Chapter 7
Human Memory
Human Memory: Basic Questions We
Will Answer This Chapter
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How does information get into memory?
How is information maintained in memory?
How is information pulled back out of memory?
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Today
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OBJECTIVES:
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ROLE OF ATTENTION
LEVELS OF ENCODING
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY
INFORMATION-PROCESSING MODEL
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Before we begin today. . .
A NOTE ABOUT YOUR
ASSIGNMENT FOR THIS
CHAPTER. IT IS VERY
DIFFICULT AND YOU
NEED TO PAY
ATTENTION TO THE
DETAILS OR YOU WILL
FAIL.
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YOUR
ASSIGNMENT
TONIGHT IS TO
FORGET THE
NUMBER
106
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YOU SHOULD ALL
TRY TO NOT
REMEMBER THE
NUMBER 106
BECAUSE YOU WILL
BE QUIZZED ON IT
TOMORROW
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Encoding: Getting Information Into
Memory
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The role of attention – PAY ATTENTION!!!
Focusing awareness – no multitasking
Selective attention = selection of input
– Our brain is always filtering information since it can’t ALL get
through
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Levels of Processing: Craik and
Lockhart (1972)
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Take 2 minutes to right down 1 example of: structural
encoding; phonemic encoding; and semantic
encoding
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Incoming information processed at different levels:
Deeper processing = longer lasting memory codes
Encoding levels:
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– Structural (Visual) = shallow
– Phonemic (Acoustic) = intermediate
– Semantic (Meaning) = deep
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Which type works best?
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Quiz Question
Darren was asked to memorize a list of letters
that included v, q, y, and j. He later recalled
these letters as e, u, i, and k, suggesting
that the original letters had been encoded
A. Automatically
B. Structurally(Visually)
C. Semantically
D. Phonemically (Acoustically)
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Enriching Encoding: Improving
Memory
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Elaboration = linking a stimulus to other information
at the time of encoding
– Thinking of examples
• Self-generated examples work best (self-referent)
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Visual Imagery = creation of visual images to
represent words to be remembered
– Easier for concrete objects: Dual-coding theory says both
visual and semantic get encoded, since either can lead to
recall
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Self-Referent Encoding
– Making information personally meaningful
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Storage: Maintaining Information in
Memory
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Analogy: information storage in computers ~
information storage in human memory (fig.7.2)
Information-processing model (fig.7.3)
– Subdivide memory into 3 different stores
• Sensory, Short-term, Long-term
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Information Processing
Model
1. Encoding
gone
2. Storage
Long Term Memory
3. Retrieval
All the rest
External
Stimuli
Retrieval
Sensory Registers
Attention
Short Term Memory
Sensory Memory
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Brief preservation of information in original sensory
form
Auditory/Visual – approximately ¼ second
– George Sperling (1960)
• Classic experiment on visual sensory store
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Iconic (visual) memory – sensory images - ¼ sec
Echoic (auditory) memory – sensory sounds – 3
sec.
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Figure 7.1 – Nickerson & Adams (1979) –
Which is the correct penny?
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Penny
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YOU HAVE 10 SEC. TO MEMEORIZE
THESE NUMBERS
1776181219151945
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Short Term Memory (STM)
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George Miller (1956) wrote a famous paper called “The
Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some
Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information,"
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Name one aspect of our lives where we use a 7-digit
number?
– Phone number
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Limited capacity – magical number 7 plus or minus 2
- Chunking – grouping familiar stimuli for storage
as a single unit
– Extends STM capacity
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STM
CHUNK
from
GOONIES
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Name one aspect of our lives where we use
chunking?
– Social security, credit card
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Limited duration – about 20 seconds without
rehearsal
– Rehearsal – the process of repetitively verbalizing or
thinking about the information
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STM
DEMO: MEMORY CAPACITY
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DEMO: ALL PURPOSE MEMORY
DEMONSTRATION
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LISTEN TO THE LIST OF WORDS I WILL READ
AFTER READING YOU WILL TRY AND RECALL
(WRITE DOWN ON SCRAP PAPER) AS MANY AS
POSSIBLE
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All-purpose memory demo
Bed
Toss
Quilt
Tired
Dark
Night
Silence
Artichoke
Fatigue
Turn
Clock
Night
Snoring
Rest
Night
Dream
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Short-Term Memory as “Working
Memory”
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Baddeley (1986) – 3 components of working memory
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Phonological rehearsal loop
Visuospatial sketchpad
Episodic buffer
Executive control system
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xxx 7.11
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Long-Term Memory: Unlimited
Capacity
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Our more or less permanent memory store
Almost unlimited capacity and duration
Permanent storage?
– Flashbulb memories – not always accurate
– Recall through hypnosis – can be false memories
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READ THE FOLLOWING WORDS AND
WRITE DOWN THE NAMES OF THE
DIFFERENT GROUPS YOU SHOULD
PLACE EACH INTO:
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grapes table bus apple chair airplane desk banana
sofa car train plum lamp motorcycle strawberry
dresser bicycle peach
fruits, furniture, transportation
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How is Knowledge Represented and
Organized in Memory?
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Clustering -tendency to remember similar or related
items in groups, and Conceptual Hierarchies multilevel classification systems based on common
properties among items. ex.- Animal-mammal-dogbeagle
Schemas -organized clusters of knowledge about a
particular object or event abstracted from previous
experience and Scripts -particular type of schema,
organizing what a person knows about common
activities.
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37. In a memory study, the experimenter reads
the same list of words to two groups. She asks
group A to count the letters in each word, and
she asks group B to focus on the meaning of each
word for a later memory quiz. During a recall test,
participants in group B recall significantly more
words than participants in group A. Memory
researchers attribute this effect to differences in
(A) priming
(B) levels of processing
(C) proactive interference
(D) procedural memory
(E) episodic memory
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Quiz Question
Your consciously activated but limited-capacity memory is
called ________ memory.
A.
short-term
B.
Implicit
C.
Echoic
D.
Explicit
E.
Semantic
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REVIEW
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WHAT IS THE DURATION & CAPACITY OF STM?
20 SEC., 7 +/- 2 UNITS
HOW CAN YOU EXTEND STM’S 20 SEC.
DURATION?
 REHEARSAL
 A GROUP OF FAMILIAR STIMULI STORED AS A
SINGLE UNIT
 WHAT IS CHUNKING?
 SEMANTIC ENCODING IS WHICH LEVEL OF
PROCESSING?
 DEEP
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How is Knowledge Represented and
Organized in Memory?
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Clustering and Conceptual Hierarchies – F 7.13
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Schemas and Scripts – Shank & Abelson (1977)
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Semantic Networks – Collins & Loftus (1975) – Figure 7.14
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Connectionist Networks and PDP Models – McClelland and
colleagues - pattern of activity – neuron based model
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Figure 7.14 A semantic network..
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Automatic Processing
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Unconscious encoding of incidental
information.
Examples: what table you were
seated at a restaurant; what you ate
for breakfast, where on the page a
word was, who you saw on the way
to class today.
Things can become automatic with
practice (when you first learn a new
word, every time you hear it, you
consciously and effortfully pull up
the definition from meaning; after
hearing it 50 times, you can
understand the word without effort
– reading Shakespeare.)
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Effortful Processing
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Encoding that requires attention and conscious
effort.
Examples: vocabulary for school, dates, names
Rehearsal is the most common
It depends on the amount of time spent
processing the information.
Overlearning (reviewing things you already know)
enhances retention.
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Spacing Effect
We increase longterm retention
when we study or
practice over time.
 Cramming is an
inefficient means of
studying (ie,
cramming = less
time for guitar
hero)
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Serial Positioning Effect
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We tend to remember the beginning (primacy effect) and end
(recency effect) of a list best.
Primacy effect is stronger than recency effect if there is a
delay between the list and recall.
Words remembered
Order on list
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Retrieval: Getting Information Out of
Memory
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The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon – a failure in
retrieval
– Retrieval cues
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Recalling an event
– Context cues – “What president comes after Nixon?” – car
– State-dependent retrieval – retrieval is better if you’re in the
same mental disposition
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Reconstructing memories
– ELIZABETH LOFTUS STUDY
• Eyewitness testimony of a car crash
-misinformation effect
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Forgetting: When Memory Lapses
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Retention – the proportion of material retained
– Recall
– Recognition
– Relearning
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Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve
– Non-sense syllables
– Curve is very steep-most information is forgotten in the
first 9 hours, then it levels off over the next few weeks
– Controversial due to non-sense syllables
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Why Do We Forget?
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Ineffective Encoding -pseudoforgetting
Decay theory
Interference theory
– Proactive (forward acting)- previously learned information
interferes with the retention of new information
– Retroactive (backward acting) - new information impairs the
retention for previously learned information
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Retrieval Failure
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Encoding Specificity - the closer a retrieval cue is to
the way we encode the info, the better we are able to
remember.
Repression – Freud’s term for motivated forgetting
of painful, traumatic or unpleasant memories
– Authenticity of repressed memories?
– Memory illusions
– Controversy
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REVIEW
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WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE MEMORY
RECOVERY PROBLEM THAT LOFTUS SHOWED
IN HER EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY (CAR CRASH)
STUDY?
MISINFORMATION EFFECT OR FALSE
MEMORIES
ESSAYS QUESTIONS USE WHICH TYPE OF
MEMORY RETRIEVAL?
RECALL
WHAT’S THE TERM FOR FREUD’S ‘MOTIVATED
FORGETTING’ OF PAINFUL MEMORIES
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REPRESSION
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The Physiology of Memory
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Biochemistry
– Alteration in synaptic transmission
• Hormones modulating neurotransmitter systems
– Cortisol helps make flashbulb memories
• Protein synthesis - if you give drugs that interfere with protein
synthesis, memory is impaired
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Neural circuitry
– Localized neural circuits
• Reusable pathways in the brain - may be specific for specific memories
• Long-term potentiation - long-lasting increase in neural excitability at
synapses along a specific neural pathway.
• Consolidation theory – gradual process of making memories
permanent over time
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Anatomy
– Anterograde (for subsequent events)
– Retrograde Amnesia (for prior events)
• Cerebral cortex, Prefrontal Cortex, Hippocampus,
• Dentate gyrus (Hippocampus), Amygdala, Cerebellum Table of Contents
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Explicit (Declarative) involves intentional recall
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Episodic Memories
– Bday, graduation, Christmas
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Semantic Memories
– Concept-based knowledge,
facts,
Formed by the hippocampus;
stored in the cerebral cortex.
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Implicit (Non-declarative) incidental, unintentional remembering
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Procedural Memories
– Locking doors, shooting a
basketball, etc
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Conditioned Memories
– Salivating, blinking, etc.
Formed by the
cerebellum; stored in the
cerebral cortex.
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Neuroanatomy and memory
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Hippocampus is
the chief structure
implicated in
episodic and
semantic
memories
(Tulving)
 Plays a role is
“fixing” memories
during time after
learning
 Clive Wearing
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Clive Wearing
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12 mins Part 1
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Part 2 30 mins
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Learner.org
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TECHNIQUES
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Method of Loci
 As an aid to memorizing lengthy speeches, ancient Greek
orators would visualize themselves moving through familiar
locations
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Peg Word System
 Memorize a master list: “one is a bun, two is a shoe…”
 Use the same list, once you’ve memorized it, on any other list
and visualize the 1st item on the list in between a hot dog bun, and
the second being inside a shoe, etc.
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REVIEW:
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WHICH MEMORY SYSTEM HANDLES PERSONAL EVENTS SUCH
AS YOUR FIRST KISS OR YOUR GRADUATION?
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WHICH MEMORY SYSTEM IS A GOLFER USING WHEN THEY
SWING THE GOLF CLUB?
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IMPLICIT (NON-DECLARATIVE)
LONG-LASTING INCREASE IN NEURAL EXCITABILITY AT
SYNAPSES ALONG A SPECIFIC NEURAL PATHWAY IS THE
DEFINITION OF WHAT TERM?
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EXPLICIT (DECLARATIVE)
LONG-TERM POTENTIATION
GRADUAL PROCESS OF MAKING MEMORIES PERMANENT OVER
TIME IS THE DEFINITION ON WHAT TERM?
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CONSOLODATION THEORY
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WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MEMORIES WOULD
BE CONTAINED IN AN INDIVIDUAL’S SEMANTIC
MEMORY?
– GRADUATION PARTY, HOW TO PARK A CAR, A
TEACHERS NAME, BROKEN ARM THEN THEY WERE 10
– TEACHERS NAME
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Quiz Question
Memory of facts is to ________ as memory of skills is to
________.
A.
brainstem; hippocampus
B.
Explicit memory; implicit memory
C.
Automatic processing; effortful processing
D.
Short-term memory; long-term memory
E.
Iconic; echoic
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93. Memory for automatic activities, such as bike
riding and handwriting, is known as
(A) declarative
(B) semantic
(C) sensory
(D) procedural
(E) repressed
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