PSYCHOLOGY: MEMORY (EDITED BY ALI HAMEED KHAN)

Introduction

Memory is just one of many phenomena that demonstrate the brain’s

complexity. On a basic level, memory is the capacity for storing and retrieving
information, but memories are not simply recorded and neatly stored. Our
memories are selected, constructed, and edited not just by us but by the world
around us. We have an astounding, boundless capacity for memory, but our
memories are also faulty, full of holes and distortions, and hampered by
unreliable data retrieval systems.

Memory researchers explore the many mysteries of remembering. They

examine why the name of a favorite elementary school teacher might leap easily
to mind, while the time and place of a committee meeting prove maddeningly
elusive. They try to explain why we have trouble remembering a person’s name
—only to recall it later, after the person is gone. We still have much to learn
about how memories are made and what determines whether they last or fade
away.

Memory Processes

Memory is essentially the capacity for storing and retrieving information.

Three processes are involved in memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval. All
three of these processes determine whether something is remembered or
forgotten.

Encoding

Processing information into memory is called Encoding. People

automatically encode some types of information without being aware of it. For
example, most people probably can recall where they ate lunch yesterday, even
though they didn’t try to remember this information. However, other types of
information become encoded only if people pay attention to it. College students
will probably not remember all the material in their textbooks unless they pay
close attention while they’re reading. There are several different ways of
encoding verbal information:

o Structural Encoding focuses on what words look like. For instance, one
might note whether words are long or short, in uppercase or lowercase,
or handwritten or typed.

o Phonemic Encoding focuses on how words sound.

o Semantic Encoding focuses on the meaning of words. Semantic

encoding requires a deeper level of processing than structural or
phonemic encoding and usually results in better memory.

Storage

After information enters the brain, it has to be stored or maintained. To

describe the process of storage, many psychologists use the three-stage model
proposed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin. According to this model,
information is stored sequentially in three memory systems: sensory memory,
short-term memory, and long-term memory.
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1- Sensory Memory

Sensory Memory stores incoming sensory information in detail but only

for an instant. The capacity of sensory memory is very large, but the
information in it is unprocessed. If a flashlight moves quickly in a circle inside
a dark room, people will see a circle of light rather than the individual points
through which the flashlight moved. This happens because sensory memory
holds the successive images of the moving flashlight long enough for the brain
to see a circle. Visual sensory memory is called Iconic Memory; auditory
sensory memory is called Echoic Memory.

2- Short-Term Memory

Some of the information in sensory memory transfers to Short-Term

Memory, which can hold information for approximately twenty seconds.
Rehearsing can help keep information in short-term memory longer. When
people repeat a new phone number over and over to themselves, they are
rehearsing it and keeping it in short-term memory

Short-term memory has a limited capacity: it can store about seven

pieces of information, plus or minus two pieces. These pieces of information
can be small, such as individual numbers or letters, or larger, such as familiar
strings of numbers, words, or sentences. A method called chunking can help to
increase the capacity of short-term memory. Chunking combines small bits of
information into bigger, familiar pieces.

Example: A person confronted with this sequence of twelve letters would

probably have difficulty remembering it ten seconds later, because short-term
memory cannot handle twelve pieces of information: HO TB UT TE RE DP OP
CO RN IN AB OW L However, these letters can be easily remembered if they’re
grouped into six familiar words, because short-term memory can hold six
pieces of information: HOT BUTTERED POPCORN IN A BOWL

Working Memory

Psychologists today consider short-term memory to be a Working

Memory. Rather than being just a temporary information storage system,
working memory is an active system. Information can be kept in working
memory while people process or examine it. Working memory allows people to
temporarily store and manipulate visual images, store information while trying
to make decisions, and remember a phone number long enough to write it
down.

3- Long-Term Memory

Information can be transferred from short-term memory to long-term

memory and from long-term memory back to short-term memory. Long-Term
Memory has an almost infinite capacity, and information in long-term memory
usually stays there for the duration of a person’s life. However, this doesn’t
mean that people will always be able to remember what’s in their long-term
memory—they may not be able to retrieve information that’s there.
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Organization of Memories

Imagine what would happen if a psychology textbook weren’t organized

by section, by chapter, or in any other way. Imagine if the textbook didn’t have
a table of contents or an index. If the textbook just contained lots of
information in a random order, students would have difficulty finding a
particular concept, such as “encoding of memory.” They’d know the
information was in there somewhere, but they’d have trouble retrieving it.

Long-term memory stores much more information than a textbook, and

people would never be able to retrieve the information from it if it weren’t
organized in some way.

Psychologists believe one way the brain organizes information in long-

term memory is by category. For example, papaya may be organized within the
semantic category fruit. Categories can also be based on how words sound or
look. If someone is struggling to remember the word papaya, she may
remember first that it’s a three-syllable word, that it begins with the letter p, or
that it ends with the letter a.

Long-term memory organizes information not only by categories but also by the
information’s familiarity, relevance, or connection to other information.

Where Were You When . . .

Flashbulb memories are vivid, detailed memories of important events.

Older people may have very clear memories of where they were and what they
were doing when they heard President John F. Kennedy had been
assassinated. Many people today may have a similar kind of memory of where
they were when they heard the Pentagon and the World Trade Center had been
attacked by terrorists.

Retrieval

Retrieval is the process of getting information out of memory. Retrieval

Cues are stimuli that help the process of retrieval. Retrieval cues include
associations, context, and mood.

Lost Memories

The fact that people can often recall lost memories when hypnotized suggests
that information in long-term memory is usually not lost— it may just be
difficult to retrieve.

Associations

Because the brain stores information as networks of associated concepts,

recalling a particular word becomes easier if another, related word is recalled
first. This process is called Priming.

Example: If Tim shows his roommate a picture of sunbathers on a nude beach

and then asks him to spell the word bear, the roommate may be more likely to
spell bare because the picture primed him to recall that form of the word.
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Context

People can often remember an event by placing themselves in the same context
they were in when the event happened.

Example: If a woman loses her car keys, she may be able to recall where she
put them if she re-creates in her mind exactly what she did when she last came
in from parking her car.

Mood

If people are in the same mood they were in during an event, they may have an
easier time recalling the event.

Types of Memory
Psychologists often make distinctions among different types of memory.
There are three main distinctions:

1. Implicit vs. explicit memory

2. Declarative vs. procedural memory

3. Semantic vs. episodic memory

Implicit vs. Explicit Memory

Sometimes information that unconsciously enters the memory affects

thoughts and behavior, even though the event and the memory of the event
remain unknown. Such unconscious retention of information is called Implicit
Memory.

Example: Tina once visited Hotel California with her parents when she was ten
years old. She may not remember ever having been there, but when she makes
a trip there later, she knows exactly how to get to the swimming pool.

Contrarily, Explicit Memory is conscious, intentional remembering of

information. Remembering a social security number involves explicit memory.

Declarative vs. Procedural Memory

Declarative Memory is recall of factual information such as dates,

words, faces, events, and concepts. Remembering the capital of France, the
rules for playing football, and what happened in the last game of the World
Series involves declarative memory. Declarative memory is usually considered
to be explicit because it involves conscious, intentional remembering.

Procedural Memory is recall of how to do things such as swimming or

driving a car. Procedural memory is usually considered implicit because people
don’t have to consciously remember how to perform actions or skills.

Semantic vs. Episodic Memory

Declarative memory is of two types: semantic and episodic. Semantic

Memory is recall of general facts, while Episodic Memory is recall of personal
facts. Remembering the capital of France and the rules for playing football uses
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semantic memory. Remembering what happened in the last game of the World
Series uses episodic memory.

Forgetting

Memory researchers certainly haven’t forgotten Hermann Ebbinghaus,

the first person to do scientific studies of forgetting, using himself as a subject.
He spent a lot of time memorizing endless lists of nonsense syllables and then
testing himself to see whether he remembered them. He found that he forgot
most of what he learned during the first few hours after learning it.

Later researchers have found that forgetting doesn’t always occur that
quickly. Meaningful information fades more slowly than nonsense syllables.
The rate at which people forget or retain information also depends on what
method is used to measure forgetting and retention. Retention is the
proportion of learned information that is retained or remembered—the flip side
of forgetting.

Forgetting Curve

A forgetting curve is a graph that shows how quickly learned information

is forgotten over time. Ebbinghaus made use of forgetting curves to chart his
research on memory.

Measures of Forgetting and Retention

Researchers measure forgetting and retention in three different ways:

recall, recognition, and relearning.

1- Recall

Recall is remembering without any external cues. For example, essay

questions test recall of knowledge because nothing on a blank sheet of paper
will jog the memory.

2- Recognition

Recognition is identifying learned information using external cues. For

example, true or false questions and multiple-choice questions test recognition
because the previously learned information is there on the page, along with
other options. In general, recognition is easier than recall.

3- Relearning

When using the Relearning method to measure retention, a researcher

might ask a subject to memorize a long grocery list. She might measure how
long he has to practice before he remembers every item. Suppose it takes him
ten minutes. On another day, she gives him the same list again and measures
how much time he takes to relearn the list. Suppose he now learns it in five
minutes. He has saved five minutes of learning time, or 50 percent of the
original time it took him to learn it. His savings score of 50 percent indicates
that he retained 50 percent of the information he learned the first time.

Causes of Forgetting

Everyone forgets things. There are six main reasons for forgetting:
ineffective encoding, decay, interference, retrieval failure, motivated forgetting,
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and physical injury or trauma.

Ineffective Encoding

The way information is Encoded affects the ability to remember it. Processing
information at a deeper level makes it harder to forget. If a student thinks
about the meaning of the concepts in her textbook rather than just reading
them, she’ll remember them better when the final exam comes around. If the
information is not encoded properly—such as if the student simply skims over
the textbook while paying more attention to the TV—it is more likely to be
forgotten.

Decay

According to Decay Theory, memory fades with time. Decay explains the loss
of memories from sensory and short-term memory. However, loss of long-term
memories does not seem to depend on how much time has gone by since the
information was learned. People might easily remember their first day in junior
high school but completely forget what they learned in class last Tuesday.

Interference

Interference Theory has a better account of why people lose long-term

memories. According to this theory, people forget information because of
interference from other learned information. There are two types of
interference: retroactive and proactive.

 Retroactive Interference happens when newly learned information

makes people forget old information.

 Proactive Interference happens when old information makes people

forget newly learned information.

Retrieval Failure

Forgetting may also result from failure to Retrieve information in memory,

such as if the wrong sort of Retrieval Cue is used. For example, Dan may not
be able to remember the name of his fifth-grade teacher. However, the teacher’s
name might suddenly pop into Dan’s head if he visits his old grade school and
sees his fifth-grade classroom. The classroom would then be acting as a
context cue for retrieving the memory of his teacher’s name.

Motivated Forgetting

Psychologist Sigmund Freud proposed that people forget because they push
unpleasant or intolerable thoughts and feelings deep into their unconscious.
He called this phenomenon Repression. The idea that people forget things they
don’t want to remember is also called Motivated Forgetting or psychogenic
amnesia.

Physical Injury or Trauma

Anterograde Amnesia is the inability to remember events that occur after an

injury or traumatic event. Retrograde Amnesia is the inability to remember
events that occurred before an injury or traumatic event.
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Enhancing Memory

In spite of all these reasons for forgetting, people can still remember a vast
amount of information. In addition, memory can be enhanced in a variety of
ways, including rehearsal, overlearning, distributed practice, minimizing
interference, deep processing, organizing information, mnemonic devices, and
visual imagery.

Rehearsal

Practicing material helps people remember it. The more

people Rehearse information, the more likely they are to remember that
information.

Overlearning

Overlearning, or continuing to practice material even after it is learned, also

increases retention.

Distributed Practice

Learning material in short sessions over a long period is called Distributed

Practice or the “spacing effect.” This process is the opposite of cramming,
which is also called Massed Practice. Distributed practice is more effective
than cramming for retaining information.

Minimizing Interference

People remember material better if they don’t learn other, similar material right
before or soon after their effort. One way to minimize interference is to sleep
after studying material, since people can’t learn new material while sleeping.

Deep Processing

People also remember material better if they pay attention while learning it and
think about its meaning rather than memorize the information by rote. One
way to process information deeply is to use a method called
elaboration. Elaboration involves associating the material being learned with
other material. For example, people could associate the new material with
previously learned material, with an anecdote from their own lives, with a
striking example, or with a movie they recently saw.

Enhancing Memory

Organizing Material

Organizing material in a coherent way helps people to remember it:

 Organizing material hierarchically or in categories and subcategories can

be particularly helpful. The way an outline is organized, for example, usually
helps people to remember the material in it.

 Chunking material into segments is also helpful. People often remember

long strings of numbers, such as social security numbers, by chunking them
into two-, three-, or four-digit segments.
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Mnemonics

Mnemonics are strategies for improving memory. Different kinds of

mnemonics include acronyms, acrostics, the narrative method, and rhymes.

Acronyms

Acronyms are words made out of the first letters of several words. For
example, to remember the colors of the spectrum, people often use the name
ROY G. BIV, which gives the first letters of the colors red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo, and violet in the right order.

Acrostics

Acrostics are sentences or phrases in which each word begins with a letter
that acts as a memory cue. For example, the rather strange phrase Roses on
yachts grow better in vinegar also helps to remember the colors of the
spectrum.

Narrative methods

Narrative Methods involve making up a story to remember a list of words. For

example, people could remember the colors of the rainbow in the right order by
making up a short story such as this: Red Smith stood next to
an orange construction cone and flagged down a yellow cab. He told the cabbie
he was feeling very green and asked to be taken to a hospital. The cabbie took
him to a hospital, where a nurse in a blue coat guided him to a room
with indigo walls. He smelled a violet in a vase and passed out.

Rhymes

Rhymes are also good mnemonics. For example, the familiar rhyme that
begins, “Thirty days has September . . .” is a mnemonic for remembering the
number of days in each month.

Enhancing Memory

Visual Imagery

Some well-known memory improvement methods involve using visual imagery

to memorize or recall lists.

Method of Loci

When using the Method Of Loci, people might picture themselves walking
through a familiar place. They imagine each item on their list in a particular
place as they walk along. Later, when they need to remember their list, they
mentally do the walk again, noting the items they imagined along the path.

The Link Method

To use the Link Method, people associate items on a list with each other. For
example, if a man wants to remember to buy bread, juice, and carrots at the
store, he might try visualizing the peculiar image of himself eating a juice-and-
bread mush using carrots as chopsticks.
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Peg Word Method

When using the Peg Word Method, people first remember a rhyme that
associates numbers with words: one is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree,
four is a door, five is a hive, six is sticks, seven is heaven, eight is a gate, nine
is swine, ten is a hen. They then visualize each item on their list being
associated with a bun, a shoe, a tree, and so on. When they need to remember
the list, they first think of a bun, then see what image it’s associated with.
Then they think of a shoe, and so forth.

The Biology of Memory

Memory is a complicated phenomenon. Researchers still don’t know exactly

how it works at the physiological level. Long-term memory involves the
hippocampus of the brain. Some researchers think the hippocampus binds
together different elements of a memory, which are stored in separate areas of
the brain. In other words, the hippocampus helps with memory organization.
Other researchers think that the hippocampus helps with
memory Consolidation, or the transfer of information into long-term memory.

The brain area involved in processing a memory may determine where

memories are stored. For example, memories of visual information probably
end up in the visual cortex. Research suggests that there may be specific
neural circuits for particular memories. Psychologists also think that memory
relates to changes in neurotransmitter release from neurons, fluctuations in
hormone levels, and protein synthesis in the brain.

Memories On Your Nerves

Long-term potentiation is a lasting change at synapses that occurs when long-

term memories form. Synapses become more responsive as a result.
Researchers believe long-term potentiation is the basic process behind memory
and learning

Distortions of Memory

Memories aren’t exact records of events. Instead, memories are reconstructed

in many different ways after events happen, which means they can be distorted
by several factors. These factors include schemas, source amnesia, the
misinformation effect, the hindsight bias, the overconfidence effect, and
confabulation.

Schemas

A Schema is a mental model of an object or event that includes knowledge as

well as beliefs and expectations. Schemas can distort memory.

Example: Suppose a high school junior visits her sister’s college dorm room for
the first time. She’s never been to a dorm before, but she’s seen dorms in
movies, read about them, and heard her friends talking about them. When she
describes the room to another friend after the visit, she comments on how
many clothes her sister had and how many huge books were on her sister’s
desk. In reality, the books were hidden under the bed, not out in the open. The
clothes were something she actually saw, while the books were part of her
dorm-room schema.
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Source Amnesia

Another reason for distorted memories is that people often don’t accurately
remember the origin of information.

Example: After witnessing a car crash on the freeway, Sam later tells friends
many details about what he saw. It turns out, however, that there is no way he
could have actually seen some of the details he described and that he is, in
fact, just reporting details he heard on TV about the accident. He isn’t
deliberately lying. He just may not be able to remember where all the different
pieces of information came from.

This inaccurate recall of the origin of information is called Source Amnesia,

source misattribution, or source monitoring error.

Distortions of Memory

The Misinformation Effect

The Misinformation Effect occurs when people’s recollections of events are

distorted by information given to them after the event occurred. The
psychologist Elizabeth Loftusdid influential research on the misinformation
effect that showed that memory reconstructions can affect eyewitness
testimony.

Example: A bank robber enters a crowded bank in the middle of the day,
brandishing a gun. He shoots out the security cameras and terrifies everyone.
He is taking money from a teller when one of two security guards approaches
the robber, draws his own weapon, and shoots. Suddenly, another shot is fired
from a different direction and the security guard falls to the ground, shot.
Some of the customers see that the other security guard, who was approaching
the robber from the other side, mistakenly shot his partner. Later, police ask
the witnesses when the robber shot the guard, and they report that he shot
after the guard fired on him. Even though they saw one guard shoot the other,
they are swayed by the misinformation given by the police.

Stop Or Yield

In one of Loftus’s early experiments, she showed research subjects a film of a

simulated automobile accident at an intersection with a stop sign. Afterward,
she told half the subjects that there was a yield sign at the intersection. When
asked later to describe the accident, those who had received the misleading
suggestion tended to claim with certainty that there was a yield sign at the
intersection, while those subjects who received no misleading suggestions had
a more accurate recollection.

The Hindsight Bias

The Hindsight Bias is the tendency to interpret the past in a way that fits the
present. For example, if Laura’s boyfriend cheats on her, she may recall the
boyfriend as always having seemed promiscuous, even if this is not true.
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The Overconfidence Effect

The Overconfidence Effect is the tendency people have to overestimate their

ability to recall events correctly.

Quick Review

Memory Processes

 The three processes involved in memory are Encoding, Storage,

and Retrieval.

 Encoding is putting information into memory and

includes Structural, Phonemic, and Semantic Encoding.

 In Storage, information is maintained in a three-stage process

involving Sensory Memory, Short-Term Memory, and Long-Term Memory.

 Working Memory is an active system that allows people to remember,

manipulate, and store information.

 Long-term memory is organized into Categories, as well as

by Familiarity, Relevance, and Relationship To Other Memories.

 Retrieval is the process of getting information out of memory. Retrieval

Cues are stimuli that help get information out of memory.

 Retrieval cues include Associations, Context, and Mood.

Types of Memory

 Implicit Memory is unconscious retaining of information,

whereas Explicit Memory is conscious, intentional remembering.

 Declarative Memory is recall of factual information,

whereas Procedural Memory is recall of how to do things.

 Semantic Memory is recall of general facts, while Episodic Memory is

recall of personal facts.

Forgetting

 Hermann Ebbinghaus was the first researcher to conduct scientific

studies of forgetting. Using himself as a subject, he discovered that much
information is forgotten within a few hours after learning it.

 Retention is the proportion of learned information that is remembered.

 Researchers use three methods to measure forgetting and

retention: Recall, Recognition, and Relearning.

 Causes of forgetting include

ineffective Encoding, Decay, Interference, Retrieval Failure, and Motivated
Forgetting.
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Enhancing Memory

 Memory is enhanced by Rehearsal, Overlearning, Distributed Practice,

minimizing interference, deep processing, organizing information, Mnemonic
Devices, and visual imagery.

The Biology of Memory

 The hippocampus is involved in long-term memory.

 Memories may be stored in different areas of the brain.

 There may specific neural circuits for particular memories.

Distortions of Memory

 Memories are reconstructed in many ways after events happen, which

makes them prone to distortion.

 Memories can be distorted by Schema, Source Amnesia,

the Misinformation Effect, the Hindsight Bias, the Overconfidence Effect,
and Confabulation.