VISUALIZING
Prepared By:
Ralph Hofmann, Durham College
Chapter 7:
Memory
Media Enhanced PowerPoint  Presentation
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Lecture Overview
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The Nature of Memory
Biological Bases of Memory
Forgetting
Memory Distortions
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T h e N a t u r e
o f M e m o r y
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Review the principles of the two major memory
models.
Describe the different purposes of sensory memory,
short-term memory, and long-term memory.
Understand the relationship between short -term and
working memory.
Identify the ways of extending the duration and
capacity of short-term memory.
Describe the various types of long-term memory.
Explain how organization, elaborative rehearsal, and
retrieval cues improve long-term memory.
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The Nature of Memory
• Memory
– An internal record or representation of some
prior event or experience
• Constructive and re-creative process
– We actively organize and shape information
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How Does Memory
Work?
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Information Processing
Model
• Information goes through three basic levels of
processing by the brain
• Encoding
– Sensory information is converted to a neural code
• Storage
– In the appropriate area of the brain
• Retrieval
– Searches for stored “files” and brings them back
into short-term memory
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Information Processing
Model
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Selective or Focused
Attention
• Information gets in to be encoded because we
pay attention to something
– Focused awareness is when we direct at some object
or event while tuning out everything else
• Elective attention
– We tend to process information at a deeper level and
enhance memory
• Divided attention
– Results in “attentional multitasking” in which neither
task gets adequate attention
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Three-Stage Memory
Model
• Memory comprises three different storage
“boxes” or memory stages
• Each has a different purpose, duration and
capacity
• Storage boxes
– Sensory
– Short-term
– Long-term
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Three-Stage Memory
Model
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Sensory Memory: First
Impressions
• First stage
– Everything we see, hear, taste and smell first
enters sensory memory
• Large capacity but only lasts a few seconds
– If we attend to new information, it moves on to
short-term memory
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Iconic versus Echoic
Memory
• Iconic memory
– Visual information lasts
around 0.5 seconds
• Echoic memory
– Auditory memory lasts
the same
– Weaker echo can last up
to 4 seconds
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Sperling’s Experiment
with Sensory Memory
• When flashed an
arrangement of 12
letters for 1/20 of a
second, most people
can only recall 4 or 5.
• Sperling proved all 12
letters were available in
sensory memory if they
can be attended to
quickly.
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Short-Term Memory
• Also thought of as working memory
• Temporarily stores and processes sensory
stimuli that has been attended to
• If it meaningful, it will be sent to long-term
memory
• Capacity limited to seven items (plus or
minus two)
• Duration lasts about 30 seconds
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Improving Short-Term
Memory
• Chunking
– Grouping separate pieces of information
together into a single unit or chunk
– Telephone numbers, credit cards, etc.
– Increases capacity
• Maintenance rehearsal
– Repeating information to keep it active and
reverberating in short-term memory
– Increases duration
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Components of ShortTem Memory
• Central executive
– Supervises and coordinates two subsystems
• Visuospatial sketchpad
– Mentally images visual and spatial material
• Phonological loop
– Rehearses through speech, words and numbers
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Components of ShortTerm Memory
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Long-Term Memory
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Stores information for long periods of time
Capacity is limitless
Duration is relatively permanent
Several types exist but there are two major
systems of long-term memory
– Explicit/declarative
– Implicit/nondeclarative
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Explicit/Declarative
• Refers to intentional learning or conscious
knowledge
• Semantic memory
– Memory for general knowledge, rules, facts
and specific information
• Episodic
– Mental journal of personal experiences
– May be short lived and others may last a
lifetime
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Implicit/
Nondeclarative
• Non conscious learning or acquiring
knowledge unintentionally
• Procedural motor skills
• Classically conditioned responses
– Fears, phobias, or taste aversions
• Priming
– Prior exposure to a stimulus inhibits the
processing of new information
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Types of Long-Term
Memories
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Improving Long-Term
Memory
• Organization
• Rehearsal or repetition
• Effective retrieval
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Organization
• To successfully encode information, we
need to organize it into hierarchies
• Arrange related items into broad categories
that are further divided and subdivided
• Similar to chunking
• Takes time and effort
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Rehearsal
• Improves encoding for both STM and LTM
• Elaborative rehearsal
– Deeper level of processing required for LTM
– Links new information to previously stored
material
• Immediate goal is to understand the
material better
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Elaborative Rehearsal
• Understanding and memory
may be enhanced by
elaborating on previously
known information
• Using knowledge of geography
to better understand history
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Retrieval
• Effective retrieval is critical to improving LTM
• Retrieval cues
– A cue or prompt that helps stimulate retrieval
• Specific cues
– Requires only that you recognize the required
response
• General cues
– Requires search through all possible matches
– Much more difficult task
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Recall versus
Recognition Memory
• Recall tasks such as
an essay question are
much more difficult
• A recognition task
such as multiple
choice tend to be
easier
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Longevity and
Recognition Memory
• Both name and picture recognition for high
school classmates remain high many years
after graduation
• Recall memory would be expected to drop
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Mnemonic Devices
• Method of loci
– Attach different pieces
of information to a
location e.g. walk
through a garden
• Peg words
– Attach items to images
or pegs
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Mnemonic Devices
• Acronyms
– Create a new code word from the first letters of
the items you want to remember, e.g., the Big
Five personality traits (see Chapter 12):
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
= OCEAN
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Retrieval
• One important contextual cue is location
• Encoding specificity principle
– Retrieval of information is improved when the
conditions of recovery are similar to the
conditions of encoding
• Mood congruence
– People learn better if their moods during
encoding and retrieval match
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Biological Bases of
Memory
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Describe two kinds of biological
changes that occur when we learn
something new.
2. Identify the primary brain areas
involved in memory.
3. Explain how injury and disease can
affect memory.
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Biological Bases of
Memory
• Repeated practice builds specific neural
pathways
• Long term potentiation
– Long term increase in neural excitability caused
by repeated neural input
– Believed to be the basis of learning and
memory
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Long Term Potentiation
• Repeated stimulation of a synapse causes
more dendrites to grow more spines
– Strengthens the synapse
– More sensitive because action potential can
affect more downstream neurons
• Learning affects a particular neurons ability
to release neurotransmitters
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Hormonal Changes and
Memory
• Emotional arousal often leads to stronger
memory
– Release fight-or-flight hormones
– Affect the amygdala which signals the
hippocampus and cerebral cortex
• Flashbulb memory
– Vivid images of circumstances associated with
surprising or strongly emotional events
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Where Are Memories
Located?
• Memories housed in a
vast network of
associations located
throughout the brain
• More of a process than
an anatomical structure
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Brain and Memory
Formation
• Amygdala
– Emotion and memory
• Basal ganglia
– Creation and storage of basic memory, trace and implicit
memories
• Hippocampal formation
– Memory recognition, implicit, explicit, spatial, episodic
memory, sequence of events
• Cortex
– Encoding of explicit memories, storage of episodic and
semantic memories, skill learning, working memory
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Injury, Disease and
Memory Loss
• Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when an
external force injuries the brain
– Damage caused by compression, twisting,
penetration or distortion
• Usually caused by falls, car crashes and
misadventure
• Amnesia is a common outcome
– Loss of memory as a result of brain injury or
trauma
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Amnesia
• Retrograde amnesia
– Amnesia for events that occurred just before an
injury
– Thought to be caused by a failure of consolidation
– Usually temporary
• Anterograde amnesia
– Most commonly caused by surgical damage or
disease
– Cannot form new memories
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Amnesia
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Alzheimer’s Disease
• Progressive mental deterioration
characterized by memory loss
• Note the reduced activity in the temporal
and parietal lobes in the PET scan on the
left
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F o r g e t t i n g
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Describe Ebbinghaus’ research on
learning and forgetting.
2. Outline five key theories of why we
forget.
3. Explain the factors that contribute
to forgetting.
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Ebbinghaus Research
• Calculated how long it to learn and
remember a list of three letter syllables
• Plotted forgetting curve
– Found that forgetting occurs most rapidly after
learning
– Relearning is a faster process than learning
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Ebbinghaus Research
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Theories of Forgetting
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Decay
Interference
Encoding failure
Retrieval failure
Motivated forgetting
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Theories of Forgetting
• Decay
– Memory degrades over time
– Skills and memory degrade if they go unused
• Interference
– Forgetting is caused by two competing memories
– One memory interferes with the other
– Retrograde interference
• New information interferes with old
– Proactive interference
• Old information interferes with new
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Theories of Forgetting
• Motivated forgetting
– Motivation to forget unpleasant, painful of
embarrassing memories
• Encoding failure
– LTM does not encode information as it passes
from STM
• Retrieval failure
– Memories in LTM are momentarily inaccessible
– Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
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Errors in Remembering
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•
•
•
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Misinformation effect
Serial position effect
Source amnesia
Sleeper effect
Spacing of practice
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Errors in Remembering
• Misinformation effect
– Distortion of a memory by misleading post
event information
– Experimenters created false memories in
subjects by showing them doctored photos or
asking them to imagine a fictitious event
• Serial position effect
– Subjects remember words at the beginning of a
list (primacy effect) and at the end of the list
(recency effect)
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Errors in Remembering
• Source amnesia
– Forgetting the source of the information due to
overload
– Removes the context from the memory
• Sleeper effect
– When we hear information from an unreliable
source, it is easy to discount it
– If the source of the information is forgotten, it
is more likely to be accepted
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Errors in Remembering
• Spacing of Practice
– When we try to learn too much at once, we
learn and remember less
• Distributed practice
– Spacing learning periods with rest periods
between sessions
• Massed practice
– Cramming
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M e m o r y
D i s t o r t i o n s
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Explain why our memories
sometimes become distorted
2. Describe the dangers of relying on
eyewitness testimony
3. Summarize the controversy
surrounding repressed memories
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Memory Distortions
• We shape, rearrange and distort our
memories for a variety of reasons
• Need for logic and consistency
– Fill in the missing pieces, make “corrections”
and rearrange information
• For the sake of efficiency
– Summarize, augment and tie new information
in with old memories
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Memory and the
Criminal Justice System
• Errors in memory can lead to wrongful
judgements of guilt or innocence
• Occasionally life-or-death decisions
• Two general sources of problems
– Eye witness testimony
– Repressed memory
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Memory and Eyewitness
Testimony
• Tends to be persuasive but often flawed
• Research has shown that it was relatively
easy to influence eyewitness accounts and
create false memories
• Judges now
– Allow expert testimony on the unreliability of
eye witness testimony
– Routinely instruct jurors on its limits
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Eyewitness Testimony
• Witnessing or being a
victim of a violent crime
is an extremely
emotional event
• Emotional events tend
to make stronger
flashbulb memories
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Elizabeth Loftus
• Well known memory
researcher
• Long described
powerful childhood
memories of finding her
mother dead
• Later found to be other
family members that
found the body
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Repressed Memories
• Repression
– Supposed unconscious coping mechanism by
which we prevent anxiety-provoking thoughts
from reaching consciousness
• Theories around repressed memories
– Consciously forgotten in effort to avoid pain of
retrieval
– Memories so painful that they exist only in an
unconscious corner of the brain
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Repressed Memory
• Criticisms
– Critics suggest that most people will have
difficulty forgetting traumatic events
– Some thought that therapists inadvertently
create false memories
• Debate
– Not all repressed memories are false
– Significant impact on criminal prosecutions,
lawsuits etc.
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Multimedia
Web Links
Exploratorium
Memory
Exploratorium
The Meaning of Droodles
Human Memory
How does the mind store information? What kinds of
memory do people have? How easy is it for you to
remember certain things? In the following
experiments, you can learn something about human
minds.
Human Memory
Exploring Human Memory
Short Term Memory
Baddeley’s model of working memory has proven
especially fruitful for research on the brain areas
involved. This model posits a central processor that
coordinates the activity of two sub-systems. Many
brain-imaging studies show high activity in the
frontal lobe when this central processor is working.
Face Memory Game
How is your memory for faces?
Don’t Forget!
Playing games with memory
Forgetting Fear
Whether they're unexplained phobias or fears that
stem from a bad experience, most of us are afraid of
something. But can we ever get over our fears?
Scientists are looking for the answer — in our brains.
This ScienCentral News video has more.
Coffee Break Brain
Here's a reason to tell your boss to "give you a
break." As this ScienCentral News video explains,
scientists working with rats say breaks from activities
may help your memory.
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Multimedia
Web Links
Making Memories
Ever been in a spot where you can’t put a
name to a face or a face to a name? As this
ScienCentral News video reports,
neuroscientists have more information about
what happens in the brain as these memories
are made.
Researchers Prove A Single Memory Is
Processed in Three Separate Parts of the
Brain
UCI researchers have found that a single brief
memory is actually processed differently in
separate areas of the brain – an idea that until
now scientists have only suspected to be true.
The finding will influence how researchers
examine the brain and could have implications
for the treatment of memory disorders caused
by disease or injury.
Researcher Identifies Brain Activity That “Sets
the Stage” for Retaining Memory
Researchers have identified the neural activity
that occurs when the brain “sets the stage” for
retaining a memory – a finding that could have
important implications for memory research
and help determine ways in which people can
strengthen memories they want to retain
while weakening ones they would rather
forget.
Sheep Brain Dissection
The Anatomy of Memory
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Web Links
Multimedia
How The Brain Creates False Memories
Lawyers are often suspicious of so-called "eyewitness accounts" and rightly so. Hundreds of
scientific studies in the past few decades have
shown that the memories of people who
observe complex events are notoriously
susceptible to alteration if they receive
misleading information about the event after it
has taken place. In this month's issue of the
journal Learning & Memory, scientists from
Johns Hopkins University report new insights
into how such "false memories" are formed.
This is the first study to use neuroimaging to
investigate how the brain encodes
misinformation during the creation of a false
memory.
Can You Force Yourself to Forget?
One psychologist says he's discovered a
mechanism that could explain how people
suppress unwanted memories; others disagree.
False Food Memories
If your first taste of potato chips or chocolate
had made you sick, your eating habits today
might be different. As this ScienCentral News
video explains, psychology researchers suggest
that changing memories about food could
change what we choose to eat.
Memory and Reality
Some of our memories are true, some are a
mixture of fact and fantasy, and some are false
-- whether those memories seem to be
continuous or seem to be recalled after a time
of being forgotten or not thought about.
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Videos
Multimedia
Brain Viagra, Part 2 (1:39)
There’s a huge market for substances that
claim to boost memory, but when can we
expect drugs designed and proven to do that?
Drive Brain Power (1:39)
Three years ago a study showed parts of the
brain controlling learning and memory were
bigger in London cab drivers' brains, to help
store detailed mental maps of the city. Does it
really take big brains to be a cab driver?
Learning to Forget (0:54)
Many Americans are still searching for ways to
escape the anxiety caused by September 11th.
Alzheimer’s Scans (1:31)
A new 3-D time-lapse video technique is
helping neuroscientists see the progression of
Alzheimer’s disease in patients’ brains for the
first time. As this ScienCentral News video
reports, it will help in early diagnosis and
intervention.
Brain Pills (1:46)
You may have used over-the-counter pills like
ibuprofen for pain. Now neuroscientists have
found that some of these common painkillers
may be more useful than you think.
Wiring the Brain (1:21)
Interested in continuing education? Here's
some good news. As this ScienCentral News
video reports, brain researchers have
uncovered one mechanism that controls how
our brains make new connections.
Memory Storage Video (1:33)
The new movie “Eternal Sunshine” shows us a
fictional way to erase the past, but what keeps
those thoughts around in the first place? As
the ScienCentral news video reports, brain
researchers are beginning to unwind a new
twist on maintaining memory.
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Multimedia
Animations
Enhancing Memory
Imagine that you are going to an interview for
an important position as a human relations
psychologist.
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