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Memory
21 Information Processing
22 Forgetting, Memory Construction, and
Memory Improvement
Fact or Falsehood?
T F
1. Memory storage is never automatic; it always takes effort.
T F
2. The day after you are introduced to a number of new co-workers you will more
easily recall the names of those you met first.
T F
3.
T F
4. Only a few people have any type of photographic memory.
T F
5.
Although our capacity for storing information is large, we are still limited in the
number of permanent memories we can form.
T F
6.
Our experiences are etched on our brain, just as the grooves on a tape receive and
retain recorded messages.
T F
7.
When people learn something while intoxicated, they recall it best when they are
again intoxicated.
T F
8.
The hour before sleep is a good time to commit information to memory.
T F
9. Repeatedly imagining a nonexistent event can lead us to believe it actually
happened.
T F
Memory aids (for example, those that use imagery and devices for organization) are
no more useful than simple rehearsal of information.
10. Children typically will repress any memory of having seen one of their parents being
murdered.
1. F, 2. T, 3. F, 4. F, 5. F, 6. F, 7. T, 8. T, 9. T, 10. F
MODULE
21
Information Processing
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)
PsychSim 5: Iconic Memory (p. 12)
NEW
*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.
1
2
Module 21
Information Processing
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 short-term 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 21
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
Information Processing
3
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 princi-
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Module 21
Information Processing
ples 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-the-tongue (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.
Module 21
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 spe-
Information Processing
5
cific 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.
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Module 21
Information Processing
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
Losing things
Forgetting major events in their past
Forgetting events that just occurred
Making simple errors that cause accidents
Getting lost in familiar places
56
29
21
14
10
Percentage of
memory complaints
by people 45 or older
73
39
27
22
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 short-term 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 longterm 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.
Module 21
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.
7
Sciences discussion list, archived at www.frostburg.edu/
dept/psyc/southerly/tips/archive.htm.
III. Encoding: Getting Information In
(pp. 271–276)
A. How We Encode (pp. 271–273)
Information Processing
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:
Schulman, P. (2002, March 6). Rehearsal and memory.
Message posted to Teaching in the Psychological
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Washington
J. Adams
Jefferson
Madison
Monroe
J. Q. Adams
Jackson
Van Buren
Harrison
Tyler
Polk
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
Taylor
Fillmore
Pierce
Buchanan
Lincoln
A. Johnson
Grant
Hayes
Garfield
Arthur
Cleveland
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
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
Harrison
Cleveland
McKinley
T. Roosevelt
Taft
Wilson
Harding
Coolidge
Hoover
F. D. Roosevelt
Truman
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
Eisenhower
Kennedy
L. Johnson
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Clinton
George W. Bush
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.
8
Module 21
Information Processing
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 hand-
book 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. The noisy fan blew the papers off the table.
2. The green frog jumped into the swimming pool.
3. The silly snake slithered down a steep sliding
board.
4. The crafty surgeon won the daily double.
5. The skiing trumpeter started a gigantic avalanche.
6. The plump chef liked to jump rope.
7. The captured crook liked to do difficult crossword
puzzles.
8. The small child sat under the lilac bush.
9. The medieval minstrel strolled along the babbling
brook.
10. The distressed teacher ate a wormy apple.
11. The chocolate choo-choo train chugged down the
licorice tracks.
12. The marching soldier lit a cigarette.
13. The long-haired woman had a phobia about scissors.
14. The cheerful choirboy sang off-key.
15. The toothless bathing beauty hardly ever smiled.
16. The sweaty gardener was wearing a scarf and mittens.
17. The spotted dog was sleeping in the sun.
18. The lanky leprechaun wore lavender leotards.
19. The bearded plumber was flushed with success.
20. 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.)
Module 21
1. Who won the daily double? (the crafty surgeon)
2. What chugged down the licorice tracks? (the
chocolate choo-choo train)
3. Who liked to do difficult crossword puzzles? (the
captured crook)
4. Who sang off-key? (the cheerful choirboy)
5. What blew the papers off the table? (the noisy fan)
6. Who hardly ever smiled? (the toothless bathing
beauty)
7. Who slithered down a steep sliding board? (the
silly snake)
8. What was sleeping in the sun? (the spotted dog)
9. Who strolled along the babbling brook? (the
medieval minstrel)
10. Who was flushed with success? (the bearded
plumber)
11. What jumped into the swimming pool? (the green
frog)
12. Who lit a cigarette? (the marching soldier)
13. Who got lost in the woods? (the novice camper)
14. Who started a gigantic avalanche? (the skiing trumpeter)
15. Who wore lavender leotards? (the lanky
leprechaun)
16. Who liked to jump rope? (the plump chef)
17. Who had a phobia about scissors? (the long-haired
woman)
18. Who sat under a lilac bush? (the small child)
19. Who ate a wormy apple? (the distressed teacher)
20. 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
Information Processing
9
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, fourdoor, five-hive, six-sticks, seven-heaven, 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
10
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Information Processing
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.
Module 21
Information Processing
11
Keyword
Meaning
Your Mental Picture
1. 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
parent
sense of touch
Imagine that a parent (parietal) is touching
his or her baby’s forehead to feel if the
baby has a temperature.
3. hypothalamus
hypochondriac
hunger and thirst
Imagine a hypochondriac (hypothalamus)
thinking they’re hungry and thirsty when
they’re not!
4. cerebral cortex
cereal court
judgment
You and a friend have a dispute over a box
of cereal. So, you go to cereal court
(cerebral cortex) and face a judge
(judgment).
5. amygdala
Armageddon
aggression and fear
In the Bible, Armageddon (amygdala) is
the final battle between good and evil.
Battles are full of aggression and fear.
6. frontal
association areas
front
impulse control
Imagine a student losing patience and
crowding to the front (frontal) of the line.
He has lost impulse control.
7. corpus callosum
corpse
connects the two
cerebral hemispheres
Imagine a tiny corpse (corpus) lying across
(connecting) the two cerebral hemispheres.
8. left hemisphere
left field
handles language
Imagine a ballplayer in left field talking
(language) continuously during a game (for
example, “swing batter, swing batter,” etc.)
9. temporal lobes
tempera
paints
hearing
Imagine someone painting tempera paints
(temporal) all over their ears (hearing)
“These ears aren’t painted on,” she says!
hippo
memories
Imagine a hippo (hippocampus) wearing an
elephant trunk as a Halloween costume. “It
helps my memory!” he says.
Term
10. hippocampus
Source: Carney, R. N., Levin, J. R., & Levin, M. E. (1994, August). Additional memory-enhancing 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.
12
Module 21
Information Processing
423-19
267-198
390-675-2
573-291-43
721-354-456
245-619-832-2
141-384-515-89
201-315-426-762
dition, 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)
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 con-
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.
9
6
6
3
9
6
5
5
8
5
7
1
9
1
7
4
8
7
1
4
9
3
6
1
1
6
1
5
5
1
2
1
3
8
6
1
9
7
9
3
5
2
4
9
5
4
8
3
3
6
5
3
3
8
2
8
9
8
2
2
8
8
1
9
8
7
4
4
5
7
2
4
3
8
4
5
3
6
7
2
7
2
2
9
8
7
2
6
7
4
1
3
3
2
6
1
2
8
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
Module 21
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 longterm 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
long-term 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
Information Processing
13
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—
14
Module 21
Information Processing
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
When you first met your college roommate
Your high school graduation
Your senior prom (if you went or not)
An early romantic experience
A time you had to speak in front of an audience
When you got your admissions letter from college
Your first date (the moment you met him/her)
The day President Reagan was shot in Washington
(85)
(82)
(81)
(78)
(77)
(72)
(65)
(57)
(52)
Your first flight
The moment you opened your SAT scores
Your seventeenth birthday
The last time you ate a holiday dinner at home
Your first college class
The first time your parents left you alone
for some time
Your thirteenth birthday
(40)
(33)
(30)
(23)
(21)
(19)
(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, 39–4 6.
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
Module 21
Information Processing
15
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):
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.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
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
railroad
cat
sister
bed
head
apple
heart
shoe
chair
kitchen
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
street
devil
orange
bird
grandfather
arm
skirt
breakfast
window
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
16
Module 21
Information Processing
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 itemspecific 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 twothirds 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
Module 21
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
Information Processing
17
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.
18
Module 21
Information Processing
HANDOUT 21–1
Forgetting Frequency Questionnaire
Use this scale to answer the following twenty questions:
A = Not within the last six months
B = Once or twice in the last six months
C = About once a month
D = About once a week
E = Daily
F = More than once a day
1. How often do you forget where you have put things?
2. How often do you fail to recognize places where you have been before?
3. How often do you find television or movie plots difficult to follow?
4. How often do you forget that your daily routine has changed? You forget where you normally keep something, or you forget the time something normally happens? (Your clue may be that you followed your old
routine by mistake).
5. How often have you had to recheck whether you have done something that you meant to do, such as lock
the door, turn on the lights, or turn off the oven?
6. How often have you forgotten when something happened, such as whether a particular event occurred yesterday or last week?
7. How often have you completely forgotten something you were supposed to do, such as take things with
you? An example would be, forgetting your keys until you got to the car.
8. How often do you forget something that you were told yesterday or a few days ago, and had to be reminded about?
9. How often have you begun to read something such as a book or magazine or newspaper article without
realizing that you have read it before?
10. How often do you let yourself ramble on about unimportant things?
11. How often have you failed to recognize close relatives or close friends? (Failed to recognize by sight, not
forgetting their names.)
12. How often do you find that a word or name is “on the tip of your tongue,” but you can't remember it when
you need to?
13. How often have you completely forgotten to do something you said you would do or that you planned to
do?
14. How often have you forgotten important details of what you did or what happened to you just the day
before?
15. When talking to someone, how often do you forget what you were just talking about? How often have you
had to ask, "Where was I?"
16. How often have you forgotten to tell somebody something important? Forgotten to pass on a message?
Forgotten to remind somebody of something?
Module 21
Information Processing
19
HANDOUT 21–1 (continued)
17. How often have you mixed up the details of what someone has told you?
18. How often do you tell someone a story or joke that you have already told them?
19. How often do you get lost or take a wrong turn on an otherwise familiar route?
20. How often do you forget that you have already done something routine, such as brush your teeth or make
coffee, and start to do them all over again?
Source: B. Gordon. Memory: Remembering and forgetting in everyday life. Reprinted by permission of Mastermedia Ltd.
20
Module 21
Information Processing
HANDOUT 21–2
Please rate the sentences I will read aloud on how easily you can pronounce them. Repeat the sentences silently to
yourself. Use the following scale.
2
1
very difficult to pronounce
3
4
5
very easy to pronounce
1.
6.
11.
16.
2.
7.
12.
17.
3.
8.
13.
18.
4.
9.
14.
19.
5.
10.
15.
20.
Source: Reprinted by permission from Memory Demonstration Kits by Donald B. Irwin and Janet A. Simons.
20
Module 21
Information Processing
HANDOUT 21–2
Please rate the sentences I will read aloud on how well you can form a vivid mental picture or image of the action of
the sentence. Use the following scale.
1
2
impossible to image
3
4
5
very easy to image
1.
6.
11.
16.
2.
7.
12.
17.
3.
8.
13.
18.
4.
9.
14.
19.
5.
10.
15.
20.
Source: Reprinted by permission from Memory Demonstration Kits by Donald B. Irwin and Janet A. Simons.
Module 21
Information Processing
21
HANDOUT 21–3
Cricket Software
A.
B.
Source: Bower, G., Karlin, M., & Dueck, A. (1975). Comprehension and memory for pictures. Memory and Cognition, 3,
217. Reprinted by permission of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.
22
Module 21
Information Processing
HANDOUT 21–4
Very Long-Term Memory
For this project you will need to locate at least one person who studied Spanish but has not used the language in the last year. Ask the volunteer how many years have passed since he or she studied the foreign
language. Then hand him or her the following list of vocabulary words, with instructions to take as long as
necessary to supply the English translation. How many words does your volunteer remember?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
ferrocarril
gato
hermana
cama
cabeza
manzana
corazón
zapato
silla
cocina
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
camino
diablo
naranja
pájao
abuelo
brazo
falda
desayuno
ventana
luna
Source: Matlin, M. W. (2002). Cognitive psychology (5th ed., p. 133). Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers.
Module 21
Information Processing
23
HANDOUT 21–5a
To complete this exercise, you will need a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. Please follow the instructions exactly.
Spend 3 to 5 seconds reading each of the sentences below, and read through the list only once. As soon as you have
finished, cover the list and write down as many of the sentences as you can remember (you need not write “can be
used” each time). Begin now.
A brick can be used as a doorstop.
A ladder can be used as a bookshelf.
A wine bottle can be used as a candleholder.
A pan can be used as a drum.
A record can be used to serve potato chips.
A guitar can be used as a canoe paddle.
A leaf can be used as a bookmark.
An orange can be used to play catch.
A newspaper can be used to swat flies.
A TV antenna can be used as a clothes rack.
A sheet can be used as a sail.
A boat can be used as a shelter.
A bathtub can be used as a punch bowl.
A flashlight can be used to hold water.
A rock can be used as a paperweight.
A knife can be used to stir paint.
A pen can be used as an arrow.
A barrel can be used as a chair.
A rug can be used as a bedspread.
A telephone can be used as an alarm clock.
A scissors can be used to cut grass.
A board can be used as a ruler.
A balloon can be used as a pillow.
A shoe can be used to pound nails.
A dime can be used as a screwdriver.
A lampshade can be used as a hat.
After you have recalled as many sentences as you can on a separate sheet of paper, turn this page over and follow the
instructions at the top.
Source: From The ideal problem solver by J. D. Bransford and B. S. Stein (p. 37). © 1984 by W. H. Freeman & Co. Used
by permission.
24
Module 21
Information Processing
HANDOUT 21–5b
Do not look back at the list of sentences on the reverse side. Instead, using the following list as retrieval cues, write
down at the bottom of this page as many sentences as you can. Use an additional sheet of paper if you need it. After
you have finished, compare the list below with your earlier recall performance. Begin now.
flashlight
sheet
rock
telephone
boat
dime
wine bottle
board
pen
balloon
ladder
record
TV antenna
lampshade
shoe
guitar
scissors
leaf
brick
knife
newspaper
pan
barrel
rug
orange
bathtub
Source: The ideal problem solver by J. D. Bransford and B. S. Stein (p. 38). © 1984 by W. H. Freeman & Co.
Used by permission.