GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY: CH. 8: MEMORY

STUDYING AND ENDCODING MEMORIES:

MEMORY:

  • Persistence of learning over time through the endcoding, storage, and retrieval of information

EVIDENCE OF MEMORY:

  • Recalling information

  • Recognizing it

  • Relearning it more easily on a later attempt

MEASURES OF RETENTION:

Three measures of memory retention:

  1. Recall: a measure in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test

  2. Recognition: a measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned, as on multiple choice test

  3. Relearning: a measure of memory that assess the amount of time saved when learning material again

Ebbinghaus that the more times he practiced a list of nonsense syllables on day 1, the less time he required to relearn it on day 2. Speed of relearning is one measure of memory retention

Tests of recognition and of time spent relearning demonstrate that we remember more than we can recall

MEMORY MODELS:

Psychologists use memory models to think and communicate about memory

  • Information-processing model

  • Compares human memory to computer operations

  • Involves three processes: endcoding, storage, and retrieval

  • Connectionism information-processing model

  • Focuses on multitrack, parallel processing - the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously

  • Views memories as products of interconnected neural networks

Three processing stages in the classic Atkinson-Shiffrin model:

  1. We record to-be-remembered information as a fleeting sensory memory, the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information

  2. We then process information into short-term memory, where we end code it through rehearsal

  3. Information moves into long-term memory, the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system of knowledge, skills, and experiences for later retrieval

Working Memory:

  • Stresses the active processing occurring in the second memory stage

  • Is a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory

ENDCODING MEMORIES:

Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Vs. Automatic Processing

Explicit memory: memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”. We endcode explicit memories through conscious Effortful processing

Implicit memory: retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollectio. We endcode implicit memories through automatic processing, without our

AUTOMATIC PROCESSING AND IMPLICIT MEMORIES:

Implicit memories include procedural memory for automatic skills and classically conditioned associations among stimuli

Information is automatically processed about:

  • Space

  • Time

  • Frequency

Automatic processing happens effortlessly. With experience and practice, learned skills such as reading and driving become automatic. Many skills are developed this way

SENSORY MEMORY:

Sensory memory: first stage in forming explicit memories

Iconic memory: picture image memory of visual stimuli lasting no more than a few tenths of a second

Echoing memory: sound memory of auditory stimuli; can be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds

SHORT-TERM MEMORY CAPACITY:

  • Short-term