Human Memory Flashcards
What is Memory?
- 3 Key processes in Memory
1. Encoding : Involves forming a memory code, requires attention/conscious effort
2. Storage : Involves maintaining encoded information in memory over time
3. Retrieval : Involves recovering information from memory stores
What is the role of Attention?
Attention : Focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli/events
- Selective attention is critical to everyday functioning
- Research suggests that the human brain can effectively handle only 1 attention-consuming task at a time
- Memory performance decreases when we are forced to divide our attention between memory encoding and other tasks
Explain the Levels-of-Processing Theory (Craik and Lockhart, 1972)
- Different rates of forgetting occur because some methods of encoding create more durable memory codes than others do
- Proposes that deeper levels of processing result in longer lasting memory codes ‘
1. Structural Encoding : Shallow processing, emphasises physical structure of stimulus (capital, italics)
2. Phonemic Encoding : Involves naming/saying words, emphasises what a word sounds like
3. Semantic Encoding : Emphasises the meaning of verbal input, involves thinking about the objects/actions the words represent
What is Elaboration?
- The linking of a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding
- Enhances semantic encoding
- Additional connections created by elaboration help people remember information
What is Visual Imagery?
- Ease of image formation affects memory as some words are more concrete, others more abstract
Dual-Coding Theory (Paivio’s theory, 1986) : Holds that memory is enhanced by forming semantic and visual codes since either can lead to recall
- Imagery facilitates memory because it provides a second kind of memory code
Motivation to Remember : High MTR at the time of encoding improves recall later
What is Sensory Memory?
- A store that preserves information in its original sensory form for a brief time (fraction of a second)
- Sensory memory allows the sensation of a visual pattern, sounds or touch to linger for a brief moment after the sensory stimulation is over
What is Short-Term Memory and Rehearsal?
Short-Term Memory (STM) : Limited-capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for up to 20 seconds
Rehearsal : Process of repetitively verbalising/thinking about information
Durability of Storage :
- Without rehearsal, information in STM is lost in 10-20s
- Loss of information from STM is caused by time-related decay of memory traces/interferences from competing material
What is the Capacity of Storage in STM?
- Research has changed the capacity from 7 +/- 2 to 4 +/- 1 (remember less)
Chunk (Covert Rehearsal) : A group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit, increases likelihood of recall
STM as ‘Working Memory’
Working Memory : A modular system for temporary storage and manipulation of information
Working Memory Capacity (WMC) : One’s ability to hold and manipulate information in conscious attention
Explain Baddeley’s Model of Working Memory (2001)
1. Phonological Loop : When you use recitation to temporarily hold onto a password/number
2. Visuospatial Sketchpad : Permits people to temporarily hold & manipulate visual images
E.G Mentally rearranging furniture
3. Central Executive System : Controls deployment of attention, switching focus of attention & dividing attention
4. Episodic Buffer : Temporary, limited capacity store that allows the various components of working memory to integrate information (combines auditory, visual-spatial and LTM into 1 recollective episode)
What is Long-Term Memory?
- An unlimited capacity store that can hold information over lengthy periods of time
- Long-term memory can retain information for a lifetime
What are Flashbulb Memories?
- Unusually vivid and detailed recollections of momentous events
- No convincing evidence exists that proves memories are stored permanently and that forgetting is all a matter of retrieval failure
E.G Many American adults can remember exactly where they were/what they were doing on September 11 when the 2001 terrorist attack took place in NY and Washington D.C
How is Knowledge Represented in Memory?
Clustering : Tendency to remember similar items in groups
Conceptual Hierarchy : Multilevel classification system based on common properties among items
Schema : Organised cluster of knowledge about a particular object/event abstracted from previous experience with the object/event
- People are more likely to remember things that are consistent with their schemas
Semantic Networks : Nodes representing concepts, joined together by pathways that link related concepts
- Spreading activation within a semantic network is a process that occurs when people think about a word and their thoughts naturally go to related words
What is the Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon?
- Temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by a feeling that its just out of reach
- Happens about once a week, increases with age (represents a failure in retrieval)
- Retrieval cues are stimuli that help gain access to memories (hints, related information, partial recollections)
What are Context Cues?
- Facilitate the retrieval of information
- Hypnosis occasionally stimulates eyewitness recall in legal investigations (uses context cues)
E.G Where you used to live
Explain Memory Reconstruction
- All memories are reconstructions of the past that may be distorted and may include details that did not actually occur
Misinformation Effect : Phenomenon that occurs when participants’ recall of an event they witnessed is altered by introducing misleading post-event information
- Misinformation can distort one’s knowledge of basic facts
- Retelling a story can introduce inaccuracies into memory
Explain Source Monitoring
- Process of making inferences about the origins of memories
- Misinformation can be caused by unreliable source monitoring
- People decide at the time of retrieval where the memories come from
Source-Monitoring Error : An error that occurs when a memory derived from one source is misattributed to another source
- Explains why people have memories of events that they never actually saw/experienced
What is Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve?
- Forgetting curve for nonsense syllables
- Concluded that forgetting is extremely rapid immediately after the original learning and then levels off
- Research has shown that forgetting curves for nonsense syllables are unusually steep
Explain Retention and Retention Intervals
Retention : The proportion of material retained (remembered)
Retention Interval : Length of time between the presentation of materials to be remembered and the measurement of forgetting
What are the 3 Methods to Measure Forgetting/Retention?
1. Recall Measure : Requires participants to reproduce information on their own without any cues
2. Recognition Measure : Requires participants to select previously learned information from an array of options
3. Relearning Measure : Requires participants to memorise information a second time to determine how much time/effort is saved by having learned it before
Why do we forget? (Ineffective Encoding)
Pseudoforgetting : Phenomenon of thinking you forgot something that you never really learned
- Information was never inserted into memory
- Attributable to lack of attention
Why do we forget? (Decay)
Decay Theory : The idea that forgetting occurs because memory traces fade with time
- Decay affects sensory and short-term memory
- Researchers have not been able to clearly demonstrate that decay causes LTM forgetting
Why do we forget? (Interference)
1. Interference Theory : The idea that people forget information because of competition from other material
2. Retroactive Interference : A source of forgetting that occurs when new information impairs the retention of previously-learned information
3. Proactive Interference : A source of forgetting that occurs when previously-learned information interferes with the retention of new information
Why do we forget? (Retrieval Failure)
- A great deal of forgetting may be due to breakdowns in the process of retrieval
Encoding Specificity Principle : The idea that the value of a retrieval cue depends on how well it corresponds to the memory code
Why do we forget? (Motivated Forgetting)
- Motivated forgetting is the tendency to forget things that one does not want to think about
Repression : Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious
Explain the Repressed Memories Controversy
- Many psychologists and psychiatrists (clinicians involved in treating psychological disorders) accept recovered memories of abuse at face value
- People commonly bury traumatic incidents in their unconscious
- Some psychologists blame the misinformation effect, source-monitoring errors and other ways of ‘creating memories’
What is Retrograde Amnesia?
- Loss of memories for events that occured prior to a head injury
What is Anterograde Amnesia?
- Loss of memories for events that occur after a head injury
- The entire hippocampal region and adjacent areas in the cortex (medial temporal lobe memory system) are critical for LTM
What is Consolidation?
- Hypothetical process involving the gradual conversion of new, unstable memories into stable, durable memory codes stored in LTM
- Much of it happens while people sleep
- Memories are consolidated in the hippocampal region, stored in the diverse and widely distributed areas of the cortex
Describe the Neural Circuitry of Memory
- Memories may create unique, reusable pathways in the brain along which signals flow
- Memory formation may result in alterations in synaptic transmission at specific sites
Neurogenesis : Formation of new neurones, contribute to the sculpting of neural circuits that underlie memory
What is the Declarative Memory System?
- Handles factual information
- Contains recollections of words, definitions, names, dates, faces, concepts, ideas etc.
- Recall for factual information generally depends on conscious, effortful processes
What is the Nondeclarative Memory System?
- Houses memory for actions, skills, conditioned responses and emotional memories
- Contains procedural memories of how to execute such actions
- Memories for conditioned reflexes are largely automatic
- Memories for skills often require little effort and attention
What is Retrospective Memory?
- Involves remembering events from the past/previously-learned information
- Does not require individuals to remember the intended action
What is Prospective Memory?
- Involves remembering to perform actions in the future
- Crucial to daily functioning
What is the Episodic Memory System?
- Made up of chronological/temporally dated recollections of personal experiences
- Record of things one has done, seen or heard
- Allows one to remember the past (associated with a sense of ‘remembering’)
What is Semantic Memory System?
- Contains general knowledge that is not tied to the time when the information was learned
- Associated with a sense of ‘knowing’
