Memory Flashcards
An active system that receives information from the senses, puts that information into a usable form, organizes it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from storage
Memory
Three Processes of Memory
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
Explain Encoding
Encoding is the set of mental operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that information into a form that is usable in the brain’s storage systems.
Ex. When people hear a sound, their ears turn the vibrations in the air into neural messages from the auditory nerve (transduction), which make it possible for the brain to interpret that sound.
Explain Storage
Hold on to the information for
some period of time.
The period of time will actually be of different lengths, depending on the system of memory being used.
: Short-term, Long-term
Explain Retrieval
Getting the information they know they have out of storage.
Model of memory that assumes the processing of information for memory storage is similar to the way a computer processes memory in a series of three stages
Information-processing Model
Model of memory in which memory processes are proposed to take place at the same time over a large network of neural connections.
Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) Model
Model of memory that assumes information that is more “deeply processed,” or processed according to its meaning rather than just the sound or physical characteristics of the word or words, will be remembered more efficiently and for a longer period of time.
Levels-of-Processing Model
Three Models of Memory
Information Processing Model
Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) Model
Levels-of-Processing Model
Three Memory Systems
Sensory memory
Short-term memory
Long-term memory
Explain Sensory Memory
The very first system of memory, in which raw information from the senses is held for a very brief period of time.
The point at which information enters the nervous system through the sensory systems—eyes, ears, and so on.
Information is encoded into sensory memory as neural messages in the nervous system.
Two Kinds of Sensory Memory
Iconic (Visual) Sensory System
Echoic (Auditory) Sensory System
Visual sensory memory, Only lasts for a fraction of a second. Allows enough time for the *brain stem to decide if the information is important enough to be brought into consciousness.
What is the Greek word for “image”?
Iconic memory
Icon
Information that has just entered iconic memory will be pushed out very quickly by new information, a process called _____
After only ________, old information is replaced by new.
Masking
a quarter (1/4) of a second
The ability to access a visual sensory memory over a long period of time (30 seconds or more)
Eidetic Imagery (Photographic memory)
The brief memory of something a person has heard. The “What?” phenomenon.
If you realize all this within
about ______, you will more than likely be able to “hear” an echo of the statement in your head, a kind of “instant replay.”
Echoic Sensory Memory
4 seconds
Note: Echoic memory’s capacity is limited to what can be heard at any one moment and is smaller than the capacity of iconic memory, although it lasts longer—about 2–4 seconds
May be held for up to 30 seconds and possibly longer through *maintenance rehearsal.
Short-term memory
The ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input.
It is through this that info enters our STM system.
Selective Attention
Short-term memory tends to be encoded primarily in _____ form.
Auditory (sound)
That simply means that people tend to “talk” inside their own heads.
Thought of as an active system that processes the information present within short-term memory.
Consists of 3 interrelated Systems
Working memory
Difference of short-term memory and working memory
Short-term = simple storage of info
Working memory = storage and manipulation of info
Describe Three interrelated systems of Working Memory
- Central Executive (CEO)
: controls and coordinates the other two, interpreter for the visual and auditory info contained in STM - Visuospatial (“sketchpad”)
: the sketchpad will contain images of the people and events of the particular passage being read - Phonological loop (“recorder”)
: the recorder “plays” the dialogue in the person’s head
Bits of information are combined into meaningful units, or chunks
Chunking
“654-789-3217,” for example, instead of 10 separate bits of information, there
would only be three “chunks” that read like a phone number
The best way to encode information into LTM in an organized fashion is to make it meaningful through ________.
A way of increasing the number of
retrieval cues (stimuli that aid in remembering) for information by connecting new information with something that is already well known
Elaborative Rehearsal
How long is the “short” of short-term
memory?
Short-term memory lasts from about 12 to 30 seconds without rehearsal.
After that, the memory seems to rapidly “decay” or disappear. Some memories, without rehearsal, will decay as new neurons (and newer memories) are added to the already existing neural circuits.
Practice of saying some information to be remembered over and over in one’s head in order to maintain it in short-term memory.
Maintenance rehearsal (Rote learning = rotating info in mind)
When rehearsal stops, the memory rapidly decays and is forgotten.
Third stage of memory, the system into which all the information is placed to be kept more or less permanently.
There is a relatively permanent physical change in the brain itself when a memory is formed.
Unlimited capacity
Long-term memory (LTM)
We only store long-lasting memories of events and concepts that are meaningful and important to us.
Types of Long-Term Information
- Nondeclarative memory (implicit) LTM
: know HOW TO DO like tying shoe, have to be demonstrated and not reported
: skills, habits, simple conditioned reflexes [cerebellum in hindbrain]
: emotional associations, like fear [amygdala] - Declarative memory (explicit) LTM
: people CAN KNOW
: facts that make up knowledge, known and can be declared
: personal experiences
: two types - semantic & episodic
Type of long-term memory including memory for skills, procedures, habits, and conditioned responses. These memories are not conscious but are implied to exist because they affect conscious behavior.
Kinds of memories that people “never forget.”
Nondeclarative (implicit) LTM
Loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term memories.
Alzheimer’s patients, Dory suffer from this
Anterograde amnesia
Type of long-term memory containing information that is conscious and known
Declarative (explicit) LTM
Two types of Declarative (explicit) LTM
- Semantic memory
: general knowledge, anyone can know
: semantic = “meaning,” awareness of the meanings of words, concepts, and terms - Episodic memory
: personal knowledge that each person has of their daily life and personal history, autobiographical* memory
: certain birthdays, anniversaries that were particularly special, childhood events
Type of declarative memory containing general knowledge, such as knowledge of language and information learned in formal education
Semantic memory
Type of declarative memory containing personal information not readily available to others, such as daily activities and events.
Updated and revised more or less constantly. (can’t remember what you had for breakfast 2 years ago)
Episodic memory
Model of memory organization that assumes information is stored in the brain in a connected fashion, with concepts that are related stored physically closer to each other than concepts that are not highly related.
Semantic Network Model
The tendency for memory of information to be improved if related information (such as surroundings or physiological state) that is available when the memory is first formed is also available when the memory is being retrieved.
Encoding specificity
a. Context-dependent learning
b. State-dependent learning
Parts of the brain involved in consolidation of information from STM to LTM
Hippocampus and Cortex
The physical surroundings a person is in when they are learning specific information.
Context-dependent learning
Memories formed during a particular physiological or psychological state will be easier to remember while in a similar state.
State-dependent learning
Two kinds of memory retrieval
Recall - memories are retrieved with few or no external cues
Recognition - involves looking at or hearing information and matching it to what is already in memory
Type of memory retrieval in which the information to be retrieved must be “pulled” from memory with very few external cues.
Essay, short-answer, and fill-in-the-blank tests that are used to measure a person’s memory for information
Recall
The ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus to a stored image or fact.
Multiple-choice, matching, and true–false tests
Recognition
Recall failure:
Answer seems so very close to the surface of conscious
thought that it feels like it’s on ________
Tip of the tongue (TOT) phenomenon
TOT phenomenon may be a function of an area of the brain called the _________, part of the _____ and ______ lobes.
An area of the brain that is involved in several forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s, and people with this type of dementia often have trouble recalling the names of things.
fusiform gyrus
temporal, occipital
Tendency of information at the beginning and end of a body of information to be remembered more accurately than information in the middle of the body of information
Serial position effect
Tendency to remember information at the beginning of a body of information better than the information that follows.
Primacy effect
Tendency to remember information at the
end of a body of information better than the information that precedes it.
Recency effect
Occurs when a person thinks that he or she has recognized (or even recalled) something or someone but in fact does not have that something or someone in memory.
False positive
Eyewitness recognition are prone to this
Tendency of certain kinds of information to enter long-term memory with little or no effortful encoding.
Automatic encoding
Referring to the retrieval of memories in which those memories are altered, revised, or influenced by newer information.
Memories are literally “built,” or reconstructed, from the information stored away during encoding
Constructive processing
Type of automatic encoding that occurs because an unexpected event has strong emotional associations for the person remembering it.
Flashbulb memories
: As subject to decay and alterations over time as other kinds of memories.
: Memory of highly stressful events are shown to be *less accurate than other memories
The tendency to falsely believe, through revision of older memories to include newer information, that one could have correctly predicted the outcome of an event.
Hindsight bias
Memory retrieval problems
Misinformation effect
False memory syndrome
The tendency of misleading information presented after an event to alter the memories of the event itself.
Misinformation effect
Refers to the creation of inaccurate or false memories through the suggestion of others, often while the person is under hypnosis.
False-memory syndrome
Human Google
Brad Williams, can remember nearly every day of his life (rare)
Has a condition: hyperthymesia
Explain Hyperthymesia
An astonishing and rare ability to recall specific events from their personal past but also spends an unusually large amount of time thinking about that personal past.
Inability to forget
Explain Adaptive forgetting
The idea that being able to suppress information that we no longer need makes it easier to remember what we do need
Mr. S the Mnemonist
A. R. Luria’s (1968) famous mnemonist, Mr. S. (A mnemonist is a memory expert or someone with exceptional memory
ability.)
Mr. S. was a performing mnemonist, astonishing his audiences with lists of numbers that he memorized in minutes. But Mr. S. found that he was unable to forget the lists. He also could not easily separate important memories from trivial ones, and each time he looked at an object or read a word, images stimulated by that object or word would flood his mind.
He eventually invented a way to “forget” things—by writing them on a piece of paper and then burning the paper.
