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MEMORY AND THINKING
I.
MEMORY AND HOW IT WORKS
Memory: Learning that has
persisted over time
To remember an event, we
must successfully
A.
B.
1.
2.
3.
Encode – get information into our
brain
Storage – retain information
Retrieval – get information back out
II. HOW WE ENCODE
A.
B.
Parallel processing – doing many things at
once
We automatically process information
about space, time, frequency and welllearned information
C.
Effortful processing – encoding that
requires attention and conscious
effort
1. Can be boosted through rehearsal –
conscious repetition
2. Overlearning increases retention
D.
Spacing effect – we retain information
better when our rehearsal is distributed
over time
– Spaced study and self-assessment beats
cramming
E.
Serial position effect – tendency to
recall best the last and first items in
a list
1. Primacy effect – best recall for first
items
2. Recency effect – best recall for last
items
III. WHAT WE ENCODE
Visual encoding – encoding of
images
A.
–
B.
C.
Mnemonics – memory aids that use vivid
imagery and organizational devices
Acoustic encoding – encoding of
sounds
Semantic encoding – encoding of
meaning, including meaning of
words
IV. SHORT TERM VS. LONG TERM
MEMORY
A. Short-Term Memory
1. Limited, unless actively processed
2. Capacity of 7 digits +/- 2
—
chunking - organizing items into familiar,
manageable units
3. Better for random numbers than
random letters
4. Better for sound than sight
V. STORING MEMORIES
A.
Flashbulb memories – clear memory of an
emotionally significant moment or event
– Strong emotional experiences = strong,
reliable memories
B.
Amnesia victims
1. Have implicit memory – how to do
something
2. But no explicit memory – memory of
facts and experiences that one can
consciously know and “declare”
VI. RETRIEVAL: GETTING
INFORMATION OUT
A.
Priming - often unconscious
activation of particular associations in
memory
– “memoryless memory”
B.
Context effects
1. Easier to remember things in the same
context you learned them
2. Déjà vu - sense that “I’ve experienced this
before”
3. Mood congruent memory - tendency to
recall experiences that are consistent
w/one’s current good or bad mood
VII.WHY WE FORGET
A. Three sins of forgetting
1. Absent-mindedness - inattention to details
2. Transience - storage decay over time
3. Blocking - inaccessibility of stored info
B.
Three sins of distortion
1. Misattribution - confusing the source of the
information
2. Suggestibility - lingering effects of
misinformation
3. Bias - belief-colored recollections
C.
One sin of intrusion
1. Persistence - unwanted memories
VIII.FORGETTING
A.
Course of forgetting is initially rapid,
but levels off w/time
B.
Interference
1. Proactive interference - something you
learned earlier disrupts your recall of
something you experience later
2. Retroactive interference - new information
makes it harder to recall something you
learned earlier
C.
Freud believed we repress - banish
anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings and
memories
– Most psychologists disagree
IX. FAULTY MEMORY
CONSTRUCTION
A.
Misinformation effect - incorporating
misleading information into one’s
memory of an event
B.
C.
D.
Source amnesia - attributing the wrong
source to an event we have experienced,
heard about, read about or imagined
False memories feel as real as true
memories
Unreliable memories
1. Things happening before age 3
2. Memories “recovered” under hypnosis or
drugs
X. IMPROVING MEMORY
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
Study repeatedly
Make the material meaningful
Activate retrieval cues
Use mnemonic devices
Minimize interference
Sleep more
Test your own knowledge