Exit Table of Contents Chapter 7 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 Atkinson–Shiffrin 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.

Miller’s 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 suspect’s 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 don’t 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 don’t 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 don’t weave episodes together into meaningful stories. Infants don’t 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 Alzheimer’s 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.