Chapter 7
Memory: Encoding & Storage
The Nature of Memory
• Memory: the mental process by which
information is encoded and stored in the
brain and later retrieved
– Until the late 1950s, most psychologists
viewed memory as a single system.
– Due to technological advances outside the
discipline and scientific discoveries within,
psychologists dramatically changed their
views of memory.
The Computers’ Information-Processing
System Has Been a Useful Model for
Human Memory
• According to the information-processing model of
memory, there are three basic processes that
information goes through:
– Encoding process: incoming information is organized
and transformed so it can be entered into memory
– Storage process: involves entering and maintaining
information in memory for a period of time
– Retrieval process: involves recovering stored
information from memory so it can be used
Memory as Information-Processing
• In the encoding process, information from
our surroundings is transformed into neural
language through:
– Visual encoding: Information is represented in
memory as a picture.
– Acoustic encoding: Information is represented
in memory as a sequence of sounds.
– Semantic encoding: Information is represented
in memory by its meaning to you.
– The type of encoding used—visual, acoustic,
or semantic—can influence what is
remembered.
The Atkinson-Schiffrin Model
• Three memory systems or stages
– Sensory memory: a memory system that very briefly
stores the sensory characteristics of a stimulus
– Short-term memory: a limited-capacity memory system
where we actively “work” with information
– Long-term memory: a durable memory system that has
an immense capacity for information storage
Overview of the InformationProcessing Model of Memory
Sensory Memory
– Sensory memory serves as a holding area,
storing information just long enough for us to
select items for attention.
– Information not transferred to short-term
memory is quickly replaced by incoming stimuli
and lost.
– Sensory memory consists of separate memory
subsystems:
• Iconic memory: Visual sensory memory is the
fleeting memory of an image, or icon.
• Echoic memory: Auditory sensory memory is often
experienced like an echo.
Figure 21.1 Atkinson-Shiffrin’s three-stage processing model of memory
Myers: Exploring Psychology, Sixth Edition in Modules
Copyright © 2005 by Worth Publishers
Short-Term Memory:
a “Working Memory” System
• Short-term memory: the memory area
where we actively “work” with information
– Referred to as working memory and has three
basic components:
• Phonological loop: temporarily stores auditory input
• Visuospatial sketchpad: temporarily stores visual
and spatial images
• Central executive: supervises and coordinates the
other two components
Short-Term Memory as Working Memory
Short-Term Memory
• Encoding in short-term memory is much more
complex than what occurs in sensory memory
encoding.
– Organizing items of information into a meaningful unit,
which is called “chunking,” can greatly increase the
amount of information held in short-term memory.
– Information is stored in short-term memory for only about
18 seconds; time can be extended through maintenance
rehearsal, which is repetitively verbalizing or thinking
about information.
Encoding- Chunking
• Organized information is more easily recalled
Encoding Strategy 1:
Organization
• Chunking
– organizing into familiar, manageable units
• 1776149218121941
– use of acronyms
• HOMES-Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior
Encoding Strategy 2:
Meaning
Ebbinghaus – learning meaningful
information requires only 1/10 the
effort of learning nonsense
information.
Encoding Meaning
Wickelgren (1977)
The time you spend thinking about material
you are reading and relating it to
previously stored material is about the
most useful thing you can do in learning
any new subject matter.
Encoding into Long-Term Memory
• Elaborative rehearsal: rehearsal that
involves thinking about how new
information relates to information already
stored in long-term memory; involves
semantic encoding
• Semantic encoding
– Ignoring details and instead encoding the
general underlying meaning of information
Types of Encoding
Encoding
Effortful
Automatic
Encoding Strategy 3: Imagery
- mental pictures
- a powerful aid to effortful processing,
“piggybacks” on automatic processing
Mnemonics - memory aids
– especially those techniques that use vivid
imagery and organizational devices
– Method of loci, stories, peg-words
Storage
What Constitutes Long-Term
Memory?
– In the late 1970s and early 1980s, some
cognitive psychologists proposed that longterm memory consists of multiple systems
that encode and store different types of
information.
– Memory researchers are not in agreement
on how many long-term memory systems
exist.
Long-Term Memory Stores Different
Types of Information
• Explicit /Declarative
• Semantic memory: more general in nature
– General knowledge about the world
• Episodic memory: factual information
acquired at a specific time and place
– Events in own life—autobiographical memories
Long-Term Memory Stores Different
Types of Information
• Implicit/Non-Declarative
• Procedural memory: retains information of
how to perform skilled motor activities
– Habits, activities so well-learned that we carry
them out automatically.
• Results of conditioning
Long-Term Memories Can Be Explicit
or Implicit
• Explicit memory: the conscious
recollection of previous experiences
– Also referred to as declarative memory
– Episodic and semantic memories are explicit
memories.
Long-Term Memories Can Be Explicit
or Implicit
• Implicit memory: information that influences
our thoughts and actions without conscious
recollection
Long-Term Memory Subsystems
Types of
long-term
memories
Explicit
(declarative)
With conscious
recall
Semantic
Facts-general
knowledge
Episodic
Personally
experienced
events
Implicit
(nondeclarative)
Without conscious
recall
Skills-motor
and cognitive
Dispositionsclassical and
operant
conditioning
effects
Organization of Long-term Memory
Long-Term Memory Organization:
Semantic Networks
• Semantic network model: a theory that
describes concepts in long-term memory
organized in a complex network of
associations
– Cross-cultural studies indicate that the way
people use these networks is influenced by
experience and education.
A Semantic Network Model
Long-Term Memory Organization:
Schemas
• Semantic networks are less helpful in explaining
how information is clustered into coherent
wholes, called schemas.
• People are more likely to remember things that
can be incorporated into existing schemas than
things that cannot.
Information in Long-Term Memory Can Be
Organized around Schemas
• Participants given a schema in which to understand
a story recalled twice as many ideas.
• Further studies—schemas help us remember and
organize details and speed up processing time.
– Cross-cultural research indicates that cultural utility
plays an important role in what kind of schemas
develop and, thus, what is remembered.