Ch. 9 - Memory
Ch. 9 - Memory
Information processing
Encoding - Getting information in
Storage - Retaining information
Retrieval - Getting information out
Automatic & Effortful processing
Instant encoding & storage
Flashbulb memories
9-11
Titanic
President Kennedy
Space Shuttle Challenger
Encoding - Getting information in
Rehearsal (continuous repetition)
Spacing Effect
Ebbinghaus’s retention curve
We retain information better when study time is spaced out
Spaced study beats cramming - E.g. 12 - 5 minute segments beat one hour of study
Serial Position Effect
We remember the first and last items better than ones in the middle.
Types on Encoding
Words that lend themselves to mental images
(e.g. house) are remembered better that abstract low image words e.g. “domicile”
Semantic - meaning - Best (for words)
Acoustic - sounds (hearing the word) -
Songs?
Visual - images (seeing the type) - Least
Photos?
Self-reference effect
You remember items that refer to yourself
Encoding Imagery
Mnemonics (Greek for memory)
Method of Loci
Chunking
License plate
Phone #
Words
Association
E.g. Grocery list
Mnemonics (cont.)
“Peg word” system
Numbers into pictures
1 = Bun
2 = Shoe
3 = Tree
4 = Door
5 = Hive
6 = Sticks
7 = Heaven
8 = Gate
9 = Swine
10 = Hen
Attach items to be remembered to the pictures
Storage - Retaining information
Sensory Memory
Iconic Memory - What our eyes register
Fleeting photographic memory
Lasts only a few tenths of a second
Short term memory
Memory decay
Brain (synaptic) changes
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
Stimulating neurons increased efficiency
Sending neuron released its neurotransmitter more easily
Receptor sights may increase.
May explain why experience and repetition can increase memory.
Long term memories
Implicit memories
(procedural memory)
Remembering how to do something
Can not be consciously recalled
Explicit memories
Declarative memory
Can be consciously recalled
E.g. A person may retain past skills, but not remember them.
Retrieval - Getting information out
Retrieval cues
Priming
Memories are held by a web of associations identify one strand and it leads to others
“Awakening of associations”
E.g. Wedding song
Retrieval cues can be sights, sounds, smells and tastes
Mood congruent memories -
(State dependent memories)
We remember things best when we are in the same mood as when we did it or learned it.
E.g. Happy times are more apt. to be remembered when we are happy.
If you were drunk when you hid something, you are more apt. to remember where it is when you are drunk again.
(However, drinking - in general - reduces memory
Forgetting
Encoding failure
Names are forgotten because they were never encoded.
Storage decay
Penny example
Retrieval Failure
Proactive (forward-acting) interference
Earlier learning reduces later learning
Retroactive (backward-acting) interference
Later learning reduces earlier learning
Retrieval Failure (Cont.)
Retrieval Failure (Cont.)
Memory Construction
Misinformation effect
Given misinformation about an event someone experienced, they misremember the event.
Source amnesia
(Source misattribution)
You remember something as real, but forget the source of the memory (e.g. a movie).
E.g. After repeatedly hearing false detailed accounts of an accident you were in, you begin to mistakenly
“remember” that these events actually occurred.
(You forgot that they were told to you)
Repressed or constructed memories
Therapeutic techniques such as guided imagery can easily encourage construction of false memories.
Memories “recovered” under hypnosis or drugs are particularly unreliable.
