1. Cognition Memory, Thinking & Language Unit VII- Modules 31-36

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. Do You Know the 7 Dwarfs Grouchy Gabby Fearful Sleepy Smiley Jumpy
Shy Droopy Sniffy
Bashful Cheerful Teach
Shorty Nifty Happy
Doc Wheezy Stubby
Hopeful Wishful Puffy
Dumpy Sneezy Pop
Lazy Dopey Grumpy

4. The Phenomenon of Memory
Memory is any indication that learning has persisted over time. It is our ability to store and retrieve information.
OBJECTIVE 1| Define memory, and explain how flashbulb memories differ from other memories.

5. Information Processing Model Tasks of Memory
Keyboard
(Encoding)
Disk
(Storage)
Monitor
(Retrieval)
Sequential Process

6. Memory’s Three Basic Tasks
1) Encoding- requires that you select some stimulus event (from the vast array of inputs assaulting your senses).
You identify the distinctive features of that input
( sound-soft, loud, harsh)
Then you mentally tag or label an experience.
Sometimes elaboration (assimilation)-you connect a new concept with existing information in memory (link it with concrete examples)
2) Storage-involves the retention of encoded material over time.
3) Retrieval-accessing the information and bringing it to consciousness.

7. Photographic Memory
The technical term for “photographic memory” is eidetic imagery.
Psychologists prefer this term because eidetic images are different from images made by a camera ( it renders everything in a minute detail).
An eidetic image portrays the most interesting and meaningful parts of the scene most accurately.
Appears most commonly in children(5%), but only rarely in adults.

8. Memory Models: Working Memory
The Atkinson-Schiffrin (1968) three-stage model of memory includes a) sensory memory, b) short-term memory, and c) long-term memory.
The stages work like an assembly line to convert a flow of incoming stimuli into meaningful patterns that can be stored and later remembered.
OBJECTIVE 2| Describe Atkinson-Schiffrin’s classic three-stage model of memory and explain how contemporary model of working memory differs.
Bob Daemmrich/ The Image Works
Frank Wartenberg/ Picture Press/
Corbis
Bob Daemmrich/ The Image Works

9. Information Processing Model
Sensory memory -the most fleeting of the three stages
Typically holds sights, sounds, smells, textures, and other sensory impressions for only a fraction of a second.
Short lived images are screened for possible entry into working memory.
Working Memory-(short-term memory)-takes info from sensory register and connects it with items already in long-term storage
Built to hold info for only a few seconds (temporarily holds items like a phone number)
We actively associate new and old information & solve problems.

10. Information Processing Model
Long-term memory -receives info from working (STM) and can store it for much longer periods of time.
Sometimes for the rest of a person’s life.
Info in our long-term memory constitutes our knowledge about the world and holds material varied as an image of your mother’s face, the lyrics to a favorite song, and the year that Wilhem Wundt established the first psychology laboratory (that was in 18??)

11. Working Memory
Alan Baddeley (2002) proposes that working memory contains auditory and visual processing controlled by the central executive through an episodic buffer.

12. Explicit memory (declarative memory) Effortful processing
Building Memories: Encoding Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Versus Automatic Processing
Explicit memory (declarative memory)
Effortful processing
Automatic processing
Implicit memory (nondeclarative memory)

13. 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.

14. Encoding: 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 (when struggling to recall the info you may visualize its location)
Time: We unintentionally note the events that take place in a day.
Frequency: You effortlessly keep track of things that happen to you.
OBJECTIVE 3| Describe the types of information we encode automatically.

15. Dual-Track Memory: Automatic Processing and Implicit Memories
Processing that happens without awareness produces implicit memories.
Implicit memories also called nondeclarative memories is retention independent of conscious recollection
Ex. Riding a bike, driving home.

16. Effortful Processing
Committing novel information to memory requires attention and conscious effort~ just like learning a concept from a textbook. Such processing leads to durable and accessible memories.
OBJECTIVE 4| Contrast effortful processing with automatic processing, and discuss the next-in-line effect, the spacing effect and the serial position effect.
Spencer Grant/ Photo Edit
© Bananastock/ Alamy

17. Building Memories: Encoding Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories
Explicit memory- memories of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”
Also called declarative memory
Iconic memory- a fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli (0.5 sec)
Echoic memory- a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli (3-4 sec)
Total recall—briefly  When George Sperling flashed a group of letters similar to this for one-twentieth of a second, people could recall only about half the letters. But when signaled to recall a particular row immediately after the letters had disappeared, they could do so with near-perfect accuracy.

18. Magic number Seven Plus or minus 2
Building Memories: Encoding Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories: Capacity of Short-Term and Working Memory
Magic number Seven
Plus or minus 2

19. 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

20. Building Memories: Encoding Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories: Effortful Processing Strategies
Chunking

21. Chunking 1-7-7-6-1-4-9-2-1-8-1-2-1-9-4-1
Organizing pieces of information into a smaller number of meaningful units or chunks. 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

22. Acronyms are another way of chunking information to remember it.
HOMES = Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior
PEMDAS = Parentheses, Exponent, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract
ROY G. BIV = Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet

23. 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

24. Visual Encoding: Mnemonic devices
Mnemonic –Greek word for memory.
Def. memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.
Can use acoustic and visual codes (acronyms-ROY G BIV; music-songs)
Developed by ancient Greek scholars and orators as aids to remembering lengthy passages and speeches.

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

26. Types of Encoding 1) Visual-encoding its image
2) Acoustic- encoding of sound, especially the sound of words
Conversion of information (especially semantic) to sound patterns in working memory
3) Semantic-encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

27. Visual Encoding
Mental pictures (imagery) are a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding.
OBJECTIVE 6| Explain how encoding imagery aids effortful processing, and describes some memory-enhancing strategies that use visual 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.

28. Building Memories: Encoding Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories: Distributed Practice
Overlearning
Spacing effect -distributed study or practice yields better long term retention than massed practice.
Massed practice-cramming
Testing effect- enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading information
Repeated self testing

29. Building Memories: Encoding Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories: Levels of Processing
Shallow processing- encodes on a very basic level such as a word’s letters or appearance of words
Deep processing- encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention

30. Building Memories: Encoding Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories: Making Material Personally Meaningful
Making material meaningful-relate it to your own life
Self-reference effect-
Information deemed
“relevant to me” is processed
More deeply

31. Module 32: Memory Storage and Retrieval

32. Memory Storage Retaining Information in the Brain
Memories are NOT stored in one part of the brain.

33. Memory Storage Retaining Information in the Brain:
Hippocampus-neural center in limbic systems helps to process explicit memories for storage
Amnesia
Damage to left hemisphere-have problems remember verbal information
Damage to right hemisphere
Problems with recalling visual designs & locations
Consolidation during sleep-process
memories

34. Memory Storage Retaining Information in the Brain: Implicit-Memory System: The Cerebellum and Basal Ganglia
Cerebellum-forming & storing implicit memories created by classical conditioning
Basal Ganglia-facilitates
formation of our procedural memory
like riding a bike, tying your shoe laces
Infantile amnesia-no recollection of our
first 3 years of life

35. Memory Storage The Amygdala, Emotions, and Memory
Amygdala-stress hormones provoke the amygdala to initiate a memory trace in frontal lobes & basal ganglia
Flashbulb Memories-
a clear memory of an
emotionally significant
moment or event.

36. Flashbulb Memory
A unique and highly emotional moment may give rise to a clear, strong, and persistent memory called flashbulb memory. However, this memory is not free from errors.
Ruters/ Corbis
President Bush being told of 9/11 attack.

37. Synaptic Changes
In Aplysia (California sea snail), Kandel and Schwartz (1982) showed that serotonin release from neurons increased after conditioning (or learning).
OBJECTIVE 11| Discuss the synaptic changes that accompany memory formation and storage.
Photo: Scientific American
These synapses then became more efficient at transmitting signals.

38. 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.
Drugs that block LTP interfere with learning.
Both Photos: From N. Toni et al., Nature, 402, Nov Courtesy of Dominique Muller

39. Memory Storage

40. Memory Storage

41. Memory Storage

42. Memory Storage

43. Memory Storage

44. Memory Storage

45. Retrieval: Getting Information Out
Retrieval refers to getting information out of the memory store.
OBJECTIVE 14| Contrast the recall, recognition, and relearning measures of memory.
Remembering things past  Even if Taylor Swift and Leonardo DiCaprio had not become famous, their high school classmates would most likely still recognize their high school photos. 

46. Measuring Retention How is memory measured?
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

47. Measuring Retention How is memory measured?
In recall, the person must retrieve information using effort. (A fill-in-the blank test requires recall.)
The capital of France is ______.

48. Measuring Retention How is memory measured?
Relearning-a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.

49. 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%

50. 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
OBJECTIVE 15| Explain how retrieval cues help us access stored memories, and describe the process of priming.
smoke
truck
heat
red

51. Retrieval Cues: Priming
Priming is the implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences response to a later stimulus.
an increased sensitivity to certain stimuli due to prior experience. Priming is believed to occur outside of conscious awareness
After seeing or hearing the word “rabbit”, we are later more likely to spell the spoken word as h-a-r-e.

52. Retrieval Cues: Priming
Have you ever heard an old song you had long forgotten and suddenly become avalanched in old memories?  Maybe you played this record when you and your boyfriend/girlfriend were first dating, maybe the music brought to mind the house where you used to live.  This effect of bringing to mind memories through associations is called "priming" .

53. Context-Dependent Memory
Putting yourself back in the context where you experienced something can prime your memory retrieval.
Read pg 336 last paragraph for example.
Fred McConnaughey/ Photo Researchers

54. Moods and Memories
We usually recall experiences that are consistent with our current mood. Emotions, or moods, serve as retrieval cues.
OBJECTIVE 17| Describe the effects of internal states on retrieval.
Jorgen Schytte/ Still Pictures

55. Retrieval: Getting Information Out Retrieval Cues: State-Dependent Memory
Mood congruent memory- the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.

56. Memory Effects
Next-in-line-Effect: When you are so anxious about being next that you cannot remember what the person just before you in line says, but you can recall what other people around you say.
Spacing Effect: We retain information better when we rehearse over time.
Serial Position Effect: Our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and the first items (primacy effect) in a list

57. Serial position effect
Retrieval: Getting Information Out Retrieval Cues: Serial Position Effect
Serial position effect
Recency effect
Primacy effect

58. Module 33: Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Memory Improvement

59. Tip of the Tongue (TOT)
TOT Phenomenon- the inability to recall a word, while knowing that it is in memory.
Most common TOT experiences center on names of personal acquaintances, names of famous people, and familiar objects
Survey says that most people have this experience about once a week.

60. Forgetting Why do we forget?
An inability to retrieve information due to poor encoding, storage, or retrieval.
Encoding Failure
We cannot remember what we do not encode.
OBJECTIVE 18| Explain why we should value our ability to forget, and distinguish three general ways our memory fails us.

61. Forgetting and the Two Track Mind
Anterograde Amnesia- an inability to form new memories. You can recall the past.
50 First Dates
Retrograde amnesia-inability to retrieve memories from one’s past

62. Forgetting Encoding Failure

63. Forgetting Storage Decay
Storage decay-Poor durability of stored memories leads to their decay.
Ebbinghaus showed this with his forgetting curve.
Ebbinghaus curve

64. Forgetting Storage Decay

65. Forgetting Retrieval Failure

66. Forgetting Retrieval Failure: Interference
Proactive interference- the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.
Can’t remember your new locker combination because of your old locker combination.
Retroactive interference- the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.
Ex. If someone sings new lyrics to the tune of an old song and now you can’t remember the original lyrics to the old song.

67. Motivated Forgetting
Motivated Forgetting: People unknowingly revise their memories.
Repression: A defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness. But the repressed memory lingers, he believed, and can be retrieved by some later cue or during therapy.
OBJECTIVE 22| Summarize Freud's concept of repression, and state whether this view is reflected in current memory research.
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 Errors

70. Memory Construction
While tapping our memories, we filter or fill in missing pieces of information to make our recall more coherent.
Misinformation Effect: Exposed to misleading information, we tend to misremember.

71. Source Amnesia
Source Amnesia: attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. (Also called source misattribution.)
Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories.
OBJECTIVE 24| Describe source amnesia’s contributions to false memories.

72. Source Amnesia
Source amnesia also helps explain déjà vu (French for “already seen”).
The key to déjà vu seems to be familiarity with a stimulus without a clear idea of where we encountered it before (Cleary, 2008). Normally, we experience a feeling of familiarity (thanks to temporal lobe processing) before we consciously remember details (thanks to hippocampus and frontal lobe processing). When these functions (and brain regions) are out of sync, we may experience a feeling of familiarity without conscious recall

73. Discerning True & False Memories
Just like true perception and illusion, real memories and memories that seem real are difficult to discern.
False memories can be persistent.
Memory construction helps explain why 79% of 200 convicts exonerated by later DNA testing has been misjudged based on faulty eye witness identification (Garrett, 2008).
OBJECTIVE 25| List some differences and similarities between true and false memories.

74. False Memories Repressed or Constructed?
Some adults actually do forget childhood episodes of abuse.
False Memory Syndrome
A condition in which a person’s identity and relationships center around a false but strongly believed memory of a traumatic experience, which is sometimes induced by well-meaning therapists.

75. Factors Affecting the Accuracy of Eyewitnesses
People’s recollections are less influenced by leading questions if they are forewarned that interrogations can create memory bias
When the passage of time allows the original memory to fade, people are more likely to misremember information.
Each time a memory is retrieved, it is reconstructed and then restored- increasing the chances of error.
The age of the witness matters: Younger children and adults over 64 may be especially susceptible to influence by misinformation in their efforts to recall.
Confidence in memory is NOT a sign of an accurate memory. In fact, misinformed people can actually come to believe the misinformation in which they feel confidence.

76. 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.
OBJECTIVE 26| Give arguments supporting and rejecting the position that very young children's reports are reliable.

77. 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.
OBJECTIVE 27| Discuss the controversy over reports of repressed and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.

78. Memory Construction Errors Repressed or Constructed Memories of Abuse?
Areas of agreement
Sexual abuse happens
Injustice happens
Forgetting happens
Recovered memories are incomplete
Memories before 3 years are unreliable
Hypnotic memories are unreliable
Memories can be emotionally upsetting

79. Improving Memory Rehearse repeatedly Make the material meaningful
Activate retrieval cues
Use mnemonic devices
Minimize interference
Sleep more
Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to help determine what you do not yet know