1. Storage: Retaining Information
Memory
Storage: Retaining Information

2. Sensory Memory Sensory memory retention is only fleeting and momentary
Sensory memory retention allows us to remember small, quick bits of information for a very short period of time

3. Sensory Memory
G Z E P
R K O D
B T X F

4. Sensory Memory How many letters can you recall?
Most people can recall four or five letters in that short of a time span, but know that there were more.

5. Sensory Memory
Sensory memory retention is what is used when you are reading a sentence in a book….you only remember the last word you read until you have read the next few words on the line
You’re flipping through the phone book looking for a number, and though you recognize that some numbers are not the correct one, you don’t recall what they actually were.

6. Sensory Memory
Sensory memory retention is what is used when you see a face in the crowd for a split second….you recognize features quickly, determine she/he was cute, but then you can’t remember any details of their face

9. Sensory Memory Was he/she cute?
What was he/she wearing? What color was it?
What color was his/her hair? How long was it?
What color was her lipstick?
What was his/her facial expression?
What color were his/her eyes?

10. Short-Term Memory or Working Memory
The ability to hold and manipulate information over a brief period of time. Forgetting can occur rapidly, especially if distracted

12. Short-Term Memory or Working Memory
Short-term memory has two important characteristics.
First, short-term memory can contain at any one time seven, plus or minus two, "chunks" of information.
Second, items remain in short-term memory around twenty to thirty seconds.

13. This type of memory increases as children get older…
Short-Term Memory
This type of memory increases as children get older…
…but decreases in old age

14. Look at the pictures on the next slide
Short-Term Memory
Look at the pictures on the next slide

16. Write down all the objects you can remember
How many objects did you remember?

18. Short-Term Memory
We can only consciously process a very limited amount of information in our short-term memory.
Overload your short-term memory? You might forget what you read, ask yourself where you put your briefcase, and ask your phone partner the same thing twice.

19. Long-Term Memory
A system in the brain that can store vast amounts of information on a relatively enduring basis
The information can be facts you learned a few minutes ago, personal memories that are decades old, or skills learned with practice.

20. Long-Term Memory
The average adult has more than a billion bits of information in memory
Storage capacity of long-term memories has been estimated at million times that (1,000,000 X 1,000,000,000)

21. Storing Memories in the Brain
Complex memories do not reside in single specific spots
Karl Lashley – trained rats to solve a maze, then cut out pieces of the rat’s cortexes and retested their memory of the maze. No matter what small cortex section he removed, the rats retained at least a partial memory of how to solve the maze

22. Storing Memories in the Brain
Richard Thompson resumed Lashley’s search
Tone, Puff, Blink –Classical Conditioning/reflex
Activity was found localized in the Cerebellum
The Verdict – Complex memories are distributed while many simple, reflex memories are localized

23. Storing Memories in the Brain
Are memories stored in the electrical currents of the brain, in addition to (or instead of?) the physical cortexes?
Ralph Gerard – trained hamsters to turn right or left to get food, and then lowered their body temps until the brain’s electrical activity ceased. He revived them, re-tested them, and they remembered which way to turn.
Conclusion: Memories are electrical and physical.

24. Important Brain Storage Areas
The hippocampus functions as a memory "gateway"
New memories must pass through before entering permanent storage in the brain.
It holds your short term memory.

25. Important Brain Storage Areas
The amygdala stores many memories tied to emotions.
It is responsible for emotional content of your memories

26. Explicit Memory
The conscious, intentional recollection of previous experiences and information.
We use explicit memory throughout the day, such as remembering the time of an appointment or recollecting an event from years ago.

27. Motor or muscle memory is implicit
Implicit Memory
Implicit Memory is remembering something without being aware that you are remembering it.
It is an automatic or an unconscious form of memory. (Schacter, 1987)
Implicit memory is special because most amnesiacs still have implicit memory skills even if they don't realize it.
Motor or muscle memory is implicit

28. Retrieval: Getting Information Out
Memory
Retrieval: Getting Information Out

29. Retrieval
Retrieval is the process of getting information out of memory storage

30. IE. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776
IE. The Declaration of Independence was signed in The directions to Mom’s house are to make a left on Main Street, a right on Elk Street, etc.
IE. In a group of people you can’t remember names, but you can remember if you’ve met before.

31. Retrieval
Recall – memory is the ability to retrieve exact information learned at an earlier time
IE. Fill in the blank test.
IE. Columbus sailed in the year ________. 6 x 6 = _____. Define retrieval ______ My Social Security number is _______.

32. Retrieval
Recognition – a measure of memory in which a person only needs to identify items previously learned
IE. A multiple-choice test.

33. Retrieval
Relearning – the principle that if you’ve learned something and forgot it, you probably will learn the material more easily the second time – therefore, retrieval is easier and quicker as well
IE. Learned to play the guitar but haven’t played in 10 years, but you pick up a guitar and play a few tunes, and with a few lessons you play as well as you did before.

34. Retrieval
Retrieval Cues – clues that provide reminders of information; clues that can guide us where to look for the right answers.
If you think of memories as a powder keg, a retrieval clue is the initial match that lights the trail of gunpowder leading to the keg

35. Retrieval Cues
Priming – the activation of particular associations in memory; this may be done consciously or unconsciously, purposefully or incidentally
IE. Mnemonic clues (Roy G Biv) are primers that allow you to remember information
IE. A “Missing Child” poster makes you think about your own abduction as a child
IE. The color red prompts memories of days on your grandfathers farm, with its big red barn
IE. The first letter of each vocabulary word is provided on your test.

36. Retrieval Cues
Context Effects – the tendency to remember information better and more accurately when you are in a physical setting that is similar to the one that you learned the information in the first place

37. Retrieval Cues
Mood-Congruent –our moods bias our memories – what we learned in one mood, we remember better when in the same mood
IE. You go to a funeral and are sad, all day long you keep remembering other sad things that you hadn’t thought of in a long time…

38. Retrieval Cues
State-Dependent Theory – what we learn in one physical state – such as drunk or sober – is sometimes more easily recalled when we are again in that same state.
i.e. – where did put those car keys last night…?

39. Retrieval Cues déjà vu – “Already Seen” (French)
The eerie sense that “I’ve been in this exact situation before”
Memory Explanation – If a situation is loaded with clues that are similar to ones already in memory, your brain makes similar associations between them

40. Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Improving Memory

41. Forgetting
Absent-Mindedness – inattention to detail leads to poor encoding, trivial storage, and often failed retrieval

42. Forgetting
Decay Theory – forgetting is due to normal metabolic processes that occur in the brain over time;
if memories are unused over a long period of time, they begin to naturally fade away

43. Forgetting
IE. Within 3 years of graduation you will probably forget more that half of what you learned. But, after three years your forgetfulness will level off and you will retain some of that Spanish for 25 years or more, without having used it or relearned it.
Hermann Ebbinghaus

44. P.O.R.N.

45. Retrieval Failures
Pro-active Interference – occurs when something you learned earlier (an old memory) disrupts your ability to create a new memory
IE. You buy a new car and want to switch on the headlights, but instead you keep turning on the windshield wipers.

46. Retrieval Failures
Retro-active Interference – occurs when New information makers it harder to recall something you learned earlier
IE. Your new phone number interferes with remembering your old phone number.

47. P.O.R.N. P = Proactive O = Remember the old, forget the new
R = retroactive
N = remember the new, can’t remember the old

48. Retrieval Failures
Repression - a defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories
People can knowingly, or unknowingly, revise their own histories

49. Retrieval Failures
Tip-Of-The-Tongue Experience – the inability to get a bit of information that you’re absolutely certain is stored in your memory – the information is very close, but just out of reach

50. Medical Memory Loss Amnesia – severe memory loss
Retrograde – forget things from the past
Anterograde – inability to form new memories but remember
the past
Alzheimers – as plaques build in the brain and interfere with neural transmissions, memories cannot be formed or retrieved

52. False Memories
Source Confusion – arises when the true source of a memory is forgotten, so you create details to fill in the gaps
You actually saw that on tv…
Elizabeth Loftus
Misinformation Effect – a person’s existing memories can be altered if the person is exposed to misleading information
Eyewitness Testimony…How reliable is it?

53. How To Make Memories Last? A Few Suggestions
Focus your attention
Commit the necessary time
Space your study sessions
Organize the information
Elaborate on the material

54. How To Make Memories Last? A Few Suggestions
Use visual imagery and other mnemonics
Explain it to a friend
Reduce Interferences
Since we usually remember the early part and the last part, spend extra time on the middle (the serial position effect)
Use contextual clues to jog memory