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Chapter 7
Cognition
What is Memory?
Human memory is an
information processing
system that works
constructively to encode,
store, and retrieve
information
What is Memory?

Memory: Any system (human, animal, or
machine) that encodes, stores, and retrieves
information
Human Memory is Good at:
Information on which attention is
focused
 Information in which we are interested
 Information that arouses us
emotionally
 Information that fits with our previous
experiences
 Information that we rehearse

Memory’s Three Basic
Functions
Encoding
Storage
Involves
modification of
information to fit the
preferred format of
the memory system
Retrieval
Elaboration –
Deliberate encoding in
which you connect a
new concept with
existing information
Memory’s Three Basic
Functions
Encoding
Storage
Involves retention of
encoded material
over time
Retrieval
Memory’s Three Basic
Functions
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
Involves the
location and
recovery of
information
from memory
Chapter 7: Cognition
How Do We Form Memories?
Each of the three memory
stages encodes and stores
memories in a different way,
but they work together to
transform sensory experience
into a lasting record that has a
pattern of meaning
The Three Stages of Memory
Atkinson-Shiffrin Model
Sensory
Memory
Working
Memory
Long-term
Memory
Preserves brief
sensory impressions
of stimuli
Automatic processing: unconscious encoding
Effortful processing: conscious encoding
The First Stage: Sensory
Memory
Echoic Memory: auditory sensory memory (1-4 s)
Iconic Memory: visual sensory memory (1/4 s)
On the next slide, you will see a series of letters
for less than one second. Try to remember as
many letters as you can.
The First Stage: Sensory Memory
The actual capacity of sensory visual memory
can be twelve or more items.
 All but three or four items disappear before
they can enter consciousness.


Stephen Wiltshire Clip
The Three Stages of Memory
Sensory
Memory
Short-term
Memory
Preserves recently
perceived events or
experiences for less
than a minute (20 sec)
without rehearsal,
also called working
memory
Long-term
Memory
The Second Stage: STM

How many pieces of info can it hold?
 Digit
Activity
STM: stores limited amounts of info (7+/-2 or
5-9) for a limited amount of time (20 sec)
 Smallest capacity of 3 stages (bottleneck)
Sensory
STM
LTM
(unlimited)
(5-9) (unlimited)

Encoding and Storage in STM
Three Lists Activity…
 Maintenance rehearsal: Info is repeated or
reviewed to keep it from fading while in
working memory
 Elaborative rehearsal: Info is actively reviewed
and related to info already in LTM
 Chunking/Clustering: Organizing pieces of info
into a smaller number of meaningful units

Encoding and Storage
in Working Memory
Primacy effect: first info remembered
 Recency effect: latest info remembered

 Serial-position

effect
Levels-of-processing theory: Explanation for
the fact that information that is more
thoroughly connected to meaningful terms in
LTM will be better remembered
The Three Stages of Memory
Sensory
Memory
Working
Memory
Long-term
Memory
Stores material
organized
according to
meaning, also
called LTM
The Third Stage: Long-Term Memory
Limitless in capacity and duration
 Semantic encoding: ignore details; encode
general, underlying meaning (Sachs ‘67)

 Can
be detrimental in court, etc…
 Counterfeiting

Visual better than verbal
The Third Stage: Long-Term Memory
Procedural memory: Division of LTM that
stores memories for how things are done
 Declarative memory: Division of LTM that
stores explicit information (aka fact memory)

 Semantic memory:
Subdivision of declarative
memory that stores general knowledge, including
meanings of words, names, and concepts
 Episodic memory: Subdivision of declarative
memory that stores memories for personal
events, or “episodes”

Flashbulb memories
How Do We Retrieve Memories?



Encoding Questions
Implicit memory: Memory that was not deliberately
learned or of which you have no conscious
awareness (lots of times procedural)
Explicit memory: Memory that has been processed
with attention and can be consciously recalled
(declarative – lots of times semantic and episodic)
Retrieval Cues
Retrieval cues: Stimuli that are used to bring
a memory to consciousness
 Priming: Technique for retrieving memories
by providing cues that stimulate a memory.

Recall and Recognition

Recall: Technique for retrieving explicit
memories in which one must reproduce
previously presented information
 FRQ

Recognition: Technique for retrieving
explicit memories in which one must
identify present stimuli as having been
previously presented
 Multiple
choice
Other Factors Affecting Retrieval

Mood-congruent memory: memories created in one
mood are more easily recalled in the same mood

Context-dependent memory: memories created in
one environment are more easily recalled in the same

State-dependent memory: memories created in one
physical/psychological state are more easily
recalled in the same
Improving Memory with
Mnemonics
Mnemonics: Techniques for improving
memory, especially by making
connections between new material and
information already in long-term memory
 Mnemonic strategies include

 Acronyms
 Natural
language mediators
 Method of loci
Why Does Memory Sometimes Fail Us?
Most of our memory
problems arise from
memory’s “seven sins” –
which are really by-products
of otherwise adaptive
features of human memory
Transience

The impermanence of a long-term memory;
based on the idea that long-term memories
gradually fade in strength over time
 Forgetting
curve: A graph plotting the amount of
retention and forgetting over time for a certain
batch of material
Percent retained
Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
5
10
15
Days
20
25
30
Recall decreases rapidly, then reaches a
plateau, after which little more is forgotten
Absent-Mindedness

Forgetting caused by lapses in attention
Blocking
Forgetting that occurs when an item in memory
cannot be accessed or retrieved
 Interference Activity…

 Proactive
interference (new is blocked)
 Retroactive interference (old is blocked)
 PORN (pro, old blocks new, retro, new blocks old)
 TOT phenomenon
Misattribution
Memories are retrieved, but they are associated
with the wrong time, place, or person
 List activity for next concept…

Suggestibility/Misinformation
Effect

Process of memory distortion as a result of
deliberate or inadvertent suggestion
 ME:
Distortion of memory by suggestion (result)
Bias

An attitude, belief, emotion, or experience that
distorts memories
 Expectancy
bias: A tendency to distort recalled
events to make them fit one’s expectations
Persistence
 Memory
problem in which unwanted memories
cannot be put out of mind
Amnesia
Loss of memory due to disease, damage, or
psychological trauma
 Retrograde Amnesia: unable to recall past
information
 Anterograde Amnesia: unable to learn/
remember new information; no transfer into
LTM

How Do Children
Acquire Language?
Infants and children face an
especially important
developmental task with the
acquisition of language.
How Children Acquire
Language

Other language skills
 Social
rules of conversation
 Abstract words (e.g. hope, truth)
How Children Acquire Language



Language: Symbols & set of rules (grammar) that
provide a vehicle for communication
Innateness (nativist) Theory: Children learn
language mainly by following an inborn program for
acquiring vocabulary and grammar
 Language acquisition device (LAD): Structure in
the brain innately programmed with some of the
fundamental rules of grammar (Noam Chomsky)
 Critical period: age by which task must be
complete; 12 years of age for language
Whorf Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis: the language
we use controls our thinking
How Children Acquire Language

Early stages of language acquisition include the
following:
 The

Sounds in context with purpose
 The

one-word stage; the naming explosion (objects)
Generalization: dog = cat, bunny, bear
 The

babbling stage
two-word stage
Begin to develop grammar (Dog bark)
 Telegraphic

speech (short, simple sentences)
Go park and play swing.
Components of Language
 Grammar:
rules of a language
 Syntax: rules of grammar
 Phoneme: smallest distinctive unit of sound (ah, ta)
 Morphemes: smallest unit that carries meaning

-ing, -ed, un-, walk
 Overregularization:
Applying a grammatical rule too
widely and thereby creating incorrect forms
(“hitted” and “feets”)
Good Problem Solving
Metacognition: thinking about thinking
 Good problem solvers are skilled at

 Identifying
the problem
 Possessing requisite knowledge needed
 Selecting a strategy

Dog problem?
Selecting a Strategy
Algorithms: Problem-solving
procedures or formulas that
guarantee a correct outcome if
correctly applied
 Heuristics: Cognitive strategies
used as shortcuts to solve
complex mental tasks; they do
not guarantee a correct solution

Heuristics

Useful heuristics include:
 Working
backward
 Searching for analogies
 Breaking a big problem into smaller problems

Unscramble these words…
Obstacles to Problem Solving
Mental set: Tendency to respond to a new
problem in the manner used for a previous
problem
 Functional fixedness: Inability to perceive a
new use for an object associated with a
different purpose


Overcoming FF – next slide…

Be a divergent thinker: generate multiple
answers or possible solutions; don’t be a
convergent thinker!
Judging and Making Decisions

Framing: the way an issue is stated; this can
significantly alter judgments and decisions
 90%
fat-free v. 10% fat
 50% off sale at some stores
 Buy one, get one free! (plus s&h)
Judging and Making Decisions
Confirmation Bias
Hindsight Bias
Anchoring Bias
Representativeness
Bias
Availability Bias

Ignoring or finding
fault with information
that does not fit our
opinions, and
seeking information
with which we agree
Judging and Making Decisions
Confirmation Bias
Hindsight Bias
Anchoring Bias
Representativeness
Bias
Availability Bias

Tendency, after
learning about an
event, to believe that
one could have
predicted the event in
advance
Judging and Making Decisions
Confirmation Bias
Hindsight Bias
Anchoring Bias
Representativeness
Bias
Availability Bias

Faulty heuristic caused
by basing (anchoring)
an estimate/decision on
an earlier quantity/
factor
Judging and Making Decisions
Confirmation Bias
Hindsight Bias
Anchoring Bias
Representativeness
Bias
Availability Bias

Faulty heuristic strategy
based on presumption
that, once a person or
event is categorized, it
shares all features of
other members in that
category (prototype)
Judging and Making Decisions
Confirmation Bias
Hindsight Bias

Anchoring Bias
Representativeness
Bias
Availability Bias
Faulty heuristic
strategy that
estimates probabilities
based on information
that can be recalled
from personal
experience
What Are the
Components of Thought?
Thinking is a cognitive process
in which the brain uses
information from the senses,
emotions, and memory to
create and manipulate mental
representations, such as
concepts, images, schemas,
and scripts
Concepts
Metacognition: Thinking about thinking
 Concepts: Mental representations of
categories of items or ideas, based on
experience

 Natural
concepts represent objects and events
 Artificial concepts are defined by rules
 We organize much of our declarative
memories into concept hierarchies
 Superordinate v. subordinate (vehicle, convertible)
Animal
Has skin
Eats
Breathes
Bird
Fish
Has wings
Can fly
Has feathers
Has fins
Can swim
Has gills
Canary
Ostrich
Shark
Can sing
Is yellow
Can’t fly
Is tall
Can bite
Is dangerous
Salmon
Is pink
Is edible
Thought and the Brain

Event-related potentials: Brain waves shown
on an EEG in response to stimulation
Schemas and Scripts Help you
Know What to Expect
Schema: A knowledge cluster or general
framework that provides expectations
about topics, events, objects, people, and
situations in one’s life
 Script: A cluster of knowledge about
sequences of events and actions
expected to occur in particular settings

The Biological Basis of Long-Term Memory
Engram: The physical trace of memory
 Anterograde amnesia: Inability to form
memories for new information
 Retrograde amnesia: Inability to
remember information previously stored
in memory
 Consolidation: The process by which
short-term memories are changed to
long-term memories
