PSYCHOLOGY 11002 General Psychology

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PSYCHOLOGY 110-02General Psychology

• University of Southern Mississippi
• Department of Psychology
• Dr. David J. Echevarria, PhD
• Spring 2008
• david.echevarria_at_usm.edu
• www.usm.edu/neurolab

Chapter 7 Memory
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Chapter 7 Human Memory
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Minute quiz

• Chapter 6 is on learning
• Chapter 7 is on memory
• How is memory related to learning???

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Without memory learning is useless!

• Think about all the times in one day you rely on
  your memory
• When is my next class?
• Did I pay my rent?
• Where did I park my car?
• When is my boy/girl friends birthday?
• Performance on exams

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How are memories stored?

• Tip of the tongue
• Did you ever say, I cant remember only to
  actually remember later on?
• How easily are they accessed?
• What can interfere with memory?

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Whats the capacity of short-term memory?

• Memory span Number of items that can be recalled
  from short-term memory, in order, on half of the
  tested memory trials
• Its about 7 plus or minus 2 items
• Not absolute also depends on
• How quickly items can be rehearsed
• Chunking
• Rearranging incoming information into meaningful
  or familiar patterns

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The Working Memory Model

• Several distinct mechanisms
• Phonological loop Like the inner voice stores
  word sounds
• Visuospatial sketchpad Stores visual and spatial
  information
• Central executive Determines which mechanism to
  use, coordinates among them
• Brain damage can selectively affect a single
  mechanism

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Human Memory Basic Questions

• How does information get into memory?
• How is information maintained in memory?
• How is information pulled back out of memory?

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Figure 7.2 Three key processes in memory
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Encoding Getting Information Into Memory

• The role of attention
• Focusing awareness
• Selective attention selection of input
• Filtering early or late?

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Figure 7.3 Models of selective attention
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Levels of ProcessingCraik and Lockhart (1972)

• Incoming information processed at different
  levels
• Deeper processing longer lasting memory codes
• Encoding levels
• Structural shallow
• Phonemic intermediate
• Semantic deep

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Figure 7.4 Levels-of-processing theory
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Scanning a Scene
http//www.sol.lu.se/humlab/eyetracking/
Above is a scanpath of one reader over a
broadsheet newspaper spread. The reader turned
pages in her own pace, and read the entire
newspaper. This is quite typical data. The texts
are read no deeper than 40 of their lengths.
Very short looks on photos and long looks on
information graphics.
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Figure 7.5 Retention at three levels of
processing
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Enriching Encoding Improving Memory

• Elaboration linking a stimulus to other
  information at the time of encoding
• Thinking of examples
• Visual Imagery creation of visual images to
  represent words to be remembered
• Easier for concrete objects Dual-coding theory
• Self-Referent Encoding
• Making information personally meaningful

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Storage Maintaining Information in Memory

• Analogy information storage in computers
  information storage in human memory
• Information-processing theories
• Subdivide memory into 3 different stores
• Sensory, Short-term, Long-term

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Figure 7.7 The Atkinson and Schiffrin model of
memory storage
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Sensory Memory

• Brief preservation of information in original
  sensory form
• Auditory/Visual approximately ¼ second
• George Sperling (1960)
• Classic experiment on visual sensory store

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Figure 7.8 Sperlings (1960) study of sensory
memory
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Short Term Memory (STM)

• Limited capacity magical number 7 plus or minus
  2
• Chunking grouping familiar stimuli for storage
  as a single unit
• Limited duration about 20 seconds without
  rehearsal
• Rehearsal the process of repetitively
  verbalizing or thinking about the information

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Figure 7.9 Peterson and Petersons (1959) study
of short-term memory
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Short-Term Memory as Working Memory

• STM not limited to phonemic encoding
• Loss of information not only due to decay
• Baddeley (1986) 3 components of working memory
• Phonological rehearsal loop
• Visuospatial sketchpad
• Executive control system

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Long-Term Memory Unlimited Capacity

• Permanent storage?
• Flashbulb memories
• Recall through hypnosis
• Debate are STM and LTM really different?
• Phonemic vs. Semantic encoding
• Decay vs. Interference based forgetting

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How is Knowledge Representedand Organized in
Memory?

• Clustering and Conceptual Hierarchies
• Schemas and Scripts
• Semantic Networks
• Connectionist Networks and PDP Models

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Retrieval Getting InformationOut of Memory

• The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon a failure in
  retrieval
• Retrieval cues
• Recalling an event
• Context cues
• Reconstructing memories
• Misinformation effect
• Source monitoring, reality monitoring

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Forgetting When Memory Lapses

• Retention the proportion of material retained
• Recall
• Recognition
• Relearning
• Ebbinghauss Forgetting Curve

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Figure 7.16 Ebbinghaus forgetting curve for
nonsense syllables
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Figure 7.17 Recognition versus recall in the
measurement of retention
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Why Do We Forget?

• Ineffective Encoding
• Decay theory
• Interference theory
• Proactive
• Retroactive

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Figure 7.19 Retroactive and proactive
interference
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Figure 7.20 Estimates of the prevalence of
childhood physical and sexual abuse
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Retrieval Failure

• Encoding Specificity
• Transfer-Appropriate Processing
• Repression
• Authenticity of repressed memories?
• Memory illusions
• Controversy

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Figure 7.22 The prevalence of false memories
observed by Roediger and McDermott (1995)
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The Physiology of Memory

• Biochemistry
• Alteration in synaptic transmission
• Hormones modulating neurotransmitter systems
• Protein synthesis
• Neural circuitry
• Localized neural circuits
• Reusable pathways in the brain
• Long-term potentiation

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The Physiology of Memory

• Anatomy
• Anterograde and Retrograde Amnesia
• Cerebral cortex, Prefrontal cortex, Hippocampus,
• Dentate gyrus, Amygdala, Cerebellum

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Figure 7.23 The anatomy of memory
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Figure 7.25 Retrograde versus anterograde amnesia
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Are There Multiple Memory Systems?

• Declarative vs. Procedural
• Semantic vs. Episodic
• Prospective vs. Retrospective

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Figure 7.26 Theories of independent memory
systems
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Improving Everyday Memory

• Engage in adequate rehearsal
• Distribute practice and minimize interference
• Emphasize deep processing and transfer-appropriate
  processing
• Organize information
• Use verbal mnemonics
• Use visual mnemonics