Thanks for the memoriesFunctional aspects of memory
Richard Fielding
Department of Community Medicine
HKU
Outline• Learning objectives
• Memory concepts
• Levels of processing
• Storage: maintaining information
• Retrieval
• Forgetting
• Memory breakdown
• Improving memory
• Conclusions
Learning objectives• Outline the main performance
characteristics of sensory or peripheral registers
• Outline the main components and features of working (short-term) memory (STM)
• Outline the main features of long term memory (LTM) and describe at least three components of LTM
• Define encoding and stimulus organization influences on LTM
• Give common reasons for “forgetting”.
Memory concepts
• Functionally, memory has three stages:
ENCODING STORAGE RETRIEVAL
• “Early” versus “late” selection of input.
• Available attentional capacity is determining criteria for input selection stage.
• Levels of processing: sensory, shallow, intermediate, deep.
Levels of processing
• Sensory encoding - most superficial: sensory stores “buffer” registers; 200ms. Eidetic; echoic registers.
• Attentional theory of remembering.– Structural encoding– Phonemic encoding– Semantic encoding
Storage: maintaining information
• Information-processing models of memory
input
Sensory store
attention rehearsal
Short-term (Working) memory
storage retrieval
Long-term memory
Schematic of working memory
Storage in LTM
• Rehearsal of data in STM facilitates transfer to LTM - (maintenance versus elaborative)
• Primacy and recency effects (first and last information preferentially stored)
• Organization: if data not organized in LTM, impossible to find anything: clustering, concept hierarchies, semantic networks, schemas/scripts.
Retrieval• Recall a function of memory strength:
– weak, strong, weak consistent pattern of recall.
• Use of retrieval cues:– tip-of-the-tongue phenomena = retrieval failure– cues, such as first letter, aid recall of words.– Event contexts: (crime scene reconstructions)– mood: “state-dependent memory” vs. mood
congruence– “reconstructive” memory
Forgetting
• Forgetting is rapid for meaningless data ~35% retention after 1 day.
• Why?– Ineffective encoding– Trace decay– Interference (retroactive / pro-active)– Retrieval failure.
Memory breakdown• Amnesia - memory loss.
– Retrograde amnesia: loss of memories for events prior to injury
– Anterograde amnesia: loss of memories for events following injury.
• Do not confuse loss of content storage/ recall with loss of ability to follow procedure.
• Implicit memory (retention when remembering not intended), mostly unaffected by amnesia. Suggests different memory systems involved.
• Declarative (fact) vs. Procedural (skill) memory
Improving memory• Adequate rehearsal
• Distributed practice
• Minimize interference
• Use deep processing
• Emphasize transfer-appropriate processing
• Enrich encoding with verbal mnemonics
• Enrich encoding with visual imagery
• Organize information
Conclusions
• Memory processes extensive and complex
• Numerous systems for memory and “types” of memory
• Memory is not perfect recall, it is partially reconstructive
• Relevance to medical practice in obtaining history from patients and giving information to patients.
Top Related