Rachelle Blash, Elias Harraldsson, Scottie Stroup, Jay Patel, and English June

The Phenomenon of Memory Memory - The persistence of learning

over time through t he storage and retrieval of information.

Your memory is your mind’s storehouse.Roman Cicero theory “the treasury and guardian of all things.”

Flashbulb Memory – A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Information Processing

In forming memories, you, too, must select, process, store, and retrieve information.

You process information by not only in the “cramming” you do to study in your courses, but also in the skills you learn and in your processing of countless daily activities.

Information Processing To remember any event, we must get

information into our brain (encoding), retain that information (storage), and later get it out (retrieval).

Encoding – The processing of information into the memory system.

Storage – The retention of encoded information over time.

Retrieval – Process of getting information out of memory storage.

Information Processing Sensory Memory – The immediate, very brief

recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Short-Term Memory – Activated memory that holds a few items briefly.

Long-Term Memory – The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of a memory system.

Incoming stimuli, along with information we retrieve from our long-term memory, become conscious short-term memories in a temporary construction zone.

Working Memory – A newer understanding of short-term memory that involves conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long term memory.

Encoding: Getting Information In

Automatic Processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well learned information, such as word meanings. Space: While reading your textbook, you often encode the

place on a page where certain material appears; later, when struggling to recall the information, such as a friend’s new cell phone number, you need to pay attention and try hard.

Time: While going about your day, you unintentionally note the sequence of the day’s events. Later, when you realize that you left your coat somewhere, you re-create the sequence of what you did that day and retrace your steps.

Frequency: You effortlessly keep track of how many times things happen, thus enabling you to realize “this is the third time I’ve run into her today.”

Automatic Processing

All of this processing goes on without our needing to pay attention to it.

Some forms of processing require attention and effort when we first perform them, but with experience and practice become automatic.

Effortful Processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

This type of processing produces durable and accessible memories.

Rehearsal, the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage, is a form of effortful processing.

The German philosopher ,Hermann Ebbinghaus, studied his own learning and forgetting of verbal materials. Through his studies he found that the amount remembered simply depends on the time spent learning.

Harry Bahrick

9-year experiment Harry and three of his family members

practiced foreign language word translations for a given number of times, at intervals ranging from 14 to 56 days.

Their findings: The longer the space between practice sessions, the better their retention up to 5 years later.

Spaced study beats cramming. Serial Position Effect – Our tendency to recall

best the last and first items in a list.

Encoding Meaning

When processing verbal information for storage, we usually encode its meaning, associating it with what we already know or imagine.

We tend not to remember things exactly as they were.

Visual Encoding – The encoding of picture images. Acoustic Encoding - the encoding of sound,

especially the sound of words. (“If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit” vs. “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must find him guilty.”)

Semantic Encoding - The encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

Visual Encoding

There is greater ease in remembering mental pictures or imagery.

Imagery - Mental pictures; a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding.

We remember concrete words that lend themselves to visual mental images better than we remember abstract, low-imagery words.

Rosy Retrospection – People tend to recall events such as a camping holiday more positively than they evaluate them at the time.

Visual Encoding

Mnemonic - Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Using the “method of loci,” Greek scholars imagined themselves moving through a familiar series of locations, associating each place with a visual representation of the to-be-remembered topic. When speaking, a person would mentally revisit the location and retrieve the associated images.

Organizing Information for Encoding

Meaning and imagery enhance our memory partly by helping us organize information.

We more easily recall information when we can organize it into meaningful units or chunks.

Chunking – Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Hierarchies When people develop expertise in an area, they

process information in hierarchies composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts.

Gordon Bower

Presented words either randomly or grouped into categories.

When words were organized into groups, recall was two or three times better.

At the heart of memory is storage.

Anything stored in a long-term memory lies dormant, waiting to be

reconstructed by a cue.

Storage: Retaining Information

Sensory Memory

George Sperling did an experiment in 1960 by showing people 3 rows of 3 letters each for only 1/20th of a second.Sperling stated that even at faster than

lightning-flash speed, people actually can see and recall all the letters, but only momentarily.

The participants rarely missed a letter, showing that all 9 letters were momentarily available for recall.

The Results

Sperling’s experiment revealed that we have a fleeting photographic memory called iconic memory.For an instant, our eyes register an

exact representation of a scene and we can recall any part of it, but only for a few tenths of a second.

Your visual screen clears quickly in order for old images to be replaced by new ones.

Sensory Memory

We also have a sensory memory for auditory stimuli called echoic memory. If partially interpreted, an auditory echo

lingers for 3 or 4 seconds.

Working/Short Term Memory We retrieve information from long-

term storage for “on-screen” display. But unless our working memory meaningfully encodes or rehearses that information, it quickly disappears from our short-term memory. Example: phonebook ---> phone

Working/Short-Term Memory Without active processing, short-term

memories have a limited life. They are limited not only in duration, but in capacity as well.

Our short-term memory typically stores just seven or so bits of information at a time. George Miller (1956) titled this recall capacity as “Magical Number Seven”

Our short-term recall is usually better with random numbers (for example a phone number) rather than random letters. At any given moment we can consciously

process only a very limited amount of information.

Long-Term Memory

Our capacity for storing long-term memories is essentially limitless. The average adult has about a billion

bits of memory and storage capacity.The total memory capacity of computers

anywhere in the world is far less than that of a single human brain.

Researchers study memory using different levels of analysis, including the biological.

Storing Memories in the Brain Despite the brain’s vast storage

capacity, we do not seem to store most information exactly as it comes to us. Forgetting occurs as new experiences

interfere with our retrieval of past memories.

The search for the physical basis of memory has been linked to the synapses.

Synaptic Changes

Memories begin as impulses whizzing through brain circuits, somehow leaving permanent neural traces.These neural changes occur in the

synapsis, where nerve cells communicate with one another through neurotransmitter messengers.

Increased synaptic efficiency makes for more efficient neural circuits.

Synaptic Changes

Long-term potentiation: an increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief rapid stimulation.With repeated neural firing, a nerve cell’s

genes produce synapse strengthening proteins, enabling long-term memories to form.

after long-term potentiation has occurred, passing an electric current through the brain won’t disrupt old memories. But the current will wipe out very recent

memories.

Stress Hormones and Memory The stress hormones that humans

and animals produce when excited or stressed make more glucose energy available to fuel brain activity.

This action signals the brain that something important has happened.

Stress Hormones and Memory Emotion-triggered hormonal changes

help explain why we long remember exciting events.Example: first kiss, natural disasters, etc.

There are however limits to stress-enhanced remembering. When prolonged, stress can act like acid,

corroding neural connections and shrinking a brain areas (the hippocampus) that is vital for laying down memories.

Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories A memory-to-be enters the cortex

through the senses and finds it’s way into the brain’s depths.

Amnesia: the loss of memory. Implicit Memory: retention

independent of conscious recollection. Explicit Memory: memory of facts

and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”.

Explicit: with conscious recall

Implicit: without conscious recall

Processed in the hippocampus Memories of facts and

general knowledge. As well as personally

experienced events.

Processed, in part, by cerebellum Classical and operant

conditioning effects. As well as motor and

cognitive skills.

Types of Long-Term Memories

The Hippocampus: a neural center that is located in the limbic system and helps process explicit memories for storage.

Explicit memories for facts and episodes are processed in the hippocampus and fed to other brain regions for storage,

The Cerebellum

The brain region extending out from the rear of the brainstem, plays a key role in forming and storing the implicit memories created by classical conditioning.

Retrieval: Getting Information Out

Ways to Indicate MemoryRemember, memory is any sign that something

learned has been retained. Recall - A measure of memory in which the

person must retrieve information learned earlier. (e.g. fill-in-the-blank test)We remember more than we recall.

Recognition-A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test. (e.g. recognizing a yearbook photo of an elementary school classmate)

Relearning – A memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time. (e.g. reviewing for a test)

Retrieval Cues

Anchor points you can use to assess the target information when you want to retrieve it later. The more retrieval cues a person has the better.

Information is referred to as a web of associations. Information is interconnected with other pieces of information.

Priming (“wakening of associations”) – The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.

Example of Retrieval Cues Mnemonic Devices• ROY G BIV – Red, Orange Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo,

Violet• PEMDAS – Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally• HOMES – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior

John Hull

Lost Eyesight Difficulty Recalling Events “The memories of people you have

spoken to during the day are stored in frames which include the background.”

Retrieval Cues

Context Effects Putting yourself back in the context where you

experienced something can prime your memory retrieval.

Scenario: You walk into the kitchen to get an apple. Once you get to the kitchen you forget your purpose for being there (this is a result of a change in context or environment). Returning to the room you were in before you went to the kitchen helps you remember why you were going to the kitchen in the first place. There are few cues to lead you to your reason for

doing something in a new context.

Retrieval Cues

Context Effort Déjà Vu ( French for “already seen”) –

The eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.” Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.Current situations may be loaded with

cues of similar situations.Unconscious retrieval of earlier

experiences.

Retrieval Cues

Moods and Memories State-dependent Memory – What we

learn in one state is more easily recalled when we are again in that state. If a person hides money when they

are drunk they may only be able to remember the location in which they hid it when they are drunk again.

Retrieval Cues

Moods and Memories Mood-congruent Memory – The tendency to

recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.A person who is currently depressed may

describe their parents in negative ways while those who were formerly depressed may describe their parents in a way that a person who has never suffered depression would.

Forgetting

Three Sins Of Forgetting:

Absent Mindedness - inattention to details produces encoding failure (our mind is elsewhere as we lay down the car keys)

Transience - storage decay over time (after we part ways with former classmates unused information fades)

Blocking - inaccessibility of stored information (seeing an old classmate, we may feel the name on the tip of our tongue, but we experience retrieval failure and cannot get it out)

Three Sins Of Distortion: Misattribution - confusing the source of

information (putting words in someone else’s mouth or remembering a movie scene as an actual happening)

Suggestibility - the lingering effects of misinformation (a leading question-”Did Mr. Jones touch your private part?”-later becomes a young child’s false memory.)

Bias - belief-colored recollections (a friend’s current feelings toward her fiancé may color her recalled initial feelings)

One Sin Of Intrusion:

Persistence - unwanted memories (being haunted by images of a sexual assault.)

Encoding Failure

- Not recalling the details of a specific object, even if it’s reoccurring.

Ex. Remembering what’s on the front of the penny.

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Why Encoding Failure?

We cannot remember what we fail to encode, because the information never enters long-term memory.

Ex. What letters accompany the #5 on your telephone?

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Storage Decay

- The course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time (Wixted and Ebbesen, 1991).

Even after encoding something well, we sometimes later forget it.

Ex. School Work (Spanish Vocabulary)

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Storage Decay

Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve (1885)

- After learning lists of nonsense syllables, Ebbinghaus studied how much he retained up to 30 days later. He found that memory for novel information fades quickly, then levels out.

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Storage Decay

Harry Bahrick’s Experiment (1984)

He quizzed students on Spanish vocabulary. Compared with those just completing high school or college Spanish course, people who had been out of school for 3 years had forgotten much of what they had learned. However, their forgetting leveled off; what people remembered then, they still remembered 25 and more years later.

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HARRY BAHRICK’S EXPERIMENT

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Retrieval Failure

- When we lack the information needed to look something up and retrieve it, even when that something is stored in our brain.

Ex. A name may lie on the tip of our tongue, waiting to be retrieved. Given retrieval cues (“It begins with an M”), we may easily retrieve the name.

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Retrieval Failure (Interference)

- Learning some items may interfere with retrieving others. Ex. If you buy a new combination lock or get a new phone,

your memory of the old one may interfere. Two Types: Proactive Interference – The disruptive effect of

prior learning on the recall of new information Ex. Studying French earlier on can help you

when learning Spanish later on, due to their similarity in vocabulary.

Retroactive Interference – The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

Ex. Learning new students’ names typically interferes with a teacher’s recall of the names of previous students.

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Retrieval Failure (Motivated Forgetting)

- When people unknowingly revise their own histories

(Sigmund Freud) Repression - to submerge memories memories but leave them available for later retrieval under the right conditions.

Freud suggested that people frequently have imperfect or no memory recall of traumatic events or of things associated with unpleasant feelings.

Ex. A person is highly motivated to forget a doctor’s appointment if he fears the doctor.

However, researchers think repression rarely, if ever, occurs.

Memory Construction

Some Vocabulary From My Section.. Misinformation effect-

incorporating misleading information into ones memory of an event

Source amnesia- Where you have the inability to remember where , when, or how you previously learned the information.

Children's Eyewitness Recall Children's eyewitness recalls can

be unreliable if leading questions are asked.

If you let the child tell their own testimony it is far more accurate because no opinions from other people can change their views.

Repressed Memories

Many psychotherapists believe early childhood sexual abuse results in repressed memories

Other psychologists think that it is constructed though.

Constructed Memories

Loftus research shows that if false memories are implanted in individuals, and they fabricate their memories

Improving Memory

Improving Memory

Strategies to Improve Memory Study repeatedly to boost long term memory.

Over learn Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the

material. Memories are weak so they require exercise. Study Actively

Make the material personally meaningful. Take notes in your own words. Form images, understand, and organize information. Relate material to what you already know. Form as many associations as possible.

Use mnemonic devices to remember a list of unfamiliar items. Associate items with peg-words. Make up a story. Chunk information into acronyms.

Improving Memory

Strategies to Improve Memory• Refresh your memory by activating retrieval cues.

Re-create the situation and mood in which the original learning occurred.

Return to the same location.• Recall events while they are fresh, before you encounter

possible misinformation. Record your memory before allowing another person

memory to interfere.• Minimize interference.

Study before sleeping. Don’t have back-to-back study times for conflicting topics

(e.g. Spanish and French).• Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to help

determine what you do not yet know. Outline topics on a blank page. Define terms/concepts on your own. Take practice test.

John Shaughnessy and Eugene Zechmeister’s Experiment

A “reread group” repeatedly read dozens of factual statements, then judged the likelihood that they would remember each fact, and finally were tested on their recall. Students in this group felt fairly confident of their knowledge, even on the questions they later missed. Students in a “practice test” group also read the statements, but they spent the rest of the time responding to tests that required them to retrieve the facts. Compared with the “reread” group, the practice test group did just as well on the final recall test. They could also better determine what they did and did not know.

Self-testing enhances recall and can help you to know what you know which enables you to focus on what you do not yet know.