COGNITION
Memory
True of False?
T/F A woman who could not remember who she was automatically dialed her
mother’s number when the police gave her a telephone.
T/F Learning must be meaningful if we are to remember it.
T/F If you can see, you have a photographic memory.
T/F All of our experiences are permanently imprinted on the brain, so the proper
stimulus can cause us to remember them exactly.
T/F You may always recall where you were and what you were doing on the
morning of September 11, 2001.
T/F If you study with the stereo on, you would probably do better to take the test
with the stereo on.
Memory

What is a memory?(podcast-the day my mothers head exploded)
 What
is its physical state?
 How is it created?
 What tells it to be formed?


Why do we create memories?
Where is the Engram?
Why is memory important?
(very simple explanation)
Avoidance Behavior:

If we do not learn from a stressful event then we will repeat the event.

We will never learn more efficient ways to avoid such situations.

If we try to hug an angry bear and happen to survive, we want to make
sure that we never repeat such an act.




Bears are dangerous.
If I hug them tissue damage will probably ensue.
Don’t hug bears anymore. 
Basically survival is quite dependent on learning.
Memory
How does a physical event become a memory?
Event
Memory
Memory
Elements involved in memory formation:
 Main requirements- (same as with chemicals)





Variability
Cognitive stress



Can facilitate or be a detriment
Priming
State of participant when event takes place


Speed of onset
Level of arousal
Message potency
Chemicals and hormones in the body
Body temperature
Memory

There is no difference between factual, conceptual,
procedural or metacognitive learning.
 It
is all governed by the same process.
 Though some forms of learning may involve additional
brain regions.
Memory
Three main stages:

Encoding:


Storage:


Processing transduced information.
Creation of a permanent record.
Retrieval:

Calling back the stored information.
Memory
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
(reconstruction)
Storage
(based on current state)
Memory


The same rules apply when remembering an event as when
originally encoding the event.
Remember the elements involved in facilitation and
degradation of sensory messages discussed
in the physiology section.
The Three Stages of Memory
Sensory Memory: (Sensory Register)

Preserves brief sensory impressions of stimuli.

Processed in different brain regions depending on what sense picks up the stimulus.
Working Memory: (Short-term Memory)

Preserves recently perceived events or experiences for less than a minute without
rehearsal.
Long-term Memory:

Stores material organized according to meaning.
The Three Stages of Memory

Sensory

Working

Long-term
The First Stage: Sensory Memory
DJB
XHG
C LY
The First Stage: Sensory Memory

How many can you recall?
Capacity of sensory memory can be 12 or more items.
 All but 3-4 items disappear before they can enter.


There is a separate sensory register for each sense .

Memory images take the form of nerve impulses.

Transduction
Transduction
Sensation
Nerve Impulse
Sensory
Stroop Interference Effect
•Filter Theory of Attention
•Cocktail Party Effect
2 Types of Sensory Registers


Iconic: Sensory memory of visual stimuli, lasting less
than a second.
Echoic: Sensory memory of acoustical stimuli, lasting
3 to 4 seconds.
Sequence of Information Processing
The First Stage: Sensory Memory
The Second Stage: Working Memory


Preserves recently perceived events or experiences for less than a minute
without rehearsal.
 Short-term memory (STM).
Working memory consists of
 A central executive


A phonological loop (podcast-music)


Responsible for the selection, initiation
and termination of processing routines.
Deals with sound and phonological processing.
The visiospatial sketch pad




Holds information about what we see.
Aids in visual planning of future behavior.
Contains separate visual, spacial and kinesthetic components.
Right Hemisphere storage.
The Second Stage: Working Memory

Encoding and storage:

Capacity:


Chunk:


Information is repeated keep it from fading while in working memory.
Elaborative rehearsal:


Organizing pieces of information into a smaller number of meaningful
units.
Maintenance rehearsal:


7 +/- 2 “Chunks” of information. (George A. Miller)
Information is actively reviewed and related to information already in
LTM.
Acoustic encoding:

Conversion of information to sound patterns in working memory.
The Second Stage: Working Memory

Sneak Peak!
 Disorders
associated with working memory disruptions:
 Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
 We
will be covering this in the Psychological Disorders
section of this course.
Forgetting in STM


Decay theory: A theory that argues that the
passage of time causes forgetting.
Interference theory: A theory that argues
interference from other information causes
forgetting.
Sensory
VCRFBIUSACIA
Decay
George Miller’s Magic Number 7 +/- 2
VCR FBI USA CIA
2 Types of Rehearsal


Rote rehearsal: Retaining information in STM simply
by repeating it over and over.
Elaborative rehearsal: The linking of new
information in STM to familiar material stored in
long-term memory.
The Third Stage: Long-Term Memory
Long-Term Memory: Stores material organized according to meaning .
(Schemas, Heuristics, Mental Set)


Declarative (explicit) Stores facts

Semantic Memory of meanings (of words) and understandings .

Episodic Memory of events, times, places, and emotions.
 Autobiographical Memory
Procedural (implicit)

Long-term memory of skills and procedures.

How to knowledge.
The Third Stage: Long-Term Memory
Declarative Memory

Semantic Memory
 Language
 Facts
 General

Knowledge
Episodic Memory
 Events
 Personal
Experiences
Procedural Memory

Includes memory for:
 Motor
Skills
 Operant Conditioning
 Classical Conditioning
Types of Long-Term Memory
Explicit
(declarative)
Semantic
tip-of-the-tongue
phenomenon
Implicit
(nondeclarative)
Procedural
Episodic
Flashbulb Memory
© Prentice Hall, 1999
Dispositions
Types of Memory
Memory
Sensory
Iconic
Working (STM)
Echoic
Episodic
Long Term
Perceptual
Declarative
Procedural
Autobiographical
Semantic
Explicit Memory

Memory for information that was intentionally
committed to memory or intentionally retrieved
from memory.
Neural Basis of Learning
Long-term Potentiation:
 Biological process involving physical changes that strengthen the synapses in
groups of nerve cells.
 Weak synapse firing alongside a strong synapse causes the weak synapse to
strengthen.
 Critical element
Calcium (Ca+)
Mesolimbic Pathway: (Dopamine)
 Substantia Nigra
 Ventral Tegmental Area
 Nucleus Accumbens
 Amygdala and Hippocampus
 Frontal Cortex
Neural Basis of Learning
Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon (TOT)




The condition of being able to, but not quite,
remember something.
TOT becomes more frequent in stressful situations
and as we age.
Words similar to target word interfere with recall.
TOT occurs most often with low-usage words.
Implicit Memory

Memory for information that either was
unintentionally committed to memory or was
unintentionally retrieved from memory.
Flashbulb Memory

A vivid memory for a highly emotional
situation; seems to require an element of
surprise.
Types of LTM Interference


Retroactive: The process by which new information
interferes with the retrieval of old information.
Proactive: The process by which old information
interferes with the retrieval of new information.
Memory
Memory
Sneak Peak!
Ormrod (2004):

People often remember things in physical situations according to
schemas, rather than remembering the actual objects that existed
Brewer & Treyens (1981):

30 students placed in office.

9 students remembered seeing books.

No students remembered the skull.

No students remembered the tennis racket.
Memory Models
Multi-Store Model (Atkinson-Shiffrin Model, 1968)
 Long-Term Memory
 Episodic
 Procedural
 Mechanism-Rehearsal
 Flashbulb Memory
Working Memory (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974)
 Short-Term Memory
 Central executive
 Phonological loop
 Visuospatial sketchpad
Levels of Processing Memory Model (Craik and Lockhart, 1972)
 Depth of processing is paramount
Future Work


Serial Position Effect
Recall and Forgetting



Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve
Eyewitness Testamony
Mental Representations
Concepts
 Prototypes
Heuristics (One size fits most!)
 Small, Medium, Large






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Subconscious/Nonconscious processing
Implicit learning
Mental set
Need for cognitive consistency
Bias