where your consciousness buries threatening memories– Our mind is protecting

itself!

Retrieval Failure

• Often uncovered through hypnosis... but is it real?

• Repressed memories “recovered” under hypnosis or the influence of drugs are often unreliable

• Misinformation Effect: disingenuous information alters one’s memory of an event– Traffic accident video

experiment• All saw same video, but then

asked how fast the cars were going when they “___________ each other” (different groups given different words such as contacted, hit, bumped, smashed, etc.) and the word affected the results

• A week later, researchers asked viewers if they had seen broken glass, twice as likely to recall if asked “smashed”

– The longer it’s been since the event happened, the more likely it is to inject misinformation

Memory Construction

• Imagination Effect: actively imagining fake events can actually create false memories– Occurs partly because visualizing something and

actually perceiving it activate similar brain areas– Pathological liars can beat polygraphs: machines

commonly used in attempts to detect lies)

Memory Construction

• How do polygraphs work?– They measure your physiological

responses such as breathing, cardiovascular activity, and perspiration

– Begin by asking questions they know the truthful answers to already (your age, your name, etc.)—these are called “control questions”

– Then ask the “relevant questions” – the ones they want to know if you’re lying or not

– Then they compare your body responses between the two... if you are lying, your body should indicate so by acting “differently” than in the control questions

Memory Construction

• How effective are polygraphs?– Ineffective enough that they

are no longer admissible in court

– In one experiment, 100 peoplewere given lie detectors to seehow accurate the polygraphswere

• 50 were innocent of a crime• The polygraph declared 1/3 of

these innocent people guilty• 50 were guilty of the crime• The polygraph declared 1/4 of

these guilty people innocent– Now that you know how polygraphs

work... can you hypothesize howthey can be beaten?

Memory Construction

• Source Amnesia: mis-remembering the source of a memory– Avril Lavigne thinks she created the song “Girlfriend” but it

sounds much like an older song... maybe she unintentionally plagiarized something she heard when she was younger.

Memory Construction

“The Rubinoos” – I Want to be your Boyfriend (1979)