Memory
• Memory: persistence
of learning over time
via the storage and
retrieval of information.
• Gives us our sense of
self and connects us to
past experiences.
What would it be like to live
without memory?
• Clive Wearing
DO THIS ACTIVITY ON YOUR OWN
(no help from your neighbors!)
& SILENTLY.
Quickly! Name as many of the Seven Dwarfs as you can in
the next two minutes. Be sure to provide seven names.
Guess even if you’re sure you aren’t right.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
STOP & QUIETLY WAIT FOR THE ANSWERS.
If you didn’t succeed in retrieving all seven, you are in good company.
Most people can’t do this task easily. And that’s very helpful because we
can use the results to demonstrate some important features of
remembering and forgetting.
A simplified model of remembering involves a three-stage process:
1. ENCODING
To become a memory, information must first be registered in sensory memory –
it must stand out among a variety of stimuli and be selected for further processing.
2. STORAGE
When we rehearse short-term memories sufficiently, we encode them for
placement in long-term memory.
3. RETRIEVAL
We seek information from long-term memory storage.
Three Stage Processing Model of
Memory
• Stage One: The initial recording of sensory
information in the memory system is referred to as
sensory memory.
• Stage Two: sensory memories are processed into
short term memory your activated memory which
can only hold a minimal amount of information.
• Stage Three: short term memories are encoded into
long-term memory, the relatively permanent and
limitless storehouse from which we retrieve.
Process of Encoding: 2 Types
Encoding
Effortful Automatic
Types of Encoding
• Automatic Processing
– unconscious encoding of incidental
information
•space
•time
•frequency
– well-learned information
•word meanings
– we can learn automatic processing
•reading backwards
Automatic Processing: Reading
Backwards
• Reading backwards requires effort at first
but after practice becomes automatic.
• .citamotua emoceb nac gnissecorp luftroffE
• Automatic processing allows us to do
multiple things at once and re-illustrates the
concept of parallel processing.
Effortful Processing
• Effortful Processing: type of encoding that
requires attention and conscious effort.
• Ex: Learning new vocabulary terms, memorizing
historical events/chronology, etc.
• Encoding can be aided by maintenance
rehearsal: simple rote repetition of information in
consciousness or even more successfully by
elaborate rehearsal: processing of information
for meaning which can more easily help produce
long term memories.
King of Memory Experiments is
Hermann Ebbinghaus
• Wanted to research
capacity of verbal
memory.
• Looked to study to see
capacity of peoples’
memories to study strings
of non-sense syllables.
• Ex: JIH, FUB, YOX, XIR,
Findings of Ebbinghaus
• 1. Practice makes perfect. The more
rehearsal he did on day 1, the less rehearsal
it took to learn the syllables again on day 2.
Over learning increased retention.
• 2. The Spacing Effect: the tendency for
studying over a long period of time produces
better long term retention than is achieved
through massed study or practice. SPACED
STUDYING BEATS CRAMMING!!!
Activity
If I asked you to list all the U.S. Presidents
in order, how would you do?
If I made a line graph that charted how
many students in the room knew each
President, what would the graph look like?
Findings of Ebbinghaus
• 3. Serial Position Effect: our tendency to
recall best the last and first items in a list. Ex:
Presidents
Explaining the Serial Position Effect
• Primacy Effect: explains how we
remember concepts at the beginning of a
list since these are often the terms we have
seen the most when reviewing.
• Recency Effect: explains how we
remember concepts at the end of the list a
since these are the terms we have seen
most RECENTLY.
• MIDDLE IS FORGOTTEN MOST OFTEN.
Encoding Activity (Myers 9-3)
Follow the instructions on the handout as I
read the 20 sentences. It is important that
you do not talk or communicate with
anyone else during this activity.
Types of Encoding
•Semantic Encoding: encoding of
meaning, including the meaning of
words….yields best memory.
•Acoustic Encoding: the encoding
of sound, especially the sound of
words….usually the least effective.
•Visual Encoding: the encoding of
picture images.
“I studied for FOREVER
and I still failed!”
MNEMONICS
• ROY G BIV
• Every Good Boy Does Fine
• HOMES
• Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
REHEARSAL
practice saying and writing the
words over and over ---
but, of course, the most effective
rehearsal is distributed
SHORT-TERM Memory
Short-Term Memory Activity
SHORT-TERM Memory
The magic number is 7+or –2
In other words, the most we can hold in our short term stores is just 5-9 items!
But what if you have to
remember more than that?
Try to remember these numbers:
12719412001
1861177614
9219141963
How confident are you
that you correctly memorized
all 31 numbers?
Now, try to remember these numbers:
1492
1776
1861
1914
12-7-1941
1963
2001
Which was easier?
WHY?
CHUNKING
group like things together
How do you remember a phone #?
9528295379
You CHUNK it!
952- 829- 5379
make it VISUAL
So when you see the word “humanism”
I want you to remember:
I tell you to think about:
HUMANISM –
a psychological
approach that
focuses on
free will
Free Willy!
METHOD OF LOCI
• Imagine the route from your room to the
front door of your house
• Place people / events along the way
George Washington is in my bedroom
John Adams is right outside my bedroom door
Thomas Jefferson is in the bathroom
James Madison is at the top of the stairs
make it MEANINGFUL
• Whose phone numbers do you
remember? Why?
• Make all kinds of material meaningful.
Experiment - making meaning
make it RHYTHMIC
• “Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue in
1492”
• The helping verbs
• “The THALAMUS is a grand station, it
sends and receives information.”
REMEMBERING
• The Memoriad!
FALSE MEMORIES
• Are you a reliable eyewitness?
FALSE MEMORIES
• Are you a reliable eyewitness?
Types of Sensory Memory
Sensory Memory: refers to the initial recording of
sensory information in the memory system. All
information is held here briefly (1/2 to 4 seconds)
Sensory Memories include both:
1. Iconic Memory: a momentary sensory memory of
a visual stimuli. Memory only lasts for a few
tenths of a second.
2. Echoic Memory: a momentary sensory memory for
auditory stimuli. Sound memories can usually last
up to 3 or 4 seconds.
Sensory memory is very hard to measure since
it fades as we try to measure it.
George Sperling’s Experiment to
• Measure Iconic Memory
How Does Sensory Memory Get
Processed Into Memory?
• Sensory memories disappear unless you
focus your selective attention on the
information.
• Attention causes information to be further
processed.
• What does this say about subliminal
messages?
Sensory Memory Becomes Short-
Term Memory
• What are characteristics of Short-Term
Memory?
• Only through rehearsal do short-term
memories become long term memories.
Is Long Term Memory Like an Attic?
• Sherlock Holmes: “I consider that a man’s brain
is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock
it with such furniture as you choose…It is a
mistake to think that that little room has elastic
walls and can distend to any extent. Depend
upon it, there comes a time when for every
addition of knowledge you forget something you
knew before.”
• Is this true?
Neural Basis and Emotional Impact
For Memory
• Long Term Potentiation (LTP): refers to the long-
lasting strengthening of the connection between 2
neurons. Is believed to be the neural basis for learning
and memory.
• Process occurs naturally when we learn through
association…after learning has occurred, neurons
involved in process become more efficient at transmitting
the signals.
• Drugs that block LTP affect learning drastically.
• Strong emotions make for stronger memories
– Stress hormones boost impact on learning.
Storage Loss: Amnesia
• Amnesia refers to the
loss of memory.
• Amnesiac patients
typically have losses in
explicit memory.
• Explicit Memory
(declarative memory):
memory of facts and
experiences that one can
consciously know and
declare.
Types of Amnesia
• Anterograde Amnesia: type of memory loss where
patients are UNABLE TO FORM ANY NEW
MEMORIES. Cant remember anything that has
occurred AFTER a traumatic head injury.
• Retrograde Amnesia: type of memory loss where
patients are UNABLE TO REMEMBER PAST EVENTS.
May forget everything that happened BEFORE a
traumatic head injury.
Hippocampus’s Role in Explicit
Memory
• Hippocampus:
neural center located
in limbic system that
helps process explicit
memories for
storage….left and
right hippocampus
have different effects.
Implicit Memory
• Other type of memory
storage is known as
Implicit Memory
(Procedural or Skill
Memory): retention of
things without conscious
recollection.
Cerebellum’s Role in Implicit Memory
• Cerebellum: helps
facilitate associate
learning responses ie
classical conditioning.
• Cutting pathway to the
cerebellum makes rabbits
unable to learn
conditioned responses.
A Diagram For Your Viewing
Pleasure
Types of
long-term
memories
Explicit Implicit
(declarative) (nondeclarative)
With conscious Without conscious
recall recall
Facts-general Personally Dispositions-
knowledge experienced classical and
Skills-motor
(“semantic events operant
and cognitive
memory”) (“episodic conditioning
memory”) effects
Recall vs. Recognition Activity
Retrieval: Getting Information Out
• Recall: a measure of
memory in which the
person must retrieve
information learned
earlier.
• Ex: Fill in the Blank.
Retrieval: Getting Information Out
• Recognition: a
measure of memory
in which the person
need only identify
items previously
learned.
• Ex: Multiple Choice
Retrieval Cues
•Priming:
activation, often
unconsciously, of
particular
associations of
memory.
Retrieval Cues
• Context Effects Memory Retrieval: able to
retrieve information better when you are in the same
context you learned it in.
• Emotional/Mood Impact of Memory:
– State-Dependent Memory: information is most
easily recalled when in same “state” of consciousness it
was learned in.
– Mood Congruent Memory: tendency to recall
experiences that are consistent with one’s current mood.
