Transcript Memory

Psychology in Modules
by Saul Kassin
Section 6:
Memory
Memory
An Information-Processing Model
The Sensory Register
Short-Term Memory
Long-Term Memory
Autobiographical Memory
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Information-Processing Model
of Memory
• A model of memory in which information must
pass through discrete stages via the processes of
attention, encoding, storage, and retrieval.
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Memory
Types of Memory
•Sensory Memory
• Records information from the senses for up to three
seconds
• Examples are Iconic (Visual) Memory and Echoic
(Auditory) Memory
•Short-Term Memory
• Holds about seven items for up to twenty seconds before
the material is forgotten or transferred to long-term
memory
•Long-Term Memory
• Relatively permanent, can hold vast amounts of
information
The Sensory Register
• Invented by George
Sperling
• A letter array is shown
briefly
• After array is gone, tone
signals which row to
report
• Subjects recalled more
letters when signaled to
recall only one row
compared to trying to
recall all the letters
Testing for Iconic
Memory
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The Sensory Register
Duration of Iconic Memory
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Short-Term Memory
Capacity
• Read the top row of digits, then look away and repeat them
Memory-Span Test
back in order. Continue until a mistake is made. The
average capacity is seven items of information.
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Short-Term Memory
Capacity
•
Increased Memory
Two students practicedSpan
memory span tasks for
an hour 3-4
days/week.
• After six months, digit
span had increased
from 7 to 80 items.
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Short-Term Memory
Capacity
Chunking
• Process of grouping distinct bits of
information into larger wholes to increase
short-term memory capacity.
• Take 5 seconds to memorize as much as possible
on the next slide.
• Then, try to reproduce the arrangement of pieces.
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Short-Term Memory
Capacity
The Value of Chunking
• Was the number
correct around seven
pieces? Or, was the
information chunked?
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Short-Term Memory
Duration of Short-Term Memory
• Subjects memorized
nonsense syllables, (e.g.,
MJK, ZRW).
• To prevent rehearsal, they
were given a distracter task
during the waiting period.
• When a cue was given,
subjects tried to recall the
letters.
• Short-term memories vanish
within twenty seconds.
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Short-Term Memory
Functions of Short-Term Memory
• Term used to describe short-
term memory as an active
workspace where
Memory
information is accessible for
current use.
• Baddeley’s model of working
memory contains three elements:
• A “central executive”
• Auditory working memory
• Visuo-spatial working memory
• Material can enter conscious
workspace from senses or from
long-term memory
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Working
Short-Term Memory
The Serial-Position
Effect
• Serial Position Curve
• Indicates the tendency to
recall more items from the
beginning and end of a list
than from the middle.
• Both groups of subjects
showed primacy effects, good
recall of first items on list.
• Only the no-delay group
showed recency effects, good
recall for last items.
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Short-Term Memory
The Long-Term Serial-Position
Effect
• Can you name the
U. S. Presidents?
• Can you name them
in the correct order?
• Note that these
subjects exhibited
both primacy and
recency effects.
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Long-Term Memory
Encoding
Elaborative
words and asked to use one
of
Rehearsal
• Subjects were shown lists of
three strategies:
• Visual: Is the word printed in
capital letters?
• Acoustic: Does the word rhyme
with _____?
• Semantic: Does the word fit the
sentence _________?
• The more thought involved
(elaborative rehearsal), the
better was their memory.
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Long-Term Memory
Storage
• Procedural Memory
• Stored long-term knowledge of learned
habits and skills.
• Examples are how to drive, ride a bike, tie
one’s shoes, etc.
• Declarative Memory
• Stored long-term knowledge of facts about
ourselves and the world.
• Includes both semantic (nonpersonal) and
episodic (personal) memories
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Long-Term Memory
Storage
 Semantic Network
 A complex web of
Semantic Networks
semantic associations
that link items in
memory such that
retrieving one item
triggers the retrieval
of others as well
 Supported by
research using the
lexical decision
making task
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Long-Term Memory
Storage
The
• Hippocampus: Part of the
limbic system that plays a key
Region
role in encoding and
transferring new information
into long-term memory.
• Anterograde amnesia
• Inability to store new
information
• Retrograde amnesia
• Inability to retrieve
memories from the past
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Hippocampal
Long-Term Memory
Retrieval
• Explicit Memory
• The types of memory elicited through the conscious
retrieval of recollections in response to direct
questions.
• Conscious retention, direct tests, disrupted by amnesia,
encoded in the hippocampus
• Implicit Memory
• A nonconscious recollection of a prior experience that
is revealed indirectly, by its effects on performance.
• Nonconscious retention, indirect tests, intact with
amnesia, encoded elsewhere
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Long-Term Memory
Retrieval
Context-Dependent Memory
• Russian-English bilinguals were prompted in
English and in Russian to recall stories.
• They recalled more Russian-experienced
events when interviewed in Russian and more
English-experienced events when interviewed
in English.
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Long-Term Memory
Retrieval
• Amnesic patients and
Retention Without
Awareness
normal controls were
tested for memory of
words learned previously.
• Amnesics performed
poorly on explicit memory
tasks.
• However, performance on
implicit memory tasks was
similar to control subjects.
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Long-Term Memory
Retrieval
•
Implicit Memory in Everyday
Déjà vu
Life
• A sense of familiarity but no real memory
• The false-fame effect
• Names presented only once, familiarity but no real
memory, assume person is famous
• Eyewitness transference
• Face is familiar, but situation in which they
remembering seeing face is incorrect
• Unintentional plagiarism
• Take credit for someone else’s ideas without awareness
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Long-Term Memory
Forgetting
The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve
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Long-Term Memory
Forgetting
• How much Spanish
vocabulary is
remembered over
time?
• Most forgetting occurs
within the first three
years.
• After that, memory
remains stable.
Long-Term Forgetting
Curve
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Long-Term Memory
Forgetting
Can You Recognize a
Penny?
 One reason
people forget is
due to lack of
encoding.
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Long-Term Memory
Forgetting
• Proactive Interference
• The tendency for previously learned
material to disrupt the recall of new
information
• Retroactive Interference
• The tendency for new information to disrupt
the memory of previously learned material
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Long-Term Memory
Forgetting
Interference and Forgetting
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Long-Term Memory
Reconstruction
“Office” Schema
• Study this picture for
30 seconds.
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List as many objects as you can
recall from the photograph you just
saw.
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How to Improve Memory
• Mnemonics
• Memory aids designed to facilitate the recall of new
information.
• Increase Practice Time
• Increase the Depth of Processing
• Hierarchical Organization
• Verbal Mnemonics
• Method of Loci
• Peg-Word Method
• Minimize Interference
• Utilize Context Effects
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Autobiographical Memory
•
Memorable
Transitions
Autobiographical Memory
• The recollections people
have of their own personal
experiences and
observations.
• People’s memories are most
vivid for times of transition.
• In college, these are memories
from the beginning of the first
year and end of the last year.
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Autobiographical Memory
• Flashbulb Memories
• Highly vivid and enduring memories, typically for
events that are dramatic and emotional
• Childhood Amnesia
• The inability of most people to recall events from
before the age of three or four
• Hindsight Bias
• The tendency to think after an event that one knew
in advance what was going to happen
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