Memory

A. The phenomenon of Memory a. Memory: any indication that learning has persisted over time. It is our ability to store and retrieve memory. b. Memory capacity is perhaps the most apparent in our recall of unique and highly emotional moments in your past. c. Flashbulb Memory: Clarity for our memories of surprising, significant events. i. A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event 1. False Flashbulb Memory: a. Hearing the story, some people perceived a blatant lie or even a conspiracy b. President bush didnt have total recall of the scene. d. Idedic Memory: INABLILTY TO FORGET e. State dependent memory: able to remember because of the current state f. INFORMATION PROCESSING i. Encoding: Getting the information into the brain 1. The processing of information into the memory system- for example, by extracting meaning ii. Storage: Retain that memory 1. The retention of encoded information over time iii. Retrieval: The ability to get it back 1. The process of getting information out of memory storage g. Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrins (classic three stage processing mode of memory)
Sensory Memory The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information.

External Events Attention to important or new info Selective Attention

Contemporary Memory: bypasses the first two stages because the information is registered automatically

Working Memory: (short term memory) Understanding of short term memory that involves conscious active processing of incoming auditory and visual spatial information Central Executive directs focus attention when needed Long Term Memory: The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system, knowledge skills and experiences

Auditory Rehearsal, Visual Spatial Sketchpad

B. Encoding: Getting Information In a. Automatic Processing i. Automatic Processing: unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time and frequency and of well learned information, such as word meanings 1. With little or no effort you absorb an enormous amount of information a. Space: encode the place on a page where certain material appears, later you visualize its location b. Time: while going about you day you unintentionally note the sequence of the days events. You recreate the sequence when recalling where you left something c. Frequency: Effortlessly keep track of how many times things happen. b. Effortful Processing i. Effortful Processing: often produces durable and accessible memories with effort and attention 1. Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort. a. Rehearsal: Conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage. 2. Ebbinghaus- (Pavlov of conditioning) a. He introduced a scientific study on which he would learn on his own. He randomly seleced a sample of syllables. He would read the items past and see how many he could recall. i. The amount remembered depends on the time spent learning. 3. More processing: a. The next in line effect: When people go around circle saying words or their names and attempting to remember what was a said by the others, the poorest memories are for what was said by the person just before them. Forgetting what youre saying because you are listening to what others are saying. b. Remembering during sleep. Better hour before sleep than right before sleep. c. Spacing Effect: rehearsal is distrusted over time d. Serial Position Effect: our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list. 4. Harry Bahrick: Spacing effect, he saw an implication that restudying material for comprehensive final exams and capstone review courses will enhance lifelong retention. a. Those who study quickly will forget quickly.

5. Landauer: Rehearsing then stopping and repeating until you still remember for prolonged waiting.

C. What We Encode: a. Encoding Meaning: i. Different types of Encoding 1. Visual Encoding: images 2. Acoustic Encoding: sounds 3. Semantic Encoding: meaning. a. Context with meaning can be remembered more than context that is meaningless. b. Visual Encoding: i. Imagery: mental pictures: a powerful aid to effortful processing: combined semantic encoding. ii. Mnemonic: memory aids especially those techniques that use vivid imaginary and organizational devices. c. Organizing Information for Encoding: i. Chunking: 1. We can organize it into meaningful units. 2. Organizing items into familiar manageable units; often occurs automatically. 3. Recency: the most recently heard terms ii. Donatelli: Increase your recall of digits. iii. Hierarchy: We process information by dividing it into logical levels, beginning with the most general and moving to the most specific. D. Storage: Retaining Information

Sensory Memory The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information. Iconic Memory: (sperling) able to recall perfectly for 1/10 sec Echoic Memory: (cowan) sounds could be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds

Working Memory: (short term memory) Understanding of short term memory that involves conscious active processing of incoming auditory and visual spatial information Limited not only in duration but also in capacity. Score seven or so bits of information. (plus or minus 2)

Long Term Memory: The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system, knowledge skills and experiences

a. Synaptic Changes: a. Long term Potentiation: an increase in a synapses firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Neural basis for learning and memory. b. As experience strengthens the pathways between neurons, synapses transmit signals more efficiently. b. Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories: a. Amnesia: unable to form new memories, the loss of memory b. Implicit Memory: retention independent of conscious recollection i. Learn how to do something ii. Classically condition iii. cerebellum c. Explicit Memory: i. Memory of facts and experience that one can consciously know and declare 1. They may not know and declare that they know. E. Retrieval: Getting Information Out i.

Recall: the ability to retrieve information not in conscious awareness (fill in

the blank test)

ii.

Recognize: measure of memory in which the person need only identify

items previously learned (multiple choice test)

iii.

Relearning: a memory measure that assesses the amount of time

saved when learning material for a second time (language) b. Retrieval Cues: i. Memories are held in storage by a web of associations, each piece of information interconnected with others. ii. You associate bits of information from surroundings iii. Hints that target information. iv. ANCHOR POINTS YOU CAN USE TO ACCESS THE TARGET INFRMATION WHEN YOU WANT TO RETRIEVE IT LATER. c. Priming: to retrieve a specific memory from a web of associations, you first need to activate one of the strands that leads to it. i. Mood congruent can help d. Dj vu: a context that is similar to the one wave been in before may trigger an experience. e. Moods Congruent: Associate good or bad events with their accompanying emotions. F. Forgetting i. Three sins of forgetting 1. Absent mindedness: inattention to details produces encoding failure (our mind is elsewhere when doing something) 2. Transience: storage decay over time (after we part ways with former classmates, unused memories fade) 3. Blocking: inaccessibility of stored information (seeing an old classmate, but not able to retrieve their name)

ii. Three sings of Distortion (changing up memory) 1. Misattribution: confusing the source of information (putting words in someone elses mouth or remembering a movie scene as an actual happening) 2. Suggestibility: the lingering effects of misinformation ( a leading question : Did mr.jones touch your private parts- becomes a young childs false memory) 3. Bias: belief- colored recollections ( a friends current feelings toward her fianc may color her recalled initial feelings) iii. One sin of intrusion (abuse) 1. Persistence: unwanted memories b. Encoding Failure: 1. Not remembering what we encoded never enters long term memory 2. Older people recall less but remember when given recognition tests c. Storage Decay 1. Ebbinghaus: forgetting curve: a. Indicates that much of what we learn we may indeed quickly forget b. It is at first rapid, but then levels off ii. A gradual fading of the physical memory trace iii. Physical storage of memory of decay iv. Accumulation of other learning that disrupts our retrieval. d. Retrieval Failure 1. Forgetting is often not memories discarded but memories retrieved ii. Interference 1. (if someone gives you a phone number, you may be able to recall it but if two more people give you their numbers, it will be a lot harder for you to recall it) 2. Proactive interference: something you learned earlier disrupts your Opposites recall of something you experience later. 3. Retroactive Interference: occurs when new information makes it harder to recall something you learned earlier. ( cant learn new names because of old names) a. You can reduce this by reducing the number of interfering events (going to sleep shortly after learning something else) 4. Sometimes OLD INFORMATION CAN HELP FACILIATE OUR LEARNING OF NEW INFORMATION a. POSITIVE TRANSFER: ONLY WHEN THE OLD AND NEW COMPETE WITH EACH OTHER IS WHEN INTERENCE OCCURS. iii. Motivated Forgetting 1. Cookie Memory Phenomenon a. Found that people unknowingly revise their own histories b. Reasons to revise their history is for self-improvement.

2. Repression (SIGMUND FREUD) : in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings and memories. a. To protect ourselves from anxiety we would repress painful memories. b. It is rarely believed to occur
Long Term Memory: Sensory Memory Momentarily registered amazing detail Storage Decay Working Memory: Some things are both noticed and encoded Storage Decay (rehearsal) Encoding failure, retrieval failure storage decay. SOME ARE LOST Retrieval from Long Term Depending on interference retrieval cues, moods and motive, something things get retrieved some dont

G. Memory Construction a. Misinformation: i. Elizabeth Loftus: Cars that were SMASHED as to cars that were HIT. ii. MISINFORMATION EFFECT: after exposure to subtle misinformation may people misremember. 1. They have misrecalled a yield for a stop sign, hammer as a screw drivers, coke pans as peanut cans. b. Imagining Effects: i. Nonexistent actions and event can create false memories. ii. Imagined events later seem more familiar and familiar things seem more real. iii. The more vividly people can imagine things, the more likely they are to inflate their imaginations into memories. c. Source Amnesia: i. When we encode memories (break down in order to remember) we distribute different aspects of them to different parts of the brain ii. The frailest parts of a memory is its source iii. We may seem like we know the person but never seen, heard, or have any recollection of meeting the person iv. Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced heard about read about or imagined. d. Discerning True and False Memories i. Memory is reconstruction as well as reproduction, not sure whether its real or not.

ii. Cannot judge memory by its persistence, memories we derive from experience is more prominent than memories derived from imagination. iii. False memories created by suggest misinformation, and misattributed sources may feel as real as true memories, and may be very persistent.