Chapter 6: Memory PDF

Because learning changes everything. ® Chapter 6: Memory Copyright 2022 © McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill LLC.  Chapter Preview The Nature of Memory. Memory...

Because learning changes everything. ® Chapter 6: Memory Copyright 2022 © McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill LLC.  Chapter Preview The Nature of Memory. Memory Encoding. Memory Storage. Memory Retrieval. Forgetting. Tips from the Science of Memory— for Studying and for Life. © McGraw Hill LLC 2  The Nature of Memory Memory: the retention of information or experience over time. Memory is the result of three key processes: Encoding. Storage. Retrieval. © McGraw Hill LLC 3  Figure 1: Processing Information in Memory As you read about the many aspects of memory in this chapter, think about the organization of memory in terms of these three main activities. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC (camera): Garret Bautista/iStock/Getty Images; (box): Grata Victoria/iStock/Getty Images; (woman): Gary He/McGraw Hill 4  Memory Encoding Encoding: the process by which information gets into memory storage. The first step in memory. © McGraw Hill LLC 5  Attention 1 To begin the process of memory encoding, we have to pay attention to information. Selective attention: focusing on a specific aspect of experience while ignoring others. Divided attention: concentrating on more than one activity at the same time. Sustained attention: the ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time. © McGraw Hill LLC 6  Attention 2 Executive attention: directing attention to engage in higher-level cognitive functioning. Plan action. Allocate attention to goals. Detect errors and compensate for them. Monitor progress on tasks. Deal with novel or difficult circumstances. © McGraw Hill LLC 7  Levels of Processing Levels of processing: a continuum of memory processing from shallow to deep. Deeper processing produces better memory. Level of Processing Process Examples Shallow Physical and perceptual The lines, angles, and contour that make up the features are analyzed. physical appearance of an object, such as a car, are detected. Intermediate Stimulus is recognized The object is recognized as a car. and labeled. Deep Semantic, meaningful, Associations connected with car are brought to symbolic characteristics mind—you think about the Porsche or Ferrari you are used. hope to buy or the fun you and friends had on spring break when you drove a car to the beach. Figure 2: Depth of Processing © McGraw Hill LLC 8  Elaboration Elaboration: the formation of a number of different connections around a stimulus at a given level of memory encoding. One effective way to elaborate on information is self-reference—relating material to your own experience. © McGraw Hill LLC 9  Figure 3: Memory Improves When Self-Reference Is Used In one study, researchers (Hunt & Ellis, 2014) asked participants to remember lists of words according to the words’ physical, acoustic (sound), semantic (meaning), or self-referent characteristics. As the figure illustrates, when individuals generated self-references for the words, they remembered them better. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC 10  Imagery Images are remembered better than verbal labels. Allan Paivio’s dual-code theory: memory for pictures is better than memory for words because pictures are stored as both image codes and verbal codes. We have two potential avenues by which we can retrieve information. Memory of verbal information can be boosted by linking it to imagery. © McGraw Hill LLC 11  Memory Storage Storage: the retention of information over time and how this information is represented in memory. Atkinson-Shiffrin theory: memory storage involves three separate systems. Sensory memory: time frames of a fraction of a second to several seconds. Short-term memory: time frames up to 30 seconds. Long-term memory: time frames up to a lifetime. © McGraw Hill LLC 12  Figure 5: Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Theory of Memory In this model, sensory input goes into sensory memory. Through the process of attention, information moves into short-term memory, where it remains for 30 seconds or less unless it is rehearsed. When the information goes into long-term memory storage, it can be retrieved over a lifetime. © McGraw Hill LLC 13  Sensory Memory Sensory memory: involves holding information from thew world in its original sensory form, for only an instant. Not much longer than the brief time it is exposed to the visual, auditory, and other senses. Echoic memory: auditory sensory memory. Iconic memory: visual sensory memory. © McGraw Hill LLC 14  Figure 6: Auditory and Visual Sensory Memory If you hear this bird’s call while walking through the woods, your auditory sensory memory holds the information for several seconds. If you see the bird, your visual sensory memory holds the information for only about 0.25 second. © McGraw Hill LLC (bird): steve_byland/123RF; (eye): ColorBlind Images/Blend Images LLC; (ear): Geoff du Feu/Alamy Stock Photo 15  Figure 7: Sperling’s Sensory Memory Experiment This array of stimuli is similar to those flashed for about 0.05 second to the participants in George Sperling’s classic (1960) study. © McGraw Hill LLC 16  Short-Term Memory 1 Short-term memory: limited-capacity memory system in which information is usually retained for only as long as 30 sections unless strategies are used to retain it longer. George Miller: the usual limit to how much information people can keep track of without external aids is a range of 7 ± 2 items. Memory span: the number of digits an individual can report back in order after a single presentation of them. © McGraw Hill LLC 17  Short-Term Memory 2 Strategies for retaining information in short-term memory include chunking and rehearsal. Chunking—grouping or “packing” information into higher-order units that can be remembered as single units. Rehearsal—the conscious repetition of information. © McGraw Hill LLC 18  Working Memory 1 Working memory: a combination of components, including short-term memory and attention, that allow individuals to hold information temporarily as they perform cognitive tasks. A kind of mental workbench. Where the brain manipulates and assembles information to guide understanding, decision making, and problem solving. © McGraw Hill LLC 19  Working Memory 2 Alan Baddeley’s model of working memory is a three-part system: Phonological loop: briefly stores speech-based information; consists of an acoustic code and rehearsal. Visual-spatial sketchpad: functions independently of the phonological loop. Central executive: integrates information from the phonological loop, the visual-spatial sketchpad, and long-term memory. © McGraw Hill LLC 20  Figure 8: Baddeley’s View of Working Memory The phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad serve as assistants, helping the central executive do its work. Information is stored in working memory only briefly; but working memory can draw information from long-term memory and also transmits information to long-term memory for longer storage. © McGraw Hill LLC 21  Long-Term Memory 1 Long-term memory: stores huge amounts of information for a long time. Relatively permanent. At the top level, long-term memory consists of: Explicit memory (declarative memory): the conscious recollection of information that can be verbally communicated. Implicit memory (nondeclarative memory): memory in which behavior is affected by prior experience without a conscious recollection of that experience. © McGraw Hill LLC 22  Long-Term Memory 2 Explicit memory, in turn, consists of: Episodic memory: information about the where, when, and what of life’s happenings. Semantic memory: knowledge about the world. And implicit memory involves: Procedural memory: memory for skills. Priming: the activation of information already in storage, to help remember new information better and faster. The process of classical conditioning. © McGraw Hill LLC 23  Figure 9: Systems of Long-Term Memory Long-term memory stores huge amounts of information for long periods of time, much like a computer’s hard drive. The hierarchy in the figure shows the division of long-term memory at the top level into explicit memory and implicit memory. Explicit memory can be further divided into episodic and semantic memory; implicit memory includes procedural memory, priming, and classical conditioning. © McGraw Hill LLC 24  Figure 10: Explicit Memory: Memory for Spanish as a Function of Age Since Spanish Was Learned How long does explicit memory last? Harry Bahrick examined this question with former Spanish students. In his study, An initial steep drop over about a three-year period in remembering the vocabulary learned in Spanish classes occurred. However, there was little dropoff in memory for Spanish vocabulary from three years after taking Spanish classes to 50 years after taking them. Even 50 years after taking Spanish classes, individuals still remembered almost 50 percent of the vocabulary. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC SOURCE: Bahrick, Harry P. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113(1), Mar 1984, 1–29. 25  Characteristic Episodic Memory Semantic Memory Units Events, episodes Facts, ideas, concepts Organization Time Concepts Emotion More important Less important Retrieval process Deliberate (effortful) Automatic Retrieval report “I remember” “I know” Education Irrelevant Relevant Intelligence Irrelevant Relevant Legal testimony Admissible in court Inadmissible in court Figure 11: Differences Between Episodic and Semantic Memory These characteristics have been proposed as the main ways to differentiate episodic from semantic memory. © McGraw Hill LLC 26  How Memory Is Organized 1 Schema: a preexisting mental concept or framework that helps people to organize and interpret information. Schemas from prior encounters influence the way individuals encode, make inferences about, and retrieve information. Script: a schema for an event, often containing information about physical features, people, and typical occurrences. © McGraw Hill LLC 27  How Memory Is Organized 2 Connectionism: the theory that memory is stored throughout the brain in connections among neurons. Several of these connections may work together to process a single memory. Also known as parallel distributed processing (PDP). Nodes: the interconnected locations of neural activity. Consolidation: the process by which interconnected networks are formed. © McGraw Hill LLC 28  How Memories Are Stored Rather than being “spots” in the brain, memories are collections of connected neurons working together. Neurotransmitters play a crucial role. Long-term potentiation: the concept that if two neurons are activated at the same time, the connection between them may be strengthened. Many different parts of the brain are involved. © McGraw Hill LLC 29  Figure 12: Structures of the Brain Involved in Different Aspects of Long-Term Memory Note that explicit memory and implicit memory appear to involve different locations in the brain. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC 30  Memory Retrieval Retrieval: the memory process that occurs when information that was retained in memory comes out of storage. Retrieval depends heavily on the circumstances under which a memory was encoded and the way it was retained. © McGraw Hill LLC 31  Serial Position Effect Serial position effect: the tendency to recall the items at the beginning and end of a list more readily than those in the middle. Primacy effect: better recall for items at the beginning of a list—because they rehearsed more or receive more elaborate processing. Recency effect: better recall for items at the end— because they might still be in working memory or simply because they were just encountered. © McGraw Hill LLC 32  Figure 13: The Serial Position Effect When a person is asked to memorize a list of words, the words memorized last usually are recalled best, those at the beginning next best, and those in the middle least efficiently. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC SOURCE: Murdock Jr., B. B. (1974). Human Memory: Theory and Data. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 33  Retrieval Cues and the Retrieval Task 1 Cues in the environment can help us retrieve memories. If effective cues are not available, create them. Going through the alphabet to remember a name. Using subcategories. Success depends on the retrieval task. Deciding whether something is familiar. Remembering a name or other precise detail. © McGraw Hill LLC 34  Retrieval Cues and the Retrieval Task 2 Recall: a memory task in which the person must retrieve previously learned information. As on essay tests. Recognition: a memory task in which the person only has to identify (recognize) learned items. As on multiple-choice tests. Recognizing a face, for example, is far simpler than recalling a face “from scratch.” © McGraw Hill LLC 35  Figure 14: Remembering Faces (first) The FBI artist’s sketch of Ted Kaczynski. Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, conducted a sequence of mail bombings targeting universities and airlines beginning in the late 1970s. (second) A photograph of Kaczynski. The FBI widely circulated the artist’s sketch, which was based on bits and pieces of observations people had made of the infamous Unabomber, in the hope that someone would recognize him. Would you have been able to recognize Kaczynski from the artist’s sketch? Probably not. Although most people say they are good at remembering faces, they usually are not as good as they think they are. © McGraw Hill LLC (sketch): Allan Tannenbaum/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images; (photo): Bureau of Prisons/Donaldson Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images 36  Retrieval Cues and the Retrieval Task 3 Encoding specificity principle: information present at the time of encoding or learning tends to be effective as a retrieval cue. Context-dependent memory: the process of recalling information in the same context in which it was learned. Recollection is often better because people have encoded features of the context along with the actual information. © McGraw Hill LLC 37  Special Cases of Retrieval: Autobiographical Memory The subjective quality of memory has implications for important day-today-procedures such as eyewitness testimony. Autobiographical memory: a special form of episodic memory, consisting of a person’s recollections of their life experiences. Reminiscence bump: the phenomenon whereby adults remember more events from the second and third decades of life than from other decades. © McGraw Hill LLC 38  Level Label Description Level 1 Lifetime periods Long segments of time measured in years and even decades Level 2 General events Extended composite episodes measured in days, weeks, or months Level 3 Event-specific knowledge Individual episodes measured in seconds, minutes, or hours Figure 15: The Three-Level Hierarchical Structure of Autobiographical Memory When people relate their life stories, all three levels of information are typically present and intertwined. Note, also, that most autobiographical memories include some reality and some myth. © McGraw Hill LLC 39  Special Cases of Retrieval: Flashbulb Memories Flashbulb memory: the memory of emotionally significant events that people often recall with more accuracy and vivid imagery than everyday events. For example, the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Still probably not as accurate as we think. © McGraw Hill LLC 40  Special Cases of Retrieval: Trauma Memories of personal trauma are emotionally arousing and are usually more accurate than memories of ordinary events. Traumatic memories can also have inaccuracies. Perceptual errors while encoding information. Distortions due to the effort to cope or reduce the associated anxiety. Incorporations of others’ recollections. Stress-related hormones play a role. © McGraw Hill LLC 41  Special Cases of Retrieval: Repressed Memories Motivated forgetting: forgetting that occurs when something is so painful or anxiety-laden that remembering it is intolerable. The defense mechanism of repression can be considered a special case of motivated forgetting. Recovered or discovered memories are experienced as real. Reports of long-forgotten childhood sexual abuse cannot be categorically rejected. © McGraw Hill LLC 42  Special Cases of Retrieval: Eyewitness Testimony Clearly, memory is not a perfect reflection of reality. Eyewitness testimony, like other sorts of memories, may contain errors. Note that witnessing a crime is often traumatic. Memory can fade. Memory can be altered by new information. Bias, especially racial prejudice, can be a factor. © McGraw Hill LLC 43  Forgetting Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted scientific research on forgetting. He concluded that most forgetting takes place soon after we learn something. His research relied on nonsense syllables, however. When we memorize more meaningful material, forgetting is neither so rapid nor so extensive. © McGraw Hill LLC Bettmann/Getty Images 44  Figure 16: Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve In 1885, Ebbinghaus made up and memorized a list of 13 nonsense syllables and then assessed how many of them he could remember as time passed. Even just an hour later, Ebbinghaus could recall only a few of the nonsense syllables he had memorized. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC 45  Encoding Failure Encoding failure occurs when the information was never entered into long-term memory. Figure 17: Which Is a Real U.S. Penny? Participants viewed 15 versions of pennies; only one version was an actual U.S. penny. This figure shows only 7 of the 15 versions, and as you likely can tell, the task is still very difficult. Why? Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC David A. Tietz/Editorial Image, LLC 46  Retrieval Failure 1 Interference theory: people forget not just because memories are lost from storage but because other information gets in the way. Proactive interference: material that was learned earlier disrupts the recall of material that was learned later. Retroactive interference: material that was learned later disrupts the recall of material that was learned earlier. © McGraw Hill LLC 47  Figure 18: Proactive and Retroactive Interference Pro- means “forward”; in proactive interference, old information has a forward influence by getting in the way of new material learned. Retro- means “backward”; in retroactive interference, new information has a backward influence by getting in the way of material learned earlier. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC 48  Retrieval Failure 2 Decay theory: when an individual learns something new, a neurochemical memory trace forms, but over time this trade disintegrates. Suggests that the passage of time always increases forgetting. Under the right conditions, however, we can recover memories that we seem to have forgotten. © McGraw Hill LLC 49  Retrieval Failure 3 The experience of déjà. Brain areas that surround the hippocampus, called the familiarity network, seem to be implicated. © McGraw Hill LLC 50  Retrieval Failure 4 Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon: a type of effortful retrieval associated with feeling that we know something but cannot quite pull it out of memory. Demonstrates that we do not store all of the information about a particular topic or experience in one way. © McGraw Hill LLC 51  Retrieval Failure 5 The experience of déjà. Brain areas that surround the hippocampus, called the familiarity network, seem to be implicated. © McGraw Hill LLC 52  Prospective Memory 1 Retrospective memory: remembering information from the past. Prospective memory: remembering information about doing something in the future; includes memory for intentions. Time-based prospective memory is an intention to engage in a behavior after a specified amount of time. Event-based prospective memory is an intention to engage in the behavior when an external event or cue elicits it. © McGraw Hill LLC 53  Prospective Memory 2 Absentmindedness accounts for some failures in prospective memory. Amnesia: the loss of memory. Anterograde amnesia: a memory disorder that affects the retention of new information and events. Retrograde amnesia: memory loss for a segment of the past but not for new events. © McGraw Hill LLC 54  Tips from the Science of Memory— for Studying and for Life You can sharpen your memory by thinking deeply about the “material” of life and connecting the information to other things you know. Make it matter to yourself. © McGraw Hill LLC 55  Organizing Course Content Review notes routinely and catch errors and ambiguities early. Organize the material, rework it, and give it a structure that will help you to remember it. Experiment with different organizational techniques. Hierarchy, such as an outline. Analogies that take advantage of preexisting schemas. © McGraw Hill LLC 56  Encoding Course Content Pay attention. Process information at an appropriate level. Elaborate on the points to be remembered. Use imagery. Encode early and often. Not just before a test. © McGraw Hill LLC 57  Rehearsing Course Content Rewrite, type, or retype notes. Talk to people about what you have learned and how it is important to real life. Test yourself. While reading and studying, as yourself questions. Why is this important? Treat your brain kindly with adequate rest and nourishment. © McGraw Hill LLC 58  Retrieving Course Content Use retrieval cues. Sit comfortably, take a deep breath, and stay calm. © McGraw Hill LLC Caiaimage/Glow Images 59  Autobiographical Memory and the Life Story Autobiographical memory allows us to understand ourselves and provides us with a source of identity. Redemptive stories go from bad to better. Contamination stories go from good to bad. People who tend to tell redemptive stories are more generative—that is, they tend to contribute to future generations and leave a lasting legacy. Perhaps most vitally, autobiographical memory has a role in social bonding. © McGraw Hill LLC 60  Keeping Memory Sharp Memory is an indicator of brain function. “Use it or los it” applies. © McGraw Hill LLC Mike Kemp/Rubberball/Getty Images 61  End of Main Content Because learning changes everything. ® www.mheducation.com Copyright 2022 © McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill LLC.