Memory Overview in Psychology

Memory Overview

• Kartini Ilias (PhD), Senior Lecturer/Clinical Psychologist, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiTM
• Lecture topics include: The Nature of Memory, Forgetting, Biological Bases of Memory, Memory and the Criminal Justice System, Using Psychology to Improve Our Memory

The Nature of Memory

• Memory: An internal record or representation of some prior event or experience.
• Constructive process: Actively organizing and shaping information as it's processed, stored, and retrieved.

Models of Memory

• Information Processing Model: Memory is analogous to a computer, with encoding, storage, and retrieval stages.
• Parallel Distributed Processing Model (PDP): Memory involves a vast network of interconnected units (neurons) that process information simultaneously. Also called the connectionist model.
• Levels of Processing Model: Memory retention depends on the depth of mental processing. Deep processing enhances memory retention.
• Traditional Three-Stage Model: Memory comprises sensory memory (brief impressions), short-term memory (temporary holding), and long-term memory (lasting storage).

Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval (Based on Information Processing Model)

• Encoding: The process of taking in information (visual, auditory, semantic).
• Storage: Information is stored in short-term or long-term memory, depending on attention and practice.
• Retrieval: Accessing the stored information when needed, influenced by rehearsal/practice. Quick if information is rehearsed.

Application in Daily Life (Across Models)

• Encoding effectively (attention, relating to prior knowledge) improves storage of information.
• Regular retrieval practice improves memory recall in real-life.
• PDP model explains how smells or songs can trigger childhood memories, or multitasking ability.
• Level of processing model: deeper processing (meaningful connections, relating info to other knowledge, visualization) enhances retention.

Biological Bases of Memory

• Changes in neurons through long-term potentiation:
  • Repeated synapse stimulation strengthens the synapse.
  • Ability of a neuron to release neurotransmitters can increase or decrease.
• Changes in hormones affect various brain structures.
• Flashbulb memories: Vivid images of emotionally significant events.
• Memory is distributed throughout the brain, not just in the cortex.
• Brain structures involved: cerebral cortex, thalamus, basal ganglia, hippocampus, amygdala, cerebellum

Biological Causes of Memory Loss

• Amnesia: loss of memory as a result of serious brain injury or trauma, including:
  • Retrograde amnesia (loss of past memories).
  • Anterograde amnesia (inability to create new memories).
• Alzheimer's disease: Progressive mental deterioration, characterized by severe memory loss.

Memory and the Criminal Justice System

• Eyewitness accounts: Often persuasive but can be flawed.
• Repressed memories: Debate on the accuracy of recovered memories.

Using Psychology to Improve Memory

• Strategies for improving memory include attention management, rehearsal, organization, combating the serial position effect, effective time management, encoding specificity principle, self-monitoring, overlearning, and mnemonic devices.

Forgetting

• Ebbinghaus: Forgetting occurs most rapidly immediately after learning; relearning takes less time.
• Theories of forgetting include decay, interference, motivated forgetting, encoding failure, and retrieval failure.
• Interference: Retroactive (new information interferes with old) and Proactive (old information interferes with new).
• Serial position effect: People tend to remember items at the beginning and end of a list better than those in the middle.
• Source amnesia: Forgetting the true source of a memory.
• Sleeper effect: Initially discounting unreliable sources, but later believing them potentially because the source is forgotten.
• Spacing of practice: Distributed practice is more effective than massed practice.

Short-Term Memory (STM) and Working Memory

• STM: Holds about 5–9 items for about 30 seconds.
• Increased capacity: Through chunking.
• Capacity and duration enhanced through maintenance and elaborative rehearsal.
• Working memory: Active processing of information, not just passive storage. Visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop, and central executive.

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

• Relatively permanent memory storage with unlimited capacity.
• Improving LTM: Organization, elaborative rehearsal, and retrieval cues (recognition and recall)

Types of Long-Term Memories

• Explicit/Declarative memories: conscious recall. Includes semantic memory (general knowledge) and episodic memory (personal experiences).
• Implicit/Nondeclarative memories: No conscious recall. Includes procedural memory (motor skills), classical conditioning, and priming.