1. Modules 22-24 Memory: Encoding & Storage

2. The Nature of Memory
Memory: the mental process by which information is encoded and stored in the brain and later retrieved
Until the late 1950s, most psychologists viewed memory as a single system.
Due to technological advances outside the discipline and scientific discoveries within, psychologists dramatically changed their views of memory.

3. The Computers’ Information-Processing System Has Been a Useful Model for Human Memory
According to the information-processing model of memory, there are three basic processes that information goes through:
Encoding process: incoming information is organized and transformed so it can be entered into memory
Storage process: involves entering and maintaining information in memory for a period of time
Retrieval process: involves recovering stored information from memory so it can be used

4. Memory as Information-Processing
In the encoding process, information from our surroundings is transformed into neural language through:
Visual encoding: Information is represented in memory as a picture.
Acoustic encoding: Information is represented in memory as a sequence of sounds.
Semantic encoding: Information is represented in memory by its meaning to you.
The type of encoding used—visual, acoustic, or semantic—can influence what is remembered.

5. The Atkinson-Schiffrin Model
Three memory systems or stages
Sensory memory: a memory system that very briefly stores the sensory characteristics of a stimulus
Short-term memory: a limited-capacity memory system where we actively “work” with information
Long-term memory: a durable memory system that has an immense capacity for information storage

6. Overview of the Information-Processing Model of Memory

7. Sensory Memory
Sensory memory serves as a holding area, storing information just long enough for us to select items for attention.
Information not transferred to short-term memory is quickly replaced by incoming stimuli and lost.
Sensory memory consists of separate memory subsystems:
Iconic memory: Visual sensory memory is the fleeting memory of an image, or icon.
Echoic memory: Auditory sensory memory is often experienced like an echo.

8. Figure Atkinson-Shiffrin’s three-stage processing model of memory Myers: Exploring Psychology, Sixth Edition in Modules Copyright © 2005 by Worth Publishers

9. Short-Term Memory: a “Working Memory” System
Short-term memory: the memory area where we actively “work” with information
Referred to as working memory and has three basic components:
Phonological loop: temporarily stores auditory input
Visuospatial sketchpad: temporarily stores visual and spatial images
Central executive: supervises and coordinates the other two components

10. Short-Term Memory
Encoding in short-term memory is much more complex than what occurs in sensory memory encoding.
Organizing items of information into a meaningful unit, which is called “chunking,” can greatly increase the amount of information held in short- term memory.
Information is stored in short-term memory for only about 18 seconds; time can be extended through maintenance rehearsal, which is repetitively verbalizing or thinking about information.

11. Encoding- Chunking
Organized information is more easily recalled

12. Encoding Strategy 1: Organization
Chunking
organizing into familiar, manageable units
use of acronyms
HOMES-Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior

13. Encoding Strategy 2: Meaning
Ebbinghaus – learning meaningful information requires only 1/10 the effort of learning nonsense information.

14. Encoding Meaning
Wickelgren (1977) The time you spend thinking about material you are reading and relating it to previously stored material is about the most useful thing you can do in learning any new subject matter.

15. Encoding into Long-Term Memory
Elaborative rehearsal: rehearsal that involves thinking about how new information relates to information already stored in long-term memory; involves semantic encoding
Semantic encoding
Ignoring details and instead encoding the general underlying meaning of information

16. Types of Encoding
Encoding
Effortful
Automatic

17. Encoding Strategy 3: Imagery
- mental pictures
- a powerful aid to effortful processing, “piggybacks” on automatic processing
Mnemonics - memory aids
especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices
Method of loci, stories, peg-words

18. Storage

19. What Constitutes Long-Term Memory?
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, some cognitive psychologists proposed that long-term memory consists of multiple systems that encode and store different types of information.
Memory researchers are not in agreement on how many long-term memory systems exist.

20. Long-Term Memory Stores Different Types of Information
Explicit /Declarative
Semantic memory: more general in nature
General knowledge about the world
Episodic memory: factual information acquired at a specific time and place
Events in own life—autobiographical memories

21. Long-Term Memory Stores Different Types of Information
Implicit/Non-Declarative
Procedural memory: retains information of how to perform skilled motor activities
Habits, activities so well-learned that we carry them out automatically.
Results of conditioning

22. Long-Term Memories Can Be Explicit or Implicit
Explicit memory: the conscious recollection of previous experiences
Also referred to as declarative memory
Episodic and semantic memories are explicit memories.

23. Long-Term Memories Can Be Explicit or Implicit
Implicit memory: information that influences our thoughts and actions without conscious recollection

24. Long-Term Memory Subsystems
Types of
long-term
memories
Explicit
(declarative)
With conscious
recall
Implicit
(nondeclarative)
Without conscious
Semantic
Facts-general
knowledge
Episodic
Personally
experienced
events
Skills-motor
and cognitive
Dispositions-
classical and
operant
conditioning
effects

25. Organization of Long-term Memory

26. Long-Term Memory Organization: Semantic Networks
Semantic network model: a theory that describes concepts in long-term memory organized in a complex network of associations
Cross-cultural studies indicate that the way people use these networks is influenced by experience and education.

27. A Semantic Network Model

28. Long-Term Memory Organization: Schemas
Semantic networks are less helpful in explaining how information is clustered into coherent wholes, called schemas.
People are more likely to remember things that can be incorporated into existing schemas than things that cannot.

29. Information in Long-Term Memory Can Be Organized around Schemas
Participants given a schema in which to understand a story recalled twice as many ideas.
Further studies—schemas help us remember and organize details and speed up processing time.
Cross-cultural research indicates that cultural utility plays an important role in what kind of schemas develop and, thus, what is remembered.

30. Remembering & Forgetting
Retention & Retrieval
Remembering & Forgetting

31. Levels of Processing Model
Retention depends upon how deeply information is processed
The shallowest levels of processing occur when the person is merely aware of the incoming sensory information.
Deeper processing takes place only when the person does something with the information
Makes associations
Attaches meaning
Actively elaborates

32. Memory Retrieval Varies in Difficulty
Recall
Serial recall
Free recall
Retrieval cue
Recognition – hippocampus
Relearning - savings

33. Context Effects Improve Retrieval
Many elements of the physical setting in which we learn information are simultaneously encoded into long-term memory.
Those stimuli or similar stimuli will allow us to more easily recall information from long- term memory
These stimuli appear to serve as retrieval cues.

34. Context Effects
memory works better in the context of original learning
Good reason for coming to class
Holidays

35. Context Effects 10 20 30 40 Water/ land Land/ water10 20 30 40
Water/
land
Land/
water
Different contexts for
hearing and recall
Same contexts for hearing and recall
Percentage of
words recalled

36. Psychological Retrieval Cues
Our internal psychological environment can also be encoded and become part of our memory strands.
State-dependent memory:
The tendency for retrieval from memory being better when our state of mind during retrieval matches our state during encoding.
Mood-dependent memory

37. Encoding Specificity Principle
Encoding specificity principle: a retrieval rule stating that retrieving information from long-term memory is most likely when the conditions at retrieval closely match the conditions present during the original learning

38. Reconstruction of Memory
Elizabeth Loftus
What a person usually recalls is not a replica, but a reconstruction of the event
A reconstruction is an account which is pieced together from a few highlights, using information which may or may not be accurate.

39. Memories Are Reconstructions of the Past
The scientific belief in the reconstructive nature of memory was first proposed in the 1930s by Sir Frederic Bartlett.
By testing people’s memories of stories they had read, Bartlett found that accurate recollections were rare.
Errors increased over time.

40. Memories Are Often Sketchy Reconstructions of the Past
Bartlett concluded that –
The parts that participants were most confident of remembering were often those that they had created.
People systematically distort details (facts and circumstances).
People are largely unaware they have reconstructed the past, and
Information already stored in memory strongly influences how new information will be remembered.

41. Memories are Affected by Schemas
Schemas are integrated frameworks of knowledge and assumptions a person has about people, objects and events.
They influence what people notice and how they encode and recall information.
In other words, we distort new information to fit our existing schemas.

42. Memories Are Affected by the Introduction of Inaccurate Information
Misinformation effects: distortions and alterations in people’s memories due to them receiving misleading information during questioning

43. Misinformation Effect
Depiction of actual accident
Leading question:
“About how fast were the cars
going when they smashed into
each other?”
Memory
construction
Eyewitnesses reconstruct memories when questioned

44. LO 6.12 How Does Amnesia Occur?
Retrograde amnesia: loss of memory from the point of some injury or trauma backwards, or loss of memory for the past
Anterograde amnesia: loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term memories (“senile dementia”); see the case of H.M.

45. LO 6.12 How Does Amnesia Occur?
Infantile amnesia: the inability to retrieve memories from much before age three
autobiographical memory: the memory for events and facts related to one’s personal life story (usually after age three)
Source amnesia

46. LO 6.13 What Are the Facts about Alzheimer’s Disease?
The primary memory difficulty in Alzheimer’s is anterograde amnesia, although retrograde amnesia can also occur as the disease progresses.
There are various drugs in use or in development for use in slowing or stopping the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

47. Source Confusions Can Create Memory Illusions
Sometimes we forget the true source of an episodic memory and may experience a memory illusion.
Memory illusions appear to be shaped by implicit remembering.

48. Source Confusions Can Create Memory Illusions
Common types of memory illusion include:
Déjà vu: a memory illusion in which people feel a sense of familiarity in a situation that they know they have never encountered before
Cryptomnesia: (hidden or forgotten memory) a memory illusion in which people believe that some work they have done is a novel creation, when, in fact, it is not original

49. Forgetting

50. Most Forgetting Occurs Soon after Learning
Much of what a person learns is quickly forgotten.
Herman Ebbinghaus’s research (1800s)
Most forgetting occurred within 9 hours after learning.
Everything about it may not be forgotten.
Implication: most forgetting is not complete.
One reason for forgetting (encoding failure):
Not being sufficiently attentive when information is presented

51. Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve

52. Forgetting: Encoding Failure
LO 6.10 Why Do We Forget?
Encoding failure: failure to process information into memory

53. Forgetting Forgetting as encoding failure External events Sensory
memory
Short-
term
Long-
Attention
Encoding
failure leads
to forgetting

54. Forgetting as Encoding Failure
Which penny is the real thing?

55. Forgetting as Retrieval Failure
Forgetting can result from failure to retrieve information from long-term memory
External
events
Attention
Encoding
Retrieval failure
leads to forgetting
Retrieval
Sensory
memory
Short-term
Long-term

56. Other Theories of Forgetting
Decay Theory
Unless memories are periodically rehearsed, the passage of time causes them to fade and eventually decay.
Inteference Theory
Retroactive interference: forgetting due to interference from newly learned information
Proactive interference: forgetting due to interference from previously learned information

57. Forgetting as Storage Decay1 2 3 4 5 10 15 20 25 30 40 50
Time in days since learning list
Percentage of
list retained
when
relearning 60
Retention,
drops
then levels off

58. Theories of Forgetting: Storage Decay
Decay Theory
Unless memories are periodically rehearsed, the passage of time causes them to fade and eventually decay.

59. Forgetting: Memory Trace Theory
Memory trace: physical change in the brain that occurs when a memory is formed
decay: loss of memory due to the passage of time, during which the memory trace is not used
disuse: another name for decay, assuming that memories that are not used will eventually decay and disappear

60. Forgetting: Memory Trace Theory
Memories after many years are not explained by memory trace theory.

61. Theory of Forgetting: Retrieval Failure
Forgetting can result from failure to retrieve information from long-term memory
External
events
Attention
Encoding
Retrieval failure
leads to forgetting
Retrieval
Sensory
memory
Short-term
Long-term

62. Theories of Forgetting: Storage Decay
Decay Theory
Unless memories are periodically rehearsed, the passage of time causes them to fade and eventually decay.

63. Forgetting as Storage Decay1 2 3 4 5 10 15 20 25 30 40 50
Time in days since learning list
Percentage of
list retained
when
relearning 60
Retention,
drops
then levels off

64. Theory of Forgetting: Interference
Inteference Theory
Retroactive interference: forgetting due to interference from newly learned information
Proactive interference: forgetting due to interference from previously learned information

65. Forgetting: Interference Theory
LO Why Do We Forget?
Proactive interference: memory retrieval problem that occurs when older information prevents or interferes with the retrieval of newer information

66. Forgetting: InterferenceTheory
LO 6.10 Why Do We Forget?
Retroactive interference: memory retrieval problem that occurs when newer information prevents or interferes with the retrieval of older information
Proactive interference: problems driving in England after learning in the U.S.

67. Interference in Memory

68. Theory of Forgetting: Motivation
Motivated forgetting: forgetting due to a desire to eliminate awareness of some unpleasant or disturbing memory

69. Two Types or Theories of Motivated Forgetting
Suppression occurs when a person consciously tries to forget something.
Repression occurs when a person unconsciously pushes unpleasant memories out of conscious awareness.
These memories continue to unconsciously influence the person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

70. Can people repress & later recover memories?
Many memory researchers believe:
It is naive to assume that people can accurately recover memories that were previously unconsciously repressed
People can unknowingly manufacture false memories.
False memories can be implanted into the minds of both children and adults.

71. Can people repress & later recover memories?
Many psychologists believe that memories “recovered” in therapy are actually false or pseudo memories.
Many research participants who are instructed to imagine that a fictitious event happened later develop a false memory of the fictitious event.
False childhood memories can be experimentally induced.

72. Can people repress & later recover memories?
Garry & Loftus implanted a false memory of being lost in a shopping mall at age 5 in 25% of their research participants (aged 18-53) after verification of the experience by a relative.
“Memories” from the first years of life are very suspect. Psychologists believe that the brain in insufficiently developed to create or sustain a long-term (until older childhood or adulthood) memory in a child under age three.

73. Repressed & Recovered Memories?
Simply repeating imaginary events to people causes them to become more confident that they actually experienced these events.
Certain techniques used in therapy to recover childhood memories of abuse (hypnosis and dream interpretation) can distort patients’ recollections of past events and create false memories of abuse.

74. Repressed Memories Controversy
Current evidence supports the possibility of repressed memories and also the construction of false memories in response to suggestions of others.
American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association,
American Medical Association

75. The Brain Physiology of Memory

76. Long-Term Potentiation May Be the Neural Basis for Memory
There is no scientific consensus on what an engram (or memory trace) is or where it is located in the brain.
However, it appears that memories begin as electrical impulses traveling between neurons, and that the establishment of long- term memories involves changes in these neurons.

77. Long-Term Potentiation May Be the Neural Basis for Memory
Long-term potentiation: the long-lasting strengthening of synaptic transmission along a specific neural circuit, which is believed to be the neural basis for long-term memory
When a new memory is formed, changes occur in specific neurons, creating a kind of memory circuit.
Each time the new memory is recalled, the neurons in this new circuit are activated, which strengthens their neural connections.
As the communication links between the neurons increase in strength, the memory becomes established as a long-term memory.

78. How Does Storage Work? The Search for Memory
Long-Term Potentiation
A long-lasting increase in the efficiency of neural transmission at the synapses (junctions or connection points between nerve cells) .
Donald O. Hebb argued that learning and memory must involve the enhancement of transmission at the synapses

79. How Does Storage Work? The Search for Memory
Karl Lashley (1950)
trained rats to solve maze, then cut out pieces of their cortex and retested their memory of maze
partial memory retained
concluded memory is distributed

80. How Does Storage Work? The Search for Memory
Long-Term Potentiation
increase in synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation
Kandel & Schwartz (1982) – classically conditioned aplysia
Neural connections released more neurotransmitter, became more sensitive/efficient
Increased number of receptor sites

81. Long-term Potentiation Double receptor sites
Classical Conditioning: Sea snail associates splash with a tail shock
Event 1
Event 2
Long-term Potentiation Double receptor sites

82. Biological Factors Affecting Memory Processing
Strong emotions make for stronger memories – stress hormones boost learning & retention; anxiety affects memory (cortisol)
Drugs like alcohol that block neurotransmitters may prevent memory storage (retrograde amnesia)
Blows to the head and electric current may also block information storage.

83. Brain Regions Involved in Memory Formation & Storage
The hippocampus appears to be most important in the encoding of new explicit memories and the transfer of them from short-term to long-term memory.

84. Brain Regions Involved in Memory Formation & Storage
The inability to form new memories due to the brain experiencing physical injury is called anterograde amnesia.
This appears to be caused by damage to the hippocampus.
Explicit memories cannot be formed, but implicit memories can.