Memory

1. Memory • The capacity to store and retrieve information • Ebbinghaus 1885 • German study on memory with nonsense syllables • Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve

3. Memory • Implicit • Availability of info through memory processes with out the extension of any conscious effort to encode or recover information • Explicit • Continuous effort to recover information through memory processes

4. Memory • Declarative • memory for information such as facts and events • Procedural • Memory for how things get done, the way perceptual, cognitive and motor skills are acquired, retained and used

5. Memory • Encoding • The process by which a mental representation is formed in memory • Storage • Retention of encoded material overtime • Retrieval • The recovery of stored information from memory

6. Sensory Memory • Each sensory memory preserves accurate representations of the physical features of sensory stimuli for a few seconds or less • Ionic Memory • Sensory memory in visual domain

7. Sensory Memory • Echoic Memory • Sensory memory that allow auditory information to be stored for brief durations • 5-10 seconds

8. Short Term Memory STM • Memory process associated with preservation of recent experiences and with retrieval of information for long-term memory • Limited capacity, 7 bits/chunks (Miller 1956)

9. Working Memory • Stores for short amount of time with out rehearsal working memory • Used to accomplish tasks such as reasoning and language comprehension • Phonological loop-holds and manipulates speech based issues • Visio spatial sketch pad-holds and manipulates visual spatial issues • Central executive-controls attention and coordinates info from phonological loop and Visio-spatial sketch pad • Working memory span 2.5 to 4 words

10. STM Strategies • Maintenance rehearsal • Repeating in head • Chunking • Process of taking single items of information and recording them on the basis of similarity or some other organizing principle • Retrieval form (STM) • Very swift (Sternberg 1966)

11. Long Term Memory LTM • Preservation of information for retrieval at any later time • Encoding specificity • Subsequent retrieval of info is enhanced if cues received at the time of recall are consistent with those present at the time of encoding ex. Doing homework

12. Long Term Memory LTM • Serial position effect • Memory retrieval in which the recall of beginning and end items on a list is often better than recall of items appearing in the middle • Primary effect-start of list • Regency effect-end of list

13. Long Term Memory LTM • Contextual distinctiveness • Serial position effects can be altered by the context and the distinctiveness of the experience being recalled

14. Long Term Memory LTM • Recall • Method of retrieval in which an individual is required to reproduce the info previously presented • Recognition • Method of retrieval in which an individual is required to identify stimulus as having been experienced before

15. Long Term Memory LTM • Retrieval cues • Internally or externally generated stimuli available to help with retrieval of a memory

16. Long Term Memory LTM EndelTulving (1972) Episodic Memory Long term memories from autobiographical events and the context in which they occurred Semantic Memories generic categorical memories, such as the meaning of words and concepts

17. Long Term Memory LTM • Interference • A memory phenomenon that occurs when retrieval cues do not point effectively to one specific memory • Proactive-forward acting • Retroactive-backward acting

18. Long Term Memory LTM • Levels-of-Processing Theory • Deeper the level at which information was processed, the more likely it is to be retained

19. Long Term Memory LTM • Transfer-appropriate processing • Memory is best when the type of processing carried out at encoding matches the process carried out at retrieval • Priming • In assessment of implicit memory the advantage conferred by prior exposure to a word or situation

20. Improving Memory • Elaborative rehearsal • While memorizing you enrich the material • Mnemonics • Use familiar information during encoding of new information to enhance subsequent access to the info in memory • Metamemory • Implicit or explicit knowledge about memory abilities and effective memory strategies; cognition about memory

21. Improving Memory • Cue familiarity hypothesis • People base their feelings of knowing on their familiarity of retrieval cues • Feelings of knowing • Subjective sensations that you do have info stored in memory that is accurate

22. Memory Structures • Accessibility hypothesis • People base their judgment on the accessibility or availability of partial info from memory • Concepts • Mental representations of kinds or categories of items or ideas • Prototype • The most representative example of a category

23. Memory Structures • Basic level • Level of categorization that can be retrieved from memory most quickly and used most efficiently • Schemes • General conceptual frameworks or clusters of knowledge, regarding objects, people, and situations • Knowledge packages that encode generalizations about structure of the environment

24. Memory Structures • Reconstructive memory • Putting information together based on general types of stored knowledge in the absence of a specific memory representation • Bartlett (1932) • Leveling – simplifying • Sharpening- highlighting overemphasizing • Assimilating- changing details to better fit the tellers background • Eyewitness memory • Elizabeth Loft (1979, 1992) • Distorted by post event info

25. Biological Aspects of Memory • Engram • The physical memory trace for information in the brain • Karl Lashlery (1929, 1950) • Widely distributed

26. Biological Aspects of Memory • 4 majors brain structures in memory • 1. Cerebellum • Procedural memory • Memories acquired by repetition • Classical conditioning • 2. Striation • Habit formation • Stimulus response connections • Cerebral cortex • Sensory memories • Amygdala + hippocampus • Declarative memory of facts, dates, names, emotions

27. Biological Aspects of Memory • Amnesia • Failure of memory over a long period of time • Brain Imaging • Positron-emission tomography (PET) • Functioning magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI)