Memory: Remembrance of Things Past and Future

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Chapter 7

• Memory Remembrance of Things Past and Future

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Kinds of Memory

• Psychologists debate whether there are different
  systems of memory or just different examples of
  the same system.
• Explicit memory.
• referred to as declarative memory
• Episodic Memory memories of the things that
  happen to us autobiographical memory. I
  remember..
• Semantic Memory general knowledge. I know

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Kinds of Memory

• Implicit Memory how to perform a task or do
  something.
• Characteristics
• are illustrated by the things that people do
• involve skills
• can persist even when we have not used them for
  many years.
• can become relatively automatic.

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Figure 7.1 The Relationships Among the Various
Kinds of Memories. Memories can address past
events (retrospective memories) or future events
(prospective memories). Memories of the past can
be explicit (declarative) or implicit
(nondeclarative). Explicit memories include
memories of personal episodes (which are called
episodic or autobiographical memories) or of
general information
(semantic memories).
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Kinds of Memory

• Retrospective Memory involves recalling
  information that has been previously learned.
• Prospective memory involves remembering to do
  things in the future.
• suffers when we are distracted or under stress

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Processes of Memory

• Encoding
• When we encode information we transform it into
  formats that can be represented mentally.
• Visual code
• remembering things as a picture.
• Acoustic code
• remembering things as a sequence of sounds.
• Semantic code
• remembering things in terms of their meaning.

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Processes of Memory

• Storage
• maintaining information over time.
• Maintenance rehearsal
• mentally repeating information.
• Elaborative rehearsal
• elaborating or extending the semantic meaning of
  the what you are trying to remember.
• Retrieval
• Retrieval of stored information requires locating
  it and returning it to consciousness.

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Stages of Memory

• Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory
• There are three stages of memory
• Sensory memory
• Short-term memory
• Long-term memory

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Figure 7.2 Three Stages of Memory. The
AtkinsonShiffrin model proposes that there are
three distinct stages of memory. Sensory
information impacts upon the registers of sensory
memory, where memory traces are held briefly
before decaying. If we attend to the information,
much of it is transferred to short-term memory
(STM). Information in STM may decay or be
displaced if it is not transferred to long-term
memory (LTM). We can use rehearsal or elaborative
strategies to transfer memories to LTM. If
information in LTM is
organized poorly, or if we cannot find cues
to retrieve it, it may be lost.
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Sensory Memory

• Sensory Memory is the type of memory that is
  first encountered by a stimulus.
• Vision example
• Memory trace visual impression left by the
  stimulus.
• Held in visual sensory register.
• Memory traces for visual stimuli decay within a
  second.

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Sensory Memory

• Iconic Memory
• The sensory register that holds visual stimuli
  (icons) is iconic memory.
• Accurate, photographic memories but briefly
  stored.
• Photographic memory eidetic imagery.
• Iconic Memory and Saccadic Eye Movements.
• Saccadic eye movements occur about four times
  every second.
• Iconic memory holds icons for up to a second.
• The combination is what allows us to perceive
  imagery in film as being seamless.

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Sensory Memory

• Echoic Memory.
• Mental representations of sounds, or auditory
  stimuli, are called echoes.
• The sensory register that holds echoes is called
  echoic memory.
• Echoic memory can last for several seconds.

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Short-Term Memory

• If one focuses on a stimulus in the sensory
  register, they will tend to retain it in
  short-term memory (also referred to as working
  memory).
• In short term memory the image tends to
  significantly fade after 10-12 seconds if it is
  not rehearsed.
• To retain the information then rehearsal is
  needed.

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Short-Term Memory

• The Serial-Position Effect.
• The tendency to recall the first and last items
  in a series is known as the serial-position
  effect.
• Primacy effect
• Recency effect
• Chunking
• discrete elements of information.
• Millers Magic 7 Seven chunks, plus or minus one
  or two.
• Rote learning
• Interference in Short-Term Memory.
• Prevention of rehearsal can inhibit short term
  memory.
• Appearance of new information can displace the
  old information.

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Long-Term Memory

• Long-term memory is the third stage of
  information processing.
• The vast storehouse of information.
• How Accurate Are Long-Term Memories?
• Loftus notes that memories are distorted by our
  biases and needs.
• Loftus and Palmer and the experiment of the car
  crash.
• Words served as diverse schemas that fostered
  very different ways of processing information.

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CONTROVERSY IN PSYCHOLOGY Can We Trust
Eyewitness Testimony?

• The words chosen by a lawyer interrogating a
  witness have been shown to influence the
  reconstruction of memories.
• Children tend to be more suggestible witnesses
  than adults.
• Hypnosis does more than amplify memories it can
  also distort them (hypermnesia)
• Witnesses may pay more attention to the suspects
  clothing than to more meaningful characteristics.

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CONTROVERSY IN PSYCHOLOGY Can We Trust
Eyewitness Testimony?

• Other problems with eye-witness testimony are
• Identification is less accurate when suspects
  belong to ethnic groups that differ from that of
  the witness.
• Witnesses are seen as more credible when they
  claim to be certain in their testimony but there
  is little evidence that claims of certainty are
  accurate.

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How Much Information Can Be Stored in Long-Term
Memory?

• For all practical purposes, long-term memory is
  unlimited.
• Transferring Information from Short-Term to
  Long-Term Memory
• Repeating information over and over to prevent it
  from decaying is termed maintenance rehearsal.
• A more effective method is to make information
  more meaningful
• relating information to well-known material is
  termed elaborative rehearsal.

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How Much Information Can Be Stored in Long-Term
Memory?

• Levels of Processing Information.
• Elaborative rehearsal involves processing
  information at a deeper level than maintenance
  rehearsal.
• Information is remembered if
• processed deeply-attended to,
• encoded carefully, pondered, and
• related to things we already know.
• Remembering relies on how deeply we processes
  information.

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How Much Information Can Be Stored in Long-Term
Memory?

• Flashbulb Memories
• The tendency to remember events that are
  surprising, important, and emotionally stirring.
  
• One factor is the distinctness of the memory.
• The feelings caused by them are special.
• We are likely to dwell on them and form networks
  of associations.

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How Much Information Can Be Stored in Long-Term
Memory?

• Organizations in Long-Term Memory.
• People tend to organize information according to
  a hierarchical structure.
• A hierarchy is an arrangement of items into
  groups or classes according to common or distinct
  features.

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A fun example . . .

• Write down the names of the Seven Dwarves.
• If you think of a name, even if you immediately
  realize it is the wrong answer, record it anyway.
• From this example, what can we learn about the
  way LTM is organized?

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• Figure 7.7 Where are whales filed in the
  hierarchical cabinets of your memory? Your
  classification of whales may influence your
  answers to these questions Do whales breathe
  underwater? Are they warm-blooded? Do they nurse
  their young?

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The Tip-of-the-Tongue-Phenomenon.

• The Tip-of-the-Tongue-Phenomenon.
• The tip-of-the-tongue-phenomenon is the feeling
  of knowing an experience. Why?
• Words were unfamiliar so elaborative rehearsal
  did not take place.
• Seems to reflect incomplete learning.
• Our knowledge of the topic may be incomplete (we
  dont know the specific answer, but we know
  something).

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Figure 7.6 Memory as Reconstructive. In their
classic experiment, Carmichael,Hogan, and Walter
(1932) showed people the figures in the left-hand
box and made remarks as suggested in the other
boxes. For example, the experimenter might say,
This drawing looks like eyeglasses or a
dumbbell. When people later reconstructed the
drawings, they were influenced by the labels.
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Context-Dependent Memory

• The context in which we acquire information can
  also play a role in retrieval.
• Being tested in the same room in which you
  learned something can dramatically enhance
  recall.
• Déjà vu the feeling that we know this person or
  have been there before.
• Seems to occur when we are in a context similar
  to the one we have been in before.

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State-Dependent Memory

• State-dependent memory is an extension of
  context-dependent memory.
• Remember better when we are in the physiological
  or emotional state that is similar to the one in
  which we encoded and stored the information.
• Evidence of support for this with love, anger,
  frustration, rage, sober or inebriated, happy,
  sad, and bipolar.

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Forgetting

• Memory Tasks Used in Measuring Forgetting.
• Recognition.
• Example multiple choice tests.
• The easiest type of memory task.
• Recall.
• Remembering information from memory without cues.
• Example essay tests.
• Recall is more difficult than recognition.
• Relearning.
• We can relearn information more rapidly the
  second time.

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Forgetting

• Interference Theory.
• Retroactive interference
• new learning interferes with the retrieval of old
  learning.
• Example you get a new phone number and later
  cannot remember your old phone number
• Proactive interference
• older learning interferes with the retrieval of
  more recently learned material.
• Example someone changes her last name, but you
  can only remember her previous (maiden) name

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Figure 7.5 The Effect of Interference on
Short-Term Memory In this experiment, college
students were asked to remember a series of three
letters while they counted backward by threes.
After just three seconds, retention was cut by
half. Ability to recall the words was almost
completely lost by 15 seconds.
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Forgetting

• Repression
• Freud suggested that we are motivated to forget
  painful memories because they produce anxiety,
  guilt, and shame. (Repression)
• Stress hormones released when we experience
  extremes of anxiety actually heighten memory.
• Remembering what matters
• Repressed memories may not be ill-formed we just
  dont focus on them.

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CONTROVERSY IN PSYCHOLOGY

• Do People Really Recover Repressed Memories of
  Sexual Abuse at an Early Age, Or Are These
  Memories Implanted by Interviewers?
• Many recovered memories are sometime induced by
  therapists.
• Techniques used to recover memories hypnosis
  and guided imagery.

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Infantile Amnesia

• Infantile amnesia is difficulty in remembering
  episodes that happened prior to age 3 or so.
• Reflects the interaction of physiological and
  cognitive factors.
• The hippocampus does not become mature until we
  are about 2 years of age.
• Cognitive factors include
• Infants are not particularly interested in
  remembering their past.
• Infants dont weave episodes together into
  meaningful stories.
• Infants dont make reliable use of language to
  symbolize their events.
• We are unlikely to remember episodes unless we
  are reminded of them from time to time as we
  develop.

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Anterograde and Retrograde Amnesia

• Anterograde amnesia is memory lapses for the
  period following a trauma.
• This memory loss has been linked to damage to the
  hippocampus.
• Retrograde amnesia is memory lapses for the
  period before the accident.

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The Biology of Memory

• Engrams are viewed as electrical circuits in the
  brain that correspond to memory traces.
• Neural Activity and Memory
• Sea snails can be conditioned to release more
  serotonin at certain synapses.
• As a result the transmission at the synapses
  becomes more efficient as trials progress. This
  greater efficiency is termed long-term
  potentiation (LTP).

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The Biology of Memory

• Neural Activity and Memory
• Acetylcholine (ACh) is vital in memory formation.
  Low levels of ACh are connected with Alzheimers
  disease.
• Adrenaline and noradrenaline both strengthen
  memory when they are released into the
  bloodstream following learning.
• Estrogen and testosterone facilitate working
  memory.

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The Biology of Memory

• Brain Structures and Memory.
• Hippocampus is involved in the formation of new
  memories.
• Parts of memories are stored in appropriate areas
  of the sensory cortex.
• Sight in the visual cortex sounds in the
  auditory cortex, etc.

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LIFE CONNECTIONS Using the Psychology of
Memory to Enhance Your Memory

• Form Unusual, Exaggerated Associations.
• Use the Method of Loci
• Method of Loci select a series of related
  images and then attaché information that you want
  to remember to those images. (e.g. parts of the
  body).
• Use Mnemonic Devices
• Mnemonics are systems for remembering information
  typically using chunks of information combined
  into an acronym.