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Memory
MODULE 21
OUTLINE OF RESOURCES
I. Introducing Memory
Feature Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (p. 3) NEW
Video: Psychology: The Human Experience, Module 13: What Is Memory?*
II. The Phenomenon of Memory and Studying Memory: Information-Processing Models
Lecture/Discussion Topics: AJ: A Case Study in Total Recall (p. 3) NEW
The World Memory Championships (p. 5) UPDATED
The Case of Clive Wearing (p. 5)
Classroom Exercises: Remembering the Seven Dwarfs (p. 3)
Forgetting Frequency Questionnaire (p. 5)
Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Bias in Memory (p. 6) NEW
Videos: The Mind, 2nd ed., Module 10 : Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing, Part 1 and
Module 11: Clive Wearing, Part 2: Living Without Memory*
Digital Media Archive, 1st ed.: Psychology, Video Clip 25: Clive Wearing: Living Without
Memory*
Discovering Psychology, Updated Edition: Memory (p. 6)
III. Encoding: Getting Information In
A. How We Encode
Classroom Exercises: Rehearsal and the Twelve Days of Christmas (p. 7)
Serial Position Effect in Recalling U.S. Presidents (p. 7)
B. What We Encode
Lecture/Discussion Topics: Mnemonic Devices (p. 9)
The Keyword Method (p. 10)
Classroom Exercises: Meaning and Memory (p. 8)
Visually Versus Auditorily Encoded Information (p. 8)
Semantic Encoding of Pictures (p. 9)
Chunking (p. 11)
IV. Storage: Retaining Information
A. Sensory Memory
Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Iconic Memory (p. 12) NEW
PsychSim 5: Iconic Memory (p. 12)
*Video titles followed by an asterisk are not repeated within the core resource module. They are listed,
with running times, in the Preface of these resources and described in detail in their Faculty Guides,
which are available at www.worthpublishers.com/mediaroom.
B. Working/Short-Term Memory
Classroom Exercise: Memory Capacity (p. 12)
PsychSim 5: Short-Term Memory (p. 12) NEW
Feature Film: Memento (p. 12) NEW
C. Long-Term Memory
Lecture/Discussion Topic: Rajan Mahadevan’s Amazing Memory (p. 13)
Video: The Brain, 2nd ed., Module 20: A Super-Memorist Advises on Study Strategies*
D. Storing Memories in the Brain
Exercise: Flashbulb Memory (p. 14)
Videos: Psychology: The Human Experience, Module 14: Flashbulb Memories*
The Brain, 2nd ed., Module 16: The Locus of Learning and Memory*
The Brain, 2nd ed., Module 18: Living With Amnesia: The Hippocampus and Memory*
The Brain, 2nd ed., Module 17: Learning as Synaptic Change*
Scientific American Frontiers, 2nd ed., Segment 16: Remembering What Matters*
ActivePsych: Scientific American Frontiers Teaching Modules, 3rd ed.: Aging and Memory: Studying
Alzheimer’s Disease, Enhancing Memory: The Role of Emotion, and Memory Loss: A Case
Study* NEW
PsychSim 5: When Memory Fails (p. 14)
V. Retrieval: Getting Information Out
Student Project: Permastore (p. 14)
A. Retrieval Cues
Lecture/Discussion Topic: The Déjà Vu Illusion (p. 16) NEW
Classroom Exercises: Expertise and Retrieval Rate (p. 15)
Déjà Vu in the Classroom (p. 16)
The Pollyanna Principle (p. 17) UPDATED
Student Project/Classroom Exercise: Retrieval Cues (p. 15)
Video: Digital Media Archive, 1st ed.: Psychology, Video Clip 24: Aging and Memory*
ActivePsych: Digital Media Archive, 2nd ed.: A Journey Into Memory* NEW
MODULE OBJECTIVES
After completing their study of this module, students should be able to:
1
Describe Atkinson-Shiffrin’s classic three-stage processing model of memory, and explain how the
contemporary model of working memory differs.
2
Describe the types of information we encode automatically, and contrast effortful processing with
automatic processing, giving examples of each.
3
Compare the benefits of visual, acoustic, and semantic encoding in remembering verbal information,
and describe some memory-enhancing encoding strategies.
4
Contrast two types of sensory memory, and describe the duration and working capacity of shortterm memory.
5
Describe the capacity and duration of long-term memory, and discuss the biological changes that
may underlie memory formation and storage.
6
Distinguish between implicit and explicit memory, and identify the main brain structure associated
with each.
7
Contrast the recall, recognition, and relearning measures of memory, and explain how retrieval cues
can help us access stored memories.
8
Describe the impact of environmental contexts and internal emotional stages on retrieval.
MODULE OUTLINE
I. Introducing Memory (p. 268)
Feature Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Ask your students: “If technological advances
would allow it, would you ever want to intentionally get rid of memories of some specific events?”
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind addresses that question. Most students love this feature film, and
you may want to encourage those who have not seen it to watch the entire film outside of class.
The story traces Joel Barish’s stunned discovery that his former girlfriend Clementine has had their
troubled relationship erased from her mind. Out of desperation, Joel seeks the same treatment. He
contacts Lacuna, a company that specializes in giving troubled people a fresh start. The inventor of the
memory erasure process, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, provides Joel with the help he wants. At Chapter 7,
titled “Empty Your Life,” on DVD, or 28 minutes into the film, Joel charges into Dr. Mierzwiak’s
office to seek treatment. The next 7:07 minutes portrays the extraordinarily complex process of
memory erasure.
The video provides an excellent introduction to the centrality of memory in defining our lives. Of
course, some memories are very disruptive and can be accompanied by very painful emotions. By
ridding ourselves of them we could relieve a lot of suffering. At the same time, they are part of our very
identity. In addition, they help us to avoid the mistakes of the past, including those of failed
relationships.
“Consider the case of a person who has suffered or witnessed atrocities that occasion unbearable
memories; for example, those with firsthand experience of the Holocaust,” the President’s Council on
Bioethics writes. “The life of that individual might well be served by dulling such bitter memories . . .
but would the community as a whole be served by such a mass numbing of this terrible but
indispensable memory?”
You may want to describe for those who have not seen the film how Joel, as his memories of
Clementine begin to fade, realizes how much he still loves her, changes his mind, and attempts to
reverse the process.
II. The Phenomenon of Memory and Studying Memory: Information-Processing Models (pp.
269–271)
Lecture/Discussion Topic: AJ: A Case Study in Total Recall
You can extend the text discussion of memory whizzes with the contemporary case of AJ, currently being
studied by University of California, Irvine, researchers Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James
McGaugh. AJ, a 40-year-old woman, has a seemingly limitless memory. A few years ago, she contacted
McGaugh and said, “I have a problem. I remember too much.”
Known as “the human calendar,” AJ is able to recall in full detail what she was doing on any specific date
between 1974 and today. If you randomly pick a date, she recalls the day of the week, the weather, and any
significant news events on topics that interested her.
Given the random dates below, AJ immediately gave the responses on the right:
August 16, 1977: Elvis Presley died
June 6, 1978: Proposition 13 passed in California
May 25, 1979: Plane crash in Chicago
May 18, 1980: Mount St. Helens erupted
October 5, 1983: Bombing in Beirut killed 300
January 17, 1994: Northridge earthquake
December 21, 1988: Lockerbie plane crash
Asked to identify the dates of Easter from 1980 to 2003, AJ provided 23 of 24 correctly in 10 minutes
along with a personal event from each holiday. Her diary, which she kept from ages 10 to 34, has been
useful in verifying the accuracy of her autobiographical recall.
AJ's memory is “nonstop, uncontrollable, and automatic.” When asked how she knows an answer, she
states, often with some frustration, that she “just knows.” Clearly, she does not need or use mnemonics. In
fact, the amazing capacity to recall is sometimes a burden with one memory cuing another and another,
forcing AJ to relive her life like a “movie in her mind that never stops.”
The researchers believe that AJ is the first person with this form of superior autobiographical memory. In
an issue of the journal Neurocase, they coined the term hyperthymestic syndrome for her condition, and
they wonder if anyone else might share her amazing capacity. In the near future, the research team hopes to
use MRI and other scanning techniques to learn more about the physical basis for AJ’s peculiar mental
abilities.
Parker, E. S., Cahill, L., & McGaugh, J. L. (2006). A case of unusual autobiographical remembering.
Neurocase, 12, 35–49.
Toth, A. (2006, May). Real-life total recall. APS Observer, 13.
Classroom Exercise: Remembering the Seven Dwarfs
Marianne Miserandino suggests a simple, effective exercise for introducing the topic of memory. It is
appropriate for any class size and can be easily adapted to the level and interest of the class.
Introduce the module with the suggestion that an interesting and effective way to learn about the
principles of memory is to examine carefully one’s own thought processes in performing a memory task.
Instruct students to take out a blank sheet of paper and to write down all the responses that come to mind
in the order in which they occur. Incorrect responses will be as important as correct ones in illustrating the
nature of memory. Their task is really quite simple—they are to name the seven dwarfs.
Before revealing the correct answers, guide the class in a discussion of their own responses. Lead a
discussion of the following topics in the direction that best suits the class.
Difficulty of the task. How difficult or easy is the task? Memory is the persistence of learning over time. A
few may note that the task is culture-bound and that they never learned the names. Others remember the
story well but never focused on mastering this inconsequential information. Most will claim the task is
difficult simply because it’s been too long since they heard the story or saw the film. A few may claim that
distractions, such as the weather or disruptive classmates, prevented their success. Finally, a few Disney or
trivia buffs may report having found the task to have been easy. Miserandino reports that 12 of her 66
students correctly named all seven dwarfs. These responses will enable you to introduce memory as
information processing. To name the seven dwarfs, we must get the information into our brain (encoding),
retain it over time (storage), and now get it back out (retrieval). The research on memory examines the
factors that influence those processes.
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Did students have the feeling that they knew a name but were unable to
retrieve it? If so, ask volunteers to describe as much as they can about the word. How many syllables does it
have (six of the seven dwarf names have two syllables)? What letter does it start with (s and d occur most
frequently)? What meaning or connotation does the word have (most of the names are vivid, state
adjectives)? Generally, students will be quite accurate. Explain that this experience is called the tip-of-thetongue (TOT) phenomenon, which occurs when the retrieval process does not produce a complete response
but produces parts that must be constructed into a whole. Most fundamentally, it shows how forgetting may
result from retrieval failure, rather than encoding or storage failure.
Organization of memory by sound, letter, and meaning. Ask students to examine the order in which they
recalled the names. Is there any pattern? Memory is organized by sound, letter, or meaning, and this is
illustrated by people’s wrong answers in two ways. First, many of their wrong responses will be similar in
sound, letter, and/or meaning to correct dwarf names. For example, wrong answers are likely to include
two-syllabled names ending in a y-sound; 5 of the 7 correct names end in y and have two syllables. Wrong
guesses may also begin with the letter s or d because these letters each occur as the initial letter of correct
names twice. Students may also recall words similar in meaning to actual dwarf names. For example, ask
how many recalled Lazy, Clumsy, Droopy, or Grouchy. Second, organization by sound, letter, or meaning
will typically cause subjects to recall names in a run or pattern of similar names. Runs occur when the
generation of one correct item serves as a cue that improves recall of other items with similar sounds or
meanings. Virtually all students will demonstrate these runs for both correct and incorrect names.
Recall versus recognition. Ask the class if they would be able to remember more names with a recognition
task. Recall involves a two-step process: generation of possible targets and identification of genuine ones.
Recognition is generally easier because the first step is already complete and one only has to decide if the
information is correct. Most will immediately say they would do better on a recognition task.
Prepare a handout (or more simply write on the chalkboard) the following list: Grouchy, Gabby, Fearful,
Sleepy, Smiley, Jumpy, Hopeful, Shy, Droopy, Dopey, Sniffy, Wishful, Puffy, Dumpy, Sneezy, Lazy, Pop,
Grumpy, Bashful, Cheerful, Teach, Shorty, Nifty, Happy, Doc, Wheezy, and Stubby. Instruct students to
circle the correct dwarf names, cross out the ones they know are incorrect, and leave the others alone.
Ask students if they were able to remember more correct names and to explain why. Did the earlier
discussion of wrong names cue correct ones or do the names on the handout itself cue their recall?
Miserandino reports that 91 percent of her students recognized more names than they recalled earlier.
Research suggests that the order, from most likely to least likely recalled, is as follows: Sleepy, Dopey,
Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Doc, and Bashful. Respondents are more likely to recall the five rhyming names
and to recall them in a run, an example of organization by sound. Subjects are least likely to remember
Bashful, an example of organization—or absence of—by meaning.
Finally, you might introduce the distinction between working/short-term and long-term memory. STM is
transient memory. LTM can hold information for a greater time—hours, days, years. STM seems to have a
capacity of seven pieces of information, plus or minus two—the same as the number of dwarfs. Through the
use of chunking or other organizing schemata, the actual number of items recalled can be greater than 5 to
9. For most students, the original task was a test of recall from LTM. But now, if they have been following
the discussion, the names should be in STM. Complete the demonstration by having students turn the
sheets over and recall the names of the seven dwarfs. Theoretically, everyone should be able to name them
all.
Miserandino, M. (1991). Memory and the seven dwarfs. Teaching of Psychology, 18, 169–171.
Lecture/Discussion Topic: The World Memory Championships
In the text, Myers suggests that Russian journalist Shereshevskii would be a medal winner in a memory
Olympics. Your students will be interested to learn that there are annual World Memory Championships
known as the Memoriad.
Organized by Tony Buzan, an expert on memory and learning, and Raymond Keene, British Chess Grand
Master, the first Memoriad was held in 1991. The 14th Annual World Memory Championships took place
in Oxford, England, on August 13–15, 2005. Germany’s Clemens Mayer defeated Gunther Karsten, also of
Germany, by a score of 6240 to 6070. Mayer set world records by mastering 170 names and faces in 15
minutes and remembering 1040 numbers after studying them for just 30 minutes. Gold, silver, and bronze
medals are given to the top adults and top juniors in each category.
The memory competition consists of 10 events that take place over two days. Participants are invited to
memorize separate packs of cards in one hour, a single pack of cards in under five minutes, random digits in
five minutes, random digits in one hour, and binary digits in half an hour. Other events include
remembering a list of words in 15 minutes, a poem in 15 minutes, numerous names and faces in 15 minutes,
and fictional historic/future dates in 5 minutes.
How well do the competitors perform? In 2006, Ben Pridmore set a world record by memorizing a single
deck of cards in 31.03 seconds. The current world record for random digits in one hour is 1949 numbers;
for historic/future dates, it is 80 in 5 minutes; and for binary numbers, it is 3705 in 30 minutes.
Lecture/Discussion Topic: The Case of Clive Wearing
To illustrate what life without memory might be like (or as part of a discussion of memory’s physical
storage), introduce the case of Clive Wearing, a highly intelligent and talented English musician who in his
40s was afflicted by encephalitis and experienced subsequent damage to his brain. (This case study is
vividly portrayed in Modules 10 and 11 of The Mind series, 2/e, and in Worth’s Digital Media Archive:
Psychology. Very highly recommended!) Wearing was unconscious for several weeks before awakening
with a very dense amnesia. Today, he can remember nothing for more than a few minutes, a state that he
attributes to having just recovered consciousness. He often writes down a specific time, say 1:30 p.m., in
his diary with the note, “I have just recovered consciousness.” He may make the same entry at 1:35, 1:40,
etc. Similarly, if his wife leaves the room for a few minutes, he greets her return with great joy, declaring
that he has not seen her for months and asking her how long he has been unconscious.
In some patients—Oliver Sacks’ Jimmie, for example—new learning may be impaired, but recollection of
the past is normal. Not so in the case of Clive. His recall of his earlier life is extremely patchy. He can
remember a few things, such as singing for the Pope on his visit to London and the name of the college he
attended at Cambridge, but all else is lost. His capacity to recall details is extremely poor. For example, he
does not recognize a picture of the college, and, although he had written a book on the early composer
Lassus, he has forgotten virtually everything of the composer’s life. General knowledge questions such as,
“Who wrote Romeo and Juliet?” baffle him completely.
Remarkably well preserved, however, is Clive’s musical ability. He can conduct a choir through a complex
piece of music showing all his old skills; he even spots musicians’ mistakes. He can play the piano or
harpsichord extremely well, although at first he encountered one difficulty: return signs indicating that a
section needed to be repeated before continuing caught him in an apparently eternal loop. How he finally
solved this problem remains unclear.
The effect of Clive’s memory loss has been devastating. If he goes out alone, he is lost and cannot find his
way back. He is unable to tell anyone who finds him where he has come from or where he is going. He has
no apparent capacity to learn anything new. In his own words, his life is “Hell on earth—It’s like being
dead— all the bloody time.”
Baddeley, A. (1998). Human memory: Theory and practice (rev. ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Classroom Exercise: Forgetting Frequency Questionnaire
You might introduce the module with Handout 21–1, Barry Gordon’s Forgetting Frequency Questionnaire.
Gordon provides the following average answer to each item for respondents who completed the
questionnaire:
1. C to D; 2. A; 3. B; 4. B; 5. D; 6. B to C; 7. B to C; 8. B to C; 9. A; 10. B; 11. A; 12. D; 13. B; 14. A; 15.
B to C; 16. C; 17. B; 18. B; 19. A; 20. A
Gordon cautions that a wide range of scores would be considered “normal,” with scores varying widely
both within and between groups. He also suggests that the busier you are, the worse your memory may
appear because you have more opportunities to forget.
Follow up by providing students with Gordon’s list of the most common memory complaints, including the
percentage of people reporting each.
Names 83%
Where you put things (e.g. keys) 60%
Telephone numbers just checked 57%
Specific words 53%
Not recalling that you had already told something to someone 49%
Forgetting what people had told you 49%
Faces 42%
Directions 41%
Forgetting what you started to do 41%
Forgetting what you were saying 41%
Remembering what you have done (e.g., turning off the stove) 38%
Gordon reports that the number of memory complaints increases with age. Comparing people ages 18 to 44
with those 45 years or older, Gordon obtained the following percentages.
Percentage of memory
complaints by 18–44-year-olds
Percentage of memory
complaints by people 45 or older
Losing things
56
73
Forgetting major events in their past
29
39
Forgetting events that just occurred
21
27
Making simple errors that cause
14
22
accidents
Getting lost in familiar places
10
22
Source: B. Gordon. Memory: Remembering and forgetting in everyday life. Reprinted by permission of
Mastermedia Ltd.
Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Bias in Memory
For a simple yet revealing demonstration of inaccuracy in memory, ask students to close their eyes, imagine
a loaf of bread (or another very familiar object such as a can of soda or carton of eggs), and then, with their
eyes still closed, estimate its size with their hands. Have students then open their eyes and view their own
estimates. Did they underestimate? overestimate?
Melissa Smith and colleagues demonstrated that sighted individuals using this strategy markedly
overestimated an object’s size. Remarkably, blind participants did not. A subsequent experiment revealed
that visual memory was the primary cause of the overestimations in size. Blind persons are more accurate
because they rely on manual representations rather than visual memory representations. In describing their
respective strategies in performing this task, blind individuals were significantly more likely than sighted
individuals to indicate that they imagined holding the object.
Smith, M., Franz, E. A., Joy, S. M., &Whitehead, K. (2005). Superior performance of blind
compared with sighted individuals on bimanual estimations of object size. Psychological Science,
16, 11–14.
Video: Discovering Psychology, Updated Edition:
Memory (Annenberg/CPB Project, 30 minutes) By linking the past to the present and the present to the
future, memory enables us to survive. More than a century ago, Hermann Ebbinghaus initiated the experi
mental study of memory by learning lists of nonsense syllables. Because the material had no meaning or
organization, his memory of it faded quickly. Today, psychologists view human memory as a dynamic
information-processing system that involves the selecting, encoding, storing, retaining, and retrieving of
knowledge. Researchers distinguish between short-term, or working, and long-term memory. Our shortterm memory functions as we take in the sights and sounds around us and in our conversations with friends.
Material in our short-term memory is quickly forgotten, however, unless rehearsed and transferred into
long-term memory. Long-term memory has infinite capacity and contains everything we know about the
world and ourselves. The program reviews many of the important themes of Modules 21 and 22, including
mnemonic systems, memory construction, Freud’s concept of repression, and the physiological basis of
memory. Special attention is paid to the role of schemas in encoding and retrieval. The video explores the
use of classical conditioning both in the search for the memory engram in animals and in the early detection
of Alzheimer’s disease in humans. These disorders vividly demonstrate how essential memory is to
individuality and personal identity. The entire Discovering Psychology series of 26 half-hour programs is
available for $389. Some video programs can also be purchased individually. To order, or simply for more
information regarding individual programs, call 1-800-LEARNER.
III. Encoding: Getting Information In (pp. 271–276)
A. How We Encode (pp. 271–273)
Classroom Exercise: Rehearsal and the Twelve Days of Christmas
To demonstrate the impact of rehearsal on memory, Paul Schulman asks his class to recall and to write
down the gifts in the familiar song Twelve Days of Christmas. The first gift is repeated 12 times, the second
11 times, and so on. Schulman reports that recall for the entire class (especially when the class is fairly
large) shows a nice decline from the first to the last gift. One exception is “five golden rings.” The gift has
the distinctive feature of being sung more slowly or held longer. You can collect and tabulate the data
between classes or more simply chart memory for each gift by a show of hands. Display the forgetting
curve on the chalkboard. If you have relatively small classes you may combine data for multiple sections or
even keep a running summary of terms. To refresh your own memory, here are the gifts: l Partridge, 2
Turtle Doves, 3 French Hens, 4 Calling Birds, 5 Golden Rings, 6 Geese A-laying, 7 Swans A-swimming, 8
Maids A-milking, 9 Ladies Dancing, 10 Lords A-leaping, 11 Pipers Piping, and 12 Drummers Drumming.
Schulman, P. (2002, March 6). Rehearsal and memory. Message posted to Teaching in the
Psychological Sciences discussion list, archived at www.frostburg.edu/
dept/psyc/southerly/tips/archive.htm.
Classroom Exercise: Serial Position Effect in Recalling U.S. Presidents
Many experiments have demonstrated that when people are shown a list of words, names, or dates and then
immediately asked to recall the items in any order, they tend to remember the last and first items best and
the middle items least. Henry Roediger and Robert Crowder demonstrated a strong serial position effect in
the ability of college students to recall U.S. presidents. Their study provides an excellent basis for either a
classroom exercise or a student project.
Give the students 5 minutes to individually write down the names of as many presidents as they can
remember. Ask them to distinguish presidents with identical last names by including the initials of their first
and, if necessary, middle names. If your class is not too large, you can tally the results by a show of hands.
(Students are unlikely to be embarrassed to report their own recall, or lack thereof, but you can collect their
responses, redistribute, and have each student report another’s results.) Number from 1 to 43 on the
chalkboard and read off the presidents’ names in order. To refresh your own memory, they are:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Washington
J. Adams
Jefferson
Madison
Monroe
J. Q. Adams
Jackson
Van Buren
Harrison
Tyler
Polk
Taylor
Fillmore
Pierce
Buchanan
Lincoln
A. Johnson
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
Grant
Hayes
Garfield
Arthur
Cleveland
Harrison
Cleveland
McKinley
T. Roosevelt
Taft
Wilson
Harding
Coolidge
Hoover
F. D. Roosevelt
Truman
Eisenhower
Kennedy
L. Johnson
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Clinton
George W. Bush
Next to each number write down the number of students who recalled that president. The serial position
effect will be obvious—the first and the last presidents are recalled best. If you like (and have a large
enough chalkboard), you can plot the curve with 1 through 43 along the horizontal axis and the probability
of recall (divide number of students who recalled the name by total class size) along the vertical axis.
With this exercise you will also demonstrate the von Restorff effect. Near the middle of your curve you will
have a spike. Lincoln will be recalled about as well as Washington and Bush. Teddy Roosevelt is also likely
to show a spike, although smaller. Researchers have found that a unique item embedded in an otherwise
homogeneous list is recalled better than the average homogeneous items. Often, the items immediately
around the distinctive one are also remembered better. Look to see if that is true for Buchanan and A.
Johnson. Although different explanations have been offered for the serial position effect, Roediger and
Crowder suggest that their results are most congruent with the hypothesis that end points of a series serve as
distinct positional cues around which memory search is begun.
If you do not wish to take the time for this demonstration in class, assign it as a student project. Have
students find volunteers to complete the task, pool the data, and report the results in class.
Roediger, H. L., & Crowder, R. G. (1976). A serial position effect in recall of United States Presidents.
Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 8, 275–278.
B. What We Encode (pp. 274–276)
Classroom Exercise: Meaning and Memory
The importance of meaning for memory is highlighted in the text by John Bransford and Marcia Johnson’s
passage on washing clothes (p. 274). Students who were told the context remembered more of the passage
than those who did not. You can illustrate the effect in class with another story suggested by Marty Klein.
A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to
run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill but is easy to learn. Even young
children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain,
however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs
lots of room. If there are no complications, it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If
things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.
Before reading the paragraph, give each student on the right side of your class a slip of paper with the
statement, “The context is kite flying.” Tell the students not to reveal the contents of the message. Slowly
read the paragraph aloud and then ask students to write down as much of the paragraph as they can recall.
Read the passage again and have students score their own responses by giving themselves one point each
time their sentence resembled a sentence in the passage. By a show of hands determine the total scores
obtained by the members of each group. Inform the entire class of the context and compare the groups’
scores. Those who knew the context and for whom the passage was meaningful will have remembered
significantly more.
Conclude the exercise by citing examples of how even a simple sentence becomes easier to recall when it is
meaningful. Read the following sentences: (1) The notes were sour because the seams split; (2) The voyage
wasn’t delayed because the bottle shattered; (3) The haystack was important because the cloth ripped.
Alone, the statements are difficult to understand and to recall; but if you provide the following prompts,
they become memorable: bagpipe, ship christening, parachutist.
Klein, M. (1981). Context and memory. In L. T. Benjamin, Jr. & K. D. Lowman (Eds.), Activities
handbook for the teaching of psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Classroom Exercise: Visually Versus Auditorily Encoded Information
Janet Simmons and Don Irwin have developed a classroom exercise that powerfully demonstrates the
benefits of visual imagery.
The top half of Handout 21–2 contains instructions for the control group; the bottom half has the imagery
group’s instructions. Make half as many copies of 21–2 as you have students and cut the handouts in half.
Distribute the top halves to one side of the class and the bottom halves to the other. It is important that
people in each group only be aware of their own instructions. (This is subtly accomplished by handing
sheets off the top of the stack to one side and sheets off the bottom to the other side.)
After students have read their instructions, read aloud the following sentences, pausing long enough
between each for students to record their ratings.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
The noisy fan blew the papers off the table.
The green frog jumped into the swimming pool.
The silly snake slithered down a steep sliding board.
The crafty surgeon won the daily double.
The skiing trumpeter started a gigantic avalanche.
The plump chef liked to jump rope.
The captured crook liked to do difficult crossword puzzles.
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
The small child sat under the lilac bush.
The medieval minstrel strolled along the babbling brook.
The distressed teacher ate a wormy apple.
The chocolate choo-choo train chugged down the licorice tracks.
The marching soldier lit a cigarette.
The long-haired woman had a phobia about scissors.
The cheerful choirboy sang off-key.
The toothless bathing beauty hardly ever smiled.
The sweaty gardener was wearing a scarf and mittens.
The spotted dog was sleeping in the sun.
The lanky leprechaun wore lavender leotards.
The bearded plumber was flushed with success.
The novice camper got lost in the woods.
Next have students turn the form over, number 1 to 20, and attempt to answer the following 20 questions,
which you read to them. (Answers follow the questions, but don’t give the answers until all 20 have been
read.)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Who won the daily double? (the crafty surgeon)
What chugged down the licorice tracks? (the chocolate choo-choo train)
Who liked to do difficult crossword puzzles? (the captured crook)
Who sang off-key? (the cheerful choirboy)
What blew the papers off the table? (the noisy fan)
Who hardly ever smiled? (the toothless bathing beauty)
Who slithered down a steep sliding board? (the silly snake)
What was sleeping in the sun? (the spotted dog)
Who strolled along the babbling brook? (the medieval minstrel)
Who was flushed with success? (the bearded plumber)
What jumped into the swimming pool? (the green frog)
Who lit a cigarette? (the marching soldier)
Who got lost in the woods? (the novice camper)
Who started a gigantic avalanche? (the skiing trumpeter)
Who wore lavender leotards? (the lanky leprechaun)
Who liked to jump rope? (the plump chef)
Who had a phobia about scissors? (the long-haired woman)
Who sat under a lilac bush? (the small child)
Who ate a wormy apple? (the distressed teacher)
Who wore a scarf and mittens? (the sweaty gardener)
Then, have students score themselves as you read the correct answers (anything close counts as correct).
Reveal the different instructional sets. Finally, after reassuring the students that memory does not equal
intelligence, write the scores for each group separately on the chalkboard as students call them out. The
differences between the groups’ scores will be highly significant with virtually no overlap. The control
group typically gets from 2 to 14 correct and the imagery group from 12 to 20 right. The entire
demonstration takes only 10 to 15 minutes.
Classroom Exercise: Semantic Encoding of Pictures
Our memory for pictures surpasses our memory for words; however, both types of memory depend on how
well the material is understood. In short, meaning is important for both visual and verbal memory.
To reinforce the value of semantic encoding, you can replicate part of an experiment by Gordon Bower
and his colleagues. It is brief, humorous, and very effective. At the beginning of the class distribute
Handout 21–3 to each student with instructions to keep it face down. (Alternatively, you can make one
very large copy of the figures and hold it up for the class to see.) After everyone has a copy, tell them to
turn the handout over and very briefly study the two figures. Describe “A” or “B,” but not both. For “A”
state, “This is a midget playing a trombone in a telephone booth.” For “B” state, “This is an early bird who
caught a very strong worm.” Immediately have students put the handout away and proceed with the class.
At the end of the session, ask students to reproduce the two figures without looking at them. Then have
them compare their reproductions with the actual figures. Recall of the figure given a verbal label will be
significantly more accurate, because it was encoded both semantically and visually.
Bower, G., Karlin, M., & Dueck, A. (1975). Comprehension and memory for pictures. Memory and
Cognition, 3, 216–220.
Lecture/Discussion Topic: Mnemonic Devices
Mnemonic devices are of both theoretical and practical importance. They can be used to illustrate the role
of meaning, imagery, and organization in successful encoding. So if time allows you only one lecture on
memory, this topic is a good choice. To illustrate the power of mnemonic devices, begin your lecture with a
classroom demonstration. Without telling your class why, ask volunteers to give you single words to
remember (to make it easy on yourself, specify that they be words naming concrete objects). Have them
give them to you at three- to five-second intervals and as they do, mentally use the “peg-word” system
(cited in the text) to remember them (one-bun, two-shoe, three-tree, four-door, five-hive, six-sticks, sevenheaven, eight-gate, nine-swine, ten-hen). Behind your back, have a student quickly record them on the
chalkboard in the order they are given. After all 10 have been given, immediately give them back both
backward and forward. In addition, tell them what the third, sixth, and ninth words were. Simply done, yet
dramatic in its effect. Finally, explain what you did.
The first mnemonic based on visual imagery was devised by the Greek poet Simonides in about 500 B.C. A
Greek who had won a wrestling match at the Olympic Games gave a banquet. Simonides was invited to
give a recitation in honor of the victor. After completing his eulogy, Simonides was called out of the
banquet hall. While he was away, the floor of the hall gave way, killing and mutilating all the guests. The
bodies were unrecognizable. However, by remembering where most of the guests had been sitting at the
time he left, Simonides could identify the victims.
The experience led Simonides to devise the method of loci. He visualized a familiar room in great detail
and then imagined the items that needed to be remembered in various parts of the room. To recall the items,
he would visualize the room. The system became popular with classical orators—Cicero, for example,
would “place” the major points of his speeches at different spots in the room. The Russian mnemonist
Shereshevskii also used this technique.
It’s fun to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in class. For example, to remember 10 items on a
grocery list—honey, dog food, sugar, oranges, ice cream, peanut butter, bread, pork chops, milk, and potato
chips—I typically take my students on a hypothetical tour of my house. We begin in the kitchen and see
honey dripping down into the toaster on the counter and a giant St. Bernard eating his dog food on top of
the kitchen table. We proceed to the living room, where sugar is embedded in the shag carpet, oranges are
under the davenport pillows, peanut butter is stuck between the piano keys, and ice cream is in the roaring
fireplace. We proceed up the stairs, with a slice of bread on each step. Pork chops are floating in the
bathtub, milk is tipped over on the dresser in the bedroom, and potato chips are stuck between the
bedsheets. When we get to the supermarket we re-tour my house. Students are asked, “What’s in the toaster
. . . on the kitchen table . . . in the living room carpet . . .? The chorus of responses not only reflects
amusement but also genuine amazement that the list is so easily recalled in the original order.
Students are typically eager to share their own memory tricks. Not all mnemonics utilize imagery. A
favorite of college students is the first-letter technique, which involves taking the first letter of each word
and forming a new word or a sentence from these letters. Either ROY G. BIV or “Richard Of York Gains
Battles in Vain” is used to remember the colors of the spectrum. “My Very Earnest Mother Just Showed Us
Nine Planets” is a mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets (before Pluto was demoted to dwarf
planet status). One of the popular anatomy mnemonics refers to the cranial nerves: On Old Olympia’s
Towering Top A Finn and German Vault and Hop (olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal,
abducens, facial, auditory, glossophyngeal, vagus, accessory, and hypoglossal). The first-letter technique is
most useful when the order of items is important.
In the substitution technique, letters are used to replace numbers. For example, a T may be substituted for
1, N for 2, M for 3, etc. The letters may then be used to make up words or sentences. Businesses will
sometimes help potential customers remember their phone number by using the letters associated with the
numbers on the dial to compose a familiar word. Similarly, words are sometimes substituted for numbers
such that the number of letters in each word must equal the number for which it is substituting.
Most people rely on external memory aids such as shopping lists, calendar notes, and memos with
regularity, and so they do not use mnemonics as often as they might. External aids are of limited usefulness.
For example, a note on a calendar will be useless if you forget to look at the calendar. Moreover, as
Margaret Matlin has observed, how often are students permitted to take examinations using external aids?
Michael Tipper provides a Web site for accelerated learning, which includes an extensive treatment of
mnemonics, all the way from memory aids for spelling words to remembering rock formations. It can be
found at www.happychild.org.uk/acc/tpr/mne/index.htm.
Baddeley, A. (1982). Your memory: A user’s guide. New York: Macmillan.
Matlin, M. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ:Wiley.
Lecture/Discussion Topic: The Keyword Method
You can extend the text discussion of mnemonics with a description of the keyword method and its
application to the learning of psychology.
In the keyword method you think of a word that sounds like all or part of the word to be remembered. Then
you create a scenario involving the associated word and the definition of the word-to-be-remembered. The
keyword method has often been applied to foreign vocabulary learning. In learning Spanish words, for
example, pato might first be recoded as an acoustically similar keyword, pot. Then pot is linked to the
word’s meaning, duck, by means of an interactive mental image involving a duck with a pot on its head.
Russell Carney, Joel Levin, and Mary Levin describe some examples of applying the keyword method to
learning parts of the nervous system and their functions that are worth presenting in class.
Term
Module 21
Information
Processing 11
1.
Keyword
Meaning
Your
Mental Picture
Broca’s area
broken
directs muscles
for speech
production
Imagine breaking a
talking doll. If it gets
broken (Broca), it won’t
talk (speech) anymore.
2.
parietal lobe
3.
hypothalamus
4.
cerebral cortex
5.
amygdala
6.
frontal
association areas
7.
corpus callosum
8.
left hemisphere
9.
temporal lobes
10.
hippocampus
Source: Carney, R. N., Levin, J.
Imagine that a parent
(parietal) is touching his
or her baby’s forehead to
feel if the baby has a
temperature.
Imagine a hypochondriac
hypochondriac hunger and
(hypothalamus) thinking
thirst
they’re hungry and
thirsty when they’re not!
You and a friend have a
cereal court
judgment
dispute over a box of
cereal. So, you go to
cereal court (cerebral
cortex) and face a judge
(judgment).
aggression and
In the Bible,
Armageddon
Armageddon (amygdala)
fear
is the final battle between
good and evil. Battles are
full of aggression and
fear.
impulse control Imagine a student losing
front
patience and crowding to
the front (frontal) of the
line. He has lost impulse
control.
Imagine a tiny corpse
corpse
connects the two
(corpus) lying across
cerebral
(connecting) the two
hemispheres
cerebral hemispheres.
left field
handles
Imagine a ballplayer in
left field talking
language
(language) continuously
during a game (for
example, “swing batter,
swing batter,” etc.)
tempera paints
Imagine someone
hearing
painting tempera paints
(temporal) all over their
ears (hearing) “These
ears aren’t painted on,”
she says!
Imagine a hippo
hippo
memories
(hippocampus) wearing
an elephant trunk as a
Halloween costume. “It
helps my memory!” he
says.
R., & Levin, M. E. (1994, August). Additional memory-enhancing
parent
sense of touch
activities for acquiring psychology course content. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American
Psychological Association, Los Angeles. Reprinted by permission of Russell Carney.
Classroom Exercise: Chunking
As the text indicates, information organized into chunks is recalled more easily. Chunking often occurs so
naturally we take it for granted. You can easily demonstrate this in class. Ask your students if they can
recite the second sentence of the Pledge of Allegiance. Everyone will think this easy and will think through
the entire pledge before realizing it consists of a single sentence.
As in the classroom exercise “Memory Capacity” (page 12 of this module’s resources), have students take
out a clean sheet of paper and tell them you will be reading a series of unrelated numbers. As you complete
each series, they are to write down as many numbers as they can recall. Then, read each of the following
series of numbers, beginning with “Ready?” and ending with “Recall.” Read each chunk quickly, pausing
briefly between chunks. For example, the first set would be read: “four, twenty-three” (pause) “nineteen.”
When the list has been read, have students score their responses as you re-read the digits. Chunking clearly
enables the retention of more digits.
423-19 267-198 390-675-2 573-291-43 721-354-456 245-619-832-2 141-384-515-89 201315-426-762
IV. Storage: Retaining Information (pp. 277–283)
A. Sensory Memory (p. 277)
Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Iconic Memory
The text notes that we have a fleeting photographic memory called iconic memory. To demonstrate it in
class, have each student put one hand in front of his or her face and wave it up and down. What do
students see? Because they momentarily see where their hand was before they moved it, they are likely to
report seeing more than five fingers. We perceive the image of where our hand has moved while our iconic
memory allows us to see where our hand was a moment before.
If you can make your classroom completely dark, you can demonstrate iconic memory in another way
(alternatively, students can do this out of class and report back their experiences). After the room is dark,
turn on a flashlight and slowly move it in circles. Take two or three seconds to complete each circle. What
do students report seeing? Then make circles with your flashlight by moving your arm as quickly as you
can. What do they see this time? In the first case, the image of the beam creates a moving point of light. At
most, students may report seeing a comet-like tail left in iconic memory. In the second case, however, the
beam will appear as a continuous circle, because the image of the light beam has not yet faded from sensory
or iconic memory when it comes around the second time.
Matlin, M. W. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
VanderStoep, S. W., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003). Learning to learn: The skill and will of college success.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
PsychSim 5: Iconic Memory
Useful for demonstrating the sensory register (very short-term memory), the program describes Sperling’s
classic findings. Nine random letters are displayed in a 3 x 3 matrix, and students attempt to recall the
letters under three conditions: (a) free recall; (b) cued recall, with the cue appearing at the same time as the
letters; and (c) delayed cued recall, with the cue appearing 500 msec. after the offset of the letters. After
each condition, the student’s performance is graphed and interpreted. In most cases, the students will be
able to demonstrate the existence of a visual “icon,” or sensory register, by showing that more information
is available to them than they can reproduce in a free recall task, but that this information decays sharply
during a 500 msec. delay.
B. Working/Short-Term Memory (pp. 277–278)
PsychSim 5: Short-Term Memory
This activity explains basic aspects of short-term memory. First describing the common model of memory
storage, the program tests students on their ability to hold information in short-term memory.
Classroom Exercise: Memory Capacity
Our short-term memory is limited. As the text relates, we can immediately recall roughly seven items of
information (“Magical Number Seven, plus or minus two”). It is simple to demonstrate people’s immediate
memory span in class.
Have students take out a clean sheet of paper and tell them you will be reading a series of unrelated digits.
As you complete each series, they are to write down as many digits as they can recall in the correct order.
Precede each of the series, shown below, with “Ready?” and end with “Recall.” Read at a relatively steady
rate—about two digits per second.
9754
6419
68259
37148
913825
648327
5963827
5316842
86951372
51739826
719384273
163875942
9152438162
1528467318
Have students score their own responses as you reread the lists. By a show of hands have them indicate the
highest span level at which they got one series correct. The mean for the class should be slightly above
seven. Note that our recall is a bit better for random digits than for random letters, and it is also slightly
better for information we hear rather than see.
Feature Film: Memento The fascinating feature film Memento provides a good introduction to a discussion
of memory and memory loss. Or, you may want to show clips from this film when you discuss the specific
topic of memory storage, especially the distinction between short-term and long-term memory.
In the film, Leonard, an insurance investigator, seeks revenge for his wife’s murder. At the time she was
assaulted, he himself suffered serious head injury and now is unable to transfer material from short-term to
long-term memory. He retains information for the moment but it quickly fades. On the other hand, his longterm memories remain largely in tact. He compensates for his loss by writing notes to himself, snapping
Polaroid pictures, and even tattooing relevant facts on his body—the most prominent being “John G. raped
and murdered my wife.”
Although the story highlights a number of principles of memory and thus students may want to see the
entire film, two clips are certainly worth showing in class. In Chapter 3, “It’s Like Waking” (beginning at
6:25 minutes and running until 11:05), Leonard describes his condition and the need to write notes to
himself. In Chapter 6, “Memories Can Be Distorted” (beginning at 22:15 and running until 28:28), Teddy
challenges the reliability of Leonard’s note-taking for recalling the past. Leonard discusses the
malleability and unreliability of human memory more generally.
C. Long-Term Memory (pp. 278–279)
Lecture/Discussion Topic: Rajan Mahadevan’s Amazing Memory
Students are fascinated by case studies of people with extraordinary memories. You may want to expand
the text’s brief reference to Rajan Mahadevan, a University of Tennessee psychologist from India who
correctly recited the first 31,811 digits of pi.
Rajan’s amazing memory for numbers first became apparent when he was 5 years old. As cars pulled up to
his house in Mangalore, India, for a party his parents were having, he memorized the license plates. After
all the guests had arrived, Rajan recited the license plates of all 40 cars in the order in which they had been
parked. In one sense, Rajan’s memory was not unexpected. As the text suggests, Rajan's father, a prominent
surgeon, demonstrated a remarkable capacity to recall the writings of William Shakespeare. As a child,
reports Rajan, “I used to be so lost in my own thoughts, I would talk to myself. It was hard to fit in. Other
kids didn’t know what to make of me.”
To win a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, Rajan began studying a computer printout of the
first 200,000 places of pi, the ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle. Pi begins 3.14159
and then continues on indefinitely with no known duplication or pattern, making it the ultimate test of
numerical memory. Two Columbia University mathematicians have calculated pi to 480 million decimal
places.
On July 5, 1981, Rajan stood before a capacity crowd in a Mangalore meeting hall and rattled off numbers
so quickly that the judges could hardly keep up. For 3 hours, 49 minutes, his memory never faltered. Then
came a lapse. He forgot the 31,812th digit of pi— a 5. Nonetheless, he had toppled the previous record of
20,013 digits and, until 1987, Rajan’s performance was the best in the world. In 1987, Hideaki Tomoyori of
Japan recited 40,000 digits in 17 hours, 21 minutes, and in 1995, Hiroyuki Goto recited more than 42,000 in
just over nine hours. It is estimated that to recite all the known digits of pi (6.4 billion) would take 133
years with no pause for coffee or sleep.
Some argue that Rajan still has a more impressive memory because he recalled the digits at an average rate
of 3.5 digits per second, much faster than Tomoyori or even Goto. Psychologist Charles Thompson, who
has studied Rajan’s memory, is convinced that it is superior to Tomoyori’s, who made up a story—a
mnemonic—to remember the numbers. In fact, he believes that Rajan may have the most remarkable
numerical memory known to science since “S.” As noted in the text, “S” was S. V. Shereshevskii, a
newspaper reporter whose memory was discovered during the mid-1920s by an editor infuriated by his
failure to take notes. “S” had no need to; he recalled everything he’d ever seen or heard. His inability to
forget proved as much a curse as a blessing. Ultimately, unable to distinguish between conversations he’d
heard 5 minutes or 5 years before, the mnemonist ended up in an asylum.
To give students an idea of how difficult it is to remember a random string of numbers, give them 30
seconds to memorize the following 30 numbers: 2 1 6 9 6 4 6 1 5 1 9 9 7 2 5 2 4 6 8 0 1 2 9 6 1 6 0 8 9 4.
(Before class, write them on the chalkboard and cover with a screen, prepare a transparency, or distribute
written copies.) After 30 seconds have passed, have students write them down in sequence. Nancy Shulins
suggests that 4–9 correct is average, 10–19 is extraordinary, 20–30 is brilliant. Ask those who perform well
to indicate how they did it.
Thompson studied Rajan’s memory by flashing numbers on a computer screen, one per second, then asking
Rajan how he remembers them, or by observing his behavior. While Rajan cannot describe the process by
which he remembers pi, says Thompson, his response to the numbers on the screen is intriguing. As they
appear, he taps his feet and rocks rhythmically back and forth in his chair. From time to time he jiggles his
legs. “There’s something about the way the numbers sound,” he says. For example, he finds the numbers in
pi from the 2901st to the 3000th places— 81911979399520614196, etc.—particularly melodic. The series
from the 3701st to the 3800th is “very jarring.”
Interestingly, Rajan’s memory is exceptional only for numbers. In all other areas—names, faces, words— it
is average. And unlike “S,” he can forget, although “it is hard to willfully forget numbers.” Random
numbers learned in one session come flooding back during another. Maintaining the correct sequence
requires discipline and concentration.
Thompson, C., Cowan, T., & Frieman, J. (1993). Memory search by memorist. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
D. Storing Memories in the Brain (pp. 279–283)
Classroom Exercise: Flashbulb Memory
Beryl Benderly has described “flashbulb” memories this way: “It’s as if our nervous system takes a
multimedia snapshot of the sounds, sights, smells, weather, emotional climate, even the body postures we
experience at certain moments.” Introduce this fascinating topic by asking students to write down in a
sentence or two their three most vivid memories. When David Rubin and Mark Kozen asked Duke
University undergraduates to do so, they discovered that the memories were almost all personally rather
than nationally important events— for example, of an injury or accident (18 percent), sports (11 percent),
members of the opposite sex (10 percent), animals (9 percent), deaths (5 percent), and vacations (5 percent).
Events that were surprising, consequential, or emotional were most likely to be judged as having
“flashbulb” quality.
The students at Duke were also asked about 20 events that the researchers thought might evoke vivid
recollections. Ask your students if any of the following events have a flashbulb quality for them. The
percentage of Duke students who had flashbulb recollections of these events is reported in parentheses. You
might also add or substitute other events—for example, the execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006 and the
loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew in 2003, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Princess
Diana’s death, the nights of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, or the night John F. Kennedy, Jr.,
crashed his plane.
A car accident you were in or witnessed (85)
When you first met your college roommate (82)
Your high school graduation (81)
Your senior prom (if you went or not) (78)
An early romantic experience (77)
A time you had to speak in front of an audience (72)
When you got your admissions letter from college (65)
Your first date (the moment you met him/her) (57)
The day President Reagan was shot in Washington (52)
Your first flight (40)
The moment you opened your SAT scores (33)
Your seventeenth birthday (30)
The last time you ate a holiday dinner at home (23)
Your first college class (21)
The first time your parents left you alone for some time (19)
Your thirteenth birthday (12)
Source: D. Reuben. The subtle deceiver: Recalling our past. Psychology Today magazine, 39–46.
Copyright 1985. Reprinted by permission of Sussex Publishers, Inc.
Robert Livingstone speculates that incidents are most likely to be stored as flashbulb memories if they are
novel and if they are “biologically significant.” If a unique event has great meaning—for example, if it
accompanies great pain, joy, fear, or some other strong emotion—then a general “now store” order goes
into permanent memory.
Interestingly, our recall includes aspects that are unrelated to the meaningfulness of the event itself. Roger
Brown and James Kulik found that flashbulb memories of President John Kennedy’s assassination were all
different because respondents recalled not only the core event but also their own activities and reactions
when the news first reached them.
The details of a flashbulb memory are not necessarily accurate, even though the person typically believes
they are. Not only do people rehearse and reconstruct an event time and again, but others’ accounts of the
same event may also come to influence their recall. As the text indicates, memory can be constructive.
Benderly, B. (1981, June). Flashbulb memory. Psychology Today, 71–74.
Rubin, D. (1985, September). The subtle deceiver: Recalling our past. Psychology Today, 39–46.
PsychSim 5: When Memory Fails
This activity explores severe memory loss—how it happens and its impact on behavior. In the process,
students learn about the different types of memories we store, as well as the areas of the brain that are
involved in forming and retrieving memories.
V. Retrieval: Getting Information Out (pp. 283–287)
Student Project: Permastore
The text describes Harry Bahrick and colleagues’ study assessing memory for old high school classmates.
Although people who graduated 25 years earlier could not recall many of their classmates, they could
recognize 90 percent of their pictures and names. Bahrick proposed the term permastore for this relatively
permanent, very long-term form of memory.
Evidence for permastore also comes from studies of memory for a foreign language. Designed by Margaret
Matlin, Handout 21–4 challenges students to locate at least one person who has studied Spanish or French,
but who has not used the language in at least the last year. After recording how many years have passed
since the volunteer studied the language, the student should hand him or her the handout to translate the
relevant words (either Spanish or French). To score performance, here are the answers (for both lists):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
railroad
cat
sister
bed
head
6. apple 16.
7. heart
8. shoe 18.
9. chair 19.
10. kitchen
11. street
12. devil
13. orange
14. bird
15. grandfather
16. arm
17. skirt
18. breakfast
19. window
20. moon
Bahrick and his colleagues found that the knowledge of a foreign language remains reasonably viable for a
long period of time. In a massive study of 773 people, they examined the maintenance of Spanish over a
span of 50 years. Not surprisingly, they found that the more thoroughly the language was studied, the better
the performance on a subsequent test. Knowledge of Spanish declined noticeably during the first 3 years
and then seemed to stabilize for another 30 years. Although some decline of reading comprehension was
evident after 25 years, much of the originally learned knowledge was still usable after 50 years. People
recalled about 40 percent of the vocabulary, idioms, and grammar they had learned.
Martin Conway and his colleagues assessed student retention of material taught in a course in cognitive
psychology. Recall for the names of researchers and specific concepts declined during the first 2 years after
taking the course and remained steady at about 25 percent a decade later. Recall for broader, more general
facts and the research methodology of cognitive psychology was significantly greater. They were able to
recall about 70 percent of this information 10 years later.
Matlin, M. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
A. Retrieval Cues (pp. 284–287)
Student Project/Classroom Exercise: Retrieval Cues
Handout 21–5, originally provided by J. D. Bransford, is presented so that it can be used as a classroom
exercise or assigned as an outside project. (Note there are two sides to the handout that should be copied as
presented, that is, on different sides of the same sheet of paper.) Like information stored in encyclopedias,
memories may be inaccessible until we have cues for retrieving them. The fact that students will remember
many more sentences when a key word is added provides dramatic evidence that retrieval cues remind us of
information we could not otherwise recall. The text indicates that memory is held in storage by a web of
associations. To retrieve a specific memory, you first need to identify one of the strands that leads to it, a
process called priming.
Classroom Exercise: Expertise and Retrieval Rate
As people develop expertise in an area, central concepts become increasingly elaborated, organized, and
interconnected. By organizing their knowledge in these ways, experts recall information more efficiently.
Priming with a single concept cues a host of associations. Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus provides an effective
10-minute demonstration of how content knowledge facilitates retrieval of domain-specific information.
Ask for four volunteers, two who report having some expertise in music (e.g., music majors or students
with several years of private music instruction) and two who report knowing little about music. After they
have left the room, briefly explain to the rest of the class the task you will be asking the volunteers to
perform and have the observers generate predictions. Call back the volunteers one at a time and give each
the simple instruction: “As fast as you can, as soon as I say ‘go,’ give me ANY seven words that relate to
music. Go!” Be sure to say “music” last, because the process of spreading activation will occur as soon as
you provide the cue. With a stopwatch, record the time it takes each student to provide seven words, then
write the results on the chalkboard.
You can calculate the mean for the two groups. However, Muir-Broaddus notes that the ranges for the two
groups rarely overlap. Experts take about 7 to 10 seconds and novices about 12 to 16 seconds. Point out to
your class that knowledge in an area of expertise is more accessible (i.e., more quickly retrieved), because
the greater quality and quantity of knowledge facilitates spreading activation through the semantic network.
Although you are likely to produce the effect with just one novice and one expert, Muir-Broaddus
recommends using two for each group. Occasionally, volunteers may implement a retrieval strategy such as
naming a series of notes (e.g., A, B, C, D, E, F, G), which may shorten response times. (Muir-Broaddus
notes that only two or three of her 24 volunteers have used a strategy.) Such strategies can shorten response
times enough to hide (in the case of novices) or inflate (in the case of experts) the expected knowledge base
effect. You may want to forewarn the class of the power of such strategies and, if they are used, discuss
each volunteer’s response time separately (i.e., the novice who used the strategy versus the novice who did
not versus the mean for the 2 experts who did not). It is more likely that an expert will follow a strategy.
Point out that expertise typically facilitates not only organization and item-specific activation but retrieval
strategy as well. For example, in the course of retrieval, the expert may notice automatically activated
associative relations and exploit them. The cue music may activate the word note that then activates A, B,
C, D, E, F.
Muir-Broaddus, J. E. (1998). Name seven words: Demonstrating the effects of knowledge on rate of
retrieval. Teaching of Psychology, 25, 119–120.
Classroom Exercise: Déjà Vu in the Classroom
Students often ask for an explanation of the déjà vu experience—that eerie sense that “I’ve been in this
exact situation before.” The text suggests that if we have been in a similar situation, though we can’t recall
what it was, the current situation may be loaded with cues that unconsciously help us to retrieve the earlier
experience.
Drew Appleby provides a classroom demonstration of the déjà vu experience and an explanation that is
compatible with that in the text. Explain to your class that they will be participating in a free-recall
demonstration. (Don’t mention déjà vu.) Present the following 12 words to the class by displaying them on
4 x 6 cards (one word per card) and by stating them aloud as you hold up each card.
REST
SNORE
SOUND
TIRED
BED
COMFORT
AWAKE
EAT
WAKE
DREAM
SLUMBER
NIGHT
Then ask the students to write down as many of the 12 words as they can remember. Give them about 2
minutes and then ask for a show of hands of who remembers the word AARDVARK. Most will look at you
as if you have lost your mind! Then ask who remembers the word SLEEP. Anywhere from 50 to 95 percent
will indicate they do. (Those who don’t may appear a bit sheepish that they can’t remember such a familiar
word.) Read through the entire list again and the class will be astonished to learn that it contains neither
AARDVARK nor SLEEP.
Finally, ask your class why so many believed they had seen and heard SLEEP. Obviously they will
recognize that all the other words were related to it. From here it is a simple matter to describe how
associations can cause a person to feel that an event has occurred when it really has not. Appeals to ESP or
reincarnation are hardly necessary to explain déjà vu experiences.
Staff. (1989, November/December). What is déjà vu? Hippocrates, p. 96.
Appleby, D. (1986). Déjà vu in the classroom. Network, 4, 8.
Lecture/Discussion Topic: The Déjà Vu Illusion
In his review of research on the déjà vu illusion (having a feeling of familiarity in a situation that is
objectively unfamiliar or new), Alan Brown opens with this example that you may want to share with your
students.
Last week, I visited my boyfriend’s new apartment for the first time. As I entered his place, I could have
sworn that I had been there in that situation before, and walking through his front door seemed like a
repeated action. The experience is so weird and mind-boggling that I usually discard the thought, and
move on, and it seems to happen at strange times with little importance (Brown, A. S., 2004. The déjà
vu illusion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 256.)
Ask your students to volunteer their own accounts of such experiences. Brown reports that about two-thirds
of individuals have had at least one déjà vu experience, and typically these individuals report that this has
happened many times. More than 50 surveys of the phenomenon reveal that the déjà vu experience:
 decreases with age and increases with education and income.
 is more common in persons who travel, remember their dreams, and have liberal political and religious
beliefs.
 is most likely to be triggered by a general physical context, although spoken words alone sometimes
produce the illusion.
 is experienced mainly when people are indoors, engaged in leisure activities or relaxing, and in the
company of friends.
 is relatively brief—10 to 30 seconds—and is more frequent in the evening than in the morning, and on
the weekend than on weekdays.
 is responded to more positively than negatively, with people typically indicating they are surprised,
curious, or confused.
Since the 1800s, reports Brown, researchers have offered more than 30 scientifically plausible explanations
of déjà vu. The most promising describe the illusion as arising from biological dysfunction, divided
perception, or implicit familiarity in the absence of explicit recollection.
From the biological perspective, incoming sensory data follow several different pathways to the higher
processing centers of the brain. A neurochemical event that slightly alters transmission speed in one
pathway could lead to the illusion of déjà vu. That is, the slight delay in the speed of one pathway relative
to another could cause the brain to interpret the data as independent and separate copies of the same
experience, even though the two impressions are only milliseconds off.
Déjà vu could also result, suggests Brown, from a perceptual experience that is subjectively split into two
parts. That is, a fully processed perceptual experience that matches a minimally processed impression
received moments earlier could produce a strong feeling of familiarity. The disconnection between the two
perceptual impressions could result from a physical distraction or even from a mental distraction such as
when we momentarily retreat into our inner thoughts and reflections. The phenomenon of inattentional
blindness, in which people miss something that is right in front of them, demonstrates how perceptual
experience can be split into two parts. A clearly visible item can be overlooked if one’s attention is directed
elsewhere. Even though we may be oblivious to this clearly visible stimulus, it still registers as
demonstrated by implicit memory tests.
Finally, déjà vu may be the product of implicit familiarity without explicit recollection. For example, when
we are in a setting that matches one we have previously experienced as a young child or read about in an
especially vivid literary description, we may have a feeling of familiarity but no explicit recollection of the
source of this feeling. Brown gives the example of seeing a lamp in your aunt’s house that may be identical
to the one that used to be in your friend’s apartment. You may fail to recognize the object yet experience
an implicit sense of familiarity that generalizes to the entire situation. Or the living room of your friend’s
new apartment may elicit déjà vu because the room’s arrangement closely resembles the configuration of a
living room you were in years before.
Brown, A. S. (2004). The déjà vu illusion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 256–
259.
Classroom Exercise: The Pollyanna Principle
The Pollyanna Principle states that pleasant items and events are usually processed more efficiently and
accurately than less pleasant items. Although the principle presumably also applies to a variety of
phenomena in perception, language, and decision making, it has been best documented in memory.
Margaret Matlin reports that in 39 of 52 studies, pleasant items were more accurately recalled than
unpleasant items. Furthermore, pleasant items were retrieved before less pleasant items.
Matlin suggests a classroom demonstration of the principle. Have students take out two sheets of paper.
Have them make three columns of numbers from 1 to 10 on the first sheet. In the first column they are to
list 10 vegetables in any order they wish; in the second, 10 fruits; in the last column, 10 current or former
professors or teachers.
On the second sheet, they are to arrange each of the lists in alphabetical order. After doing so, they should
put the original lists aside and then rank each item on the second sheet with respect to the other members of
the list. For example, they should give their favorite vegetable a rank of 1 and their least favorite vegetable
a rank of 10. Finally, they are to transfer each of the ranks back to the original list. Thus, each of the 10
items on each of the three lists should have a rank.
The relationship between the ordering and the ranking will be obvious. Pleasant items will be remembered
before less pleasant items. In particular, have students compare the first ranks with the last three in each list.
Are the former listed before the latter? Matlin and her colleagues found that when people made lists of
fruits, vegetables, and professors, the preferred items “tumbled out” of memory prior to neutral or disliked
items. To explain this phenomenon, she has proposed that pleasant items may be stored more accessibly in
memory. As a consequence, they can be recalled more quickly and accurately.
W. Richard Walker and colleagues identify two causes for people’s recollection of a positive past. First,
pleasant events actually outnumber unpleasant events. Why? People seek out positive experiences and
avoid negative ones. Across 12 studies, people from different racial, ethnic, and age categories consistently
reported experiencing more positive events than negative ones.
Second, our memory systems treat pleasant emotions differently from unpleasant ones. Unpleasant
emotions fade more quickly. By minimizing negative events, we return to our normal level of happiness
more rapidly. Research suggests that this “minimization” represents genuine emotional fading rather than a
retrospective error in memory. Walker’s research team claims that the fading of negative experiences is
evidence of healthy coping processes operating in memory. The effect should not be confused with Freud’s
concept of repression. People do remember negative events; they just remember them less negatively.
Interestingly, for those who suffer mild depression, unpleasant and pleasant emotions tend to fade evenly.
But for most of us, Walker claims, the bias “suggests that autobiographical memory represents an important
exception to the theoretical claim that bad is stronger than good and allows people to cope with tragedies,
celebrate joyful moments, and look forward to tomorrow.”
Matlin, M. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Walker, W. R., Skowronski, J. J., & Thompson, C. P. (2003). Life is pleasant—and memory helps to
keep it that way. Review of General Psychology, 7, 203–210.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to loss of formatting, the Handouts are only available in Adobe PDF.
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