Download What is Memory?

What is Memory?
The Processes of encoding, storage &
retrieval
What is Memory?
• The encoding, storage and later
retrieval of a response that was
previously acquired.
• The Learning Process is made up of
Two Stages: Acquisition & Retention
Acquisition
• Acquisition – The initial learning of
information.
• Affected by…
• 1. Attention Process
• 2. Degree of Motivation
• 3. Preparedness of the Learner
• 4. Type of Practice Followed
• 5. Kind of Material to be Learned
• 6. Transfer of Training (Application)
Situational Factors that Influence
Acquisition
Attention
• Sensory Gating – process by which the brain sends
messages to some of the sensory systems to
decrease the amount of information they must deal
with.
– Example: Feeling of clothes, “white” noise
• Parallel vs. Sequential Attention (parallel sensory
processing)
– Parallel – Useful only when receiving new info. Brain
processes several different stimuli simultaneously.
– Sequential Attention – Higher Level, treat each piece of
info separately in order.
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Factors Influencing Attention
• Feature Extraction (Decoding) – Sensory
System selects which incoming stimuli to process
then establishes meaning for these stimuli.
– Example: “r” is different from “f”
• Characteristics of the Learner:
– Individual Differences: development, motivation,
expression of emotions
• Preparedness – Time & Place. Example:
Chimps can’t speak but are prepared for signing.
• The Learning Curve: Performance is not always
an accurate indicator of learning.
Methods of Acquisition
1. Overlearning – any repetition over the point of acquisition
– Follows the law of diminishing returns – more is not always better.
2.
Knowledge of Results: Feedback – any info about the effect of
a response.
– Leads to faster acquisition of new material
– Immediate feedback is more beneficial than delayed
3.
Distribution of Practice – Study - Rest - Study – Rest.
(Take Breaks)
4.
Whole-Part Distribution – Deciding whether to learn the entire
amount of material as a whole or divide it into parts to learn. Depends on
the task.
5.
Active vs. Passive Approach – The more involved (active) you
are in your learning the better you will remember it.
6.
Primacy & Recency Effects – Tend to remember info that
came first and last.
7.
Content – We are better able to remember info that we can make
associations to and infer meaning from.
The InformationProcessing Model
Information Processing Model
• Encoding - getting information into
the memory system
• Storage - the retaining of encoded
information over time
• Retrieval - getting encoded
information out of memory storage
How is Our Memory Like a
Computer?
• Both encode, store, and retrieve data
• We can activate information from our long
term memory (hard drives)
• Information on the screen disappears if not
used right away – short term memory
Encoding:
Serial Position
Effect
Serial Position Effect
• The tendency to recall the first and
last items in a list
• Primacy effect – the ability to recall
information near the beginning of a
list
• Recency effect – the ability to recall
information near the end of a list
Primacy/Recency Effect
or
Serial Position Effect
(From Craik & Watkins, 1973)
Encoding:
Spacing Effect
Spacing Effect
• The tendency for distributed practice
to yield better retention than is
achieved through massed practice
(cramming)
Distributed Practice
• Spreading rehearsal out in several
sessions separated by period of time
• Usually enhances the recalling of the
information
Massed Practice
• Putting all rehearsal together in one
long session (cramming)
• Not as effective as distributed
practice
Encoding:
Encoding Meaning
Semantic Encoding
• The encoding of meaning
• Encoding information that is
meaningful enhances recall
Self-Reference Effect
• The enhanced semantic encoding of
information that is personally
relevant
• Making information meaningful to a
person by making it relevant to one’s
life
Semantic Encoding
(From Craik & Tulving, 1975)
Acoustic Encoding
• Encoding information based on the
sounds of the information
Acoustic Encoding
(From Craik & Tulving, 1975)
Visual Encoding
• Encoding information based on the
images of the information
Visual Encoding
(From Craik & Tulving, 1975)
Encoding:
Organizing
Information
Chunking
• Organizing information into
meaningful units
• More information can be encoded if
organized into meaningful chunks.
Encoding:
Mnemonic Devices
Mnemonic Device
• A memory trick or technique for
remembering specific facts
• “Every good boy does fine” to remember
the notes on the lines of the scale
• “People say you could have odd lots of
good years” as a way to remember how
to spell “psychology”
Method of Loci
• A mnemonic device in which the
person associates items to be
remembered with imaginary places
Peg-Word System
• A mnemonic device in which the
person associates items to
remember with a list of peg words
already memorized
• Goal is to visualize the items to
remember with the items on the
pegs
Peg Word System
Categorical Clustering
• Grouping items you want to remember by
categories
• Example: Grocery list organized by aisles
or food category.
Acronyms
• Set of letters from a word or phrase in
which each letter stands of a certain other
word or concept.
• Example: HOMES = Names of the Great
Lakes
Acrostics
• Initial letters that taken in order form a
word or phrase that trigger what you want
to remember.
• Example: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt
Sally (Math)
• Example: Every Good Boy Deserves
Fudge (Music)
Interactive Images
• Link a set of isolated words by creating
visual representations for the words and
then picturing interactions among the
items.
• Example: If you had to remember a list of
random things like an aardvark, pencil,
table and book picture the aardvark sitting
on a table holding pencil in its claws and
writing in a book.
Keyword System
• Learning isolated words by linking sounds
and meanings together.
• Example: Elvis shook his pelvis
– Stalactite holds tight to the ceiling
– Fibula lies beneath the Tibula
– Tibula is on top of the fibula
Do Mnemonics Work?
• Watch this 8 minute video on how the
world’s best memory competitors use
mnemonics.
Storage
Three Storage Systems
• Three distinct storage systems :
–Sensory Memory
–Short-Term Memory (includes
Working Memory)
–Long-Term Memory
Storage:
Sensory Memory
Sensory Memory
• The brief, initial coding of sensory
information in the memory system
– Iconic store – visual information,
½ second
– Echoic store – sound information,
2-3 seconds
• Information held just long enough to
make a decision on its importance
Storage:
Short-Term Memory
Short-Term Memory
• Conscious, activated memory which
holds information briefly before it is
stored or forgotten
• Holds approximately seven, plus or
minus two, chunks of information
• Can retain the information as long as it is
rehearsed
• Also called “working memory”
Storage:
Long-Term Memory
Long-Term Memory
• The relatively permanent and
limitless storehouse of the memory
system
• Holds memories without conscious
effort
Take out a piece of paper
Name the Seven Dwarves
Retrieval
Retrieval
• The process of getting information
out of memory storage
• Two forms of retrieval
–Recall
–Recognition
Recall
• A measure of memory in which the
person must retrieve information
learned earlier
• Example: Essay, fill-in-the-blank, and
short answer test questions test recall
• Recall Tests will do THIS to your head.
Recognition
• A measure of memory in which a
person must identify items learned
earlier
• Example: Multiple choice and
matching test questions test
recognition
Now Turn
pickyour
outpaper
the over.
seven
dwarves.
Grouchy Gabby Fearful Sleepy
Smiley Jumpy Hopeful Shy
Droopy Dopey Sniffy Wishful
Puffy Dumpy Sneezy Pop
Grumpy Bashful Cheerful Teach
Snorty Nifty Happy Doc Wheezy
Stubby Poopy
Seven Dwarves
Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Doc and Bashful
Retrieval: Context
Context Effect
• The enhanced ability to retrieve
information when you are in an
environment similar to the one in
which you encoded the information
Context
Retrieval:
State Dependency
State Dependent Memory
• The enhanced ability to retrieve
information when the person is in the
same physical and emotional state
they were in when they encoded the
information
• The retrieval state is congruent with
the encoding state
Let’s Review
The Three Processes of Memory
Encoding
• The processing of information into the
memory system.
Typing info into a computer
Getting a girls name at a party
Storage
• The retention of encoded material
over time.
Pressing Ctrl S and
saving the info.
Trying to remember her name
when you leave the party.
Retrieval
• The process of getting the information
out of memory storage.
Finding your document
and opening it up.
Seeing her the next day
and calling her the wrong
name (retrieval failure).
Memory Construction- itinerary
• Misinformation Effect
• Children’s Memories
– Hypnosis (in general), drugs, therapy
– Traumatic events
– Rosanne Barr
• Eyewitness Testimony
– Picking Cotton
• Environmental Contexts &Internal Emotional States
• Déjà vu
• Types of Amnesia
– Ten Second Tom
Misinformation effect
• Misinformation effect*- when after
exposure to subtle misinformation, many
people misremember.
• Memories We construct our memories,
using both stored and new information.
• are not stored as exact copies,
• In many experiments, people have
witnessed an event, received or not
received misleading information about it,
and then taken a memory test.
Misinformation effect
• Consider two witnesses to a car accident. (Billy and
Sally).
• Billy is asked by a policeman, “How fast was the car
going when it smashed into the other vehicle”
• Sally is asked by another policeman, “How fast was
the car going when it bumped into the other vehicle.”
• Billy’s constructed memory will increase in numbers in
comparison from Sally’s. Influenced by the descriptive
words “smashed” and “bumped”.
Misinformation effect
Misinformation effect can be caused by:
1. Leading questions
2. Influence of people filling in “gaps” in
memory
3. Other testimony
4. Repeated imagining and rehearsing
nonexistent events cause false memories
(imagination inflation).
5. Source Amnesia*- attribute to the wrong
source an event the we have experienced,
heard about, read about, or imagined. (Ex.
Dreaming an event and trying to determine
if it happened or it was a dream)
Psychologists Questions on
Misinformation Effect:
1.
When are people susceptible to misinformation?
a.
b.
2.
Who is susceptible to misinformation?
a.
b.
c.
3.
Time (discrepancy detection principle)
Subtle exposure
Young children
Memory performance rises up to the age of 20
Falls sharply at the age of 65
What happens to the original memory?
a. After much research it is commonly believed that misinformation
does impair the original details of memory.
4.
Do people genuinely believe the misinformation?
a. It is believed that people report misinformation confidently
because they have the need to be “good” at recalling events.
Children’s Memories
• Preschool Children are sensitive to suggestion,
and their recollections of sexual abuse may be
prone to error. (can be given suggestive
interviewing techniques)
– Day Care Cases in 1980’s- mass abuse. Falsely
reported by children who were influenced by the
interviewers.
• Innocent people have been falsely convicted of
abuse that never happened, and true abusers
have sued the controversy over recovered
memories to avoid punishment.
Repressed and Recovered Memories
• Psychologists agree that:
– Abuse happens and can leave lasting scars
– Some innocent people have been falsely convicted of
abuse that never happened and some true abusers
have used the controversy over recovered memories
to avoid punishment
– Forgetting isolated good and bad memories triggered
by some memory cue is commonplace
– Infantile amnesia-inability to recall memories from
the first three years of life makes recovery of very
early childhood memories very unlikely.
– Both real and false memories cause stress and
suffering.
Hypnosis and Traumatic
experiences
• Memories “recovered” under
hypnosis or drugs or therapy are
especially unreliable. Especially for
children as are memories of things
happening before age 3. (infantile
amnesia)
• Traumatic experiences are usually
vividly remembered, not banished
into an active but inaccessible
unconscious.
Eyewitness Memory
• Now turn over the True False 8-9 sheet
on Eyewitness Memory sheet and
complete it. On statement 9, 28 experts
indicated that the “reverse is probably
true.”
• All the statements on the handout except
statement 9 as true.
Environmental contexts and internal
emotional states on retrieval.
• State Dependent Memories- tendency to
recall information best in the same
emotional state (mood) as when the
information was learned.
• Context Dependent Memories- being in
a context similar to one we’ve been in
before may trick us into subconsciously
retrieving an earlier experience.
What is déjà vu?
• The term deja vu is French and means, literally,
"already seen." Those who have experienced the
feeling describe it as an overwhelming sense of
familiarity with something that shouldn't be familiar
at all.
• Younger people experience Deja vu more
frequently, then the elder.
• Deja vu has been firmly associated with temporallobe epilepsy. It can occur just prior to a temporallobe seizure. People suffering a seizure of this kind
can experience deja vu during the actual seizure
activity or in the moments between convulsions.
• It could be simple fantasy or wish fulfillment, while
some psychiatrists ascribe it to a mismatching in
the brain that causes the brain to mistake the
present for the past.
Types of Amnesia (memory loss)
• Infantile Amnesia- inability of adults to
remember the earliest years of their
childhood. The amnesia generally covers
events from birth until around three years
old.
• Retrograde Amnesia -someone will be
unable to recall events that occurred
before the development of amnesia
• Anterograde Amnesia - loss of the ability
to create memories after the event that
caused the amnesia occurs. (Such as Ten
Second Tom)