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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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)

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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”

11. 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

12. 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

13. Third Stage: Long-term memory
Unlimited capacity and duration

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

15. 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