Memory and Information Processing (PSY 213)

Information-processing Approach 

•  Compares brain/mind to computer 

• We can encode, manipulate, monitor, and create strategies for handling information 

• Stimulus->Attention-> Encoding-> Memory-> Thinking-> Response 

Maturation of nervous system, cognition, and experience increase: 

• Memory (w/ more accuracy and speed) 

• Complex cognitive tasks 

• Metacognition 

• Information processing speed 

Attention

the focusing of mental resources 

Types: 

• Selective: paying attention to a specific stimulus 

• Divided: paying attention to multiple things at once (we are terrible at this) 

• Sustained: paying attention to something for a long time 

 

Attention & Developmental Changes: Infancy

Infancy: 

• Overall, not great 

• Orienting/investigation 

• Habituation/Dishabituation 

Attention & Developmental Changes: Childhood

• Early childhood = significant improvements 

• Executive and Sustained Attention 

• Can do things for longer 

• Attention to salient task irrelevant elements 

• Haphazard comparison strategies 

• Incomplete analysis 

Attention & Developmental Changes: Adolescence 

• Increase shifting attention to abilities as needed 

• Increase focus on only relevant information 

• Executive attention even more important 

Attention & Developmental Changes: Adulthood

• Excellent in Young Adulthood 

• Maintenance in mid-life (experience & occupations) 

Attention & Developmental Changes: Old Age

• Generally, a decline in selective attention and performance on complex attention demanding tasks 

• Experience matters! (if it is an area of expertise, they will maintain better) 

• Maintain sustained attention 

Memory

Retention of information over time 

1. Encoding: getting information into memory 

2. Storage: retaining information over time (schema theory is a way to study memory) 

3. Retrieval: Taking information out of storage 

• Could be failures during any of these processes 

Working Memory

• Active memory 

• Mental workbench used to manipulate & assemble information 

• Things you are actively working on 

• Phonological loop: maintains information about auditory stimuli 

• Visuospatial Sketchpad: maintains information about visual stimuli 

• Central executive: oversees working memory, allocating resources where needed and monitoring whether cognitive strategies are being effective 

Short Term

• Holds info for 15-30 seconds, without rehearsal of information 

• 5-7 +/- 2 items 

• Keep? 

Long Term

• Everything else 

• Relatively permanent & unlimited 

• Lots of subtypes 

• Implicit/Procedural: stored procedural skills, classical conditioning, and priming; automatic skills and habits

• Explicit/Declarative: conscious memories of events or facts 

• Prospective: refers to remembering things we need to do in the future 

Implicit/Procedural

• stored procedural skills

• classical conditioning

• priming

• automatic skills and habits

Explicit/Declarative

conscious memories of events or facts 

• Semantic: knowledge of facts 

• Episodic: memories of specific events 

Prospective Memory

refers to remembering things we need to do in the future

• Time-based: such as having to remember to do something at a future time 

• Event-based: such as having to do something when a certain event occurs 

Memory & Age

Generally memory gets better overtime, until old age where recall gets worse

Memory & Age: Infancy

• Infantile amnesia: the inability to recall memories from the first year of life 

• Young infants’ conscious memories are short-lived and hard to study 

• Sensory and brain development support memory formation 

• Deferred imitation: the imitation of actions after a time delay 

Memory & Age: Childhood & Adolescents

• Autobiographical explicit/episodic memory improves 

• Help your understanding of past, present, and future 

• ~2 years; most ~4/5 

• New learning & memory strategies (master elaboration) 

• Get better at deliberate & selective memory strategies (chunking) 

• Increased functional use of working memory 

• Maturational changes = greater and faster processing (pruning) 

• Knowledge base continues to expand 

• Metamemory and metacognition improve (make better choices about their learning) 

Memory & Age: Adults

• Many are in their peak 

Expertise = more effective 

• Recall more details & remember new info 

• Quickly recall info about and address problems 

• Organized knowledge base 

Memory & Age: Old Age

• Most adults having some difficulty 

• Different types (of memory) = different changes 

• Working memory sees more declines 

• Learning changes (issues with studies) 

• Tip-of-the-tongue: difficulty retrieving information they know 

Factors in Remembering

• Personal Significance: more likely to remember stuff about you 

• Distinctiveness: remember distinct things 

• Emotional Intensity: remember things that are emotionally intense 

• Life Phase of Event 

Thinking 

• Manipulating and transforming information from memory to reason, reflect, think critically, evaluate ideas, solve problems, and make decisions 

• Executive Functioning: prefrontal process, higher order cognitive processing 

• Critical Thinking: special type of thinking, ability to think reflectively and productively 

Thinking: Babies

• They can form concepts; group things, understand that things go together 

• ~3-4 months; perceptual -> conceptual; categories (7/9months) 

• Continuously generalized organized bodies or information (Piaget's schemas) 

• Narrow and specify 

• Gendered Interest Driven: kids have special interests they know a lot about; often gendered because of society (nurture is more impactful than nature) 

Thinking: Childhood

• Greater executive function in early childhood 

• Increase in Inhibition, cognitive flexibility, goal setting, delay gratification 

• Linked with positive school outcomes, language 

• Parental influences (passive and active) 

• Can be enhanced with programming/context influences 

Thinking: Adolescents & Young Adults

• For adolescents/young adults executive function/control is extra important now 

• Advancements in decision making and critical thinking 

• Hot processing: emotion-based reaction 

• Cold processing: critical thinking/taking a minute to react calmly 

• Social context: some outcomes are worse when others are present (bad influences/make poor decisions) 

• Critical thinking is better but not perfect 

Thinking & Aging

Both executive functioning and decision-making/thinking decline overtime 

Critical Thinking

special type of thinking, ability to think reflectively and productively

Metacognition

awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes 

Metamemory

is a type of metacognition that involves your knowledge, awareness, and beliefs about your own memory and its processes 

Social cognition

is the study of how individuals process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations to understand and navigate the social world 

Theory of mind

awareness of one’s own & others mental processes 

• 18mon-3/4yrs, children begin to understand three mental states 

• Understand other’s experience does not equal their own 

• ~3-5 yrs understand mind can represent objects/events accurately or inaccurately 

• Awareness of false beliefs ~4/5 

Play 

• Unoccupied Play: Children's behavior seems more random and without a specific goal. This is the least common form of play 

• Solitary Play: Children play by themselves, do not interact with others, nor are they engaging in similar activities as the children around them 

• Onlooker Play: Children are observing other children playing. They may comment on the activities and even make suggestions, but will not directly join the play 

• Parallel Play: Children play alongside each other, using similar toys, but do not directly act with each other 

• Associative Play: Children will interact with each other and share toys, but are not working toward a common goal 

• Cooperative Play: Children are interacting to achieve a common goal. Children may take on different tasks to reach that goal 

• Sociodramatic Play: Make-believe play with others, involving objects and action woven into some kind of imagined situation or story 

• Constructive Play: Combination of sensorimotor/practice play with symbolic representation 

Fluid intelligence

• which refers to the capacity to learn new ways of solving problems and performing activities quickly and abstractly

• Decreases with age 

Crystallized intelligence

• which refers to the accumulated knowledge of the world we have acquired throughout our lives

• Increases throughout adulthood