Memory The mental processes that enable us to retain and use information over time. Involves acquiri

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Chapter 6

• Memory The mental processes that enable us to
  retain and use information over time. Involves
  acquiring, storing, and retrieving information.

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What is your earliest memory?
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Three processes of memory

• Encoding transforming information into a form
  that can be entered and retained
• Storage retaining information to be used at a
  later time
• Retrieval recovering stored information

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The Stage Model of Memory

• Three stages
• Sensory Memory
• Short Term Memory
• Long Term Memory

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Sensory Memory

• Registers information from environment
• Overlaps sensory impressions so we perceive the
  world around us as continuous
• Large capacity
• ¼ to 3 seconds
• Information you pay attention to is transferred
  to short-term memory

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Short-term Memory

• Working memory (imagining, remembering, problem
  solving)
• Temporarily holds all the information that you
  are currently thinking about
• New information is transferred from sensory and
  old information is retrieved from LTM
• Up to 30 seconds
• Maintenance rehearsal to maintain longer than
  30 seconds repeat information

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Short-term Memory

• Limited capacity 7 ( or 2) items (George
  Miller)
• To increase the amount of information
• Chunking grouping related items together into a
  single unit. STM has 7 slots, can be simple or
  complex
• Information that is actively processed may be
  encoded for storage in LTM

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Long-term Memory

• Long-term storage, anything over 30 seconds
• Potentially permanent
• Unlimited capacity
• Information is organized

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Long-term Memory

• Encoding and LTM storage
• Storage affects retrieval
• Elaborative rehearsal- focusing on the meaning of
  the information. Relating information to
  something you already know
• Self-reference effect improve memory by
  applying information to yourself
• Visual imagery vivid images enhance memory

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Long-term Memory

• Craik Lockhart
• Levels of processing information processed at a
  deeper level, more likely to be remembered.
• How can you process at a deeper level?
• Actively question
• Think about implications
• Relate to prior knowledge
• Generate examples and questions
• Mnemonic devices
• Elaboration
• Organization

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Long-term Memory

• Three categories of information stored in LTM
• Procedural information how to perform skills
  and actions. Begin early in life when we learn to
  walk and talk
• Episodic information events in your life. AKA
  autobiographical memory
• Semantic memory general knowledge (facts,
  names, concepts, ideas). Your personal
  encyclopedia

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Retrieval from LTM

• Retrieval process of accessing stored
  information
• Often need retrieval cues to help trigger recall
  of stored memory
• Retrieval cue failure inability to recall LT
  memory because of inadequate or missing retrieval
  cues

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Retrieval from LTM

• Tip of the Tongue example of retrieval cue
  failure. Illustrates
• Retrieval is not an all or nothing process, we
  sometimes only remember bits and pieces
• In many instances, information is stored in
  memory but not accessible without the right
  retrieval cues
• Information in memory is organized and connected

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Forms of Retrieval from LTM

• Recall producing information without retrieval
  cues (essay tests)
• Cued Recall remembering in response to a
  retrieval cue. (fill in the blank or matching)
• Recognition identifying the correct information
  out of several possible choices (multiple choice)

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Retrieval from LTM

• Serial Position Effect tendency to retrieve
  information more easily from the beginning and
  the end of a list rather than the middle
• Primacy Effect tendency to recall the first
  items in a list
• Recency Effect tendency to recall the final
  items of a list

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The Encoding Specificity Principle

• The Encoding Specificity Principle the best way
  to increase access to information in memory is to
  recreate the original learning conditions
• The Context Effect we remember information
  better when the retrieval occurs in the same
  setting in which you originally learned the
  information.

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The Encoding Specificity Principle

• State Dependent Retrieval better recall of
  information when the pharmacological sates or
  learning and retrieval match. Influence of drugs
  on a persons internal state.
• Mood Dependent Retrieval information encoded in
  a certain emotional state is better retrieved
  when in the same emotional state.

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The Encoding Specificity Principle

• Mood Congruence A given mood tends to evoke
  memories that are consistent with that mood.

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LTM

• Emotions serve to stimulate the connections for
  memories to be formed. Up to a certain point,
  emotions increase memory, but when emotion gets
  too intense we cut off memory (repression)
• Flashbulb Memory recall of very specific images
  or details surrounding personal events.

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Memory in Infants

• Object permanence (8 or 9 months)
• Habituation/Dishabituation (7 months)
• Deferred imitation (9 months)

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Distortions in Memory

• Details change over time
• Memories are actively constructed and actively
  reconstructed when you retrieve memories
• Schemas organized clusters of knowledge
  information about particular topics.
• Helpful in forming new memories
• Can integrate new experiences into your knowledge
  base
• Also, contribute to memory distortions. New
  information can change memories (examples)

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Distortions in Memory

• False memory distorted or inaccurate memory
  that feels real and is often accompanied by al
  the emotional impact of a real memory
• Confuse something youve heard or read about with
  something that really happened to you

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Distortions in Memory

• Given the failure of human memory, important to
  take precautions when specific details are
  critical
• Eye witness testimony
• P. 262 (role played by schemas and misinformation)

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Distortions in Memory

• Elizabeth Loftis authority on eye witness
  testimonies.
• Film of auto accidents (p.263)
• The misleading information effect subjects can
  be led to make inaccurate reports after being
  exposed to misleading information.
• Childrens testimonies

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Forgetting

• The inability to recall information that was
  previously available
• Sometimes we want to forget
• Ebbinghaus began the study of forgetting
• Goal to determine how much information was
  forgotten after different lengths of time
• Noted how many times he had to repeat list of 13
  nonsense syllables before he could recall the
  list perfectly, then tested recall after varying
  lengths of time

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Forgetting

• Ebbinghaus found 2 distinct patterns
• Much of what we forget is lost relatively soon
  after we originally learn (how well we encode,
  how deeply we process, and how often we rehearse)
• The amount of forgetting eventually levels off.
  Information that is not quickly forgotten seems
  to be remarkably stable in memory

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Forgetting

• Four potential causes of forgetting
• Encoding Failure most common. You dont encode
  the information into LTM. (p. 267)
• Interference Theory forgetting caused by one
  memory competing with or replacing another memory
• Retroactive interference new memory interferes
  with old memory
• Proactive interference old memory interferes
  with new memory

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Forgetting

• Motivated forgetting usually because memory is
  painful or unpleasant
• Suppression make a deliberate, conscious effort
  to forget. Mixed research on this if possible
• Repression motivated forgetting that occurs
  unconsciously.
• All awareness of an event or experience is
  blocked from conscious awareness.
• Freud believed that psychologically threatening
  feelings and events that occurred during
  childhood were repressed and influence the
  behavior and personality

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Forgetting

• Decay Theory we forget memories because we
  dont use them and they fade away over time as a
  matter of normal brain processes
• Most researchers today do not think that LT
  memories fade
• Information can be remembered for decades, even
  though it has not been rehearsed or recalled
  since original memory formed

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Memory

• Memories do tend to be quite accurate for
  overall/general information
• Meaningful details usually remain accurate over
  time

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Amnesia

• Severe memory loss
• Retrograde amnesia
• unable to remember some or all of the past,
  particularly episodic memories for recent events
• Typically results from a head injury, loose
  memories for events that preceded the injury

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Amnesia

• Anterograde amnesia inability to form new
  memories
• Remove hippocampus to stop severe seizures, not
  able to form new memories

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Study Skills

• Focus your attention and avoid distractions
• Commit the necessary time
• Space your study sessions REM sleep helps
  consolidate new memories
• Organize the information
• Elaborate on the material
• Use visual imagery
• Explain it to a friend put in own words
• Reduce interference with a topic break
  information into sections
• Counteract the serial position effect
• Use contextual cues to job memories during a test