To add for next year: maintenance vs. elaborative rehearsal Memory To add for next year: maintenance vs. elaborative rehearsal

Review Information Processing Model: 3 steps to take meaningless sensory information and change it to meaningful patterns that you can store and use later 1. Encoding 2. Storage 3. Retrieval *These are the three basic tasks of memory

Encoding Tons of inputs coming into sensory organs Your brain has to pick which ones to process Then it has to identify the distinctive features of that input (is the sound loud or soft? Does it have melody? Is it a voice?) Then you mentally tag or label an experience to make it meaningful

Encoding continued…. Automatic processing For most everyday experiences, encoding is automatic Example: what did you have for breakfast? What time did you get up? You did not have to stop and consciously try to remember these experiences Emotionally charged experiences are very likely to automatically be encoded

Encoding continued… effortful processing Deliberate encoding effort is needed to process the ideas and concepts in your psychology book This effortful processing is required in order to form a memory of this information During this process, you connect the new concept with existing information in memory Very similar to assimilation in Piaget’s theory about schemas

Storage This involves the retention of encoded material over time. There are three stages to memory (Sensory, working, and long-term). Each of these stages stores memories for different lengths of time.

Review: How do we form memories? There are three stages to processing memories: Sensory memory Working memory (used to be called short-term memory) Long term memory *You can go through the 3 tasks with each of these stages separately)

The first stage: Sensory memory The most fleeting stage – about ¼ second Typically holds sights, sounds, smells, textures, and other sensory impressions for only a fraction of a second. One of the functions of sensory memory is to hold sensory information long enough for it to be screened for possible entry into working memory

Sensory memory continued…. The storage capacity for Sensory memory can be 12 or more items but you may not be able to retrieve them all at the same time before they vanish There is a different sensory register for each sense

The second stage: Working memory The mechanism that selects information from sensory memory Can be seen as the temporary storage site before something either enters long term memory or is lost Typically holds information for 20 seconds (if you make a special effort to rehearse the info it can keep info much longer) It is the process that we usually call “thinking”

Working memory continued Usually holds about 7 items (+-2) When we overload working memory, we lose earlier information to accommodate for later stuff. Has the smallest storage capacity of all three stages

Working memory continued Short duration and limited capacity makes remembering school lectures hard… Ways to help: Chunking Rehearsal Maintenance (just repeating to yourself) Elaborative (information not just repeated but actively connected to prior information

Third Stage: Long-term memory Unlimited capacity and duration

Retrieval The payoff for your earlier efforts of encoding and storage Retrieval is not perfect. It often makes errors, distorts information, or fails

Parts of the brain associated with memory Amygdala – especially emotional memories Hippocampus – deterioration has something to do with Alzheimer's Memories go through hippocampus before entering long term storage in the cortex. Site for explicit memories (conscious memory) Cerebellum – implicit memories (memories independent of conscious awareness) People with cerebellum damage may not be able to be classically conditioned