Memory: Recall, Recognition, and Types

• Memory is the persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Recall and Recognition

• Recall is retrieving information from memory.
• Recognition is identifying the correct target from a set of possible targets.

Key Processes in Memory

• Encoding is the processing of information into the memory system.
• Storage is the retention of encoded material over time.
• Retrieval is the process of getting information out of memory storage.

Types of Memories

• Iconic memory is the memory of visual stimuli.
• Echoic memory is the memory of sound stimuli.
• Prospective memory is a type of memory related to future actions.

Biological Perspective: Long Term Potentiation

• Long Term Potentiation strengthens synaptic transmission between neurons.
• Long Term Potentiation is considered a neural mechanism for learning and memory.

Multi-Store Model of Memory

• Richard Atkinson & Richard Shriffrin developed the Multi-Store Model of Memory
• The Multi-Store Model of Memory includes the following components:
  • Sensory memory
  • Short-term memory
  • Long-term memory
• Information in sensory memory can be lost because it isn't encoded.
• Information in short-term memory can be lost because it isn't encoded.
• Information in long-term memory can be lost because of retrieval failure.

Sensory Memory

• Sensory memory briefly holds all sensory information.

Short Term Memory (STM)

• The sensory information encoded goes to STM.
• STM can hold about 7 items for approximately 20 seconds, as described by George Miller.
• Digits are recalled better than letters.

Long Term Memory (LTM)

• LTM has an unlimited storehouse of information.
• Explicit memories are memories that require conscious recall.
• Implicit memories do not require conscious recall.

Formats for Storing Long Term Memories

• Episodic memories store specific events in a sequential series.
• Semantic memories store general knowledge like facts, meanings, and categories.
• Procedural memories store skills and how to perform them.

Working Memory Model

• The working memory model includes a central executive, phonological loop, episodic buffer, and visuo-spatial sketchpad, all interacting with long-term memory storage.

The Central Executive

• The central executive directs attention to tasks.
• The central executive allocates information based on modality.

The Phonological Loop

• The phonological loop has limited capacity that deals with auditory information and language
• Alan Baddeley (1986) subdivided the phonological loop:
  • Phonological store holds words heard
  • Articulatory process holds words heard/seen and silently repeated

Visuospatial Sketchpad

• The visuospatial sketchpad has a limited capacity that stores visual and/or spatial information
• Visual Cache stores information about form and color.
• The inner scribe processes spatial and movement information.

Episodic Buffer

• The episodic buffer is responsible for linking information across domains to form integrated units of visual, spatial, and verbal information, along with time sequencing.
  • Memory of a story, event, or a scene leverages time sequencing.

Levels of Processing Model

• The level of processing model explains memory recall based on the depth of memory processing.

Shallow Processing

• Structural processing encodes the physical qualities of something, such as the typeface of a word
• Phonemic processing encodes the sounds in instances of shallow processing.

Deep Processing

• Semantic processing encodes the meaning of a word and relates it to similar words with similar meanings.

Retrieval

• Hermann Ebbinghaus studied retrieval.
• The primacy effect is the tendency to remember items at the beginning of a list.
• The recency effect is the tendency to remember items at the end of a list.
• The serial position effect explains the tendency to recall information presented first and last better than information in the middle.

Retrieval: The Context Matters

• Tip of the tongue phenomenon is when you can almost remember something, but not quite.
• Flashbulb memories are vivid and detailed memories of significant events.
• Mood congruent memory is when one remembers events when in the same mood as when they occurred.
• State Dependent memory is more reliable when you are in the same state as when the event occurred.

Forgetting

• Ineffective encoding may be due to pseudoforgetting, when information is never inserted into memory
• Decay may occur, because our brains forget memories when un-used.
• Retroactive interference is when new information blocks out old information.
• Proactive interference is when old information blocks out new information.

Amnesia

• Organic amnesia: extensive memory loss due to head injury
• Retrograde amnesia is the loss of memories that formed before a trauma such as brain injury.
• Anterograde amnesia prevents new memories from being formed after a trauma such as brain injury.