Chapter 07

Memory

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 Chapter Preview
• Nature
• Encoding, Storage, Retrieval
• Forgetting
• Study Tips
• Health and Wellness

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 The Nature of Memory
Retention of Information or
Experience over Time
• Three Phases of Memory
• encoding
• storage
• retrieval

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 Encoding: Sensory Input
Automatic versus Effortful
Encoding
What is the Role of Attention?
• selective attention (purposive
focus)
• divided attention (multitasking)
• sustained attention (vigilance)
Application: Notetaking
• Handwritten better than
laptops
• Slower writing is “deeper” --
more attentive
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 Round Letter Task (1 of 3)
R = round
K = not round
As best you can, count the number of rounded
letters in the following word list.
• GRAVEL
• AUTO
• BEAVER
• PICKLE
• CLOVER
• PENCIL
• BELIEF
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 Round Letter Task (2 of 3)
• PLASTER
• BENEFIT
• HAMMER
• SKATE
• COLLEGE
• CAPTAIN
How many did you count?

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 Good/Power Task (1 of 3)
On a scale from one to ten, rate each word GOOD /
BAD and POWERFUL / WEAK and give reasons why.
Example: Mushroom
Good = 6 (Yummy but poisonous)
Power = 7 (Could kill you)
Do not bother to keep track of anything. Here we go!

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 Good/Power Task (2 of 3)
TOOTH YARD
MOTHER TORNADO
DANCE LIVER
COINS CANDY
WEDDING TRACTOR
SQUEEZE BLADE
PILLOW

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 Round Letter Task (3 of 3)
Remember counting round letters?
Please list all of the words from that first list that you
can remember.

• BEAVER • BELIEF
• CAPTAIN • PENCIL
• COLLEGE • CLOVER
• SKATE • PICKLE
• HAMMER • AUTO
• BENEFIT • GRAVEL
• PLASTER
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 Good/Power Task (3 of 3)
Remember rating GOOD / POWERFUL words?
Please list all of the words from that second list
that you can remember.

• BLADE • SQUEEZE
• TRACTOR • WEDDING
• CANDY • COINS
• LIVER • DANCE
• TORNADO • MOTHER
• YARD • TOOTH
• PILLOW
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 Levels of Processing
How many of you did equally well on both lists?
How many did better on the first list?
How many did better on the second?
Rating Good / Powerful is “deeper” processing than
counting round letters
Deep processing automatically leads to better
recall. Why?

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Encoding: Levels of Processing
Encoding as a process that occurs on a
continuum…

• Shallow • Deep
• Rote • Meaningful
• Physical • personal
• Traits • experience
• Intermediate Deeper processing
• Category label promotes better recall

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 Elaboration (1 of 2)
Elaboration enhances memory.
Memory strategies all use elaboration.
Better chances of happening on one of the cues and
thus finding target.
• Vivid Imagery
• Self Referencing Effect
• Memory Wizards
Only one cue leads to this target.
If you don’t happen to find this cue, you can never find
the target.

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 Elaboration (2 of 2)
But what if there were many cues, all leading to
the same target?

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 Encoding: Imagery
Dual-Code Hypothesis (Paivio)
1. verbal code – word or label
2. image code – detailed and distinctive
• Images are stored in both codes.
• Superior to verbal codes alone

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (1 of 11)
Sensory Memory
• Detailed information
• In original sensory form
• Very brief duration
• Echoic (Auditory) Memory
• Iconic (Visual) Memory

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (2 of 11)
Sensory Memory

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (3 of 11)
Short Term Memory
• Limited duration (about 30 seconds)
• Limited capacity (7 ± 2)

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (4 of 11)
Short Term Memory

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (5 of 11)
Working Memory
Baddeley 1993/2012
alternative model to STM

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (6 of 11)
Working Memory
Baddeley 1993/2012
alternative model to STM

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (7 of 11)
Working Memory
Baddeley 1993/2012
alternative model to STM

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (8 of 11)

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (9 of 11)
Sensory Memory
• Detailed Information
• In Original Sensory Form
• Very Brief Duration
• Echoic (Auditory) Memory
• Iconic (Visual) Memory

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (10 of 11)

Sensory Memory
• Limited duration (about 30 seconds)
• Limited capacity (7 ± 2)

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Atkinson-Shiffrin Theory (1968) (11 of 11)

Short Term Memory

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Sperling’s Sensory Memory Study (1 of 3)

FULL REPORT
Write down as many of the following letters as you
can:

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Sperling’s Sensory Memory Study (2 of 3)

Why can we report only 3 or 4 letters?

• Hypothesis 1: Our S.M. can only hold 3 or 4
items.
• Hypothesis 2: Our S.M. holds all the items, but
fades by the time we have reported 3 or 4 of
them.
Both hypotheses are consistent with the data, so
how do we tell which is true?

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Sperling’s Sensory Memory Study (3 of 3)

PARTIAL REPORT
Write down the letters in the indicated row only:

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 Reconciling the Findings
In Sperling’s study, subjects’ performance was
near perfect for partial report.
Which hypothesis fits the partial report data?
• Hypothesis 1: Our S.M. can only hold 3 or 4 items
• Hypothesis 2: Our S.M. holds all the items, but
fades by the time we have reported 3 or 4 of
them.

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 Short Term Memory Capacity
(1 of 2)
7 ± 2 “Chunks”

Backward Digit Span Task

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Short Term Memory Capacity
(2 of 2)

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 Short-Term Memory
How can we improve STM?
• Chunking
• grouping items into a unit
• Rehearsal
• conscious repetition of information
• prolongs STM duration indefinitely

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 Long-Term Memory
These will be examined in turn:
• Explicit Long-Term Memory (Declarative)
• episodic memory
• semantic memory
• Implicit Long-Term Memory (Nondeclarative)
• procedural memory
• classical conditioning
• priming

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Storage: Explicit LTM (1 of 4)
Declarative Memory
• conscious recollection of
specific facts and events that
can be verbally
communicated
Bahrick (1984) –Recall College
Spanish
• initial learning is important
• permastore content
• effect of distributed practice

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Storage: Explicit LTM (2 of 4)
Subtypes of Explicit Memory
• Episodic
• autobiographical memories
• Semantic
• knowledge about the world

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 Storage: Explicit LTM (3 of 4)
Characteristic
Units, Organization, Emotion, Retrieval process, Retrieval report,
Education, Intelligence, Legal testimony
Episodic Memory
• Events, episodes
• Time
• More important
• Deliberate (effortful)
• “I remember”
• Irrelevant
• Irrelevant
• Admissible in court
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 Storage: Explicit LTM (4 of 4)
Semantic Memory
• Facts, ideas, concepts
• Concepts
• Less important
• Automatic
• “I know”
• Relevant
• Relevant
• Inadmissible in court
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 Storage: Implicit LTM
Nondeclarative Memory:
affected by a past experience
without consciously recalling it
• Procedural Memory
• Classical Conditioning
• Priming

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 Memory: Organization
Schemas
• scripts (event schema)
Connectionist Networks
• parallel distributed processing (PDP)

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 Memory: Location
Storage is Diffuse
Circuits of Neurons
Neurotransmitter Involvement
Long-Term Potentiation

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 Memory: Brain Structures
Explicit Memory
• hippocampus, frontal lobes, amygdala
Implicit Memory
• hippocampus, temporal lobes, cerebellum

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 Serial Position Effect (1 of 2)
…tendency to recall items at beginning and end of a
list more readily than those in middle
When memorizing a list of items, which items are
easier?
Items early in the list or later in the list?

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Serial Position Effect (2 of 2)

Serial Position of Item within List

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 Retrieval: Tasks and Cues
Types of Tasks
• recall
• recognition
Encoding Specificity
• information present at encoding effective as
retrieval cue
• context-dependent memory

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 False Memories
Failure to distinguish real memories (external source)
from self-generated thoughts (internal source)
A memory can be false even when we are confident it
is vivid and clear

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 Retrieval: Special Cases
Autobiographical Memories
• life time periods
• reminiscence bump
• general events
• event-specific information
Emotional Memories
• flashbulb memories
• traumatic events
• repressed memories: motivated forgetting
• first forgotten and later recovered
• Freudian defense mechanism

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 “Discovered” Memories
Repressed Memories: Recovered or Created?
• Most children over age 4 have accurate recall.
• Loss of memory for abuse is possible.
• False reconstruction of memory is possible.
• Difficult to separate accurate and inaccurate
memories.
Eyewitness Testimony Often False

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 Forgetting: Memory Failure
Ebbinghaus
• encoding failure
• retrieval failure/interference theory
• proactive interference
• retroactive interference

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Proactive versus Retroactive Interference
Proactive
• Interfering material learned before target material is.
• “I can’t take in any more new information”
Retroactive
• Interfering material learned after target material is.
• “Too much has happened since I studied it”

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 Forgetting: Memory Failure (1 of 2)
Decay Theory
• passage of time  forgetting
• does not explain all instances
of forgetting
Tip-of-the-Tongue
Phenomenon
• effortful retrieval of
known information
• can retrieve some
but not all information

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 Forgetting: Memory Failure (2 of 2)
Prospective Memory
• remembering to do something in
the future
• content: remembering what to do
• timing: remembering when to do it
• absentmindedness
Amnesia
• anterograde amnesia
• inability to store new information
and events
• retrograde amnesia
• inability to retrieve past
information and events
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 Retrieval Failure

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 Study Tips - Encoding
Give Undivided Attention
Process Deeply
Make Associations
Use Imagery
Use Chunking
Encode Early and Often

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 Study Tips - Rehearse
Redo notes.
Talk to others.
Test yourself.
Ask yourself questions.
Rest and eat well.

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 Health and Wellness
Roles of Autobiographical
Memories
• Learn from our experience
• Develop sense of identity
• Bond with others
Memory and Aging
• Indicator of brain functioning
• Activity inoculates against
mental decline
• Both physical and mental
activity are important

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 Chapter Review
Identify the process of memory.
Explain how memories are encoded.
Discuss how memories are stored.
Summarize how memories are retrieved.
Describe how the failure of encoding and retrieval are
involved in forgetting.
Evaluate study strategies based on an understanding of
memory.
Identify the multiple functions of memory in human
life.

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