1. Memory
Module One: Booklet #8

2. Memory
The storage and retrieval of what has been learned or experienced
Involves 3 processes:
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval

3. Encoding (Getting info into your brain)
Transforming of information so the nervous system can process it (Encoding is the process whose purpose is to assign a meaning to the information to be memorized. How effectively you can retrieve information depends on how deeply you have encoded it, and how well you have organized it in your memory.)
Use your senses (hearing, sight, touch, taste, temperature, …) to encode and establish a memory
Uses 3 types of codes:

4. Acoustic codes Visual codes Semantic codes
When you try to remember something by saying it aloud, or to yourself, repeatedly
Visual codes
When you attempt to keep a mental picture
Semantic codes
Try to make sense of things

5. Storage (Retaining and keeping info)
The process by which information is maintained over a period of time
Information can be stored for a few seconds or for much longer

6. Retrieval (Recalling stored info)
Process of obtaining information that has been stored in memory
The ease in which information can be retrieved depends on how efficiently it was encoded and stored (as well as other factors such as genetic background)

7. THREE STAGES OF MEMORY

8. 1) Sensory Memory
Very brief memory storage immediately following initial reception of a stimulus
Senses of sight and hearing (along with other senses) are able to hold an input for a fraction of a second before it disappears

9. Are two types of sensory memory:
Iconic memory
Visual sensory memory
Echoic memory
Type of sensory memory that holds auditory information for 1 to 2 seconds)

10. Sensory memory serves three functions:
Prevents you from being overwhelmed by all the various incoming stimuli
Anything you don’t pay attention to vanishes in seconds!
Gives you decision time
The information is there just long enough for you to decide whether this information is worth paying attention to (if it is then it goes to short-term memory)
Allows for continuity and stability
Makes images smooth and continuous and play back auditory information so can recognize sounds as words

12. 2) Short-Term Memory
Memory that is limited in capacity (i.e. amount) to about seven items and in duration by the subject’s active rehearsal
Consists of the things you have in your conscious mind at any one moment
Does not necessarily involve paying close attention
Contains information that is of possible interest

14. Maintenance Rehearsal
System for remembering involving repeating information to oneself without attempting to find meaning in it
Short-term memory lasts a bit less than 20 seconds without rehearsal
Ex. Saying phone number aloud!!!

15. Chunking The process of grouping items to make them easier to remember
Short-term memory can only hold about seven unrelated items
One of the tricks of memorizing a lot of information quickly is to chunk together the items as fast as they come in, if we connect items in groups, we have fewer to remember

16. Primacy-Recency Effect
You are better able to recall information presented at the beginning and end (the first stuff you have had time to rehearse, the last stuff is still recent, and the middle is lost because you were trying to rehearse the first ones and ember the new ones!)

17. Working Memory
System for processing and working with current information
Includes both short-term memory (events that just occurred) and information stored in long-term memory now recalled for current information

20. 3) Long-Term Memory
It is storage of information over extended periods of time
Stored according to categories or feature (often likened to filing cabinet)
Capacity seems to be limitless
Contains representations of countless facts, experiences and sensations

21. Involves all of the previously described processes (pass through sensory memory, to short-term memory and then into long-term memory)
Although things may become less accessible, elements will still be stored in long-term memory
There are four types of long-term memory….

22. Semantic Memory
Knowledge of language, including its rules, words, and meanings
Share this knowledge with other speakers of our language

23. b)Episodic Memory Memory of one’s life, including time of occurrence
Stored here are things where time of occurrence is important
Example: When you woke up this morning

24. c) Declarative Memory
Memory of knowledge that can be called forth consciously as needed
Involves booth episodic and semantic memory
Information you call forth consciously and use as you need it

25. d) Procedural Memory
Memory of learned skills that does not require conscious recollection
Example: As we gain a skill, we gradually lose the ability to describe what we are doing

26. IMPROVING MEMORY
Techniques for improving memory are based on efficient organization of the thins you learn and on chunking information into easily handled packages

27. Meaningfulness and Association
One way to remember is through elaborative rehearsal
Linking of new information to material that you already know
Relate new information to what you already know
The more meaningful something is, the easier it will be to remember

28. You remember things more vividly you associate then with things already stored in memory or with a strong emotional experience
The more categories a memory is “indexed” under, the more accessible it is and each association can serve as a trigger for the memory
The more senses and experiences you use when trying to memorize something, the more likely it is that you will be able to retrieve it

29. Good ways to protect a memory from interference:
Overlearn it (to keep on rehearing it even after you think you know it well)
Avoid studying similar material together
Space out your learning

30. Mnemonic Devices
Techniques for using associations to memorize and retrieve information such as:
Methods of Loci
Rhymes
Mental Pictures
Giving a word for each picture