HUMAN

MEMORY

COURSE INSTRUCTRESS:
MAHSHAMEEN MUNAWAR
DISTINCTIONS IN MEMORY

Distinctions we should keep in mind when we talk about memory

Implicit vs Explicit memory

• Explicit memory is what you consciously know; you know your name, you know the
capital of Pakistan, you know what you had for breakfast this morning.
• While implicit memory is stuff that you may not be conscious of. You might, for
instance, forget that you've ever been to a place, but at some level, know your way
around. There may be a word that is unfamiliar to you consciously, but at gut level,
you know what it means.
DISTINCTIONS…

Semantic vs Episodic Memory

• Semantic memory are facts. Again, the capital of Pakistan. While episodic memory
is about episodes of your life.
Encoding , storage & Retrieval

Recall vs Recognition

Sensory, Short-term & long-term memory

 CHUNKS…

 Chunks are basic memory units.

 Your knowledge of what counts as a unit, what makes a single thing determines how many chunks, something, a display
or a list can break down into.
 You will get more efficient at packing information into chunks as a result of learning.

 So, take this example, suppose you don't know anything about French, and you get the string of letters, L-A-M-A-I-S-O-N.
Well, if you just try to remember each letter separately, that's eight chunks and you're pushing the limits of short-term
memory. Another handy you could break it up into four English words, LA-MA-IS-ON, let's pretend la and ma are English
words, now it's four chunks. But if you know French, It's LA MAISON, the house, and now it is a single chunk.
CHUNKING…

 Miller (1956) presented the idea that short-term memory could only hold 5-9 chunks of information (seven
plus or minus two) where a chunk is any meaningful unit.
 A chunk could refer to digits, words, chess positions, or people's faces.

 The concept of chunking and the limited capacity of short-term memory became a basic element of all
subsequent theories of memory.
 In general, there's a lot of
evidence suggesting that
people's memory gets better
as they become experts.
Football coaches have an
excellent memory for football
diagrams, architects for
logical floor plans, and chess
players for chess patterns.
 So how much you store in
your consciousness critically
depends on your knowledge.
  https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=U6PoUg7jXsA&t=93s

WATCH THE TED TALK

LINKED HERE!
HOW DO YOU GET
INFORMATION
INTO LMT??

Repetition and rehearsal is

not enough!
HOW DO YOU GET INFORMATION INTO LTM?

1. Depth of processing
1. This suggests that, when you try to understand the meaning of a word, maybe you think about it harder or
maybe make more connections to it, and this will help you remember it later.

2. Mnemonics
1. Tricks, that make a word bigger, give it more connections

2. The way I find my way through campus, is through what I store in my hippocampus!

3. Visual imagery!

3. Understanding
EXAMPLE

 A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the

street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times but
it takes some skill, but it's easy to learn, even young children can enjoy it. Once
successful complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however,
soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause
problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications it can be very
peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break lose from it however, you
will not get a second chance.
MORAL…  This suggests that, when you try to
understand the meaning of a
word(s), maybe you think about it
harder or maybe make more
connections to it, and this will help
you remember it later.
REMEMBERING
HOW DO YOU REMEMBER THINS? (RETRIEVAL)

1. Retrieval cues

2. The compatibility principle (context dependent memory)

1. And the idea is, that maybe in part because of cues, you remember things better when you have to recover them in the same context in
which you learnt them.
2. And this applies not just to physical states but to psychological states, so if you learn something when you're depressed, it might come
to mind easier when you're depressed.

3. Searching strategies
…

 Memory, as we'll see it's not ever like a

photograph or a video, it's never exact, it's always
reconstructed.
 And sometimes when you do this sort of
searching, you run the risk of creating false
memories which we'll discuss very soon.
 But still, searching strategies can really help you
recover memories that you had believed to be
lost.
FAILURES OF MEMORY

 Why do we forget things?

1. Decay (physical structures)
2. Interference
3. Changes in retrieval cues
1. Childhood amnesia (memory loss)
2. Learning a language transforms how your memory works.
3. It's also possible that certain structures of the brain mature and
that leads to a change in memory.

4. Brain damage
TWO FORMS OF
AMNESIA

Retrograde Anterograde
amnesia amnesia
 What's interesting is, that it used to be thought that few of
these amnesia simply can't form new memories. But what
they can't form is new explicit memories. They can form new
implicit memories and in particular, new skills.
 Learning is nothing more than a formation of a new memory,
but they don't form explicit new memories. They learn new
things, but they don't know that they learned new things.
 This tells us something about amnesia, but it also tells us
something about the rest of us, that there are two separate
memory systems at least: one for explicit memory, one for
implicit memory
FALSE MEMORIES

How do our memories become distorted?

▪ Expectations
▪ Leading questions (kinds of questions asked after the event, shapes our memory of the event)
▪ Hypnosis
▪ Repressed memories
▪ Flashbulb memories (vivid, powerful memories)

Memories of significant scenes are more vulnerable to distortions because you talk
about them. You talk about them with other people, you recount the story. And what
happens over time is, you no longer remember what really happened rather, you
remember the story.
CLOSING…