Memory
How can you increase your memory?
How do you process information?
Encoding - Getting information in
Storage - Retaining information
Retrieval - Getting information out
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
Encoding - Getting information in
How can you get it into your brain?
Types of encoding
Visual - Images are more easily
remembered than abstract
concepts
Acoustic - Sounds (hearing the
word)
Songs
Semantic - Meaning - (for words)
Self-reference effect
You remember items that refer to yourself
Liberty
What is the best way to study?
Spaced repetition
Spacing Effect
Ebbinghaus’s retention curve
We retain information better when study
time is spaced out
The amount remembered depends on the
time spent learning
Spaced study beats cramming - E.g.
12 - 5 minute segments beat one hour
of study
How fast does your memory decay?
Why does repetition help you remember?
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.
Why can you instantly remember
something?
Flashbulb memories
9-11
Space Shuttle Challenger
Car accident
What is the Serial Position Effect?
We remember the first and last items better
than ones in the middle.
E.g. Grocery list
How can you remember better
?Mnemonics - Encoding Imagery
Mnemonics (Greek for memory)
Method of Loci
Chunking
License plate
Phone #
 1-800-HOLIDAY
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
Do you remember?
What types of encoding are there to help you
remember?
What two things did we learn from the Ebbinghaus
retention curve to help you remember?
What are flashbulb memories?
If you list your advantages on a resume, where do you
put your most important ones you want remembered?
How could you use the peg word system?
Storage - Retaining information
Iconic (sensory) memory - Movie frames
Tenths of a second
Short term memory - Phone #
Few minutes
Long term memory - Experiences
Years
Long term memories
Test
Trip to Egypt
Bike riding
Something was fun
Retrieval - (Remembering)
What things help you remember?
Retrieval cues
Priming
Memories are held by a web of associations identify one strand and it leads to others
Associations
E.g. Wedding song
Retrieval cues can be sights, sounds, smells and tastes
What causes you to forget?
Encoding failure
You did not learn it
Names are forgotten because they were never
encoded.
Storage decay
Penny example
Penny
What interferes with memory?
Retrieval Failure
You can not remember it
Proactive (forward-acting) interference
Earlier learning reduces later learning
Retroactive (backward-acting) interference
Later learning reduces earlier learning
Retrieval Failure (Cont.)
What interferes with memory?
Do you remember?
How does priming relate to retrieval cues?
What causes you to forget?
What is proactive and retroactive memory
interference?
Memory Construction
Do you
remember things
that never
happened?
Misinformation effect
Given misinformation about an
event someone experienced,
they misremember the event.
E.g. After repeatedly hearing
false detailed accounts of
something that happened to
you, you begin to mistakenly
“remember” that these events
actually occurred.
Source amnesia
(Source misattribution)
You remember something as real, but forget the source of
the memory (e.g. a movie).
(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.
Do you remember?
If Sally is falsely told, usually repeatedly and
in detail, that she was abused as a child;
might she begin to remember abuse that never
happened?
If someone says, ”I remember this, but I
forgot where I heard it”. What happened?
Can guided imagery, hypnosis and drugs be
used to recover reliable memories?