Download session four – memory part two

PSYC 112
PSYCHOLOGY FOR
EVERYDAY LIVING
Session 3 – Memory Part I
Lecturer: Dr. Paul Narh Doku, Dept of Psychology, UG
Contact Information: [email protected]
College of Education
School of Continuing and Distance Education
2014/2015 – 2016/2017
Session Overview
• From the previous session (session 3) it was
understood that memory is the term given to
the structures and processes involved in the
storage and subsequent retrieval of information.
This session will introduce you to how information
is processed in the memory system, how
information is retrieved from the memory system,
reasons why forgetting occurs and how to enhance
the human memory.
Slide 2
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session
are as follows:
• Topic 1 – Encoding Information into
Memory
• Topic 2 – Effortful Processing Strategies
• Topic 3 – Retrieving Information from
Memory
• Topic 4 - Forgetting
• Topic 5 – Improving the human memory
Slide 3
Reading List
• Refer to students to relevant text/chapter or reading materials
you will make available on Sakai
Dr. Richard Boateng, UGBS
Slide 4
Topic 1:
Encoding Information into Memory
College of Education
School of Continuing and Distance Education
2014/2015 – 2016/2017
What Do We Encode?
 Semantic Encoding
 encoding of meaning
 including meaning of
words
 Acoustic Encoding
 encoding of sound
 especially sound of words
 Visual Encoding
 encoding of picture
images
Types of Processing
• Automatic processing: memory processing that
occurs subconsciously and does not require
attention.
Example: How many of you can sing the theme song for
Gilligan’s Island? How many learned it on purpose?
• Effortful processing: memory processing that occurs
consciously and requires attention
Example: How many of you can name all of the divisions of
the nervous system? How many learned it on purpose?
Encoding: Getting Information In
Encoding
Effortful
Automatic
Levels-of-Processing Theory
• Levels-of-processing theory: a theory of information
processing in memory that assumes that semantic
processing leads to better long-term memory
• Physical memory processing: encoding the word
“birthday” by the way it is spelt, b – i – r – t – h – d – a – y
• Acoustic memory processing: encoding the word
“birthday” by the way it sounds
• Semantic memory processing: encoding the word
“birthday” by its meaning, “a day of joy and celebration
commemorating the anniversary of one’s birth.”
Factors Affecting Encoding
• Encoding specificity principle: the principle that the
environmental cues present at the time information is encoded
into long-term memory serve as the best retrieval cues for the
information.
• State-dependent memory: long-term memory retrieval is best
when a person’s physiological state at the time of encoding and
retrieval is the same.
• Mood-dependent memory: long-term memory retrieval is best
when a person’s mood state at the time of encoding and
retrieval is the same. Also called Mood-congruence effect –
long term memory retrieval is best for experiences and
information that are congruent with a person’s current mood.
Example: Mood & Memory
Topic 2 Effortful Processing/Encoding Strategies
If we have short-term recall of
only 7 letters, but can remember
5 words, doesn’t that mean we
could remember more than 7
letters if we could group them
into words?
This is an example of an
effortful processing strategy, a
way to encode information into
memory to keep it from decaying
and make it easier to retrieve.
Effortful processing is also
known as studying.
Processing Strategies:
 Chunking (grouping)
 Mnemonics: images,
maps, and peg-words
 Hierarchies/categories
 Rehearsal, especially
distributed practice
 Deep processing
 Semantic processing
 Making information
personally meaningful
 Can you remember this
list?
Effortful Processing Strategies
1. Chunking
 Why are credit card numbers broken into groups of
four digits? Four “chunks” are easier to encode
(memorize) and recall than 16 individual digits. This
is chunking!
 Memorize: ACPCVSSUVROFLNBAQ XIDKKFCFBIANA
 Chunking is organizing data into manageable units
• Chunking - Grouping information to make it easier to
remember
• Chunking works even better if we can assemble
information into meaningful groups
Effortful Processing Strategies
2. Mnemonics
 Read: plane, cigar, due,
shall, candy, vague,
pizza, seem, fire, pencil
 Which words might be
easier to remember?
 Write down the words
you can recall.
 Lesson: we encode
better with the help of
images.
A mnemonic is a memory
“trick” that connects
information to existing
memory strengths such as
imagery or structure.
A peg word system refers
to the technique of visually
associating new words
with an existing list that is
already memorized along
with numbers. For
example, “due” can be
pictured written on a door,
and door = 4.
Effortful Processing Strategies
3. Rehearsal and Distributed Practice
Massed Practice refers to cramming information all at once.
It is not time-effective.
The best way to
 The spacing effect was first noted by
practice? Consider the
Hermann Ebbinghaus in the late 1800s. You testing effect. Henry
will develop better retention and recall,
Roediger (b. 1947)
especially in the long run, if you use the
found that if your
same amount of study time spread out
distributed practice
over many shorter sessions.
includes testing
(having to answer
 This doesn’t mean you have to study every
questions about the
day. Memory researcher Harry Bahrick
noted that the longer the time between
material), you will
study sessions, the better the long-term
learn more and retain
retention, and the fewer sessions you
more than if you
merely reread.
need!
Effortful Processing Strategies
4. Deep/Semantic Processing
When encoding information, we are more likely to retain it if
we deeply process even a simple word list by focusing on the
semantics (meaning) of the words.
“Shallow,”
unsuccessful
processing
refers to
memorizing the
appearance or
sound of
words.
Effortful Processing Strategies:
5. Making Information Personally Meaningful
 We can memorize a set of instructions more easily if we
figure out what they mean rather than seeing them as set of
words.
 Memorizing meaningful material takes one tenth the effort
of memorizing nonsense syllables.
 Actors memorize lines (and students memorize poems)
more easily by deciding on the feelings and meanings
behind the words, so one line flows naturally to the next.
 The self-reference effect, relating material to ourselves, aids
encoding and retention.
 Now try again, but this time, consider how each word
relates to you.
Memory Storage:
Capacity and Location
 The brain is NOT like a hard drive.
Memories are NOT in isolated files,
but are in overlapping neural
networks.
 The brain’s long-term memory
storage does not get full; it gets
more elaborately rewired and
interconnected.
 Parts of each memory can be
distributed throughout the brain.
 Memory of a particular ‘kitchen
table’ may be a linkage among
networks for ‘kitchen,’ ‘meal,’
‘wooden,’ ‘home,’ ‘legs,’ and ‘sit.’
Karl Lashley (1890-1958)
showed that rats who had
learned a maze retained
parts of that memory, even
when various small parts of
their brain were removed.
Topic 3:
Retrieving Information from Memory
College of Education
School of Continuing and Distance Education
2014/2015 – 2016/2017
Measuring Retrieval
• There are three means of measuring memory retrieval:
•Recall: a measure of long-term memory retrieval that requires the
reproduction of the information with essentially no retrieval cues.
• Recognition: a measure of long-term memory retrieval that only
requires the identification of the information in the presence of
retrieval cues.
• Relearning: the savings method of measuring long-term memory
retrieval, in which the measure is the amount of time saved when
learning information for the second time.
Measuring Retrieval
 Recall: some people, through practice,
visual strategies, or biological
differences, have the ability to store
and recall thousands of words or digits,
reproducing them years later (“fill-inthe-blank”)
 Recognition: the average person can
view 2500 new faces and places, and
later can notice with 90 percent
accuracy which ones they’ve seen
before (“multiple choice”)
• Relearning: the savings method of
measuring long-term memory retrieval, in
which the measure is the amount of time
saved when learning information for the
second time.
Lessons from each of
these demonstrations:
1.our storage and
recall capacity is
virtually unlimited
2.our capacity for
recognition is greater
than our capacity for
recall
3.relearning can
highlight that
memories are there
even if we can’t recall
forming them
Topic 4- Forgetting
 Forgetting can
occur at any
memory stage
 As we process
information, we
filter, alter, or lose
much of it
Figure 7.2
Remembering is thought to involve at least three steps. Incoming information is first held for a
second or two by sensory memory. Information selected by attention is then transferred to
temporary storage in short-term memory. If new information is not rapidly encoded, or
rehearsed, it is forgotten. If it is transferred to long-term memory, it becomes relatively
permanent, although retrieving it may be a problem. The preceding is a useful model of
memory; it may not be literally true of what happens in the brain
Reasons Why Forgetting Occurs
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Encoding failure theory
Motivated forgetfulness
Decay in Storage (Theory of Disuse)
Interference
Loss of Cues
1. Forgetting due to encoding failure
• Encoding failure theory: a theory that
proposes that forgetting is due to the failure
to encode the information into long-term
memory. It holds that the memory was never
formed in the first place. Information never
enters the long-term memory
Attention
External
events
ShortSensory
term Encoding
memory Encoding
memory
Encoding
failure leads
to forgetting
Longterm
memory
2. Motivated Forgetting
 Memory is fallible and
changeable, but can we practice
motivated forgetting, that is,
choosing to forget or to change
our memories?
 Sigmund Freud believed that we
sometimes make an unconscious
decision to bury our anxietyprovoking memories and hide
them from conscious awareness.
He called this repression.
 New techniques of psychotherapy
and medication interventions
may allow us to “erase” (prevent
reconsolidation of) recalled
memories.
Motivated forgetting is
not common. More often:
1.recall is full of errors.
2.people try not to think
about painful memories.
If they fail to rehearse
those memories, the
memories can fade.
Suppression is Consciously
putting something painful or
threatening out of mind or
trying to keep it from entering
awareness
3. Forgetting due to Decay in Storage
 Storage decay theory: a
theory that proposes that
forgetting is due to the
decay of physical traces of
the information in the
brain; periodically using the
information helps to
maintain it in the brain. The
“Use it or lose it” theory!
 Material encoded into long
term memory will decay if
the memory is never used,
recalled, and re-stored.
 Decay tends to level off.
Memory for both nonsense
syllables and second language
lessons decays rapidly.
 However, what hasn’t decayed
quickly tends to stay intact
long-term.
4. Forgetting due to Interference
• Retroactive
Interference: new
information blocks
out old information.
• Proactive
Interference: old
information blocks
out new information.
Getting a new bus
number and
forgetting old bus
number.
Calling your new
girlfriend by old
girlfriends name.
Forgetting Due to Interference?
Interference theory: a theory that proposes that forgetting is
due to other information in memory interfering
Proactive interference: old information interferes with the
retrieval of newly-stored information
Retroactive Interference: newly-stored information interferes
with the retrieval of previously-stored information
Forgetting as Interference
Retroactive vs. Proactive Interference
5. Forgetting Due to Loss of Cues?
Also called Cue-dependent or Retrieval theory proposes that
forgetting is due to the unavailability of the retrieval cues
necessary to locate the information in long-term memory.
Sometimes, the memory itself does not decay. Instead, what
decays are the associations and links that help us find our way to
the stored memory. Forgetting can result from failure to retrieve
information from long-term memory
As a result, some stored memories seem just below the surface:
“I know the name...it starts with a B maybe…”
Attention
External
events
Sensory
memory
Encoding
Encoding
Short-term
memory
Retrieval
Long-term
memory
Retrieval failure
leads to forgetting
Topic 5:
Improving Memory
College of Education
School of Continuing and Distance Education
2014/2015 – 2016/2017
Applying what we’ve learned about memory
Improving Memory to Improve Grades
Ways to save
overall
studying
time, and
build more
reliable
memory.
 Think of examples and connections (meaningful
depth).
 Create mnemonics: songs, images, and lists.
Minimize interference with related material or fun
activities; study right before sleep or other mindless
activity.
Have multiple study sessions, spaced further and
further apart after first learning the material.
Spend your study sessions activating your retrieval
cues including context (recalling where you were
when learning the material).
Learn the material in more than one way, not just by
rote, but by creating many retrieval cues.
Improve Your Memory
 Study repeatedly to boost recall
 Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about
the material
 Make material personally meaningful
 Use mnemonic devices
 associate with peg words--something already stored
 make up story
 chunk--acronyms
Test yourself in study sessions: 1) to practice doing retrieval as if
taking a test, and 2) to overcome the overconfidence error: the
material seems familiar, but can you explain it in your own words?
Improve Your Memory
 Activate retrieval cues--mentally recreate
situation and mood
 Recall events while they are fresh-- before you
encounter misinformation
 Minimize interference
 Test your own knowledge
 rehearse
 determine what you do not yet know
More Tips for Improving Memory
• Pay attention, minimizing distractions
• Do not cram for exams
– Distributed is better than massed practice
• Use elaborative rehearsal
• Use overlearning
• Use mnemonic devices
– Acronyms (APA), acrostics(rhyme or saying)
• Remember the major functions of memory: Ellen stopped
remembering (encoding, storage, retrieval)
References
• Coon, D. and Mitterer, O. J (2013). Introduction to
Psychology (13th ed). Wadsworth Cengage learning. Pp.
241-268
• Feldman, S. R, Collins, J. E. and Green, M. J (2005).
Essentials of understanding psychology (2nd ed). McGrawHill Ryerson. pp. 187-212
• Kosslyn, M. S, and Rosenberg, R. (2006). Psychology in
context. pearson. Pp. 278-315
• Weiten, W. (2009). Psychology: Themes and variations (8th
ed). cengage learning. Pp. 277-305
Dr. Richard Boateng, UGBS
Slide 38