Course-Notes.Org - Chapter 9: Memory

� 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

� Effortful processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort; memorizing these notes for the AP Psychology exam

� After practice, effort processing becomes more automatic; reading from right to left for students of Hebrew

� Can boost memory through rehearsal: conscious repetition of info, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage

� Next-in-line effect: when people go around circle saying names/words, poorest memories are for name/word person before them said

� Info received before sleep is hardly ever remembered are consciousness fade before processing able

� Retain info better when rehearsal distributed over time –phenomenon called spacing effect: tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through cramming

� 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

� Rehearsal will not encode all info equally well because processing of info is in 3 ways

1. Semantic encoding: encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words

2. Acoustic encoding: encoding of sound, especially the sound of words

3. Visual encoding: encoding of picture images

� Fergus Craik and Endel 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

� Imagery: mental pictures; powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding;

can easily picture where we were yesterday, where we sat, and what we wore

� Mnemonic: memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices

� Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically

� Able remember info best when able to organize it into personal meaningful arrangements

Forgetting as Encoding Failure

� Failure to encode info –never entered memory system

� Much of what we sense, we never notice

� Raymond Nickerson and Marilyn Adams discover most people cannot pick the real American penny from different ones; (See pg. 280)

Storage: Retaining Information

� Sensory memory: immediate, initial recording of sensory info in memory system

� we 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; visual = eye, which sounds like “I” in iconic

� also fleeting memory for auditory sensory images called echoic memory: momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 sec; auditory = ear, which starts with “e” like echoic

� Short-Term Memory

� without active processing, short-term memories have limited life

� short-term memory limited in capacity –about 7 chunks of info; at any given moment, can consciously process only very limited amount of info

� Long-Term Memory

� capacity for storing long-term memories is practically limitless

� though forgetting occurs as new experiences interfere with retrieval and as physical memory trace gradually decays

� Karl Lashley removed pieces of rat’s cortex as it ran through maze; found that no matter what part removed, partial memory of solving maze stayed; concluded memories don’t reside in single specific spot

� Psychologists then focus on neurons

� Long-term potential (LTP): increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; believed to be neural basis for learning and memory

� After long-term potential occurs, passing electric current through brain won’t disrupt old memories, but wipe up recent experiences; football player with blow to head won’t recall name of play before the blow

� Drugs that block neurotransmitters also disrupt info storage; drunk people hardly remembers previous evening

� Stimulating hormones affect memory as more glucose available to fuel brain activity, indicating important event –

sears events onto brain; remembering first kiss, earthquake

� Amnesia: loss of memory

� Found that people who don’t have memories can still learn, indicating 2 memory systems operating in order

� Implicit memory: retention without conscious recollection (of skills and dispositions); how to do something

� Explicit memory: memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”; remember it was done before

� Through scans, found that Hippocampus, neural center located in limbic system, helps process explicit memories for storage

� Damage to left side of hippocampus produce difficulty in remembering verbal info, but no trouble recalling visual designs and locations

� Damage to right side produce difficulty in remembering visual designs and locations, but no trouble recalling verbal info

� When hippocampus removed from monkeys, lose recent memories, but old memories intact, suggesting hippocampus not permanent storage

� Long-term memories scattered across various parts of frontal and temporal lobes

Retrieval: Getting Information Out

� Recall: measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier; fill-in-the-blank test

� Once learned and forgotten, relearning something becomes quicker than when originally first learned

� Recognition: measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned; multiple-choice test

� Relearning: memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when relearning previously learned info

� Through tests on recognition and relearning, found one remember more than can recall

� To retrieve specific memory, need to ident