Chapter 9

1. Chapter 9 Memory Table of Contents Exit

2. Class Activity • Get out a piece of paper, please. • Choose one psychology topic to write about for five minutes. You may choose any topic we have covered/discussed since September. Be sure to choose something that you are knowledgeable about so you can write with detail and specifics.

3. Discussion • Why did you choose the topic you wrote about? Why did you do better writing about this topic compared to any of the other multiple topics you could have written about? • What would have been a second choice? Why?

4. KEY CONCEPTS

5. Key Concepts • Remembering is an active process. Memories are frequently lost, altered, revised, or distorted. • Different strategies are required to make the best use of short-term memory and long-term memory. • Remembering is not an all or nothing process. Information that appears to be lost may still reside in memory.

6. Key Concepts • An inability to retrieve information isn’t the only cause of forgetting. Often, memory failures occur because information wasn’t stored in the first place. • Extreme caution is warranted when “recovered” memories are the only basis for believing someone.

7. Key Concepts • Although it’s true that some people have naturally superior memories, everyone can learn to improve his or her memory. • Memory systems (mnemonics) greatly improve immediate memory. However, conventional learning tends to create the most lasting memories.

8. Memory: Some Key Terms • Memory: Active system that stores, organizes, alters, and recovers (retrieves) information • Encoding: Converting information into a useable form • Storage: Holding this information in memory • Retrieval: Taking memories out of storage Table of Contents Exit

9. Fig. 9.1 In some ways, a computer acts like a mechanical memory system. Both systems process information, and both allow encoding, storage, and retrieval of data. Table of Contents Exit

10. How Memory Works • Three stages of memory • Sensory Memory • Short-Term Memory • Long-Term Memory

11. Sensory Memory • Storing an exact copy of incoming information for a few seconds, either what is seen or heard. The first stage of memory. Holds memory just long enough to pass to the second memory system. • Icon: A fleeting mental image or visual representation • Echo: After a sound is heard, a brief continuation of the activity in the auditory system Table of Contents Exit

12. Short-Term Memory (STM) • Stores small amounts of information for a briefamount of time • Selective Attention: Focusing voluntarily on a selected portion of sensory input. Controls what goes into short-term memory • Phonetically stored information occurs through sound; how most things are stored in STM. • Short-term memories can also be stored through images Table of Contents Exit

13. Short-Term Memory • Temporary • Small amounts of information • Information is “quickly dumped” • Provides a “working area” where we do most of our thinking and problem solving • Holds information while other mental activities are taking place

14. Short-Term Memory • Very sensitive to interruption or interference • It is very difficult to do more than one than one task at a time in STM

15. Long-Term Memory (LTM) • Stores information relatively permanently • Stored on basis of meaning and importance • Can hold nearly limitless amounts of information Table of Contents Exit

16. Long-Term Memory • The more you know, the easier it becomes to add new information to memory (one reason for getting an education) • If you can link STM to knowledge already stored in LTM it gains meaning and becomes easier to remember.

17. Fig. 9.2 Remembering is thought to involve at least three steps. Incoming information is first held for a second or two by sensory memory. Information selected by attention is then transferred to temporary storage in short-term memory. If new information is not rapidly encoded, or rehearsed, it is forgotten. If it is transferred to long-term memory, it becomes relatively permanent, although retrieving it may be a problem. The preceding is a useful model of memory; it may not be literally true of what happens in the brain (Eysenck & Keane, 1995). Table of Contents Exit

18. Class Activity You will be working in pairs. Find your partner. Follow the direction on the paper. Do not share the information on the paper with your partner until you are told to do so.

19. Word List tree vase mailbox pretzels table fish water piano chair computer newspaper blanket baseball pan

20. Word List Results • How many did you get? Compare your results with your partner. • After comparing your list, share the information on the paper you were given with your partner. • Why do you think you had the differences that you had in recalling the word list?

21. Short-Term Memory Concepts • Magic Number 7 (Plus or Minus 2): STM is limited to holding seven (plus or minus two) information bits at once • Information Bit: Meaningful single piece of information • Information Chunks: Bits of information that are grouped into larger chunks Table of Contents Exit

22. Short-Term Memory Concepts • Recoding: Reorganizing or modifying information in STM (CHUNKING) • Maintenance Rehearsal: Repeating information silently to prolong its presence in STM • Rehearsed, the greater the chances of STM being stored in LTM Table of Contents Exit

23. Short-term Memory Concepts • Elaborative Rehearsal: Links new information with existing memories and knowledge in LTM • Good way to transfer STM information into LTM

24. REMEMBER!!! • AFTER 18 SECONDS, WITHOUT REHERSAL, SHORT-TERM MEMORIES ARE GONE FOREVER!!!

25. Long-term Memory Concepts • As new long-term memories are stored, older memories are often updated, changed, lost or revised • Revised memories often change in ways that enhance one’s self image • Memory gaps are filled with logic guessing or new information

26. Long-Term Memory Concepts • Constructive Processing: Updating long-term memories on basis of logic, guessing, or new information • Pseudo-Memories: False memories that a person believes are true or accurate Table of Contents Exit

27. Long-term Memory Concepts • Much is not known about the underlying biological mechanisms of long-term memory, but the process of long-term memory involves a physical change in the structure of the neurons, has been proposed as the mechanism by which short-term memories move into long-term storage.

28. Long-term Memory Concepts • Several recalls/retrievals of memory may be needed for long-term memories to last for years. • Dependent on the depth of processing • Individual retrievals happen through reflection and deliberate recall • Long-term memory is often dependent on the perceived importance of the material • Long-term memory is stored by growing additional synapses between neurons

29. Long-term Memory Concepts • What we remember depends on what we pay attention to, what we regard as important or meaningful, and what we feel strongly about (Schacter, 1996).

30. Long-term Memory Organization • Memory Structure: Pattern of associations among items of information in LTM • Network memory: memory organized as a network of linked ideas. • When ideas are “further apart” or “not obviously related” it takes a longer chain of associations to connect them • Redintegrative Memory: Memories that are reconstructed or expanded by starting with one memory and then following chains of association to related memories (photos)

31. Skill Memory and Fact Memory • Procedural: Long-term memories of conditioned responses and learned actions. • More basic elements of conditioning, learning and memory • Declarative: LTM factual information • Expressed in words and symbols • Semantic Memory: Impersonal facts and everyday knowledge • Episodic Memory: Personal experiences linked with specific times and places Table of Contents Exit

32. Fig. 9.7 In the model shown here, long-term memory is divided into procedural memory (learned actions and skills) and declarative memory (stored facts). Declarative memories can be either semantic (impersonal knowledge) or episodic (personal experiences associated with specific times and places). Table of Contents Exit

33. Check Your Knowledge • Page 333 & 339

34. Measuring Memory • Tip-of-the Tongue (TOT): Feeling that a memory is available but not quite retrievable Table of Contents Exit

35. Recall • Recall: Direct retrieval of facts or information • Hardest to recall items in the middle of a list; known as Serial Position Effect • Easiest to remember last items in a list because they are still in STM

36. Fig. 9.8 The serial position effect. The graph shows the percentage of subjects correctly recalling each item in a 15-item list. Recall is best for the first and last items. (Data from Craik, 1970.) Table of Contents Exit

37. Recognition • Recognition Memory: Previously learned material is correctly identified • Usually superior to recall • Distractors: False items included with a correct item • Wrong choices on multiple-choice tests • False Positive: False sense of recognition Table of Contents Exit

38. Relearning • Relearning: Learning again something that was previously learned

39. Types of Memory • Savings Score: Amount of time saved when relearning information • Explicit Memory: Past experiences that are consciously brought to mind • Implicit Memory: A memory not known to exist; memory that is unconsciously retrieved • Priming: When cues are used to activate hidden memories • Internal Images: Mental pictures Table of Contents Exit

40. Eidetic Imagery (Somewhat Like Photographic Memory) • Occurs when a person (usually a child) has visual images clear enough to be scanned or retained for at least 30 seconds • Usually projected onto a “plain” surface, like a blank piece of paper • Usually disappears during adolescence and is rare by adulthood Table of Contents Exit

41. Fig. 9.10 Test picture like that used to identify children with eidetic imagery. To test your eidetic imagery, look at the picture for 30 seconds. Then look at a blank surface and try to “project” the picture on it. If you have good eidetic imagery, you will be able to see the picture in detail. Return now to the text and try to answer the questions there. (Redrawn from an illustration in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.) Table of Contents Exit

42. Check Your Knowledge • Page 345

43. Forgetting Encoding Failure: When a memory was never formed in the first place • Memory Decay: When memory traces (physical changes in nerve cells or brain activity that occur when memories are stored) become weaker; fading or weakening of memories • Disuse: Theory that memory traces weaken when memories are not used or retrieved Table of Contents Exit

44. Fig. 9.11 The curve of forgetting. This graph shows the amount remembered (measured by relearning) after varying lengths of time. The material learned was nonsense syllables. Forgetting curves for meaningful information also show early losses followed by a long, gradual decline, but overall, forgetting occurs much more slowly. (After Ebbinghaus, 1885.) Table of Contents Exit

45. Fig. 9.13 Some of the distracter items used in a study of recognition memory and encoding failure. Penny A is correct but was seldom recognized. Pennies G and J were popular wrong answers. (Adapted from Nickerson & Adams, 1979.) Table of Contents Exit

46. Fig.9.12 Pick a card from the six shown. Look at it closely and be sure you can remember which card is yours. Now, tap all four corners of this page with your fingertip. When you’re done, look at Fig.9.14 Table of Contents Exit

47. Some More Theories of Forgetting • Memory Cue: Any stimulus associated with a memory; usually enhances retrieval of a memory • A person will forget if cues are missing at retrieval time • State-Dependent Learning: When memory retrieval is influenced by body state; if your body state is the same at the time of learning AND the time of retrieval, retrievals will be improved • If Robert is drunk and forgets where his car is parked, it will be easier to recall the location if he gets drunk again! Table of Contents Exit

48. Fig.9.14 Poof! The card you chose in Fig. 9.12 is gone. Obviously, you could have selected any one of the six cards in Fig.9.12. How did I know which one to remove? This trick is based entirely on an illusion of memory. Recall that you were asked to concentrate on one card in Fig.9.12. That prevented you from paying attention to the other cards, so they weren’t stored in your memory. The five cards you see here are all new (none were shown in Fig.9.12). Because you couldn’t find your card in the “remaining five,” it looked like your card had disappeared. Table of Contents Exit

49. Fig. 9.15 The effect of mood on memory. Subjects best remembered a list of words when their mood during testing was the same as their mood was when they learned the list. (Adapted from Bower, 1981.) Table of Contents Exit

50. Theories of Forgetting • Interference: Tendency for new memories to impair retrieval of older memories, and vice versa • Retroactive Interference: Tendency for new learning to interfere with retrieval of old learning • Proactive Interference: Prior learning inhibits (interferes with) recall of later learning Table of Contents Exit