Psychology Chapter on Memory Functions

Course Information

• Course: PSYO 111
• Chapter: 6. Memory - 1
• Date: 24/25 W1
• Instructor: Tareq Yousef, PhD

Course Schedule

• October 29th: Memory
• October 31st: Learning
• November 5th: Chapter 6 Quiz
• November 7th: OER Assignment & Chapter 7 Quiz
• November 8th: Last day for changes in registration and withdrawal
• November 11-15: University closed
• November 19th: Language and Thought
• November 21st: Chapter 9 Quiz & Research Activity
• November 22nd: Activity Option 2
• November 26th: No lectures; Laboratory assignment due Dec 5th
• December 5th: No lectures; Laboratory assignment due
• December 2nd: Last day for submission of final exam accommodation requests
• December 9-20: Exam Period – Final Exam (Chapters 6, 7, 9 only) – Exam date TBA

Studying Resources

• Canvas Study Module
• SONA Options

Instructor Office Hours

• Mondays, 10am-12pm in ART 312

Teaching Assistant Office Hours

• See Canvas first-steps module

Okanagan Syilx Research Guide

• Maintained by UBCO's Indigenous Initiatives Librarian, Christian Isbister
• Provides resources and strategies to strengthen knowledge of the relationship between UBC, its community members, and the Syilx Okanagan Nation and people.
• URL: https://guides.library.ubc.ca/OkanaganSyilxResearchGuide/Home

Jill Price

• Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM)
• fMRI: increased coupling between memory-related brain regions
• Video interview correcting published record book mistake

Memory: Ability to Store and Retrieve Information Over Time

• Encoding: Transforming what we perceive, think, and feel into an enduring memory
• Storage: Maintaining information in memory
• Retrieval: Bringing to mind previously encoded information

Learning Objectives: Encoding

• Explain how memory is a construction, not a recording of new information
• Describe the three main ways that information is encoded into the brain
• Give reasons why we remember survival-related information so well

Memory as Construction

• Incorrect: Memory is not a recording device making exact copies of information from our senses.
• Memories are constructed by combining already known information with new input from the senses.
• Encoding: Transform what we perceive, think, feel into a memory.

Semantic Encoding

• Relate new information meaningfully to knowledge already stored in memory
• Examples: remembering experiences vs digits
• Lower left frontal lobe; inner left temporal lobe implicated

Craig & Tulving, 1975 Study

• Participants were asked to make one of three judgments:
• Semantic judgment (meaning)
• Rhyme judgment (sound)
• Case judgment (appearance)

Visual Imagery Encoding

• Storing new information by converting it into mental pictures
• Similar to semantic encoding, visual images are created by relating incoming information to existing memories.
• Examples: visualizing a dog to remember the word "dog"

Visual Imagery Encoding Continued

• Using visual imagery to encode verbal information creates different mental cues.
• Activates occipital lobe
• Can be effortful, limited practical use in some tasks.
• Easier with more experience

Organizational Encoding

• Categorizing information according to relationships among items.
• Example: Server organizing orders into hot drinks, cold drinks, hot foods.
• Can organize items hierarchically

Encoding of Survival-Related Information

• Memory mechanisms as a result of natural selection.
• Should prefer encoded information relevant to survival.
• Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007.
• Participants rated how helpful randomly chosen words would be for survival conditions.

Encoding of Survival-Related Information (Cont.)

• Elements of semantic, visual, and organizational encoding.
• Examples: thinking of how useful a fork is, visualizing a fork, and thinking of its utility.
• Encourages thinking of goals and engaging in planning.
• Thinking of planning increases recall.

Storage: Maintaining Memories Over Time

• Distinguish Sensory memory from Short-term memory.
• Describe the elements of the model of working memory.
• Explain the interrelationship between memory and the hippocampus.
• Summarize the role of the neural synapse in long-term memory storage.

Introduction to Storage

• Storage: Maintaining Information in Memory Over Time
• Sensory memory: Storage that holds information for a few seconds or less.
• Example: Letters flashed on a screen; participants recalled less than 50% (Sperling 1960).

Introduction to Storage (Sperling, 1960)

• Test 2: Letters disappeared, indicated row recall, reports almost all letters in that row, without knowing which row.
• All letters encoded

Types of Sensory Memory

• Iconic memory: Fast-decaying store of visual information (~1 second)
• Echoic memory: Fast-decaying store of auditory information (~5 seconds)

Short-Term Storage

• Short-term memory: Holds information longer than a few seconds, but less than a minute.
• With attention, information enters short-term memory, limited capacity.
• Test of memory for three-letter strings
• Accuracy drops with increased delays to recall (Peterson & Peterson, 1959)
• Indicate short-term memory is approximately 15-30 seconds.

Strengthening Memory

• Rehearsal: Keeping information in short-term memory by repeating it mentally.
• Serial position effect: First and last items are more easily recalled than those in the middle.
• Primacy effect: Opportunity for rehearsal of first items makes them more likely to be encoded into long term memory.
• Recency effect: Last items are still in short-term storage.

Size of Short-Term Memory

• Can hold about 7 meaningful items at once.
• Chunking: Combining small pieces of information to larger chunks to improve memory capacity.

A More Dynamic Way to Think of Short-Term Stores: Working Memory

• Working memory: Active maintenance of information in short-term storage.
• Visuospatial sketchpad: Used for visual images
• Phonological loop: Used for verbal information
• Episodic buffer: Integrates visual and verbal information from the subsystems into a combined code, a gateway to long-term memory.
• Central executive: Coordinates the subsystems.

Long-Term Memory and the Brain

• Long-term memory: Holds information for hours, days, weeks, or years.
• Case study: HM (studied by Dr. Brenda Milner at MNI): Temporal lobe operation for epilepsy; lost ability to form new long-term memories

Long-Term Memory and the Brain (Cont.)

• Hippocampus: Critical during memory formation
• Indexes disparate components (sensations) in cortex to create single memory experience.
• Highly detailed personal memories.
• Hippocampus less engaged in less detailed, general recall over time.

After Encoding, Memories Are Fragile

• Consolidation: Process by which memories become stable in the brain.
• Rehearsal, sleep are important factors for consolidation.
• Seconds/minutes: head injury may disrupt consolidation for moments around impact.
• Days, weeks, months, or years: transfer of information from the hippocampus to the cortex.

Recalling Memories -> Reconsolidation

• Opportunity to support those with PTSD
• Reactivate memories by taking medication to reduce anxiety
• Reading a negative story 1 minute after reading the recall of traumatic events interferes with original traumatic memory, reconsolidation
• Why positive stories would not have a similar effect?

What Happens When Memories Are Made?

• Cells that fire together, wire together (Hebb, 1949)
• Eric Kandel's Nobel Prize winning work on Aplysia

What Happens When Memories Are Made? (Cont.)

• Aplysia (electric shock) - faster gill withdrawal, after 1 hour same speed as before shock
• Suggest long-term storage is changed by synaptic connections of involved neurons.
• Sensing electric shock and producing motor action (gill withdrawal).

What Happens When Memories Are Made? (Cont.)

• Learning or creating memory involves changes in synapses of short-term storage (i.e., neurotransmitter release) and long-term storage (i.e., growth of new synapses).
• Long-term potentiation (LTP): communication across synapses between neurons strengthens the connection
• Occurs rapidly, lasts long
• Can occur in the hippocampus
• Blocked by drugs, animals have trouble with tasks (mazes, Morris et al.,1986)

Self-Care Slide

• Set appropriate work and social boundaries
• A 2022 study found that setting boundaries and having realistic expectations are coping mechanisms associated with less burnout in healthcare professionals.
• Read more: https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina58020327 (Maresca et al., 2022)

Explore the intricacies of memory through this quiz based on key concepts from psychology. Test your understanding of encoding, storage, retrieval, and various types of amnesia, including the unique case of Jill Price. This quiz covers crucial elements like the role of the hippocampus and memory consolidation.