Memory Processes and the Modal Model

Memory Processes

• Acquisition refers to gaining information and placing it into memory.
• Storage involves holding information in memory until it is needed.
• Retrieval is the process of locating and activating information for use.

Modal Model of Memory

• Sensory memory holds just-seen or just-heard input in raw sensory form.
• Sensory input contains too much info for the brain to process all at once
• Sensory memory is responsible for visible persistence (afterimage) and informational persistence
• Short-term memory holds information being worked on, with some info transferred to long-term memory.
• Working memory is a storage system where information is held while being worked on, combining storage with active attention.

Measuring Working Memory Capacity

• Digit-span task measures the longest list a person can remember, typically around 7 items (plus or minus 2).
• Chunks are storage units in working memory, with capacity estimated at 7 plus or minus 2 chunks.
• Operation span is a test measuring working memory, updating the digit span test; EX: Reading span method
• Working-memory capacity (WMC) is derived from operation span tasks, measuring storing ability while working with materials.

Long-Term Memory

• Long-term memory stores all knowledge and memories, containing memories not currently activated.
• Free recall procedure involves naming relevant items in any order after a broad cue.

Primacy and Recency Effects

• Primary effect refers to remembering early-presented materials due to focused attention.
• Memory rehearsal maintains information in working memory.
• Recency effect is the tendency to remember materials late in a series because they are still in working memory.
• Serial position summarizes the relationship between performance and order location in a series.

Entering Long-Term Storage

• Maintenance rehearsal is a mechanical process of repeating items in working memory.
• Relational rehearsal involves thinking about connections among ideas to guide memory search.
• Incidental learning occurs without intention or expectation of a memory test.
• Intentional learning is deliberate, expecting a memory test later.
• Shallow processing involves paying attention to appearances, leading to poor memory retention.
• Deep processing involves paying attention to meaning and implication, leading to excellent memory retention.

Organizing and Memorizing

• Mnemonic strategies improve memory by imposing organization.
• Peg-word systems use words or locations as "pegs" to "hang" materials to be remembered, often using rhymes.

Memory and Context

• Context-dependent learning shows that material learned in one setting is best remembered in that setting
• Context reinstatement involves leading a person to the mental/emotional state of a previous event to promote recollection.
• Encoding specificity is the tendency to place both materials and context into memory.

Memory Networks

• Nodes are individual units within an associative network, representing single ideas.
• Association or associative links are connections between nodes, linking ideas in the mind.
• Subthreshold activation is activation levels below response threshold, but can accumulate.
• Summation is the addition of two or more separate inputs resulting in an enhanced effect.
• Spreading activation is the process through which activation travels from one node to another via associative links.

Semantic Priming

• Semantic priming occurs when activation of an idea causes activation to spread to related ideas.
• Lexical decision task involves identifying real words in strings of letters.

Forms of Memory Testing

• Recall involves retrieving desired materials, sometimes with cues.
• Recognition involves deciding whether an item was encountered earlier.
• Familiarity is a subjective feeling of having encountered a stimulus before.
• Source memory enables recollection of the episode, time, and place of learning.
• Attribution involves explaining a feeling or event by identifying its causes.

Familiarity vs. Source Memory

• "Remember/know" distinction differentiates between recalling an event with specific details versus merely knowing it occurred.

Memory without Awareness

• Prior experience can shape behavior without conscious awareness.

Long-Term Memory Breakdown

• Explicit memories (declarative) are the conscious recall of information or past experiences.
• Episodic memory involves memories of specific events and experiences.
• Semantic memory involves the memory of general knowledge, organized in a network with related concepts.

Implicit Memory

• Implicit memories (non-declarative) are revealed by indirect memory testing.
• Procedural memory is the memory of how to do something without conscious awareness.
• Direct memory testing probes memory with explicit reference to prior experience.
• Indirect memory testing measures influence of past experiences on current behavior without explicit recall.

Separating Implicit and Explicit Influences

• Method of Opposition involves inclusion (complete stems with words from a list) and exclusion (complete stems with words not on the list) conditions.

Illusion of Truth

• Illusion of truth appears where familiar claims seem more plausible.
• Implicit memory refers to unconscious memories that influence actions and perceptions.

Source Confusion

• Source confusion defines a memory error in which the source of learned information is misremembered

Processing Fluency

• Processing pathway is through the brain to recognize an idea.
• Processing fluency measures the speed or ease of processing.

Amnesia

• Amnesia is memory disruption due to brain damage.
• Retrograde amnesia is an inability to remember experiences before the event that triggered memory disruption.
• Anterograde amnesia is an inability to remember experiences after the event.
• Korsakoff syndrome is characterized by dense anterograde amnesia, often precipitated by malnutrition in long-term alcoholics.