Psychology Memory Quiz

PSYC100: Psychology Memory

• Psychology memory is the process of retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present.
• Sensation converts physical input into neural signals.
• Perception interprets sensation.
• Memory retains information about a stimulus in the absence of the stimulus.
• Learning is acquiring new memories.
• Memory is about something in the past influencing the present/future.
• There are different types of memories.
• Long-term memory holds information for a long time, holding information for a long time.

What is Memory?

• Episodic memory: Personal memories
• Procedural memory: Know-how
• Semantic memory: Facts
• Sensory memory: Briefly retains sensory information for about a second.
• Short-term memory: Retains a memory for a few seconds; it includes your immediate thoughts.

Memory Processes

• Encoding: Forming new memories.
• Storing: Keeping items in the memory.
• Retrieval: Recalling a memory from storage.

What Makes Different Memory Systems Different?

• Duration: How long a memory lasts.
• Content: The type of information, e.g., visual or auditory.
• Loss: Why memories are lost (decay, interference, etc.).
• Capacity: How much information a system can hold.
• Maintenance: How memories are maintained or refreshed.

Modal Model of Memory

• Information passes through distinct stages to be stored in long-term memory:
  • Sensory memory
  • Short-term memory (STM)
  • Long-term memory (LTM)

Sensory Memory

• Holds information for seconds or fractions of a second.
• Persistence of vision is an example; you see a stimulus even after it's removed.
• Duration is shorter than a second.
• Iconic memory (visual)
• Echoic memory (auditory).

Sensory Memory: Capacity and Duration

• Sensory memory takes all/most of the information, but its duration is very brief.
• Iconic memory (visual): Lasts less than a second. Corresponds to sensory memory in the modal model of attention.
• Echoic memory (auditory): Lasts a few seconds.
• Example: Persistence of vision, watching a movie in frames.

Iconic Memory

• Duration: Very, very short (within half a second or less).
• Content: Visual.
• Maintenance: Fades quickly due to decay or interference.
• Loss: Simply fades away (decay).

Short-Term Memory/Working Memory

• Duration: About 15-20 seconds without rehearsal.
• Decay: Passive loss of memory over time.
• Proactive interference: Previously learned information disrupts later information.
• Retroactive interference: Newly learned information disrupts previously learned information.
• Capacity: 7 ± 2 items (according to Miller, 1956).
• Chunking: Grouping items together to increase capacity.

Working Memory (WM)

• A limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks.
• Holds and processes verbal and auditory information.
• Holds and processes visual and spatial information.
• Coordinates the activity of the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketch pad.

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

• Stores large amounts of information for long periods (from a few minutes to a lifetime)
• Retains more than 30 seconds.
• Recent memories are usually more vivid, but can decay over time.
• Explicit memory: Conscious recollection of events (Episodic & Semantic memories).
• Implicit memory: Unconscious memories (Procedural memory, priming, and emotional conditioning).

Interaction between LTM and WM

• Working memory keeps information active, while long-term memory provides context and meaning.

Long-Term Memory: Encoding

• Rote learning: Simply repeating information.
• Elaborative rehearsal: Repeating and associating information with enriched cues.

Serial Position Curve

• Primacy effect: Easier to remember words at the beginning of a list.
• Recency effect: Easier to remember words at the end of a list.

The Forms of LTM

• Explicit memory: Episodic memory (events/experiences) and semantic memory (facts/concepts).
• Implicit memory: Procedural memory (how-to things), priming (stimulus exposure affects responses), and emotional conditioning (classically conditioned emotional responses).

Relational Learning: Declarative and Nondeclarative Memories

• Declarative memory (explicit): Conscious recollection of events (semantic & episodic memories).
• Nondeclarative memory (implicit): Does not require conscious recollection and does not depend on the hippocampus. These include conditioning, perceptual learning, and motor (skill) learning.

Declarative Long-Term Memory: Where do we store them?

• Sensations processed in sensory areas.
• Sensory areas send info to hippocampus.
• Hippocampus activates multiple brain structures, connecting them.
• Information kept in the cortex.
• Semantic memories particularly stored in the temporal lobe.

How to Retrieve? Retrieval Cues

• Retrieval cue activates the circuit storing the memory.
• Activation of that circuit causes retrieval (akin to pattern completion).
• Why forgetting? Sometimes the memory is there but the cue is not good enough

How can We Improve Our Memory?

• Encoding specificity
• Paying attention
• Elaborative processing
• Generation effect
• Spacing effect

Encoding Specificity

• Good match between encoding and retrieval conditions.
• Context-dependent effect: Retrieval is better when the context is the same.
• State-dependent effect: Retrieval is better when the mental state during encoding is matched.

Encoding: How well do we encode?

• Levels-of-processing theory: Deeper processing (meaning) yields better encoding than shallow processing (physical properties).
• Transfer appropriate processing: Matching the encoding process to the task's demands.

The Generation Effect

• Generating information yourself leads to better encoding.

The Spacing Effect

• Distributing study sessions over time leads to better retention than cramming.
• Massed practice vs distributed practice.

Are Memories Always 100% Accurate?

• Memories can be biased, suggested, and subject to forgetting.

Bias

• Memories are distorted to fit expectations and existing knowledge.
• Belief bias: Reshaping memories to fit beliefs.
• Consistency bias: Reshaping memories to be consistent with present beliefs.

Misinformation Effect

• Misleading information presented after an event can change how the event is recalled.

Forgetting

• Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve: Rapid initial forgetting, followed by a slower rate of forgetting.
• Encoding failure, memory trace decay, and interference (proactive and retroactive) are common reasons for forgetting.

Brain Lesions and Memory

• Retrograde amnesia: Inability to remember the past following brain damage.
• Anterograde amnesia: Inability to form new explicit memories following brain damage.
• Temporal lobe damage, especially hippocampus: Common cause of anterograde amnesia (Patient HM is an example).

Alzheimer's Disease

• Cell death and the formation of plaques in the brain lead to severe memory loss, including basic abilities (e.g., walking, talking, eating).

Test your knowledge on different types of memory, including iconic, echoic, and working memory. This quiz covers concepts like memory duration, capacity, and the effects of interference, helping you understand the fundamentals of memory processes as outlined in psychology studies.