Kathleen Kohler

Period 1
Chapter 9 Outline
Memory- Persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of
information.
Flashbulb memory: a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.
Information processing
o Human memory like a computer
1. Get info into our brain encoding: processing of info into memory system
2. Retain info storage: retention of encoded info over time
3. Get it back later retrieval: process of getting into out of memory storage
o Humans store vast amounts of info in long-term memory: relatively permanent
and limitless storehouse of the memory system
o Short-term memory: activated memory that holds few items briefly; phone
number just dial
The Atkinson-Shiffrin classic three-stage model of memory suggests that we (1)
register fleeting sensory memories, some of which are (2) processed into on-screen
short-term memories, a tiny fraction of then are (3) encoded for long-term memory
and possibly later retrieval.
The working-memory model includes visual-spatial and auditory subsystems,
coordinated by a central executive processor that focuses attention where needed.
Encoding: Getting Information In
o Automatic processing: unconscious encoding of incidental info; occurs with
little or no effort, without our awareness, and without interfering with our
thinking of other things; space, time, frequency, well-learned info
o Effortful processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort
o After practice, effort processing becomes more automatic
o Can boost memory through rehearsal: conscious repetition of info, either to
maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage
o Next-in-line effect: when people go around circle saying names/words,
poorest memories are for name/word person before them said
o Information received before sleep is hardly ever remembered are
consciousness fade before processing able
o Retain info better when rehearsal distributed over time phenomenon called
spacing effect: tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better longterm retention than is achieved through cramming
o When given a list of items and ask to recall, people often demonstrate serial
position effect: tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list

What we encode
o Rehearsal will not encode all info equally well because processing of info is in 3
ways
1. Semantic encoding: encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words
2. Acoustic encoding: encoding of sound, especially the sound of words
3. Visual encoding: encoding of picture images
o Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving flashed a word to people, asking question that
required processing either visually, acoustically, or semantically; semantic
encoding was found to yield much better memory
Visual Encoding
o Imagery: mental pictures; powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when
combined with semantic encoding like how we can easily picture where we were
yesterday, where we sat, and what we wore.
o Mnemonic: memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and
organizational devices
o Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs
automatically
o We are able to remember info best when able to organize it into personal
meaningful arrangements
We tend to remember concrete nouns better than abstract nouns because, we can
associate both an image and a meaning with the object or noun, but only a meaning
with process.
In hierarchies, we process information by dividing it into logical levels, beginning
with the most general and moving to the most specific.
Forgetting as Encoding Failure
Failure to encode info never entered memory system
Much of what we sense, we never notice
Raymond Nickerson and Marilyn Adams discover most people cannot pick the real
American penny from different ones
Storage: Retaining Information
Sensory memory: immediate, initial recording of sensory info in memory system
we have short temporary photographic memory called iconic memory:
momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; photographic/picture-image
memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a sec
fleeting memory for auditory sensory images called echoic memory: momentary
sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words
can still be recalled within 3 or 4 sec; auditory = ear, which starts with e like
echoic
Short-Term Memory-without active processing, short-term memories have limited
life

short-term memory limited in capacity about 7 chunks of info; at any given

moment, can consciously process only very limited amount of info
Long-Term Memory-capacity for storing long-term memories is practically
limitless though forgetting occurs as new experiences interfere with retrieval and
as physical memory trace gradually decays
Karl Lashley removed pieces of rats cortex as it ran through maze; found that no
matter what part removed, partial memory of solving maze stayed; concluded
memories dont reside in single specific spot
Psychologists then focused on neurons

Synaptic Changes
Long-term potential (LTP): increase in a synapses firing potential after brief,
rapid stimulation; believed to be neural basis for learning and memory
After long-term potential occurs, passing electric current through brain wont
disrupt old memories, but wipe up recent experiences; like how a football player
with blow to head wont recall name of play before the blow
CREB can switch genes off or on.
Stress Hormones and Memory

Drugs that block neurotransmitters also disrupt info storage; drunk people hardly
remembers previous evening
Stimulating hormones affect memory as more glucose available to fuel brain
activity, indicating important event sears events onto brain; remembering first
kiss, earthquake
The amygdale, an emotion-processing structure in the brains limbic system,
arouses brain areas that process emotion.

Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories

o These memories are processed in part by the cerebellum.
o Explicit memories are processed in various sub regions of the
hippocampus
The implicit and explicit memory systems are independent.
Hippocampus is a temporary processing site for the explicit memories.
The cerebellum stores the implicit memories created by classical conditioning.
Implicit memory formation requires the cerebellum
Damage to the hippocampus may destroy the ability to consciously recall
memories, without destroying skills or classically conditioned responses.
Damage to the left hippocampus has trouble remembering verbal information.
Damage to the right hippocampus has trouble in recalling visual designs and
locations.
Through scans, found that Hippocampus, neural center located in limbic system,
helps process explicit memories for storage

When hippocampus removed from monkeys, lose recent memories, but old
memories intact, suggesting hippocampus not permanent storage
Long-term memories scattered across various parts of frontal and temporal lobes

Retrieval: getting information out

o Recognition is the ability to identify items previously learned; a multiple choice
question test recognition.
o Recall is the ability to retrieve information not in conscious awareness; a fill-inthe-blank question tests recall.
o Relearning is the ability to master previously stored information more quickly
than you originally learned it.
Retrieval Cues
o Retrieval cues are bits of related information we encode while processing a target
piece information.
o This process of activating associations is priming.
Context Effects
o The context in which we originally experienced and event or encoded a
though can flood our memories with retrieval cues, leading us to the target
memory.
Moods and Memories
o Things we learn in one state (joyful, sad, drunk, sober, etc) are more easily
recalled when in same state phenomenon called state-dependent memory
o Moods also associated with memory; easily recall memory when mood of that
incident same as present
o Mood-congruent memory: tendency to recall experiences that are consistent
with ones current good or bad mood
Forgetting
o Our memory can fail us through forgetting (absent-mindedness, transience, and
blocking), through distortion (misattribution, suggestibility, and bias), and through
intrusion (persistence of wanted memories).
Encoding Failure
Without encoding, information does not enter our long-term memory store and
cannot be retrieved.
Storage Decay
Ebbinghaus determined the forgetting curve because in his research he fount that
in over the course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time; this
principle became known as the forgetting curve.
Interference

Learning some items may interfere with retrieving others

Proactive interference (forward-acting): disruptive effect of prior learning on the
recall of new info
Retroactive interference (backward-acting): disruptive effect of new learning on
the recall of old info

Freud
Repression:

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defence mechanism that banishes

anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness
Increasing memory researchers think repression occurs rarely
Misinformation and Imagination Effects

incorporating misleading info into ones memory of an event; usually with

exaggeration.

Source Amnesia
attributing to the wrong source an event that we experienced, heard about,
read about, or imagined
Infantile amnesiathe ability to recall memories from the first three years of
lifemakes recovery of very early childhood memories unlikely.