Download Memory: Organization

AP Psychology
Ms. Brown
Myers – Ch. 9
Memory
• The persistence of learning over time through storage and
retrieval of information
• 3 step process:
• Encoding – processing info into memory system
• Storage – retention of encoded info
• Retrieval – process of getting info out of storage
• Memory is like a computer’s information processing system.
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
Memory
• 3 basic stages of memories:
• Sensory memory – immediate, brief recording of
sensory info
• Short term memory (STM)/ working memory –
activated memory that holds a few items briefly
before it is encoded and stored or discarded
• Long term memory (LTM) - the relatively permanent
and limitless storehouse
Modified 3 Stage Model
• Memory steps and stages combined
Sensory
Input
Sensory
Memory
Forgetting
Attention
Encoding
STM or
Working
Memory
Forgetting
Encoding
LTM
Retrieval
Forgetting
15 sec to remember this in order…
OTT F F S S E NT
Encoding
• Automatic processing– effortless, unconscious encoding of info
•
Reading signs while driving
• Effortful processing – requires attention and conscious effort
Reading the psych text book for comprehension and understanding
• Rehearsal – conscious repetition
•
• Spacing effect – memories are retained through distributed practice
•
Why cramming for tests is BAD
• Serial positioning effect – remembering the first and last items in a list
• Write the letters I asked you to memorize a few minutes ago.
OTTFFSSENT
Encoding
• Visual encoding – encoding of picture images
(ex: visualization of info on page)
Imagery – mental pictures
• Mnemonic devices – memory aids, especially those techniques that use
vivid imagery and organizational devices (ex: peg-method/memory
palace)
•
• Acoustic encoding – encoding of sounds (ex:
rhymes with, repetition of info out loud)
• Semantic encoding – encoding of meaning (ex:
assigning/creating meaning)
Organizing Info for Processing
• Chunking – organizing items into familiar manageable
units; often occurs automatically
• 17761861191719412001  How can you chunk this?
• How could you have chunked OTTFFSSENT?
Storage
• Sensory Memory
•
Iconic memory – a momentary sensory memory of visual info (brief
photographic memory)
• You can briefly look a word’s spelling to copy the
word, but cannot recall the spelling minutes later.
•
Echoic memory – a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli, 3-4
seconds
• Teacher asks you “what did I just say?” and you can
recall the last few words
Storage
• 8 volunteers
- think of your favorite food.
• Now say your favorite food, plus everyone else’s
favorite food before you.
• STM/Working memory
• 7 +/- 2
• Importance of chunking
Storage
• LTM – Unlimited
• Implicit memory – procedures/skills (processed in part in the
cerebellum)
• Explicit memory – retention of facts and experiences that you
can consciously declare (primarily processed/stored in
hippocampus)
Semantic memory – general knowledge
• Episodic memory – events
• Prospective memory – remembering to do something in the future
•
Storage
• Flashbulb memories – clear, vivid memory of an
emotionally significant event
• Episodic memory
Long-term Potentiation
• Biological look at memory storage.
• Long-term potentiation (LTP) – the strengthening
of synapses based on recent patterns of activity
leads to a long-lasting increase in signal
transmission between neurons.
As experience strengthens the pathways between neurons, synapses
transmit signals more efficiently
• Rehearsing memories strengthens neural pathways and strengthens the
memories.
•
Synapse is
repeated stimulated
More dendritic
receptors
More
neurotransmitters
A stronger link
between neurons =
neural pathway
Retrieval
•Getting memories out of storage
• Recall – retrieving info not in conscious awareness
•
Short answer questions, fill-in-the-blank questions
• Recognition – identifying items previously learned
•
Multiple choice questions
• Relearning – learning information a second time,
faster than the first time
•
Test corrections
Context Effects on Memory
• Déjà vu – the eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this
before.”
• Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger
retrieval of an earlier experience.
• Context-dependent memories – memories are more
easily recalled in the same context as when they were
encoded
• State-dependent memories - memories are more easily
recalled in the same state as when they were encoded
• Crash Course – Making Memories
AP Psychology
Ms. Brown
Myers, Ch. 9
Forgetting
• Just as important as
remembering  avoid clutter
• Amnesia – the loss of
memory
• anterograde amnesia – inability
to make new memories (problem
between STM and LTM)
• retrograde amnesia – inability to
remember pre-existing memories
Three Sins of Forgetting
• Absent-mindedness
•
Inattention to details; we cannot remember something we have not encoded.
A
Three Sins of Forgetting
• Transience – storage decay
• Even if we encode, we can still forget it later
• Often unused info or info that no longer holds meaning.
Three Sins of Forgetting
• Blocking – inaccessibility of stored info (“it’s on the tip
of my tongue…”)
• Proactive interference – the disruptive effect of prior learning on
the recall of new info.
• Retroactive interference – the disruptive effect of new learning
on the recall of old info.
• Motivated forgetting
• Repression – in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense
mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxietyarousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.
• Most psychologists today would agree that repressed
memories do not exist.
Three Sins of Distortion
• Source amnesia – attributing to the wrong source an
event we have experienced, hear about, read about, or
imagined.
• Misinformation effect – incorporating misleading info
into one’s memory of an event.
• Loftus’ study on recollections of car accidents using leading
questions.
• Bias – belief-colored recollections
•
Memories are perceptions of the past and as such are subject to
expectations and bias.
Eye Witness Recall
• Eye witness recall is subject to false memory
reconstruction.
• Misinformation effect
• Presupposing and leading questions
• Children are more suggestible than adults can be lead to
produce false memories through suggestive questions.
• Young children can recall events as they occurred if…
• neutral adult asks non-leading questions
• uses words they understand.
Improving Memory
• Study repeatedly to boost long term recall.
• Make material personally meaningful.
• Use mnemonic devices.
• Minimize interference.
• Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse the info and
determine what you do not know yet.
Memory as Biopsychosocial
(pg. 390)
Biological
•LTP
•Automatic
processing
•Electric current
or head injury
•Storage decay
Psychological
•Rehearsal
•Context effects
•Priming
•Mood
•Stress
•Encoding and
organizing strategies
•Retrieval interference
•Memory construction
Social-cultural
•Misinformation
effect
•Flashbulb
memories for
important events
•Level of implied
importance
•Source amnesia
Videos
• 60 Minutes – Endless Memory (Pt. 1)
• Zimbardo – Remembering and Forgetting
• Brain Games – Remember This!
• Crash Course – Remembering and Forgetting