memory memory is the basis for knowing your friends, your neighbors, the english language, the...
TRANSCRIPT
Memory
Memory is the basis for knowing your friends, your neighbors, the English language, the national anthem, and yourself.
If memory was nonexistent, everyone would be a stranger to you; every language foreign; every task new; and even you yourself would be a stranger.
Phenomenon of Memory
Memory is defined as any indication that learning has persisted over time. – It is our ability to store and retrieve information.
In simplest terms, human memory takes essentially meaningless sensory information and changes it into meaningful patterns that you can store and use later.
Flashbulb Memory
A unique and highly emotional moment may give rise to a clear, strong, and persistent memory called flashbulb memory. – However, this memory
is not free from errors.
3 Tasks of MemoryInformation Processing Model
Keyboard(Encoding)
Disk(Storage)
Monitor(Retrieval)
Sequential Process
3 Tasks of Memory: Encoding
Encoding: The processing of information into the memory system. Putting the incoming information
into a useful format. Requires us to select an incoming
stimulus, identify its distinctive features, and mentally tag or label it to make it meaningful.
Most of our everyday encoding is automatic and rapid.
Encoding: Automatic Processing
Occurs with little or no effort, we encode incidental information, such as time, frequency and space.– Does not interfere with
our thinking about other things.
– It is very difficult to shut off
Encoding: Effortful Processing
While some information is encoded automatically, other types are only remembered with effort and attention.
Rehearsal helps; the conscious repetition of information to maintain it in consciousness or encode it for storage.– The amount remembered
depends on the time spent learning.
Rehearsal
Maintenance Rehearsal: helps maintain information temporarily in working memory. Keeps it fresh and from being crowded out.Elaborative rehearsal: Used to get information into long term memory. – Actively connects it
knowledge already stored.
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Studied rehearsal by using nonsense syllables.
TUV YOF GEK XOZ– The more times practiced on
day 1 the fewer repetitions it
took to relearn on day 2.Spacing Effect: Distributed study or practice will lead to better long term retention than cramming.
QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Types of Encoding
Visual: the encoding of picture images.
Acoustic: the encoding of sound, especially words.
Semantic: the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.– The deepest form, allows
for better retention.
Mnemonic Device
System for remembering in which items are related to easily recalled sets of symbols, such
as acronyms, phrases, or jingles. Type of retrieval cue.
“i” before “e” except after “c”
Roy G. Biv
“Like a Rock”
“Every Good Boy Does Fine!”
EXAMPLES
Chunking
In memory, a chunk is any pattern or meaningful unit of
information. – Allows us to get
more material into the seven slots of working memory.
Three-Stage Processing Model
The Atkinson-Schiffrin (1968) three-stage model of memory includes:
1) sensory memory2) short-term memory 3) long-term memory
Each of the three stages encodes and stores memories in a different way, but they work together to transform sensory experience into a lasting record that has a pattern of meaning.
3 Stages of Memory
Stage 1: Sensory Memory
The most fleeting. Typically holds sights, sounds, smells, textures and other sensory impressions for only a fraction of a second.– Holds the incoming
information long enough to be screened for possible entry into working memory. Do we need to pay attention to it?
– About 1/4 of a second.
Capacity of Sensory Memory
George Sperling tried to find out how much information our sensory memory can hold.– Found it holds far more information than
ever reaches consciousness.
Flashed letters on a screen and asked subjects to remember them. Used a tone to indicate which row they should recall.– Partial report. Most people achieved
almost perfect accuracy.– Much better than when they tried to
recall the entire group of letters.
Sensory Registers
There is a separate sensory register for each of our senses. All feed into working (short-term) memory.– Iconic memory: The register for vision. Holds
encoded light patterns.– Echoic Memory: holds encoded auditory stimuli.– Tactile sensory memory: touch.– Olfactory sensory memory: Smell– Gustatory sensory memory: Taste.
Stage 2: Short Term Memory
STM: Activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten.
Working memory is a similar concept that focuses more on the processing of briefly stored information.
QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Stage 2: Working Memory
Working memory preserves recently perceived events or experiences for less than a minute without rehearsal.– A useful buffer for temporarily
holding items such as a phone number you have just looked up.
Where we process conscious experience. – Provides a “mental work
space.”
Capacity of STM
The magic number 7.– Working memory holds
about 7 items, give or take two. (George Miller, 1956).
– Does vary person to person.
– Roughly the same for numbers, letters, words, shapes, sounds etc.
Much smaller capacity than the other two stages.
Three Parts of Working MemoryCentral Executive: Directs attention to material retrieved from long-term memory or to important input from sensory memory.
Phonological loop: temporarily stores sounds - helping you to remember the mental “echo” of a name or to follow a melody.
Sketchpad: used to store and manipulate visual images.
Stage 3: Long Term Memory
LTM receives information from working memory and can store it for much longer periods. – Our capacity for storing long-term
memories is essentially limitless.Words and concepts are encoded by their meanings, which interconnects them with other items that have similar meanings.– Like a huge web of interconnected
associations.– Good retrieval cues can help you
quickly locate the item you want amid all the data stored there.
Levels of Processing Theory
The more connections you can make with new information while it is in working memory, the more likely you are to remember it later.
– Deeper Processing: establishing more connections
with long-term memories. • Makes new information more
meaningful and memorable.
• Often tied to the level of judgment you make about information.
Level of Processing Example
1. Is the word in capital letters?
2. Does the word rhyme with tape?
3. Does the word represent a fruit?
GRAPE
Two Parts of LTM
Procedural Memory: Mental directions for how things are done.– Used to remember the
“how to” skills.
Declarative Memory: stores specific information, such as facts and events.– Requires more conscious
mental effort
Subdivisions of Declarative Memory
Episodic Memory: the portion of declarative memory that stores personal experiences.– Memories of events in your
life.– Also stores temporal coding
that identify when the even occurred and context coding that indicates where it took place.
Subdivisions of Declarative Memory
Semantic Memory: stores the basic meanings of words and concepts. – Usually does not contain
information about the time and place the memory contents were acquired.
– More like an encyclopedia than an autobiography.
3 Types of MemoryE.S.P.
Which is involved?
1.First Kiss 10.Use a computer
2.Riding a bike 11.Spell C-A-T
3.Walking through a maze 12.Driving a car
4.List the 50 states 13.H20
5.Define Memory 14.Describe a fight to someone
6.Cut and Paste an art project 15.First day in high school
7.Writing notes off an overhead
8.Formula for classical conditioning
9.Witness a car accident
LTM and the Brain
Consolidation is the process by which short-term memories are changed to long-term memories over a period of time.– Most long-term memories make an
intermediate stop in the hippocampus (in the Limbic System) on their way to long term storage.
Different aspects of memory involve
different parts of the brain. – Karl Lashley experiments;
looking for the engram or memory trace.
Long-Term Potentiation
Memories begin as neural impulses.
Long-term potentiation (LTP): An increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation.– Increases the sensitivity
and efficiency of synapse.
– Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.
Memories and Emotion
The amygdala strengthens memories that have strong emotional associations.– Aids access and retrieval.
– Stronger emotional experiences make for stronger, more reliable memories.
– Think flashbulb memories.
Moods and Memory
State-dependent memory: What we learn in one state may be more easily recalled when we enter that state again.
Memories are somewhat mood-congruent. That is, we are more likely to recall experiences that are the same as the mood we are currently in.– For example, how you rate your
parents today may not be the same as how you rate them in January.
Retrieval Cues
To get information off the internet you need a way to retrieve it.– It is similar with our
memories.
Retrieval cues guide us to where to look.
Priming: refers to the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.
Why We Forget
Encoding Failure: We failed to encode the information in the first place and it never entered our long-term memory.– Quick, draw a nickel.
Storage Decay: Memory seems to fade due to fading of the memory trace.
Interference
Proactive Interference: Something you learned earlier disrupts your recall of something you experienced later.– You can’t remember your new
phone number because the old one keeps getting in the way.
Retroactive Interference: New information makes it harder to recall something you learned earlier.– Learning Chinese makes it harder
to remember the Japanese you already knew.
Repression
We unknowingly revise our own histories, helps protect and improve our self-image.
Repression: Freud’s idea that our memories self-censor painful information.– Most psychologists believe
it rarely, if ever, occurs.
Forgetting
We do not store information as exactly as a tape recorder or video camera.
We tend to remember the “gist of things” rather than a perfect representation of what happened.– We fill in memory gaps with
plausible guesses and assumptions.
Misinformation Effect
When we are exposed to subtle misinformation, many people misremember.– Later we find it find it nearly
impossible to discriminate between our memories of real and suggested events.
– We imagine things into our memories.
Source Amnesia: Attributing an event we have experienced to the wrong source.Both are linked to false memories.
Improving Memory
Overlearn: Study things repeatedly
Spend time rehearsing: Speed reading doesn’t work!
Make the material personally meaningful: Semantic encoding.
Use Mnemonic devices: Use vivid imagery
Activate retrieval cues: Try to get back to the original mood or location.
Recall events while they are fresh, before your encounter misinformation.
Minimize interference: study before sleeping, spread out the studying of different topics.
Test your knowledge: especially your recall.
Get it right the first time.