Basic Memory Processes

• Encoding
• Information coded or transformed so it can enter memory.
• Three types of codes:
• Acoustic - sounds
• Visual - images or pictures
• Semantic - meaning
• Storage
• Retain the information over time, consolidation
• Retrieval
• Get the information back when needed.

How Researchers Study Memory:

· Explicit Memory Task - Directly ask the person if they remember something

• Recall Task
• Generate correct answer. Few or no retrieval cues
• Essay test, fill-in-the-blank
• Recognition Task
• Select answer from possible choices. Identify that material is familiar, have encountered it before
• Multiple choice test
• May recognize a face and not recall a name
• Relearning (Savings Method)
• Relearn previously learned material. Measure % of time or trials saved in relearning
• Cumulative final exam

· Implicit Memory Task - A person could have encoded the information but may not be able to retrieve - Learning may show up in other tasks. Unconscious memory

· Word Stem Completion , fill in blank, word fragments

· Give some of the letters of a word and asked to fill in with first word that comes to mind.

· Priming

· May be able to recognize a word faster if have seen it previously, earlier encounter with stimuli increases the speed or accuracy with which that stimuli can be named, etc. at a later time

See difference between 2 in Amnesic patients – suggest retrieval not encoding problem

Information Processing Model of Memory

• Sensory Memory
• Holds the sensation of a sensory stimulus for brief period of time after the stimulus ends.
• Two types of sensory memory:
• Iconic - Holds visual memory trace. Duration < 1 sec. Why not notice eye blinks
• Echoic - Holds auditory memory trace. Duration 2 - 4 sec. Last few words echo briefly in head
• Sperling experiment - Whole vs. Partial report, immediate vs. delayed presentation of tone

• Short-term Memory (STM) (working memory)
• What currently thinking about at any given moment
• Encoding primarily acoustic.
• Holds limited amount of information for a short period of time - Approximately. 20-30 sec. Maintenance rehearsal, or repetition can increase storage time.
• Capacity? 7 + 2
• Increase by Chunking
• Break large amounts of information into meaningful groups.
• Newer models also include amount of processing of information  - space needed to do something with the information

• Long Term Memory (LTM)
• Capacity unlimited.
• Little evidence all memories permanently stored exactly as they occurred (penny example)
• Episodic and semantic memories are stored as schemas.
• A cognitive structure which provides a meaningful framework for organizing information
• Knowledge and assumptions of people, object, events, world. Way we perceive world
• Affects encoding (what people notice) and recall

How is information stored in LTM?

Concepts – categories of objects, events, etc. that have common features, formed through everyday experience

Prototype – best or most representative example of a concept

· Procedural memory – a form of memory that involves a sequence of movements or actions and enables us to perform various acts or skills. Motor memory. Swim, drive car, etc. I know how to…

· Episodic memory – a form of memory that represents our knowledge of personally experienced events and the order in which they occurred. Summer camp in childhood, first week at college. I remember when…

· Semantic memory – a form of memory that represents knowledge of words, symbols, and concepts including the meaning and rules for using them. Carry on conversation, understand math and history, text, I know…

Forgetting of Long Term Memories

• The Serial Position Effect
• Primacy Effects
• Words at beginning of a list more likely to be remembered than words in middle of a list.
• Recency Effects
• Words at the end of a list more likely to be remembered than word in middle of a list.

Why do we forget? Theories of Forgetting

• Decay Theory
• Memories erode or fade over time.
• More likely STM than LTM.
• Interference Theory
• Retrieval impaired by other, especially similar memories
• Proactive Interference
• Prior information inhibits one’s ability to recall new information Old gets in the way of the new.
• Retroactive Interference
• New material disrupts memory of previously learned information. New gets in the way of the old.

Forgetting

• Majority of forgetting occurs immediately after stop actively learning (Forgetting curve).

· How Overcome?

• Overlearning - continue to practice once know information.
• Massed vs. Distributed practice - studying over several shorter time blocks better than cramming into one longer time block.
• More than just amount of time

Encoding Long Term Memories

• Levels of Processing Theory
• Deeper the level which information processed, more likely to remember it.
• Elaborative rehearsal
• Actively organizing the to be remembered information
• Creating meaningful associations between new memories and previously stored material.
• Active vs. Passive learning - mnemonics better than rote
• Visual, Acoustic, Conceptual study

Factors that impact retreival

• Cue Dependence Theory
• Recall best when cues present at encoding are also available at retrieval.
• Context-dependent memory
• Recall improved when the environment setting is the same at encoding and recall.
• State-dependent memory
• Recall improved when emotional or physiological state is the same at encoding and recall.

Metamemory - Knowledge about your storage and retrieval process

• Knowledge about your capabilities and abilities
  Knowledge about how best to approach different tasks
  Knowledge about how to retrieve information
• Young children - little knowledge of how to learn (magical thinking), how to revise strategies, how to pick out what is important

Improving Memory

· Mnemonic Devices

• Methods for organizing information to be learned.
• Method of loci
• Acronym
• Pegword Method
• Link Method
• Narrative Method

Flashbulb memories – vivid, emotional, short duration

· Consequentiality, arousal, distinctiveness, narrative

· See changes in memory – wrong time, tv bias, stereotypical reactions (Challenger space shuttle)

Reconstruction approach to memory

· Look at quality not quantity – what added or changed, why certain items more likely to be forgotten or changed

· Memory not exact replica of event but pieced together, influenced by past experience, context

· Distortions – grades (remember A’s 89% of time, F’s 28% of time, tended to raise GPA), raising children (easier than it was, more like book than actually was)

Eyewitness Testimony

• Emotional Arousal
• Attention directed at culprit or weapon, misses other details.
• Race
• Difficult to recognize members of a race other than our own. (15% higher misidentifications)
• Line-Up
• Believe a person in line-up is culprit, more likely to pick someone.
• Tired
• Accuracy decreases the more mugshots one views.
• Misleading questions
• Smashed/hit - If participants were asked how fast someone was going when they smashed into another car, they reported a higher miles per hour as compared to the hit group. They were also more likely to report seeing broken glass even if none was at the accident scene.
• Did you see _______. - If a participant is asked a question about some object, they are more likely to remember seeing that object, even if the object was not present.
• Children are more likely to make mistakes than adults
• Participants can be highly confident that they are accurate, even when they are not. Confidence has little to do with accuracy