Memory and Cognitive Psychology Textbook PDF

Okay, I'll do my best to convert the image into a structured markdown format. Here's the result: # CHAPTER 8 **(Image showing friends looking at an album)** # Memory Be thankful for memory. We take it for granted, except when it malfunctions. But it is our memory that accounts for time and define...

Okay, I'll do my best to convert the image into a structured markdown format. Here's the result: # CHAPTER 8 **(Image showing friends looking at an album)** # Memory Be thankful for memory. We take it for granted, except when it malfunctions. But it is our memory that accounts for time and defines our life. It is our memory that enables us to recognize family, speak our language, and find our way home. It is our memory that enables us to enjoy an experience and then mentally replay and enjoy it again. It is our memory that enables us to build histories with those we love. And it is our memory that occasionally pits us against those whose offenses we cannot forget. Our shared memories help bind us together as Irish or Icelandic, Serbian or Samoan. In large part, we are what we remember. Without memory-our storehouse of accumulated learning-there would be no savoring of past joys, no guilt or anger over painful recollections. We would instead live in an enduring present, each moment fresh. Each person would be a stranger, every language foreign, every task-dressing, cooking, biking-a new challenge. You would even be a stranger to yourself, lacking that continuous sense of self that extends from your distant past to your momentary present. Researchers study memory from many perspectives. We'll begin by looking at the measuring, modeling, and encoding of memories, and we will examine how memories are stored and retrieved. Then we'll explore what happens when our memories fail us, and look at ways to improve memory. * Studying and Encoding Memories * Studying Memory * Encoding Memories * Storing and Retrieving Memories * Memory Storage * Memory Retrieval * Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Improving Memory * Forgetting * Memory Construction Errors * **THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT:** * Can Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse Be Repressed and Then Recovered? * Improving Memory *** ## 296 CHAPTER 8 | MEMORY **(Image of healthy brain vs brain with severe Alzheimer’s)** Extreme forgetting- Alzheimer's disease severely damages the brain, and in the process strips away memory. **(Image of sheep)** Other animals also display face smarts After food rewards are repeatedly associated with some sheep faces, but not with others, sheep remember the food-associated faces for two years (Kendrick & Feng, 2011). ## Studying and Encoding Memories ### Studying Memory **LOQ 8-1** What is memory, and how is it measured? **Memory** is learning that persists over time; it is information that has been acquired and stored and can be retrieved. Research on memory's extremes has helped us understand how memory works. At age 92, my [DM's] father suffered a small stroke that had but one peculiar effect. He was as mobile as before. His genial personality was intact. He knew us and enjoyed poring over family photo albums and reminiscing about his past. But he had lost most of his ability to lay down new memories of conversations and everyday episodes. He could not tell me what day of the week it was, or what he'd had for lunch. Told repeatedly of his brother-in-law's recent death, he was surprised and saddened each time he heard the news. Some disorders slowly strip away memory. Alzheimer's disease begins as difficulty remembering new information and progresses into an inability to do everyday tasks. Family members and close friends become strangers; complex speech becomes simple sentences; the brain's memory centers, once strong, become weak and wither away (Desikan et al., 2009). Over several years, someone with Alzheimer's may become unknowing and unknowable. Lost memory strikes at the core of our humanity, leaving people robbed of a sense of joy, meaning, and companionship. At the other extreme are people who would win gold medals in a memory Olympics. Russian journalist Solomon Shereshevskii, or S, had merely to listen while other report- ers scribbled notes (Luria, 1968). The average person could parrot back a string of about 7 maybe even 9 digits. S could repeat up to 70, if they were read about 3 seconds apart in an otherwise silent room. Moreover, he could recall digits or words backward as easily as forward. His accuracy was unerring, even when recalling a list 15 years later. "Yes, yes," he might recall. "This was a series you gave me once when we were in your apartment. You were sitting at the table and I in the rocking chair... You were wearing a gray suit...." Amazing? Yes, but consider your own impressive memory. You remember countless faces, places, and happenings; tastes, smells, and textures; voices, sounds, and songs. In one study, students listened to snippets-a mere four-tenths of a second-from popular songs. How often did they recognize the artist and song? More than 25 percent of the time (Krumhansl, 2010). We often recognize songs as quickly as we recognize a familiar voice. So, too, with faces and places. Imagine viewing more than 2500 slides of faces and places for 10 seconds each. Later, you see 280 of these slides, paired with others you've never seen. Actual participants in this experiment recognized 90 percent of the slides they had viewed in the first round (Haber, 1970). In a follow-up experiment, people exposed to 2800 images for only 3 seconds each spotted the repeats with 82 percent accuracy (Konkle et al., 2010). Look for a target face in a sea of faces and you later will recognize other faces from the scene as well (Kaunitz et al., 2016). Some super- recognizers display an extraordinary ability to recognize faces. Eighteen months after viewing a video of an armed robbery, one such police officer spotted and arrested the robber walking on a busy street (Davis et al., 2013). And it's not just humans who have shown remarkable memory for faces. Sheep can learn to remember faces (FIGURE 8.1). And so can at least one fish species-as demonstrated by their spitting at familiar faces to trigger a food reward (Newport et al., 2016). *** ## CHAPTER 8 MEMORY 297 How do we humans accomplish such memory feats? How does our brain pluck infor- mation out of the world around us and tuck that information away for later use? How can we remember things we have not thought about for years, yet forget the name of someone we just met? How are memories stored in our brain? Why will you be likely, later in this chapter, to misrecall this sentence: "The angry rioter threw the rock at the window"? In this chapter, we'll consider these fascinating questions and more. ### Measuring Retention To a psychologist, evidence that learning persists includes these three measures of retention: * **recall**-retrieving information that is not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time. A fill-in-the-blank question tests your recall. * **recognition**-identifying items previously learned. A multiple-choice question tests your recognition. * **relearning**-learning something more quickly when you learn it a second or later time. When you study for a final exam or engage a language used in early child- hood, you will relearn the material more easily than you did initially. Long after you cannot recall most of the people in your high school graduating class, you may still be able to recognize their yearbook pictures and spot their names in a list of names. In one experiment, people who had graduated 25 years earlier could not recall many of their old classmates. But they could recognize 90 percent of their pictures and names (Bahrick et al., 1975). If you are like most students, you, too, could probably recognize more names of Snow White's seven dwarfs than you could recall (Miserandino, 1991). Our recognition memory is impressively quick and vast. "Is your friend wearing a new or old outfit?" "Old." "Is this five-second movie clip from a film you've ever seen?" "Yes." "Have you ever seen this person before-this minor variation on the same old human features (two eyes, one nose, and so on)?" "No." Before the mouth can form our answer to any of millions of such questions, the mind knows, and knows that it knows. Our response speed when recalling or recognizing information indicates memory strength, as does our speed at relearning. Pioneering memory researcher Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) showed this over a century ago, using nonsense syllables. He randomly selected a sample of syllables, practiced them, and tested himself. To get a feel for his experiments, rapidly read aloud, eight times over, the following list (from Baddeley, 1982), then look away and try to recall the items: `JIH, BAZ, FUB, YOX, SUJ, XIR, DAX, LEQ, VUM, PID, KEL, WAV, TUV, ZOF, GEK, HIW.` The day after learning such a list, Ebbinghaus could recall few of the syllables. But they weren't entirely forgotten. As FIGURE 8.2 portrays, the more frequently he repeated the list aloud on Day 1, the less time he required to relearn the list on Day 2. Additional rehearsal (overlearning) of verbal information increases retention, especially when prac- tice is distributed over time. For students, this means that it helps to rehearse course material even after you know it. **(Image of Taylor swift and Bruno Mars)** Remembering things past **Even if Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars had not become famous, their high school classmates would most likely still recognize them in these photos.** *"If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory."* *Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814* * **memory** the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. * **recall** a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test. * **recognition** a measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test. * **relearning** a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again *** ## 298 CHAPTER 8 | MEMORY * **encoding** the process of getting information into the memory system-for example, by extracting meaning. * **Storage** the process of retaining encoded information over time. * **retrieval** the process of getting information out of memory storage. * **parallel processing** processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions. * **sensory memory** the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system. * **short-term memory** activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as digits of a phone number while calling, before the information is stored or forgotten. * **long-term memory** the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences. * **working memory** a newer under- standing of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory. **(Figure 8.2 Ebbinghaus' retention curve)** **Ebbinghaus' retention curve **Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced a list of nonsense syllables on Day 1, the less time he required to relearn it on Day 2. Speed of relearning is one measure of memory retention. (From Baddeley, 1982.)** | | Time in minutes taken to relearn list on Day 2 | | :---------------------------- | :--------------------------------------------- | | As rehearsal increases, | | | relearning time decrease | | | Number of repititions of list | | The point to remember: Tests of recognition and of time spent relearning demon- strate that we remember more than we can recall. ### RETRIEVAL PRACTICE * RP-1 Multiple-choice questions test our ______ .Fill-in-the-blank questions test our ______ . * RP-2 If you want to be sure to remember what you're learning for an upcoming test, would it be better to use recall or recognition to check your memory? Why? ### Memory Models **LOQ 8-2** How do psychologists describe the human memory system? Architects make virtual house models to help clients imagine their future homes. Simi- larly, psychologists create memory models that, even if imperfect, are useful. Such models help us think about how our brain forms and retrieves memories. An informa- tion-processing model likens human memory to computer operations. Thus, to remem- ber any event, we must * get information into our brain, a process called **encoding**. * retain that information, a process called **storage**. * later get the information back out, a process called **retrieval**. Like all analogies, computer models have their limits. Our memories are less literal and more fragile than a computer's. Most computers also process information sequen- tially, even while alternating between tasks. Our agile brain processes many things simultaneously (some of them unconsciously) by means of parallel processing. To focus on this multitrack processing, one information-processing model, connectionism, views memories as products of interconnected neural networks. Specific memories arise from particular activation patterns within these networks. Every time you learn something new, your brain's neural connections change, forming and strengthening pathways that allow you to interact with and learn from your constantly changing environment. ### RETRIEVAL PRACTICE ANSWERS * RP-1 recognition; recall. RP-2 It would be better to test your memory with recall (such as with short-answer or fill-in- the-blank self-test questions) rather than recognition (such as with multiple-choice questions). Recalling information is harder than recognizing it. So if you can recall it, that means your retention of the material is better than if you could only recognize it. Your chances of test success are therefore greater. *** ## CHAPTER 8 | MEMORY 299 To explain our memory-forming process, Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1968, 2016) proposed a three-stage model: 1. We first record to-be-remembered information as a fleeting sensory memory. 2. From there, we process information into short-term memory, where we encode it through rehearsal. 3. Finally, information moves into long-term memory for later retrieval. This model has since been updated (FIGURE 8.3) with important newer concepts, including working memory and automatic processing. *** ### WORKING MEMORY Alan Baddeley and others (Baddeley, 2002; Barrouillet et al., 2011; Engle, 2002) extended Atkinson and Shiffrin's initial view of short-term memory as a small, brief storage space for recent thoughts and experiences. This stage is not just a temporary shelf for holding incoming information. It's an active scratchpad where your brain actively processes information by making sense of new input and linking it with long-term memories. It also works in the opposite direction, by process- ing already stored information. Whether we hear "eye-screem" as ice cream or I scream depends on how the context and our experience guide our interpreting and encoding of the sounds. To focus on the active processing that takes place in this middle stage, psychologists use the term working memory. Right now, you are using your working memory to link the information you're reading with your previously stored information (Cowan, 2010, 2016; Kail & Hall, 2001). For most of you, what you are reading enters working memory through vision. You might also repeat the information using auditory rehearsal. As you integrate these memory inputs with your existing long-term memory, your attention is focused. In Baddeley's (2002) model, a central executive handles this focused processing. Without focused attention, information often fades. If you think you can look something up later, you attend to it less and forget it more quickly. In one experiment, people read and typed new bits of trivia they would later need, such as "An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain." If they knew the information would be available online, they invested less energy and remembered it less well (Sparrow et al., 2011; Wegner & Ward, 2013). Online, out of mind. ### RETRIEVAL PRACTICE * How does the working memory concept update the classic Atkinson-Shiffrin three- stage information-processing model? * What are two basic functions of working memory? **(Figure 8.3 A modified three-stage process)** | | | | | :------------------- | :------------------------------------------ | :-------------------- | | External events | | | | Sensory input | Automatic processing | Rehearsal And active | | | | maintenance | | Sensory memory | Attention to important or novel information | Encoding | | Encoding | | Working/Short Memory | | | | Long-Term Storage | **RETRIEVAL PRACTICE ANSWERS** RP-3 The newer idea of a working memory emphasizes the active processing that we now know takes place in Atkinson- Shiffrin's short-term memory stage. While the Atkinson-Shiffrin model viewed short-term memory as a temporary holding space, working memory plays a key role in processing new information and connecting it to previously stored information. RP-4 (1) Active processing of incoming visual and auditory information, and (2) focusing our spotlight of attention. *** ## 300 CHAPTER 8 MEMORY * **explicit memory** retention of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare." (Also called declarative memory.) * **effortful processing** encoding that requires attention and conscious effort. * **automatic processing** unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings. * **implicit memory** retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection. (Also called nondeclarative memory.) * **iconic memory** a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths a second. * **echoic memory** a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds. ### Encoding Memories #### Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Versus Automatic Processing **LOQ 8-3** How do explicit and implicit memories differ? Atkinson and Shiffrin's model focused on how we process our explicit memories-the facts and experiences that we can consciously know and declare (thus, also called declar- ative memories). We encode explicit memories through conscious effortful processing. But our mind has a second, unconscious track. Behind the scenes, other information skips the conscious encoding track and barges directly into storage. This automatic processing, which happens without our awareness, produces implicit memories (also called nondeclarative memories). Our two-track mind, then, helps us encode, retain, and recall information through both effortful and automatic tracks. Let's begin by seeing how automatic processing assists the formation of implicit memories. #### Automatic Processing and Implicit Memories **LOQ 8-4** What information do we process automatically? Our implicit memories include procedural memory for automatic skills (such as how to ride a bike) and classically conditioned associations among stimuli. If attacked by a dog in childhood, years later you may, without recalling the conditioned association, auto- matically tense up as a dog approaches. Without conscious effort you also automatically process information about * space. While studying, you often encode the place where certain material appears; later, when you want to retrieve the information, you may visualize its location. * time. While going about your day, you unintentionally note the sequence of its events. Later, realizing you've left your coat somewhere, the event sequence your brain automatically encoded will enable you to retrace your steps. * frequency. You effortlessly keep track of how many times things happen, as when you realize, "This is the third time I've run into her today." Our two-track mind engages in impressively efficient information processing. As one track automatically tucks away routine details, the other track is free to focus on conscious, effortful processing. Mental feats such as vision, thinking, and memory may seem to be single abilities, but they are not. Rather, we split information into different components for separate and simultaneous processing. #### Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories Automatic processing happens effortlessly. When you see words in your native lan- guage, perhaps on the side of a delivery truck, you can't help but read them and register their meaning. Learning to read wasn't automatic. You may recall working hard to pick out letters and connect them to certain sounds. But with experience and practice, your reading became automatic. Imagine now learning to read sentences in reverse: .citamotua emoceb nac gnissecorp lutfroffE At first, this requires effort, but after enough practice, you would also perform this task much more automatically. We develop many skills in this way: driving, texting, and speaking a new language. #### Sensory Memory **LOQ 8-5** How does sensory memory work? Sensory memory (recall Figure 8.3) feeds our active working memory, recording momentary images of scenes or echoes of sounds. How much of this page could you sense and recall with less exposure than a lightning flash? In one experiment, people viewed three rows of three letters each, for only one-twentieth of a second (FIGURE 8.4). After the nine letters disappeared, they could recall only about half of them. *** ## CHAPTER 8 MEMORY 301 **(Figure 8.4) Total recall-briefly When George Sperling (1960) flashed a group of letters similar to this for one twentieth of a second, people could recall only about half the letters. But when signaled to recall a particular row immediately after the letters had disappeared, they could do so with near-perfect accuracy.** ``` K Z R Q B T S G N ``` Was it because they had insufficient time to glimpse them? No. People actually could see and recall all the letters, but only momentarily. Rather than ask them to recall all nine letters at once, researcher George Sperling sounded a high, medium, or low tone immediately after flashing the nine letters. This tone directed participants to report only the letters of the top, middle, or bottom row, respectively. Now they rarely missed a letter, showing that all nine letters were momentarily available for recall. Sperling's experiment demonstrated iconic memory, a fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli. For a few tenths of a second, our eyes register a photographic or picture- image memory of a scene, and we can recall any part of it in amazing detail. But delay- ing their tone signal by more than half a second caused the image to fade and memory to suffer. We also have an impeccable, though fleeting, memory for auditory stimuli, called echoic memory (Cowan, 1988; Lu et al., 1992). Picture yourself being distracted by a text message while you sit in class. If your mildly irked professor tests you by ask- ing, "What did I just say?" you can recover the last few words from your mind's echo chamber. Auditory echoes tend to linger for 3 or 4 seconds. #### SHORT-TERM MEMORY CAPACITY **LOQ 8-6** What is our short-term memory capacity? Recall that short-term memory refers to what we can briefly retain. The related idea of working memory also includes our active processing, as our brain makes sense of incoming information and links it with stored memories. What are the limits of what we can hold in this middle, short-term stage? George Miller (1956) proposed that we can store about seven pieces of information (give or take two) in short-term memory. Miller's magical number seven is psychology's contribution to the list of magical sevens—the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven colors of the rainbow, the seven musical scale notes, the seven days of the weekseven magical sevens. Other researchers have confirmed that we can, if nothing distracts us, recall about seven digits. But the number varies by task; we tend to remember about six letters and only about five words (Baddeley et al., 1975; Cowan, 2015). And how quickly do our short-term memories disappear? To find out, Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson (1959) asked people to remember three-consonant groups, such as CHJ. To prevent rehearsal, the researchers asked them, for example, to start at 100 and count aloud back- ward by threes. After 3 seconds, people recalled the letters only about half the time; after 12 seconds, they seldom recalled them at all (FIGURE 8.5). Without the active processing that we now understand to be a part of our working memory, short-term memories have a limited life. Working memory capacity varies, depending on age and other factors. Compared with children and older adults, young adults have a greater working memory capacity. **(Figure 8.5 Short-term memory decay)** Unless rehearsed, verbal information may be quickly forgotten. (Data from Peterson & Peterson, 1959; see also Brown, 1958.) | | Percentage who recalled consonants | | :---------------------------------------- | :--------------------------------- | | Rapid decay with no rehearsal | | | time in seconds between presentatiom and | | *** ## CHAPTER 8 MEMORY 302 1. MGASUST 2. WGVSRMT 3. VRESLI UEGBN GSORNW CDOUL LWLE NTOD WTO 4. SILVER BEGUN WRONGS CLOUD WELL DONT TWO 5. SILVER BEGUN WRONGS CLOUD DONT TWO HALF MAKE WELL HAS A 6. WELL BEGUN IS HALF DONE EVERY IS RIGHT A DONE LINING **(figure 8.6 Chunking Effects)** ^(Organizing information into meaningful units, such as letters, words, and phrases, helps us recall it more easily (Hintzman, 1978).)^ * **chunking** organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically. * **mnemonics** [nih-MON-iks] memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices. * **spacing effect** the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice. * **testing effect** enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning. Having a large working memory capacity the ability to juggle multiple items while processing information tends to aid information retention after sleeping and creative problem solving (De Dreu et al., 2012; Fenn & Hambrick, 2012; Wiley & Jarosz, 2012). But whatever our age, we do better and more efficient work when focused, without dis- tractions, on one task at a time. The bottom line: It's probably a bad idea to try to watch TV, text your friends, and write a psychology paper all at the same time (Willingham, 2010)! Unlike short-term memory capacity, working memory capacity appears to reflect intelligence level (Cowan, 2008; Shelton et al., 2010). Imagine seeing a letter of the alphabet, then a simple question, then another letter, followed by another question, and so on. In such experiments, those who could juggle the most mental balls-who could remember the most letters despite the interruptions-tended in everyday life to exhibit high intelligence and an ability to maintain their focus (Kane et al., 2007; Unsworth & Engle, 2007). When beeped to report in at various times, they were less likely than others to report that their mind was wandering. ### RETRIEVAL PRACTICE * RP-5 What is the difference between automatic and effortful processing, and what are some examples of each? * RP-6 At which of Atkinson-Shiffrin's three memory stages would iconic and echoic memory occur? For a review of memory stages and a test of your own short-term memory capacity, visit Psych-Sim 6: Short-Term Memory. ### EFFORTFUL PROCESSING STRATEGIES **LOQ 8-7** What are some effortful processing strategies that can help us remember new information? Several effortful processing strategies can boost our ability to form new memories. Later, when we try to retrieve a memory, these strategies can make the difference between success and failure. Chunking Glance for a few seconds at the first set of letters (row 1) in FIGURE 8.6, then look away and try to reproduce what you saw. Impossible, yes? But you can easily reproduce set 2, which is no less complex. Similarly, you will probably remember sets 4 and 6 more easily than the same elements in sets 3 and 5. As this demonstrates, chunking information-organizing items into familiar, manageable units-enables us to recall it more easily. Try remembering 43 individual numbers and letters. It would be impossible, unless chunked into, say, seven meaningful chunks, such as "Try remembering 43 individual numbers and letters." Chunking usually occurs so naturally that we take it for granted. If you are a native English speaker, you can reproduce perfectly the 150 or so line segments that make up the words in the three phrases of set 6 in Figure 8.6. It would astonish someone unfamiliar with the language. We [DM and ND], who do not speak Chinese, are similarly awed by a Chinese reader's ability to glance at FIGURE 8.7 and then reproduce all the strokes. Even the most committed sports fan may be amazed by a varsity basketball player's recall of all the players' positions after a 4-sec- ond peek at a basketball play (Allard & Burnett, 1985). We all remember information best when we can organize it into personally meaningful arrangements. *** ## CHAPTER 8 MEMORY 303 **(Figure 8.7 CHinese symbol chunking example)** For those who read Chinese After looking at these characters, can you reproduce them exactly? If so, you can read Chinese. Mnemonics To help encode lengthy passages and speeches, ancient Greek scholars and orators developed mnemonics. Many of these memory aids use vivid imagery, because we are particularly good at remembering mental pictures. We more easily remember concrete, visualizable words than we do abstract words (Akpinar & Berger, 2015). (When we quiz you later, which three of these words-bicycle, void, cigarette, inherent, fire, process-will you most likely recall?) If you still recall the rock-throwing rioter sentence, it is probably not only because of the meaning you encoded but also because the sentence painted a mental image. Memory whizzes understand the power of such systems. Star performers in the World Memory Championships do not usually have exceptional intelligence, but rather are superior at using mnemonic strategies (Maguire et al., 2003b). Frustrated by his ordinary memory, science writer Joshua Foer wanted to see how much he could improve it. After a year of intense practice, he won the U.S. Memory Championship by memorizing a pack of 52 playing cards in under two minutes. How did Foer do it? He added vivid new details to memories of a familiar place-his childhood home. Each card, presented in any order, could then match up with the clear picture in his head. As the test subject of his own wild memory experiment, he learned that "you don't have to be memorizing packs of playing cards to benefit from a little bit of insight into how your mind works" (Foer, 2011a,b). When combined, chunking and mnemonic techniques can be great memory aids for unfamiliar material. Want to remember the colors of the rainbow in order of wave- length? Think of the mnemonic ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). Need to recall the names of North America's five Great Lakes? Just remember HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). In each case, we chunk informa- tion into a more familiar form by creating a word (called an acronym) from the first letters of the to-be-remembered items. Hierarchies When people develop expertise in an area, they process information not only in chunks but also in hierarchies composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts. (Figure 8.11 ahead provides a hierarchy of our automatic and effortful memory processing systems.) Organizing knowledge in hierarchies helps us retrieve information efficiently, as Gordon Bower and his colleagues (1969) demonstrated by presenting words either randomly or grouped into categories. When the words were grouped, recall was two to three times better. Such results show the benefits of organizing what you study of giving special attention to chapter outlines and headings, and, in this text, to numbered Learning Objective Questions. Taking lecture and text notes in outline format-a type of hierarchical organization-may also prove helpful. Distributed practice-we retain information better when our encoding is distributed over time. Experiments have consistently revealed the benefits of this spacing effect (Cepeda et al., 2006; Soderstrom et al., 2016). Massed practice (cramming) can produce speedy short-term learning and a feeling of confidence. But to paraphrase early mmemory researcher Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885), those who learn quickly also forget quickly. Distributed practice produces better long-term recall. After you've studied long enough to master the material, further study at that time becomes inefficient. Better to spend that extra reviewing time later-a day later if you need to remem- ber something 10 days hence, or a month later if you need to remember somathing 6 months hence (Cepeda et al., 2008). The spacing effect is one of psychology's most reli- able findings, and it extends to motor skills and online game performance, too (Stafford & Dewar, 2014). Memory researcher Henry Roediger (2013) sums it up: "Hundreds of studies have shown that distributed practice leads to more durable learning." One effective way to distribute practice is repeated self-testing, a phenomenon that researchers Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke (2006) have called the testing effect. Testing does more than assess learning and memory: It improves them (Brown et al., 2014; Pan et al., 2015; Trumbo et al., 2016). Testing also protects our memory from the harmful effects of stress, which usually impairs memory retrieval (Smith et al., 2016). In this text, the Retrieval Practice questions and Review sections, including *"The mind is slow in unlearning what it has been long in learning."* *Roman philosopher Seneca (4 в.С.Е.-65 С.Е.)* *** ## CHAPTER 8 | MEMORY 304 **(Image of student by a tree.)** Making things memorable For suggestions on how to apply the testing effect to your own learning, watch this 5-minute animation: tinyurl.com/HowToRemember. offer opportunities to improve learn- ing and memory. Better to practice retrieval (as any exam will demand) than to merely reread material (which may lull you into a false sense of mas- tery). Roediger (2013) explains, "Two techniques that students frequently report using for studying-highlight- ing (or underlining) text and rereading text-[have been found] ineffective." Happily, "retrieval practice (or testing) is a powerful and general strategy for learning." As another memory expert explained, "What we recall becomes more recallable" (Bjork, 2011). No wonder daily quizzing improves introductory psychology students' course performance (Batsell et al., 2017; Pennebaker et al., 2013). The point to remember: Spaced study and self-assessment beat cramming and reread- ing. Practice may not make perfect, but smart practice-occasional rehearsal with self- testing makes for lasting memories. ### LEVELS OF PROCESSING **LOQ 8-8** What are the levels of processing, and how do they affect encoding? Memory researchers have discovered that we process verbal information at different levels, and that depth of processing affects our long-term retention. shallow process- ing encodes on an elementary level, such as a word's letters or, at a more intermediate level, a word's sound. Thus we may type there when we mean their, write when we