Download Memory

As you might have guessed, the next topic
we are going to examine is…….
Memory
The persistence of learning over time
through the storage and retrieval of
information.
So what was the point of the seven dwarves
exercise?
Stages of Memory
Keyboard
(Encoding)
Disk
(Storage)
Sequential Process
Monitor
(Retrieval)
Retrieval Cues
Memories are held in storage by a web of
associations. These associations are like
anchors that help retrieve memory.
water
smell
fire
smoke
Fire Truck
heat
truck
red
hose
Priming (William James)
To retrieve a specific memory from the web of
associations, you must first activate one of the
strands that leads to it. This process is called
priming.
Context Effects
Scuba divers recall more words underwater if they
learned the list underwater, while they recall more
words on land if they learned that list on land
(Godden & Baddeley, 1975).
Fred McConnaughey/ Photo Researchers
Context Effects
After learning to move a mobile by kicking, infants
most strongly respond when retested in the same
context rather than in a different context (Butler &
Rovee-Collier, 1989).
Déja Vu
Déja Vu means “I've experienced this before.”
Cues from the current situation may
unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier
similar experience.
© The New Yorker Collection, 1990. Leo Cullum from
cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved
Types of Memory
• Sensory Memory
• Short-Term Memory
Encoding
Retrieval
Long-Term Memory
Sensory Memory
• The immediate, initial recording of sensory
information in the memory system.
• Echoic – sensory memory for sound (last
1-2 s.)
• Iconic – sensory memory for vision (lasts a
fraction of a second)
• Stored just for an instant, and most gets
unprocessed.
Short-Term Memory
• Memory that holds a few items briefly.
• Seven digits (plus of minus two).
• The info will be stored into long-term or
forgotten.
How do you store things from short-term to long-term?
Rehearsal
You must repeat things over
and over to put them into
your long-term memory.
Long Term Memory
• Unlimited
storehouse of
information.
• Explicit
(declarative)
memories
• Implicit (nondeclarative)
memories
Explicit Memories (aka,
declarative memories)
• Episodic Memories
• Semantic Memories
Formed by the
hippocampus; stored in
the cerebral cortex.
Implicit Memories
• Procedural Memories
• Conditioned Memories
Formed by the
cerebellum; stored
in the cerebral
cortex.
To summarize….
Encoding
How do you encode the info you read in our text?
Getting the information in our
heads!!!!
Two ways to encode information
• Automatic Processing
• Effortful Processing
Automatic Processing
• Unconscious encoding of incidental
information.
• Examples: what table you were
seated at a restaurant; what you ate
for breakfast, where on the page a
word was, who you saw on the way
to class today.
• Things can become automatic with
practice (when you first learn a new
word, every time you hear it, you
consciously and effortfully pull up
the definition from meaning; after
hearing it 50 times, you can
understand the word without effort
– reading Shakespeare.)
Encoding
 Automatic Processing
 unconscious encoding of incidental information
 space
 time
 frequency
 well-learned information
 word meanings
 we can learn automatic processing
 reading backwards
Effortful Processing
• Encoding that requires attention and conscious
effort.
• Examples: vocabulary for school, dates, names
• Rehearsal (conscious repetition) is the most
common effortful processing technique.
• It depends on the amount of time spent
processing the information.
• Overlearning (reviewing things you already know)
enhances retention. (This is why Dr. Humble will
probably never allow senior exam exemptions.)
Effortful Processing
© Bananastock/ Alamy
Spencer Grant/ Photo Edit
Committing novel
information to memory
requires effort just like
learning a concept from a
textbook. Such processing
leads to durable and
accessible memories.
Memory Effects
1. Next-in-line-Effect: When you are so anxious
about being next that you cannot remember
what the person just before you in line says,
but you can recall what other people around
you say.
2. Spacing Effect: We retain information better
when we rehearse over time.
3. Serial Position Effect: When your recall is
better for first and last items on a list, but poor
for middle items.
Spacing Effect
• We increase longterm retention
when we study or
practice over time.
• Cramming is an
inefficient means of
studying (ie,
cramming = less
time for guitar
hero)
Serial Positioning Effect
• We tend to remember the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency
effect) of a list best.
• Primacy effect is stronger than recency effect if there is a delay between
the list and recall.
Words remembered
Order on list
Quiz Question
Your consciously activated but limitedcapacity memory is called ________
memory.
A. short-term
B. Implicit
C. Echoic
D. Explicit
E. Semantic
Quiz Question
Memory of facts is to ________ as memory of
skills is to ________.
A. brainstem; hippocampus
B. Explicit memory; implicit memory
C. Automatic processing; effortful processing
D. Short-term memory; long-term memory
E. Iconic; echoic
Quiz Question
Darren was asked to memorize a list of letters that
included v, q, y, and j. He later recalled these
letters as e, u, i, and k, suggesting that the
original letters had been encoded
A. Automatically
B. Visually
C. Semantically
D. Acoustically
Value of elaboration
A = does the word contain an “e”? Yes or no.
B = how many syllables does the word have?
C = does the word evoke pleasant (P) or unpleasant (U)
feelings for you?
A words: fireplace, movie, shoe, puppy
B words: tortilla, window, goldfish, basketball
C words: Dickens, soda, popsicle, dream
From which list did you remember the most? Why?
Which type works best?
Chunking
• Organizing items
into familiar,
manageable units.
• Often it will occur
automatically.
Take 10 seconds to try to remember
this number list:
1-4-9-2-1-7-7-6-1-8-1-2-1-9-4-1
Now, try again:
1492, 1776, 1812, 1941
Chunk- from Goonies
What are some other
examples of chunking?
Tricks to Encoding
Mnemonic Devices = memory tricks
-Often use imagery (peg word, method of
loci, “hippo on campus…”)
-May use chunking (King Philip Came Over
for Great Spaghetti, SOHCOHTOA, My very
earnest mother just served us nine [pizzas],
ROY G. BIV)
Give me some more examples….
Links to examples of mnemonic devices.
Storing Memories in the Brain
1. Through electrical stimulation of the brain,
Wilder Penfield (1967) concluded that old
memories were etched into the brain.
2. Loftus and Loftus (1980) reviewed Penfield's
data and showed that only a handful of brain
stimulated patients reported flashbacks.
3. Using rats, Lashley (1950) suggested that even
after removing parts of the brain, the animals
retain partial memory of the maze.
Storage:
Long-Term Memory
 How does storage work?
 Karl Lashley (1950)
 rats learn maze
 lesion cortex
 test memory
 Synaptic changes
 Long-term Potentiation
 increase in synapse’s firing potential after brief,
rapid stimulation
Synaptic Changes
Both Photos: From N. Toni et al., Nature, 402, Nov. 25 1999. Courtesy of Dominique Muller
Long-Term Potentiation
(LTP) refers to synaptic
enhancement after learning
(Lynch, 2002). An increase
in neurotransmitter release
or receptors on the
receiving neuron indicates
strengthening of synapses.
Self-Reference Effect
• The idea that we
remember things when
they relate to
ourselves.
• What do we do in class
to take advantage of
this?
Forgetting
An inability to retrieve information due to
poor encoding, storage, or retrieval.
Encoding Failure
We cannot remember what we do not
encode.
Which penny is real?
Storage Decay
Poor durability of stored memories leads to
their decay. Ebbinghaus showed this with
his forgetting curve.
Forgetting
 Forgetting can
occur at any
memory stage
 As we process
information, we
filter, alter, or
lose much of it
Biological Basis of Memory
• Amnesia— severe memory loss
• Retrograde amnesia— inability to
remember past episodic information;
common after head injury; need for
consolidation
• Anterograde amnesia— inability to form
new memories; related to hippocampus
damage
Memory Construction
While tapping our memories, we filter or fill in
missing pieces of information to make our recall
more coherent.
Misinformation Effect: Incorporating misleading
information into one's memory of an event.
Elizabeth Loftus and John
Palmer: Memory Experiment and
Hypothesis
• Hypothesis: People will remember a car accident
differently if given different language cues (words) about
the accident
Loftus and Palmer:
Methodology
• Students watched a film of two cars colliding
• Collision was moderate with no broken glass
• Different students asked different questions: hit, smashed,
collided, bumped, contacted
Loftus and Palmer: Results
VERB
MEAN ESTIMATE OF SPEED (MPH)
Smashed
40.8
Collided
39.3
Bumped
38.1
Hit
34.0
Contacted
31.8
• People reported the fastest speeds if the researchers had
used the word “smashed” in the question
• From fastest to slowest reported speeds: smashed, collided,
bumped, hit, and contacted groups
Study pitfalls
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Visual encoding: thinking about the appearance of the
word
Acoustic encoding: thinking about the sound of the word
(unless it is set to music—then it is great for rote
memorization)
The next-in-line effect: we seldom remember what the
person has just said or done if we are next.
Information minutes before sleep is seldom remembered;
in the hour before sleep, well remembered.
Taped info played while asleep is registered by ears, but
we do not remember it.
Improving Memory
1. Study repeatedly to boost long-term recall.
2. Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking
about the material.
3. Make material personally meaningful.
4. Use mnemonic devices:



associate with peg words — something already stored
make up a story
chunk — acronyms
Improving Memory
5. Activate retrieval cues — mentally recreate the
situation and mood.
6. Recall events while they are fresh — before you
encounter misinformation.
7. Minimize interference:
1.
2.
© LWA-Dann Tardiff/ Corbis
Test your own knowledge.
Rehearse and then determine what you do not yet
know.
Figure 9.28 Levels of analysis for the study of memory
Myers: Psychology, Eighth Edition
Copyright © 2007 by Worth Publishers
Quiz Question
In order to remember to buy sugar, ham, oranges,
and potatoes the next time he does to the
grocery store, Nabil forms the word “SHOP”
with the first letter of each item. He is using a
memory aid known as
A. Chunking
B. The spacing effect
C. The serial position effect
D. The method of loci
E. The next-in-line effect
Quiz Question
When Carlos was promoted, he moved into a new
office with a new phone extension. Every time
he is asked for his phone number, Carlos first
thinks of his old extension, illustrating the
effects of
A. proactive interference
B. Retroactive interference
C. Encoding failure
D. Storage failure