Download Memory Serial Position Effect - The tendency for items at the

Memory
Serial Position Effect - The tendency for items at the beginning and at the end of a list to be
recalled more readily than those in the middle
 Primacy Effect
 Recency Effect
The Nature of Memory
Why are some events, people, names easy to remember or easy to forget?
What is memory?
Memory is the retention of information or experience over time through the process of
encoding, storage and retrieval
Phases of Memory
 Encoding – Getting information into memory
o Attention, levels of processing, elaboration, and imagery
 Storage – Retaining information in memory over time
o Sensory, short-term, and long-term memory
 Retrieval – Recovering information from memory storage
o Serial position, retrieval cues
Automatic vs. Effortful Encoding
Some information (your route to your school) is automatically processed
However, new or unusual information (friend’s new cell-phone number) requires attention and
effort
Automatic Processing
Space: While reading a textbook, you automatically encode the place of a picture on a page.
Time: We unintentionally note the events that take place in a day.
Frequency: You effortlessly keep track of things that happen to you.
Effortful Processing - Committing novel information to memory requires effort just like learning a
concept from a textbook.
Levels of Processing - Craik and Lockhart (1972)
Levels of processing theory proposes that deeper levels of processing results in longer-lasting
memory encoding
Encoding occurs on a continuum…

Shallow processing

Intermediate processing

Deep processing
Retention: Memory Storage
Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) Storage and Transfer Model

Sensory Memory

Short-Term Memory (STM)

Long-Term Memory (LTM)
3 Different but interacting systems of memory
Differ in terms of:
 Capacity: the amount of information that can be stored
 Duration: the length of time the information is stored
Sensory Memory - Information held in original sensory form for only an instant.
Very brief duration and large capacity (relative to short term memory)
Echoic (auditory) memory
Iconic (visual) memory – fleeting photographic memory
Sperling (1960) – Iconic memory
Sperling (1960) determined the capacity and duration of the iconic store with a series of
ingenious experiments.
Full versus partial report method.
The partial report technique demonstrated that the capacity of iconic memory is quite large.
Participants could perceive much more than they could verbally report.
Information being read out from a rapidly decaying icon.
Atkinson-Shiffrin (1968) Storage and Transfer Model
Storage: Short-Term Memory (STM)
STM - A limited capacity memory store that can maintain unrehearsed information for up to 2030 seconds


Limited Duration - 20-30 seconds

Limited Capacity -7 ± 2 (Miller, 1956
Rehearsal is the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about information
Duration: Peterson’s STM Task
Test of memory for 3-letter nonsense syllables
Participants count backwards for a few seconds, then recall
Without rehearsal, memory fades
Capacity - The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for
Processing Information (1956).
How can we improve STM?
 Rehearsal
o Conscious repetition of information
o Enhances STM duration
 Chunking o Memory encoding - elaboration
o Increase STM capacity: 7 ± 2 chunks
Chunking - Organizing items into a familiar, manageable unit
STM as Working Memory
Is Atkinson-Shiffrin’s theory too simplistic?
The nature of short-term memory is more complex.
Working Memory View (Baddeley, 1993)
WM: Active Memory System
 Phonological loop
 Visuospatial working memory
 Central executive
Long-Term Memory (LTM) is an unlimited capacity to store that can hold information over
lengthy periods of time
 Relatively permanent

Unlimited Capacity

Complex system
Declarative LTM VS Nondeclarative LTM
Declarative LTM - Conscious recollection of specific facts and events that can be verbally
communicated
Information processed in the Hippocampus and other parts of the brain
Subtypes of Declarative Memory
 Episodic – autobiographical memories for personal life and experiences

Semantic – knowledge about the world (Facts, general knowledge, language, concepts)
Nondeclarative LTM -No conscious recollection of an experience

Procedural Memory – Memory for skills

Classical Conditioning - associations

Priming – activation of information already have in storage
Procedural Memory - Memory that enables you to perform specific learned skills or habitual
responses
Priming is influence of one memory on another
Priming is implicit because it does not depend on awareness and is automatic
Flashbulb Memory - A unique and highly emotional moment may give rise to a clear, strong,
and persistent memory called flashbulb memory. However, this memory is not free from errors
Most are personal rather than nationally important
Events that are surprising, consequential, or emotional are remembered more often
Forgetting
Forgetting - An inability to retrieve information due to poor encoding, storage, or retrieval.
 Information Processing

Decay theory

Interference Theory

Motivated Forgetting
Why do we forget?
Information Processing Explanations - Forgetting can occur at any memory stage.
We filter, alter, or lose much information during these stages.
Encoding Failure - We cannot remember what we do not encode.
Encoding format different than retrieval
Retrieval Failure - Although the information is retained in the memory store, it cannot be
accessed.
Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) is a retrieval failure phenomenon.
Storage Decay
Poor durability of stored memories leads to their decay.
Ebbinghaus showed this with his forgetting curve.
Bahrick (1984) showed a similar pattern of forgetting and retaining over 50 years.
Interference - People forget information because of competition from other material
Retroactive and Proactive Interference
Motivated Forgetting: People unknowingly revise their memories.
Repression: A defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and
memories from consciousness.
Memories of Abuse
Are memories of abuse repressed or constructed?
Many psychotherapists believe that early childhood sexual abuse results in repressed
memories.
However, other psychologists question such beliefs and think that such memories may be
constructed.
Memory Construction - While tapping our memories, we filter or fill in missing pieces of
information to make our recall more coherent.
Misinformation and Imagination Effects
Eyewitnesses reconstruct their memories when questioned about the event.
Children’s Eyewitness Recall
Children’s eyewitness recall can be unreliable if leading questions are posed. However, if
cognitive interviews are neutrally worded, the accuracy of their recall increases.
In cases of sexual abuse, this usually suggests a lower percentage of abuse.
Constructed Memories
Loftus’ research shows that if false memories (lost at the mall or drowned in a lake) are
implanted in individuals, they construct (fabricate) their memories.
Improving Memory
 Study repeatedly to boost long-term recall.
 Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the material.
 Make material personally meaningful.
 Use mnemonic devices:
o associate with peg words — something already stored
o make up a story
o chunk — acronyms
 Activate retrieval cues — mentally recreate the situation and mood.
 Recall events while they are fresh — before you encounter misinformation.
 Minimize interference:
o Test your own knowledge.
o Rehearse and then determine what you do not yet know.