Psychology Chapter 6: Memory (PDF)

Chapter 6 Memory Memory - The process involved in retaining, retrieving and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas and skills after the original information is no longer present Information processing approach - Can be viewed as a pr...

Chapter 6 Memory Memory - The process involved in retaining, retrieving and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas and skills after the original information is no longer present Information processing approach - Can be viewed as a processing system that encodes, stores and retrieves information. Process of memory 1. Encoding: translating information into neural code so that it can be stored for later use 2. Storage: the process by which information is retained over time 3. Retrieval: pulling information back out of your mind for use. Three component model 1. Sensory memory 2. Short term/working memory (STM/WM) 3. Long term memory (LTM) Sensory memory: briefly holds sensory information - Sensory Register: Subsystem of sensory memory: initial information processor - Two types of sensory registers 1. Iconic store: Holds visual information. Lasts for a fraction of a second 2. Echoic Stores: Hold auditory information. Lasts about two seconds. Measuring Sensory Memory - measuring capacity and duration of iconic sensory register - Sperling (1960) - Array of letters flashed quickly on a screen - Participants asked to reports as many as possible - Whole report or partial report method. - Whole report: allows us to tell what one's capacity is - Partial report: letters flash and ask what was on the top line. We are going to manipulate the system and we can figure out the duration. Short-term Memory - Temporarily stores and processes a limited amount of information in consciousness. - Limited capacity (7 plus or minus 2 “bits”) - Limited duration (20-sec or so without a control process) has 20 seconds to decide if the information was useful or not Testing out short term memory - Given list of words (ex apple, simple, burden) - Recall as many words as you can. Information representation - Information storage in STM/WM - Visually (Images) - Phonologically (Sounds) - Semantically (Meaning) - Action (Motor Patterns) - Errors happen if you try to store too much information in one system too quickly Increasing STM capacity - If STM is so limited, how do we get by on a daily basis? We have systems that allow us to increase the capacity and storage duration of STM. - Chunking: group of units into larger “bits” (ex Phone numbers). Improve memory drastically Increasing STM duration - Maintenance rehearsal (simple repetition) - Elaborative rehearsal (focus on meaning) Working memory - Limited capacity system for storage and manipulation of information for completing tasks - Difference between STM and WM: WM is the memory we are currently manipulating information. STM can just be information that comes in for a bit and moves on and we don't actually deal with it. - Holding information in active memory to “work on” (ex mental math) - Information lasts about 20 seconds. Rapid loss unless in use. Long Term Memory - Our library of memories - Durable storage of past events and learned knowledge - Large storage capacity (unlimited) - Can endure for a lifetime Declarative memory (explicit) - Can be verbalized 1. episodic: personal experiences: episodes 2. Semantic: general factual knowledge Procedural Memory (Implicit) - Cannot be verbalized - Skills and actions (even some conditioned responses)  - Muscle memory Damaged long term memory - Anterograde amnesia: Loss of ability to assimilate and retain new knowledge. Inability to create new long term memories - Retrograde amnesia: Loss of memory for events that have happened in the past. Lost the ability to access all of the old long term memory. Dissociation - Are short-term and long-term memory two different systems? - Can one be impaired while the other still functions? - Case studies: when we study one individual. Descriptive research. - Henry Molaison (HM) - Bilateral temporal lobectomy - Related party of hippocampus, amygdala, and other cities - Operation lessened epilepsy, but caused anterograde amnesia. HM - Normal performance on assessment of intellectual ability - Therefore, short term memory, word stores, etc. were unaffected - Normal performance on working memory tests. Short term memory was completely intact - Ex. could recall previous given numbers as well as control subjects. - Taught us that: declarative memory and procedural memory are different systems - Medial temporal structures are important in the formation of semantic and episodic long-term memories. - Was able to form new working memories but his declarative memory did not improve. K.F - Motorcycle accident damaged left parietal occipital region - Left parietal involved in language and mathematics - Short term memory damaged - Digit span of two - Long term memory intact - Taught us that long term emery does not require a functioning short term memory to encode new information. Clive Wearing - British musician and composer - Virus attached his CNS - Hippocampus damaged - Anterograde and Retrograde amnesia - Cannot form new memories - Cannot recall any past memories - Byt can learn new tasks - Not using episodic memory - Using procedural memory - Implicit (unconscious) and long term memory - Repeated exposure allows performance of tasks without need of conscious control or attention. - Only remembers his wife (not parents, kids etc) Remembering List - Serial position effect: describes the relationship between a words position in a lust and its probability of recall - Primary effect: It's easy to remember things at the beginning - Recency effect: It's easy to remember things you've encountered most recently (end of the list) Encoding Information - Effortful processing: intentionally, effortful conscious processing - Automatic processing: unintentional processing requiring minimal attention - Levels of processing 1. Structural - What something looks like (e.g., is the word in capitals) 2. Phonemic - Remembering things based on what it sounds like ( e.g., does the word rhyme with cheer) 3. Semantic - Value or mening behing the word (e.g., does the word fit in the sentence “he saw the ___”?)  - Levels of processing: deeper processing facilitates stronger memory (recall) Effort Processing - Maintenance rehearsal: repeating information over and over again - Not the best way to improve recall Elaborative rehearsal - Adding to the information - What does the word mean? - How does the word relate to concepts you know? - What does the word remind you of? (imagery) Organizing information - Arranging information in a meaningful way enhances memory - The schemes serve as cues to aid the retrieval of information Mnemonic Devices - Maintain strategies that aid in remembering information - Ex. HOMES for the great five lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior) Simple - Chunking: combine items into larger meaning - Hierarchy system: organized items based on how they are related. Enhances memory due to association - When you have meaning, it is easy to recall information Semantic - First letter technique - Narrative technique Visual based - Bizarre imagery - Interactive imagery Complex - Method of Loci Semantic Mnemonics - First letter technique (Roy. G. Biv) - Narrative technique: telling a story Complex Mnemonics - Method of Loci: Link what you need to remember with a place you know really well (real or not) - Ex. your house: remember your grocery list by entally walking through your house room by room. Associating each room with an item on the list Storage - How we retain information over time (ex a hard drive) - But what do we know about how this information is stored? Associative Networks - Theory that memory can be represented as a network of associated concepts - Each concept is represented by a node - Lines between concepts represent associations - Shorter lines mean stronger relationships - Activtaing (thinking about) one concept will activate other related concepts. Priming - The activation of a concept by another - Exposure if one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention. Neural Networks - Also describe linked notes - Unlike associative networks: nodes are physical (ex neurons) - Nodes do not contain a single unit of information - A single concept is stored with that neural network - Can be stored across multiple neurons - Patterns or sets of nodes that activate together. - Also called a parallel distributed processing model Retrieval - Process of transferring information from LTM back into working memory (consciousness - Most of our failure of memory is failure to retrieve Value of Distinctiveness - Things that stand out are more easily recalled Flashbulb memory - Memory got the circumstance in which you first learned about a very surprising and emotionally arousing event - Many believe the can accurately recall all minor detail about what they were doing at the time of the event - Ex 9/11 - Is not a special type of memory that uses a special memory system - Flashbulb memories grow less accurate with the passage of time (just like “ordinary” memories) Cue Recall - Cues: stimuli that lead to activation of information stored in the LTM - Multiple cures lead to better retrieval - involves deeper processing - Self generated cues. Ex. have personal meaning - Priming tasks: show list of words (including STORE) not required to consciously remember them - Later shown STO__ respond store and not stork = implicit memory Matching Conditions - Retraivel can be increased by matching the conditions at retrieval to the conditions that existed at encoding - 3 main types Encoding specificity - We learn information together with its context - Godden and Baddeley “diving experiment” (1975) - Grant et al (1998)  - Looking at studying conditions and recall in the context of encoding specificity State dependant learning - Learning is associated with a particular internal state - If you are buzzed on caffeine when studying, you should make sure you are at the same level when studying, etc - Non drug examples as well: mood, level of tiredness, physical fatigue - Eich and Metcalfe (1989) - State-dependant, learning and mood ​ Transferring Appropriate Processing - Memory performance better if type of task at encoding matches type of task at retrieval Forgetting - Encoding failure - Lack of attention? - Lack of deep processing Decay of memory tree - Long term physical trace in nervous system fades away overtime and with disuse Forgetting - Interference theory: information forgotten because other items in LTM impair ability to retrieve it. - Proactive interference: past material with recall of newer material - Retroactive Interference: new information interferes with the ability to recall older information Motivated forgetting? - Repression - May protect us by blocking the recall of anxiety-arousing memories - Based on freudian concepts  - Conscious or unconscious process? (ex repression of anxiety arousing memories.) Amnesia - Retrograde Amnesia: Memory loss for events before amnesia - Anterograde Amnesia: Memory loss for events after amnesia. Dementia - Refers to impaired memory and other cognitive deficits that accompany brain degeneration and interfere with normal functioning. (neurons slowly dying) - Alzheimer's disease: severe retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Spreads across the temporal lobe and to the frontal lobes and other cortical regions. - Not everyone who has Alzheimer's has dementia. - Memory Distortion - Memory is a constructive (or reconstructive) process - Piece together bits of information i watts that intuitively “make sense” - Often highly accurate - Schemas can distort memories. - Memory construction extends to how we visualize the world (we like to see the big picture) - Ex. when university students look at photographs that have a main object within a scene and draw the pictures from memory. They constantly display boundary extension, remembering a scene as more expansive – as being “wider angle” — than it really is. - Important for eye-witeness testimony - Suggestive questioning can lead to inaccurate recall. - Witnesses may not even be aware. - Know hippocampus helps to consolidate long term declarative memory