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Chapter 6
Memory
The Nature of Memory
• Memory
– the retention of information over time
– Psychologists study how information is initially
placed, or encoded, into memory; how it is
retained, or stored, after being encoded; and
how it is found, or retrieved, for a specific
purpose later
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Sensory Memory
• Sensory memory
– holds information from the world in its original
sensory form for only an instant, not much
longer that the brief time for which one is
exposed to the visual, auditory, and other senses
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Sensory Memory
• Echoic memory
– the auditory sensory registers in which
information is retained for up to several
seconds
• Iconic
– the visual sensory registers in which
information is retained only for about 1/4
seconds
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Working Memory
• Working memory (short-term memory)
– a limited-capacity memory system in which
information is retained for as only as 30
seconds, unless the information is rehearsed, in
which case it can be retained longer
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Working Memory
• Memory span
– the number of digits an individual can report
back in order after a single presentation (72)
• Chunking
– the grouping or “packing” of information into
higher-order units that can be remembered as
single units
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Working Memory
• Maintenance rehearsal
– the conscious repetition of information that
increases the length of time it stays in working
memory
• Eidetic memory (photographic memory)
– involves especially vivid images
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Long-Term Memory
• Long-term memory
– holds huge amounts of information for along
period of time, relatively permanently
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Long-Term Memory
• Declarative memory
– the conscious recollection of information, such
as specific facts or events, that can be verbally
communicated
• Procedural memory
– knowledge in the form of skills and cognitive
operations about how to do something
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Long-Term Memory
• Episodic memory
– the retention of information about the where
and when of life’s happenings
• Semantic memory
– a person’s general knowledge about the world
– independent of the individual’s personal
identity with the past
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Contemporary Memory Models
• Contemporary working memory model
(Alan Baddeley, 1993)
– long-term memory often precedes working
memory
– working memory uses long-term memory in
flexible ways
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Contemporary Memory Models
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The Processes of Memory:
Encoding
• Encoding
– the transformation and/or transfer of
information into a memory system
• Attention
– the ability to focus mental effort on certain
stimuli while excluding others
– selective attention
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The Processes of Memory :
Encoding
• Effortful processing
– requires capacity or resources to encode
information in memory
• Automatic processing
– does not require capacity, resources, or effort to
encode information in memory
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The Processes of Memory :
Encoding
• Levels of processing theory
– memory is on a continuum from shallow to
deep
• Elaboration
– describes how extensively information is
processed at any given depth in memory
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The Processes of Memory :
Representation
• Network theories
• Schema theories
– schema
• information (concepts, events, and knowledge) that
already exists in a person’s mind
– script
• a schema for an event
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Retrieval and Forgetting
• Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT)
– a type of “effortful retrieval” that occurs when
people are confident they know something but
just can’t quite seem to pull it out from memory
• Serial position effect
– the effect of an item’s position in a list on our
recall of it
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Retrieval and Forgetting
• Primacy effect
– better recall for items at the beginning of a list
• Recency effect
– better recall for items at the end of a list
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Retrieval and Forgetting
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Retrieval and Forgetting
• Recall
– a memory measure in which the individual
must retrieve previously learned information
• Recognition
– a memory measure in which the individual only
has to identify learned items
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Retrieval and Forgetting
• Cue-dependent forgetting
– a form of forgetting information because of
failure to use effective retrieval cues
• Interference theory
– we forget not because memories are actually
lost from storage; but because other
information gets in the way of retrieving what
we want to remember
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Retrieval and Forgetting
• Proactive interference
– occurs when material that was learned earlier
disrupts the recall of material learned later
• Retroactive interference
– occurs when material learned later disrupts
retrieval of information learned earlier
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Retrieval and Forgetting
• Amnesia:
• Anterograde amnesia
– affects the retention of new information or
events
• Retrograde amnesia
– involves memory loss for a segment of the past
but not for new events
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The Biological and Cultural
Contexts of Memory
• The neurobiological origins of memory
– neural circuits
– broad-scale architecture
• Cultural influences on memory
– culture specificity hypothesis
• cultural experiences determine what is socially
relevant in a person’s life and, therefore, what the
person is most likely to remember
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Improving Memory
• General memory strategies:
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pay close attention
rehearse and practice
make a list…check twice
organize yourself to jog your memory
give yourself additional memory cues
when your memory fails, analyze what went
wrong
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Improving Memory
• Improving academic memory:
– organize the material
– elaborate the meaning
– use mnemonics
• method of loci
• peg method
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Improving Memory
• Improving academic memory:
– consolidate your learning
– minimize distraction
– organize yourself
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