Cognition
Memory
Thinks of the brain like a computer
 Simplified version of reality
 Three steps:
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◦ Both take in information (encoding)
◦ Both store information (storage)
◦ Both get the information back out to be used (retrieval)
Information Processing Model
1. record information that might be remembered in
sensory memory (< 30 seconds)
 2. Information that is processed goes to short-term
memory, where it is encoded through rehearsal (roughly
1 minute)
 3. Rehearsed info moves to long-term memory to be
retrieved later
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Atkinson/Shiffrin Info Proccessing
Modified (modern) Info Processing
◦ Some information is processed unconsciously, automatically, and
directly to long-term memory (skips steps 1 and 2)
◦ “short-term” changed to “working” – focuses on important
aspects of sensory memory and combines them with previously
learned items from long-term memory; also solves problems
2 updates in the modern model
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Connectionism: memories are specific activation patterns
of neural networks
Really Modern Theory
Can be automatic or effortful
 Automatic processing depends on parallel processing
 Used for
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◦ Space: Visually, where was information on the page? Where did
you turn to get to the store?
◦ Time: You automatically remember what order things happened
in (what if this were not true?)
Encoding: Automatic Processing
◦ Frequency – how many times things happen
◦ Well-learned information – such as words in your native
language
Processing that initially takes effort can become
automatic (like reading)
 Automatic processing can make mistakes, similar to topdown processing
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Spring is the
The most beautiful
Time of the year
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Requires attention and conscious effort
Makes more durable memories
Rehearsal helps: repeating material more often increases
retention
Repeating material after you have learned it
(overlearning) also increases retention
Demonstration of rehearsal
Encoding: Effortful Processing
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Information is retained better when rehearsal is spread
out over time
Study enough to learn something, then come back the
next day to practice
The longer the time between practice sessions, the better
the retention years later
Rehearsing by testing also improves retention
(sometimes better than studying)
CRAMMING IS NOT AS EFFECTIVE AS STUDYING EVERY
DAY
Spacing Effect
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Midterms are coming! Optional experiment to help you
prepare:
Study 5 days a week for 10 minutes on two units/week
and keep a log of your time
The next Monday, stop by before or after school and take
a short review quiz
Get at least one point added to your midterm for each
completed quiz and log pair
This week: units 1 and 2
An Experiment on the Spacing Effect
Demonstration of the serial positioning effect
 People immediately remember the last item of a list best
(recency effect – term still in working memory)
 People later remember the first item of a list well
(primacy effect – more rehearsal, less interference)
 Items in the middle of the list are remembered relatively
poorly
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Serial Positioning Effect
Figure 7A.6 The serial position effect Immediately after Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd introduces this long line of officials
to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Karzai will probably recall the names of the last few people best. But later Karzai may
recall the first few people best.
From Craik & Watkins, 1973
© 2010 by Worth Publishers
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Semantic encoding is based on meaning
Memorizing meaningful information requires 1/10th of the
effort needed to process nonsense info (demonstration)
Rephrasing in your own words is semantic encoding
Self-reference effect: information that we relate to
ourselves is remembered best
Most effective type of encoding
Types of Encoding: Semantic
Vivid images are encoded well – causes rosy
retrospection, or only remembering the best parts of an
experience
 Works best on concrete words that have definite images
 Many mnemonics are visual - ex: peg-word system,
method of loci
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Types of Encoding: Visual
Based on sound of words
 Rhyming can help encode more effectively and
permanently
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◦ Ex: “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit,” “Twenny fo’, no
more po’”
Example of acoustic mnemonic: keyword system – find a
word that sounds like what you need to remember
 Setting to music also helps
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Types of Encoding: Acoustic
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First letter method – ex: PEMDAS, My Very Excellent
Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas, All Cows Eat Grass
◦ Useful for when the order of terms is important
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Substitution method – substitute each number for a
letter (companies do this with phone numbers all the
time) or substitute each word for a number (usually the
number of letters that are in the word)
A few more mnemonics
Organizing information into meaningful units makes it
easier to remember
 Ex: Take 10 seconds to remember these numbers:
14921776151719452001
 Try it again with chunking: 1492 1776 1517 1945 2001
 Acronyms in the first-letter method (ROY G. BIV)
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Organizing Information: Chunking
Start with broad concepts and divide them into narrower
ideas down to individual facts
 Recall is better for words put into meaningful groups
 Taking notes in outline form is effective (most textbooks
are organized this way)
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Organizing Information: Hierarchies
Our senses temporarily record all the information that
they take in
 Iconic (visual) memory lasts a few tenths of a second
 Echoic (auditory) memory lasts 3-4 seconds
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Storage: Sensory Memory
Short term memory dies within 20 seconds with no
rehearsal
 The capacity of working memory is the “Magical Number
Seven, plus or minus two” (only four items without
rehearsal)
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Storage: Working Memory
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The brain does not store distinct memories in specific
locations
Memories are stored in groups of neurons that communicate
at synapses
In sea slugs, learning increases serotonin production at some
synapses, which makes them more effective
Long Term Potentiation (LTP) (increase in neuron’s firing
potential): Stimulating memory-circuits makes them more
sensitive
◦ sending neurons fire with a lower threshold
◦ receiving neurons grow more receptor sites
Storage: Long-Term Memory
Drugs that enhance the production of the protein CREB
may enhance LTP and therefore memory
 Drugs that boost NT glutamate may also improve
memory
 After LTP, disrupting the brain won’t destroy old
memories but will destroy very recent memories that
have not had time to be processed
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Amygdala increases activity and proteins available in
memory-forming areas
Memories of traumatic experiences tend to be permanently
imprinted very quickly
“Flashbulb memories” of surprising/significant events are
clear and relatively accurate, but they can be rewritten with
rehearsal
Prolonged stress can shrink the hippocampus, decreasing
memory potential
Sudden stress may block older memories from being called
up
Stress Hormones and Memory
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AKA nondeclarative (can be used without being
described)
Some implicit memories are procedural – remembering
how to do something
Learning without awareness
No conscious recall
Motor skills and classical conditioning use implicit
memory
Formed in the cerebellum
Long-Term Memory: Implicit Memory
AKA declarative (people can talk about them)
 Uses conscious recall
 Facts and general knowledge; also personal
experiences
 Processed in hippocampus during slow-wave sleep
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◦ Left hippocampus is better at verbal info
◦ Right is better at visual-spatial info
Long-Term Memory: Explicit Memory
Explicit is explainable, implicit is impossible to explain
 We retain implicit memories from infancy and early
childhood but not explicit memories
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◦ hippocampus develops later
◦ most memories are stored with words that young children don’t
know
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Many brain-damaged amnesia patients retain the ability
to retrieve and encode implicit memories but not explicit
Contrasting Explicit and Implicit Memories
Alzheimer’s Disease: a senile plaque of proteins builds up
on neurons and kills them. Interferes with storage and
encoding by killing parts of networks where memories
are stored and areas that process new memories
 Korsakoff’s Syndrome – vitamin deficiency associated
with alcohol abuse. Associated with a smaller
hippocampus and steady decline in the ability to lay
down new memories and retain old ones, as well as
confabulation (making up information to fill in gaps in
memories)
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Encoding/Storage Problems
Recall
 Recognition
 Relearning more quickly
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◦ All signs of memory
Retrieval
Cues are words, sounds, smells, sights, or context that
you associate with something
 When you see a cue, the association calls up a memory
 The more cues you have the better you remember
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Retrieval: Cues
You remember things better in the same context in which
you learned them
 Experiments underwater vs on land
 May explain déjà vu – the experience may have the same
context as something you’ve done before
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Retrieval: Context Effects
Returning to your emotional/mental state at the time the
memory was encoded may help you retrieve the memory
 We tend to retrieve memories that are congruent with
our moods (remember negative events when we are sad)
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Retrieval – State-Dependent Memories
If we don’t pay attention to something, we won’t
remember it
 Older adults don’t encode things as quickly as younger
adults
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Forgetting: Encoding failure
Forgetting: Encoding failure
At first retention drops dramatically, but after a while it
levels off
 Physically, LTP changes wear off
 Newer learning disrupts original learning
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Forgetting: Storage Decay
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Interference
◦ Proactive – old learning disrupts new learning (go to last
semester’s classes by mistake), aka forward-acting
◦ Retroactive – new information disrupts old information
(forgetting former classmates’ names after meeting new people)
◦ Retroactive interference doesn’t happen to info learned in the
hour before sleep
Forgetting: Retrieval failure
Motivated forgetting – we forget details that don’t fit with
our current views
 Repression – Freud says we forget painful memories to
protect ourselves
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◦ Happens rarely if ever – most emotional memories don’t go away
Forgetting: Retrieval Failure
Misinformation effect – telling someone false information
will cause them to remember it instead of the truth
 Imagination effect – imaging events can cause us to
remember them as real
 Source amnesia – we forget where we got a memory
from (a story, real life, a dream)
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Memory Construction
Thinking
Language
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Phoneme – basic unit of sound
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“b”
“k”
“d”
“m”
“ah”
And so on
We know which differences in speech are meaningful and which
are not
Phonemes: building blocks of sound
How
 How
 How
 How
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many
many
many
many
phonemes in the word “cat”?
in the word “ball”?
in the word “hope”?
in the word “psychology?”
Phoneme practice
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A morpheme is the smallest possible unit of meaning
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“bat”
“man”
“ed”
“s”
“violet”
Morphemes: Building blocks of meaning
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What are (is) the
What are (is) the
What are (is) the
What are (is) the
What are (is) the
“dishwasher?”
morpheme(s)
morpheme(s)
morpheme(s)
morpheme(s)
morpheme(s)
in
in
in
in
in
the
the
the
the
the
word
word
word
word
word
“cow”?
“present”?
“jumped”?
“Asian?”
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Semantic rules affect meaning
◦ Ex: adding “ed” to the end of a verb means it happened in the
past
◦ Changing the endings of verbs to match plural nouns
Grammar: Semantic Rules
Syntax is the order in which words are used
 In English, we put adjectives before nouns and subjects
before verbs – “The blue skirt,” but this is not true in
other languages “La falda azul”
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Grammar: Syntax Rules
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“A verb crumpled the milk”
◦ This is grammatical, but it doesn’t make sense – syntax without
semantics
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Sometimes syntax leaves room for interpretation
◦ “The boy saw the man with the telescope.”
◦ This is useful for humor
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1 – Say a sentence that is syntactically correct but does
not have semantic meaning
2 – Describe your weekend plans in telegraphic speech.
3 – Give three examples of morphemes
4 – Give an example of a semantic or syntactical rule in a
language other than English
5 – Say five different phonemes
6 – Use one of the vocabulary words from this unit in a
sentence
Hot Potato
Babbling stage – 4 months, babies are capable of
producing any phoneme in any language
 10 months – most babbling uses phonemes of the
language spoken in the child’s home
 10 months – babies stop being able to distinguish
phonemes that are not part of their native language
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Stages of Speech production
One-word stage – (1 year) Children pack a sentence’s
worth of meaning into a single word
 Children learn about 1 word/week
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◦ “NO!”
◦ “down”
◦ “uh-oh”
◦ Children’s pronunciations are simplified because of their physical
limitations – they understand differences between adult
pronunciations of words
Stages of Speech Production
Two-word (telegraphic) stage (18 months)– generally
begins with nouns, verbs, and adjectives, in proper order
 Children learn about 1 word/day
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◦ “doggie run”
◦ “want juice”
◦ “allgone sock”
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Try to say something with telegraphic speech
Stages of Speech Production
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Skinner: Language is learned through operant
conditioning
◦ Association – put sounds with symbols and meaning
◦ Imitation – learn by repeating what is heard
◦ Reinforcement – children are reinforced for correct grammar and
vocabulary usage
Theories of Language Acquisition
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Problems with Skinner’s idea
◦ Children say things they have never heard before and have not
been taught (“I hate you, Daddy!”)
◦ Overgeneralization – application of rules when they do not apply
◦ Child: “My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we petted them”
◦ Mother: “Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?”
◦ Child: “Yes”
◦ Mother: “Did you say she held them tightly?”
◦ Child: “No, she holded them loosely”
Noam Chomsky: humans are born with innate language
abilities
 Universal grammar is at the root of every language (all
languages have the same parts of speech and types of
sentences
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Theories of Language Acquisition
At 7 months we learn to recognize statistical patterns of
language, such as where sounds divide into words and
which syllables commonly go together
The younger a person is, the easier it is for them to learn
a language and the more native-like their pronunciation
will be
 Children who are not exposed to language before age 7
have difficulty learning any language
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◦ Typically deaf children born to hearing, non-signing parents
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Languages can be learned after the critical period, but it
takes a lot more effort
The Critical Period
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People who speak multiple languages often describe
themselves differently in one language vs the other
◦ Score differently on personality tests
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Show better understanding of their first language than
monolinguals do
Bilinguilism
Theory: Our vocabularies determine what we can think
 Ignores visual aspect of thinking
 Studies:
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◦ gendered languages describe objects differently
◦ Korean children who learn verbs before nouns do better at
solving problems with tools (actions), but English-speaking
children are initially better at categorizing things (nouns)
Linguistic Determinisim
Cognitive maps can be made of places we are familiar
with and places we have never been
 Visual imagery can be measured on clarity and our
control in manipulating it
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Visual Thinking