LTM & Everday Memory

Components of Memory Processing

Encoding
- Process by which transform what we perceive, think or feel into (enduring) memory.
Storage
- Process of maintaining this information over time.
Retrieval
- Process of bringing to mind information previously encoded and stored.

Long-Term Memory ‘systems’

Priming - Facilitating processing of / response to target by presenting stimulus related to it before.

Declarative Memory

Conscious recollection (declare)
- Events and Facts
Episodic Memory
- What, Where and When of past experiences
- Hippocampus
Semantic Memory
- Knowledge about the world
- Generalized, no reference to specific experience
- Anterior temporal lobe
Declare - Usually to be described in words, things know to be the case.
What form does Episodic Memory take?
More efficient
- Details are usually trivial and ‘expensive’ to produce semi-permanent record in brain.
Downside = error prone (false recognition & eyewitness testimony)
More likely to remember ‘gist’ as swe age compared with when younger.

False recognition (Brainerd& Mojardin, 1998)

More likely to remember ‘gist’ as we age
Presented children with series of sentences
- ‘The coffee is hotter than the tea’
- ‘The tea is hotter than the cocoa’
- ‘The cocoa is hotter than the soup’
Test sentences ‘The cocoa is cooler than the tea’
- Importantly the content was accurate, but the sentence construction differed from originals.
Question: Was this specific sentence presented in original set?
- Younger children are more likely to get it right than older children.

What form does Episodic Memory take?

Is more about being constructive, rather than remembering past events - for imagining and planning the future.

Concepts in Semantic Memory