Cognition
7A – Memory
7B – Thinking, Problems Solving,
Creativity, and Language
Memory
Memory –
•Example –
The Memory Process
Three step process….
1. Encoding:
– Getting the info into the
brain
1. Storage:
– Retaining the info
1. Retrieval:
– Getting the info back out
4 Memory Models
1. Atkinson-Shiffrin 3
stage model
2. Modified AtkinsonShiffrin
3. Connectivism Model
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s 3 Step Model of
Memory
Sensory memory – brief recording of sensory information
•Example:
Short-term memory – memory that holds few items briefly before info
is forgotten
•Example –
Long –term memory – relatively permanent and limitless storage of
memory.
•Examples:
Modified Atkinson – Shiffrin
(3 Stage) Model
• 2 New concepts
1. Working Memory –
that
combines novel (?) or important info
along with info retrieved from
– Instead of short-term memory being
just a 20 sec. holding tank, this
model includes the ability to briefly
process info
• Some info skips the 1st two stages in
Atkinson’s/Shiffrins and is
processed
into
• Example –
Modified Three-stage Model of
Memory
Connectionism Model of
Memory
• Connectionism –
– Many neurons may work together to process a single memory
• memory emerges from particular
• retrieval of the memory is a reconstruction based on each of the
elements of the pattern
How We Encode
2 Types of Encoding
1. Automatically Processing
– Automatic
– Parallel
2. Effortful processing
– Rehearsal
Encoding - Automatic Processing
Automatic Processing –
– Examples:
• Time –
• space –
• Frequency –
• well learned info –
Automatic Processing
• Parallel Processing –
– -unconscious or effortful
– Example:
Automatic Processing
Spring is the
the most beautiful
time of the year
Encoding – Effortful
Processing
1. Effortful Processing –
– Example:
• Rehearsal –
– Example:
Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting
Curve
• Ebbinghaus Curve –
• Overlearning –
Effortful Processing
• Spacing effect – distributed
study is better for long-term
recall than massed study
(cramming)
– DO NOT CRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Testing effect – repeated
quizzing or testing improves
retention
Take out a piece of paper and name all the
Presidents…
Encoding Information
• Serial Positioning Effect –
– Primacy Effect –
– Recency Effect –
• Von Rostorff effect –
What We Encode…
Encoding Exercise
1. Visual Encoding: the encoding of
picture/visual images.
Example –
2. Acoustic Encoding: the encoding of sound,
especially the sounds of words.
Example:
3. Semantic Encoding: the encoding of
meaning.
Example:
Encoding Exercise
Visual Encoding
– Imagery – visual images help us remember
concrete words (aided by semantic encoding)
Example:
– Rosy Retrospection – recalling high points,
forgetting the worst
• Example:
Encoding Exercise
Mneumonics
– Mnemonic Devices – any memory aid that uses
visual images and organizational devices
• EXAMPLES:
1. Peg word system –
»
Example: One is a bun (chicken squashing
bun), two is a shoe (corn filling up shoe)…
1. Method of Loci –
»
Example: remembering items on a grocery
list by associating them with a place in our
house (chicken is pecking at front door,
corn smashed in foyer etc)
Encoding Exercise
Mneumonics
3. Hierarchies –
4. Chunking –
Every Good Boy Does Fine
1-800-IBM-HELP
» Example: PORN –
Proactive Interference:
Old info interferes with
New Retroactive
Interference: New
interferes with Old
Acoustic and Semantic Encoding
Acoustic Encoding: the encoding of
sound, especially the sounds of words.
•Example:
Semantic Encoding: the encoding of
meaning.
•Examples:
•Self Reference Effect –
Storage
Types of Memory
1. Sensory Memory
–
–
Iconic
Echoic
2.Working Memory/Short-term
3.Long-Term Memory
–
Implicit Memory/Procedural Memory
• Conditioned Memories
–
Explicit Memory
• Episodic Memory
• Semantic Memory
• Flashbulb Memories
Sensory Memory
• Sensory Memory –
• Examples:.
– Iconic Memory –
– Echoic Memory –
Sensory Memory
• Sperling’s memory experiment
• After flashing an image, participants had a momentary
mental image of all 9 letters
• Iconic memory –
– A momentary mental image that remains after the image is
gone
– Example:
• A momentary mental image that remains after seeing a
phone number flashed on the TV
Sensory Memory
• Echoic memory –
– A momentary auditory impression that remains
after the sound is gone
– Example:
Short Term Memory
• Short –term memory –
• Encoded visually,
acoustically or
semantically through
rehearsal.
Short Term Memory Activity
Working/Short-Term Memory
• Duration – Brief (30 sec or less) without
active processing
– Slightly longer for auditory info than visual info
– Numbers better than letters
• Capacity - Limited
– Magic number Seven
• Plus or minus 2
• The list of magic sevens
Long Term Memory
• Long-term memory –
• Examples:
Long-Term Memory
• Duration –
• Capacity -
Types of Long Term Memory
• Implicit Memory/Procedural Memory
– Conditioned Memories
• Explicit Memory
– Episodic Memory
– Semantic Memory
– Flashbulb Memories
Types of Long-Term Memory
Implicit Memories
• Implicit/Procedural Memories
–
– Processed by
other brain areas
 still intact with
• Examples:
– Conditioned Memories –
• Example:
and
Explicit Memories
• Explicit Memories – memories of
facts and experiences, consciously
recalled
– Processed by
•
information is stored in the
•
are stored in
– Infantile amnesia –
• Hippocampus is one of the last brain
structures to develop
– Example:
Explicit Memories
Episodic Memories -
Example:
Semantic Memories –
Example:
Explicit Memories
• Flashbulb
– Facilitated by
– Prolonged stress however, can
inhibit memory formation by
Storing Memories
Memory trace – memory is distributed
acoss groups of neurons
Long Term-Potentiation –
memory .
physical basis for
• Increases synaptic firing potential of a
neuron by increasing the number of
receptors on the receiving neuron.
• Neurons that fire together wire
together…creating a memory.
• Memory boosting drugs
– CREB – increases proteins that make a cell more
likely to keep a memory
– Glutamate – enhances synaptic communication
(LTP)
Amnesia
• Amnesia – loss of memory
– Retrograde Amnesia –
inability to remember past
events
• Example
– Alzheimer’s Patient Ronald Reagan
– Anterograde Amnesia –
inability to create new
memories
• Loss of Explicit Memory but not
Implicit memories
• Examples:
– Clive wearing
– 50 1st dates
Exceptionally clear memories of
emotionally significant events are called
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1. Sensory Memories
2. Flashbulb Memories
3. State Dependent
Memories
4. Mood Congruent
Memories
5. Procedural
Memories
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Remembering how to solve a jigsaw puzzle
without any conscious recollection that one can
do so best illustrates ________ memory.
Flashbulb
Sensory
Implicit
Explicit
Semantic
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The increase in synaptic firing potential
that contributes to memory formation is
known as
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1. Explicit memory
2. Implicit memory
3. Long-term
potentiation
4. Serial position effect
5. Infantile amnesia
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Retrieval
Recall
• you must retrieve the
information from your
memory
• fill-in-the blank or essay
tests
Recognition
• you must identify the
target from possible
targets
• multiple-choice tests
Recall
• Who is this
handsome
fellow?
Recognition
•
•
•
•
A. Brad Pitt
B. Gordon Ramsay
C. Ryan Seacrest
D. Mike “The Situation” Sorentino
Recall
• Who is this sweet-looking girl?
Recognition
•
•
•
•
A. Madonna
B. Katy Perry
C. Jenna Elfman
D. Jennifer Aniston
Recall
• Who is this?
Recognition
•
•
•
•
A. Jennifer Lopez
B. Eva Longoria
C. Fergie
D. Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi
Ways to help you retrieve info
• Relearning – learning material for the
second time, saves time.
– Example: Taking Psych in college
should save you time for going to
football games
• Retrieval Cues – anchor points used
to access target info for retrieval later
– Example: Mnemonics, words, events
places , emotions that trigger
memory
• Priming – unconscious activation of
associations in memory
– Example: See a rabbit and asked to
spell hair, you spell hare
The Context Matters!!!
• Mood Congruent Memory – recalling
memories consistent with current mood
– Example: When you break up with your girlfriend
you think about all the other times you’ve been
dumped
• State Dependent Memory – learning that
takes place in one physiological or situational
"state" is generally better remembered later in a
similar physiological state or situational state
– Example: info learned when person is drunk is better
recalled when person is drunk
• Déjà vu – eerie sense that you’ve experienced
something before
– Example: When I saw the play Billy Elliot I had déjà vu …I
thought I had seen it before
Mood-congruent memory refers to the
effect of emotional states on the process of
Repression
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
Relearning
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The eerie sense of having previously
experienced a situation is known as
1. Implicit memory
2. Serial position effect
3. Mood congruent
memory
4. Source amnesia
5. Déjà vu
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Forgetting
• Encoding Failures
• Storage Decay
• Retrieval Failures
Forgetting
• Schacter’s sevens sins of memory
– Sins of Forgetting
• Absent-mindedness – encoding failure (inattention
to detail)
• Transience – storage decay
• Blocking – inaccessibility to stored info
– Sins of distortion
• Misattribution – confusing the source
• Suggestibility – linger effects of misiformation
• Bias – belief colored recollections
– Sin of intrusion
• Persistence – unwanted memories
Encoding Failure
Example – You can’t remember a
person’s name that you were just
introduced to because you weren’t
paying attention
What should you do to prevent an
encoding failure?
Storage Decay
Ebbinghaus Curve
Apply the Ebbinghaus curve to Psych Class
Retrieval Failure
Forgetting
• Retroactive Interference: new
information blocks out old
information.
– Example: Getting a new bus
number and forgetting old bus
number.
• Proactive Interference: old
information blocks out new
information.
– Example: Calling your new
girlfriend by old girlfriends name.
• PORN
• Positive Transfer – old info helps
you learn new info
– Example: learning Spanish helps you
learn French
Motivated Forgetting
• Motivated Forgetting –
revising past memories
• Repression – (Freud’s
Psychoanalytic Theory)
• A defense mechanism that banishes
painful memories from
consciousness to minimize anxiety
– Example: Woman with
unexplained fear of running
water had repressed a memory
of almost drowning
Constructive Memory
• Constructed memory - a created
memory, altered when encoded
or retrieved.
– Misinformation effect
– Imagination effect
– Source amnesia
Constructive Memory
• Elizabeth Loftus
• Misinformation Effect – incorporating
misleading info into a memory
Example: misrecalling a yield sign as a
stop sign
• Imagination Effect/Inflation –
imagining nonexistent actions and
events can create false memories
Example: imagining that Solon beat
Mentor, you may create a false memory (:
• Source Amnesia – retaining the
memory of an event, but not the
source
Example: Someone told you that Solon
beat Mentor, but you think you read it in
the newspaper
Discerning True and False
Memories
• Memory studies – real vs. false
• Eye witness testimony
Children’s Eyewitness Recall
• Children’s memories of abuse
–Suggestibility
Repressed or Constructed
Memories of Abuse?
• Areas of agreement
– Sexual abuse happens
– Injustice happens
– Forgetting happens
– Recovered memories are incomplete
– Memories before 3 years are unreliable
– Hypnotic memories are unreliable
– Memories can be emotionally upsetting
Improving Memory Techniques
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Study repeatedly
Make the material meaningful
Activate retrieval cues
Use mnemonic devices
Minimize interference
Sleep more
Test your own knowledge, both to
rehearse it and to help determine what
you do not yet know
The misinformation effect best
illustrates the dynamics of
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Automatic processing
Memory construction
Repression
Proactive Interference
Mood-congruent
memory
c. .
.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
19
20
As we retrieve memories from our memory bank, we
often alter them based on past experiences and our
current expectations. This best illustrates
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1. Proactive
interference
2. Infantile amnesia
3. Transience
4. Memory
construction
5. Repression
Professor Maslova has so many memories of former
students that she has difficulty remembering the
names of new students. The professor's difficulty best
illustrates
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Re
1. Retroactive
interference
2. Mood congruent
memory
3. Proactive
interference
4. Spacing effect
Source amnesia
05.
of
As a child, Andre dreamed that he was chased and attacked by a
ferocious dog. Many years later, he mistakenly recalled that this
had actually happened to him. Andre's false recollection best
illustrates
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1. Self-reference effect
2. Mood congruent
memory
3. Infantile amnesia
4. Repression
5. Source amnesia
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An attorney uses misleading questions in an
attempt to distort a court witness' recall of a
previously observed crime. This best illustrates
1. State dependent
memory
2. Mood congruent
memory
3. Misinformation
effect
0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
4. Priming
5. Infantile amnesia
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