Module 5 - memory Flashcards
What is memory?
The faculty the mind stores and retrieves information and experiences.
What is biological basis for memory?
Neurons transmit information via synapses. New connections can be formed and unused discarded.
How is information encoded
Input via perception and sensation but need attention for memory.
· Attention can be reactive (eg loud noise)
· Selective through focussed and effort.
What are strategies for encoding
· Minimise Disruption to attention.
· Elaboration – linking to other ideas and events
· Mnemonic devices (imagery, pegword, loci, acronyms)
· Self-relevance – how does it affect me
· Motivation to remember – how to apply in future – salience
· Spacing – over time
· SQ4R – survey, question, read, recite, review, write
https://youtu.be/mlrOJgyPySw
What makes retrieval easier
Retrieval cues.
This is why cold recall is harder than eg multichoice.
Match context /emotion /mood /sensory /environment
What is sensory memory
Input stored for 1 second, unattended info is lost
Echoic – Hearing
Iconic - visual
What is working memory
Cognitive system with limited capacity to temporarily hold information and keep track of what we are doing. It is made up of multiple parts that function independently. Share, integrate and reallocate to other parts of brain. Used to solve problems, respond to environment and achieve goals.
Explain Baddeley and Hitch working memory model
· Central executive – controls attention and coordinates others
· Visuospatial sketchpad – visual and spatial info
· Phonological loop – auditory processing
· Episodic buffer – integrate info 10-20 seconds and link to long term memory
What is working memory capacity for adults and children
Adults – 7 (+/-2) units of information – real world about 3-5 (Cowan 2010)
Kids – 5 year olds 2 – improves until age 15 (Cowan 2016)
What does poor working memory affect
· Lose track of complex sentences or instructions
· Reading comprehension and decoding
· Maths calculations
· Problems with remembering and processing tasks
· Lose focus
How can you improve working memory
· Rehearsing
· Chunking of information into groups
[https://thepeakperformancecenter.com/%20educational-learning/thinking/c
How are memories converted to Long Term
From episodic memory into long term memory via hippocampus
What is Declarative LT memory (usually Explicit)
· Info consciously summoned as verbally describable facts, events, beliefs.
· Show by telling
What is Procedural LT Memory (implicit)
· Skill and habits
· Subtle and unconscious ways we learn about and adapt to the world.
· Show by doing
· Skill learning, conditioning, priming (eg use a word you heard recently), habits, patterns, intuition
Explicit Memory
Conscious retrieval of information
· Recall – conscious retrieval.
· Recognition – the sense something has been encountered before
Implicit Memory
· Evident in skills, conditioned learning, and associations
· Leads to priming effects
What is semantic memory
Type of explicit memory, just facts (general knowledge), not episodic
What is Episodic memory
Events in your life history – type of explicit memory
Why do memories fail
Simple Decay – do not pay attention, do not use
Intrusion – mixing of more recent memory with old episodic ones
What are false memories
· Misinformation – contamination from retrieval environment (what else going on)
· Schematic fitting – associated ideas from habitual thinking add details that fit your world view (stereotypes)
Types of Amnesia
· Anterograde Amnesia – cannot encode new information (damage to hippocampus)
· Retrograde Amnesia – lose past long term memory (rare)
What are schemas
· Patterns of thought that render the environment predictable.
· Filling the blanks of memory with typical expectations
· Can remember something better if it fills into a slot in the schema
A visual overview of memory
What are is the process stages of memory
