Chapter 7: Memory

Section 1: Memory Classifications & Processes

Main Idea: Memory is the process of encoding, storing and retrieving information. Memory includes factual and general information, experiences of events, and skills.

Reading Focus Questions: What are the three kinds of memory? How does encoding of memories work? What are the processes of memory storage? What factors affect memory retrieval?

Vocabulary: Memory, episodic memory, semantic memory, explicit memory, implicit memory, encoding, storage, maintenance rehearsal, elaborative rehearsal, retrieval, context-dependent memories, state-dependent memories

Three Kinds of Memory

• Memory - The process by which why recollect prior experiences and information and skills learned in the past.

Episodic Memory

• Episodic Memory - Memory of a specific event.
• Flashbulb memories are memories of events that we can remember in great detail.

Semantic Memory

• Semantic memory - Memory of facts words concepts and so on.
• Explicit memory (Declarative memories)- Memory of specific information.
  • Semantic and episodic memories are examples of explicit memory.

Implicit Memory

• Implicit memory (procedural memory): includes practiced skills and learned habits.
  • Ex. riding a bike, throwing a ball, playing an instrument.
  • Also phobias and biases.
  • Classical conditioning=

Encoding

• Encoding - the first stage of processing information where we convert stimulus into psychological formats that can be represented mentally.

Visual and Acoustic Codes

• Visual code is when you form a mental picture in your mind.
• Acoustic code is when you remember a sequence of sounds in your mind.

Semantic Codes

• Semantic code represents information in terms of its meaning.
  • By using semantic codes you can remember items more easily.

Storage

• Storage - the maintenance of encoded information over a period of time.

Maintenance Rehearsal

• Maintenance Rehearsal - Mechanical or rote repetition of information in order to keep from forgetting it.

Elaborative Rehearsal

• elaborative rehearsal - Remember new information by making it meaningful through “deep processing”, which is relating it to information you already know well.

Organizational Systems

• Stored memories become organized and arranged in your mind for future use.
• Your memory organizes the new information it receives into certain groups, or classes, according to common features.
• Much of our semantic memory that is stored as we get older and acquire more knowledge is organized into groups or classes.

Filing Errors

• Some memory errors occur because we “file” information incorrectly

Retrieval

• Retrieval - locating stored information and returning it to conscious throught.

Context-Dependent Memory

• Context-dependent memory - Memories that are dependent on the place where they were encoded and stored.
  • Easier to retrieve memories in place/situation.

State-Dependent Memory

• State-dependent memories - Memories that are retrieved because the mood in which they were originally encoded is recreated.

On the Tip of The Tongue

• Trying to retrieve memories that are not very well organized or are incomplete can create a phenomenon called tip of the tongue.

Section 2: Three Stages of Memory

Main Idea: The three stages of memory storage are sensory input, short-term or working memory, and long-term memory

Reading Focus Questions: What are the three types of sensory memory? How does short-term memory work? How do schemas affect long-term memory?

Vocabulary: Sensory memory, iconic memory, eidetic imagery, echoic memory, short-term memory, primacy effect, recency effect, chunking, interference, long-term memory, schemas

Sensory Memory

• Sensory Memory - The first stage of information storage
• A memory trace is a visual impression that decays within a fraction of a second.
• Iconic Memory - Accurate, photographic images.
• eidetic imagery - The rare ability to remember visual stimuli over long periods of time (photographic memory).
• Echoic memory - A mental sensory register where mental traces of sounds called echoes are held.

Short-Term Memory

• Short-term memory - Our working memory that is active when we are thinking

The Primacy and Recency Effects

• Primacy effect - the tendency to recall the initial items in a series.
• Recency effect - The tendency to recall the last items in a series.

Chunking

• Chunking - The organization of items into familiar or manageable units.

Interference

• Interference - Occurs when new information appears in short-term memory and takes the place of what was already there.
• Short-term memory is a bridge between sensory memory and long-term memory.

Long-Term Memory

• Long-term memory - The third and final stage of information storage.
• Mechanical or rote repetition is one way of transferring information from short term memory to long-term memory.
• Relating new info to information that you already know is another way.

Memory as Reconstruction

• Memories are reconstructed from the bits and pieces of our experiences.
• We tend to remember things in accordance with our beliefs and needs.
• We interpret and censor information differently

Schemas

• Schemas - The mental representations that we form of the world by organizing bits of information into knowledge.

Capacity of Memory

• We do not store all our experiences permanently, only the ones that greatest impact us.
• Not everything in our short-term memory is transferred into our long-term memory.

Section 3: Forgetting and Memory Improvement

Main Idea: The three tasks of remembering are recognition, recall, and relearning. Failure of any of these results in forgetting.

Reading Focus Questions: How does forgetting happen? What are the three basic memory tasks? How are the three ways of forgetting different? What are some techniques for improving memory?

Vocabulary: recognition, recall, relearning, decay, retrograde amnesia, anterograde amnesia, infantile amnesia

Forgetting

• Forgetting can occur at any one of the three stages of memory - sensory, short-term, or long-term.
  • The information encoded in sensory memory decays almost immediately unless you pay attention to it and transfer it into short-term memory.
  • Information also decays with short-term memory so it must be transferred to long term.
• Old learning can interfere with new learning.

Basic Memory Tasks

• Because nonsense syllables are meaningless remembering them depends on acoustic coding and rote repetition.

Recognition

• Recognition - Identifying objects or events that have been encountered before.
  • Easiest of the memory tasks.

Recall

• Recall - To bring something back to mind
• Related to sleep spindles and k-complexes that we see in nRem stage 2.

Relearning

• Relearning - We can rapidly relearn things that we have forgotten.

Different Kinds of Forgetting

• Much forgetting is due to interference or decay.
• Decay - The fading away of a memory over time.

Repression

• repression is when we forget things on purpose because memories are painful and unpleasant.

Amnesia

• Amnesia is severe memory loss.
• Retrograde amnesia - Where you forget the period leading up to a traumatic event.
• Anterograde amnesia - Where you lose the ability to store new memories.
  • Damage to hippocampus

Infantile Amnesia

• Infantile Amnesia - People can’t remember memories before the age of three.
• Freud thought some pretty weird things about repression and why kids cant remember things.
• Infantile amnesia reflects biological and cognitive factors.
  • Hippocampus is not mature until the age of two.
  • Memory formation is inefficient early on

Improving Memory

• Memory can be improved lol.

Drill and Practice

• Repetition can be used to improve memory.

Relate to Existing Knowledge

• Constructing links between items is a way that elaborative rehearsal can help improve memory.

Form Unusual Associations

• Sometimes people can enhance memory by forming a group of unusual associations.

Use Mnemonic Devices

• Methods for improving memory are called mnemonics
  • Can be an acronym, phrase, or jingle, pictures, yada yada