David G. Myers
AP Psychology
Unit 7:
Cognition: 7A—Memory
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Figure 7A.1 What is this?
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Figure 7A.2 A modified three-stage processing model of memory Atkinson and Shiffrin’s classic
three-step model helps us to think about how memories are processed, but today’s researchers
recognize other ways long-term memories form. For example, some information slips into long-term
memory via a “back door,” without our consciously attending to it. And so much active processing
occurs in the short-term memory stage that many now prefer the term working memory.
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Figure 7A.3 Now you know People who had seen this complete image were, 17 years later, more
likely to recognize the fragment in Figure 7A.1.
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Figure 7A.4 Automatic versus effortful processing Some information, such as where you ate
dinner yesterday, you process automatically. Other information, such as this unit’s concepts, requires
effort to encode and remember.
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Figure 7A.5 Ebbinghaus’ retention curve Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced a list
of nonsense syllables on day 1, the fewer repetitions he required to relearn it on day 2. Said simply,
the more time we spend learning novel information, the more we retain.
From Baddeley, 1982
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Figure 7A.6 The serial position effect Immediately after Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
introduces this long line of officials to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Karzai will
probably recall the names of the last few people best. But later Karzai may recall the first few people
best.
From Craik & Watkins, 1973
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Figure 7A.7 Levels of processing Processing a word deeply—by its meaning (semantic
encoding)—produces better recognition of it at a later time than does shallow processing by attending
to its appearance or sound.
From Craik & Tulving, 1975
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Figure 7A.8 Effects of chunking on memory When we organize information into meaningful units,
such as letters, words, and phrases, we recall it more easily.
From Hintzman, 1978
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Figure 7A.9 An example of chunking—for those who read Chinese After looking at these
characters, can you reproduce them exactly? If so, you are literate in Chinese.
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Figure 7A.10 Organization benefits memory When we organize words or concepts into
hierarchical groups, as illustrated here with concepts in this unit, we remember them better than when
we see them presented randomly.
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Figure 7A.11 Momentary photographic memory When George Sperling flashed a group of letters
similar to this for one-twentieth of a second, people could recall only about half of the letters. But
when signaled to recall a particular row immediately after the letters had disappeared, they could do
so with near-perfect accuracy.
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Figure 7A.12 Short-term memory decay Unless rehearsed, verbal information may be quickly
forgotten.
From Peterson & Peterson, 1959; see also Brown, 1958
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Figure 7A.13 Doubled receptor sites Electron microscope images show just one receptor site
(gray) reaching toward a sending neuron before long-term potentiation (left) and two sites after LTP
(right). A doubling of the receptor sites means that the receiving neuron has increased sensitivity for
detecting the presence of the neurotransmitter molecules that may be released by the sending neuron.
From Toni et al., 1999
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Figure 7A.14 Memory subsystems We process and store our explicit and implicit memories
separately. Thus, people with brain damage may lose explicit memory (becoming amnesic), yet
display implicit memory for material they cannot consciously recall.
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Figure 7A.15 The hippocampus Explicit memories for facts and episodes are processed in the
hippocampus and fed to other brain regions for storage.
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Figure 7A.16 Priming—awakening associations After seeing or hearing rabbit, we are later more
likely to spell the spoken word as h-a-r-e. The spreading of associations unconsciously activates
related associations. This phenomenon is called priming.
Adapted from Bower, 1986
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Figure 7A.17 The effects of context on memory Words heard underwater are best recalled
underwater; words heard on land are best recalled on land.
Adapted from Godden & Baddeley, 1975
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Figure 7A.18 Forgetting as encoding failure We cannot remember what we have not encoded.
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Figure 7A.19 Test your memory Which one of these pennies is the real thing?
Answer The first penny (a) is the real penny.
From Nickerson & Adams, 1979
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Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)
Figure 7A.20 Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve After learning lists of nonsense syllables, Ebbinghaus
studied how much he retained up to 30 days later. He found that memory for novel information fades
quickly, then levels out.
Adapted from Ebbinghaus, 1885
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Figure 7A.21 The forgetting curve for Spanish learned in school Compared with people just
completing a Spanish course, those 3 years out of the course remembered much less. Compared with
the 3-year group, however, those who studied Spanish even longer ago did not forget much more.
Adapted from Bahrick, 1984
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Figure 7A.22 Retrieval failure We store in long-term memory what’s important to us or what
we’ve rehearsed. But sometimes even stored information cannot be accessed, which leads to
forgetting.
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Figure 7A.23 Retroactive interference More forgetting occurred when a person stayed awake and
experienced other new material.
From Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924
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Figure 7A.24 Proactive and retroactive interference
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Figure 7A.25 When do we forget? Forgetting can occur at any memory stage. As we process
information, we filter, alter, or lose much of it.
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Figure 7A.26 Memory construction When people who had seen the film of a car accident were
later asked a leading question, they recalled a more serious accident than they had witnessed.
From Loftus, 1979
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(a)
(b)
Figure 7A.27 Our assumptions alter our perceptual memories Researchers showed people faces
with computer-blended expressions, such as the angry/happy face in (a), then asked them to explain
why the person was either angry or happy. Those asked to explain an “angry” expression later (when
sliding a bar on a morphing movie to identify the earlier-seen face) remembered an angrier face, such
as the one shown in (b).
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