Psychology (Ch. 7-8)

Information Processing

• Encoding - getting the information in

• Storage - keeping the info

• Retrieval - getting the info out
  

Two Track Memory System

• Implicit memories (nondeclarative - automatic processing)

  • Ex. How to ride a bike

• Explicit memories - facts and experiences we consciously declare

  • Semantic - facts and general knowledge

    • Remembering the capital of Georgia

  • Episodic - experienced events (personal)

    • First time doing something

Encoding (Building Memories)

• Sensory memory: iconic, echoic

  • Echoic: lasts longer

• Working memory (short-term)

  • 7 plus or minus 2 pieces of information

    • 5-9

  • Chunking

    • TVFBIJFKCIA or TV-FBI-JFK-CIA

  • Mnemonics

  • Spacing effect: distributing practice

  • Testing effect (p. 200): practicing retrieval of information than to merely re-read

  • Elaborative Rehearsal - make new information meaningful

    • Eschew - avoid…relate to shoo-ing away

Storage - capacity for storing long-term memories has no real limits

• Explicit – hippocampus

• Implicit – cerebellum and basal ganglia 

• Emotion-related memory formation – amygdala

Retrieval - Getting Information Out

• Recall vs. Recognition

• Retrieval cues

• Serial position effect - primacy, regency

  • Primacy: first thing is what we remember

    • Ex. first impression of someone

  • Regency: Last thing is what we remember

    • Ex. the last thing you read on a study sheet

Forgetting - Encoding failure, storage decay, retrieval failure – interference

Memory Construction Errors (check pg. 197)

• Misinformation Effects

• Children’s eyewitness recall

• Can memories of childhood abuse be repressed and then recovered?

  
  
  

Improving Memory

• Organize material

• Mnemonics

  • (refer to “eschew)

  • Method of Loci

    • Using imagery to remember something

• Distributed Practice

• Testing Effect

• Overlearning