Memory Flashcards
Sensory Memory
Sensory memory < 1 s
Iconic (visual) memory
Echoic (auditory) memory
Registers information about the environment and holds it for a very brief period of time
After brief exposure (e.g., 50 ms), observers are asked to recall the letters
Observers are able to report 3–6 letters
Short-term (or working) memory
Short-term (or working) memory 1-10 s Central executive Visuospatial sketchpad Phonological loop Episodic buffer
Long term memory
Long-term memory > 10 s
Declarative (explicit) memory
Non-declarative (implicit) memory
Findings of sensory memory
Observers are also aware that there were more letters
Because presentation was very brief, observers did not have enough time to read and rehearse them
These findings suggest that:
Many items are stored in memory initially
While they are still in memory, observers can attend to some of the items and report them
But they fade away quickly—that’s why observers can report only 3–6 items
-Does not last long
Sensory memory (iconic)
Visual sensory memory
Sensory memory (echoic)
Auditory sensory memory
Short term memory
An intermediate system in which information has to reside on its journey from sensory memory to long-term memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) theory
Proposes that as information is rehearsed in a limited-capacity short-term memory, it is deposited in long-term memory
Short-term memory has a limited capacity to hold information
Memory span
The number of elements one can hold in short-term memory store
It is usually around seven
Short term versus long term
Different capacity limits—the 7±2 limit does not apply to long-term memory
Damage to the medial temporal lobe can cause severe impairment of long-term memory but it does not affect short-term memory
Long term declarative
Memories for facts and events
You can explicitly remember these memories
Also called explicit memory
Non-declarative long term
Memories that you cannot explicitly retrieve (e.g., motor skills)
Also called implicit memory
Memory encoding
The way information is processed affects how well it is encoded in long-term memory
Depth (levels) of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972)
Information that is processed in a deep and meaningful manner will be better encoded
Depth of processing
Slamecka and Graf’s (1978) study
Generate condition
What is a synonym of sea that begins with the letter o? (ocean)
What is a rhyme of save that begins with the letter c? (cave)
Read condition
Participants just read a rhyme pair or a synonym pair
Task: recognition of the second word of a pair
Synonym pairs were better recognized
The generate condition yielded better recognition performance
Both are effects of deeper processing
Incidental vs intentional learning
Depth of processing, not whether one intends to learn, can determine the amount of material remembered
Forgetting
Penfield and Roberts (1959)
Electrically stimulated patients’ brain during surgery
When the temporal lobe was stimulated, patients reported memories that they were unable to remember in normal recall
Nelson forgetting
Participants learned number-noun pairs
2–4 weeks later, they performed recall or recognition tests
They relearned the pairs they missed in test, but some of them were changed
They performed the memory test one more time
Results from Nelson’s (1971) study
In the second test, unchanged pairs were recalled/recognized better
Suggest that memory for missed pairs in the first test was not gone completely
Even when people appear to have forgotten memories, sensitive tests can find evidence of some of them
