Download Chapter Eight - Kirkwood Community College

Chapter Eight
Memory

The persistence of learning over time
through the storage and retrieval of
information

3 Stages of Memory
 1. Encoding: getting info into our brain
 2. Storage: retaining the info
 3. Retrieval: getting info out of brain
Types of Memory

1. Sensory Memory: immediate, very brief
recording of sensory information

2. Short-Term Memory: activated memory
that holds a few items briefly before
information is stored or forgotten

3. Long-Term Memory: the relatively
permanent and limitless storehouse of the
memory system, including knowledge,
skills and experience
Encoding: Getting Info In

Automatic vs. Effortful Processing
 Automatic Processing:
○ Unconscious encoding of incidental
information, such as space, time and
frequency and well-learned information
Effortful Processing:
*Encoding that requires attention and
conscious effort
Encoding

Ways to increase Encoding
 1. Rehearsal/Conscious Repetition
 2. Spacing Effect
 3. Testing Effect
Serial Position Effect: our tendency to recall
best the last and first items in a list
Encoding

What we encode
 1. Meaning: encoding the meaning of
something makes it easier to remember
2. Visual: imagery is a powerful aid to memory
 Type of visual imagery: Mnemonic Devices
 Memory Aids that use vivid imagery and
organizational devices
 3. Organizing
 Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable
units, often occurs automatically
Storage: Retaining Information

Sensory Memory
 Iconic Memory: sensory memory of a visual
stimulus, a photographic or picture image
memory lasting no more than a few tenths of
a second
Echoic Memory: a momentary sensory
memory of auditory stimuli
Storage: Capacity

Working or Short-Term Memory
 Limited in duration and capacity
○ Capacity to store about seven bits of
information (5-9)
○ Information easier to remember when
numbers
○ About four information chunks
Long-Term Memory: limitless
Storing Information in the Brain
Synaptic Changes
Research on Sea Snail that has large
nerve cells, noted an increased amount of
the neurotransmitter SEROTONIN at
certain synapses when learning occurred
resulting in the synapses being more
efficient at transmitting signals
Long Term Potentiation: an increase in a
synapse’s firing potential after brief,
stimulation, basis for learning and memory
Storing information

Stress Hormones and Memory
 When excited or stressed, emotion-triggered
stress hormones make more glucose energy
available to fuel brain activity
 Amygdala boosts activity and available
proteins in the brain’s memory forming areas
 Flashbulb Memories
Long Term Memory

Implicit Memory: retention of
independent conscious recollection

Explicit Memory: memories of facts and
experiences that one can consciously
know and declare
Where stored?

Hippocampus: Temporal Lobe
 Explicit Memories: names, images and
events
 Left Hippocampus: verbal information
 Right Hippocampus: visual designs and locations
Hippocampus is active during slow-wave sleep as
memories are processed and filed for later retrieval
During sleep our memories are transferred from the
hippocampus to the cortex, are brain replays the
day’s experiences as it transfers them to the cortex
for long term storage.
Where Stored?

Cerebellum
 Key role in forming and storing the implicit
memories created by classical conditioning
 This explains are infantile amnesia
○ Reactions and skills (implicit)from infancy
reach far into our future but we don’t recall
anything specific (explicit) that we can
communicate
Retrieval: Getting Info Out

Recall: a measure of memory in which
the person must retrieve information
learned earlier
 Recognizing or quickly relearning indicates
memory
Mood-Congruent Memory: the tendency to
recall experiences that are consistent with
one’s current good or bad mood.
Forgetting

1. Encoding Failure: never encoded

2. Storage Decay: forget over time

3. Retrieval Failure: inability to access

4. Interference: disruption in new/old info

5. Motivated Forgetting: repression
Memory Construction

Misinformation Effect: exposure to
subtle or misleading information into
one’s memory of an event

Source Amnesia: recognize someone
but no being able to know where from
Children’s Memories

Eyewitness Recall
 Suggestibility
 Trained interviewers
Sam Stone Study
Repressed Memories??
Tips to Improve your Memory
1. Study repeatedly
 2. Make the material meaningful
 3. Activate retrieval cues
 4. Use Mnemonic devices
 5. Minimize interference
 6.Sleep More
 7. Test your knowledge
