Information is gathered through five senses: touch, sight, taste, smell, and hearing.
We remember information by how it feels, looks, tastes, smells, or sounds.
Details registered by the senses determine what is remembered.
The more senses and emotion involved, the stronger the memory.
Short Term Memory
Also called primary or active memory.
Involves current thoughts or focus.
Information is easily forgotten if not repeated or actively used.
Temporarily stores information for everyday activities.
Details are forgotten once the activity concludes and focus shifts.
Duration is brief; data decays in seconds.
Storage capacity is limited.
George Miller's Experiment
Conducted an experiment in the 1950s to measure how much unfamiliar information the human brain could absorb.
Subjects repeated random lists of words, colors, tastes, numbers, and letters.
People could store between 5 and 9 items, averaging around 7.
Coined the term "magic number seven".
Analogy: Remembering grocery items without a list. You may easily remember three to four items, but if you need seven or more items, you are more likely to forget something.
Short Term Memory vs. Working Memory
Some experts use these terms interchangeably, but they are technically different.
Short term memory: temporary storage of new information.
Working memory: includes organizing and manipulating information.
Working memory manages information for complex cognitive tasks like learning, reasoning, and comprehension, and is the bridge between short term and long term memory.
Long Term Memory
Information stored in the brain that is retrievable over a long period.
Memories are deeply encoded or embedded, either by repetition or strong connection to emotions and senses.
Requires focus and/or rehearsal for working memories to become long term memories.
Includes skills such as riding a bike, playing an instrument, or speaking a language.
Becomes routine and automatic.
Memory Processes
Four Processes:
Encoding
Consolidation
Storage
Retrieval
Encoding
First process used to create a new memory.
Sensory information is changed into synapses.
Synapse: structural connection between two neurons, allowing chemical or electrical signals to pass.
Messages from different senses are sent to different brain parts.
The hippocampus processes and decodes information into a single experience.
The hippocampus acts as a sorting center where sensory perceptions are analyzed, compared, and associated with previous messages.
The sorting process determines what becomes short term vs. long term memory.
Types of Encoding
Acoustic: encoding by sound or auditory information (phonological loop/echoic memory).
Repeating information aids memorization.
Visual: encoding by images or visual information (iconic memory).
Fragmented or blurred images associated with memory.
Tactile: encoding through the sense of touch (vibrotactile memory).
Semantic: encoding sensory input associated with meaning or context.
Short term memory relies on acoustic encoding, while long term memory relies on semantic encoding.
Consolidation
Strengthens a memory trace by reinforcing synapses each time they are used.
Considered part of encoding or storage.
Long term potentiation: neurons firing together become permanently sensitive to each other.
Brain creates new synapses, reroutes old connections, or rearranges its organization in response to new information.
Synaptic plasticity/neuroplasticity: ability for synapses to change, foundational to memory and learning.
Memory Storage
Retaining information.
Can be temporary (sensory, short term, working memory) or permanent (long term memory).
Memories are sent to the cerebral cortex after encoding and consolidation.
Cerebral cortex: outermost grooved surface of gray matter of the brain.
Long term memories particularly are stored throughout the cortex.
Memory storage is a cross referencing system that activates associations in multiple brain parts.
Memory Retrieval
Ability to reaccess or remember encoded and stored information.
A single memory is recorded and retrieved through the same basic pattern.
Recalling a memory refires the same neural connections made during the original experience.
Memories are not static; new information can alter previous memories over time.
Memories can be reshaped by awareness or decline with age.
Methods for Retrieving Memories
Recognition: unconscious method requiring one process, making a decision based on familiarity.
Involves association and comparison of previously experienced information.
Used for true/false, matching, or multiple choice questions.
Recall: conscious retrieval requiring a two step process.
Searching and retrieving information from memory, then deciding based on familiarity.
Used for essay exams or debates.
Types of Memory Recall
Free recall: recalling information in any order.
Serial recall: recalling information in a specific order.
Cued recall: recalling information when stimulated by prompts or associations.
Memory Techniques
Designed to retrieve information based on cued recall, using prompts and associations.
Information we do not need at the present seems to go away. Human memory is more like a computer system with thousands of files organized in folders within folders. Just because a file cannot be found does not mean it is not there.
Need for structured system to mentally catalog what we need to remember.
Key Terms
Synapses: Neurological connections that form in the brain that allow a chemical or electrical signal to be passed from one neuron to another during the formation of memory.
Hippocampus: Central sorting center in the brain involved in the complex processes of forming, organizing, and storing memories, plays an important role in the consolidation of information into long term memories.
Cerebral Cortex: Outermost portion of the brain that is a large grooved surface of gray matter where encoded and consolidated memories are stored.