Cognition

1. Cognition Memory

2. Thought to ponder and Discuss… From what you have learned thus far, or from personal experience, do you think all memories are stored in the same way? Why or why not?

3. Memory • Memory: persistence of learning over time via the storage and retrieval of information. • Gives us our sense of self and connects us to past experiences. • Cognition: All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering information

4. Models of Memory:no memory accounts for all memory phenomena • Information Processing Model: Compares our mind to a computer 1. ENCODING To become a memory, information must first be registered in sensory memory – it must stand out among a variety of stimuli and be selected for further processing. 2. STORAGE When we rehearse short-term memories sufficiently, we encode them for placement in long-term memory. 3. RETRIEVALWe seek information from long-term memory storage

5. Information Processing Model:Impact of Attention • Focused (selective) attention: attending to one task over another • Divided attention: We have difficulty when we try to attend to more than one complex task; thus we may encounter the cocktail party effect • Feature Integration Theory (Anne Treisman): Focus attention on complex incoming auditory or visual information in order to synthesize it into a meaningful pattern.

6. Levels of Processing Model:Craik & Lockhart • How long and how well we remember information depends on how deeply we process the information when it is encoded. • Shallow Processing: Using superficial sensory information that emphasizes the physical characteristics of the stimuli as it comes in • Example: Crossing the street when there is traffic..you notice there is traffic by you don’t focus on the specific types of vehicle or who is driving • Deep Processing:Attach meaning to information and create associations between the new memory and existing memories • Semantic encoding: Emphasizes the meaning of verbal input • Self-referent encoding: Processing information that is more important or relevant more deeply, making it easier to recall

7. Three-Stage Model:Atkinson & Shiffrin • Describes three different memory systems characterized by time frames • Stage One: The initial recording of sensory information in the memory system is referred to as sensory memory. • Stage Two: sensory memories are processed into short term memory your activated memory which can only hold a minimal amount of information. • Stage Three: short term memories are encoded into long-term memory, the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse from which we retrieve.

8. THREE-STAGE MODEL Rehearsal Sensory input Storage Attention SENSORY MEMORY STM LTM Retrieval

9. Types of Sensory Memory Sensory Memory: refers to the initial recording of sensory information in the memory system. All information is held here briefly (1/2 to 4 seconds) Sensory Memories include both: • Iconic Memory: a momentary sensory memory of a visual stimuli. Memory only lasts for a few tenths of a second. • Echoic Memory:a momentary sensory memory for auditory stimuli. Sound memories can usually last up to 3 or 4 seconds. Sensory memory is very hard to measure since it fades as we try to measure it.

10. How Does Sensory Memory Get Processed Into Memory? • Sensory memories disappear unless you focus your selective attention on the information. • Attention causes information to be further processed. • What does this say about subliminal messages?

11. Encoding Effortful Automatic Process of Encoding: 2 Types

12. Automatic Processing (Type 1) • unconscious encoding of incidental information • space • time • frequency • well-learned information • word meanings • we can learn automatic processing • reading backwards

13. Automatic Processing: Reading Backwards • Reading backwards requires effort at first but after practice becomes automatic. • .citamotua emoceb nac gnissecorp luftroffE • Automatic processing allows us to do multiple things at once and re-illustrates the concept of parallel processing.

14. Effortful Processing (Type 2) • Effortful Processing: type of encoding that requires attention and conscious effort. • Ex: Learning new vocabulary terms, memorizing historical events/chronology, etc. • Encoding can be aided by maintenance rehearsal: simple rote repetition of information in consciousness or even more successfully by elaborate rehearsal: processing of information for meaning which can more easily help produce long term memories.

15. Working Memory Model:Baddeley & Hitch • An active three-part memory system that temporarily holds information • Based their model off of the multi-store model • Challenged the idea that STM is a single store • STM includes several components • Central executive • Episodic buffer • Phonological loop • Visuospatial sketchpad

16. Central Executive • Controlling system which monitors and coordinates the operations of the other components • Most important part of the working memory model • Limited capacity and can process any sensory information) • Attentional control is the most important job of the central executive

17. Attentional Control • Happens in two ways: • 1.) Automatic level: • Based on habit and controlled automatically by stimuli in the environment • Includes routine procedures • 2.) Supervisory level: • Deals with emergencies or creates new strategies when old ones are no longer sufficient • Reactions

18. Episodic Buffer • Consciously trying to remember details • Acts as a temporary and passive display store until the information is needed (similar to a TV screen) • Processing of the information takes place in other parts of the system

19. Phonological LoopLanguage sounds and acoustic code • Divided into 2 components • 1.) Articulatory control system: • Inner voice which holds information in verbal form • Remembering a telephone number and repeating it • Holds words until you are ready to speak • 2.) Phonological store: • Inner ear which holds speech-based material in phonological form • Memory only lasts 1.5-2 seconds if it is not refreshed by the articulatory system • Receives info. directly from sensory memory in the form of auditory material and from LTM in the form of verbal information and the articulatory control system

20. Visuospatial SketchpadVisual & spatial memory • Inner eye • Deals with visual and spatial information from the sensory memory or LTM • Imagery: Mental pictures

21. Types of long-term memories Explicit (declarative) With conscious recall Implicit (nondeclarative) Without conscious recall Personally experienced events (“episodic memory”) Dispositions- classical and operant conditioning effects Facts-general knowledge (“semantic memory”) Skills-motor and cognitive (“procedural memory”) Long-Term Memory • Permanent and practically unlimited capacity memory system which information from STM may pass

22. Biology of Memories • Long-term potentiation (LTP): the strengthening of neural connections are the synapses of a neuron • Involves an increase in the efficiency with signals are sent across the synapses within neural networks • Requires fewer neurotransmitter molecules to fire and increases receptor sites • Flashbulb Memory: A vivid memory of an emotional event • Adrenalin is increased during event triggers release of energyactivatesamgydala and hippocampus • Thalamus: Encodes sensory memory into STM • Prefrontal cortex & Temporal lobes: STM • Hippocampus, frontal, & Temporal lobes (other parts of limbic system): Explicit memory • Cerebellum: Implicit memory of skills

24. Damage to the Brain • Amnesia refers to the loss of memory. • Amnesiac patients typically have losses in explicit memory • Anterograde Amnesia: type of memory loss where patients are UNABLE TO FORM ANY NEW MEMORIES. Can’t remember anything that has occurred AFTER a traumatic head injury. • Retrograde Amnesia: type of memory loss where patients are UNABLE TO REMEMBER PAST EVENTS. May forget everything that happened BEFORE a traumatic head injury.

25. Left vs. Right • fMRI studies reveal that the hippocampus and left frontal lobe are active when encoding new information • However, the right frontal lobe is more active during retrieval • Although the hippocampus may be damaged, people can still develop skills and learn new procedures

26. Organization of Memories • 1.) Hierarchies: Systems in which concepts are arranged from more general to more specific classes • Concepts: Mental representations of related things • Prototypes: Most typical examples of a concepts • 2.) Semantic Networks: More irregular and distorted systems than strict hierarchies, with multiple links from one concept to the next • 3.) Schemas: Frameworks of basic ideas and preconceptions about people, objects, and events based on past experiences • Script: A schema of an event • 4.) Connectionism: Theory that memory is stored throughout the brain in connections between neurons, many which can work together to process a single memory

27. Memory Retrieval • Recall: a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier. • Ex: Fill in the Blank. • Recognition: a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned. • Ex: Multiple Choice • Reconstruction of Memories: Retrieval of memories that can be distorted by adding, loosing, or changing details to fit a schema • Often memories have missing pieces thus resulting in reconstruction • Loftus’ car crash experiment

28. King of Memory Experiments is Hermann Ebbinghaus • Wanted to research capacity of verbal memory. • Looked to study to see capacity of peoples’ memories to study strings of non-sense syllables. • Ex: JIH, FUB, YOX, XIR,

29. Findings of Ebbinghaus 1. Practice makes perfect. The more rehearsal he did on day 1, the less rehearsal it took to learn the syllables again on day 2. Overlearning increased retention (overlearning effect) 2. The Spacing Effect: the tendency for studying over a long period of time produces better long term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice. SPACED STUDYING BEATS CRAMMING!!! 3. Serial Position Effect: our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list. Ex: Presidents

30. Explaining the Serial Position Effect • Primacy Effect: explains how we remember concepts at the beginning of a list since these are often the terms we have seen the most when reviewing. • Recency Effect: explains how we remember concepts at the end of the list a since these are the terms we have seen most RECENTLY. • MIDDLE IS FORGOTTEN MOST OFTEN.

31. Retrieval Cues: Reminders associated with information we are trying to retrieve • Priming:activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations of memory. • Distributed practice: Spreading memorization out over several sessions (BEST) • Massed practice (AKA Cramming): One session  • Mnemonic devices: ROY G BIV • Method of Loci: Association of words on a list with visualization of places on a familiar path • Peg word mnemonic: 1st memorizing a scheme and then mentally picturing items

32. Context Effects Memory Retrieval • Context-dependent memory: Being able to retrieve information better when you are in the same context you learned it in. • Emotional/Mood Impact of Memory: • State-Dependent Memory: information is most easily recalled when in same “state” of consciousness it was learned in. • Mood Congruent Memory: tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current mood.