Transcript Memory

Memory
Considering memory…
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Be prepared to interpret, or share your
perspectives on the following quotes.
“Whereas all living species have a past, only
humans have a history.”
“One never steps into the same stream of
consciousness twice.”
“Most of our memories are really about the
future.”
“We are the sum of our memories…Change
your memory and change your identity.”
“A memory is more atmospheric than accurate,
more an evolving fiction than a sacred text.”
The Memory Process
Three Steps
 Encoding
 Processing of info into memory system (typing
on a computer)
 Storage
 Retention of encoded material over time (to
hit save)
 Retrieval
 Getting the info out of storage (opening a file)
Encoding, storage or retrieval??
 Continuing to pronounce nuclear as
nucular…
 A failure of which?
Three Stage Processing Model
(one of two major theories on memory)
 Sensory Memory:
 Short-Term Memory
 Long-Term Memory
Sensory Memory
 Immediate recording of sensory info
 “Split second holding tank”
 Most stimulus not encoded- Why?
 Selective Attention
 Sensory Memory registered as:
 Iconic (split second vanishing photograph)
 Echoic (4 second sounds)
Short-Term Memory
AKA Working Memory
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Memory that holds a few items briefly.
Limit: Seven digits/ items (plus or minus 2)
Info is stored into long-term, or forgotten.
Lasts 3-12 seconds
 Short-Term, or Working Memory has 3 parts:
 Acoustic codes
 Visual Codes
 Semantic Codes
Long-Term Memory
 The relatively permanent and limitless
storehouse of the memory system.
Flashbulb Memory
Exception to 3 Stage theory
 An extreme
emotional moment
or event
 Somehow branded into
Long-Term Memory
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Where were you when?
1. You heard about 9/11?
2. You had your first kiss?
3. You had your first car
accident?
Encoding
 We encode info in two ways:
 Automatic Processing
 Effortful Processing
Encoding
 Automatic Processing
 Unconscious encoding
 Location, time and frequency
 Retracing steps to find your keys…
 Also becomes automatic with practice
 Driving to a friends house…
Encoding
 Effortful Processing
 Attention / conscious effort
 Studying for a test
 Through rehearsal, Effortful can become
automatic
Ways of Encoding (activity 9.3)
 Semantic:
 encoding of meaning
 Acoustic
 Encoding of sound
 Visual
 Encoding of picture images
Which is most effective?
Factors that Influence Encoding
 Spacing Effect
 Encode info better if in increments over time
 Serial Positioning Effect
 Tendency to recall best the first and last items in a list.
 Primacy Effect: Remember first words, items
 Recency Effect: Remember last items, words
 Next-In-Line Effect
 Don’t remember what someone has said if we are
next…
 Self-Reference Effect
 We encode better when issue relates to us
With a partner…
 List the U.S. presidents.
Washington
Taylor
Harrison
Eisenhower
J.Adams
Jefferson
Madison
Monroe
Fillmore
Pierce
Buchanan
Lincoln
Cleveland
McKinley
T.Roosevelt
Taft
Kennedy
L.Johnson
Nixon
Ford
JQ Adams
Jackson
Van Buren
Harrison
A.Johnson
Grant
Hayes
Garfield
Wilson
Harding
Coolidge
Hoover
Carter
Reagan
Bush
Clinton
Tyler
Polk
Arthur
Cleveland
FD.Roosevelt Bush Jr.
Truman
Obama
Encoding Strategies
Can enhance memory…
 Mnemonic Devices:
 Any learning technique that aids memory
 uses imagery, semantics to remember…
 Acronyms:
 Parentheses, exponents, multiplication,
division, addition, subtraction
“Please excuse my dear aunt Sally.”
Mnemonic Devices
 Peg-Word System
 Assign each item to a number or…
 Weave a story matching each item / word to a
number. (Rhyming also helpful)
Mnemonic Devices
Chunking
 Organizing items into familiar,
manageable units.
 Memorize these numbers 1-4-9-2-1-7-7-6-1-8-1-2-1-9-4-1
 How bout now?
 1492, 1776, 1812, 1941
Mnemonic Devices
 Key Word System
Term
Broca’s Area
Key Word
Tom Brokaw
Mental Picture
News cast (talking)
Parietal Lobe Paraná
biting your toe
Amygdala
Old Psycho
girlfriend = Fear
Amy
Hippocampus ????
?????
Mnemonic Devices
 Loci (Location) 500 BC.- Simonides
 Imagine a location (house etc.)
 Imaginary tour: each location paired with
specific item
Choose any mnemonic device (60 seconds)
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Ham
Pencil
turkey
pen
Check book
detergent
football
glasses
globe
Brother
Laundry
Map
Scrabble
Jeopardy
pizza
Storage and Long-Term Memory
 long-term memory: no
known limits
 Rajan: recited 31,811
digits of pi.(3hrs. 49 min. /
or 3.5/second!)
 How? Rhythmic memory:
“melodic or jarring”- taps
feet, sways right / left
 At 5 years old, memorized the
license plates of parents’ guests
(about 75 cars in ten minutes).
He still remembers the plates to
this day.
 Numbers only: average
with names, words
Shereshevskii: 1920’s
 Short term memory: 70 items
 Forward / Backward / 15 years
 Asylum: went mad: 15 minutes / 5 years:
all memories ran together
Long-Term Memory
 Remember: There is no one single
compartment for memory in our brain.
 Long Term-Potentiation (LTP)
 Leading Theory for LTM
 Neural networks strengthen memory
 Neural connections gradually strengthen through
rehearsal over time (memory strengthened)
• Nerve cell’s genes produce synapse strengthening
proteins /enabling LTM formation
Stress and Memory
 Stress can release hormones that assist in
LTM
 Stress can also inhibit effective encoding
for memory…
Types of LTM
The Hippocampus
 Critical to memory (injury =
impairment)
 Left = Verbal memory
 Right = Visual / Locations
 If Library = our brain…
 Then hippocampus = librarian
 Processes LTM, then stores
elsewhere in cerebral cortex
 Examples:
 Facial recognition =
temporal lobe
 Landscapes = parietal
lobe
 Socializing = frontal lobe
 Parallel processing for rich
mosaic of memory
Amygdala
 Emotional memories
 Images, smells, sounds
 Examples?
 Hippocampus and
Amygdala work together
to form LTM
 Hippo = conscious memory
of event
 Amygdala = emotional
memory from the senses
Retrieval
Recall
Versus
Recognition
What’s the Difference?
Retrieval Cues
(Aid memory..)
 Memory = web of associations
 Priming: “strand or web of associations
that leads to a specific memory”
Priming Effect (2 types)
 Repetition Priming
 Semantic Priming
A house divided against itself
cannot stand..
Those who deny freedom to
others, deserve it not for
themselves…
With malice toward none, with
charity for all, with firmness in
the right as God gives us to
see the right, let us strive on to
finish the work we are in…
Factors that Influence Retrieval
 Context effect
 Retrieval is more effective when retrieving
it in same location as experienced it…
 Tip-Of-the-Tongue Effect (TOT)
Temporary inability to retrieve specific name
or information.
Usually remedied by semantic cues…
Conditions that Affect Memory
 Mood-Congruent Theory
 The tendency to recall memories consistent
with our current mood
 State-Dependent Theory
 Recalling events encoded while in a particular
state of consciousness.
 Example: If you hide money while your drunk,
you are more likely to remember where you
hid it when you are intoxicated.
Conditions that Affect Memory
 Pollyanna Principle
 We tend to remember pleasant
experiences over negative ones
 Before, more efficiently, more accurately
 Why?
We seek out positive experiences
 Faster fading of negative experiences = healthy
coping processes in memory
 Mild depression = negative and positive experiences
fade evenly
Forgetting…
 “Forgetting isn’t the absence of
remembering: it’s memory’s ally, a device
that allows the brain to stay agile and
engaged.”
 Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind, p. 89
Three ways we forget…
Encoding Failure
Storage Decay
Retrieval Failure
Which is the real penny?
Encoding Failure
 “Don’t encode what we don’t need.”
 No encoding / no LTM.
Storage Decay
 Memory storage decays over time
 Lack of rehearsal accelerates decay
 Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve
Steep decline of retention over first three
days, then levels off…
Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve
Retrieval Failure
 2 Types (Be careful here…its tricky..)
 Proactive Interference
 New info is messed up by the old info
vs.
 Retroactive Interference
 Old info is messed up by new learning
Which type of retrieval failure?
If you call your new girlfriend your old
girlfriend’s name.
When you finally remember this
years locker combination, you
forget last years.
Retrieval Failure
REPRESSION:
 psychoanalytic theory- Freud’s theory of
repression
 We push away uncomfortable memories
 Contradicts theory that emotions / stress
hormones strengthen memories
How much of our experience do we remember?
The truth about memory..
 Memories bend and change over time, and are
often inaccurate!!
 Youngest and oldest (around 5 and 75) are most
susceptible
 (Frontal lobe: matures slowly and and decays quickly)
 Research studies
 Elizabeth Loftus (over 200 experiments)
 How wording influences our memory
 Cornell University- Space Shuttle Disaster
 Recollections on day after and three years later
 2/3 were totally wrong as to who with, where etc..
Misinformation Effect…
Wording affects our memory
 About how fast were the vehicles going
when they smashed into each other?
Or
 When they ran into each other?
Source Amnesia
 Forgetting the source of a memory
 (Where did I hear that…?)
 One of the frailest parts of our memory
Types of Amnesia
 Anterograde Amnesia
Remember everything before the accident,
but not after.
Often TBI (part of brain?)
 Retrograde Amnesia
 Remember everything after the incident, but not
before.
Which type of amnesia?