chapter 10: memory and thought · chapter 10 / memory and thought275 figure 10.2 stages of memory...

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PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology JournalThink back to your child-

hood and recall your earliestmemory. Describe this memory in your journal. ■

272

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What would life without memory be like? Can you even imagineit? Consider all the material stored in your memory: yourSocial Security number, the capital of South Dakota, “The

Star-Spangled Banner,” your first love’s phone number, the importantgenerals of the Civil War, the starting lineup for the Boston Red Sox, yourbest friend in first grade, and so on. What kind of incredible filing systemallows you to instantly recover a line from your favorite movie? How doesall that information fit in your head?

Taking in andStoring Information

■ Main IdeaThere are three processes involved in memory: encoding, storage, andretrieval.

■ Vocabulary• memory• encoding• storage• retrieval• sensory memory• short-term memory• maintenance rehearsal• chunking• semantic memory• episodic memory• declarative memory• procedural memory

■ Objectives• Explain the three processes of memory.• Describe the information-processing

model of memory.

Reader’s GuideExploring Psychology

A Life Without MemoryJohn Kingsley came to our attention

in a shocking news story about an 83-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who was foundunattended in his wheelchair at a dog racetrack outside of Spokane, Washington.Attached to his chair was a note misidenti-fying him. John did not know who he wasor how he got to the races. He could nothelp authorities find his family or his previ-ous caregivers. John Kingsley, like manyother patients during advanced stages ofAlzheimer’s disease, is alive, but withoutlife. Without a memory of his past, or theability to remember anything new, John’slife is nothing but the existing moment.

—from Psychology: Science, Behavior, and Lifeby R.H. Ettinger, Robert L. Crooks, and JeanStein, 1994

Chapter 10 / Memory and Thought 273

storage: the process bywhich information is maintainedover a period of time

memory: the storage andretrieval of what has beenlearned or experienced

encoding: the transforming ofinformation so the nervous sys-tem can process it

THE PROCESSES OF MEMORYThe storage and retrieval of what has been learned or experienced is

memory. Who sings your favorite song? Who were your friends ineighth grade? To recall this information, you use one memory process,assuming two others occurred previously. (see Figure 10.1).

The first memory process is encoding—the transforming of infor-mation so that the nervous system can process it. Basically you use yoursenses—hearing, sight, touch, taste, temperature, and others—to encodeand establish a memory. You use acoustic codes when you try to remembersomething by saying it out loud, or to yourself, repeatedly. For example,in trying to remember the notes that make up the spaces in the treble clefof a musical measure, you would repeat the letters “F,” “A,” “C,” and “E.”When you attempt to keep a mental picture of the letters, you are usingvisual codes. Another way you might try to remember the notes is by usingsemantic codes. In this way, you try to remember the letters by makingsense of them. For example, if you wanted to remember the letters “F,”“A,” “C,” “E,” you might remember the word face. In this way, you haveto remember only the word rather than the individual letters.

After information is encoded, it goes through the second memoryprocess, storage. This is the process by which information is maintainedover time. How much information isstored depends on how much effort wasput into encoding the information and itsimportance. Information can be stored fora few seconds or for much longer.

The third memory process,retrieval, occurs when information isbrought to mind from storage. The easein which information can be retrieveddepends on how efficiently it was en-coded and stored (as well as on other fac-tors, such as genetic background).

THREE STAGES OF MEMORYOnce the senses encode a memory in

the brain, the brain must hold on to theinput and store it for future reference. One model distinguishes three types ofmemory—sensory, short-term, and long-term—each of which has a different function and time span (see Figure 10.2).

Sensory MemoryIn sensory memory, the senses of

sight and hearing (among other senses) are

274 Chapter 10 / Memory and Thought

The Processesof Memory

Memory involves threeprocesses. What doesthe first process ofmemory involve?

Figure 10.1

Encoding(recording information)

Retrieval(calling up stored information)

loading from/

drive a

Storage(saving information)

retrieval: the process ofobtaining information that hasbeen stored in memory

sensory memory: very briefmemory storage immediatelyfollowing initial stimulation of areceptor

able to hold an input for afraction of a second before itdisappears. For example,when you watch a motionpicture, you do not noticethe gaps between frames.The actions seem smoothbecause each frame is heldin sensory storage until thenext frame arrives.

George Sperling (1960)demonstrated this phenom-enon in an ingenious experiment. He used atachistoscope (a device thatpresents a picture for a verybrief time) to present agroup of letters and numbers to people for a twentieth of a second. Previousstudies had shown that if you present a stimulus like this,

people will usually be able to tell you four or five of the items. Sperlingbelieved that the stimulus created a visual image of the letters and thatonly a few could be read back before the image faded. Psychologists referto this visual sensory memory as iconic memory. (Iconic memories holdvisual information for up to a second.)

Sperling then told the participants in his experiment that after he flashedthe letters on the tachistoscope screen, he would present a tone. Upon hear-ing a high tone, the participants were to tell him the top row; a mediumtone, the middle row; and a low tone, the bottom row. Once people learnedthis system, they were indeed able to remember about 75 percent of any onerow if asked to recall immediately. Thus, he proved that the participantretains a brief image of the whole picture so that he or she can still read offthe items in the correct row after the picture has left the screen.Psychologists refer to auditory sensory memory as echoic memory. This is atype of sensory memory that holds auditory information for 1 or 2 seconds.

Sensory memory serves three functions. First, it prevents you frombeing overwhelmed. Every second of every day, you are bombarded withvarious incoming stimuli. If you had to pay attention to all of these stim-uli—what you are immediately seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling—youmight easily feel overwhelmed. Since the information in sensory memoryis short-lived, anything that you do not pay attention to vanishes in sec-onds. Second, sensory memory gives you some decision time. The infor-mation in sensory memory is there for only a few seconds—just longenough for you to decide whether it is worth paying attention to this infor-mation. If you choose to pay attention, the information is automatically

7 1 V FX L 5 3B 7 W 4


Stages of MemoryFigure 10.2

Capacity

Duration

Example

Virtually everything yousee or hear at oneinstant

Fraction of a second

You see something foran instant, and thensomeone asks you torecall one detail

About 7 items inhealthy adults

Less than 20 secondsif not rehearsed

You look up a tele-phone number andremember it longenough to dial it

Vast; uncountable

Perhaps a lifetime

You remember thehouse where you livedwhen you were 7years old

Sensory memory Short-term memory Long-term memory

Psychologists often compare human memory to a computer; however, unlike a computer, people can never fill their long-termmemories so full that there is no room left for storage. How do thecapacities of sensory memory and short-term memory differ?

Reading CheckWhat is the difference

between iconic and echoicmemory?

transferred to short-term memory. Finally, sensory memory allows for con-tinuity and stability in your world. For instance, iconic memory makesimages in your world smooth and continuous, whereas echoic memory letsyou play back auditory information, giving you time to recognize sounds aswords. The information held momentarily by the senses has not yet beennarrowed down or analyzed. It is short-lived, temporary, and fragile.However, by the time information gets to the next stage—short-termmemory—it has been analyzed, identified, and simplified so that it can beconveniently stored and handled for a longer time.

Short-Term MemoryThe things you have in your conscious mind at any one moment are

being held in short-term memory. Short-term memory does not neces-sarily involve paying close attention. You have probably had the experi-ence of listening to someone only partially and then having that personaccuse you of not paying attention. You deny it, and to prove your inno-cence, you repeat, word for word, the last words he or she said. You cando this because you are holding the words in short-term memory.

Maintenance Rehearsal To keep information in short-term memory formore than a few seconds, you usually have to repeat the information to your-self or out loud. This is what psychologists mean by maintenancerehearsal. When you look up a telephone number, for example, you can

remember the seven digits long enough to dial them if you repeat themseveral times. If you are distracted or make a mistake in dialing, the

chances are you will have to look up the number again. It has been lostfrom short-term memory. By using maintenance rehearsal (repeating

the telephone number over and over again), you can keep the infor-mation longer in short-term memory.

Psychologists have measured short-term memory by seeinghow long a participant can retain a piece of information with-

out rehearsal. The experimenter shows the participant threeletters, such as CPQ, followed by three numerals, such as

798, one second later. To prevent rehearsal, the participanthas been instructed to start counting backward by threes

and reporting the result in time with a metronomestriking once per second. (A metronome is an instru-ment designed to mark exact time by a regularlyrepeated tick.) If the participant performs this task foronly a short time, she or he will usually remember theletters. If kept from rehearsing for 18 seconds, how-ever, recall will be no better than a random guess; theinformation is forgotten. Short-term memory lasts abit less than 20 seconds without rehearsal.

Chunking Short-term memory is limited not onlyin its duration but also in its capacity. It can holdonly about seven unrelated items. Suppose, for


A

B C

UNIT

ED STATES OF AMERICA

D E F

L I BERT Y

K L M N O

L I B ERT Y

INGOD WETRUST

INGOD WETRUST

G H I J

L I B ERT Y

INGOD WETRUST

ONE CENTONE CENT

Source: Adapted from Introduction to Psychology, James Kalat, 1999.

Spot the Real PennyFigure 10.3

Which is the genuine penny among thefakes? (Ask your teacher for the correctanswer.) Even though you live in the UnitedStates and probably see hundreds of penniesa week, it is difficult to identify the real one.Mere repetition, such as seeing somethingover and over again, does not guarantee astrong memory. What could you do toremember exactly how a penny looks?

maintenance rehearsal:a system for remembering thatinvolves repeating informationto oneself without attempting tofind meaning in it

short-term memory:memory that is limited incapacity to about seven itemsand in duration by the subject’sactive rehearsal

example, someone quickly reels off a series of numbers to you. You will beable to keep only about seven or eight of them in your immediate mem-ory. Beyond that number, confusion about the numbers will set in. Thesame limit is there if the unrelated items are a random set of words. Wemay not notice this limit to our capacity because we usually do not haveto store so many unrelated items in our immediate memory. Either theitems are related (as when we listen to someone speak), or they arerehearsed and placed in long-term memory.

The most interesting aspect of this limit, discovered by George Miller(1956), is that it involves about seven items (plus or minus two items) ofany kind. Each item may consist of a collection of many other items, butif they are all packaged into one chunk, then there is still only one item.Thus we can remember about seven unrelated sets of initials, such asCOMSAT, DDT, SST, or the initials of our favorite radio stations, eventhough we could not remember all the letters separately. This is referredto as chunking because we have connected, or chunked, them together;in other words, DDT is one item, not three.

One of the tricks of memorizing a lot of information quickly is tochunk together the items as fast as they come in. If we connect items ingroups, we have fewer to remember. For example, we remember newphone numbers in two or three chunks (555-6794 or 555-67-94) ratherthan as a string of seven digits (5-5-5-6-7-9-4). As Figure 10.4 illustrates,we use chunking to remember visual as well as verbal inputs.

Even with chunking, storage in short-term memory is only temporary.Information is available, generally, for less than 20 seconds and no morethan 30 seconds, assuming no rehearsal has occurred. After that, it is partof the long-term memory, or it is lost. Short-term memory contains infor-mation that is of possible interest. Information worth holding on to mustbe rehearsed with the intent to learn in order to transfer it to long-termmemory. Rehearsal without intent to learn yields no transfer.

The Primacy-Recency Effect Read the grocery list at the right.Immediately after reading this list, write down as many of the items asyou can. Which terms did you remember? The primacy-recency effectrefers to the fact that we are better able to recall information presented atthe beginning and end of a list. Most likely, you remembered the first four


Using Short-Term Memory

Glance quickly at the leftfigure in this pair, then lookaway. How many dots didyou see? Now do the samewith the right figure. Youwere probably surer andmore accurate in youranswer for the right figure.Why is this so?

Figure 10.4

milkcheesebuttereggsflourapplesgrapesshampoobreadground beefcerealcatsupgreen beansjam

chunking: the process ofgrouping items to make themeasier to remember

PSYCHOLOGY

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or five items in the list because you had more time to rehearse them. Thisis the primacy effect. You may have also recalled the last four or five itemsin the list because they were still accessible in short-term memory. Thisis the recency effect. However, you may have forgotten the middle items inthe list. When trying to remember the middle items in a list, such as thisone, your attention is split between trying to remember previous itemsand trying to rehearse new ones.

Working Memory Short-term memory is also called working memory.Working memory serves as a system for processing and working with cur-rent information. Working memory includes both short-term memory(events that just occurred) and information stored in long-term memory,now recalled for current information.

Long-Term MemoryLong-term memory refers to the storage of information over extended

periods of time. Information is not stored like a piece of paper in a filing cab-inet; it is stored according to categories or features. You reconstruct whatyou must recall when you need it. When you say a friend has a good memory, you probably mean he or she can recall a wide variety ofinformation accurately. The capacity of long-term memory appears to belimitless. Long-term memory contains representations of countless facts,experiences, and sensations. You may not have thought of your childhoodhome for years, but you can probably still visualize it.

Long-term memory involves all the processes we have been describing.Suppose you go to see a play. As the actors say their lines, the sounds flowthrough your sensory storage. These words accumulate in short-term mem-ory and form meaningful phrases and sentences.


Three Systems of Memory

The moment you pay attention to information in sensory memory,that information enters short-term memory. Then that informationremains in short-term memory for a few seconds. If you rehearsethat information, it stays; if you do not, it disappears. When doesthe process of encoding take place?

Figure 10.5

Sensorymemory

Short-term(working)memory

Maintenance rehearsal

AttentionSensoryinput

Encoding

Retrieval

Unattendedinformation isquickly lost

Unrehearsed informationis quickly lost

Some information maybe lost over time

Long-termmemory

Learning to perform activi-ties requiring skills, suchas in-line skating, is part of procedural memory.

You attend to the action and changing scenery inmuch the same way. Together, they form chunks inyour memory. An hour or two later, you will have for-gotten all but the most striking lines, but you havestored the meaning of the lines and actions in long-term memory. The next day, you may be able to givea scene-by-scene description of the play. Throughoutthis process, the least important information isdropped and only the essentials are retained (seeFigure 10.5). A month or two later, without muchrehearsal, you may remember only a brief outline ofthe plot and perhaps a few particularly impressivemoments. In time you may not remember anythingabout the play. Other, more recently stored items blockaccess to earlier memories or may even replace them.Yet if you see the play again, you will probably recognize the lines of the playand anticipate the actions. Although it has become less accessible, elementsof the play are still stored in long-term memory.

Types of Long-Term Memory For almost a century, the study of memoryfocused on how long information was stored for usage. Then a Canadianpsychologist, Endel Tulving (1972), proposed that we have two types ofmemory. Semantic memory is our knowledge of language, including itsrules, words, and meanings. We share that knowledge with other speakersof our language. Episodic memory is our memory of our own life, such aswhen you woke up this morning. Stored here are personal things wheretime of occurrence is important. Everyone’s episodic memory is unique.

L.R. Squire (1987) proposed a related model of memory. Declarativememory involves both episodic and semantic memory. This is informationyou call forth consciously and use as you need it. Procedural memorydoes not require conscious recollection to have past learning or experiencesimpact our performance. One form of procedural memory involves skills,learned as we mature—including both complex skills such as swimming ordriving a car and simple skills such as tying a tie. As we gain a skill, we grad-ually lose the ability to describe what we are doing. Other types of proce-dural memory, such as fear of bugs, include habits and things learnedthrough classical conditioning.

MEMORY AND THE BRAINWhat happens in the brain when something is stored in long-term

memory? This question is highly controversial. Although psychologistsagree that some physiological changes occur in the brain, they are onlybeginning to identify how and where memories are stored.

What physiological changes occur when we learn something? Somepsychologists theorize a change in the neuronal structure of nerves occurs.Others contend that learning is based on molecular or chemical changes inthe brain. The evidence is more and more clear that both sides are correct.


?Did You Know?Did You Know?

Prosopagnosia Memory problems cansometimes take a surprising twist. Oneexample is the peculiar condition known as prosopagnosia, in which the patient isunable to recognize familiar faces—evenhis or her own face. People who have thiscondition can still perceive other aspectsof faces, however, such as whether a per-son’s expression is happy or sad. Thismemory problem usually results from astroke or head injury.

semantic memory: knowl-edge of language, including itsrules, words, and meanings

episodic memory: memoryof one’s life, including time ofoccurrence

declarative memory:memory of knowledge that canbe called forth consciously asneeded

procedural memory:memory of learned skills thatdoes not require conscious recollection

What changes occur dependon the level at which you areexamining the changes thatlearning creates.

Where does learningoccur? There is growing evi-dence that formation of pro-cedural memories involvesactivity in an area of thebrain called the striatum,deep in the front part of ourcortex (see Figure 10.6).Declarative memories resultfrom activity in the hip-pocampus and the amygdala(Mishkin, Saunders, &Murray, 1984).

It is not clear yet howindividual nerve cells—calledneurons—establish connec-tions with one another whenlearning occurs. It is clearthat a very complex chemi-cal process precedes the for-mation of new connectionsbetween neurons. Somehave credited increases incalcium. Others talk ofdecreased potassium flow.

Processes as diverse as increased protein synthesis, heightened levels of glu-cose, and other biochemical processes are involved (Kalat, 2002). Exactlyhow it all fits together remains an active area of research.


Memory Centers in the Brain

Researchers have identified the parts of the brain that are involved inmemory. What parts of the brain are involved in rememberingthe date of a special event?

Figure 10.6

Cortex: Short-Term MemoryOur ability to remember words, facts, and events (declarative memory) in short-term memory depends on activity in the cortex.

Cortex: Long-Term MemoryOur ability to remember words, facts, and events (declarative memory) from the past depends on activity in the cortex.

Amygdala: Emotional AssociationsOur ability to associate memories withemotions depends, to a large degree,on the amygdala.

Source: Adapted from Introduction to Psychology, Rod Plotnik, 1996.

Hippocampus: Long-Term MemoryOur ability to transfer words, facts,

and events (declarative memory) from short-term into long-term memory depends

on activity in the hippocampus.

Thalamus: Information ProcessingOur ability to process sensory information, crucial to creating

memories, depends on the thalamus.

1. Review the Vocabulary List anddescribe the processes of memory.

2. Visualize the Main Idea In a diagramsimilar to the one below, list the differ-ent stages of memory and write anexample of each.

3. Recall Information What is the pur-pose of maintenance rehearsal? Howdoes the process work?

4. Think Critically In what ways is yourmemory like a computer? In what waysis it different? Explain your responses.

Stages of Memory

Assessment

5. Application Activity Create a skit that illus-trates how you would perform activities such asswimming or bicycle riding if you did not haveprocedural memory. Share your skit.


recall the information first discussed. H.M. wasunable to learn sequences of digits beyond theusual short-term memory span of seven digits. Likewise, H.M. could not recognize thephotographs of people shown and described tohim just a short time earlier.

Interestingly, H.M. demonstrated that hecould learn difficult motor skills such as solvingpuzzles. Although H.M. clearly demonstrated skillin completing these activities, he reported never

to have learned the activities.This implied that H.M. couldlearn new motor abilities eventhough he could not retain newlong-term memories.

Results: The most appar-ent source of H.M.’s problemwas a disruption in transfer-ring short-term memory tolong-term memory. This indi-cated that the hippocampusregion is not involved withstoring long-term memory,because recollection of pre-surgery events was intact.

Thus, the hippocampus region of the brain maybe the component involved in this memorytransferring process but definitely is a pathwaythrough which this information travels.

H.M. lived the rest of his life with the frustra-tion of not remembering the current year, hisage, or where he lived. He was placed in thecare of a nursing home and had to be accom-panied by someone everywhere he wanted togo. He needed constant reminders of what hewas doing. He could not remember anything fol-lowing the year 1953—the year of his surgery.Sadly, H.M. was literally “frozen in time.”

The Case of H.M.Period of Study: 1953

Introduction: In 1953 a man, known by theinitials H.M., underwent major surgery in an effortto cease or minimize the occurrence of epilepticseizures. The doctors chose to remove the hip-pocampus. Knowledge regarding the function ofthe hippocampus, however,was limited at that time.

The surgery proved quiteeffective in decreasing the fre-quency and severity of theseizures. In fact, preliminarytests showed that H.M.’s IQhad risen slightly because henow could better concentrateon tasks. As time passed,doctors detected an unfore-seen and devastating result ofthe surgery—H.M. had lostthe ability to store new long-term memories. Although hecould remember events thatoccurred before the operation, H.M. could nolonger retain information about events occurringafter the surgery. Amazingly, he could still read,carry on conversations, and solve problems. Hecould recall information he learned five to tenminutes beforehand, but H.M.’s brain could nottransfer that short-term information into long-term memory.

Hypothesis: The case of H.M. sparked manytheories about the functions of the hippocampusregion of the brain. One theory proposed that thetransfer of short-term memory into long-termmemory was fixed in the hippocampusregion. H.M.’s memories before the opera-tion remained mostly intact, but after theoperation, there was no hippocampusregion to which to transfer new memo-ries—new information had nowhere to goand so could not be recalled at a later time.

Method: Doctors tested H.M. by pre-senting him with information, distractinghim momentarily, and then asking him to

Analyzing the Case Study1. What type of surgery did H.M. have? Why?

2. What problems did H.M. encounter following thesurgery? Why?

3. Critical Thinking If a virus suddenly destroyed yourhippocampus, what effect would it have on your perfor-mance in school?

The example above illustrates the brain’s tremendous capacity forstoring and retrieving information. Stored information is uselessunless it can be retrieved from memory. Once you have forgotten

to send a card for your mother’s birthday, for example, it is not very con-soling to prove that you have the date filed away in your brain. We have allexperienced the acute embarrassment of being unable to remember a closefriend’s name. There are few things in life more frustrating than having aword “on the tip of your tongue” and not being able to remember it.

Retrieving Information

■ Main IdeaStored memory can be retrieved byrecognition, recall, and relearning.

■ Vocabulary• recognition• recall• reconstructive processes• confabulation• schemas• eidetic memory• decay• interference• elaborative rehearsal• mnemonic devices

■ Objectives• Identify several memory retrieval

processes.• Explain the processes involved in

forgetting.

Reader’s GuideExploring Psychology

What a Memory!Rajan Mahadevan stood before the

packed house of the International Congresson Yoga and Meditation. He recited, frommemory, the first 30,000 digits of pi, whichis often rounded off to two decimal points,or 3.14. He did not err until the 31,812thdigit. This feat took 3 hours and 44 min-utes and earned him a place in theGuinness Book of World Records. . . .

Rajan can repeat a string of 60 num-bers after a single hearing, while most ofus can repeat an average of about sevenrandom numbers. Rajan is one of only ahalf-dozen people in the world known tohave such gargantuan memory powers.

Despite Rajan’s unbelievable ability tomemorize numbers, he seems to be worsethan average at recalling faces, and heconstantly forgets where he put his keys.

—adapted from Introduction to Psychology byRod Plotnik, 1996


The problem of memory is to storemany thousands of items in such a waythat you can find the one you needwhen you need it. The solution toretrieval is organization. Becausehuman memory is extraordinarily effi-cient, it must be extremely well orga-nized. Psychologists do not yet knowhow it is organized, but they are study-ing the processes of retrieval for clues.

RECOGNITIONHuman memory is organized in

such a way as to make recognitionquite easy—people can say with greataccuracy whether or not something isfamiliar to them. If someone asked youthe name of your first-grade teacher,for example, you might not rememberit. Chances are, however, that youwould recognize the name if you heardit. Similarly, a multiple choice test maybring out knowledge that a studentmight not be able to show on an essaytest. The ability to recognize suggeststhat much more information is storedin memory than one might think.

The process of recognition pro-vides insight into how information isstored in memory. We can recognizethe sound of a particular musicalinstrument (say, a piano) no matter what tune is being played on it. Wecan also recognize a tune no matter what instrument is playing it. Thispattern of recognition indicates that a single item of information may beindexed under several headings so that it can be reached in many ways.A person’s features, for instance, may be linked to a large number of cat-egories. The more categories the features are filed in, the more easilythey can be retrieved, and the more likely you are to recognize someone.

RECALLMore remarkable than the ability to recognize information is the abil-

ity to recall it. Recall is the active reconstruction of information. Justthink about the amount of recall involved in a simple conversation. Eachperson uses hundreds of words involving all kinds of information, eventhough each word and bit of information must be retrieved separatelyfrom the storehouse of memory.

recognition: memoryretrieval in which a person iden-tifies an object, idea, or situa-tion as one he or she has orhas not experienced before

recall: memory retrieval inwhich a person reconstructspreviously learned material


RememberingClassmates

Few of us will ever forget our high school days, buthow many of us will remember the names and faces of ourhigh school classmates 10, 20, 30, and even 40 years aftergraduation? According to one study, apparently more of uswill than you might think.

To find out just how long our long-term memory is,researchers showed nearly 400 high school graduates, rang-ing in age from 17 to 74, pictures from their high schoolyearbooks. Here are the surprising results:

• Thirty-five years after graduation, people could identifythe faces of 9 out of 10 of their classmates. The size ofthe high school made no difference in their response.

• Fifteen years after graduation, participants could recall 90 percent of their classmates’ names.

• Name recall began to fade to between 70 and 80 per-cent by the time people reached their late 30s.

• Women generally had better memories for names andfaces than men.Researchers explain these amazing results by looking at

the way we collect this information in the first place. Ourstorehouse of names and faces is built over our four-yearhigh school careers, and continual repetition helps cementthis knowledge in our memories for decades (Bahrick,Bahrick, & Wittinger, 1974; Kolata, 1993).

Recall involves more than searching for and findingpieces of information, however. It involves a person’sknowledge, attitudes, and expectations. The brain is not like a video recorder that plays back episodes intact.Remembering is an active process guided by our experience, knowledge, and cues we receive from the environment. Our recall is influenced by recon-structive processes. Our memories may be altered ordistorted, depending on our experiences, attitudes, andinferences from other information. One type of mistakeis called confabulation, which is when a person“remembers” information that was never stored inmemory. If our reconstruction of an event is incomplete,we fill in the gaps by making up what is missing.Sometimes we may be wrong without realizing it.

Occasionally our memories are reconstructed interms of our schemas. These are conceptual frame-works we use to make sense of the world. They are setsof expectations about something that is based on ourpast experiences. Elizabeth Loftus and J.C. Palmer(1974) conducted a classic study on the roles thatschemas play in memory reconstruction. Participants inthis study watched a film of a two-car accident. Theywere then asked to fill out a questionnaire about theaccident. One of the questions had four different ver-sions. Some participants were asked, “About how fastwere the two cars going when they contacted eachother?” In the other versions of the questions, the

words hit, bumped, or smashed were substituted for the word contacted.Participants given the question with the word contacted recalled a speedof 32 mph. Those given the word hit recalled a speed of 34 mph, thosegiven the word bumped recalled 38 mph, and those given the wordsmashed recalled speeds of 41 mph. Therefore, the schemas people used—whether the cars contacted, hit, bumped, or smashed—affected the waythey reconstructed the crash.

About 5 percent of all children do not seem to reconstruct memoriesactively. They have an eidetic memory, a form of photographic mem-ory shared by few adults. Children with eidetic memory can recall veryspecific details from a picture, a page, or a scene briefly viewed.Photographic memory in adults is extremely rare. It involves the abilityto form sharp visual images after examining a picture or page for a shorttime and then recalling the entire image later.

State-Dependent LearningHave you ever become upset at someone and while doing so

remembered many past instances of when you were upset at the sameperson? This is an example of state-dependent learning. State-dependentlearning occurs when you recall information easily when you are in the


Eyewitness TestimonyOne situation in which recognition is

extremely important is in the courtroom. It isvery convincing to a judge or jury when aneyewitness points to someone in the roomand says, “He’s the one who did it.”

Elizabeth Loftus (1974) has shown thateven after it had been proven that the eye-sight of a witness was too poor for her tohave seen a robber’s face from where shestood at the scene of a robbery, the jurywas still swayed by her testimony. Lawyerscite many cases of people falsely accusedby eyewitnesses whose testimonies laterproved to be inaccurate.

A person’s memory of an event can bedistorted in the process of remembering it.Shocking events, such as those involvingviolence, can disrupt our ability to form astrong memory. Without a strong, clearmemory of the event, the eyewitness ismore likely to incorporate after-the-factinformation into the recall. Jurors shouldremember that the eye is not a camera, andrecall is not videotape.

reconstructive process-es: the alteration of a recalledmemory that may be simplified,enriched, or distorted, depend-ing on an individual’s experi-ences, attitudes, or inferences

confabulation: the act of fill-ing in memory gaps

schemas: conceptual frame-works a person uses to makesense of the world

eidetic memory: the abilityto remember with great accura-cy visual information on thebasis of short-term exposure

same physiological or emo-tional state or setting as youwere when you originallyencoded the information.This is why some peopleadvise you to study for a testin the same classroom or set-ting in which you will takethe test. Being in a certainphysiological or emotionalstate serves as a cue to helpyou more easily recallstored information.

RELEARNINGWhile recognition and

recall are measures ofdeclarative memory, re-learning is a measure ofboth declarative and pro-cedural memory. Supposeyou learned a poem as achild but have not re-hearsed it in years. If youcan relearn the poem withfewer recitations thansomeone with ability simi-lar to yours, you are bene-fiting from your childhoodlearning.

FORGETTINGEveryone experiences

a failure of memory fromtime to time. You are sureyou have seen that personbefore but cannot remem-ber exactly where. You have the word on the tip of your tongue, but . . .When information that once entered long-term memory is unable to beretrieved, it is said to be forgotten. Forgetting may involve decay, inter-ference, or repression.

Some inputs may fade away, or decay, over time. Items quickly decayin sensory storage and short-term memory, as indicated earlier. It is notcertain, however, whether long-term memories can ever decay. We knowthat a blow to the head or electrical stimulation of certain parts of the


decay: fading away of mem-ory over time

T he work of ElizabethLoftus has been in the

forefront of a raging debateover memory. Loftus has spent much of her life gathering evidencethat memory is extremely fragile and not always accurate. She hasshown that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable and that falsememories can be triggered merely by suggestion. The manner inwhich a person builds memories can be altered by informationacquired after the original experience.

Her work is controversial because it raises doubts about thevalidity of repressed memories of repeated trauma, such as that ofchildhood abuse. Loftus has testified in more than 200 trials,including the case of George Franklin. Franklin was sent to jail in1990 for first-degree murder after his daughter Eileen recalled, 20years later, that her father had killed her friend in 1969. Eileenhad recounted the details of the murder to the police in amazingdetail. Eileen’s memory of the event, though, changed—matchingmedia descriptions of it. Loftus noted that memory changes overtime, and as more time passes, our memories become more dis-torted. Loftus believes that there exists a very real possibility thatEileen unconsciously created the memory as a result of guilt,anger, fear, and desperation connected to the childhood abuse shesuffered at the hands of her father.

Elizabeth Loftus1944–

“One of the things thatwe know about memoryfor very upsetting expe-riences, traumatic ex-periences, is that the

memory does not worklike a videotape recorder.”

Profiles In Psychology

brain can cause loss of memory. The memories lost,however, are the most recent ones; older memoriesseem to remain. The fact that apparently forgotteninformation can be recovered through meditation,hypnosis, or brain stimulation suggests that at leastsome memories never decay. Rather, interferenceor repression causes people to lose track of them.

Interference refers to a memory beingblocked or erased by previous or subsequentmemories. This blocking is of two kinds: proactiveand retroactive. In proactive interference an earliermemory blocks you from remembering relatednew information. In retroactive interference a latermemory or new information blocks you fromremembering information learned earlier. Supposeyou move to a new home. You now have toremember a new address and phone number. Atfirst you may have trouble remembering thembecause the memory of your old address and phonenumber gets in the way (proactive interference).Later, you know the new information but havetrouble remembering the old data (retroactiveinterference). It is important to note that proactiveinterference does not lead to retroactive interfer-ence; the two are separate concepts.

It may be that interference actually does erasesome memories permanently. In other cases the old

data have not been lost. The information is in your memory somewhere, ifonly you could find it. According to Sigmund Freud, sometimes blocking isno accident. A person may subconsciously block memories of an embar-rassing or frightening experience. This kind of forgetting is called repression.The material still exists in the person’s memory, but it has been made inac-cessible because it is so disturbing.

AmnesiaSome people also forget information due to

amnesia. Amnesia is a loss of memory that may occurafter a blow to the head or as a result of brain dam-age. Amnesia may also be the result of drug use orsevere psychological stress.

Infant amnesia is the relative lack of early declar-ative memories. For example, why is it that we donot seem to remember much from when we were 2or 3 years old? Although some children do form last-ing memories, most memories from early childhoodseem to fade away.

Psychologists have proposed several theories to explain infant amnesia. Freud thought that infant


?Did You Know?Did You Know?

Flashbulb Memories Ask your parentsor grandparents where they were whenthey found out that John F. Kennedy hadbeen assassinated, and they will most like-ly vividly remember the details. This abilityis referred to as “flashbulb memory.” Thesetypes of memories usually involve eventsthat are very shocking, emotional, or haveserious consequences. Scientists haveconcluded that flashbulb memories involvespecial kinds of encoding that occur whenevents are extreme and/or personal.

Memory FailureFigure 10.7

You may experience memory failure becauseof decay, interference, or repression. What isdecay?

interference: blockage of amemory by previous or subse-quent memories


memories are repressed because of the emotionaltraumas of infancy. Others believe that becauseinfants do not yet understand language, theirmemories are nonverbal, whereas later memo-ries are verbal (once language is learned). Stillothers claim that the hippocampus may not bemature enough in infancy to spark memoriesor that infants have not yet developed a senseof self to experience memories.

IMPROVING MEMORYTechniques for improving memory are

based on efficient organization of the thingsyou learn and on chunking information intoeasily handled packages.

Meaningfulness and AssociationAs we discussed earlier, using repetition, or

maintenance rehearsal, can help you remember fora short period of time. In this method, words aremerely repeated with no attempt to find meaning. Amore efficient way of remembering new informationinvolves elaborative rehearsal. In this method, yourelate the new information to what you already know. Themore meaningful something is, the easier it will be to remem-ber. For example, you would be more likely to remember the sixletters DFIRNE if they were arranged to form the word FRIEND.

Similarly, you remember things more vividly if you associate themwith things already stored in memory or with a strong emotional experi-ence. The more categories a memory is indexed under, the more accessi-ble it is. If an input is analyzed and indexed under many categories, eachassociation can serve as a trigger for the memory. If you associate the newinformation with strong sensory experiences and a variety of other mem-ories, any of these stimuli can trigger the memory. The more senses and experiences you use when trying to memorize something, the morelikely it is that you will be able to retrieve it—a key to improving memory.

For similar reasons, a good way to protect a memory from interfer-ence is to overlearn it—to keep on rehearsing it even after you think youknow it well. Another way to prevent interference while learning newmaterial is to avoid studying similar material together. Instead of studyinghistory right after political science, study biology in between. Still anothermethod is to space out your learning. Trying to absorb large amounts ofinformation at one sitting results in a great deal of interference. It is far more effective to study a little at a time—called distributed practice.

In addition, how you originally learn or remember something influ-ences how readily you recall that information later. If a bit of informationis associated with a highly emotional event or if you learned this bit of

Can you improve your memory?At one time or another we have all had tomemorize items—a list of facts, telephonenumbers, or a dialogue in a play. Are thereways to improve these memorization tasks?

Procedure1. Give several friends and classmates the

following list of numbers to memorize: 6, 9,8, 11, 10, 13, 12, 15, 14, 17, 16, etc.

2. Tell some people to simply memorize thenumber sequence.

3. Tell others that there is an organizationalprinciple behind the number sequence(which they are to discover) and to memo-rize the numbers with the aid of this princi-ple. (The principle here is “plus 3, minus 1.”)

Analysis1. Which group was better at remembering

the number sequence? Why do you thinkthis is so? Write a brief analysis.

See the SkillsHandbook, page 622,

for an explanation of designing an experiment.

elaborative rehearsal: thelinking of new information tomaterial that is already known

information in the absence of interfer-ence, you will more easily recall thatinformation because of the strength ofthat memory.

Mnemonic DevicesTechniques for using associations to

memorize information are calledmnemonic devices. The ancientGreeks memorized speeches by men-tally walking around their homes orneighborhoods and associating eachline of a speech with a different spot—called the Method of Loci. Once theymade the associations, they could recallthe speech by mentally retracing theirsteps and picking up each line. The

rhyme we use to recall the number of days in each month (“Thirty days hasSeptember”) is a mnemonic device. In the phrase “Every Good Boy DoesFine,” the first letters of the words are the same as the names of the musicalnotes on the lines of a staff (E, G, B, D, and F).

Another useful mnemonic device is to form mental pictures. Supposeyou have trouble remembering the authors and titles of books or whichartists belong to which schools of painting. To plant the fact in your mindthat John Updike wrote Rabbit, Run, you might picture a RABBITRUNning UP a DIKE. To remember that Picasso was a Cubist, picturesomeone attacking a giant CUBE with a PICKAX, which sounds likePicasso (Lorayne & Lucas, 1974). Mnemonic devices are not magical.Indeed, they involve extra work—making up words, stories, and so on. Thevery effort of trying to do this, however, may help you remember things.


mnemonic devices:techniques for using associa-tions to memorize and retrieveinformation

On the Tip ofYour Tongue

Have you ever tried to remember something but couldnot quite do so, saying, “I know it; it’s on the tip of mytongue”? What you experienced is called the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Later, in a different situation, theinformation you were looking for earlier comes to you.Why does this happen? In certain cases, maybe you en-coded the information in your memory with insufficientretrieval cues and just cannot find an association to retrievethe memory. In other cases, the information may beblocked through interference. When you think about otherthings, the information pops back into your memory.

1. Review the Vocabulary What is thedifference between proactive andretroactive interference? Between main-tenance and elaborative rehearsal?

2. Visualize the Main Idea In a graphicorganizer similar to the one below,explain the three processes of memoryretrieval.

3. Recall Information What is state-dependent learning? How does it relateto studying and taking exams?

4. Think Critically What types of testquestions do you prefer: those thatrequire recall, such as essay questions,or those that require recognition, suchas multiple choice questions? Why?

Assessment

5. Application Activity Provide an example of amnemonic device that helped you learn orremember something.

Processes of Memory Retrieval

Reading CheckWhat are some common

mnemonic devices?

Summary and Vocabulary

Chapter Vocabularymemory (p. 274)encoding (p. 274)storage (p. 274)retrieval (p. 274)sensory memory (p. 274)short-term memory (p. 276)maintenance rehearsal (p. 276)chunking (p. 277)semantic memory (p. 279)episodic memory (p. 279)declarative memory (p. 279)procedural memory (p. 279)recognition (p. 283)recall (p. 283)reconstructive processes (p. 284)confabulation (p. 284)schemas (p. 284)eidetic memory (p. 284)decay (p. 285)interference (p. 286)elaborative rehearsal (p. 287)mnemonic devices (p. 288)

Taking in and Storing Information■ During encoding, you use your senses to encode

and establish a memory.■ Storage is the process by which information is

maintained over a period of time.■ Retrieval occurs when information is brought to

mind from storage.■ According to one theory, there are three types of

memory—sensory, short-term, and long-term—each with a different purpose and time span.

■ Although psychologists agree that some physio-logical changes occur in the brain when some-thing is stored in long-term memory, they areonly beginning to identify how and where memo-ries are stored.

Memory is a complex mental process that allows us to recognizefriends and family as well as to do things such as drive, speak alanguage, and play an instrument. Psychologists have sought tounderstand memory and to find ways to improve it.

Main Idea: There arethree processes involvedin memory: encoding,storage, and retrieval.

Retrieving Information■ Human memory is organized in such a way as to

make recognition quite easy.■ Recall involves a person’s knowledge, attitudes,

and expectations.■ Recall seems to result from the reconstruction of

the features of a memory from which the requiredinformation is extracted.

■ People’s memories are sometimes reconstructed interms of their schemas.

■ State-dependent learning aids recall only if youare in the same physiological or emotional state asyou were when you originally encoded the infor-mation.

■ Forgetting can be the result of decay, interference,or repression.

■ Memory can be improved through meaningful-ness, association, lack of interference, and degreeof original learning.

Main Idea: Storedmemory can beretrieved by recognition,recall, and relearning.


Assessment

Reviewing VocabularyChoose the letter of the correct term or conceptbelow to complete the sentence.

1. ___________ is the second memory processduring which information is maintained passive-ly over a sometimes extended period of time.

2. When you relate new information to what youalready know you are practicing __________.

3. __________ is a mistake in memory duringwhich a person recalls information that wasnever stored in memory.

4. The skills you develop when you learn how toswim become part of your __________.

5. The active reconstruction of information iscalled __________.

6. __________ are conceptual frameworks we useto make sense of the world.

7. __________ is the storage and retrieval of whathas been learned or experienced.

8. The things you have in your conscious mind atany one moment are held in your __________.

9. When you remember what you did on yourvacation, you are experiencing __________.

10. A small percentage of children have a(n)__________, or photographic memory.

Self-Check QuizVisit the Understanding Psychology Web site at psychology.glencoe.com and click on Chapter 10—Self-Check Quizzes to prepare for the Chapter Test.

a. memoryb. storagec. short-term memoryd. episodic memorye. procedural memory

f. recallg. confabulationh. schemasi. eidetic memoryj. elaborative rehearsal

Recalling Facts1. Using a graphic organizer similar to the one

below, identify and describe the codes used toencode a memory.

2. List two strategies for expanding the limits ofshort-term memory.

3. Describe the primacy-recency effect.

4. What are the two types of interference thatblock memory?

5. Describe five methods you can use to improveyour memory.

Critical Thinking1. Evaluating Information Explain what methods

you use to memorize items such as lists orphone numbers. Which method do you findmost effective? Why?

2. Analyzing Information How would having aphotographic memory make your life different?

3. Synthesizing Information Try to rememberwhat you did on your last birthday. As youprobe your memory, verbalize the mental stepsyou are going through. What processes do youuse to remember?

4. Making Inferences As a juror, what concernsmight you have when hearing eyewitness testi-mony? Why?

5. Applying Concepts Why is it important forteachers to make learning meaningful to theirstudents?

PSYCHOLOGY


Kinds of Codes

Encoding a Memory

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/psychology/psych2001/quiz.shtml?BOOK=006&CHAPTER=10&TITLE=Memory+and+Thought

Psychology Projects1. Taking in and Storing Information Research

the latest findings about the workings of the brainin terms of memory. Share your findings in a writ-ten report. You might include diagrams in yourreport.

2. Retrieving Information Research the use ofrepressed memories in recent child abuse cases.Report the results of the cases and the effects ofrepressed memories on the outcomes.

3. Approaches to Memory Use this textbook andother sources to research several psychologicalapproaches to memory, such as psychoanalytic,behavioral, humanistic, or cognitive. Summarizeyour findings in a chart.

4. Recall Pick several events that should produceflashbulb memories. Interview 10 people abouttheir memories of the events, and identify similar-ities and differences in their remembrances.

Technology ActivitySearch the Internet for Web sitesthat provide information to help you

improve your memory. Several sites provide tips andtechniques to help you remember a variety of facts,such as mathematical formulas. Explore and evaluatethese sites, try out several tips for yourself, and thenreport your findings to the class.

Psychology JournalReread the journal entry you wrote aboutyour earliest memory. Write an analysis

explaining why you think this is your first memoryand why it continues to stay in your mind. Explainwhether any confabulation might be involved in thismemory. Were other people involved? Is their recallof the memory consistent with the way you remem-ber it? Explain.

Assessment


Practice and assess key socialstudies skills with Glencoe SkillbuilderInteractive Workbook CD-ROM, Level 2.

Building SkillsInterpreting a Graph The graph below shows theresults of an experiment in which the ability toremember names and faces of classmates by highschool graduates was tested. In a recognition test,participants were asked to match yearbook picturesof classmates with their names. In a recall test, par-ticipants were shown yearbook pictures and askedto simply recall the names. Review the graph below,then answer the questions that follow.

1. Which group of participants was most able torecall the names of their classmates?

2. What percentage of participants recalled thenames of their classmates 34 years after gradua-tion? 47 years after graduation?

3. How did retrieving information using recallchange over a period of 50 years?

4. What effect does time have on retrieving infor-mation when recall is used? When recognition is used?

5. When you remember past events and people,how accurate do you think your memory is?Explain.

See the Skills Handbook, page 628, for anexplanation of interpreting graphs.

Recognition test

Years since graduation

Source: Bahrick, Bahrick, & Wittinger, 1974.

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chapter 10: memory and thought · chapter 10 / memory and thought275 figure 10.2 stages of memory...

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