Unit 5- Memory

Memory

Persistance of learnng over time through encoding, storage, and retrival of information

Encoding

• How do I get the information into the brain?

• Requires conscious effort

• At first takes effort but then becomes automatic after practice

• Ex. learning new dance —> muscle memory

Storage

Where do we put it and how do we hold it?

Retrival

Getting the information out

Connectionism

Memories are products of interconnected neural networks, when you learn something new you make new neural connections

Sensory Memory

Immediate and very brief

Short Term Memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefley (telephone #), stored or forgotten (includes working memory)

Working Memory

Part of short term memory that focuses on the conscious, active process of incoming audio/visual info.

Long Term Memory

Permanant (knowledge, skills, experiences)

Atkinson-Schriffin Model

Sensory vs short term vs long term memory

Encoding

Effortful to put info into brain

Automatic Processing and Implicit Memories (Procedural Memory)

• Happens automatically without conscious effort

• Ex. Dentist office—> unpleasent

• Incidental info- light bulb moments (seeing 5 people wearing same shirt in last 3 days)

Short term Memory Capacity

• about 7 items

• disappears quickly without rehearsal

• after 3 seconds- recall is 50%

• after 12 seconds- recall is 10%

Chunking

• Organziing items into familiar, manageable units

• Remember best when we organize it into meaningful arrangements

Mnemonics

Memory aids, use vivid imagery

Hierarchies

Concepts divided and subdivided

Spacing Effect

Distribute studying over time vs. cramming the night before

Testing Effect

Consciously retrieving rater than simply rereading information enhances memory

Self-Reference Effect

We more easily remember material that is personally meaningfull

Explicit-Memory System

Frontal Lobe and hippocampus process and stroe explicit memoeries

Explicit memories

facts and experiences

Left frontal lobe

Recalling a password and holding it in working memory (factual knowledge)

Right frontal lobe

Recalling a pep assembly/prom memory (experienc)

Hippocampus

Acts as a loading dock and determines where memories go and move them there for long term storage

Deep Sleep

Helps Hippocampus process memories for later retrieval

Implicit Memory System

Cerrebelum and Basal Ganglia help w/implicit memory foundation, subconscious

Cerrebelum

Helps store classical conditioned memories

Basal Ganglia

Helps with muscle memory, procedular movements for skills

The Amygdala/Emotional Memory

• Emotional arousal causes an outpouring of stress-hormone=provide the amygdala

• Leads to activiyt in the brains memory forming areas

• Significant stressful events can trigger vary clear flashbulb memories

Flashbulb Memories

Clear memory of emotionally significant events (9/11)

Long Term Potentiation (LTP)

• Increase in cell’s firing (action potential) after brief rapid stimulation

• Neural basis for learning/memory

• More connections are devloped between nuerons

• More effecient in releasing and sesnsing nuerotransmitters

• Last up to months at a time

Recall

Retrieving info that is not currently in your conscious awareness but was learned (fill in the blank)

Recognition

Identifying items previousily learned (Multiple Choice test)

Relearning

Learning something faster when you learn it a second time (study for a final)

Priming

Activation of associations, unconsciously, influence behavior

Context Dependent Memory

We remember details between where we originally learned or experienced them (re-walking into a room bc you forget what you were going to get)

State Dependent Memory

What we learned in 1 state=may be easier to recall when we are again in that state, “Mood Congruent”

Serial-Position Effect

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list

Cognition

All mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating

Function of Concepts

Mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, people (simply our thinking)

Creativity

• Associated wtih well developed knowledge

• Imaginative thinking skills

• Recognizing patterns to see connections

• Intrinsic motivation being driven by interest and personal challenger

Ventursome personality

Seeking new experiences and tolerating risk

Promoting creativity

• Develop expertise

• Allow time for incubation

• Let mind roam freely

• Experience other cultures

Cognitive strategies that assist our problem solving

1. Trial and error

2. Algorithms

3. Step my step procedures

4. Heurisrics: simple thinking strategies

5. IInsight: “aha” moment

Heuristics

Simple thinking strategies

Obstacles that hinder our problem solving skills

1. confirmation bias

2. Fixation: inability to see fresh perspective

Fixation

Inability to see a fresh perspective (mental set)

Intuition

Effortless, immediate feeling or thought

Representativeness

Judging liklihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent a match, particular prototypes (stereotypes)

Availability Heuristics

Judging liklihood of events based on their availability and memory (overestimaing # of shark attacks after seeing jaws)

Overconfidence

Tendency to be more confident than correct, overestimate accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

Beleif-Perseverance

Persistant of one

Framing

The way an issue is posed, how issue is framed=significantly impacts judgements

How do smart thinkers use intuition?

Use it as a supplement to analyiss by recognizing patterns based on experience and varyifiying with facts

Spreading Activation

Association of ideas, memories, activation of one stored item in memory travels through assocuated links to activate another item

Forgetting

Good- brain gets ride of clutter, useless, outdates info

Anterograde Amnesia

Inabiity to form new memories, can recall past, be classically conditions, similar to Alziehmers

Retrograde Amnesia

Can’t recall old memories (forgetting own history)

Forgetting happens when we don’t

encode the info.

Proactive interferance

Old learning disrupts your recall of new info (changing small part in dance last minute)

Retroactive Interferance

New learnign gets in way of remembering old/original way (Hoco songs)

Positive Transfer

Old and new learning arent always in conflict, sometimes they aid eachother (latin to spanish)

Motivated Forgetting

Repression

MIsinformation Effect

Exposed to misleading information=we tend to misremember, implants false memories

Source Amnesia (Misatribution)

Atributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard, or read about or imagined, rumor mill

False Memories

Limited to the gist of the event not the specifics

Receptive Language

Infants start without language, by 4 months. can recognize differences in speech/read lips

Productive Language

Ability to produce language

Noam Chomsky

• Argues that all 7,000 languages have universal grammar nouns, verbs, structure

• Humans are born with predisposition to learn language

Broca Area

Produce speech in frontal lobe

Wernickies area

Comprehend language located in left temporal lobe

Whorfs Theory/Linguistic Determination

Language determines thought

Semantic Memory

Meaning out of informatingk, the meaning behind things, “this word means this”

Iconic Memory

Flashblulb memory of something iconic, quick, goes away after seconds,

Episodic Memory

Memory of event, on vacatin with family, hey do you rememeber that time when… like an episode

Echoic Memory

We have a constant stream of sound moving through us, if your cooking and are listenign to music but not actively listening to it, you could be focused on cooking but could say what the lyrics were after someone asks