Memory: Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval

Memory

• Memory follows a three-stage information-processing model.
• Encoding refers to the registration of information from the outside world in the form of chemical and physical stimuli.
• Information must be changed to be put into the encoding process.
• After information is received, it's processed and combined.
• Storage creates a permanent record of encoded information in short-term memory (STM) or long-term memory (LTM).
• Retrieval involves recalling stored information in response to retrieval cues.
• Some retrieval attempts can be effortless, depending on the type of information.
• Other retrieval attempts to retrieve stored information can be more challenging.

Recognition and Recall Memory

• Recognition tasks require individuals to indicate if they have encountered a stimulus before (e.g., a picture or a word).
• More retrieval cues make retrieval easier.
• "Objective questions" like multiple-choice or true/false questions are examples of recognition tasks.
• Recall tasks require participants to retrieve previously learned information.
• Fewer retrieval cues make retrieval harder.
• "Subjective questions" like essays or long answers are examples of recall tasks.

Spreading Activation Model

• The spreading activation model is a "connectionist" model of memory.
• This model uses an associative method for searching networks, neural networks, or semantic networks.
• The search process starts by labeling a set of source nodes (concepts in a semantic network) with weights ("activation") and propagating that activation to other linked nodes.
• "Weights" decay as activation spreads through the network.
• Memory retrieval describes how the brain moves through an entire network of ideas in order to retrieve specific information.
• Activation of pathways in the network relates to how closely two concepts are connected by meaning.
• Subjects respond faster to the word "doctor" when preceded by "nurse" than by an unrelated word like "canary".
• In a semantic network, nodes connected by meaning can also activate one another through phonetic connections (phonological/sound) as similar-sounding words activate each other.
• The "Baker/baker paradox" or "Farmer/farmer paradox" illustrates this.
• Explanation: A researcher shows two people the same photograph of a face, telling one that the man is a baker and the other that his last name is Baker.
• A couple of days later, the researcher shows the same two people the same photograph and asks for the accompanying word.
• The person told the man's profession is more likely to remember it than the person given the surname.
• The name baker may have no real meaning to you and has no real meaning that would make it unique to all of the other information that is swirling round in your cognition
• By telling someone the man is a baker, you begin to associate the person with all thigns that go along with a baker; good food, a large white hat, little anchors that will help navigate your neuro pathways in order to recall the memory.

Multi-Store Model of Memory

• Sensory memory holds sensory information for less than a second after perceiving an item.
• For example, the ability to look at an item and remember what it looked like with just a split second of observation.
• It is out of cognitive control and its an automatic response.
• Three types: iconic memory, fast decaying store of visual information, afterimage of photoflash.
• Briefly stores an image that has been perceived for a small duration.
• Echoic memory is the fast decaying store of auditory information.
• Briefly store sounds heard for short durations (max: 2 sec)
• Haptic memory represents database for touch stimuli.
• Short-term memory (STM) / working memory allows recall for 18 – 30 seconds with rehearsal.
• Purposely rehearse, repeating information to maintain it in STM.
• Capacity of STM is very limited - 7-+2 items, modern estimates lower, approximately 4-5 items.
• Digit memory span depends on linguistic factors.
• Chinese digit memory span is about 9 digits while it averages only 7 in English due to Chinese number words being brief.
• Displacement occurs in the STM when it is filled to capacity; each new incoming item pushes out an existing item.
• Chunking increases STM capacity by grouping information into meaningful units.
• For example, recalling a 10-digit phone number by chunking the digits into (i) area code, (ii) a three-digit chunk, and (iii) a four-digit chunk.
• People may retain 7±2 chunks in STM, which depends on each chunk's size.
• Chunking is a mnemonic that helps organize, retain, and remember information.
• STM mainly relies on an acoustic code for storing written information, with visual code playing a lesser role.
• Working memory has two functions: active maintenance of information in STM and manipulation of information (e.g., mental calculations).
• It consists of 3 basic stores and 1 buffer.
• Central executive attends to sensory stores and channels information to three component processes.
• Phonological loop receives information from echoic memory of the sensory register, it has two parts:
• Phonological store ("inner ear") holds spoken words directly for 1-2 seconds.
• Articulatory control process ("inner voice") rehearses information from the phonological store to keep the information in mind.
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad ("inner eye") is responsible for Iconic memory
• Stores visual and spatial information and is engaged when performing spatial or visual tasks,.
• Multimodal episodic buffer links information across domains of visual, spatial, and verbal information (chronological ordering) and links to LTM and semantic meaning.

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

• Long-term memory (LTM) can store larger unlimited quantities of information, with potentially unlimited duration
• Encoding occurs in the LTM.
• It has a large capacity, like remembering telephone numbers for years with repetition.
• LTM is maintained by stable and permanent changes in neural connections spread throughout the brain.
• The hippocampus is essential for consolidating newly-learned information from STM to LTM, but it doesn't store information itself.
• Types of LTM: retrospective and prospective memory with temporal direction.
• Retrospective memory refers to content to be remembered in the past.
• Prospective memory refers to content to be remembered in the future.
• It involves memory for future intentions, or remembering to remember.

Types of Retrospective LTM

• Declarative (explicit) and procedural (implicit) memories.
• Declarative memory (explicit memory) requires conscious recall.
• Some conscious process must call back the information and is often called explicit memory.
• Consists of information explicitly stored and retrieved can further be sub-divided into Semantic and Episodic
• Semantic memory (encyclopedic memory) where Principle & facts are independent of context.
• Allows encoding of abstract knowledge about the world, "Ottawa is the capital of Canada"
• Episodic memory (autobiographic memory) where Information relates to specific context and time and is used for more personal memories.
• Reflects the "firsts" in life and key events.
• All forms of memory are susceptible to disruption, relationship between episodic & semantic memory.
• There is a steady movement of memories from episodic to semantic memory, especially during childhood.
• Semantic information is derived from accumulated episodic memory as we learn new facts & concepts from experiences, episodic memory can reinforce semantic memory.
• Non-declaration memory (implicit memory) in cases where it is not based on conscious recall of information, but on implicit &learning.
• There are four types of non-declarative implicit memory: 1.Procedural = Enables the person to perform specific learned, motor skills, habitual responses such as riding a bike, speaking grammatically, or tying shoelaces

2. Associated learning = Classical and operant conditional
3. Emotional conditioning = Conditioned nausea/fear.
4. Priming = Implicit and automatic, influence of one memory on another (does not depend on any awareness).

Factors Influencing Memory

• Levels of processing
• Rehearsal in short-term memory (STM) is two kinds:

1. Maintenance with repetition to hold in STM.

• It is shallow processing, leads to short-term retention without enhancing LTM.

2. Elaborative rehearsal is a meaning analysis with images and thinking which leads to better recalls in the LTM Hierarchy of levels of processing:
3. Structural or physical processing - encodes physical features with only a shallow processing and a poor recall
4. Phonemic or phonological processing - occurs when we process sounds. Also has a shallow processing but has a higher recall rate than visual processing
5. Semantic processing of information comes with the processing of understanding of the word in full meaning

• Very deep processing mode producing a superior, excellent Recall.

Serial Position Effect

• Subjects asked to remember a list of items, then asked to recall them in any "free recall" order.
• The resulting recall is better for items at the beginning and end of the sequence while the recall is the worst for items located in the middle.
• Primacy effect - the tendency to readily recall the first items because they've already been placed in LTM.
• Recency effect - the tendency to readily recall the last items because they are still in STM.
• Context
• Encoding specificity states that the information is remembered best in an environment that is the same as or similar to where it was initially learned.
• Locus-dependent learning we should learn in a location that is as similar as possible to where being tested to maximize retrieval cues.
• State-dependent learning we recall better if one is in the same pharmacological state as when the information was encoded.
• Mood-dependent learning we recall better if one is in the same mood state as when the information was encoded; the emotion serves as retrieval cues.
• Mood - congruence effect - where individuals retrieve information more easily when it has the same emotional content as their current emotional state.

Forgetting

• Encoding failure – due to lack of attention & absentmindedness
• Storage failure – Decay happens in the storage stage of memory after the information has been stored & before it is retrieved and has a rapid drop in information after over the course of time such a days or years
• Retrieval failure –Interference happens in:
• Retroactive interference makes it harder to recall old information because of new information.
• Proactive interference happens then prior learnt learning disrupts the recall of new information.
• Positive transfer is where old information can facilitate the learning of new information.

Physiology of Memory

• Hippocampus involves spatial learning & declarative learning.
• It is where memory consolidation occurs, and damage to hippocampus leads to memory loss including retrograde amnesia
• Amygdala is involves emotional memory.
• Memory enhancement effect has direct correlation where the more emotional charged an event or experience is, the better is the memory that leads to the damaged amygdala effects will be visible.
• Sleep: Neural connections in the brain are strengthened to enhances the brain's abilities to stabilize & retain memories.
• Sleep improves the retention of memory.
• Memories are enhanced through active consolidation during slow-wave sleep (SWS).
• Amnesic disorders can be caused by organic, (neurological) reasons such as damage to regions of limbic system or psychogenic reasons where the psychological result is repression (dissociative amnesia)
• Classification based on time = Retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia and global amnesia:
• Retrograde, is when the amnesia is the loss of memory for experiences that occurred shortly before loss of consciousness
• Anterograde, when the is the amnesia or memory loss coming from event follwing an injury
• Global, amnesia when the entire memory is gone

Ribot's Law

• There is a time gradient in retrograde amnesia, and recent memories are more likely to be lost.
• Many neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's, are associated with a temporally graded retrograde amnesia, indicating that older memories are somehow strengthened against degeneration, while newer memories are not
• Not all patients suffering from retrograde amnesia report the symptoms of Ribot's Law
• Unusual Memories comes as flashbulbs which represents clear episodic memories of highly emotional events.
• An example, People remembering where they were when they heard the news of President Kennedy's assassination or of 9/11
• Explanation: emotion enhancement effect
• Strong emotions act as extra stimuli, consolidation of new memory is enhanced through the modulating effects of the release of stress hormones & stress-activated neurotransmitters associated with amygdala activation
• Criticisms come from the lack of flashbulb, because the memories are not photographically faithful copies proof against forgetfulness & distortion
• It is precisely with shocking news & events that there is a good chance that we recall them and discuss them with others - such repetition ensures that we store the memory carefully away so that we can access it easily in future.
• Counter-criticisms - fails to explain the persistence of memories of unimportant details that are absent from other autobiographical memories
• Hyperthymesia - Where it is a Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) or hyperthymesic syndrome that affects one's individual autobiographical memory where they can can not forget
• Photographic memory's ability to form detailed visual images after examining a picture or page for a short period of time & to recall the entire image at a later date where are rare cases.
• Photographic memories only really happen amongst kids Temporary Failures in Memory Absentmindedness is made of two factors:

1. Encoding failure or memory failure because of the lack of attention causing information to not be stored into the LTM, making it impossible to be retrieved later.
2. Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon is often defined as a common temporary failure to retrieve a word for memory that one realizes.

• Demonstrates that the relationship between remembering & forgetting is more complex than a simple mutual incompatibility.
• An intensively active & enduring "gap" that claims ones attention in the case of language like the "gap" holds information of the e.g. the first letter of the word & the number of syllables. When the gap introduced it is called the a temporary retrieval failure.
• Retrieval cues is made of mental reminders that are created by forming vivid mental images of information or associating new information. The Doorway effect is the made of a temporary moment of forgetfulness or the explanation of the common experience of arriving somewhere only to realize you have forgotten what you went there to do and can have 2 Traditional explanation:

1. Decoding specificity memory where best the memory because of the context is during recall that matches up with the context during learning.
2. Event horizon model where the brain is like a computer on a busy work day with tonnes of tasks, applications, & programmes all running at once, which causes there to be momentary bouts of forgetfulness.

• Our brains see doorways as a sort of memory cut-off point or mental divider that cause you to be walking through a doorway triggers memory segmentation Memory Reconstruction & False Memory
• Memory as a reconstruction, a account of event pieced together from highlights and or other information that may or may not be true or accurate.
• People can construct when they encode/record and or when they reconstruct.

Loftus

• In Loftus study, the wording can change the reconstruction of an event or memories, because what people were saw was more likely due to have seem by the wording.
• People who were asked about seeing broken glass where the cars had smashed were more like to report broken glass due to wording. Another part, the False memory is used show the apparent and that a memory is not true and inaccurate
• Imagination inflation creates false memory by imagining a false or non real event so they will start to believe these are true events.
• A part in the court room the Eyewitness is not trustworthy due to the young child prone to social pressure.

The Driving Forces Behind Personality based Freud

• According to Freud can be split amongst two life instincts and death instincts:
• Life instincts where the needs is basic or is just to sustain life.
• Death instinct when people hold a desire to die where the mind and wishes is tempered and where other instances where there is a self destructive expression of energy.
• Psyche Basic Structure for Personality is also topgraphical or structural models/structures structured amongst the conscious and the pre-conscious or Sub conscious and uncionsious where a persons is driven by pleasure and principle.

1. The level or awareness or mind consciousness refers to; All the things we are aware of it or can easily and or can easily bring into awareness and the Aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk is about rationally

2. Pre-consciousness refers to; Subconscious and contains Ordinary and a regular memory

3. Unconsciousness refers to; Everything away from is awareness, has a reservoir of desires feelings and wishes but is unacceptable and this will eventually effect our behaviors. - Hints of the Unconcious

Three Parts of Freudian Structure

1. Id the only component that is present from birth.

• The "primitive part" is source of almost all our basic urges & libidinal energy – primary component of personality and runs or is governed or Driven by principle

2. Ego is responsible for Charged with dealing with reality.

• Weighs the costs & benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses.

3. Superego holds all of the internalized morals & standards - our sense of right & wrong.

• Guidelines for making judgements.

Psychosexual Stage

• Theory is heavily based on personality development & continue to influence behavior later in life from what we did during experiences and is mostly established by the first five years.
• This can be through different childhood psychosexual stages at 3 and or different phases of a child.
• Each psychosexual stage, the libido's pleasure-seeking energy focused where certain is satisfied but can face difficulties in other stages or life
• Oral Stage = Birth to 1 year = Mouth
• The primary conflict the child is facing is to or with weaning weaning which causes a the dependence that is both either delayed or not.
• Anal Stage = The anus = 1 - 3 years = Major conflict is toilet training needs.

Phallic or Electra Stages

• 3- 6 years (Penis)
• Resolution of phallic conflict to identify for the same family or relation.
• The 6- 12 years is a very unique time with little libidinal interest, meaning children enter school or become concerned with their hobbies and other external affairs for growth and for skill developments

Defense Mechanisms

• Most defense mechanisms emerge during the latency stage of psychosexual development, but others can emerge earlier.
• Defense mechanisms are the first response often.

Defenses:

1. Denial involves a flat out rejection of the existence of a fact or as something as or as extreme as the earth being flat.
2. Projection involves a lot immature characteristics and qualities

• • Rationalization and or Intel. is a way to avoid or talk or avoid difficult situations or feelings but use those as as a way to take up as a way that will also protects ones esteem and self concept.

• For example = If a person is has issues with one part of the phallic stage such as dominance then she would become aggressive towards other people.

• Or for another example If were to go back to a younger age group and revert it would not be unusual if the person we knew acted in a different manner.