Memory

Information processing

Encoding - Getting information in Storage - Retaining information Retrieval - Getting information out

Automatic & Effortful processing

Instant encoding & storage

Flashbulb memories 9-11 Titanic President Kennedy Space Shuttle Challenger

Encoding - Getting information in

Rehearsal (continuous repetition) Spacing Effect

Ebbinghaus’s retention curve

We retain information better when study time is spaced out

Spaced study beats cramming - E.g. 12 - 5 minute segments beat one hour of study

Serial Position Effect

We remember the first and last items better than ones in the middle.

Types on Encoding Words that lend themselves to mental images (e.g.

house) are remembered better that abstract low image words e.g. “domicile”

Semantic - meaning - Best (for words) Acoustic - sounds (hearing the word) -

Songs?

Visual - images (seeing the type) - Least Photos?

Self-reference effect

You remember items that refer to yourself

Encoding Imagery

Mnemonics (Greek for memory) Method of Loci Chunking

License plate Phone # Words

Association E.g. Grocery list

Mnemonics (cont.)

“Peg word” system Numbers into pictures

1 = Bun 2 = Shoe 3 = Tree 4 = Door 5 = Hive

6 = Sticks 7 = Heaven 8 = Gate 9 = Swine 10 = Hen Attach items to be

remembered to the pictures

Storage - Retaining information

Sensory Memory

Iconic Memory - What our eyes register Fleeting photographic memory Lasts only a few tenths of a second

Short term memory

Memory decay

Brain (synaptic) changes

Long-term potentiation (LTP) Stimulating neurons increased efficiency Sending neuron released its neurotransmitter more easily Receptor sights may increase. May explain why experience and repetition can increase

memory.

Long term memories

Implicit memories (procedural memory)

Remembering how to do something Can not be consciously recalled

Explicit memories

Declarative memory Can be consciously recalled

E.g. A person may retain past skills, but not remember them.

Retrieval - Getting information out

Retrieval cues

Priming

Memories are held by a web of associations - identify one strand and it leads to others

“Awakening of associations” E.g. Wedding song Retrieval cues can be sights,

sounds, smells and tastes

Mood congruent memories - (State dependent memories)

We remember things best when we are in the same mood as when we did it or learned it. E.g. Happy times are more apt. to be remembered when

we are happy. If you were drunk when you hid something, you are more

apt. to remember where it is when you are drunk again. (However, drinking - in general - reduces memory

Forgetting

Encoding failure

Names are forgotten because they were never encoded.

Storage decay Penny example

Retrieval Failure

Proactive (forward-acting) interference Earlier learning reduces later learning

Retroactive (backward-acting) interference Later learning reduces earlier learning

Retrieval Failure (Cont.)

Retrieval Failure (Cont.)

Memory Construction

Misinformation effect

Given misinformation about an event someone experienced, they misremember the event.

Source amnesia (Source misattribution)

You remember something as real, but forget the source of the memory (e.g. a movie).

E.g. After repeatedly hearing false detailed accounts of an accident you were in, you begin to mistakenly “remember” that these events actually occurred. (You forgot that they were told to you)

Repressed or constructed memories

Therapeutic techniques such as guided imagery can easily encourage construction of false memories.

Memories “recovered” under hypnosis or drugs are particularly unreliable.