Memory

Chapter 6
Part 1

Psychology: An Introduction 1
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Memory
 The ability to remember things we have experienced,
imagined, or learned
 Scientific research on memory began with Ebbinghaus’s
experiments in the nineteenth century.
 Information-processing model - describes how
information is encoded, organized, and stored in
memory, and how it is retrieved from memory.
 Memory is often seen as steps in an information-
processing model
 Encoding
 Storage
 Retrieval

Psychology: An Introduction 2
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
Sequence of Information Processing

Psychology: An Introduction 3
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 The Sensory Registers
 1st stop for all sensory information
 Entry points for raw information from
all the senses.
 If we do not process this information
further, it disappears.
 The sensory registers are very large, but
information stays for only a very short time

Psychology: An Introduction 4
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Visual and Auditory Registers
 As new visual information enters the registers,
old information (the icon, or visual image) is
"masked" almost immediately and disappears.
 Otherwise, the registers would overload as visual
information piled up and became scrambled.
 Icons normally last about ¼ second in the visual
register
 Auditory register holds echoes of sound
 Auditory information fades more slowly; the echo may
last for several seconds.

Psychology: An Introduction 5
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Initial Processing
 From the mass of incoming
information, we select elements and
hold them for further processing.
 In this process we also give meaning to
the information - attention

Psychology: An Introduction 6
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Attention
 Selects certain information for further
processing
 We normally pay attention to only a small
portion of incoming information

Psychology: An Introduction 7
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Filter Theories of Attention
 Filter
theories describe the selection process
 Broadbent (1958) – there is a filtering process at
the entrance to the nervous system
 allows only those S that meet certain requirements to
pass through
 Those S that get through the filter are compared
with what we already know
 so that we can recognize them and figure out all other
conversations taking place around you

Psychology: An Introduction 8
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 The Bottleneck Theory of Attention
 also known as the “filter” or “stimulus
selection” theory
 serial processing model
 3 assertions
 allsensory stimuli reside briefly in sensory memory
 information that is attended to is placed in STM and
compared to information stored in LTM
 information that is not attended to is lost before it can
be stored in STM because of a “filtering” mechanism

Psychology: An Introduction 9
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Selective/Divided Attention
 in dichotic listening task, subjects were required to
attend to a message presented to the right ear
(attended ear), while ignoring a different message
presented to the left ear (unattended ear)
 of the message presented to the unattended ear,
subjects were able to detect:
 gender of the voice
 their own names (Moray, 1959)
 out of a sea of voices a person is able to focus on a
single conversation

Right Ear Left Ear

Psychology: An Introduction 10
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
Cocktail Party Phenomenon (Cherry, 1953)
 Investigated how effectively people can ignore
irrelevant conversations
 In a cocktail you are surrounded by people
 There are two sources of noise
1. Your partner
2. Others
 Your attention is concentrated on your partner
 All of a sudden someone talks about you, you detect
your name, your attention switches there, you turn
there and listen to them.
 You lose your attention to your partner.
 You find yourself unable to understand what your
partner says.
 Typical example of divided attention situation
Psychology: An Introduction 11
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Short-Term Memory
 Information that we attend to enters STM,
also called primary memory or working
memory.
 contains everything that we are
consciously aware of at any instant.
 not only briefly stores information but also
processes that information further.

Psychology: An Introduction 12
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
Capacity of Short-Term Memory
 STM has its limits.
 Early research indicated that STM can hold 5-10 bits of
information
 Researches have found that STM can hold only as much
information as can be repeated or rehearsed in 1.5 to 2
seconds, which is usually 5 to 10 separate bits of
information.
 We can process more information by grouping it into
larger meaningful units, a process called chunking
 e.g. TVJFKFBIUSA → TV JFK FBI USA
1881191919201923 → 1881 1919 1920 1923

Psychology: An Introduction 13
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Encoding in Short-Term Memory
 Information can be encoded for temporary
storage in STM phonologically (according to the
way it sounds), in visual form, or in terms of its
meaning.
 Research has shown that memory for visually
encoded information is better than
phonologically encoded information
 Phonological coding
 Visual coding
 dual coding of images - why it is sometimes
helpful to form a mental picture of something you
are trying to learn.
Psychology: An Introduction 14
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
Maintaining Short-Term Memory
 Information can be held in STM by using
rote rehearsal, also called maintenance
rehearsal
 Rehearsal is conscious repetition of
information
 To maintain it in consciousness
 To encode it for long term storage
 Thistechnique is not very effective in
creating long term memories
Psychology: An Introduction 15
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Rote Rehearsal
 Through rote rehearsal, or maintenance
rehearsal, we retain information in STM for
a minute or two by repeating it over and
over again.
 However, rote memorization does not
promote long-term memory.

Psychology: An Introduction 16
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Elaborative Rehearsal
 Elaborative rehearsal, or "the linking of new
information in STM to familiar material stored in
long-term memory," enables us to retain
information for a longer time in STM.
 We process new data in a deeper and more
meaningful way than through simple rote
repetition.
 An accident or severe interference can make
unrehearsed information disappear.
 Retrograde amnesia (the inability to recall events
immediately preceding an accident or injury) is
caused by an interruption in elaborative rehearsal.

Psychology: An Introduction 17
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Retention and Retrieval in STM
 Material in STM disappears in 15 to 20 seconds unless it is
rehearsed or practiced.
 According to decay theory, material is lost from STM simply
because of the passage of time.
 Interference theory contends that interference from other
information leads to forgetting from STM.
 Memory loss from STM is permanent. This prevents us from
becoming overwhelmed with a mass of irrelevant, trivial, or
unrelated data.

Psychology: An Introduction 18
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Long-Term Memory
 LTM is more or less permanent and stores
everything we "know.“
 Unlike STM, LTM is a large-capacity system
 Capacity of long-term memory
 No known limits to capacity
 Vast amounts of information may be stored for many
years
Psychology: An Introduction 19
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
Encoding in Long-Term Memory
 Some information is stored verbatim, some in
terms of nonverbal images, however most of the
them seems to be encoded in terms of meaning.
 Through rehearsal, we extract the meaning of
information and link it to as much material that is
already in LTM as possible.
 The way in which we encode material for
storage in LTM affects the ease with which we
can retrieve it later on.

Psychology: An Introduction 20
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Mehmet

On
Campus Ayşe Beatiful

Dormitoires

Psychology: An Introduction 21
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Serial Position Effect
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lreVhYo6V_E
 First, the remembrance of items occurring towards the
beginning of a list is referred to as primacy effect
 On the opposite end, remembering items at the end of a
list is recency effect.
 Both of these effects have been empirically supported
through hundreds of experiments and regardless of
whether lists are visually or verbally presented
 In summary, people tend to recall the first items (primacy
effect) and last items (recency effect) in a list
 Demonstrates how short- and long-term memory work
together
 Primacy effect reflects long-term memory
 Recency effect reflects short-term memory
Psychology: An Introduction 22
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
Serial Position Effect

Psychology: An Introduction 23
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
Maintaining Long-Term Memory
 Rote rehearsal
 Repetition can result in long-term memory
 Only effective if there is intent to learn material!!!
 Standard method to store away largely meaningless
material e.g. phone numbers, computer passwords,
birthdays etc.
 Imp. for mastering skills e.g. playing a piece of Mozart
on the piano
 Automaticity – achieved only through long, hard, repetitive
practice
 It’s
not the amount of rehearsal but the type of the
rehearsal that increases memory

Psychology: An Introduction 24
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
Maintaining Long-Term Memory
 Elaborative rehearsal
 Process of relating new information to
information already stored in memory
 Meaning is assigned to new information and
then linked to as much existing knowledge as
possible
 The more links or associations you make, the
more likely you are to remember the new
information later

Psychology: An Introduction 25
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Types of Long-Term Memory
 Explicit memory allows us to recall information
that is intentionally committed to LTM and
retrieved from LTM.
 Memory for information we can readily express
and are aware of having
 Episodic and semantic
 This information can be intentionally recalled
Psychology: An Introduction 26
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Explicit Memory

 Episodic memories
 Memories for personal events in a specific time and
place – what you ate for dinner last night

 Semantic memories
 Memory for general facts and concepts not linked to a
specific time – the value of 2 times 7, who Ataturk is

Psychology: An Introduction 27
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Types of Long-Term Memory
 Implicit memory refers to memories for
information that either was not intentionally
committed to LTM or is retrieved unintentionally
from LTM.
 Memory for information that we cannot readily
express and may not be aware of having
 Cannot be intentionally retrieved
 Procedural and emotional
Psychology: An Introduction 28
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall
 Implicit Memory

 Procedural memories
 Motor skills and habits – how to ride a bicycle, swim,
write your name
 Emotional memories
 Learned emotional responses to various stimuli –
being ashamed of something you did

Psychology: An Introduction 29
Charles A. Morris & Albert A. Maisto
© 2005 Prentice Hall