Lectures 12-13 Memory Flashcards
Define memory
- Capacity of the nervous system to acquire and retain usable skill and knowledge
- ability to use experience in your life
Stages of memory depend on what characteristics?
- duration
- capacity
- purpose
What are the 3 stages/types of memory?
- Sensory
- Short term (close to working)
- long term memory
Types of sensory memory? Examples?
- iconic (visual)
–> letters flashed on a screen for a short period of time. Ability to remember letters is iconic memory - echoic (auditory)
–> you’re listening to your professor give a lecture, and you remember the sentence they said to write it in your notes
Sensory memory (dur. cap. pur.)
Duration:
- iconic: 3-4 sec
- echoic: 1/4 sec
(Very short)
Capacity:
- very large
Purpose:
- perceive the world around us as constant, we don’t forget what’s around us
Short term memory (Dur, cap, pur)
Duration:
- 20-30 sec
Capacity:
- 7 +/- 2 (depending on how big the info is)
Purpose:
- keep track of info you need to remember for a short amount of time to accomplish a specific task
Chunking def?
Organizing pieces of information into groups that are meaningful to you
Short term memory example?
You remember the code you’re sent to log in, but you don’t need it after that
Imagine that you receive a code to get access to your bank account. You look at the code and repeat it until you use it 10 sec later. Based on the modal memory model, what are you doing?
You get the iconic sensory input (look at code). You pay attention to the information and rehearse it so it is in your short term memory. Then, the information is lost because you don’t continue to rehearse it
You might have noted when you play cards that you keep checking the cards you have. Based on what we have learned about memory why is that? What type of memory is active when we first get the cards? Explain your answer.
Short term memory
You have to keep checking because you don’t keep rehearsing the information and it hasn’t been encoded into long term memory.
When we first get the cards, it’s iconic sensory memory. You briefly remember the information about what you saw, but you can’t remember it after that. So, you pay attention and rehearse it to keep it in short term memory
Types of long term memory? Type of information? Easy to describe?
- Declarative (what)
–> Semantic (fact)
–> Episodic (personal experiences)
–> easy to describe - Procedural (how)
–> unconscious recall of motor skills, behaviors, habits
–> very difficult to describe
–> usually motor memories
What type of memory did Ebbinghaus study? What theory did he discover?
Long term memory
“Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve”
Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve: what does it show? what was he remembering? How to increase the curve? Problems?
- shows extreme and then gradual decrease/loss in memory
- used CVC trials
- you can remember much more if you look at it again, more retention in the long run
problems: - he chose nonsense words. You’re much more likely to remember something if it has meaning to you
What is CVC? give an example?
Consonant vowel consonant
one syllable, 3 letter words
ex. bap, tif, bep, zik
Let’s say that you spent the whole night studying for an exam. Based on Ebbinghaus’s studies, are you doing the right thing? (Yes/no) Why? How could you improve your study habits?
- No, you’re not doing the right thing.
- According to Ebbinghaus, repeated exposure and rehearsing the information is very important to remembering it in the long term
- If you study all night, you’re only exposed to it once
- to improve, repeatedly study over the course of a few weeks
- also, staying up all night doesn’t allow you to sleep, which is also important for encoding information