Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Chapter Overview
 Studying and Encoding Memories
 Storing and Retrieving Memories
 Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Improving
Memory
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Studying Memories
 Memory
 Persistence of learning over time through the
encoding, storage, and retrieval of information
 Evidence of memory
 Recalling information
 Recognizing it
 Relearning it more easily on a later attempt
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
EBBINGHAUS’
RETENTION CURVE
Ebbinghaus found that
the more times he
practiced a list of
nonsense syllables on
day 1, the less time he
required to relearn it on
day 2.
Speed of relearning is
one measure of memory
retention (From
Baddeley, 1982.)
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Studying Memories
 Psychologists use memory models to think and
communicate about memory.
 Information-processing models
 Compares human memory to computer operations
 Involves three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval
 Connectionism information-processing model
 Focuses on multitrack, parallel processing
 Views memories as products of interconnected neural
networks
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Memory Models
 Three processing stages in the Atkinson-
Shiffrin model
 We first record to-be-remembered information as a
fleeting sensory memory
 From there, we process information into short-term
memory, where we encode it through rehearsal
 Finally, information moves into long-term memory
for later retrieval.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s classic three-step model helps us to think about how
memories are processed, but today’s researchers recognize other ways longterm memories form. For example, some information slips into long-term
memory via a “back door,” without our consciously attending to it (automatic
processing). And so much active processing occurs in the short-term memory
stage that many now prefer to call that stage working memory.
A MODIFIED THREE-STAGE
INFORMATION-PROCESSING MODEL OF MEMORY
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Memory Models
 Atkinson-Shiffrin model updated concepts
 Working memory, to stress the active processing
occurring in the second memory stage
 Automatic processing, to address the processing of
information outside of conscious awareness
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Memory Models
Working memory
• Involves newer understanding of short-term
memory
 Focuses on conscious, active processing of
incoming auditory and visual-spatial information,
and of information retrieved from long-term
memory
 Is handled by a central executive (Baddeley,
2002)
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
WORKING MEMORY
Alan Baddeley’s (2002) model of working memory, simplified
here, includes visual and auditory rehearsal of new information.
Part of the brain functions like a manager, a central executive
focusing attention and pulling information from long-term
memory to help make sense of new information.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Versus
Automatic Processing
 Dual-track memory system
 Explicit memories (declarative memories) of
conscious facts and experiences encoded through
conscious, effortful processing
 Implicit memories (nondeclarative memories) that
form through automatic processes and bypass
conscious encoding track
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Encoding Memories
 Automatic processing and implicit memories
 Implicit memories include automatic skills and classically
conditioned associations.
 Information is automatically processed about
 Space
 Time
 Frequency
 Effortful processing and explicit memories
 With experience and practice, explicit memories become
automatic.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Sensory memory
What is sensory
memory?
• First stage in forming
explicit memories
• Immediate, very brief
recording of sensory
information in the
memory system
• Iconic memory:
Picture-image memory
• Echoic memory: Sound
memory
TOTAL RECALL—BRIEFLY
When George Sperling (1960)
flashed a group of similar to this for
one-twentieth of a second, people
could recall only about half the letters.
But when signaled to recall any one
row immediately after the letters had
disappeared, they could do so with
near-perfect accuracy.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Capacity of Short-Term and Working
Memory
 Short-term memory
 Activated memory that holds a few items briefly (such
as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing)
before the information is stored or forgotten
 Working memory
 Newer understanding of short-term memory that
stresses conscious, active processing of incoming
auditory and visual-spatial information, and of
information retrieved from long-term memory
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Capacity of Short-Term and Working
Memory
 Short-term memory
 George Miller (1956)
 Magical Number Seven: People can store about seven bits of
information (give or take two)
 Baddeley and colleagues ( 1975)
 Without distraction, about seven digits or about six letters or
five words
 Working memory
 Capacity varies by age and distractions at time of
memory tasks
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Effortful Processing Strategies
 Chunking: Organization of items into familiar,
manageable units; often occurs automatically
 Mnemonics: Memory aids, especially
techniques that use vivid imagery and
organizational devices
 Peg-word system
 Hierarchies: Organization of items into a few
broad categories that are divided and subdivided
into narrower concepts and facts
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Effortful Processing Strategies
 Spaced study and self-assessment
 Spacing effect: Encoding is more effective when it is
spread over time.
 Distributed practice: Produces better long-term recall
 Massive practice: Produces speedy short term learning and
feelings of confidence
 Testing effect (retrieval practice effect or testenhanced effect): Encoding is very effective.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Levels of Processing
 Verbal information processed at different levels
which affect long-term retention.
 Shallow processing encodes on a very basic level
(word’s letters) or a more intermediate level (word’s
sound)
 Deep processing encodes semantically based on
word meaning
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Retaining Information in the Brain
 Past research
 Whole past is contained in memory—waiting to be
relived.
 Newer findings
 Flashback during surgery are new creations of
stressed brain.
 Information is not stored in single, specific spot.
 Perception, language, emotions and more require
brain networks
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Explicit- Memory System:
Hippocampus And Frontal
Lobes
• Is dedicated to explicit
memory formation
 Registers and temporarily
holds elements of explicit
memories before moving
them to other brain
regions for long-term
storage.
THE HIPPOCAMPUS
 Neural storage of long-
term memories is called
memory consolidation.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Implicit-Memory System: The Cerebellum
and Basal Ganglia
 Implicit memory system: Cerebellum and basal
ganglia
 Cerebellum plays important role in forming and storing memories
created by classical conditioning.
 Memories of physical skills are also implicit memories.
 Basal ganglia help form memories for these skills.
 Infantile amnesia
 Conscious memory of first three years is blank.
 Command of language and well-developed hippocampus
needed.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Review Key Memory Structures in The Brain
Frontal lobes and hippocampus: explicit memory formation
Cerebellum and basal ganglia: implicit memory formation
Amygdala: emotion-related memory formation
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Retaining Information in the Brain
 Excitement or stress trigger hormone
production and provoke amygdala to engage
memory.
 Emotions often persist with of without conscious
awareness.
 Emotional arousal causes an outpouring of stress
hormones, which lead to activity in the brain’s
memory-forming areas.
 Flashbulb memories occur via emotion-triggered
hormonal changes and rehearsal.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
©Donna Ikenberry/Art Directors &TRIP Alamy
Synaptic Changes
MEMORY SLUG The much-studied
California sea slug, Aplysia, has
increased our understanding of the
neural basis of learning.

Long-term potentiation
(LTP)
 Increase in a synapse’s firing
potential.
 After LTP, brain will not erase
memories
 Believed to be a neural basis
for learning and memory.

Kandel and Schwartz (1982)
 Pinpointed changes in sea
slugs neural connection.
 With learning more serotonin
released and cell efficiency
increased—number of
synapses increase.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Doubled receptor sites

Electron microscope image (a) shows just one receptor site (gray)
reaching toward a sending neuron before long-term potentiation.
Image (b) shows that, after LTP, the receptor sites have doubled. This
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.)
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Memory Retrieval Cues
 Retrieval cues
 Priming
 Context-dependent memory
 State-dependent memory
 Serial position effect
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Memory Retrieval Cues
 Memory retrieval
 Memories held in storage by web of associations.
 Retrieval cues serve as anchor points for pathways to
memory suspended in this web.
 Best retrieval cues come from associations formed at
the time a memory is encoded.
 Priming
 Activation, often unconsciously, of particular
associations in memory
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Retrieval Cues
PRIMING—AWAKENING
ASSOCIATIONS
After seeing or hearing
rabbit, we are later more
likely to spell the spoken
word as h-a-r-e.
Associations unconsciously
activate related
associations.
This process is called
priming. (Adapted from
Bower, 1986.)
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Memory Retrieval Cues
 Context-dependent memory
 Involved improved recall of specific information when
the context present at encoding and retrieval are the
same
 Encoding specificity principle
 Suggests cues and contexts specific to a particular
memory will be most effective in helping recall
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Retrieval Cues
 State-dependent memory
 Involves tendency to recall events consistent with
current good or bad mood (mood-congruent memory)
 Mood-congruent memory
 Involves tendency to recall experiences that are
consistent with one’s current good or bad mood
 Serial position effect
 Involves tendency to recall best the last (recency
effect) and first primacy effect) items in a list.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Forgetting and the Two-track Mind
 Humans have two distinct memory systems,
controlled by different parts of the brain.
 Forgetting has several causes
 Encoding failure
 Storage decay
 Retrieval failure
 Interference
 Motivated forgetting
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Forgetting: Encoding and Storage Decay
 Encoding failure
 Age: Encoding lag is linked to age-related memory
decline
 Attention: Failure to notice or encode contributes to
memory failure.
 Storage decay
 Course of forgetting is initially rapid, and then levels
off with time.
 Physical change in the brain occur as memory forms
(memory trace).
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
We cannot remember what we have not encoded.
FORGETTING AS ENCODING FAILURE
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Reason for Failure
• Events and memories are not available because
these were never acquired.
• Memories have been discarded due to stored
memory decay.
• Insufficient information to access memories
make these out of reach.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Forgetting
 Interference
 Proactive: Occurs when older memory makes it more
difficult to remember new information
 Retroactive: Occurs when new learning disrupts memory
for older information
 Motivated forgetting
 Freud: Repressed memories protect self-concept and
minimize anxiety.
 Today: Attempts to forget more likely when information is
neutral, not emotional.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
WHEN DO WE FORGET?
• Forgetting can occur at any
memory stage.
• As we process information,
we filter, alter, or lose
much of it.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Memory Construction Errors
 Misinformation and imagination effects
 Misinformation effect occurs when a
memory has been corrupted by misleading
information.
 Imagination effect occurs when repeatedly
imaging fake actions and events can create
false memories.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Memory Construction Errors
 Source amnesia (source misattribution)
 Involves faulty memory for how, when, or where
information was learned or imagine
 déjà vu
 Is sense that “I’ve experienced this before.”
 Suggests cues from the current situation may
unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier
experience
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Discerning True and False Memories
 False memories feel like real memories and can
be persistent but are usually limited to the gist of
the event.
 False memories are often result of faulty
eyewitness testimony.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Children’s Eyewitness Recall
 Children’s eyewitness recall
 Ceci and Bruck
 Researchers studied effect of suggestive interviewing
techniques
 58 percent of preschoolers produced false stories about one
or more unexperienced events.
 Children often accurately recall events and actors
 Neutral person
 Nonleading questions soon after event containing words
children can understand
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Repressed or Constructed Memories of
Abuse?
 The debate between memory researchers and some
well-meaning therapists focuses on whether most
memories of early childhood abuse are repressed and
can be recovered during therapy using “memory work”
techniques using leading questions or hypnosis.
What do you think?
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Repressed or Constructed Memories of
Abuse?
 Those committed to protecting abused children and
those committed to protecting wrongly accused
adults have agreed on the following:
 Sexual abuse happens.
 Injustice happens.
 Forgetting happens.
 Recovered memories are commonplace.
 Memories of things happening before age 3 are unreliable.
 Memories “recovered” under hypnosis are especially
unreliable.
 Memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally
upsetting.
Macduff Everton/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Improving Memory
SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Retrieve, Review) study
technique used in this book incorporates several learning
strategies.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rehearse 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 find
out what you do not yet know.