1. HUMAN MEMORY

2. not a rememberer of experience”
“The computer is
a retriever of information,
not a rememberer of experience”
Schacter

3. EBBINGHAUS -1880s
Laboratory studies of verbal learning, memory, and forgetting

4. INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL OF MEMORY

5. SENSORY MEMORY
SHORT-TERM MEMORY
LONG-TERM MEMORY
STM LTM

6. SENSORY MEMORY
High capacity, rapid decay, less than 1 second for the icon, 2-3 seconds for the echo

7. SENSORY
MEMORY All Incoming
Information -
Information
Not
Attended To
FORGOTTEN

8. SENSORY
MEMORY All Incoming
Information -
Information
Not
SHORT-TERM Attended To MEMORY FORGOTTEN
ATTENTION

9. Attention
is a control process
Gateway to awareness

10. Attention
Control process
Gateway to awareness
Example of inattentional blindness

11. Short-Term Memory STM Working memory Limited capacity, 7 + or - 2
Digit span test
Chunking

12. STM
Rapid decay, sec for unrehearsed meaningless material

13. STM Not a passive storage depot
Rather, an active mental workspace known as
Working memory

14. Working Memory Visuospatial Scratchpad Central Executive
Phonological Loop

15. Long-Term Memory LTM
Vast capacity
Long or permanent duration
Rajan - pi - 30,000 digits

16. Classes of LTM 1. Declarative - Explicit
a. Semantic - general knowledge of the world
b. Episodic - knowledge of your own past experiences

17. Classes of LTM 2. Nondeclarative or Implicit
- Procedural - learned skills or habitual responses, classical conditioning, priming

18. FORGETTING

19. Forgetting as a result of decay?

20. Simple passage of time after learning has minimal effect on retention

21. Forgetting as a result of interference

22. Retroactive Interference
Current learning interferes with recall of previously learned material

23. Retroactive Interference
Learn Learn Memory
A B Loss
for A
Time

24. Proactive Interference
Prior learning interferes with retention of new information

25. Proactive Interference
Learn Learn Memory
A B Loss
for B
Time

26. Retrograde and Anterograde Amnesia
Time
Retrograde Anterograde
Head Trauma

27. Medial Temporal Lobe Amnesia
Mr. H. M. - almost solely anterograde amnesia
Hippocampal damage
Separation of procedural and declarative memories

28. Bilateral medial temporal lobe damage induces declarative anterograde amnesia

29. Can these patients acquire a classically conditioned response?
Delayed conditioning, CS and US overlap
Yes
Trace conditioning, CS and US do not overlap No

30. Delayed and trace classical conditioning
are different kinds of learning involving
different brain structures

31. Separation of episodic and semantic memories in unidentified patients
Example: Richard Nixon’s father was a member of Hell’s Angels

32. Korsakoff’s Syndrome
associated with alcoholism - vitamin B1 deficiency
similar to diencephalic amnesia - mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus - Mr. N. A.

33. Sweet Memories Why do some events become vivid memories?
Flashbulb Memories

34. Sweet Memories
Post-trial administration of epinephrine improves memories
Post-trial administration of glucose improves memories

35. Memories associated with arousal produce
epinephrine release and
glucose release
Flashbulb Memories may be sweet memories

36. Repressed Memories
Repression - major Freudian concept - unacceptable thoughts pushed into the unconscious
Does incest/sexual abuse during childhood produce repression and behavioral dysfunction

37. YES! assert some
therapists - repressed memories are associated with depression, eating disorders, sexual dysfunction, anxiety, etc
Recovery of memories is therapeutic

38. George Franklin was accused of murdering a young girl, Susan Nason, more than two decades after the crime.
His daughter Eileen, only 8 at the time of the murder, claimed to have witnessed it, repressed it, and then recovered the memory. He was convicted.

39. YES! assert some Self-help pop-psychology books
The Courage to Heal by Bass and Davis

40. “If you think you were abused and your life shows the symptoms, then you were. If you don’t remember your abuse, you are not alone. Many women don’t have memories.....this doesn’t mean they weren’t abused.”

41. NO! assert most
therapists, accused individuals, and cognitive psychologists
False Memory Syndrome Foundation - 7,000 members, founded by Pamela Freyd, accused by her daughter

42. “Recovered-memory therapists have invented a mechanism that supposedly causes a child’s awareness of sexual assault to be driven entirely from consciousness. There is no limit to the number of traumatic events that can be repressed, and no limit to the length of time over which the series of events can occur.”

43. False Memory Test
False memories can be implanted

44. Traumatic events generally NOT repressed - can’t be forgotten - post-traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans
Traumatic memories are “sweet memories”