1. Memory Chapter 8

2. Memory
Memory is the basis for knowing your friends, your neighbors, the English language, the national anthem, and yourself.
If memory was nonexistent, everyone would be a stranger to you; every language foreign; every task new; and even you yourself would be a stranger.
An event is such a little piece of time and space, leaving only a mindglow behind like the tail of a shooting star. Far a lack of a better word, we call that scintillation memory. Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind, 2004

3. The Phenomenon of Memory
Memory is any indication that learning has persisted over time. It is our ability to store and retrieve information.

4. Studying Memory: Information Processing Models
Preview Question 1: How do psychologists describe the human memory system?
Keyboard
(Encoding)
Disk
(Storage)
Monitor
(Retrieval)
Sequential Process

5. Information Processing
The Atkinson-Schiffrin (1968) three-stage model of memory includes a) sensory memory, b) short-term memory, and c) long-term memory.
Bob Daemmrich/ The Image Works
Frank Wartenberg/ Picture Press/
Corbis
Bob Daemmrich/ The Image Works

6. Modifications to the Three-Stage Model
Some information skips the first two stages and enters long-term memory automatically.
Since we cannot focus on all the sensory information received, we select information that is important to us and actively process it into our working memory.

7. Working Memory
A newer understanding of short-term memory that involves conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory

8. Encoding: Getting Information In
How We Encode
Some information (route to your school) is automatically processed.
However, new or unusual information (friend’s new cell-phone number) requires attention and effort.
Preview Question 2: How do automatic and effortful processing help us encode sights, sounds, and other sensations and transfer them into our memory system?

9. Automatic Processing
We process an enormous amount of information effortlessly, such as the following:
Space: While reading a textbook, you automatically encode the place of a picture on a page.
Time: We unintentionally note the events that take place in a day.
Frequency: You effortlessly keep track of things that happen to you.

10. Effortful Processing
Committing novel information to memory requires effort just like learning a concept from a textbook. Such processing leads to durable and accessible memories.
Preview Question 3: How much does rehearsal aid in forming memories?
Spencer Grant/ Photo Edit
© Bananastock/ Alamy

11. Effortful learning usually requires rehearsal or conscious repetition.
Ebbinghaus studied rehearsal by using nonsense syllables: TUV YOF GEK XOZ
Hermann Ebbinghaus
( )

12. Rehearsal
The more times the nonsense syllables were practiced on Day 1,
the fewer repetitions were required to remember them on Day 2.

13. Memory Effects
Spacing Effect: We retain information better when we rehearse over time.
Serial Position Effect: When your recall is better for first and last items on a list, but poor for middle items.

14. What We Encode Encoding by meaning Encoding by images
Encoding by organization
Preview Question 4: What methods of effortful processing aid in forming memories?

15. Encoding Meaning
Processing the meaning of verbal information by associating it with what we already know or imagine. Encoding meaning (semantic encoding) results in better recognition later than visual or acoustic encoding.

16. Visual Encoding
Mental pictures (imagery) are a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding.
Both photos: Ho/AP Photo
Showing adverse effects of tanning and smoking
in a picture may be more powerful than simply talking about it.

17. Mnemonics
Imagery is at the heart of many memory aids. Mnemonic techniques use vivid imagery and organizational devices in aiding memory.
Ex 1: The peg system (one-bun, two-shoe, three-tree, four-door, five-hive, six-sticks, seven-heaven, eight-gate, nine-swine, ten-hen)
Ex 2: My Very Ernest Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto

18. Organizing Information for Encoding
Break down complex information into broad concepts and further subdivide them into categories and subcategories.
Chunking
Hierarchies

19. Chunking
Organizing items into a familiar, manageable unit. Try to remember the numbers below.
If you are well versed with American history, chunk the numbers together and see if you can recall them better

20. Acronyms are another way of chunking information to remember it.
HOMES = Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior
ROY G. BIV = Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet

21. Hierarchy
Complex information broken down into broad concepts and further subdivided into categories and subcategories.

22. Nervous System Summarized in a Hierarchy

23. Storage: Retaining Information
Storage is at the heart of memory. Three stores of memory are shown below:
Sensory
Memory
Working
Memory
Long-term
Memory
Encoding
Events
Encoding
Retrieval
Retrieval

24. Sensory Memory Sensory Memory Working Memory Long-term Memory Events
Encoding
Events
Encoding
Retrieval
Preview Question 5: How does sensory memory work?
Retrieval

25. Whole Report R G T F M Q L Z S “Recall” R T M Z (44% recall)
Sperling (1960)
R G T F M Q L Z S
“Recall”
R T M Z
(44% recall)
50 ms (1/20 second)
The exposure time for the stimulus is so small
that items cannot be rehearsed.

26. Partial Report S X T J R S P K Y “Recall” J R S (100% recall) Low Tone
Medium Tone
High Tone
“Recall”
J R S
(100% recall)
50 ms (1/20 second)
Sperling (1960) argued that sensory memory capacity was larger than what was originally thought.

27. Time Delay A D I N L V O G H “Recall” N _ _ (33% recall) Low Tone
Medium Tone
High Tone
“Recall”
N _ _
(33% recall)
Time
Delay
50 ms (1/20 second)

28. The longer the delay, the greater the memory loss.
Sensory Memory
The longer the delay, the greater the memory loss. 20 40 60 80
Percent Recognized
0.15
0.30
0.50
1.00
Time (Seconds)

29. The duration of sensory memory varies for the different senses.
Sensory Memories
The duration of sensory memory varies for the different senses.
Iconic
0.5 sec. long
Echoic
3-4 sec. long
Hepatic
< 1 sec. long

30. Working Memory Sensory Memory Working Memory Long-term Memory Events
Encoding
Events
Encoding
Retrieval
Preview Question 6: What are the limits of short-term memory?
Retrieval

31. Working Memory
Working memory, the new name for short-term memory, has a limited capacity (7±2) and a short duration (20 seconds).
Sir George Hamilton observed that he could accurately remember up
to 7 beans thrown on the floor. If there were more beans, he guessed.

32. Capacity M U T G I K T L R S Y P
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information (1956).
Ready?
M U T G I K T L R S Y P
You should be able to
recall 7±2 letters.
George Miller

33. Chunking F-B-I-T-W-A-C-I-A-I-B-M FBI TWA CIA IBM 4 chunks
The capacity of the working memory may be increased by “chunking.”
F-B-I-T-W-A-C-I-A-I-B-M
FBI TWA CIA IBM
4 chunks

34. The duration of the working memory is about 20 sec.
Peterson and Peterson (1959) measured the duration of working memory by manipulating rehearsal.
CHJ
MKT
HIJ
547
547
544
541 …
CH??
3 consonant groups and then count backwards y 3…after 3 seconds half letters were recalled…after 12 sec few were recalled. Without active processing, short-term memories have a limited life. Limited in duration and capacity.
The duration of the working memory is about 20 sec.

35. Working Memory Duration

36. Long-Term Memory Sensory Memory Working Memory Long-term Memory Events
Encoding
Events
Encoding
Retrieval
Preview Question 7: How large and durable is our long-term memory?
Retrieval

37. Long-Term Memory Essentially unlimited capacity store.
R.J. Erwin/ Photo Researchers
The Clark’s nutcracker can locate 6,000 caches of
buried pine seeds during winter and spring.

38. Memory Feats

39. Memory Stores Feature Sensory Memory Working Memory LTM Encoding Copy
Phonemic
Semantic
Capacity
Unlimited
7±2 Chunks
Very Large
Duration
0.25 sec.
20 sec.
Hours-Years

40. Storing Memories in the Brain
Loftus and Loftus (1980) reviewed previous research data showing, through brain stimulation, that memories were etched into the brain and found that only a handful of brain stimulated patients reported flashbacks.
Using rats, Lashley (1950) suggested that even after removing parts of the brain, the animals retain partial memory of the maze.
Preview Question 8: How are memories recorded in the brain?

41. Synaptic Changes
In Aplysia, Kandel and Schwartz (1982) showed that serotonin release from neurons increased after conditioning.
Classically conditioned with electric shock to withdrawal its gills when squirted with water. By observing the slugs neural connections before and after conditioning pinpointed changes in serotonin release at certain synapses which then become more efficient at transferring signals.
Photo: Scientific American

42. Synaptic Changes
Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) refers to synaptic enhancement after learning (Lynch, 2002). An increase in neurotransmitter release or receptors on the receiving neuron indicates strengthening of synapses.
Both Photos: From N. Toni et al., Nature, 402, Nov Courtesy of Dominique Muller

43. Stress Hormones & Memory
Heightened emotions (stress-related or otherwise) make for stronger memories. Flashbulb memories are clear memories of emotionally significant moments or events
The naturally stimulating hormones that we produce when excited or stressed make more glucose
energy available to fuel brain activity, signaling the brain that something important has happened.
The amygdala, an emotion-processing structure in the brain’s limbic system, arouses brain areas
that process emotion. These emotion-triggered hormonal changes boost learning and retention and
help explain our flashbulb memories of surprising, significant events. Emotionless events mean
weaker memories.
Scott Barbour/ Getty Images

44. Storing Implicit & Explicit Memories
Explicit Memory refers to facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare. Implicit memory involves learning an action while the individual does not know or declare what she knows.

45. Hippocampus Hippocampus – a neural center in the limbic
system that processes explicit (declarative) memories.
Brain scans of people recalling words and autopsies of people who had amnesia reveal that the
hippocampus, a limbic system structure, plays a vital role in the gradual processing of our explicit
memories into long-term memory. The hippocampus is not the permanent storehouse, but a loading
dock that feeds new information to other brain circuits for permanent storage. Implicit memories
are processed by the cerebellum. Research with rabbits in which different parts of the neural
pathway were temporarily deadened during eye-blink training pinpointed implicit memory in the
cerebellum at the back of the head.
Weidenfield & Nicolson archives

46. Anterograde Amnesia
After losing his hippocampus in surgery, patient Henry M. (HM) remembered everything before the operation but cannot make new memories. We call this anterograde amnesia.
Anterograde
Amnesia
(HM)
Memory Intact
No New Memories
Surgery

47. Implicit Memory HM is unable to make new memories that are
declarative (explicit), but he can form new
memories that are procedural (implicit). C B A
HM learned the Tower of Hanoi (game) after his surgery. Each time he plays it, he is unable to remember the fact that he has already played the game.

48. Cerebellum Cerebellum – a neural center in the hindbrain
that processes implicit (procedural) memories.

49. Retrieval: Getting Information Out
Retrieval refers to getting information out of the memory store.
Preview Question 9: How do we get information out of memory?
Spanky’s Yearbook Archive
Spanky’s Yearbook Archive

50. Measures of Memory
In recognition, the person must identify an item amongst other choices. (A multiple-choice test requires recognition.)
Name the capital of France.
Brussels
Rome
London
Paris

51. Measures of Memory
In recall, the person must retrieve information using effort. (A fill-in-the blank test requires recall.)
The capital of France is ______.

52. Measures of Memory
In relearning, the individual shows how much time (or effort) is saved when learning material for the second time.
List
Jet
Dagger
Tree
Kite …
Silk
Frog
Ring
List
Jet
Dagger
Tree
Kite …
Silk
Frog
Ring
Original
Trials
Relearning
Trials
1 day later
Saving
X 100
Relearning
Trials 10 5
X 100 10
It took 10 trials
to learn this list
It took 5 trials
to learn the list
50%

53. Retrieval Cues
Memories are held in storage by a web of associations. These associations are like anchors that help retrieve memory.
water
smell
hose
Fire Truck
fire
smoke
truck
heat
red

54. Priming
To retrieve a specific memory from the web of associations, you must first activate one of the strands that leads to it. This process is called priming.
Priming is wakening of associations or “memoryless memory” invisible memory without explicit memory. Another example is that if you see a kidnapping poster you may then interpret any ambiguous adult-child interaction as a possible kidnapping. Although you may not remember the poster it predisposed your interpretations.

55. Context Effects
Scuba divers recall more words underwater if they learned the list underwater, while they recall more words on land if they learned that list on land (Godden & Baddeley, 1975).
Fred McConnaughey/ Photo Researchers

56. Déjà Vu
Déjà Vu means “I've experienced this before.” Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier similar experience.
Retrieval is sometimes aided by returning to the original context in which we experienced an
event or encoded a thought. It can flood our memories with retrieval cues that lead to the target
memory. Sometimes, being in a context similar to one we’ve been in before may trick us into subconsciously
retrieving the target memory. The result is a feeling that we are reliving something
that we have experienced before—a phenomenon known as déjà vu.
© The New Yorker Collection, Leo Cullum from
cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved

57. Context Effects
After learning to move a mobile by kicking, infants most strongly respond when retested in the same context rather than in a different context (Rovee-Collier, 1993).
Courtesy of Carolyn Rovee-Collier,
Rutgers University

58. Moods and Memories
We usually recall experiences that are consistent with our current mood (state-dependent memory). Emotions, or moods, serve as retrieval cues. Our memories are mood-congruent.
State-dependent memory is the tendency to recall information best in the same emotional or physiological
state as when the information was learned. Memories are somewhat mood-congruent.
While in a good or bad mood, we often retrieve memories consistent with that mood. Moods also
prime us to interpret others’ behavior in ways consistent with our emotions.
Jorgen Schytte/ Still Pictures

59. Forgetting
An inability to retrieve information due to poor encoding, storage, or retrieval.
Preview Question 10: Why do we forget? At what points in the memory system can our memory fail us?

60. We cannot remember what we do not encode.
Encoding Failure
We cannot remember what we do not encode.

61. Storage Decay
Poor durability of stored memories leads to their decay. Ebbinghaus showed this with his forgetting curve.
The course of forgetting is initially rapid and then levels off with time. Ex. language

62. Retaining Spanish
Bahrick (1984) showed a similar pattern of forgetting and retaining over 50 years.
Andrew Holbrooke/ Corbis

63. Retrieval Failure
Although the information is retained in the memory store, it cannot be accessed.
Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) is a retrieval failure phenomenon. Given a cue (What makes blood cells red?) the subject says the word begins with an H (hemoglobin).

64. Interference Learning some new information may disrupt
retrieval of other information.
Proactive Interference: something we learned in the past interferes with our ability to recall something we have recently learned.
Retroactive Interference: something we have recently learned interferes with something we learned in the past.
Retrieval failure can occur if we have too few cues to summon information from long-term
memory. It may also happen when old and new information compete for retrieval. In proactive
interference, something we learned in the past interferes with our ability to recall something we
have recently learned. In retroactive interference, something we have recently learned interferes
with something we learned in the past.

66. Retroactive Interference
Sleep prevents retroactive interference. Therefore, it
leads to better recall.

67. Motivated Forgetting
Motivated Forgetting: People unknowingly revise their memories.
Repression: A defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.
With his concept of repression, Sigmund Freud proposed that our memories are self-censoring. To
protect our self-concepts and to minimize anxiety, we may block from consciousness painful
memories and unacceptable impulses. In Freud’s view, this motivated forgetting submerges memories
but leaves them available for later retrieval under the right conditions. Increasing numbers of
memory researchers think repression rarely, if ever, occurs. More typically, we have trouble forgetting
traumatic experiences.
Culver Pictures
Sigmund Freud

68. Why do we forget?
Forgetting can occur at any memory stage. We filter, alter, or lose much information during these stages.

69. Memory Construction
While tapping our memories, we filter or fill in missing pieces of information to make our recall more coherent.
Misinformation Effect: Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.
Preview Question 11: How accurate are our memories?

70. Misinformation and Imagination Effects
Eyewitnesses reconstruct their memories when questioned about the event.
Depiction of the actual accident.

71. Misinformation
Group A: How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?
Group B: How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?

72. Memory Construction
A week later they were asked: Was there any broken glass? Group B (smashed into) reported more broken glass than Group A (hit).

73. Source Amnesia
Source Amnesia: Attributing an event to the wrong source that we experienced, heard, read, or imagined (misattribution).
Our memory for the source of an event is particularly frail. In source amnesia, we attribute to the
wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. Thus, we
may recognize someone but have no idea where we have seen the person. Or we imagine or dream
an event and later are uncertain whether it actually happened.

74. Children’s Eyewitness Recall
Children’s eyewitness recall can be unreliable if leading questions are posed. However, if cognitive interviews are neutrally worded, the accuracy of their recall increases. In cases of sexual abuse, this usually suggests a lower percentage of abuse.
Because memory is often reconstructive, we can’t be sure a memory is real by how real it feels.
Preschool children are particularly sensitive to suggestion, and their recollections of sexual abuse
may be prone to error. When researchers have used suggestive interviewing techniques, they have
found that most preschoolers and many older children can be induced to report false events.
However, even young children can accurately recall events if a neutral person talks to them in
words they can understand and uses less suggestive, more effective techniques.
Innocent people have been falsely convicted of abuse that never happened, and true abusers have
used the controversy over recovered memories to avoid punishment. Forgetting of isolated past
events, both negative and positive, is an ordinary part of life. Cued by a remark or an experience,
we may later recover a memory. Controversy, however, focuses on whether the unconscious mind
forcibly represses painful experiences and whether they can be retrieved by therapist-aided techniques.
Memories “recovered” under hypnosis or drugs are especially unreliable, as are memories
of things happening before age 3. Traumatic experiences are usually vividly remembered, not banished
into an active but inaccessible unconscious.

75. Are memories of abuse repressed or constructed?
Many psychotherapists believe that early childhood sexual abuse results in repressed memories.
However, other psychologists question such beliefs and think that such memories may be constructed.

76. Constructed Memories
Loftus’ research shows that if false memories (lost at the mall or drowned in a lake) are implanted in individuals, they construct (fabricate) their memories.
Don Shrubshell

77. Consensus on Childhood Abuse
Leading psychological associations of the world agree
on the following concerning childhood sexual abuse:
Injustice happens.
Incest and other sexual abuse happen.
People may forget.
Recovered memories are commonplace.
Recovered memories under hypnosis or drugs are unreliable.
Memories of things happening before 3 years of age are unreliable.
Memories, whether real or false, are emotionally upsetting.

78. Improving Memory Study repeatedly to boost long-term recall.
Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the material.
Make material personally meaningful.
Use mnemonic devices:
associate with peg words — something already stored
make up a story
chunk — acronyms
The psychology of memory suggests several effective study strategies. These include overlearning,
using spaced practice; active rehearsal; making new material personally meaningful by relating it
to what is already known; mnemonic techniques; mentally recreating the contexts and moods in
which the original learning occurred in order to activate retrieval cues; minimizing interference,
for example, by studying just before sleeping; and testing one’s knowledge both to rehearse it and
to determine what must still be learned.

79. Improving Memory
Activate retrieval cues — mentally recreate the situation and mood.
Recall events while they are fresh — before you encounter misinformation.
Minimize interference:
Test your own knowledge.
Rehearse and then determine what you do not yet know.

80. Trivia!

81. Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin’s classic three-stage model of memory includes all of the following, EXCEPT:
A. short-term memory.
B. long-term memory.
C. flashbulb memory.
D. sensory memory.
Answer: C. flashbulb memory.

82. When you hear familiar words in your native language, it is virtually impossible not to register the meanings of the words. This best illustrates the importance of:
A. chunking.
B. flashbulb memory.
C. automatic processing.
D. iconic memory.
Answer: C. automatic processing.

83. According to the serial position effect, you will remember more:
A. items at the beginning and end of a list, than in the middle.
B. items in the middle of a list, than at the beginning and end.
C. vocabulary words if you process them visually.
D. vocabulary words if you process them acoustically.
Answer: A. items at the beginning and end of a list, than in the middle.

84. Which of the following processes is likely to result in the best memory for words?
A. visual encoding
B. acoustic encoding
C. rote memorization
D. semantic encoding
Answer: D. semantic encoding

85. Which of the following is most likely to be stored as an implicit memory?
A. a mental image of one's best friend
B. the date of one's own birth
C. a conditioned fear of guns
D. one's own name
Answer: C. a conditioned fear of guns

86. Priming refers to:
A. the sense that one has been in a particular situation before.
B. better recall for experiences that are consistent with one’s current mood.
C. attributing a memory to an erroneous source.
D. the activation of associations in memory.
Answer: D. the activation of associations in memory.

87. Each of the following “sins of memory” involves distortion, EXCEPT:
A. suggestibility.
B. bias.
C. misattribution.
D. absent-mindedness.
Answer: D. absent-mindedness.

88. The reason most North Americans cannot accurately describe the head of a penny is due to:
A. storage decay.
B. encoding failure.
C. motivated forgetting.
D. retrieval failure.
Answer: B. encoding failure.

89. After suffering a brain injury in a motorcycle accident, Adam cannot form new memories. He can, however, remember his life experiences before the accident. Adam's memory difficulty most clearly illustrates:
A. repression.
B. retroactive interference.
C. encoding failure.
D. source amnesia.
Answer: C. encoding failure.

90. During her evening Spanish language exam, Janica so easily remembers the French vocabulary she studied that morning that she finds it difficult to recall the Spanish vocabulary she rehearsed that afternoon. Her difficulty best illustrates:
A. the spacing effect.
B. proactive interference.
C. retroactive interference.
D. state-dependent memory.
Answer: B. proactive interference.

91. The surprising ease with which people form false memories best illustrates that the processes of encoding and retrieval involve:
A. implicit memory.
B. automatic processing.
C. long-term potentiation.
D. memory construction.
Answer: D. memory construction.

92. Which of the following would be predicted by Ebbinghaus’ famous forgetting curve? Several years after learning the dates of important historical events for a college class, students:
A. will remember most of the dates, and will remember them for years to come.
B. will remember most of the dates, and will slowly start to forget them.
C. will have forgotten most of the dates, but what they do remember, they’ll remember for years to come.
D. will have forgotten most of the dates, but during the years to come, they will again remember what they initially forgot.
Answer: C. will have forgotten most of the dates, but what they do remember, they’ll remember for years to come.

93. You are used to driving a car with a standard shift
You are used to driving a car with a standard shift. Today you are driving a friend’s car that has an automatic transmission. As you drive, you keep trying to shift gears, but there is no shift. This tendency is most likely due to:
A. retroactive interference.
B. proactive interference.
C. motivated forgetting.
D. encoding failure.
Answer: B. proactive interference.

94. We have all had the experience of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
We have all had the experience of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. We are asked to remember someone’s name. We are certain that we know the name and feel as if we are just about to remember it, yet it remains elusive. What type of forgetting might be at work here?
A. encoding failure
B. retroactive interference
C. retrieval failure
D. motivated forgetting
Answer: C. retrieval failure

95. You are asked to recall the names of the Seven Dwarfs in the Snow White fairy tale. You are familiar with the story, and may have even seen a movie of the story, yet you cannot remember all seven names accurately. What type of memory problem might account for this?
A. retrieval failure
B. encoding failure
C. proactive interference
D. storage failure
Answer: A. retrieval failure

96. As a child, Theo often looked at a picture album that included photos of a family reunion. Although Theo had not attended the reunion because he had been ill, he remembers being there. Theo’s mistake best illustrates the “sin” of:
A. suggestibility.
B. persistence.
C. misattribution.
D. transience.
Answer: C. misattribution.

97. Exam Results Average for Exam 1 = 79 Average for Exam 2 = 82
Max for Exam 1 =
Max for Exam 2 = 112

98. Class Average
Class Average = 84
Highest Avg = 2 X 100