SOSC1960

Discovering Mind and Behavior

Lecture 3
Memory

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 Do you remember what you ate for dinner
last Thursday? Do you remember what
you did the same day last year?

 Do you remember what happened the first

time you went to school? What did you
wear? What activities did you do? Do you
remember the names of your classmates?

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 Do we remember everything we
experience?
 Memory is ___________
 Is our memory an exact, accurate record
of our experience?
 Memory is sometimes ____________

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 Memory systems
 Sensory memory
 Short-term memory
 Long-term memory
 Recalling and forgetting
 Ineffective encoding
 Storage problem
 Retrieval failure
 False memory
 Memory dysfunctions
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Memory systems
 Memory processes
 _________: the process by which information
is initially recorded
 _________: the maintenance of material
stored in the memory system
 _________: the process by which material in
memory storage is brought into awareness

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 Memory processes
 Computer information processing as a
metaphor of human memory processes

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 Three-system memory theory
 Sensory memory: the initial, momentary
storage of information, lasting only an instant
 Short-term memory: is the capacity for
holding a small amount of information in mind
in an active, readily available state for a short
period of time
 Long-term memory: memory that stores
information on a relatively permanent basis,
although it may be difficult to retrieve

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Three-system memory theory

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 Sensory memory
 A memory system that accurately but very
briefly registers sensory information before the
information fades or moves into short-term
memory
 The sensory register acts as a holding bin,
retaining information accurately until we select
information for __________

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 Sensory memory
 _______ memory: visual sensory memory
 _______ memory: auditory sensory memory
 For how long can sensory memory hold
information?

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Sperling (1970)

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Sperling (1970)

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 Sensory memory
 A snapshot of sensory information which lasts
for less than __________

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 Short-term memory (STM)
 Information encoded and attended to in the
sensory memory are recognized, and now
stored in the STM

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 Short-term memory (STM)
 _____________ rehearsal
 The process of repetitively verbalizing or
thinking about the information (like when
we keeping the phone number of a
restaurant)
 To prevent the information from vanishing
from STM

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 Short-term memory (STM)
 What if the rehearsal is disrupted? How long
can STM hold the information?

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Peterson & Peterson (1959)

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 18

Peterson & Peterson (1959)

 Short-term memory (STM)
 Capacity: seven plus or minus two units
 George Miller (1956). “The magical number
seven plus or minus two: Some limits on our
capacity for processing information”
 Digital span test
 Alphabet test

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 Short-term memory (STM)
 __________: a meaningful grouping of stimuli
that can be stored as a unit in STM

“Mary had a little lamb”

1 unit of information / 5 units of information / 18 units of information

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21
 Game positions
Number of
chesses
correctly
memorized

Random positions

Chess player class

Researchers have found evidence that chess grandmasters rely on a vast
store of knowledge of game positions. Some scientists have theorized that
grandmasters organize the information in chunks, which can be quickly
retrieved from long-term memory and manipulated in working memory. It is
estimated that chess grandmasters have approximately 50000 to 100000 22

chunks available.
 Long-term memory (LTM)
 A seemingly unlimited capacity store that can
hold information over lengthy periods of time
 Information being maintained in STM through
____________ rehearsal is gradually absorbed
into LTM

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 Elaborative rehearsal
 Deep semantic processing of a to-be-
remembered item resulting in the
production of durable memories
 E.g. Expanding the information, linking
it to other memory, turning it into an
image

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 25

Memory modules
Mark down the thing that comes to your mind most instantly
when you see the word red.

Red

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Semantic network: mental representation of clusters of
interconnected information 27
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Recalling and forgetting
 Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
 The inability to recall information that one
realizes one knows

 Why do we fail to recall? Why do we forget?

Ineffective Storage Retrieval 29

Encoding Problem Failure
 Ineffective encoding
 _________________: the degree to which
new information is mentally analyzed
 The greater the intensity of initial processing is
(i.e. more elaborative rehearsal), the more
likely we are able to retrieve the information

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Use of examples
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Paivio et al. (1968)

Visual imagery and dual coding

 Juggler-dress
 Letter-effort
 Duty-Hotel
 Quality-necessity

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 Levels of processing
 Attention
 Can you draw the HK one-dollar coin?

 What are on the two sides of the HSBC $100

bank note?

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 Mnemonics: some formal elaborative
rehearsal strategies for organizing
information in order to facilitate
memory of it

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 A visual mnemonics for days of the months

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http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/index.htm
 FACE
Everything Good Boys Does Fine

A verbal mnemonics for notes on the musical staff

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http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/index.htm
 FARM B.

Fish - Amphibians - Reptiles - Mammals - Birds

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http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/index.htm
Narrative methods
Bower & Clark (1969)
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Narrative methods 39

Bower & Clark (1969)

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 7 July, 2007
Tai Kung Pao

The creation of stories

- A HK teenager
championed in an
international memory
contest

香港記憶學總會
http://www.hkmsa.org/index_3.htm 41

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHfb0MH3Gc
 Storage problem
 Decay
 Information in memory eventually
disappears if it is not accessed

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Ebbinghaus (1885)

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 Storage problem
 Interference
 similar items of information interfere with
one another in storage or retrieval

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 Retrieval failure
 Retrieval cue: a stimulus that allows us to
retrieve information more easily
 E.g., to recall the name of an actor, it might help to
know the films he starred in
 E.g., to recall the name of a restaurant, it might help
to know the initial alphabet letter of the name

 ___________________ forgetting
 When cues are not present, we may fail to retrieve
the information
 This may explain why effort to retrieve something fail
on one occasion but succeed on another 46
Back to the crime scene
Remembering is often easier when you are in the same physical 47

environment as you were when the event occurred

_________________ memory: the tendency to have better retrieval
when the person is in the same physical or mental state as during
the encoding
Keleman & Creeley (2003)

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 False memory
 Inaccurate memories
 Video: Eyewitness testimony
 Study: Loftus & Palmer (1974)
 Memories are subject to influence by others
 Participants were shown a video of two cars crashing
into each others. They were then asked questions
about the incident one week later.

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Loftus & Palmer (1974)

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Loftus & Palmer (1974)

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 Memory dysfunctions
 Amnesia
 Memory loss that occurs without other mental
difficulties
 Biological causes (e.g., damage to the brain, use of
certain drugs)
 Psychological causes (e.g., repression)

 ___________ amnesia: amnesia in which

memory is lost for events that follow an injury
 Information cannot be transferred from STM to LTM

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 _______________
amnesia: amnesia in
which memory is lost
for occurrences prior to
a certain event

 Doug Bruce
 “If you lost your past,
would you want it
back?”

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 Memory dysfunctions
 Alzheimer’s disease
 In early stages, symptoms are not apparent
 Subtle memory difficulties
 Memory for recent events begins to go
 Memories for long-ago events and well-rehearsed
procedures are last to go

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 Alzheimer’s disease
 In advanced stages, symptoms are more
apparent
 No recognition of others
 Forget identity
 Language breakdowns
 Confusion about everyday tasks, time and places
 Irritability, aggression, and mood swings
 Unable to move around unassisted
 Inability to live independently

Charles Kuen Kao

Father of Fiber Optic
Communications55
On autopsy,

 Inflammation and
deterioration of nerve cells in
the brain

 Shrinkage is especially severe

in the ___________, an area
of the cortex that plays a key
role in formation of new
memories

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Alzheimer’s disease HBO
http://www.hbo.com/alzheimers/

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 Required readings
 Chapter 7

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