Part

1: Encoding and Storing

Memories
What is Memory?
Memory
§ Memory: Persistence of learning over time through the encoding,
storage, and retrieval of information
§ 3 ways we can test memory:
§ Recall: A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information
learned earlier, e.g. a fill-in-the-blank test.
§ Recognition: A measure of memory in which the person identifies items
previously learned, e.g. a multiple-choice test.
§ Relearning: A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when
learning material again.
Ebbinghaus’ Retention Curve
§ Ebbinghaus found that the more
times he reviewed a list of
made-up words on Day 1, the
less time it took to relearn it on
the next day.
§ Speed of relearning is one
measure of memory retention
§ Tests of recognition and time
spent relearning demonstrate
that we remember more than
we can recall.
Models of How Memory Works
Information-Processing Models

Information-processing model Connectionism information-

§ Compares human memory to processing model
computer operations § Focuses on parallel processing, the
§ Involves three processes: processing of many aspects of a
§ Encoding: getting information into problem simultaneously
the memory system § Views memories as products of
§ Storage: retaining encoded interconnected neural networks
information over time
§ Retrieval: getting information out
of memory storage
Atkinson-Shiffrin Model (1968)
1. We first record information as a fleeting sensory memory, the
immediate, very brief recording of sensory information
2. From there, we process information into short-term memory
(activated memory that holds a few items briefly), where we encode it
through rehearsal
3. Finally, information moves into long-term memory, the relatively
permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system of
knowledge, skills, and experiences, for later retrieval.
Modified Atkinson-Shiffrin Model
§ Some information gets into long-term memory without
necessarily attending to it
§ So much active processing happens in short-term memory that
many prefer the term “working memory”
Baddeley’s Working Memory Model (2002)
Encoding and Storing Memories
Explicit and Implicit Memories
§ Explicit memory (also called declarative A2 + B 2 = C2
memory) memory of facts and experiences that
one can consciously know and “declare.” We
encode explicit memories through conscious
effortful processing.

§ Implicit memory (also called nondeclarative

memory) retention of learned skills or
classically conditioned associations
independent of conscious recollection. We
encode implicit memories through automatic
processing, without our awareness.
 Explicit/Declarative Implicit/Nondeclarative
Memory Memory
§ Things we can consciously report § Knowledge that we cannot
that we know consciously access
§ Semantic memory: facts, § Procedural memory:
information, studying for a test unexplainable understanding of
§ Episodic memory: life how to complete tasks (riding a
experiences, events that bike, tying a shoe, texting)
happened to you § Classical conditioning:
§ Many times, encoded through association between a neutral
effortful processing (e.g. studying stimulus and another stimulus
for a test) § Priming
Sensory Memory

§ Sensory memory feeds our active working memory, recording

momentary images of scenes or echoes of sounds.
§ First stage in forming explicit memories
§ Two types of sensory memory are iconic memory and echoic memory
§ Iconic memory: Picture-image memory of visual stimuli lasting no
more than a few tenths of a second
§ Echoic memory: Sound memory of auditory stimuli; can be
recalled within 3 or 4 seconds
Short-term Memory Capacity
§ Short-term memory holds a few items briefly (such as the seven digits of
a phone number while dialing) before the information is stored or
forgotten
§ George Miller (1956) proposed the magical number seven: People can
store about seven bits of information (give or take two)
§ Baddeley and colleagues (1975) have confirmed that without distraction,
we can recall about seven digits or about six letters or five words
§ Capacity varies by age and distractions at time of memory tasks
Long-term Memory Capacity
§ Our capacity for storing long-term
memories is essentially limitless! This is
contrary to the belief that we can fill
more items only if we discard old ones.
§ Information is not stored in single,
precise locations in the brain. Instead,
the components of a memory are
distributed across a network of locations
in the brain.
§ Some of the brain cells that fired
when we experienced something fire
again when we recall it.
Effortful Processing Strategies
Effortful Processing Strategies
§ Chunking: Organization of items into familiar, manageable units; often
occurs automatically
§ Mnemonics: Memory aids, especially techniques that use vivid imagery
and organizational devices
§ Acronyms (like “please excuse my dear aunt sally” for math class)
§ Hierarchies: Organization of items into a few broad categories that are
divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts (similar to an
outline)
Effortful Processing Strategies
§ Spacing effect: Encoding is more effective when it is spread over time.
§ Distributed practice produces better long-term retention than is
achieved through massed study or practice.
§ Massed practice, in contrast, produces speedy short-term learning
and feelings of confidence, but those who learn quickly also forget
quickly.

§ Testing effect: Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply

rereading, information. Repeated self-testing does more than assess
learning, it improves it.
Deep vs. Shallow Processing
§ Verbal information processed at different levels, which affects long-term
retention
§ Shallow processing encodes on a very basic level (word’s letters) or a more
intermediate level (word’s sound)
§ Deep processing encodes semantically, based on word meaning
§ The deeper (more meaningful) the processing, the better our retention
§ Don’t just re-read to try and memorize information! Instead, try and
think about links between new information and other concepts that you
previously learned and understand
Deep vs. Shallow Processing

§ New information is processed easily when it is meaningful or related to

our experience.
§ Learning meaningful material requires about 1/10 of the effort
compared with learning nonsense material.
§ We have especially good recall for information we can relate to
ourselves, a tendency referred to as the self-reference effect.
§ The amount of information remembered depends both on the time
spent in learning it and on your making it meaningful for deep
processing.
Brain Structures in Memory
Explicit Memories: The Hippocampus
Explicit memories are processed in the hippocampus
and fed to other brain regions for storage.
§ The hippocampus temporarily holds elements of
explicit memories before moving them to other
brain regions for long-term storage.
§ Neural storage of long-term memories is called
memory consolidation.
§ During sleep, the hippocampus and cerebral cortex
display rhythmic patterns of activity, as if they were
talking to each other
§ Researchers suspect that the brain is replaying the
day’s experiences as it transfers them to the cortex
for long-term storage.
Implicit Memories: Cerebellum and Basal Ganglia
§ The cerebellum is important in forming implicit
memories created by classical conditioning
§ The basal ganglia (deep brain structures involved
in motor movement) are important for
procedural memories
§ Infantile amnesia: no memory of first few years
§ Command of language and developed
hippocampus needed to form explicit,
episodic memories
§ Hippocampus is one of the last brain
structures to mature.
Emotion and Memory
§ Excitement or stress triggers hormone
production and provokes the amygdala to
engage memory.
§ Emotions often persist with or without
conscious awareness.
§ Emotional arousal causes an outpouring of
stress hormones, which lead to activity in
the brain’s memory-forming areas.
§ Flashbulb memories, clear memories of
emotionally significant moments or events,
occur via emotion-triggered hormonal
changes and rehearsal.
Review Key Memory Structures in the Brain

Frontal lobes and hippocampus: explicit memory formation

Cerebellum and basal ganglia: implicit memory formation
Amygdala: emotion-related memory formation
Long-term Potentiation
§ Neurons that fire together wire
together: For neurons that are
commonly co-activated, it becomes
easier for one to activate another
§ For example, if spiders are commonly
associated with scary things, connections
between the concept of “spider” and fear Electron microscope image (a) shows just
will be strengthened one receptor site (gray) reaching toward a
§ Believed to be a neural basis for learning and sending neuron before long-term
potentiation. Image (b) shows that, after
memory, this could be the way that networks LTP, the receptor sites have doubled. This
are formed means that the receiving neuron has
increased sensitivity for detecting the
presence of the neurotransmitter molecules
that may be released by the sending neuron.
Part 2: Retrieving and
Forgetting
Retrieval and Remembering
What influences retrieval/remembering?
§ Memories held in storage by web of associations
§ Retrieval cues serve as anchor points for pathways to memory
suspended in this web
§ When you encode into memory the name of the person sitting
next to you in class, you associate it with other bits of
information about your surroundings, mood, seating position,
and so on
§ Best retrieval cues come from associations formed at the time a
memory is encoded
§ This is why those “fun fact about yourself” icebreaker activities can
help you remember names!
Priming influences retrieval, too…
After seeing or hearing rabbit,
participants were later more
likely to spell the spoken word
hair/hare as h-a-r-e (Bower,
1986).

Semantic meaning
unconsciously
activates related associations –
this is an example of priming
Context-dependent memory
• We are better at recalling specific information when the context at
encoding and retrieval are the same
• For example, taking a test in the same classroom where you learned the material
• Cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective
in helping recall
• When you can’t find your car keys, you often remember where you left
them when you retrace your steps. Environmental factors cue recall of
“forgotten” memory
Context-dependent memory
§ SCUBA divers learned lists of
words underwater and on land,
and then had to recall them
§ Words learned underwater were
more accurately recalled
underwater; words learned on
land were more accurately
recalled on land
§ The environment (underwater
or on the beach) created a
strong effect of context
dependency
State-dependent memory
§ State of consciousness also affects recall
§ Information learned under the influence of a substance is best recalled under
the influence of the same substance. If you’re caffeinated in class, try to be
caffeinated at the same level for the midterms!

“On one occasion, being drunk, he had lost a parcel of some value, and in his
sober moments could give no account of it. Next time he was intoxicated, he
recollected that he had left the parcel at a certain house, and there being no
address on it, it had remained there safely, and was got on his calling for it.
This man must have had two souls, one for his sober state, and one for him
when drunk.”
–Human Physiology, 1835
State-dependent memory
§ Emotions that accompany good or bad events become retrieval
cues
§ Mood-congruent memory: The tendency to recall experiences that
are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.
§ In a bad mood, we may read someone’s look as a glare and feel even worse. In a good
mood, we may encode the same look as interest and feel even better.
Serial Position Effect
§ Our tendency to recall best the
first (primacy effect) and last
(recency effect) items in a list.
§ With immediate recall, we
remember last items best
§ your first list probably has “shade”,
“fruit”, and “bed”
§ With later recall, we are better
at remembering the first items
§ your last list probably has “boot”,
“fridge”, and “star”
How (and why) do we forget?
Why do we forget?
§ William James (1890): “If we remembered everything, we should on most
occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.”
§ It’s helpful that most of us discard the clutter of useless or out-of-date
information. But our sometimes unpredictable memory can be frustrating.
§ Forgetting is sometimes unhelpful…
§ Anterograde amnesia: An inability to form new memories.
§ Retrograde amnesia: An inability to retrieve information from one’s past.

what type of amnesia is

portrayed in these
different movies?
How do we forget?
§ Encoding failure: there is a problem getting the information into memory
in the first place

§ Storage decay: the information is encoded into memory, but its storage is
not maintained

§ Retrieval failure: the information is encoded into memory and stored,

but there is a problem retrieving or recalling the information from
storage
Forgetting as Encoding Failure
§ Much of what we sense we never notice, and what we fail to encode, we
will never remember.
§ Age: Encoding lag is linked to age-related memory decline
§ Attention: Failure to notice or encode contributes to memory failure
§ Can you draw the Apple logo?
§ Only one of 85 UCLA students – 52 of whom owned a MacBook – could do this correctly,
indicating that without encoding effort, many potential memories never form!
Forgetting as Storage Decay
§ Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve:
§ After learning lists of nonsense syllables, Ebbinghaus tested his memory for 30
days. Found that memory for new information fades quickly and then levels out.
Forgetting as Storage Decay
§ Even after a lot of rehearsal, we sometimes still forget…

§ Trace decay theory: Physical changes in the brain occur as memory

forms (a “memory trace”). Short term memory can only hold
information between 15-30 seconds unless it is rehearsed; after this
time the “trace” decays and fades away
§ According to this theory, events between learning and recall shouldn’t affect
recall. Instead, the amount of elapsed time between learning and recall is the
important thing
§ Difficult to study this empirically because it is hard to control for things that
happen between learning and recall
§ Little empirical support, and some problems: why do some memories persist
vividly for years, while others are rapidly forgotten?
Forgetting as Retrieval Failure
§ Sometimes, even stored information cannot be accessed, which also
leads to forgetting.
Forgetting as Retrieval Failure
• Interference: when one piece of learned information gets in the way of
another piece of learned information

• Proactive (forward-acting) interference: Occurs when prior learning disrupts

recall of new information
• I just moved, and I keep giving my old address instead of my new one
• Accidentally calling a new partner the name of an ex

• Retroactive (backward-acting) interference: Occurs when new learning disrupts

recall of older information
• I learned Spanish, and then Hebrew. I now cannot remember many Spanish words for
concepts, and I often accidentally use the Hebrew ones.
Forgetting can occur at
any memory stage. As
we process information,
we filter, alter, or lose
much of it.