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Chapter 7
Human Memory
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Figure 7.1 – Nickerson & Adams (1979) –
Which is the correct penny?
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Human Memory: Basic Questions
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How does information get into memory?
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How is information maintained in memory?
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How is information pulled back out of memory?
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Memory timeline
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Encoding: Getting Information Into
Memory

The role of attention
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Focusing awareness
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Selective attention = selection of input
– Filtering: early or late?

Multitasking – issues of driving performance and cell phone
use – study by Strayer and Johnson (2001)
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Encoding is effective when…
You pay attention. “Selective attention” If you don’t
pay attention, your sensory memory will hear blah,
blah. You have to pay attention to get info into your
working memory
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Figure 7.4 Divided attention and driving performance – Strayer & Johnson (2001)
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Levels of Processing: Craik and
Lockhart (1972)
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Incoming information processed at different levels

Deeper processing = longer lasting memory codes

Encoding levels:
– Structural = shallow
– Phonemic = intermediate
– Semantic = deep
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Figure 7.6 – Retention at three levels of processing
– Craik & Tulving (1975)
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Enriching Encoding: Improving Memory

Elaboration = linking a stimulus to
other information at the time of
encoding
– Thinking of examples
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Self-Referent Encoding
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Visual Imagery = creation of
visual images to represent words to
be remembered
– Easier for concrete objects
Figure 7.7
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We remember what we are
interested in…
Can you remember my phone number?
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Storage: Maintaining Information in
Memory

Analogy: information storage in computers ~ information
storage in human memory

Information-processing theories – Atkinson & Shiffrin
(1977)
– Subdivide memory into 3 different stores
• Sensory, Short-term, Long-term
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Sensory Memory

Brief preservation of information in original sensory
form

Auditory/Visual – approximately ¼ second
– George Sperling (1960)
• Classic experiment on visual sensory store
• Partial report procedure
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Short Term Memory (STM)

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Limited capacity – magical number 7 plus or minus 2
– Chunking – grouping familiar stimuli for storage as a single
unit
Limited duration – about 20 seconds without rehearsal
– Peterson and Peterson (1959)
– Rehearsal – the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking
about the information
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Short-Term Memory as “Working
Memory”

STM not limited to phonemic encoding

Loss of information not only due to decay

Baddeley (2001) – 4 components of working memory
– Phonological rehearsal loop
– Visuospatial sketchpad
– Executive control system
– Episodic buffer
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xxx 7.11
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Long-Term Memory: Unlimited
Capacity

Penfield’s neural stimulation

Permanent storage?
– Flashbulb memories
– Brown and Kulick
(1977) – study of
assassinations
– Talarico & Rubin (2003)
– Recall through
hypnosis

Debate: are STM and LTM
really different?
– Phonemic vs. Semantic
encoding
– Decay vs. Interference
based forgetting
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How is Knowledge Represented and
Organized in Memory?

Clustering and Conceptual Hierarchies

Schemas and Scripts – Shank & Abelson (1977)
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Semantic Networks – Collins & Loftus (1975)

Connectionist Networks and PDP Models – McClelland and
colleagues - pattern of activity – neuron based model
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Figure 7.14 A semantic network..
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Retrieval: Getting Information Out of
Memory

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon – a failure in retrieval
– Retrieval cues

Recalling an event
– Context cues

Reconstructing memories – Loftus studies
– Loftus & Palmer (1974) – I: smashed (40.8); collided
(39.3); bumped (38.1); hit (34.0); contacted (31.8) II:
smashed (32%) hit (14%) control (12%) (broken glass?)
– Misinformation effect
• Source monitoring, reality monitoring
• cryptomnesia
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Seven Sins of Memory – Daniel L. Schacter

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Transience – loss of
memory over time
Absent Mindedness –
breakdown of interface
between attention &
memory
Blocking – thwarted
search for information
to retrieve
Bias – influence of
current knowledge and
belief on how we
remember our past

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Misattribution –
assigning a memory to
the wrong source
Suggestibility –
memories implanted as
a result of leading
questions, comments or
suggestions when a
person is trying to
recall a past experience
Persistence – repeated
recall of disturbing
information or events
that one may want to
forget
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Forgetting: When Memory Lapses

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve
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Retention – the proportion of material retained
– Recall
– Recognition
– Relearning

Hill of reminiscence – time frame of remembering
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Why Do We Forget?

Ineffective Encoding

Decay theory

Interference
theory
– Type of material
– Proactive
– Retroactive
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Retrieval Failure

Encoding Specificity
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Transfer-Appropriate Processing
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Repression and the memory wards

Authenticity of repressed memories?
– Memory illusions
– Controversy
 False memories
 Loftus & Pickrell’s (1995) lost-in-the-mall study
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The Physiology of Memory

Biochemistry
– Alteration in synaptic transmission
• Hormones modulating neurotransmitter systems
• Protein synthesis

Neural circuitry
– Localized neural circuits
• Reusable pathways in the brain
• Long-term potentiation – changes in postsynaptic neuron

Anatomy
– Anterograde and Retrograde Amnesia
– Clive Wearing
• Figure 7.23 - Cerebral cortex, Prefrontal Cortex,
Hippocampus,
• Dentate gyrus, Amygdala, Cerebellum
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xxx 7.23
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Are There Multiple Memory Systems?
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Implicit vs. Explicit
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Declarative vs. Procedural
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Semantic vs. Episodic
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Prospective vs. Retrospective
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Figure 7.26 – Retrospective versus prospective memory
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Eyewitness Accounts

Use of Eyewitness in court cases – Cutler & Penrod (1995),
Loftus (1993)

Post information distortion
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Source confusion
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Hindsight bias

Overconfidence
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