Test 3

Processes of Memory
1.Encoding (acquisition) organizational structure
-How do we get or obtain information?
-Sensory info to a neutral code
-need attention, because if we don’t encode well we cant remember
2. Storage (retention) durable record
-Preserving information overtime
-involves chemical and structural changes in the brain
-hipocampos, frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, temporal lobe
3.Retrieval guides retrieval
-getting stored information back out
-more effort put into encoding, easier to retrieve

Recognition is easier than Recalling

Multistore model of memory

1.Sensory Memory – holds information coming in from sensory receptors
-iconic memory—visual
-echoic memory—audio
2.Short-term Memory – what is currently active
-working memory
3.Longterm Memory
-Procedural memory
-declarative memory
-episodic: knowing how things happened to you
-sematic: knowledge of general things in the world

Capacity/Span: how much information

Duration: how long it will last

LMT
Procedural memories: how to do things
Declarative: knowing about things

Mnemonics: any strategy that helps you remember

- Impose organization
- Sufficient attention at encoding
- Information with retrieval cues

Organization
Organization of information to what you already know, or giving organization to new
information
 - Better you can tie pieces together the better you do/better you remember

Rehearsal
Repetition of information in your mind (mental repetition)
Maintenance rehearsal
-repetition to maintain STM information
-repeating phone number until you dial it
Elaborative rehearsal
-thinking of the information while rehearsing it
-involve imagery, associations, paraphrasing

Chunking
-using knowledge stored in LMT to group info into larger units
-makes it easier to keep info in WM to transfer to LTM

Imagery
Method of Loci- use of locations to which people can place images of people or things to be
remembered
Two Principles: associate things that are hard to remember with things that are easy to
remember and use vivid images of concrete objects

Acronyms: SCUBA, ROY G BIV

Acrostics: first letters of the info EGBDF music notes: every good boy deserves fudge
Rhymes: I before e except after c

Decay Theory
- Forgetting as a result of fading memory trace
- All memories can gradually fade
- “tip of the tongue” just because we cant immediately access information doesn’t mean
it has decayed
Interference Theory
- We forget because there is other information interfering with what we are trying to
remember
- Retroactive inference: new information interferes with access to old information
- Proactive: old info interferes with the new
Motivated Forgetting
- Forgetting for a reason to avoid pain
- Burying distressing thoughts and feelings
Memory Construction
- Framework that organizes and interprets information and reconstructing to remember

Loftus 1974 Study

- Based on the wording and terms used others perceptions of the crash varied in severity
 Primacy and Recency Effects
- Tend to remember things that come early in a list or set of experiences
- Recency is to remember the things that come last
o Either is better than being in the middle
- Von Restroff effect battles this with homogenous stimuli that you can determine as
different because it is unique or different from the group
Forgetting related Disorders
- Alzheimer’s
- Dementia – not part of “normal aging”
- Amnesia

Long lasting memories

- Almost permanent
- Autobiographical
o Memories of things that happened to you specifically
o Material very well learned like the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
- Flashbulb
o Memory for the situation in which we first learned of a surprising or emotionally
arousing event
o Took a picture of the event or can remember many details
o Associated with emotional events
Memory is a very complex process with many factors and types of remembering