Cognitive Psychology: Memory Midterm

• Cognitive Psychology midterm welcome from Ms. Carmina M. Golino, RPm, MA Psy, Psychology Instructor

Learning Outcomes

• Differentiate types of memory and give examples
• Describe memory's role in daily life
• Enumerate ways to measure capacity of short-term memory and give examples
• Describe three phenomena supporting a specialized language system
• Replicate early 20th-century memory experiments

Memory Test Questions

• What is the earliest childhood memory?
• What is the phone number of a parent?
• Can you repeat back the list: book, coffee, flower, car, music?

Memory Defined

• Capacity to connect experiences, learn, and make sense of lives
• Faculty of the mind for encoding, storing, and retrieving information
• Vital for experiences and related to limbic systems, retains information to influence future action
• The power of the brain to recall past experiences or information
• Memory is the means by which information is retained and experiences are drawn in the present
• A process refers to the dynamic mechanisms associated with storing, retaining, and retrieving information about past experience

Stages of Memory

• Encoding (or registration) is receiving, processing, and combining information
  • Encoding allows outside world information to reach senses as stimuli
    • This stage involves changing information for memory encoding
  • In encoding, sensory data transforms into mental representations
• Storage means creating permanent record of the encoded information
  • Storage is the second memory stage or process, maintains information over time
  • In storage, encoded information is kept in memory
• Retrieval involves recalling stored information in response to a cue, for use in a process or activity
  • Retrieval locates stored information and returns it to consciousness
  • Retrieval attempts can be effortless based on type of information
  • In retrieval, you pull out or use information stored in memory

Types of Memory

• Sensory Memory is the shortest form, very fleeting
  • Sensory memory acts as a buffer for stimuli received through the five senses
    • Images are accurately retained but only briefly (less than half a second)
  • Sensory memory stores a quick flash of information received from the senses

Types of Sensory Memory

• Iconic Memory
  • Is immediate visual memories
    • Very fleeting
    • It is how the brain remembers an image seen moments ago
      • Something flashed on the screen for less than a second example
  • The brain will "remember" what it saw very briefly, even after the image is gone
    • Anything "remembered" beyond 0.5 seconds goes to short-term memory
• Echoic Memory
  • Is auditory sensory memory and pertains to audio memories
    • Stored about four seconds, slightly longer than iconic memories.
  • If a few notes of a melody is heard, it may be possible to hum it back immediately after it finishes
    • May be unable to repeat it later unless this has been transferred to short-term memory
• Haptic Memory
  • Is memories involving the sense of touch
    • Fleeting like iconic and echoic memory
  • Remembering the sensation of a rough surface after running your hand over it for a few seconds is an example
    • Memory needs to be encoded into short-term memory for recall after that
• Olfactory Sensory Memory
  • System for storing smells
• Gustatory Sensory Memory
  • It is storage of memory for taste

Short-Term Memory

• Also known as primary or active memory
• It's the information that is currently aware of or thinking about
• Short-term memory information comes from paying attention to sensory memories
• Memory mechanism that allows retention of information over a short period with a limited capacity and finite duration
• Retains processed information temporarily, which either fades quickly or turns into long-term memory
• If asked to remember 10 digits, likely to remember 5-9 numbers
  • Short-term memory is able to retain is 7 elements, with a variation of 2, either more or less
  • Term memory is slightly variable, which is why there are some people who have the ability to remember more or less elements.
• Short-term memory can retain information for up to 20 - 30 seconds
  • It is possible to increase this time by repeating the sequence or giving the elements a meaning
• If short-term memory alone is damaged, the ability to retain information over a short period of time is lost
  • This would make it difficult or impossible to understand long sentences and follow conversations

Types of Memory Tasks

• In Recall, a fact, word, or other item from memory is produced
  • Fill-in-the-blank and most essay tests require recall
• In recognition, item is selected/identified as previously learned
  • Multiple-choice and true-false tests involve some recognition
• Serial recall is recalling items in the exact order presented
• Free recall is recalling items in any order chosen
• Cued recall is recalling items after being shown items in pairs and then being cued with one member of each pair to recall the mate, also called "paired-associates recall".
• Relearning is the measurement of how many trials to learn items again which that were learned in the past
  • Referred to as savings
  • Observed in adults, children, and animals also

Tasks Used for Measuring Memory

- Explicit-memory Tasks
    - Must consciously recall particular information
        - Example: Who wrote Hamlet?
- Declarative-knowledge Tasks
    - Must recall facts
        - Example: What is your first name?
- Recall Tasks
    - Producing a fact, a word, or other item from memory
        - Fill-in-the-blank tests requiring recall
    - Example: "The term for persons who suffer severe memory impairment is _______."
- Serial-recall Task
    - Repeat items in a list in the exact order heard or read
        - Example: repeat "2-8-7 -1-6-4" after being shown 2-8-7-1-6-4
- Free-recall Task
    - Repeat items in a list in any order
        - Example: "dog, pencil, time, hair, monkey, restaurant"
- Implicit-memory tasks involve being asked to supply the missing three letters to form a word that was previously seen

Tasks Based on Knowledge

• Tasks involving procedural knowledge are about remembering learned skills and automatic behaviors, not facts
  • Example: riding a bicycle
• Explicit memory tasks involve conscious recollection of words, facts, or pictures from a previous set of items
• Implicit memory involves use of information without conscious awareness
• Speedy Recall examples with different time: 30 secs, 45 secs, 1 minute

Short-Term Memory Relations

• Sensory memory retains sensory stimuli briefly to process and send to short-term memory
  • Information received by senses of touch, taste, smell, hear, and see

Types of Memory Relations to Short Term

• Working Memory or Operative Memory
  • Active process of manipulating and working with information in short-term memory
  • The information may be organized, which is when long-term memory intervenes
    • This step does not always occur
• Long-term Memory
  • Retains a virtually infinite amount of stored knowledge
  • Comes from short-term memory
  • Brain will decide whether information is relevant or irrelevant
    • It's passes to long-term memory if it's important
• Systems that depend on short-term memory, will be altered if it is damaged, like working memory and long-term memory
  • If the brain is not able to retain information from short-term memory, working memory will not able to properly manipulate this information
• Alterations in short-term memory will result in new memories being affected
  • It is however possible to recover memories previously stored in long-term memory

Memory Aids and Tricks

• Chunking: Memorization technique where small segments is used to facilitate transfer into long-term memory
• Rehearsal: Studying approach where critical information is repeated over and over again until the information is imbedded into the mind
  • Elaborative rehearsal a technique to help remember something by thinking about the meaning of the term to be remembered, as opposed to simply repeating the word to yourself over and over
• Exercise : Recent research has shown that exercise may also help increase short-term memory
• Digit Span: The average capacity of STM is about 5-9 items about the length of a phone number suggested by George Miller
• Central Executive is what decides what working memory pays attention to
  • Two activities can come into conflict like driving and talking
    • Central executive can direct attention and gives priority to particular action

Long Term Memory

• Includes anything from an event that occurred five minutes a go to something from 20 years ago
• Is the storage of information for a long time
  • Final stage in the processing of memory
• Decays very little with time so it is easier to recall
• A number of factors can influence how long information endures in long-term memory
  • How the memory was encoded can play a role
• Memories for recall are often stronger
  • Repeats of information during studying leads to better recall on an exam
• Capacity of long-term is unlimited in contrast to short-term and working memory
  • Different types of long-term memories are stored in different parts of the brain
• Short-term can be changed into long term through consolidation: involves rehearsal and association of information
• Short-term: visual and acoustic encoding
• Long-term: encoded semantically
• Long-term memories are conscious when the individual must actively think in order to recall
  • They sometimes are also unconscious and simply appear without attempted recollection

Memory Biases

• Non-associative memory is the learning of new behaviors mainly through repeated exposure to a single type of stimuli
  • Habituation is a decrease in response to repeated stimuli
  • Sensitization is an increased response to repeated stimuli
• Habituation is when repeated exposure to a stimulus decreases an organism's responsiveness to it
  • Noise is a great example of something that is habituated to
• Sensitization is learning that occurs when stimulus is repeated, and each time your response to it increases as it goes on and on

Types of Biases

• Priming exposure to stimuli influences the response to subsequently presented stimuli
  • Effect of previous memory on new information is called priming
  • Priming effects can occur with perceptually, linguistically, or conceptually related stimuli

Priming Example

• When exposed to the word "yellow" there will be a faster response to the word "banana" than to words like "television." because memories of "yellow and banana" are strongly associated

Types of Priming

• Positive and negative priming influences the processing speed.
  • The key word is an example, i.e. "sky" is the color blue
    • Positive priming makes processing faster and speeds up memory retrieval
    • Negative priming slows it down
  • Red pen being the target of attention
• Semantic Priming involves words that are associated in a logical or linguistic way
  • Example: Responding to banana after being primed (exposed) to yellow
• Associative priming is using two stimuli that are normally associated with one another
  • Cat and mouse are often linked
    • The appearance of one of the words can prime the subject to respond more rapidly when the second word appears
• Repetition priming: stimulus and response are repeatedly paired
• Perceptual priming involves stimuli that have similar forms
  • Example: "goat" is evoked when being preceded by the word "boat" as the two words are perceptually similar
• Conceptual priming involves a stimulus and response that are conceptually related
  • Words such as "desk" and "chair" are likely to show priming effects because they are in the same conceptual category
• Masked priming involves part of the initial stimulus being obscured in some way, such as with hash marks
  • Words in which certain letters are obscured are an example of masked priming

Final Requirement

• "RESEARCH PRESENTATION” (Dyads)Research-based article presentation to present the new studies made in the topics covered in the field of Cognitive psychology
  • 1. What are the new insights you can contribute to students and will eventually help them improve their academic and personal life? 2. Does it have an impact on the students or is it practical or applicable?
  • A group will have 15 minutes to present in class.
  • Present on April 7, 2025 (Monday).