Myers Ch. 7A

Outdated, but still a useful starting point

Iconic—250 milliseconds

Echoic—2 seconds Tactile Taste Olfaction

Holds sensory information in the raw, unprocessed form

If we attend to it, it is encoded in short-term memory

Automatic processing• Describe your day

so far… Effortful processing Parallel processing

—dejavu (theory)

What you do all of the time for school

Serial position effect• Primacy effect• Recency effect • Mnemonic devices

Methods and demonstration

Uncertain conclusions—some argue we convert sensory stimuli into verbal information others argue we convert it to an image…others believe it is something more abstract

Rule of 7 Info is gone in 30-60

seconds if not attended to.

Demonstration #1• Two groups• Whatever group remembers the most words

wins.

Demonstration #2• Remember the list of words in order• Two rounds

Rehearsal—Verbal • Best for phone #s,

passwords, SS #s, learning alphabet, etc…

Elaboration—visual (or otherwise) connection to something you already know

1) Relatively permanent

2) Assumed to be unlimited

3) Contains different types of memories

1) Explicit/Declarative• Semantic—meaning• Episodic—personal

2) Implicit—unaware of retrieval (nondeclarative) • Procedural--(i.e.,

riding a bike, tying shoes, etc…)

• Emotional—love, hate, fear, anxiety, etc…

Memory occurs in the synapse via neural connections

LTP—Long term potentiation

Hippocampus /Frontal Lobe= explicit/declarative

Cerebellum /Amygdala= implicit/ nondeclarative

ANTEROGRADE AMNESIA RETROGRADE AMNESIA

Inability to transfer new information from short-term into long term

Clive Wearing

50 First Dates

Inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an injury or operation

ENCODING SPECIFICITY PRINCIPLE

Context matters! This is why you stare at

me while taking a test sometimes

Don’t study in your bed!!!!!

1) Transience • Proactive interference—when information learned earlier impairs memory for information acquired later.

•Retroactive interference—when information learned later impairs memory for information acquired earlier

•P: proactive•O: old•R: retroactive•N: new

2) Absentmindedness—lapse of attention results in memory failure

3) Blocking—failure to retrieve information that is available—tip of the

tongue phenomenon

4) Memory misattribution—assigning a recollection or an idea to the wrong source

New Jersey SC Elizabeth Loftus Eyewitness Testimony

Try to remember the list of words I read aloud to you.

#5) Suggestibility—the tendency to incorporate misleading information from

external sources into personal recollections

false memories 1992: El AL cargo Plane, Amsterdam

#6) Bias—distortion of memories due to present knowledge/beliefs/feelings

We remember the good and forget the bad

We like to think of ourselves as consistent so we diminish the memory of change in ourselves—cognitive dissonance

Confirmation Bias

#7) Persistence—the intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget, usually

tied to a heightened level of emotion

Embarrassing Moments

Flashbulb Memories

Mnemonics Massed vs. distributed practice Overlearning Imagery

Autobiographical Memory

Alfred Adler• Present determines

past• What is your earliest

memory—write it down or draw it in detail…

Are memories based on present mood and situation?

What does it mean to lose your memory? Are you still the same person to yourself and to others? Do you still have your identity?