Psychology This Week
 Monday
 Memory Intro

Some brief introductions to some key terms
 Tuesday
 Brain games
 Wednesday
 Why we Forget ½
 Movie intro ½
 Thursday
 Applying key terms to a movie
 Friday
 Applying key terms to a movie
Psychology Today
 Monday 12/5/11
 Memory games
 Memory Terms
 What is memory?
 What are the processes of memory?
 What are the types of memory?



SM
STM
LTM
Before you Leave
 What are the 3 Stages of memory?
 What are the three types of memory?
 What are the 3 types of long term
memory?
Exploring
Memory
The USA National Memory
Championship
World Records of Memory
1. Memorize 99 names and faces in 15 min.
2. Memorize an unpublished poem of 50 lines in 15 min.
3. Memorize a list of 500 random numbers
4. Memorize a list of 500 random words
5. Memorize the order of a deck of cards in 1 minute
20 Seconds on The Clock
Activity 1--You have 20 sec. to memorize the
names and faces
Frank
Dan
Sarah
Jenny
Amy
Megan
Brandon
Andrew
Nora
Julian
Andrew
Julian
Megan
Jenny
Brandon
Amy
Frank
Dan
Sarah
Nora
1. Nora
2. Andrew
3. Jenny
4. Sarah
5. Dan
6. Julian
7. Brandon
8.Amy
9. Frank
10. Megan
Activity 2--SPOT THE REAL PENNY
(A)
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last
gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the
perilous fight'
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly
streaming.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in
air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was
still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the
brave?
The National Anthem
--What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last
gleaming?
--Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the
perilous fight'
What line comes before this?
The National Anthem
--Oh, say, can you see,
--By the dawn's early light,
The National Anthem
--O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly
streaming.
--And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in
air,
What about this?
The National Anthem
--What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last
gleaming?
--Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the
perilous fight'
Questions to Ponder
 Activity 1- Names w/faces
 What made this task difficult? Why?





People you never met?
Skin color?
Attractiveness?
Order of faces were switched?
Not enough time?
 Activity 2- Spot the Penny
 What made this task difficult?

You’ve seen thousands of them
 Activity 3
 What made this task so difficult?


You’ve sang the song thousands of time.
Did you forget the words?
The Point
 Memory Facts
 Memories are never completely perfect

Even with rehearsal long term and short term memories can be filled with gaps
 Memories don’t last forever


Even long term memories fade and die with time
Memories have life expectancies
 Memory isn’t infinite


The average human can store up to 300,00 facts
Studies have shown memory overload may cause Alzheimer's
 Human memory is meant to work in specifically trained orders assisted by
memory cues


We learn and remember tasks from start to finish
Memory cues like rhyming and mnemonic devices strengthen memory for easier recall
The Biology of Memory
We are still learning
about the role of the
brain in MEMORY. To
what extent the brain is
involved is still being
determined.
Memory
The persistence of learning over
time through the storage and
retrieval of information.
Encoding
 Converting information into a usable form in which
it will be retained in memory
Typing info into a computer
Getting a girls name at a party
Storage
 The storing of encoded material over
time.
Pressing Ctrl S and
saving the info.
Trying to remember her name
when you leave the party.
Retrieval
 The process of getting the information out of
memory storage.
Finding your document
and opening it up.
Seeing her the next day
and calling her the wrong
name (retrieval failure).
Information-Processing Theory
Sensory
information
STORAGE
economics literature
Encoding
RETRIEVAL
Information is
taken into
brain
Information is used
as basis of
behaviors and
interactions
culture science
religion
history
math
Information gets
processed,
analyzed, and
stored until use
Information-Processing Model of Memory
 Computer as a model for our memory
 Three types of memory
 Sensory memory
 Short-term memory (STM)
 Long-term memory (LTM)

Can hold vast quantities of information for
many years
Three-Stage Process of Memory
Sensory
memory
(selective attention)
(lost after 1-2 sec.)
Sensory
memory
(lost after 15-30 sec.)
Short-term
(selective attention) memory
Hear a song on
the radio
Sensory
memory
Short-term
memory
(repetition)
You remember the
chorus for about
30 sec. after the song
is over
(selective attention) Short-term
memory
See a billboard driving
home that reads, “if you
visit www.freestuff.com,
you will get a free iPod”
You remember the
website link for about
30 sec. after you
drive by the billboard
Long-term
memory
(indefinite unless decay)
Long-term
(repetition)
memory
listen to the song
18 more times
(repetition)
You remember
all of the lyrics
Long-term
memory
the website is
repeated in your head
all day but soon forget
?
Sensory Memory -- works as a filter. It allows us time to
determine what to pay attention to.
Sensory Memory
 Stores all the stimuli that
register on the senses
 Lasts up to three seconds
Sensory
Input
Sensory
Memory
 Two types
 Iconic memory



Visual
Usually lasts about 0.3 seconds
Sperling’s tests (1960s)
 Echoic memory
 Auditory
 Usually fades within 2-3 sec
Testing the Sensory Memory
2 N L 8
5 Q F 7
4 3 6 K
Testing the Sensory Memory
2 N L 8
5 Q F 7
4 3 6 K
George Sperling’s
Experiment (1960)
 Presented matrix of letters
for 1/20 seconds
 Report as many letters as
possible
 Subjects recalled only half of
the letters
 Was this because subjects
didn’t have enough time to
view entire matrix?
 No
 How did Sperling know this?
Sperling’s Iconic Memory Experiment
Sperling’s Iconic Memory Experiment
Sperling’s Iconic Memory Experiment
Sperling’s Iconic Memory Experiment
Sperling’s Experiment
 Sounded low, medium or
high tone immediately
after matrix disappeared
 Tone signaled 1 row to
report
 Recall was almost perfect
 Memory for images fades
after 1/3 seconds or so,
making report of entire
display hard to do
High
Medium
Low
Short-term Memory
 Function
 Conscious processing of information
 Attention is the key

Limits what info comes under the spotlight of shortterm memory at any given time
 AKA working memory
Sensory
Input
Sensory
Memory
Attention
Working or
Short-term
Memory
 Selective Attention:
 the ability to focus on ONLY one stimulus from among
all other incoming information

The key to short term memory
Key idea: We filter out distractions that
we deem unnecessary or unimportant
A
(often unconsciously) to lighten our
memory load
C
D
B
“cocktail party effect”
What if our “selective attention” is divided btw tasks?
Focusing on multiple stimuli may result in memory loss
B has to keep a conversation with A, but
at the same time listen to the conversation
between C and D
A
C
B must REMEMBER the details
of both conversations
D
B
Memorize the following list of numbers:
18121941177614922001
Write down the numbers in order.
Now, try again…
1812
1941
1776
1492
2001
How to Strengthen Your STM
How?
 Maintenance rehearsal
 The use of repetition to keep info in short-term
memory
 CHUNK
 A solid, meaningful unit of information
 Mnemonic Devices = Techniques for using
associations to memorize and retrieve
information
Short-term Memory
 Limited capacity
 Can hold 7 ± 2 items for about 20 seconds
How?

Maintenance rehearsal


The use of repetition to keep info in short-term memory
CHUNK




A solid, meaningful unit of information
Without rehearsal, we remember 4 ± 2 chunks
With rehearsal, we remember 7 ± 2 chunks
Ericsson & Chase (1982)
893194434925021578416685061209488885687727314186105
46297480129497496592280
Short-Term or Working Memory
Use it or lose it!!!!!
Working with information…..
Mnemonic Devices = Techniques for using
associations to memorize and retrieve information
Demonstration
Attend to the words in the green box as they flash
on the screen. When the last word disappears,
write down as many words as you can recall.
TABLE
SNOW
FOOT
DOG
SON
END
HAT
BUS
BREAD
DOOR
CAT
Encoding-Serial Position Effect
Percentage
of
words
recalled
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Position of word in list
10
11 12
Long-term Memory
 Once information passes from sensory to
short-term memory, it can be encoded into
long-term memory
Retrieval
Sensory
Input
Attention
Sensory
Memory
Working or
Short-term
Memory
Encoding
Long-term
memory
Long-term memory: the system of memory into which
all the information is placed to be kept more or less
permanently
LTM at Tinley Park High School Questions
What was your class schedule freshman year?
What period did you have lunch sophomore year?
What did you wear your first day of high school?
What was your old locker # and combination #?
Types of Long-term
memory
 (1) Procedural (Implicit)
 Memories of behaviors, skills, etc.

Demonstrated through behavior
 (2) Declarative (Explicit)
 Memories of facts


Episodic – personal experiences tied to places &
time
Semantic – general knowledge
 Semantic network
Explicit Memories (aka,
declarative memories)
 Episodic Memories
 Semantic Memories
Formed by the
hippocampus; stored in
the cerebral cortex.
Implicit Memories
 Procedural Memories
 Conditioned Memories
Formed by the
cerebellum; stored
in the cerebral
cortex.
Long-term memory
The Encoding Process
 Elaborative rehearsal

A technique for transferring information into long-term
memory by thinking about it in a deeper way
 Levels of processing


Semantic is more effective than visual or acoustic
processing
Craik & Tulving (1975)
 Self-referent effect

By viewing new info as relevant to the self, we consider
that info more fully and are better able to recall it
To summarize….
Semantic Networks
Bus
Truck
Ambulance
Orange
House
Fire Engine
Fire
Yellow
Green
Red
Apples
Cherry
Roses
Sunrise
Daisies
Flowers
Sunsets
Clouds
 Retrieval
Retrieval
 Process that controls flow of information
from long-term to working memory store
 Explicit memory
 The types of memory elicited through the
conscious retrieval of recollections in
response to direct questions
 Implicit memory
 A nonconscious recollection of a prior
experience that is revealed indirectly, by its
effects on performance
Retrieval – Explicit Memory
 Free-recall test
 A type of explicit memory task in which a person
must reproduce information without the benefit of
external cues
 Recognition task
 A form of explicit memory retrieval in which items
are presented to a person who must determine if
they were previously encountered
 Retrieval failure
 Tip-of-the-tongue (Brown & McNeill)
Retrieval – Explicit Memory
 Context-Dependent Memory
 We are more successful at retrieving memories if
we are in the same environment in which we stored
them
 State-Dependent Memory
 We are more successful at retrieving memories if
we are in the same mood as when we stored them
Retrieval – Implicit
Memory
 Showing knowledge of something without
recognizing that we know it
 Research with amnesics
 Déjà vu
 The illusion that a new situation is familiar
 Eyewitness testimony
 Eyewitness transference
 Unintentional plagiarism
Forgetting
If we remembered everything, we should on
most occasions be as ill off as if we
remembered nothing.
William James
 Lack of encoding
 Often, we don’t even encode the features
necessary to ‘remember’ an object/event
 Decay
 Memory traces erode with the passage of time
 No longer a valid theory of forgetting
 Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924)
Forgetting
Sensory memory - the senses momentarily
register amazing detail
Short term memory - a few items are
both noticed and encoded
Long-term storage - Some items
are altered or lost
Retrieval from long-term memory depending on interference, retrieval cues
moods and motives, some things get
retrieved, some don’t
Information bits
Theories of Forgetting
 Decay theory- Memory trace fades with time
 Encoding Failure:
 May contribute to information never being encoded from STM to
LTM and thus forgotten.
 Retrieval failure
 The information is still within LTM, but cannot be recalled because
the retrieval cue is absent
© 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Huffman: PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION, 7E
Interference theory
 Forgetting is a result of some
memories interfering with others
 Proactive interference
 Old memories interfere with ability to
remember new memories
 Retroactive interference
 New memories interfere with ability to
remember old memories
 Interference is stronger when
material is similar
Forgetting
 Repression
 There are times when we are unable to remember painful
past events
 While there is no laboratory evidence for this, case studies
suggest that memories
can be repressed for a
number of years and
recovered in therapy
 Memories of Abuse
 Repressed or Constructed?


Child sexual abuse does occur
Some adults do actually forget such episodes
Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve
 This graph
dramatizes how
rapidly nonsense
syllables are
forgotten, especially
in the first few
hours after learning.
© 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Huffman: PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION, 7E
Memory Construction
 We filter information and fill in missing
pieces
 Misinformation Effect
 incorporating misleading information into
one's memory of an event
 Source Amnesia
 attributing to the wrong source an event that
we experienced, heard about, read about, or
imagined (misattribution)
Memory Construction- Loftus and Palmer
(1974)
Depiction of actual accident
 Eyewitnesses
reconstruct
memories when
questioned
Leading question:
“About how fast were the cars
going when they smashed into
each other?”
Memory
construction
Movie Time!
Memento
Children’s Testimony
 If asked if a visitor
committed acts that had not
occurred, few 4-6 year olds
said yes.
 30% of 3-year olds said yes
 When investigators used
techniques taken from real
child-abuse investigations,
most children said yes.
Norris Edwards: Chapter 1:
Wade01.ppt Page: 72
Social Pressure, False Allegations
Reasons to Forget
 Retrograde Amnesia
 Brain damage to the
hippocampus that
results in inability to
remember events that
happened before the
event
 Anterograde Amnesia
 Brain damage to the
hippocampus that
results in the inability
to form new memories

50 first dates?
Memory Construction
 Schema theory
 Preconceptions about persons, objects, or events
that bias the way new information is interpreted
and recalled
 Misinformation effect
 The tendency to incorporate false postevent
information into one’s memory of the event itself
 Illusory memories
 People sometimes create memories that are
completely false
• Eyewitness Testimony
• It is often wrong
• Involves recognition
• Memory of event is often distorted
• Eyewitnesses can be misled by questioning
• Distortion: Misremembering because of bias or
suggestibility
• College students remembered 89% of their high school
“A” grades but only 29% or “D” grades.
• With eyewitness testimony, suggestibility can cause an
incorrect identification as in cases where people were
convicted and later freed as a result of DNA evidence.
• Divorcing couples
FORGETTING
Types
Decay – fading away of memory over time
Amnesia – loss of memory as a result of a blow to head or
brain damage. Other causes: Stress/Drugs
Interference – blockage of a memory by previous or
subsequent memories or loss of a retrieval cue
•Proactive Interference: prior learning interferes with learning
new information
• Retroactive Interference: newly learned information interferes
with previously learned information
Repression – pushing the memory of a threatening or
traumatic event deep into the unconscious
DID YOU KNOW!
Flashbulb Memories are vivid
recollections of events that are
shocking or emotional
DID YOU KNOW!
The SQ3R method of studying
improves your ability to recognize
and recall information
Improving Memory
 Pg. 276 new book
INTELLIGENCE:
IQ & TESTING
• PSYCHOMETRICS - subarea of psychology concerned
with developing tests to assess abilities, skills, beliefs, traits,
etc.
INTELLIGENCE
The ability to acquire new ideas and new behavior, and to
adapt to new situations.
Different views on Intelligence exist
Emotional Intelligence: The ability to perceive, use, understand, and
regulate emotions.
Two-Factor Theory: Intelligence includes a general ability (g) level
and specific mental abilities (s)
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory: Numerous (8) and
unrelated intelligences
INTELLIGENCE TEST
Measure IQ, or a standardized measure of intelligence based
on a scale of which 100 is average
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale:
• Originally meant for children; adapted for adults
• Groups test items by age level
• 100 is average for given age
Wechsler Tests:
• More common today
• Three versions (2-6, 6-16, 16-89)
•More detailed scoring
•Normal Distribution - The distribution of scores
(commonly called IQ scores) on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
follows an approximately normal curve, an average distribution of
values. The test is regularly adjusted so that the median score is 100—
that is, so that half of the scores fall above 100, and half fall below.
IQ SCORES – What do they mean?
Average score is 100
Traditionally 70 or below = mentally handicapped
Good indicator of success in school
Do not predict success in the real world
Nature v. Nurture: Both genetic factors & the environment play a
role in IQ. The % each contributes is debatable.
Cultural Bias: wording used in questions may be more familiar to
people or one social group than to another group
Illinois State Police