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„ The Phenomenon of Memory

1. Memory is the persistence of learning over time through the storage and
retrieval of information.
× Memory Loss and Memory Feats
1. Russian journalist Shereshevskii won the Russian memory
Olympics and is remembered as the being able to repeat 70 digits or
words and recalling the list 15 years later
2. Memory recall capacity is most apparent unique and highly
emotional memories
3. Called flashbulb memory is a clear memory of an emotionally
significant moment or event.
× Gnformation Processing
1. Human memory like a computer
2. Get info into our brain ²encoding: processing of info into memory
system
3. Retain info ²storage: retention of encoded info over time
4. Get it back later ²retrieval: process of getting into out of memory
storage
5. The three-stages processing
- First record to be remembered information as a fleeting sensory
memory
- Processed into short-term memory
- We encode it for long-term memory and later retrieval
6. Working memory clarifies the short-term memory concept by
focusing more on how to attend, rehearse, and manipulate
information in temporary storage
7. Gt includes verbal and visual component- separate mental
subsystems to process images and words simultaneously to storage.
„ -ncoding: Getting Gnformation Gn
× How We -ncode
1. Automatic processing: unconscious encoding of incidental info;
occurs with
little or no effort, without our awareness, and without interfering
with our thinking of other things; space, time, frequency, well-
learned info
2. -ffortful processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious
effort
3. After practice, effort processing becomes more automatic
4. Can boost memory through rehearsal: conscious repetition of info,
either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage
5. Next-in-line effect: when people go around circle saying
names/words,
 6. Poorest memories are for name/word person said before them
7. Gnformation received before sleep is hardly ever remembered are
consciousness fade before processing able
8. Retain info better when rehearsal distributed over time ²
phenomenon called spacing effect: tendency for distributed study or
practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved
through cramming
9. When given a list of items and ask to recall, people often
demonstrate serial position effect: tendency to recall best the last
and first items in a list
× What We -ncode
1. Rehearsal will not encode all info equally well because processing of
info is in 3 ways
- Semantic encoding: encoding of meaning, including the meaning
of words
- Acoustic encoding: encoding of sound, especially the sound of
words
- Visual encoding: encoding of picture images
2. Fergus Craik and -ndel Tulving flashed a word to people, asking
question that required processing either visually, acoustically, or
semantically; semantic encoding was found to yield much better
memory
3. Gmagery: mental pictures; powerful aid to effortful processing,
especially when combined with semantic encoding like how we can
easily picture where we were yesterday, where we sat, and what we
wore.
4. Mnemonic: memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid
imagery and organizational devices
5. Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often
occurs automatically
6. We are able to remember info best when able to organize it into
personal meaningful arrangements
7. We tend to remember concrete nouns better than abstract nouns
because, we can associate both an image and a meaning with the
object or noun, but only a meaning with process.
8. Gn hierarchies, we process information by dividing it into logical
levels, beginning with the most general and moving to the most
specific.
„ Storage: Retaining Gnformation
× Sensory Memory
1. Gmmediate, initial recording of sensory info in memory system
2. Have short temporary photographic memory called iconic memory:
momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; photographic/picture-
 image
memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a sec
3. Fleeting memory for auditory sensory images called echoic memory:
momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli;
4. Gf attention is elsewhere, sounds and word scan still be recalled
within 3 or 4 sec; auditory = ear, which starts with ´eµ like echoic
× Short-Term Memory
1. Without active processing, short-term memories have limited life
2. Short-term memory limited in capacity ²about 7 chunks of info;
3. At any given moment, can consciously process only very limited
amount of info
× Long-Term Memory
1. Capacity for storing long-term memories is practically
limitless
2. Forgetting occurs as new experiences interfere with retrieval and as
physical memory trace gradually decays
× Storing Memories in the Brain
1. Karl Lashley removed pieces of rat·s cortex as it ran through maze
2. Found that no matter what part removed, partial memory of
solving maze stayed
3. Concluded memories don·t reside in single specific spot
4. Psychologists then focused on neurons
5. Long-term potential (LTP): increase in a synapse·s firing potential
after brief, rapid stimulation; believed to be neural basis for
learning and memory
6. After long-term potential occurs, passing electric current through
brain won·t disrupt old memories, but wipe uprecent
experiences;like how a football player with blow to head won·t recall
name of play before the blow
7. CR-B can switch genes off or on.
8. Drugs that block neurotransmitters also disrupt info storage; drunk
people hardly remembers previous evening
9. Stimulating hormones affect memory as more glucose available to
fuel brain activity, indicating important event ²sears events onto
brain; remembering first kiss, earthquake
10.The amygdale, an emotion-processing structure in the
brain·s limbic system, arouses brain areas that process emotion.
11.These memories are processed in part by the cerebellum.
12.-xplicit memories are processed in various sub regions of the
hippocampus
13.The implicit and explicit memory systems are independent.
14.Hippocampus is a temporary processing site for the explicit
memories.
 15.The cerebellum stores the implicit memories created by classical
conditioning.
16.Gmplicit memory formation requires the cerebellum
17.Damage to the hippocampus may destroy the ability to consciously
recall memories, without destroying skills or classically conditioned
responses.
18.Damage to the left hippocampus has trouble remembering verbal
information.
19.Damage to the right hippocampus has trouble in recalling visual
designs and locations.
20. Through scans, found that Hippocampus, neural center located in
limbic system, helps process explicit memories for storage
21.When hippocampus removed from monkeys, lose recent memories,
but old memories intact, suggesting hippocampus not permanent
storag
22. Long-term memories scattered across various parts of frontal and
temporal lobes
„ Retrieval: Getting Gnformation Out
1. Recognition is the ability to identify items previously learned; a multiple
choice question test recognition.
2. Recall is the ability to retrieve information not in conscious awareness; a
fill-in-the-blank question tests recall.
3. Relearning is the ability to master previously stored information more
quickly than you originally learned it.
× Retrieval Cues
1. Retrieval cues are bits of related information we encode while
processing a target piece information.
2. This process of activating associations is priming.
Context -ffects
1. The context in which we originally experienced and event or encoded
although can flood our memories with retrieval cues, leading us to
the target memory.
Moods and Memories
1. Things we learn in one state (joyful, sad, drunk, sober, etc) are more
easily recalled when in same state ²phenomenon called state-
dependent memory
2. Moods also associated with memory; easily recall memory when
mood of that incident same as present
3. Mood-congruent memory: tendency to recall experiences that are
consistent with one·s current good or bad mood
„ Forgetting
1. Our memory can fail us through forgetting (absent-mindedness,
transience, and blocking), through distortion (misattribution,
 suggestibility, and bias), and through intrusion (persistence of wanted
memories).
× -ncoding Failure
1. Without encoding, information does not enter our long-term
memory store and cannot be retrieved.
× Storage Decay
1. -bbinghaus determined the forgetting curve because in his
research he found that in over the course of forgetting is initially
rapid.
2. Levels off with time; this principle became known as the forgetting
curve.
× Retrieval Failure
1. Learning some items may interfere with retrieving others
2. Proactive interference (forward-acting): disruptive effect of prior
learning on the recall of new info
3. Retroactive interference (backward-acting): disruptive effect of new
learning on the recall of old info
4. Freud used repression: in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense
mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and
memories from consciousness
5. Gncreasing memory researchers think repression occurs rarely
„ Memory Construction
× Misinformation and Gmagination -ffects
1. Gncorporating misleading info into one·s memory of an event;
usually with exaggeration.
× Source Amnesia
1. Attributing to the wrong source an event that we experienced,
heard about, read about, or imagined
× Discerning True and False Memories
1. Memories akin to perceptions
2. Judge persistence of memories
3. False memories created by suggested misinformation and
misattributed sources may feel true, but temporal lobe is not
activated and can tell the difference
× Children·s -yewitness Recall
1. Children·s recollection can be err because they are prone to
suggestion
2. -specially credible with neutral adult with nonleading questions
× Repressed or Constructed Memories of Abuse?
1. Traumatic events are sometimes forgotten, perhaps aided by the
toxic effects of sustained stress
2. However, may remain vivid but dulled or blocked by repeated
betrayal
 3. Common ground: injustice happens, incest happens, forgetting
happens, recovered memories are a commonplace, memories
recovered from hypnosis or drugs are unreliable, memories of
things before 3 are unreliable, memories can be upsetting no matter
if true or false
„ Gmproving Memory
1. Concrete strategies to improve memory
2. Study repeatedly to boost long-term recall
3. Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the material
4. Make the material personally meaningful
5. Remember a list of unfamiliar items, use mnemonic devices
6. Refresh memory through retrieval cues
7. Recall while fresh to not deal with misinformation
8. Minimize interference
9. Test own knowledge: rehearse and determine what needs to be known
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