Cognitive Psychology Chapter 5: Memory PDF

Cognitive Psychology processing the information involves: language, sensory input, problem-solving, and so forth Chapter 5: Memory ◦ In addition, memory involves communication...

Cognitive Psychology processing the information involves: language, sensory input, problem-solving, and so forth Chapter 5: Memory ◦ In addition, memory involves communication among the brain’s network of neurons, millions Memory – it is the retention of, and ability to of cells activated by brain chemicals called recall, information, personal experiences, and neurotransmitters procedures (skills and habits). (Skeptic Dictionary) Brain and Memory - is a label for a diverse set of cognitive capacities by which humans and perhaps other animals retain information and reconstruct past experiences, usually for present purposes. (Standford Encyclopedia) Memory Systems ◦ Sensory Register – environmental input, stimuli ▪ Quick Scan for Importance ▪ Precoding ◦ Working or Short-Term Memory ▪ Coding ▪ Rehearsal Types of Memory ▪ Recoding ◦ Short-term Memory – closely related to ◦ Long-Term Memory “working” memory—is the very short time ▪ Process that you keep something in mind before either ▪ Store dismissing it or transferring it to long-term ▪ Recall memory - shorter than you might think, lasting less than a minute - it’s what allows you to remember the first half of a sentence you hear or read long enough to make sense of the end of the sentence. But in order to store that sentence (or thought, fact, idea, word, impression, sight, or whatever else) for longer than a minute or so, it has to be transferred to long-term memory ◦ Long-term Memory – is anything you Information processing within the sensory remember that happened more than a few register, working or short-term memory, and minutes ago long-term memory includes complex coding, - long-term memories aren’t all of equal sorting, and recall functions strength. Stronger memories enable you to recall an event, procedure, or fact on Brain Areas Included in Memory demand—for example, that Paris is the capital ◦ Hippocampus – a primitive structure deep in of France. Weaker memories often come to the brain, plays the single largest role in mind only through prompting or reminding processing information as memory ▪ Explicit (conscious) ◦ Amygdala – an almond-shaped area near - Episodic Memory: specific personal the hippocampus, processes emotion and events and their context helps imprint memories that involve emotion - Semantic Memory: general knowledge ◦ Cerebral Cortex – the outer layer of the about the world brain, stores most long-term memory in ▪ Implicit (unconscious) different zones, depending on what kind of - Priming  - Procedural Memory - it proposed that human memory involves a ◦ Sensory Memory – is the ability to retain sequence of three stages: impressions of sensory information after the ▪ Sensory memory (SM) original stimulus has ceased ▪ Short-term memory (STM) - it refers to items detected by the sensory ▪ Long-term memory (LTM) receptors which are retained temporarily in the sensory registers and which have a large Memory Span – the number of items, usually capacity for unprocessed information but are words or numbers, that a person can retain only able to hold accurate images of sensory and recall information momentarily - is a test of working memory (short -term ▪ Iconic Memory memory) ▪ Echoic Memory - in a typical test of memory span, an examiner ◦ Declarative Memory – is the aspect of reads a list of random numbers aloud at about human memory that stores facts the rate of one number per second. At the end - it is so called because it refers to memories of a sequence, the person being tested is that can be consciously discussed, or declared asked to recall the items in order. The average - it applies to standard textbook learning and span for normal adults is seven to nine knowledge, as well as memories that can be 'travelled back to' in one's 'mind's eye’ Memory Process – human memory, like ◦ Procedural Memory – is the long-term memory in a computer, allows us to store memory of skills and procedures, or "how to" information for later use. In order to do this, knowledge (procedural knowledge) however, both the computer and we need to - it is considered a form of implicit memory master three processes involved in memory: ▪ Encoding – the process we use to Models of Memory transform information so that it can be stored ▪ Storage – it simply means holding onto the information ▪ Retrieval – it is bringing the memory out of storage and reversing the process of encoding. In other words, return the information to a form similar to what we stored ◦ The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model – also known Methods of Improving Memory as the Multi-store model, is a psychological ◦ Recall – involves digging into the memory model proposed in 1968 by Richard Atkinson and bringing back information on a and Richard Shiffrin as a proposal for the stimulus/response basis structure of memory - e.g., "What is the capital of New Zealand?" Answer: "Wellington" - often needs prompting with cues to help us retrieve what we are looking for. Healthy habits to improve memory - it is not a reliable form of memory and many ◦ Regular exercise of us experience the feeling that we know the - reduces the risk for disorders that lead to answer but simply can't dig the information out. memory loss, such as diabetes and This is the technique we use to remember cardiovascular disease people's names, hence we often forget them - increases oxygen to your brain - there are three types of recall: - may enhance the effects of helpful brain ▪ Free recall – when no cues are given to chemicals and protect brain cells assist retrieval ◦ Managing stress ▪ Serial recall – when items are recalled in a - cortisol, the stress hormone, can damage the particular order hippocampus if the stress is unrelieved ▪ Cued recall – when some cues are given to - stress makes it difficult to concentrate assist retrieval ◦ Good sleep habits ◦ Recognition (re+cognition) – is a process - sleep is necessary for memory consolidation that occurs in thinking when some event, - sleep disorders like insomnia and sleep process, pattern, or object recurs apnea leave you tired and unable to - coming from the base cognition; cognition has concentrate during the day various uses in different fields of study and has ◦ Not smoking generally accepted to be used for the process - smoking heightens the risk of vascular of awareness or thought disorders that can cause stroke and construct ◦ Relearning – another means of remembering arteries that deliver oxygen to the brain is through relearning - relearned information may return quickly, Memory and aging – several factors cause even if it hasn't been used for many years aging brains to experience changes in the ability to retain and retrieve memories: Tips for memory improvements ◦ The hippocampus is especially vulnerable ◦ Brain exercises – memory, like muscular to age-related deterioration, and that can strength, is a “use it or lose it” proposition. The affect how well you retain information more you work out your brain, the better you’ll ◦ There’s a relative loss of neurons with be able to process and remember information age, which can affect the activity of brain ◦ Aerobics – the best way to improve our chemicals called neurotransmitters and their memories seems to be to increase the supply receptors of oxygen to the brain, which we can do by ◦ An older person often experiences aerobic exercising. Walking for three hours decreased blood flow to the brain and each week suffices, as does swimming or processes nutrients that enhance brain activity bicycle riding less efficiently than a younger person General guidelines to improve memory Forgetting (Retention Loss) – refers to ◦ Pay attention – you can’t remember apparent loss of information already encoded something if you never learned it, and you can’t and stored in an individual's long term memory learn something — that is, encode it into your - it is a spontaneous or gradual process in brain — if you don’t pay enough attention to it which old memories are unable to be recalled ◦ Involve as many senses as possible from memory storage ◦ Relate information to what you already know Amnesia – is loss of ability to memorize ◦ Organize information information or to recall information stored in ◦ Understand and be able to interpret memory complex material - is most commonly associated with either ◦ Rehearse information frequently and brain damage through injury or degeneration of “over-learn” brain cells in dementia ◦ Be motivated and keep a positive attitude  ◦ Anterograde Amnesia – a patient cannot proactive interference, where the prior retain any new memory existence of old memories makes it harder to ◦ Retrograde Amnesia – the patient cannot recall newer memories recall the past events ◦ Retroactive interference – occurs when later learning interferes with previous learning; - i.e., learning new things somehow overwrites or obscures existing knowledge Repression – refers to the inability to recall information, usually about stressful or traumatic events in persons' lives, such as a violent attack or rape - the memory is stored in long term memory, but access to it is impaired because of psychological defense mechanisms - persons retain the capacity to learn new information and there may be some later partial or complete recovery of memory - this contrasts with e.g. anterograde amnesia caused by amnestics such as benzodiazepines or alcohol, where an experience was prevented from being transferred from temporary to permanent memory storage: it will never be recovered, because it was never stored in the first place - formerly known as "Psychogenic Amnesia" Output interference – occurs when the act of retrieving interferes with the retrieval of the Interference theory – also known as actual information needed in the first place retrieval interference (Roediger & Karpicke, - primarily, this is caused by the limited 2006), refers to the idea that forgetting occurs capacity of the short-term memory because the recall of certain items interferes with the recall of other items - in nature, the interfering items are said to originate from an over stimulating environment ◦ Proactive interference – Underwood (1957) provided early evidence that things you've learned before encoding a target item can worsen recall of that target item - in a meta-analysis of multiple experiments, he showed that the more lists one had already learned, the more trouble one had in recalling the most recent one. 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