AP Pysch Unit 2 - Memory

2 Biological Theories for How Memory Works

• Working Memory Model - when we remember a memory it is a combination of different brain parts (central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop = sound)

• Multistore Model – memories have to go through 3 steps (sensory, short term memory, long term memory)

  • Some memories are processed automatically and some are effortful through these 3 steps

Steps of memory

1. Encoding

2. Storage

3. Retrieval

Encoding

• Forming a memory

• Attention is essential in memory formation

  • If you aren't focused, then the information won't get to your brain

Encoding can focus your attention in different ways

• Different ways of processing information

  • Shallow -visual, structural memories (ex: what does word look like)

  • Intermediate - auditory/phonemic memories (ex: what does word sound like)

  • Deep -sematic, making connections as you remember (ex: using word in sentence or teaching it)

  • Overall conclusion - Deep better than Shallow!

Ways to help encoding

Mnemonic devices (memory shortcut)

Ways to Improve Your Memory

• Rehearsal

• Spacing Effect

• Serial Position Effect

• Elaboration

• In conclusion

  • The more you connect it to one of your senses, the easier something will be to remember

  • Don’t study subjects back to back (you will get them mixed up=interference)

  • Mentally recreate the situation you were in when you learned the information

Rehearsal

• Rehearsal— repeat information over and over

  • Elaborative rehearsal=repeating things in ways that help with meaning (studying for a unit test to learn info the first time)

  • Maintenance rehearsal = repeating things to re-remember them (studying for semester exam or AP test-should be info you already memorized)

Spacing Effect

• Spacing Effect— we retain more information when it is spaced over time (distributed practice is better than massed practice)

  • Don’t Cram! Study a few nights in a row before a test!

Serial position effect

• Serial Position Effect—we remember the first and last things we look at better

  • Primacy effect=remember more at beginning of list

  • Recency effect=remember more at the end of list

• Start at different points in your notes while studying

Elaboration

• Elaboration—link the word to information you already know

  • Make it personally relevant!

Mnemonic Devices

• Chunking— break things into smaller units

  • Ex: telephone number easier to remember as 630-1758 instead of 6301758

• Method of loci — imagine moving through a room with things placed in it that you need to remember

• Acronym— initials stand for things you need to memorize

  • Ex: names of great lakes are HOMES

Storage

• Keeping a memory over time

• 3 steps of storage:

  • Sensory memory - only a fraction of a second (iconic = visual info or echoic = auditory info)

  • Short term memory

  • Long term memory

Short term memory (Working Memory)

• Hold up to 20 secs

• Capacity of 7 (+/-2) things at a time = “magic number”

• Chunk things into units to store more at a time

  • Ex: phone number 877-0531 easier than 8770531

Long Term Memory

• Unlimited capacity, holds for a long time

• Autobiographical memories connected to our lives are easier to remember

  • Highly Superior Autobiographical memory (HSAM) are an extreme version of this

• To get it into long-term, need consolidation - conversion of info intro durable memory codes stored in long term memory

  • Happens when you’re sleeping

  • Exercise also aids with consolidation

Parts of brain used in memory

• Hippocampus

  • Converts short term memory into long term memory, especially of facts and episodes (explicit memories)

• Cerebellum

  • Processes memories learned by classical conditioning, like skills (implied memories)

Where in brain is long term memory?

• Memory starts as an action potential in neuron

• When one synapse is used, it is more likely (and easier) to be used to send a signal again

• Strengthening of potential signal being sent is called long term potentiation

• Explains how we learn and remember association because “neurons that fire together wire together”

Types of Memory

• Procedural Memory - actions, skills, conditioned responses, emotions

• Explicit Memory - memories more easily described or explained to others

  • Episodic Memory - chronological memories

    • Ex: Present received for 10th birthday

  • Semantic Memory - general knowledge, not tied to time learned

    • Ex: you live in the United States

• Prospective Memory - remembering to do something in the future

Retrieving

Getting information out of storage

Two Ways to Retrieve Information

• Recall - remembering without cues/hints (essay questions)

• Recognition - remembering with the help of cues/hints (multiple choice)

• Memories can be triggered by context, mood, or physical state

  • Ex: Going to your old grade school and remembering things you hadn't thought about in years

• Memories are reconstructions (not exactly a replay of the past)

Misinformation effect

Eyewitness testimony memories are changed by information they got after event

Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

• The more hours that pass the more you forget

• Most forgetting happens rights way

• After a certain amount of time the amount you remember stays the same (is 20%)

Why Do We Forget?

• Bad encoding

• Decay Theory

• Interference Theory

  • Proactive interface

  • Retroactive Interference

• Cannot retrieve it

• Motivated forgetting

Bad encoding

• Bad encoding - it never got into memory in first place (pseudoforgetting)

  • Usually due to lack of attention

Decay Theory

• Decay Theory - memory traces fade with time

  • Brain loses 1 neuron per second

  • Lose 10% of brain between 20-90 years old

  • But then how come long term memory is still intact?

  • Explains Alzheimer’s and infantile amnesia (people can’t remember stuff before the age of 4)

Interference Theory

• Interference Theory - forget because of competition from other material (trying to cram a lot of information in your brain so your hippocampus can’t process it)

  • Proactive Interference - when old material impairs intention of new

    • Ex: still write 2024 even when it’s 2025

    • Ex: hard to remember how to write psych free response because you think about US format

  • Retroactive Interference - when new info impairs retention of old

    • Ex: remember your new address, but forget your old one after you move

Reasons why cannot retrieve memory

• Tip-of-Tongue Phenomenon - retrieval cue does not match with memory code in brain

• Easier to retrieve when the way you processed info is the same way it is being measured

  • Ex: you learned list of terms in a list and I ask you to tell me them in list format (easier to retrieve than writing it in essay format)

• Source amnesia - sometimes hard to remember how, when, where we learned or imagined it

  • Reason why we have false memories (along with misinformation effect)

Motivated forgetting

• Believed by psychodynamic theorists

• Repression - bury distressing memories in unconscious