Chapter Seven Cognition - Memory

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KEY QUESTION: What is Memory?
CORE CONCEPT: Human memory is an information–processing system that works constructively to
encode, stores, and retrieves information
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Memory:
Cognitive psychology referring to the process used in acquiring, storing, retaining, and retrieving
information.

A system that encodes, stores, and retrieves information

MEMORY’S THREE BASIC TASKS

AKA: Information Processing Model of Memory
Define and use an example:

1​. ​Encoding:​ ​Information stored in our memory that could be used later on

Processing (process= breakdown, transform into what we understand) of information

2. Storage: ​Ability to keep memory in the brain

Holding information (encoded) → rehearsal and retrieval

3. Retrieval: ​Process which information from memory can be recalled

Recall→ recover, bring back

Eidetic Memory​:​ Ability to recall images, sounds, or objects vividly

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KEY QUESTION: How do we form memories?
CORE CONCEPT: Each of the three stages of memory encodes and stores memories in different ways.
But they also work together to transform sensory experience into a lasting record that has a pattern or
meaning
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THREE STAGES OF MEMORY

Sensory, Working, & Long Term
Based upon the ​Atkinson and Shiffrin Model

STAGE ONE Sensory Memory

Sensory Memory
● Sight, taste, smell, hear, touch
● 12 items, but all but 3 or 4 disappear before they reach our consciousness
Capacity: ​large
Duration:​ lasts up to ½ sec for visual; 2-4 sec for auditory

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 Visual Stimulation = Iconic Memory
Auditory Stimulation = Echoic Memory
Tactile (touch) Stimulation = Tactile Sensory Memory
Olfactory Stimulation = Olfactory Sensory Memory
Gustatory Stimuli = Gustatory Sensory Memory

STAGE TWO Working Memory

AKA: ​Short term memory
Working Memory
● 15-20 seconds
● 7 numbers (+/-2)
Capacity​: limited 5-9 units
Duration​: up to 30 sec without rehearsal

Magic Number Seven

Three Parts of Working Memory

Central Executive:​ directs attention to material retrieved from LTM or to important input from the sensory
memory
Phonological Loop:​ Temporarily stores sounds….like someone’s name
Sketchpad:​ Stores and manipulates mental images…like when you can imagine driving a car to school
from home

Working Memory Aides To Overcome Limited Capacity and Short Duration

Chunking​: Way of organizing information into familiar groups

Rehearsal ​(review, repeat, re-)

a. ​Maintenance (to keep it working) Rehearsal​ : Process of repeatedly verbalizing or thinking about a
piece of information
-repetition of the same thing over and over; ex: alphabet
b. ​Elaborate (to go further) Rehearsal:​ ​A memory technique that involves thinking about the meaning
of
the term of be remembered

Acoustic Encoding: The Phonological Loop

● Acoustic Encoding:​ Encoding of sounds/ Process of remembering and understanding
something that you hear
● Phonological Loop: ​Element of working memory or short-term memory that stores verbal data
by rehearsal over intervals of time

Visual and Spatial Encoding..the sketchpad

● Visual Encoding: ​Use of imagery to process information into memory
● Spatial Encoding​: Part of memory responsible for recording information about one’s
environment

Levels of Processing Theory:​ Depth of mental processing affected memory function

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 ● Deeply processed memories→ longer lasting
○ Process of relating an object or situation to something else
○ Meaning of something is thought of
○ Process the importance of something
● Shallow processed memories→ decayed easily
○ Structural:​ Processing how an object or sound looks
○ Phonemic:​ When we process how something sounds
○ Graphemic:​ Processing letters contained in a word
○ Orthographic:​ Processing the shape of something

STAGE THREE Long-Term Memory

Capacity: ​Maximum extent to which an individual is able to receive and retain information

Duration: ​The time which something continues

Procedural Memory:​ Type of long-term memory of how to perform different actions and skills/ Memory
of
how to do certain things

Declarative Memory:​ Type of long-term memory that refers to memories which can be consciously
recalled
such as facts and knowledge (Explain/state)

​Episodic Memory (Autobiographical memory) :​ Type of long-term memory that involves the
recollection of specific events, situations, and experiences (remembering one
specific moment in time; Ex. favorite vacation, first boyfriend’s name)

​Semantic Memory:​ Type of long-term memory that refers to the memory of meanings,
understandings,
and other concept-based knowledge (details such as language, facts,
general knowledge; ex. capital cities of five countries, names of the last
three kings)
*Declarative, episodic, and semantic can be combined

(SEE CHART p.247)

Engram or Memory Trace:​ Engrams are by means which memory traces are stored by biophysical or
biochemical changes in the brain

Consolidation:​ Development of long-lasting memory during period of time of an educational event

(Join-the
joining; short term memories become long term memory)

Anterograde Amnesia​: Loss of memory for events after an incident (Inability to form new memories)

Retrograde Amnesia​: Loss of memory-access to events that occurred or information that was learned
before an injury or onset of disease (Inability to remember past memories)

Flashbulb Memories:​ Sudden onset of a clear memory

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 Parts of the Brain Associated with Long Term Memory
Amygdala:​ strengthens memories that have strong emotional associations….
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Visual Cortex:
Hippocampus​: deterioration of the hippocampus the cause of Alzheimer’s Disease
--Long term memories make a stop here before going into long term storage

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KEY QUESTION: How do we retrieve memories?
CORE CONCEPT: Whether memories are implicit or explicit, successful retrieval depends on
how they were ​encoded​ and how they are ​cued
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Implicit Memory: ​Memory that involved recollection of skills, things you know how to do, preferences that
don’t have to be recalled consciously (unconscious, unintentional forming of learning; ex. skipping
rope, golf swing (sports) → not learned consciously

Explicit Memory: ​Long-term memory which we store memories of fact (conscious, recall of memory; ex.
study/writing exams, appointment) → learned consciously

Retrieval Cues

Retrieval cues:​ Prompt that helps us remember (stimuli used in recall of memory)

Priming:​ Implicit memory which exposure to one stimulus influences response to another stimulus (the
unconscious stimulation of memory)

Recall:​ Bringing a thought or idea learned previously (ex. writing as essay)

Recognition​: Identifying something you learned previously (ex. multiple choice exam)

Encoding Specificity Principle:​ Principle stating that retrieval will be more successful when cues
available
during recall are similar to those present when the material was first encoded
(manner in which we encode)

Mood Congruent Memory: ​When human store memories, they not only store the event but also the
mood
they were in at that time (your mood dictates your memories- typically; ex. good
mood→ listens to light hearted music, recall good memories)
Good mood→ good memories
Bad mood→ bad memories

TOT Phenomenon​: ​“On the Tip of Your Tongue” - ​An experience which people are sure they know
something but can’t seem to bring it to mind
(inability to recall a word while knowing it)

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KEY QUESTION: Why Does Memory Sometimes Fail Us?
CORE CONCEPT: Most of our memory problems arise from memory’s ​Seven Sins​…
Which are really byproducts of otherwise adaptive features of human memory
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MEMORY’S SEVEN SINS

1. Transience
2. Absent-mindedness
3. Blocking
4. Misattribution
5. Suggestibility
6. Bias
7. Unwanted Persistence

1. Transience​ ​-Decreasing accessibility of memory over time

Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve:​ Curve describing how the ability of brain to retain information
decreases in time which Hermann Ebbinghaus used himself to test

2. Absent-mindedness:​ ​Lapses of attention and forgetting to do things

3. Blocking:​ ​Item in memory that was previously stored information is preventing from learning and
remembering new information

​Proactive Interference:​ Previously stored information prevents learning and remembering new
information

​Retroactive Interference​: Newly learned information prevents retrieval of previously information

Serial Position Effect: ​Form of interference related to sequence which you are unable to remember
the
middle part of the sequence, just the beginning and end
4. Misattribution: ​A memory fault that occurs when memories are retrieved but are associated with the
wrong place, time, or person

5. Suggestibility: ​Process of memory distortion as the result of deliberate or inadvertent suggestion

(HYPNOSIS)

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 ​Misinformation Effect: ​Distortion of memory by suggestibility or misinformation

​Fabricated Memories: ​False memory or distorted recollection of an event that did not actually happen

Eyewitness Accounts: A person who actually sees some act, occurrence, or thing and can give a
firsthand account of it
Recovered Memory Controversy: Controversial issue of whether one should trust recovered
memories of abuse (childhood experience of being abused)

6. Bias ​-Preference of inclination that one inhibits impartial judgment

Expectancy Bias: ​A tendency to distort recalled events to make them fit one’s expectations

Self-Consistency Bias: ​Commonly held idea that we are more consistent in our attitudes, opinions,
and
beliefs than we actually are

7. Unwanted Persistence​: Unwanted memories that cannot be put out of mind

Advantages of the Seven Sins

Mnemonics​: Techniques for improving memory, especially by making connection between new material
and information already stored

​Method of Loci: ​Mnemonic technique that involves associating items of a list with a sequence of
familiar
physical locations

​Natural language Mediators: ​Words associated with new information to be remembered

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