MEMORY

1. MEMORY

2. Outline • Remembering • Memory Stages • The content of Long-term memory • Reliably of Long-term memory • Forgetting • Theories about why we forget • Measuring what we can remember • Memory loss • Memory problems and medical conditions • Powering up your memory

3. Memory • Practically all of our daily activities (talking, understanding, reading, socializing) depend on our capacity to receive and stored information from our environment. • Allows us to retrieve events from the distant past or from moments ago. • Enables us to learn new skills and to form habits. • Without the ability to access past experiences or information, we would be unable to comprehend language, recognize our friends and family members, find our way home, or even tie a shoe. • Life would be a series of disconnected experiences, each one new and unfamiliar.

4. Memory • Processes by which we encode, store, and retrieve information. • Encoding: • the initial perception and registration of information. • Storage: • the retention of encoded information over time. • Retrieval: • the processes involved in using stored information. • Whenever we successfully recall a prior experience, we must have encoded, stored, and retrieved information about the experience.

5. The Basic Process of Memory InformationEncodingStorageRetrival

6. Memory Encoding • We encode information in different ways: • Acoustically (coded by sound) • Visually (coded by mental pictures) • Semantically (coded by meaning)

7. Memory Storage Three-stage model • Sensory Memory • Retains an exact copy of what is seen (iconic) or heard (echoic). • It only lasts for a few seconds. • Information is lost or transferred to STM.  • Short-Term Memory (STM) • Store 7 + or – 2 bits of information for about 20-30 sec. • Information need to be rehearsed. • Information is transferred to LTM or will be lost. • Long-Term Memory (LTM) • Relatively permanent storage. • Information is stored on the basis of meaning and importance.

8. Memory Storage Process • After entering sensory memory, a limited amount of information is transferred into short-term memory. • Within STM, there are three basic operations:  • Iconic memory - The ability to hold visual images. • Acoustic memory - The ability to hold sounds. • Working memory - An active process to keep information until it is put to use (a phone number you'll repeat to yourself until you can dial it on the phone).

9. Memory Retrieval • Some memories are retrieved effortless but others depend on the availability of: • Retrieval Cues. • Cues associated with the original learning that facilitate the retrieval of memories. • Context-dependent memory effect • Tendency for information to be better recalled in the same context in which it was originally learned.

10. Information Processing Model

11. Content of LTM • Procedural Memory • Memory of how to do things. • Declarative Memory or Explicit Memory • Memory of fact and personal information. • Require conscious effort to bring it back to mind. • Examples: • We know that there are 50 States • We know that we attend MSC • Divide into: • Semantic Memory (memory of facts) • Episodic Memory (memory of personal experiences) • Can be: • Retrospective (memory of past experience) • Prospective (remembering to do something in the future)

12. Content of LTM

13. LTM: Preserving the Past • Consolidation • Process of converting STM into LTM • Elaborative Rehearsal • Process of transferring information from STM to LTM by consciously focusing on the meaning if the information.

14. Semantic Network Model • Information in LTM is stored in interrelated networks of schemas. • These form intricate knowledge structures. • Related schemas are linked together, and information that activates one schema also activates others that are closely linked. • This is how we recall relevant knowledge when similar information is presented.

16. Characteristics of LTM • LTM provides the framework to which we attach new knowledge. • The knowledge we store in LTM affects our perceptions of the world, and influences what information in the environment we attend to. • Our expectations regarding a particular experience influence how we interpret it. This is how we develop bias.

17. Reliability of LTM • Constructionist Theory • Memory is not a replica of the past, but a reconstruction of the past. • Memory Schema • Organized knowledge such as a set of beliefs that reflects our past experiences and expectations of the future.

18. Confabulations • Also known as False Memory • Rely on Reconstruction Theory • Confusion of imagination with memory. • Confusion of true memories with false memories.

19. Flashbulb Memories • Memories of extremely stressful or emotionally arousing personal or historical events. • May leave lasting and vivid memories. • May have inaccuracies or distortions.

20. Emotions and Memory • PTSD : Memories that won’t go away • Depression: Recall mainly negative events • Anxiety: negatively affect memory in general • Stress: negatively affect memory in general

21. Theories of Forgetting • Decay Theory • Gradual fading of memories as a function of time. • Interference Theory • Disruption of memory caused by interference of previously learned material or newly learned material. • Retrieval Theory • Failure to access material stored in memory because of encoding failure or lack of retrieval cues. • Repression Theory • Motivated forgetting of anxiety-provoking material.

22. Measuring Memory • Recall Tasks • Test of the ability to reproduce information held in memory with only minimal cues available • Remembering the phone number of a friend • Remembering the names of the 50 States • Recognition Tasks • Test of ability to recognize material held in memory • Recognizing the correct answer in a multiple choice test

23. Amnesia:The partial or complete loss of memory due to physiological or psychological causes • Retrograde Amnesia • Lost of memory of past events • For example: • Unable to remember details of car accident. • Anterogade Amnesia • Loss or impairment of the ability to form or store new memories. • Usually due to brain disorder person is unable to retain new information.

24. Psychogenic Amnesia • Results from a psychological cause as opposed to direct damage to the brain: • Dissociative Amnesia • inability to recall information, usually about stressful or traumatic events, such as a violent attack or rape. • Fuge/Dissociative Fugue • caused by psychological trauma and is usually temporary • Lacunar Amnesia • loss of memory about one specific event • Childhood Amnesia/Infantile Amnesia • inability to remember events from one's own childhood

25. Medical Conditions and Memory Problems • Hormonal imbalances • Thyroid disease • Cushing disease (overproduction of hormones by the adrenal gland) • Infectious diseases • AIDS • Neurosyphilis • Chronic meningitis • Tuberculosis

26. Medical Conditions and Memory Problems • Vitamin deficiencies (vitamin B1) • Korsakoff’s Syndrome due to: • Chronic alcoholism • Severe malnutrition • Traumatic Brain Injury/Brain Trauma • Neuro-degenerative Diseases • Alzheimer's Disease • Parkinson's Disease • Dementia

27. Medical Conditions and Memory Problems • Tumors of the frontal or temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex • Subdural hematoma (blood between the skull and the brain) • Hydrocephalia (excess fluid in the brain)

28. Powering up your Memory • Mnemonics (devises to improve memory) • Chunking • Acronyms • Rhymes • Visual imagery • Associating information with striking visual images. • Link system • Method of Loci

29. Practice: Chunking C N N C I A J F K I B M D N A CNN CIA JFK IBM DNA

30. Mnemonic: Acronyms • Rainbow Colors: Roy G. Biv • Red • Orange • Yellow • Green • Blue • Indigo • Violet

31. Mnemonic: Acronyms • Depression Symptoms: BAD CRISES Behavioral change (slowing down or agitation)Appetite change (weight loss or weight gain)Depressed look (looking down) Concentration decrease Ruminations (constant negative thoughts & hopelessness) Interest (reduced interest in what is normally pleasurable)Sleep change (insomnia or hypersomnia)Energy change (fatigue)Suicidal ideations

32. Mnemonic: Rhymes Thirty days has November, April, June, and September, Of twenty-eight only but one, And all the remaining thirty-one.

33. Mnemonic: Link System • Remembering a list based by creating associations between elements of that list. • Remembering the following grocery list: • Milk: Picture a stream of milk being fired from a water gun • Eggs: Picture an egg wearing shoes • Butter: Picture sticks of butter growing from a tree • Bread: Picture a door made from bread • Catsup: Picture bees flying from a catsup bottle • Toilet paper: Imagine a roll of TP with angel wings • Soap: Picture a bar of soap on a plate • Batteries: Picture a mechanical hen that runs on batteries

34. Mnemonic: Method of Loci (Journey method) • Use to remember long list of items • Remembering based on physical locations • Familiar large places • Should be well lit • Should be set out in particular order • The more architectural elaboration the better • You can group items in a particular place

35. Preserving INFORMATION • Repetition or rehearsal • Organization • headings and subheadings • use of outlines to organize information • Meaningfulness • easier to remember things that are relevant to us • Imagery • visualizing or making a mental picture of the information

36. Strategies to Improve your Memory • Tell yourself, “pay attention; focus” • Take notes • Highlight the information that seems most important • Organize the information into natural groups • Create association links to information that you already know • Generate your own examples • Create visual images of the new information • Create diagrams or flow charts of the information • Think about how you might apply this information • Repeat the information • Summarize and review the information • Speak the information out loud • Tell or explain it to some other person • Test yourself on the information • Take in reasonably small amounts of information at a time