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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.