1. Chapter 9
Memory

2. Memory
Active system that receives, stores, organizes, alters, and recovers information
Incoming information is encoded (changed to a usable form)
Then stored (held in the system)
Later retrieved (taken out of storage)

3. Sensory Memory
Can hold exact copy of what was seen or heard for only a few seconds, long enough to transfer to STM
Icon: mental image

4. Short-Term Memory (STM)
Holds small amount of information for brief periods
Selective attention: focus on selected portion of sensory input; controls what gets into STM
Cam be sorted as images, but mostly phonetic (words)
Working memory: briefly holds information while other mental activities take place
Sensitive to interference or interruption

5. STM Storage Capacity: 7 plus or minus 2
Information chunks: bits of information grouped into larger units
Records or reorganizes information into categories already in LTM
Maintenance rehearsal (silently repeating) prolongs memory
Elaborative rehearsal makes information more meaningful

6. Long-Term Memory (LTM)
Stores important or meaningful information
Limitless, permanent
Stored by meaning
Memories affected by emotions, judgment
Information may be arranged by rules, images, categories, symbols, personal meaning

7. LTM Procedural memory: skill memory Declarative memory: fact memory
Semantic Memory: personal knowledge about the world (days of the week, names of objects)
Episodic memory: personal information linked with specific times and dates; more easily forgotten than semantic memory

8. Retrieval of information
Whether you remember depends on how you’re tested
Recognition: correctly identify previously learned information
Very accurate for visual stimuli, pictures
Superior to recall
Recall: direct retrieval of information
Serial position effect: make more errors in remembering the middle items in a series

9. Forgetting Most forgetting occurs right after memorization
Semantic and implicit (outside of awareness, such as a keyboard) memories last longer
Encoding failure: memory was never formed
Decay: memory traces weaken over time

10. Memory Strategies Feedback Recitation: summarize in own words
Rehearsal: review
Selection organization: chunks
Spaced practice: superior to massed practice