Psychology Canadian 5th Edition Wade Solutions Manual Download

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memory
6
▲TABLE OF CONTENTS
To access the resource listed, click on the hot linked title or press CTRL + click
To return to the Table of Contents, click on ▲Return to Table of Contents
To return to a section of the Lecture Guide, click on ►Return to Lecture Guide
►LECTURE GUIDE
➢ What Is Memory? (p. 3)
➢ The Information-Processing Model: Three Memory Systems (p. 3)
➢ Getting It Out: Retrieval of Long-Term Memories (p. 4)
➢ What Were We Talking About? Forgetting (p. 6)
➢ Neuroscience of Memory (p. 6)
➢ Applying Psychology to Everyday Life: Health and Memory (p. 7)
➢ Chapter Summary (p. 7)
►FULL CHAPTER RESOURCES

➢ Chapter-At-A-Glance (p. 2)
Copyright © 2017, 2015, 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
1
Instructor’s Resource Manual for Psychology, 5e
➢ Lecture Guide (p. 3)
➢ Learning Objectives (p. 8)
➢ Rapid Review (p. 9)
➢ Changes from the Fourth Edition to the Fifth Edition (p. 10)
➢ Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics (p. 11)
➢ Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises (p. 24)
➢ Handout Masters (p. 34)
➢ Video Series (p. 41)
➢ Visual Brain (p. 42)
➢ Experiment and Survey Simulations (p. 43)
➢ Writing Space and Writing Practice (p. 44)
CHAPTER 6 ANSWER KEY
Practice Quiz 6.1
1. b; 2. c; 3. b; 4. a
Practice Quiz 6.2
1. b; 2. c; 3. a; 4. c; 5. d; 6. b
Practice Quiz 6.3
1. b; 2. b; 3. d; 4. a; 5. c; 6. a
Practice Quiz 6.4
1. a; 2. c; 3. d; 4. c
Practice Quiz 6.5
1. d; 2. a; 3. a; 4. d
Test Yourself 6
1. b; 2. a; 3. b; 4. d; 5. c; 6. c; 7. c; 8. a; 9. b; 10. a; 11. d; 12. d; 13. a;

14. b; 15. b; 16. d; 17. b; 18. a; 19. d; 20. d
2
▼CHAPTER-AT-A-GLANCE
Detailed Outline Instructor Resources Multimedia Resources
What Is Memory? Learning Objectives: 6.1, 6.2
Three Processes of Memory Lecture Launchers: 6.1, 6.2
Models of Memory Activities & Exercises: 6.1, 6.2
Handouts: 6.1
The Information-Processing Model: Three Learning Objectives: 6.3, 6.4, 6.5 Video: The Basics: Do You Remember
Memory Systems Lecture Launchers: 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, When? (7:39) - Learn how the brain is able
Sensory Memory 6.6, 6.7, 6.8 to receive and retrieve information when we
Short-Term Memory Activities & Exercises: 6.3, 6.4, need it.
Long-Term Memory 6.5, 6.6
Getting It Out: Retrieval of Long-Term Learning Objectives: 6.6, 6.7, Video: Thinking Like a Psychologist: Police
Memories 6.8, 6.9 Line-Up (5:19) - Learn how stress can affect
Retrieval Cues Lecture Launchers: 6.9, 6.10, the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
Recall and Recognition 6.11, 6.12, 6.13, 6.14, 6.15, 6.16
Automatic Encoding Activities & Exercises: 6.7, 6.8, Writing Assignment: You are reading your
The Reconstructive Nature of LTM Retrieval 6.9, 6.10 textbook and studying for an upcoming exam
in psychology. Identify and describe each
step in the process required for remembering
information from your textbook in order to do
well on the exam. Discuss a strategy for
improving memory and provide an example
of how it could help you on the exam.
What Were We Talking About? Forgetting Learning Objectives: 6.10, 6.11 Video: What’s In It For Me? Making It Stick
Ebbinghaus and the Forgetting Curve Lecture Launchers: 6.17 (5:30) - Perform well on tests by learning
Reasons We Forget Activities & Exercises: 6.11, 6.12 about study habits and whether “blocking” or
“interleaving” is a better method for
remembering information long term.
Video: Special Topics: When Memory Fails

(6:55) - Learn about the famous case of
“H.M.,” the man whose memory only allowed
him to live in 20-second-increments.
Video: The Big Picture: The Woman Who

Cannot Forget (4:48) - Hear the story of Jill
Price, a woman with a phenomenal ability to
remember things.
Neuroscience of Memory Learning Objectives: 6.12, 6.13 Animation: Visual Brain – Learning and
The Biological Bases of Memory Lecture Launchers: 6.18, 6.19 Memory. This module examines the parts of
When Memory Fails: Organic Amnesia Activities & Exercises: 6.13 the brain responsible for learning and
memory.
Applying Psychology to Everyday Life: Learning Objectives: 6.14

Health and Memory
▲ Return to Chapter 6: Table of Contents
3
▼LECTURE GUIDE
I. WHAT IS MEMORY?
Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics
➢ 6.1 - Snapshots and Storylines
➢ 6.2 - Culture and Memory
Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises
➢ 6.1 - Depth of Processing and Memory
➢ 6.2 - Demonstrating Simple Memory Principles
 Animation - Depth of Processing
Learning Objective 6.1 - Identify the three processes of memory.
A. Three processes of memory

1. Memory can be defined as an active system that receives information from the
senses, organizes and alters it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information
from storage
2. Three memory processes
a. Encoding
b. Storage
c. Retrieval
Learning Objective 6.2 - Explain how the different models of memory work.
B. Models of memory
1. Information-processing: processing of information for memory storage similar to way a
computer processes memory
2. Parallel distributed processing (PDP) model: Memory is a simultaneous process, with
creation and storage of memories taking place across an interconnected neural network
3. Levels-of-processing model: information that is processed according to its meaning,
will be remembered more efficiently and for a longer period of time.
Practice Quiz 6.1 Answer Key
1. b; 2. c; 3. b; 4. a
II. THE INFORMATION-PROCESSING MODEL: THREE MEMORY SYSTEMS

➢ 6.3 - Unattended Information and the “Cocktail Party” Effect
➢ 6.4 - Musical Memories
➢ 6.5 - The Inner Workings of Working Memory
➢ 6.6 - Working Memory
➢ 6.7 - Memory Anomalies: Beyond Déjà vu
➢ 6.8 - Episodic  Semantic
➢ 6.3 - Sensory Memory
4
➢ 6.4 - The Limits of Short-Term Memory
➢ 6.5 - The Value of Chunking
➢ 6.6 - Memories of 9/11
 Video - What’s In It For Me? Making It Stick

 Video - The Basics: Do you Remember When?
 Animation - Selective Attention
 Animation - Habituation
 Animation - Digit Span
➢ Animation – Varieties of Long-Term Memory
➢ Survey – What Do You Remember?
Learning Objective 6.3 - Describe the process of sensory memory.
A. Sensory memory: Why do people do double takes?

1. Iconic memory is the visual sensory memory
a. An afterimage or icon will be held in neural form for about ¼ to ½ second
b. Eidetic imagery -- ability to access a visual sensory memory over a long period of time -- is
rare
2. Echoic memory is the auditory sensory memory
b. Lasts 2- 4 seconds.
Learning Objective 6.4 - Describe short-term memory, and differentiate it from working memory.
B. Short-term memory (STM)

1. STM: the memory system in which information is held for brief periods of time
while being used
a. Where information is held while it is conscious and being used
b. Holds about seven plus or minus two chunks of information
c. Lasts about 30 seconds without rehearsal
d. Can be lost through: Failure to rehearse; decay; interference from similar
information; intrusion of new information into the STM system
2. Selective attention: ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input
a. Broadbent’s “bottleneck” selective attention filter limits information that progresses
from sensory memory to STM
b. Triesman’s two-stage filtering process, which includes the concept of attenuation
of “signal strength, better explains the “cocktail party” phenomenon
3. Working memory: an active system that processes the information in short-term

memory
4. Short-term vs. working memory

a. some theorists (and our text authors) use “short-term memory” to refer to simple
storage and “working memory” to refer to storage and manipulation of information
.
Learning Objective 6.5 - Explain the process of long-term memory, including nondeclarative and
declarative forms.
C. Long-term memory (LTM)

5
1. LTM: The system in which all memories are placed to be kept more or less
permanently
a. LTM unlimited in capacity and relatively permanent in duration
2. Information that is more deeply processed will be retained more efficiently
a. Elaborative rehearsal is a good strategy for accomplishing this
D. Types of long-term memory
1. Nondeclarative (implicit): Memory for skills, habits, procedures, conditioned responses
a. Evidence from anterograde amnesia
b. Not easily retrieved into conscious awareness
2. Declarative (explicit): facts, information, and personal experiences
a. Semantic memory
b. Episodic memory
3. LTM is organized as a semantic network, with nodes spreading from a central core
a. concepts that are related are stored physically closer to each other than concepts
that are not highly related.
1. b; 2. c; 3. a; 4. c; 5. d; 6. b
III. GETTING IT OUT: RETRIEVAL OF LONG-TERM MEMORIES

➢ 6.9 - The Role of Distinctiveness in Memory
➢ 6.10 - The Mind(s) of Mnemonist(s)
➢ 6.11 - Mnemonics in Mind
➢ 6.12 - Saving a Famous Brain
➢ 6.13 - The Chowchilla Kidnapping
➢ 6.14 - Hypnosis and Memory
➢ 6.15 - Eyewitness Testimony
➢ 6.16 - How False Memories are Formed
➢ 6.7 - The Self-Reference Effect
➢ 6.8 - Schemas and Memory
➢ 6.9 - Do We Make Accurate Copies of Events in Our Memories?
➢ 6.10 - “Psst…Have You Heard About This Demonstration?”
 Video - Thinking Like a Psychologist: Police Line-Up
 Video - Elizabeth Loftus: Misinformation and Memory Distortion Regarding Something Seen or Witnessed
 Video - Elizabeth Loftus: False Memory (Distorted, Suggested, or Totally Implanted)
 Animation - Serial Position Effect
 Animation - Memory Improvement With Mnemonics
 Animation - Reasons for Forgetting
 Writing Assignment - Studying and Memory
Learning Objective 6.6 - Identify the effects of cues on memory retrieval.
A. Retrieval cues
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1. Words, meanings, sounds, and other stimuli that are encoded at the same time as a
new memory
2. Encoding specificity occurs when physical surroundings become encoded as cues
3. State-dependent learning occurs when physiological or psychological states become
encoded as retrieval cues for memories formed while in those states
Learning Objective 6.7 - Differentiate the retrieval processes of recall and recognition.
B. Recall and recognition

1. Recall: Type of memory retrieval in which information must be “pulled” from memory
with few external cues
a. serial position effect,
b. primacy effects, and
c. recency effects
2. Recognition: Type of memory retrieval the in which a piece of information or a
stimulus is matched to a stored image or fact
.
Learning Objective 6.8 - Describe how some memories are automatically encoded into long-
term memory.
D. Automatic encoding: Flashbulb memories

1. Many kinds of long-term memories seem to enter permanent storage (LTM) with little
or no effort
2. Particularly emotional or traumatic events can lead to flashbulb memories
a. Memories seem as vivid and detailed as if the person were looking at a snapshot
Learning Objective 6.9 - Explain how the constructive processing view of memory retrieval
accounts for forgetting and inaccuracies in memory.
E. The reconstructive nature of long-term memory retrieval: How reliable are memories?
1. Constructive processing of memories
a. Memories are reconstructed from bits and pieces of information
b. Hindsight bias occurs when people falsely believe that they knew the outcome of
some event because they have included knowledge of the event’s true outcome into
their memories of the event itself
2. Memory retrieval problems
a. The misinformation effect
b. False-memory syndrome
1. b; 2. b; 3. d; 4. a; 5. c; 6. a
IV. WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT? FORGETTING

➢ 6.17 - “Your Name Escapes Me, But Your Face…Well, It Escapes Me, Too.”
7
➢ 6.11 - Improving Memory
➢ 6.12 - Decay and Interference in Short-Term Memory
 Video - Special Topics: When Memory Fails

 Video - The Big Picture: The Woman Who Cannot Forget
Learning Objective 6.10 - Describe the "curve of forgetting."
A. Ebbinghaus and the forgetting curve

1. Information is mostly lost within one hour after learning it, and then gradually fades
away
a. distributed practice -- spacing out the study of material to be remembered -- will
produce far better retrieval of information than does massed practice (aka, cramming),
or the attempt to study a body of material all at once.
Learning Objective 6.11 - Identify some common reasons people forget things.
B. Reasons we forget
1. Encoding failure
2. Memory trace decay theory
3. Interference theory
a. Proactive interference: Older interferes with retrieval of newer
b. Retroactive interference: Newer interferes with retrieval of older
1. a; 2. c; 3. d; 4. c
V. NEUROSCIENCE OF MEMORY
➢ 6.18 - Reconsolidation
➢ 6.19 - Why You Don’t Remember Your First Birthday Party
➢ 6.13 - A Quick Review of the Basics of Memory
➢ Video - Kimberley Cuevas: Learning and Memory in Infants

➢ Video - Howard Eichenbaum: Neurological Basis of Memory
➢ Video - Alvin: Living With Dementia (Parts I and II)
 Animation - Visual Brain: Learning and Memory
Learning Objective 6.12 - Explain the biological bases of memory in the brain.
A. The biological bases of memory

1. Physical storage of memories
a. Nondeclarative memories are stored in the cerebellum
b. Short-term memories are stored in the prefrontal and temporal lobes of the cortex
c. Memory for fear of objects is most likely stored in the amygdala
2. Neural activity, structure, and proteins in memory formation
8
a. Consolidation consists of physical changes in neurons
3. The hippocampus and memory
a. Responsible for the storage of new long-term memories
b. If the hippocampus is removed, the ability to store anything new is completely lost
Learning Objective 6.13 - Identify the biological causes of amnesia.
B. When memory fails: Organic amnesia

1. Retrograde amnesia: loss of memory from the point of injury backward
2. Anterograde amnesia: the loss of memories from the point of injury or illness forward
3. Alzheimer’s disease: Anterograde amnesia is the primary memory problem in early
stage; As disease progresses, memories, of the past seem to begin “erasing” as
retrograde amnesia also takes hold.
4. Infantile amnesia: inability to retrieve memories from much before age 3.
a. most likely due to the implicit nature of infant memory
1. d; 2. a; 3. a; 4. d
VI. APPLYING PSYCHOLOGY TO EVERYDAY LIFE: HEALTH AND MEMORY
Learning Objective 6.14 - Explain how sleep, exercise, and diet affect memory.
A. Good nutrition, physical exercise, and adequate sleep improve memory functions
B. Diets high in omega-3 may help hippocampal cells to communicate better
C. Norepinephrine release during exercise appears to strengthen memories
D. Sleep contributes to memory consolidation
VII. CHAPTER SUMMARY

➢ 6.14 - Crossword Puzzle
➢ 6.15 - Fill-in-the-Blanks
Test Yourself 6
1. b; 2. a; 3. b; 4. d; 5. c; 6. c; 7. c; 8. a; 9. b; 10. a; 11. d; 12. d; 13. a;

14. b; 15. b; 16. d; 17. b; 18. a; 19. d; 20. d
9
▼LEARNING OBJECTIVES
6.1 Identify the three processes of memory.
6.2 Explain how the different models of memory work.
6.3 Describe the process of sensory memory.
6.4 Describe short-term memory, and differentiate it from working memory.
6.5 Explain the process of long-term memory, including nondeclarative and declarative forms.
6.6 Identify the effects of cues on memory retrieval.
6.7 Differentiate the retrieval processes of recall and recognition.
6.8 Describe how some memories are automatically encoded into long-term memory.
6.9 Explain how the constructive processing view of memory retrieval accounts for forgetting
and inaccuracies in memory.
6.10 Describe the "curve of forgetting."
6.11 Identify some common reasons people forget things.
6.12 Explain the biological bases of memory in the brain.
6.13 Identify the biological causes of amnesia.
6.14 Explain how sleep, exercise, and diet affect memory.
10
▼RAPID REVIEW
Memory can be thought of as an active system that receives information from the senses,
organizes and alters it as it stores it, and then retrieves information from storage. All current
models of memory—levels-of-processing, parallel distributed processing, and information
processing—involve the processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval. The information
processing model divides memory into three locations: sensory, short term, and long term.
Information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory through the process of
selective attention. Another name for short-term memory is working memory, and some
researchers propose that short-term memory consists of a central control process along with a
visual “sketch pad” and auditory “recorder.” Maintenance rehearsal describes the process of
continuing to pay attention to a piece of information, such as reciting a name over and over
again in your head. Long-term has an essentially unlimited capacity and duration. Information
may by encoded into long-term memory through elaborative rehearsal, a way of transferring
information by making it meaningful. Long-term memories can be divided into nondeclarative
versus declarative memories. Nondeclarative memory is sometimes referred to as implicit
memory, and declarative memory can be thought of as explicit memory. The semantic
network model suggests that information is stored in the brain in a connected fashion with
related concepts physically close to each other.
Retrieval describes the process of pulling memories out of long-term storage. Information can
be retrieved through the process of either recall or recognition. The serial position effect
describes the finding that information at the beginning and end of a list is more likely to be
remembered than the information in the middle. A flashbulb memory is a specific type of
automatic encoding that occurs when an unexpected and often emotional event occurs. The
retrieval of memories is a constructive process, and several factors affect the accuracy of
information retrieval, such as the misinformation effect or hindsight bias.
Herman Ebbinghaus was one of the first scientists to systematically study the process of
forgetting; he presented his findings in a visual graph called the curve of forgetting. There are
at least four different causes for forgetting: Encoding failure, decay, proactive interference,
and retroactive interference.
It is still unclear exactly how memories are physically stored in the brain (a process called
consolidation) although the hippocampus plays an important role in the formation of new
memories. Amnesia is a disorder characterized by severe memory loss, and can take one of
two forms. Retrograde amnesia is an inability to retrieve memories from the past, whereas
anterograde amnesia is an inability to form new memories. An inability to remember events
from the first few years of life has been described as infantile amnesia and may be due to the
implicit, or nonverbal, nature of those memories.
11
▼CHANGES FROM THE FOURTH EDITION TO THE FIFTH EDITION
Chapter 6 - Memory
● Revised the discussion of memory models to explain that the information-processing

model is no longer the primary model used by memory researchers
● Updated terminology to refer to the information-processing model as memory systems
vs. stages
● Sperling’s iconic memory test studies are now covered in a Classic Studies in
Psychology feature
● Updated explanations of working memory and elaborative rehearsal based on new
research
● Term “nondeclarative memory” is now used throughout, rather than “procedural memory”
● Added a new discussion of how retrieval practice relates to the “testing effect”
● Updated the discussion of flashbulb memories to include positive as well as negative
memories
● Moved the discussion of hyperthymesia from the chapter introduction into the section on
forgetting, and added new research on adaptive forgetting
● Added new research on the biological bases of memory
● Updated the discussion of ECT and memory
● Updated statistics and research on Alzheimer’s disease
● New APA Goal 2 feature on whether taking supplements can improve memory
12
▼LECTURE LAUNCHERS AND DISCUSSION TOPICS

 6.1 - Snapshots and Storylines
 6.2 - Culture and Memory
 6.3 - Unattended Information and the “Cocktail Party” Effect
 6.4 - Musical Memories
 6.5 - The Inner Workings of Working Memory
 6.6 - Working Memory
 6.7 - Memory Anomalies: Beyond Déjà Vu
 6.8 - Episodic  Semantic
 6.9 - The Role of Distinctiveness in Memory
 6.10 - The Mind(s) of Mnemonist(s)
 6.11 - Mnemonics in Mind
 6.12 - Saving a Famous Brain
 6.13 - The Chowchilla Kidnapping
 6.14 - Hypnosis and Memory
 6.15 - Eyewitness Memory
 6.16 - How False Memories Are Formed
 6.17 - “Your Name Escapes Me, But Your Face…Well, It Escapes Me Too.”
 6.18 - Reconsolidation
 6.19 - Why You Don’t Remember Your First Birthday Party
Lecture Launcher 6.1 - Snapshots and Storylines

The family photo album has an interesting influence on autobiographical memory. Before discussing this,
ask students to write a brief description of two or three of their clearest memories from their childhood.
After they have finished, ask them to indicate the quality of the particular event that made it so
memorable, and whether other members of the family share the same memories. Only after students have
finished their descriptions and have responded to these questions, ask them whether any photographs
were taken of the events they remember. In many cases, students will realize that the clarity of their
“clearest” memories is the result of the fact that someone happened to be taking photographs on that
particular day. You might explore with students how such “Kodak moments” become shared family stories
because they are “clearly remembered” by many members of the family.
The fact that the narratives we create influence the reconstruction of our memories is demonstrated by our
memories for highly-scripted events. Events such as “going to a restaurant” entail a very predictable
sequence of events, including waiting to be seated, sitting down, receiving a menu, ordering drinks and
then the meal, being brought the meal, eating, asking for the check, paying, and leaving. Ask students to
remember the last time they went to a nice restaurant. Did the server take their order? The answer, of
course, is yes, even if we cannot specifically remember it happening. This is because our scripts or
schemas for going to a restaurant tell us that is what servers do! We use schemas to help us fill in the
missing information in our memory.
► Return to Lecture Guide

◄ Return to complete list of Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics for Chapter 6
13
Lecture Launcher 6.2 - Culture and Memory

All cultures place certain memory expectations on their members. For example, in Western culture we are
expected to remember (through honors, ceremonies, observances) significant dates, persons, or
activities. The Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Presidents Day, and, most obviously, Memorial Day, are
examples of a kind of culturally-shared memory system. Although often there are no explicit guidelines for
activities on these occasions and no particularly dire sanctions for not observing them, we will certainly be
looked at askance if we don’t remember when they are or what they signify. Other cultures and
subcultures have similar occasions, such as religious observances (e.g., first Friday of the month) or
anniversaries (e.g., the Tiananmen Square demonstration).
Cultures and subcultures also have ritualized reminders for memory events. For example, people in
Western cultures automatically know that a string around one’s finger or an image of an elephant serve
as reminders to do something, just as rosary beads help Catholics remember their prayers or a flag at
half-mast helps remind a large group to honor someone’s memory. The use and form of these reminders
can vary from culture to culture, although like the memory tasks themselves they typically are learned
implicitly within a cultural context.
Beyond these aspects of a “general cultural memory,” there is also evidence that gender stereotypes play
a role in what gets remembered and by whom. The formation of gender stereotypes and gender role
expectations are often culture-bound. That cultural learning can in turn inspire certain types of memory.
For example, Stephen Ceci and Urie Brofenbrenner (1985) showed that remembering when to terminate
an event is better if the event is consistent with gender stereotypes. Boys were better at remembering
when to stop charging a motorcycle battery than remembering when to take cupcakes out of the oven,
whereas girls showed the opposite pattern. Similarly, Douglas Herrmann and his colleagues (1992)
showed that female and male undergraduates had differential memory for an ambiguous paragraph
depending on its title. When given a “male-like” title (“How to Make a Workbench”), men remembered
more details than did women, although the opposite was true if the ambiguous passage had a “female-
like” title (“How to Make a Shirt”). The influence of culture on memory, then, also occurs indirectly through
the expectations and stereotypes set up within a cultural context.
Ceci, S. J., & Brofenbrenner, U. (1985). “Don’t forget to take the cupcakes out of the oven”: Prospective memory, strategic
time-monitoring, and context. Child Development, 56, 152–164.
Herrmann, D. J., Crawford, M., & Holdsworth, M. (1992). Gender-linked differences in everyday memory performance. British
Journal of Psychology, 83, 221–231.
Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. J. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lecture Launcher 6.3 –

Unattended Information and the “Cocktail Party Phenomenon”
It has happened to all of us. You are at an office party, a holiday party, or a gathering of friends at the
home of a neighbor and you are engaged in conversation with a friend about the merits of Labrador
Retrievers compared to German Shepherds. More people are talking behind you, but you are not paying
attention to their conversation. Suddenly, you hear your name mentioned by one of the individuals
engaged in the conversation behind you. You become unable to concentrate on the puppy discussion,
because you are too busy trying to hear what the other people are saying about you. You know you were
14
not deliberately eavesdropping on this conversation, but you know that you heard your name. Is it
possible that you were unconsciously eavesdropping?
You have just experienced what Don Broadbent and Colin Cherry referred to as the cocktail party
phenomenon. Part of consciousness is attention. We must attend to incoming stimuli in order to process it
and act on it in an appropriate manner. Does that imply that in the case presented above, the listener was
attending to the conversation behind her? Possibly, although the attention being paid to that conversation
was not intentional. The listener in this conversation was engaged in what is known as dichotic listening,
which refers to hearing two channels of sound, one in each ear, at the same time. In dichotic listening we
listen to, or shadow, the message to which we are attending, and tune out the second, unattended
message. Nonetheless, some characteristics of that unshadowed message get through. The listener here
was shadowing the message in which she was engaged and, until hearing her name, could not have told
us the content or characteristics of the unshadowed (unattended) message of conversation. How then,
did she manage to hear her name, if she was not attending to the message?
Anne Triesman (1964) suggests that in dichotic listening, attention acts as an attenuator, in that it turns
down the volume on unattended channels but does not completely block them out. Moray (1959)
observed that it is very difficult to ignore the sounds of our own names, even if that sound comes in on an
unattended channel. Deutsch and Deutsch (1963), followed by Norman (1968), proposed that all
channels that reach the system get some degree of attention and analysis. Specifically, the channels get
attended to enough to be represented in long-term memory. Although none of these models completely
explains the attentional aspect of consciousness, they do at least give us some insights as to why we
suddenly find ourselves “eavesdropping” on the conversations of others, after we have heard them
mention our names.
Deutsch, J. A.; Deutsch, D. (1963). Attention: Some theoretical considerations. Psychological Review, 70, 80–90.
Moray, N. (1959). Attention in dichotic listening: Affective cues and the influence of instructions. Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 11, 56–60.
Norman, D. A. (1968). Toward a theory of memory and attention. Psychological Review, 75(6), 522–536.
Treisman, A. (1964). Monitoring and storage of irrelevant messages in selective attention. Journal of Verbal Learning and
Verbal Behavior, 3(6), 449–501.

Lecture Launcher 6.4 - Musical Memories

Most students can relate to the power of music to evoke emotions and memories. Associations between
music and information occur during the encoding process. Thus, music is often a powerful retrieval cue
for a variety of other memories. But information can also serve as a retrieval cue for music. In a 2005
study researchers at Dartmouth College discovered that if individuals are listening to familiar music, they
mentally retrieve auditory imagery, or memories to fill in the gaps if the music stops playing. By studying
the brains of participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), it was shown that
participants were able to mentally fill in the spaces if a familiar song was missing short segments. The
auditory cortex remained active even when the music had stopped. The investigators report that this
finding expands earlier studies that demonstrate that sensory-specific memories are stored in the brain
areas that created those events. Researchers also discovered that lyrics influence the different auditory
brain areas that are utilized when musical memories are reconstructed.

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Lecture Launcher 6.5 - The Inner Workings of Working Memory
Area 46 could be anywhere; a loading dock, part of a busy airport, or a sector of a computer chip
manufacturing plant. But Area 46 of the frontal lobe refers to a specific location that’s revealed a specific
function. Scientists are heralding Area 46 as the “scratch pad of the brain.”
Most models of memory posit a “working memory” or holding area where information is stored before
being consolidated (or lost). Two research teams used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to
pinpoint where that activity takes place. Susan Courtney, working at the National Institutes of Mental
Health, led a research project that had volunteers view a face on a computer monitor for 3 seconds. The
participants kept the image in mind during an 8-second pause, then saw another face on the screen. If
the second face matched the first, the participants pressed a button. The fMRI scans taken during this
task showed that areas in the back of the brain were active when the faces first appeared, whereas Area
46 of the frontal lobe became and stayed active during the pause. (The distinction wasn’t perfect; some
rear areas were slightly active during the pause, and some frontal areas were active when the faces were
shown.) In a second study, a research team led by Jonathan D. Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University and
the University of Pittsburgh asked participants to recall increasingly long strings of consonants flashed on
a screen. As the sequence of letters increased, activity in the frontal lobe increased. Like the other study,
other areas of the brain were also active during these tasks.
Taken together, these results suggest that there is a coordinated effort in brain activity when working
memory is activated. The frontal lobe “scratch pad” of Area 46 works in concert with other brain regions to
process information and distribute it effectively. Further research, using millisecond-to-millisecond fMRI
recording, may reveal with greater accuracy how different types of information get processed.
Bower, B. (1997, April 26). Where in the brain is working memory? Science News, 151, 258.
Boyd, R. S. (1997, November 30). Scientists find “scratch pad” where brain sorts memory. Austin American-Statesman, A22.
Montojo, C. A., & Courtney, S. M. (2008). Differential neural activation for updating rule versus stimulus information in working
memory. Neuron, 59, 173-182.
O'Reilly, R. C., Braver, T. S., & Cohen, J. D. (1999). A biologically-based neural network model of working memory. In P. Shah
& A. Miyake (Eds.), Models of working memory. Cambridge University Press.
Walsh, M. K., Montojo, C. A., Sheu, Y.-S., Marchette, S. A., Harrison, D. M., Newsome, S. D., Zhou, F., Shelton, A. L., &
Courtney, S. M. (2011). Object working memory performance depends on microstructure of the frontal-occipital
fasciculus. Brain Connectivity, 1, 317-329.

Lecture Launcher 6.6 - Working Memory

Allen Baddeley and his colleagues proposed that short-term memory, according to the Atkinson-Shiffrin
model, is too rigid of a system, storing only 7 ± 2 items at any given time. Baddeley’s working memory
(WM) model is more flexible, in that individuals can engage in multiple tasks, so long as they use different
components of the WM model, each of which has its own capacity. The three components of WM include:
the phonological loop, which stores a limited amount of auditory information for a short amount of time;
the visuo-spatial sketchpad, which stores visual and spatial information; and the central executive, which
integrates information from the other two components and long-term memory (LTM).
Support for the independent components of WM includes neuropsychological evidence using a

combination of fMRIs and cognitive tasks. In a study by D’Esposito et al. (1995), participants performed
two tasks in both single-task and dual-task conditions. One task was a (verbal) lexical decision task,
which theoretically should be handled by the phonological loop of WM. The second task was a visual
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mental rotations task, proposed to utilize resources from the visuo-spatial sketchpad of WM. When the
tasks were performed alone, the verbal task activated the left temporal cortex, and the visual task
activated the occipital and parietal cortex. However, when participants had to perform the two tasks
simultaneously (dual-task condition), the central executive should allocate resources to the other two
“slave systems.” The fMRI showed that only during the dual-task condition, when the central executive of
WM is necessary to allocate resources, did the prefrontal cortex become active.
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (pp.
47-89). New York: Academic Press.
Brunoni, A. R., & Vanderhasselt, M-A. (2014). Working memory improvement with non-invasive brain stimulation of the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Brain and Cognition, 86, 1-9.
D’Esposito, M, Detre, J. A., Alsop, D. C., Shin, R. K., Atlas, S., & Grossman, M. (1995). The neural basis of the central
executive of working memory. Nature, 378, 279–281.

Lecture Launcher 6.7 - Memory Anomalies: Beyond Déjà Vu

The déjà vu experience is perhaps the best known anomaly of memory, but it is by no means the only
one. Like déjà vu, these anomalies are relatively harmless (unless they occur quite frequently) and may
occur in most people’s lives at some point.
 Jamais vu. The opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu refers to experiencing a lack of familiarity in a
particular situation when this should clearly not be the case. For example, someone who insists that they
have never before met a fairly well-known acquaintance might be having a jamais vu experience. Clearly,
jamais vu needs to be distinguished from the memory disruptions found among Alzheimer’s patients (who
often fail to recognize familiar objects, people, or settings), from the effects of amnesia (whether physical
or psychogenic in origin), or from simply a faulty memory (such as not encoding information about a
person in the first place). A defining quality of jamais vu, then, is the feeling of astonishment or incredulity
at encountering the object or person (“Are you sure we’ve met before?!”).
 Time-gap experience. “I left work, and then I arrived at home. I’m not sure what happened in
between.” Most of us have shared the experience of doing a fairly complicated task (such as driving a
car) and upon completion realizing that we have no recollection of the task at all (such as which turns
were made, when we stopped, the route we took, and so on). This time-gap experience can be explained
using the distinction between automatic and effortful processing. An effortful task, such as one that is new
or unfamiliar, demands our cognitive resources for its completion. Even a fairly intricate task, however,
after it has become automatic, can be performed outside of conscious awareness.
 Cryptomnesia. Cryptomnesia can be thought of as unintended plagiarism: A person honestly

believes that some thought, publication, composition, or other work is an original creation when in fact it is
not. Many musicians, for example, seem to fall prey to this memory anomaly. The most celebrated case
involved George Harrison’s song “My Sweet Lord,” which a court ruled was unintentionally based (quite
closely, actually) on the Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine” (Brown & Murphy, 1989). A song by Huey Lewis and the
News, “I Want A New Drug,” also came under scrutiny as a too-close variant of Ray Parker’s
“Ghostbusters,” and Aerosmith came under fire for lifting the line “Mister, you’re a better man than I” from
the Yardbirds song of the same name. (Happily, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were cleared by a jury in
2016 of lifting the opening strains of “Stairway to Heaven” from the Randy California song “Taurus,”
performed by Spirit.) In each case the similarities were determined to be unintentional, suggesting that
cryptomnesia was at work.
Azimova, J. E., Sergeev, A. V., & Skorobogatykh, K. V. (2016). Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome in patients with migraine. British
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Journal of Medicine and Medical Research, 13(11), 1-14.
Brown, A. S., & Murphy, D. R. (1989). Cryptomnesia: Delineating inadvertent plagiarism. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 432–442.
Gingerich, A. C., & Sullivan, M. C. (2013). Claiming hidden memories as one’s own: A review of inadvertent plagiarism. Journal
of Cognitive Psychology, 25(8), 903-916.
Hollins, T. J., Lange, N., Dennis, I., & Longmore, C. A. (2016). Social influences on unconscious plagiarism and anti-plagiarism.
Memory, 24(7), 884-902.
Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lecture Launcher 6.8 - Episodic  Semantic

The daily lives of Beth, Jon, and Kate sound nightmarish. The 14, 19, and 22-year-olds can’t remember
where they’ve been shortly after they’ve been there, can’t recall who’ve they’ve seen shortly after they’ve
seen them, and can’t recognize familiar buildings shortly after they’ve walked out of them. Each of these
young people suffered from brain seizures at an early age that produced extensive damage to the
hippocampus. And if the story ended here we’d shake our heads dejectedly, mumbling about the grace of
God and knocking on available wood, as the trio walked away under the constant supervision of their
parents.
It turns out, though, that Beth, Jon, and Kate all attended mainstream schools, have good speech and
language skills, read and spell as well as their peers, and have acquired lots and lots of factual
knowledge. Their abilities in these areas, contrasted with their disabilities in others, highlight the
difference between semantic memory and episodic memory. What’s more, they suggest that the areas of
the brain responsible for these types of memory are different. Researchers led by Faraneh Vargha-
Khadem of University College London Medical School studied these unusual individuals and concluded
that although the hippocampus regulates recall of personal experiences, it plays only a minor role in the
storage and acquisition of factual knowledge. In short, although episodic memory has been tragically
disrupted for these three, semantic memory has remained largely intact.
Baddeley, A., Jarrold, C., Vargha-Khadem, F. (2011). Working memory and the hippocampus. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 23(12), 3855–3861.
Baddeley, A., Allen, R., Vargha-Khadem, F. (2010). Is the hippocampus necessary for visual and verbal binding in working
memory? Neuropsychologia, 48(4), 1089–1095.
Bower, B. (1997, August 2). Factual brains, uneventful lives. Science News, 152, 75.
Cooper, J. M., Vargha-Khadem, F., Gadian, D. G., Maguire, E. A. (2011). The effect of hippocampal damage in children on
recalling the past and imagining new experiences. Neuropsychologia, 49(7), 1843–1850.
Isaacs, E., Christie, D., Vargha-Khadem, F., Mishkin, M. (1996). Effects of hemispheric side of injury, age at injury, and
presence of seizure disorder on functional ear and hand asymmetries in hemiplegic children. Neuropsychologia, 34(2),
127–137.

Lecture Launcher 6.9 - The Role of Distinctiveness in Memory

The use of bizarre imagery is a component of several effective mnemonic techniques. Winograd and
Soloway noted that people often report that they are better able to remember information that they
have attempted to make distinctive. For example, we often store things in unusual places (such as
leaving soccer cleats in the kitchen) in the belief that it will be easier to remember where we put the
item at a later time. This is somewhat like using a bizarre image with the method of loci. In order to
examine this belief, Winograd and Soloway presented research participants with sentences that
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described an object stored in a normal location ("The milk is in the refrigerator.") or an unusual location
("The tickets are in the freezer."). Participants were asked to either rate the sentence for the likelihood
of using this location to store the item, the memorability of the storage location, or to generate an
image of what was described in the sentence and then rate its memorability. Participants were then
given a recall test in which they were asked to remember the locations of the objects presented in the
sentences. Contrary to what might be expected, items rated low in likelihood (that is, stored in unusual
locations) were remembered less often than those rated high, regardless of the rated memorability.
Although distinctiveness may be an effective aid for remembering a particular item, Winograd and
Soloway concluded that it does not appear to be useful for remembering the association between two
items. This is an important point because when we store an object in an unusual place we need to
remember the association between the object and the location. This differs from what occurs in the
method of loci, in which we start with a location and use an imaginal representation of the location to
store and remember an object. In the distinctiveness situation we are doing the opposite; starting with
an object and trying to remember a location that was not established with a strong imaginal
representation.
Winograd, E., & Soloway, R. (1986). On forgetting the location of things stored in special places. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 115, 366–372.

Lecture Launcher 6.10 - The Mind(s) of Mnemonist(s)

We are often awed, sometimes jealous, and occasionally resentful of those who have prodigious
memories. Perhaps it is their smarty-pants attitude that they can remember the details of an event that
escape us. Their smugness soon fades, however, in the face of truly extraordinary memory.
S., also known to his mother as S. V. Shereshevskii, was able to recall even the most meaningless drivel
with great accuracy and sometimes years after learning it by relying on mnemonics; visualizing the
information, forming elaborate associations, capitalizing on synesthetic experiences, and so on. However,
S. is not without company. There are several other people who have demonstrated similar abilities.
For example, V. P., a Latvian born in 1934 in a small town coincidentally close to S.’s birthplace, read at
age 3½, memorized the street map of a large city at 5, and committed 150 poems to memory at age 10.
Both V. P.’s short-term and long-term memory appear impressive. On standard short-term memory tasks,
such as recalling three consonants over an 18-second interval while counting backwards by three, V. P.
showed virtually no disruption. Similarly, he could remember the War of the Ghosts with the same
extraordinary accuracy after 1 hour or after 1 year. The secret to his success, however, appears to be
different from that of S. V. P.’s strategy seems to be based on quickly forming verbal associations to
information using any of the several languages that he speaks (Latin, English, Estonian, Latvian, Russian,
Spanish, Hebrew, French, German). Information that would stump most of us might call up a bawdy Latin
verse for V. P., and thus contribute to his memorization.
Rajan Mahadevan’s specialty is numbers. Rajan came to the public’s attention while a graduate student
in psychology, but his memory feats occurred regularly even as a young boy. People in his native
Mangalore, India were astounded by his ability to remember anything numerical. So were the folks at the
Guinness Book of World Records; in 1981, Rajan was able to recite the first 31,811 digit of pi. Like V. P.,
Rajan relies on idiosyncratic associations drawn from a vast knowledge base: Like most of us, he
remembers “111” because Admiral Nelson had 1 eye, 1 arm, and 1 leg.
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Finally, S. F. represents a “manufactured memorist.” While an undergraduate at Carnegie-Mellon
University in 1978, S. F. embarked on a laboratory project initiated by K. Anders Ericsson and his
colleagues (e.g., Chase & Ericsson, 1981) that lasted 2 years. The task was simple enough. S. F. would
read a sequence of random digits at one per second, then recall them in the correct order. If successful,
the next group would be increased by one digit, and if unsuccessful it would be reduced by a digit. By the
end of the training session S. F. had mastered a sequence of some 80 digits, compared to most people’s
typical performance of about 7. The secret was in S. F.’s avocation. As a long-distance runner he formed
meaningful chunks from the digits he read, such as 1076 for an important race in October, 1976, or other
sets of digits for best times, typical distances, and so on. Sadly, S. F. died in 1981 from a chronic blood
disorder, although others (such as D. D., also a long-distance runner, who commands a digit span of 106)
have continued this project.
Chase, W. G., & Ericsson, K. A. (1981). Skilled memory. In J. R. Anderson (Ed.), Cognitive skills and their acquisition (pp. 141-
189). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Lecture Launcher 6.11 - Mnemonics in Mind

Here is a collection of mnemonics, divided into naive strategies (i.e., those used regularly and easily by
most people, without needing formal instruction) and technical mnemonics (i.e., those requiring some
training).
Naive Mnemonics
● Rehearsal: Simple rote repetition

● Rhyme: Constructing a little ditty to keep track of information
● Chunking: Restructuring a list into meaningful units
● Images: Visualizing a cereal box full of money to remember “Bank and Groceries”
● First-letter mnemonics
– Acronyms: Roy G. Biv for the visible spectrum; HOMES for the Great Lakes
– Acrostics: Arithmetic: “A Real Idiot Thinks He Might Eat Turkey In Church”
Technical Mnemonics
● Method of Loci: A physical setting is first memorized, then filled in

● Peg-Word: Construct a rhyme, then “hang” the information on the rhyme’s peg
● Number-Letter: A translation scheme matching letters to numbers and vice-versa
● Link: A visual image of each item is linked to the following one, forming a chain
● Story: Like the link system, but with stories using the to-be-remembered information

Lecture Launcher 6.12 - Saving a Famous Brain

The name Henry Molaison may not ring a bell. That is because for over 50 years Mr. Molaison was known
simply by his initials: H.M. It was not until his death in December of 2008 that the full name of the world’s
most famous amnesiac was released. His death also set into action a plan developed to preserve his
brain for science.
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It may seem unnecessary to save H.M.’s brain, because numerous CT and MRI scans had been
performed over the years to map the damage from his 1953 surgery. However, because of the limitations
of these non-invasive techniques, researchers could not precisely determine which brain regions had
been affected. Luckily, a relative of Mr. Molaison’s, acting as his conservator, agreed to donate Henry’s
brain to science when he died. Because a brain begins to deteriorate very quickly after a person dies,
researchers set up a careful plan to be activated upon H.M.’s death.
On December 8th, 2008, Mr. Molaison died in the Connecticut nursing home where he had been living.
Following the plan, his head was immediately wrapped in cold-packs to slow down the deterioration
process, and his body was taken to a nearby hospital for one last set of MRI scans. The brain was then
carefully extracted and placed in formaldehyde. This last step was critical, because the human brain is
normally too soft to transport or study. Placing the brain in formaldehyde causes the brain to become firm
enough to safely handle, and halts further deterioration. After the brain has been fully preserved,
researchers plan to freeze it, and then use a special machine to cut it into an estimated 2,600 slices. The
slices will then be stained to help researchers identify the various regions of the brain. Finally, each slice
will be photographed with a high resolution camera.
Researchers plan to put all of the images online, so that scientists around the world can study them.
Eventually, the team responsible for preserving H.M.’s brain hopes to add images from the brains of other
amnesiacs, creating a digital library which will allow scientists to examine the similarities and differences.
When he was alive, H.M. contributed a huge amount to our understanding of memory and the brain, but it
is likely that his brain still has a lot to teach us.
Lysen, F. (2015). “There was nothing hidden that might not be revealed:” The Brain Observatory and the imaginary media of
memory research. In S. Groes (Ed.), Memory in the 21st Century (pp. 57-62), New York: Springer.
Miller, G. (2009). The brain collector. Science, 324 (5935), 1634–1636.
http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/hm

Lecture Launcher 6.13 - The Chowchilla Kidnapping

In the summer of 1976, a busload of children, together with their bus driver, Ed Ray, were kidnapped—
bus and all—from a country road in Madera County in California. The abductors abandoned the bus,
hiding it in a drainage ditch nine miles west of the small town of Chowchilla. They drove the kidnap
victims (19 girls, 7 boys, and Ray) around for eleven hours in two vans, finally putting all of the children
and the driver into an 8’ x 16’ moving van that was buried in a rock quarry.
After 16 hours underground, the victims dug their way out and were eventually found and returned to their
homes in Chowchilla. Ed Ray was hypnotized and eventually was able to remember five of the six
numbers on the license plate on one of the vans used in the abduction, which led to the arrest of three
young men who were tried and found guilty. A draft of a ransom note had been found in the home of one
of the young men along with other evidence tying them to the crime (Terr, 1981, 1983).
This case marked the increased interest of law enforcement personnel in the use of hypnosis as a tool for
helping witnesses to remember crime details. Unfortunately, this case is the exception to the rule:
memories recovered under hypnosis cannot be assumed to be accurate without some other kind of
evidence that the memories are real. In the Chowchilla case, the ransom note and other things found in
one of the kidnapper’s homes were that evidence, but those things might not have been found if not for
Ray’s hypnotically aided recall. (In this instance, hypnosis helped Ray relax enough to recall the memory
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of the number that he had actually tried to memorize. If he hadn’t made that initial effort to remember the
number, hypnosis would not have helped his recall.)
Terr, L. C. (1981). Psychic trauma in children: Observations following the Chowchilla bus kidnapping. American Journal of
Psychiatry, 138, 14–19.
Terr, L. C. (1983). Chowchilla revisited: The effects of trauma four years after the school bus kidnapping. American Journal of
Psychiatry, 140, 1543–1550.

Lecture Launcher 6.14 - Hypnosis and Memory

Elizabeth Bowman has summarized the following points from research on hypnosis and memory:
● Hypnotized subjects report more accurate and inaccurate information than subjects who are not
hypnotized. Therefore, even though hypnosis makes it easier to recall some legitimate memories, it
also makes it easier to recall false ones.
● Hypnosis enhances the confidence subjects have in their memories, regardless of their accuracy or
inaccuracy.
● Subjects cannot always distinguish between memories which they have always had and new
“memories” recently recovered under hypnosis.
● False memories can be created when directly suggested by the hypnotist during age regression.
● Hypnotic age regression does not appear to increase the accuracy of childhood recall.
● The impact of hypnosis on the reliability of later memory depends on the type of question asked.
Open-ended questions cause less memory “contamination” than closed-ended, leading questions.
● Some pseudomemories (false memories) suggested by hypnosis do not persist after the hypnosis.
● Pseudomemories reported during hypnosis do not replace real memories; and they are frequently not
believed by the subject.
● High hypnotizability is a more important factor in the production of pseudomemories than actually
being hypnotized.
● High hypnotizability and hypnosis together produce the highest rates of pseudomemories.
Clearly, memories obtained through hypnosis should not be considered as accurate without solid
evidence from other sources.
Bowman, E. S. (1996). Delayed memories of child abuse: Part II: An overview of research findings relevant to understand their
reliability and suggestibility. Dissociation: Progress in Dissociative Disorders, 9, 232–243.

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Lecture Launcher 6.15 - Eyewitness Testimony
Many experts worry that juries in criminal cases overestimate the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. This
could lead to mistaken convictions based on false memories. On the other hand, if jurors disregarded
eyewitness testimony because it is potentially inaccurate, it is likely that many criminals would be found
innocent because of insufficient evidence.
After introducing this subject, ask students to discuss what steps, if any, courts should take to deal with
the issue of false eyewitness memories. In particular, students should consider whether juries should be
told before the trial that psychologists have discovered that memories for events are reconstructions, and
as such, subject to distortions. Or, should psychologists be allowed to testify in court about false
memories? Students should also discuss how likely they think it is that an innocent person is found guilty
based on false eyewitness memories. Is this a real problem? Would teaching jurors about false memories
lead to more miscarriages of justice than it would prevent? Finally, ask students to consider what the legal
standard “beyond a reasonable doubt” means with regard to eyewitness testimony given what they have
learned about memory. After the discussion has been concluded, ask students to respond to this writing
prompt: What does it mean to say that episodic memories are reconstructions? How is this different from
the way that many people feel that their long-term memory works?
Sample answer: Most people feel that their episodic memories act like video recorders. As we experience
an event, our conscious experiences are simply recorded into the brain so that we can play them back at
some later point in time. Psychologists, however, have discovered that episodic memories are not
“recordings.” Instead, it appears that only some information from an event is stored in long-term memory.
The brain then uses these pieces of information as a framework to rebuild or reconstruct the event when
we try to recall it at a later point in time.

Lecture Launcher 6.16 - How False Memories are Formed

Researchers at Northwestern University have used MRI technology to study how people form false
memories. The purpose of the study was to create laboratory conditions that set up a circumstance in
which people would remember something that did not happen. Participants were asked to look at pictures
of objects and to imagine other objects while their brain activity was being measured. Researchers found
that the brain areas associated with generating visual images were highly activated when people imagine
images. Many of the images that the participants were asked to imagine were incorrectly identified as
actually having been seen. According to Kenneth Paller, co-investigator of the study, regions of the brain
involved in perceiving an object and those involved in imagining an object appear to overlap. This would
allow a vividly imagined event to leave a memory trace in the brain that is similar to a real event.
Three brain areas (precutaneous, right inferior parietal cortex, and anterior cingulate) showed greater
responses in the study phase to words that would later be falsely remembered as having been presented
with photos. Brain activity during the study phase could predict which objects would subsequently be
falsely remembered as having been seen as a photograph. The false memories appeared to be
associated with more vivid visual imagery that left a trace in the brain that was mistaken for a true
memory.
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2004/10/kenneth.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-10/nu-nrp101404.php

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“Your Name Escapes Me, But Your Face...Well, It Escapes Me Too.”
Memory disruptions often become increasingly prevalent as we age. Beyond the annoyance of forgetting
an acquaintance’s name, the groceries we need for a new recipe, or someone’s face, is the annoyance of
not quite knowing what to do about it. Memory disruptions could be due to faulty encoding of information,
faulty retrieval, or both. A recent study suggests that encoding may be particularly important in successful
memory among the elderly.
Researchers led by Cheryl L. Grady working at the National Institute on Aging used positron emission
tomography (PET) to study the brain activity of young and elderly participants as they took part in a
memorization task. (PET scans show areas of heightened blood flow in the brain, which is often an
indicator of activity in those areas.) Two groups of 10 volunteers each (one averaging 25 years of age
and the other 69 years) viewed 32 unfamiliar faces for 4 seconds each, while PET scans recorded their
brain activity. After a short break, PET scans were again obtained as the participants looked at faces from
the first session, now paired with distracter faces, and identified which ones they had seen before.
The research team found that the group of younger participants recognized significantly more faces than
did the elderly group. What’s more, the PET scans revealed that among the younger participants, several
brain regions (especially the hippocampus) leapt into activity during the memorization task. By
comparison, the elderly participants’ PET scans showed no heightened activity during the memorization
process. These findings suggest support for the encoding deficit hypothesis of aging. The relatively
poorer performance by the elderly participants seems to be due to not sufficiently encoding the
information in the first place.
Wu, C. (1995). Brain scans hint why elderly forget faces. Science News, 148, 36.

Lecture Launcher 6.18 - Reconsolidation

According to most models of long-term memory, new memories must undergo a period of consolidation,
during which they are converted into a stable form for long-term storage. Traditionally it was believed that,
after a memory underwent consolidation, it would continue to remain crystallized in storage. More recently
however, researchers have found evidence that the act of retrieving or reactivating certain types of
memory returns them to a preconsolidated state, and that these memories must be reconsolidated
following retrieval. If the reconsolidation process is disrupted, the previously stable memory will be lost.
A great example of the need for reconsolidation comes from a study by Nader, Scafe, and LeDoux
(2000). The researchers fear conditioned rats by pairing a tone with foot-shock. The following day, rats
were put back into the conditioning chamber and the tone stimulus was presented by itself. Immediately
after this re-exposure to the conditioned stimulus, some rats were injected with a protein synthesis
blocking drug. Finally, the rats were tested for conditioned fear to the tone the following day. The results
showed that the rats given the protein synthesis blocking drugs following re-exposure showed less fear
conditioning than the rats who did not receive the drug. These results suggest that re-exposing the rats to
the tone and chamber following fear conditioning caused the memory of fear conditioning to become
reactivated, and blocking protein synthesis prevented the reconsolidation of the fear memory. Importantly,
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the drug by itself did not simply “erase” the fear memory, because when the researchers gave the drug to
rats without re-exposing them the chamber and tone, the fear conditioning was unaffected.
Other experiments have demonstrated that reconsolidation is required following the retrieval of many
different types of memory, for example, taste memories, spatial memories, and procedural memories.
Some experts believe that reconsolidation might be a mechanism by which stable, older memories are
made malleable so that they can be updated to include new information. Others believe that destabilizing
older memories is simply an unintended consequence of the retrieval process. Either way, it has been
suggested that blocking the reconsolidation process could be a successful way to help people forget
maladaptive or traumatic memories. For example, children who are scarred by memories of abuse could
be prompted to recall the abuse and then given drugs which block reconsolidation. In theory, the act of
recalling the abuse would make the memories unstable again, and with reconsolidation disrupted, the
memories would be lost or at least weakened.
Lee, J. (2009). Reconsolidation: Maintaining memory relevance. Trends in Neurosciences, 32(8), 413–420.
Nader, K., Schafe, G., & LeDoux, J. (2000) Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for reconsolidation after
retrieval. Nature, 406, 722–726.


Why You Don’t Remember Your First Birthday Party
Humans typically don’t remember events in their lives that happened prior to their third or fourth birthday.
Explaining why has been somewhat up for grabs. Freudians might suggest that this infantile amnesia is
due to some murky unconscious process. However, infantile amnesia has been observed in frogs, mice,
rats, dogs, and wolves (Spear, 1979), making it difficult to defend an “amphibian theory of repression” or
“canine defense mechanisms.” Similarly, the sheer passage of time cannot account for this kind of
forgetfulness. Many of us can remember quite clearly and accurately events that happened long ago
(such as an 80-year-old remembering her first ride in an automobile), and people with extraordinary
memories (such as S., V.P., or S.F.) routinely recount incidents from the distant past. Something different
must be at work.
A more promising explanation implicates the retrieval process. It’s quite likely that information is encoded
and organized by infants in a manner that is very different from what an adult might do. For example,
adults routinely rely on language to help store information in memory (e.g., through verbal rehearsal,
through mnemonics, through the very process of translating experiences into information that can be
communicated). Preverbal infants and children clearly would not have this same strategy, or at least not
developed to the same extent as an adult. Consequently, when an adult tries to retrieve memories from
childhood, his or her schemas would not likely match the schemas used to encode the information in the
first place. Much like the reinstatement of context suggested by the encoding specificity principle, an adult
retrieval strategy for child-encoded information isn’t going to get very far.
Spear, N. E. (1979). Experimental analysis of infantile amnesia. In J. F. Kihlstrom & F. J. Evans (Eds.), Functional disorders of
memory (pp. 75–102). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

25
▼CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES, DEMONSTRATIONS, AND EXERCISES
➢ 6.1 - Depth of Processing and Memory
➢ 6.2 - Demonstrating Simple Memory Principles
➢ 6.3 - Sensory Memory
➢ 6.4 - The Limits of Short-Term Memory
➢ 6.5 - The Value of Chunking
➢ 6.6 - Memories of 9/11
➢ 6.7 - The Self-Reference Effect
➢ 6.8 - Schemas and Memory
➢ 6.9 - Do We Make Accurate Copies of Events in Our Memories?
➢ 6.10 - “Pssst…Have You Heard About This Demonstration?”
➢ 6.11 - Improving Memory
➢ 6.12 - Decay and Interference in Short-Term Memory
➢ 6.13 - A Quick Review of the Basics of Memory
➢ 6.14 - Crossword Puzzle
➢ 6.15 - Fill-in-the-Blanks
Activity 6.1 - Depth of Processing and Memory

This activity reliably demonstrates that memory for information depends on the depth at which it is
processed. Conduct this exercise after you have introduced short- and long-term memory but before you
have discussed specific encoding strategies (e.g., encoding verbally, by visual images, by meaning, and
so on). Have students take out a clean sheet of paper and number it from 1 to 30. Tell students that you
are going to read aloud a list of words and that you would like them to make a judgment about each word.
(Do not mention that this is a memory experiment or that they will be asked to recall the words later.)
Explain that the letter that precedes each word will signal the particular judgment you would like them to
make. Specifically, if the letter "A" is presented before the word, you want them to write down the number
of syllables that are in the word. If the letter "B" is presented before the word, you want them to judge
whether it is pleasant or unpleasant (by writing "P" for pleasant and "U" for unpleasant). You should write
this information on the chalkboard as you give it, and you might also encourage students to write it at the
top of their papers as a reminder. Stress that they should make their judgments relatively quickly and
without hesitation (e.g., for the pleasantness judgment, they choose one or the other, and not something
in between).
Then, slowly and clearly read the following list of words at a rate of about 1 word every 4 seconds (you
can either count to yourself or use a stopwatch). For example, you would begin by saying, "A" (short
pause), "bike" (pause for 4 seconds), "B" (short pause), "month" (pause for 4 seconds), and so on.
1. A bike 11. B fire 21. B trunk

2. B month 12. B trail 22. A coal
3. A magic 13. A soap 23. B pipe
4. B foot 14. B pocket 24. A pitch
5. A monkey 15. A pencil 25. B coin
6. B clock 16. B train 26. A hammer
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7. B paint 17. A grass 27. A door
8. B bureau 18. A story 28. B church
9. A bird 19. B belt 29. B travel
10. A lemon 20. A kitchen 30. A fish
Note that this is just one potential word list and one potential order. You can do this exercise with any set
of common nouns and you can easily generate a new order (with new judgment pairings) by doing the
following. Make notecards for each of the words, shuffle them, and then randomly sort them into two
boxes or bins (one for A, the other for B). After writing "A" or "B" on each card next to the word (according
to which box it landed in), place all the cards in a stack and then shuffle them thoroughly to get a new
order.
After you've read the entire list, ask students to quickly write down as many of the states in the United
States that they remember (give them about 2 minutes for this task). Then, ask students to turn their
papers over and to write down as many of the words that they can recall from the list you read, in any
order that they want. Give them about 3 or 4 minutes for this task, and then have them score their
answers by providing the word list (see Handout 6.1). Ask students to write an "A" or a "B" next to each
word they recalled according to the scoring sheet (they should cross out any words recalled that were not
on the list). Then, they should count the total number of A and B words recalled. You can tally the results
by making a frequency distribution on the board (i.e., writing down for each person the number of A and B
words remembered) and calculating (or eyeballing) average scores for each condition. If you're pressed
for time or have a large class, you can simply ask students to raise their hands if they remembered more
A than B words, and compare this to the number of students who remembered more B than A words.
Whichever way you score it, students should have recalled many more B than A words.
After scoring, ask students to explain the results. Most will intuitively be able to explain that the B words
were more memorable because they had to think more about the words (and their meaning) in order to
make the judgment of pleasantness. By contrast, making the A judgment (i.e., number of syllables)
required simply saying the word to themselves rather than thinking about what it meant. Thus, this
exercise demonstrates the superiority of coding semantically (i.e., by meaning) over coding
phonologically (i.e., by sound). That is, the deeper and more elaborate the processing of information, the
more likely it is to be recalled. At this point, if students don't already see it, you'll want to highlight the
implications of this experiment for their study habits. The importance of studying actively should now be
crystal clear, and students will no doubt realize that thinking deeply about—and attaching meaning to
(rather than merely rehearsing)—terms and concepts in their courses is the key to effective recall on
exams. Also, you might ask students to explain the purpose of the state-listing task (it was a distracter
task to prevent any of the words from being held in short-term memory, which lasts for about 20 seconds).
Finally, it wouldn't hurt to remind students of the forgetting assignment (if you did it) and how difficult it
was for them to forget something that was encoded as meaningful!
DeRosa, D. V. (1987). How to study actively. In V. P. Makosky, L. G. Whittemore, & A. M. Rogers (Eds.), Activities handbook
for the teaching of psychology: Vol. 2 (pp. 72–74). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Jenkins, J. (1981). Meaning enhances recall. In L. T. Benjamin & K. D. Lowman (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of
psychology (pp. 81–82). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Swinkels, A., & Giuliano, T. A. (2012). An effective project for teaching repeated-measures designs. Poster presented at the
24th Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Society, Chicago, IL.

◄ Return to complete list of Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises for Chapter 6
Activity 6.2 - Demonstrating Simple Memory Principles
27
Michael Wertheimer described an activity that can be used to demonstrate a number of principles related
to memory and forgetting, including the forgetting curve, the effect of meaningfulness, the effect of
distinctiveness (sometimes known as the von Restorff effect), the effect of repetition, and the serial
position effect. When you start the class, divide the students into four groups by assigning each person a
number from one to four. Explain that you are going to read a list of items to them twice and that they will
need to memorize the list. Make sure you tell them not to write the items down. Although you may want to
construct your own list, the following list is similar to that suggested by Wertheimer: Obama, ruj, fet,
textbook, nav, Bush, fulfill, GEF, mandate, fet, 47, tal. The items should be read slowly, clearly, and at a
uniform rate each time they are read. The nonsense syllables need to be both pronounced and spelled.
Finally, shout as loudly as possible the nonsense syllable "GEF." Immediately after completing the
second reading of the list, ask Group 1 to write down all of the items that they can remember. Continue
with your lecture, but after about 3 min ask Group 2 to write down the items. Then, after another 5 min,
ask Group 3 to remember the items. Finally, about 45 min after the initial list presentation, ask Group 4 to
write as many items as they can remember. Make sure that during and between each retrieval by a group
there is no discussion of the items. After you have scored the number of items correctly recalled by each
group and recorded them on the blackboard, you should be able to point out the negatively accelerated
forgetting curve. In addition, an examination of performance on particular items across groups will
indicate the effects of meaningfulness (recall of presidents should be superior to nonsense syllables),
distinctiveness (GEF should show superior recall), repetition (fet should be recalled with a higher
frequency), and the serial position effect.
Wertheimer, M. (1981). Memory and forgetting. In L. T. Benjamin, Jr. & K. D. Lowman (Eds.), Activities handbook for the
teaching of psychology (pp. 75–76). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Activity 6.3 - Sensory Memory

Although most of us are unaware of it, many of our experiences are held very briefly in sensory memory.
This is why, even if we are not paying attention to something we see, we can often recall information
about it if asked within a few seconds.
Before class, find an image with 5 to 8 clearly identifiable animals in it. (This can be easily accomplished
by conducting an Internet image search for the keyword “animals.”) Next, create a slide in your
PowerPoint presentation with the image. Right-click on the image and select “Custom Animation.”
(PowerPoint instructions may vary slightly from computer to computer and across different versions of the
software.) Set the first animation effect to be “entrance: appear” and a second animation effect to be “exit:
disappear.” The setting for “appear” should be “start after click,” and the setting for “disappear” should be
“start after previous.” Set the timing for the second effect to 0.6. If done correctly, in slideshow mode
these steps should cause the image to appear following a mouse click, and then disappear after 600 ms.
When you’re ready to perform the demonstration in class, instruct students to watch the screen carefully,
and to be prepared to answer a question about the image that will briefly appear. When ready, click the
mouse to display the image. As soon as the image is no longer visible, ask students a question about
what they just saw. For example, “What animal was in the bottom left corner of the image?” If the
parameters are set correctly for the image, most students will be able to answer this question easily. Wait
approximately 5 seconds, and then ask the students a similar question about the animals in the image
they saw. Most students will be unable to answer this question correctly. Conclude the activity with a
discussion of how sensory memory for the image allowed students to answer the first question, but that
the sensory memory had already been lost by the time the second question was asked. Importantly,
make sure students understand that the image was only shown for 600 ms, because if it had been shown
28
for longer students could have studied the picture and transferred the resulting information to short-term
memory.

Activity 6.4 - The Limits of Short-Term Memory

This demonstration reveals the limited capacity of short-term memory (approximately 7 ± 2 items by many
accounts) through the use of a digit-span test. Instruct students to take out a sheet of scratch paper and a
pencil. Tell them that you will read a string of unrelated numbers and their task is to memorize those digits
in the exact order presented. After reading the numbers, pause, then signal the students to record their
answers by saying “Go.” Here is a sample list. Read at an even pace and in a monotone voice.
Span of four “Ready? 2,8,3,1 Go.”

Span of five “Ready? 7,4,1,3,9 Go.”
Span of six “Ready? 4,9,7,2,1,5 Go.”
Span of seven “Ready? 5,1,8,3,9,2,6 Go.”
Span of eight “Ready? 1,9,5,6,3,4,7,2 Go.”
Span of nine “Ready? 3,6,2,5,1,9,7,4,8 Go.”
Span of ten “Ready? 6,1,5,4,9,8,3,2,8,7 Go.”
Span of eleven “Ready? 8,9,3,1,6,4,2,7,5,1,3 Go.”
Read the answers or display them on a screen so students can score their performance. Then ask for a
show of hands to indicate the largest memory span they successfully completed. The majority of students
should be successful up to and including the 6-digit span.

Activity 6.5 - The Value of Chunking

The purpose of this demonstration is to illustrate how short-term memory performance can be enhanced
by the use of “chunking” procedures; that is, by grouping items into larger, meaningful units. In the
following two-part demonstration, ask a student to volunteer. Inform the volunteer that he or she will be
presented with a set of items to be memorized in exact order. Then read the following list of letters:
XIBMCIAFBICBSMTV
After a short delay, ask the student to recall as many of the letters as possible.
In the second part of the demonstration, tell the student that you will improve his or her memory with a
little help. Then read the letters in the following “chunked format”:
X IBM CIA FBI CBS MTV
The student should have nearly perfect recall. Grouping the letters reduced the memory task from 16
items to 6 items.

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Activity 6.6 - Memories of 9/11

Ask students to write a brief report about everything they remember when they first heard the news of the
terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001 (although bear in mind that
most of your students would have been elementary school children at the time). You can use this
exercise as a starting point for discussing Roger Brown and James Kulik's research on flashbulb
memories (and you may have to explain what a flashbulb is… ”was?”).
A flashbulb memory refers to memory for a situation in which a person first learned of a very surprising
and emotionally arousing event, often of international significance. Examples of flashbulb memories (for
individuals of various vintage) include the assassination of John F. Kennedy, assassination of Martin
Luther King, the Challenger shuttle explosion, the O.J. Simpson verdict, the death of Princess Diana, the
death of Prince, the Columbine High School shooting, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, or the death of Michael
Jackson. Brown and Kulik (1977) examined flashbulb memory reports of the assassination of JFK and
derived six 'canonical' categories of information that are reported in flashbulb memory reports across
individuals: the location (remembering where you heard the news); the ongoing event (remembering what
you were doing at the time you heard the news); the informant (remembering who told you about the
event); emotional affect in others (noticing the emotional reactions of others); emotional affect in self
(noticing the emotional reactions of oneself); and aftermath/consequentiality (remembering what you did
after you heard the news).
Ask students to now analyze their own memory reports for the six categories of information typically
reported in flashbulb memories. As part of a homework assignment, you may want to have students
collect memory reports from a few of their friends, then analyze the data as a whole for the six categories.
Students will quickly notice that the details of the memory reports may differ, although all tend to report
the same general categories of events.
Brown, R., & Kulik, J. (1977). Flashbulb memories. Cognition, 5, 73–99.

Activity 6.7 - The Self-Reference Effect

An activity described by Forsyth and Wibberly is effective in demonstrating the self-reference effect on
memory. They noted that, based upon studies of constructive processes in memory, schema theories
propose that information is arranged within a system of cognitive groupings or schemas such as event
schemas, which define and provide a structure for social situations, or self-schemas, which reflect one's
individual characteristics. The self-reference effect refers to retrieval superiority for information that is
related to a person's self-schema. Forsyth and Wibberly described how this effect can be demonstrated
using an incidental memory task. Explain to the class that you are gathering data about which adjectives
are most commonly used for self-descriptions. Ask the class to number a sheet of paper from 1 to 20. Tell
them that you will be reading a list of 20 adjectives and if they feel that an adjective is self-descriptive of
themselves, they are to circle the corresponding number of the adjective on their paper. Next, read the
following list of adjectives: forceful, quiet, generous, dominant, tender, loyal, independent,
compassionate, adaptable, courageous, cheerful, secretive, principled, romantic, responsible, dynamic,
forgiving, and careful. After completing the list, talk about some matters related to class for about a
minute, then ask the students to write down as many of the adjectives that they can recall. Then read the
original list of adjectives and have the students calculate the number of descriptive and non-descriptive
adjectives that they recalled. Forsyth and Wibberly reported that the results of this demonstration are
30
usually robust, with students consistently remembering a higher percentage of self-descriptive adjectives.
They indicated that the demonstration is effective in generating discussion of schema and depth-of-
processing theories of memory by noting that self-referent items tend to be processed at deeper levels.
Forsyth, D. R., & Wibberly, K. H. (1993). The self-reference effect: Demonstrating schematic processing in the classroom.
Teaching of Psychology, 20, 237–236.

Activity 6.8 - Schemas and Memory

Schemas (i.e., organized mental frameworks that we rely on to interpret and filter incoming information)
greatly influence the retrieval of information stored in long-term memory. To demonstrate this effect in
your classroom, replicate an exercise suggested by Drew Appleby. Tell students that you are going to
show them a list of 12 words and that they should try to remember them. Then, slowly display the
following words one at a time as you read them aloud:
REST, TIRED, AWAKE, DREAM, SNORE, BED, EAT, SLUMBER, SOUND, COMFORT, WAKE, NIGHT
After you've completed the list, distract your class for 30 seconds or so (to ensure that the words are no
longer held in short-term memory) and then give them 2 minutes to write down as many words as they
can recall. Ask for a show of hands from all those who recalled the word AARDVARK. Your students,
none of whom will have mistakenly recalled AARDVARK, will look at you as if you're crazy. Then ask for a
show of hands for those who remembered SLEEP. Drew Appleby reports that 80 to 95 percent of the
students typically recall the word SLEEP, and are astonished to discover that SLEEP was not on the list
(prove it to them). Asked to explain the effect, most students will intuitively understand that schemas
influenced their recall. That is, because all of the words were associated with each other and related to
the topic of sleep, their schema for "sleep" was invoked and it seemed only natural that it would be on the
list. Thus, this demonstration suggests that schemas can cause us to fabricate false memories that
happen to be consistent with our schemas. You might also want to discuss with students the following
interesting implication: If people sometimes mistakenly remember information because it is consistent
with their schemas, is it possible that they can mistakenly forget information that is inconsistent with their
schemas? Ask students to provide examples from their own lives or from cases they've heard about in the
media.
Appleby, D. (1987). Producing a deja vu experience. In V. P. Makosky, L. G. Whittemore, & A. M. Rogers (Eds.), Activities
handbook for the teaching of psychology: Vol. 2 (pp. 78–79). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Activity 6.9 –
Do We Make Accurate Copies of Events in Our Memories?
It is relatively simple to demonstrate the inaccurate and incomplete nature of some memories. Read the
following story at the beginning of class, asking students to listen carefully because their memory of the
story will be tested later. Five to ten minutes before the end of class, ask students to recall the story
verbatim.
“Monday night, a 17-year-old suburban youth was shot in the abdomen by an unknown gunman.
31
Witnesses claimed the shot was fired from a blue Chevrolet van that moved down the street slowly
until after the shooting, when it turned a corner and disappeared before anyone could get more than
the first two letters from the license plate. The victim dropped out of school in the 10th grade and is
believed to be one of the ‘superior seven,’ a group of teenagers who sell marijuana on street corners
near several local high schools. A spokesperson for the police department declined to say whether the
police believe the shooting is related to the continuing war between rival gangs over territories for
selling drugs. The condition of the victim is described as stable.”
Read several of the recalled stories to the class, and note how memories are reconstructed to be
consistent with the cognitive schemas of the writer. For example, the incident occurred in a suburban area
and no mention is made of sex, race, or ethnicity of the victims, yet you may find such elements included
in the students’ reports. You could also check memory for particular words or phrases, like “suburban
youth,” “shot in the abdomen,” “selling marijuana,” and “letters of the license plate.”

Activity 6.10 - “Psssst…Have You Heard About This Demonstration?”

Doug Bernstein and Sandra Goss suggest an exercise to demonstrate how encoding and retrieval of
information from long-term memory can be disrupted by expectations, prior knowledge, and the
application of schemas. The exercise is a variation on the transmission of rumor, a game often played by
children and a phenomenon often studied by social psychologists (e.g., Allport & Postman, 1947).
Ask 3 to 5 volunteers to leave the classroom, then read a paragraph-length passage to a remaining
volunteer. The passage should be short enough to remember, but detailed enough that the volunteers are
unlikely to remember all the elements of it. Bernstein and Goss suggest the following passage as an
example, although you might want to construct a less nationally-sensitive scenario:
“A Boeing 747 had just taken off from Miami International Airport for Los Angeles when a
passenger near the rear of the aircraft announced that the plane was being taken over by the
People’s Revolutionary Army for the Liberation of the Oppressed. The hijacker held a .357
magnum to the head of Jack Swanson, a flight attendant, and forced him to open the cockpit
door. There, the hijacker confronted the pilot, Jane Randall, and ordered her to change
course for Cuba. The pilot radioed the Miami air traffic control center to report the situation
but then suddenly hurled the microphone at the hijacker. The hijacker fell backward through
the open cockpit door and onto the floor, where angry passengers took over from there. The
plane landed in Miami a few minutes later and the hijacker was arrested.”
The volunteer’s task is to repeat the story to the first newcomer who re-enters the classroom. That person
in turn repeats it to the next volunteer, and so on until the last volunteer hears the story and repeats it to
the class. Each retelling of the story should be loud enough so that all the remaining students in the class
can hear it.
Have students keep track of the errors made in each retelling and use them as a basis for discussing
reconstructive memory. The errors should be quite predictable; the story should get shorter as details are
omitted, some details (such as the female pilot or caliber of the gun) should remain sharp, and overall the
gist of the story should be retained while other details get blurred. Discuss with your students what this
exercise reveals about the operation of the memory system.
Allport, G. W., & Postman, L. (1947). The psychology of rumor. New York: Holt.
Bernstein, D. A., & Goss, S. S. (1999). Constructive memory/schemas: The rumor chain. In L. T. Benjamin, B. F. Nodine, R. M.
32
Ernst, and C. B. Broeker (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology (Vol. 4). Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.

Activity 6.11 - Improving Memory

This exercise asks students to put what they've learned to practical use. For this assignment, students
should target some specific aspect of their memory that they would like to improve, and then apply one or
more memory principles from the text or lecture to make the improvement. Students might, for example,
strive to enhance their performance on exams, to recall important birthdates and anniversaries, to
remember people's names following introductions, or to reduce absentminded actions, such as
misplacing keys or a wallet. Potential memory strategies include the use of established (e.g., Pegword,
method of loci) or home-made mnemonics, eliminating distracters and paying careful attention when
studying, meeting new people, or putting keys down, trying to encode material deeply and by multiple
methods (e.g., by meaning, by self-referencing, and by encoding visually), making better use of retrieval
cues, engaging in active, elaborative rehearsal while reading, applying the SQ3R method, and so on.
Students might also be encouraged (but not required) to consult additional sources for ideas. One
potential resource for this assignment is an excellent book by Kenny Higbee. After implementing their
plan, students should write a short paper in which they report on their experiences. Specifically, students
should describe (a) the aspect of memory they targeted for improvement (and why), (b) the memory
principles or strategies they used (including the rationale behind them), and (c) any results (positive or
negative) from applying these techniques. After grading students' papers, you might want to devote some
class time to discussion so that students can share their successful experiences with others.
Higbee, K. L (1993). Your memory: How it works and how to improve it. New York: Paragon House.

Activity 6.12 - Decay and Interference in Short-Term Memory

This simple exercise uses the Brown-Peterson distracter technique to demonstrate the effects of delay
and interference on short-term memory. Tell students that you want them to remember a sequence of
three consonant letters while counting backwards from a number you provide them. When they're ready,
say, "W T K" and then "701." They should then say "701, 698, 695, 692, 689, 686" and so on. After 15 to
18 seconds, say "write" as a signal to students to recall the three letters. According to Peterson and
Peterson, students should have a fairly difficult time accomplishing this because the counting task
prevents them from rehearsing the letters and thus allows the memory trace to decay. Keppel and
Underwood later argued that the forgetting in the Brown-Peterson task was primarily due to the buildup of
proactive interference. As evidence, they pointed to the fact that students could often remember the
letters during the first trial or two, but had much greater difficulty remembering letters on any subsequent
trials, when proactive interference would develop (i.e., they would have trouble distinguishing between
letters presented earlier and on the current trial). Verify this effect with your students by conducting
several trials. Examples of potential letter/number combinations might include PZX 317, BVQ 421, LFC
991, JHG 187, and SRN 275. Students will be astonished at their atrocious performance, which, if typical
of experiments of this type, should yield about 1 in 10 correct recalls after only 18 seconds of the
distracter task!
Keppel, G., & Underwood, B. J. (1962). Proactive inhibition in short-term retention of single items. Journal of Verbal Learning
and Verbal Behavior, 1, 153–161.
33
Peterson, L. R., & Peterson, M. J. (1959). Short-term retention of individual verbal items. Journal of Experimental Psychology,
58, 193–196.
Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Activity 6.13 - A Quick Review of the Basics of Memory

Ask the class to memorize the following list of words:
bed quilt dark

silence fatigue clock
snoring night toss
tired night artichoke
turn night rest
dream
On average, students will recall about ten items correctly, which is considerably better than the usual
recall rate of about seven words when the words are unrelated. The improvement over average is
attributable to the list's being full of factors that help memory, such as the following:
Primacy effect: Most people recall “bed,” because this word is the first presented. In general, the first bit of
information to enter memory has an advantage, because people rehearse the item more frequently.
Recency effect: Nearly everyone remembers “dream,” because this word is presented last. In general, the
most recent information is better recalled because the information is still fresh in the mind.
Frequency: The word “night” also enjoys a memorial advantage because it is presented three times. The
more we rehearse material, the more likely is the material to enter our memory.
Distinctiveness: Students generally have little trouble recalling “artichoke” because it is distinctly different
from the other words, all of which involve sleep.
Organization: Many students recall “toss” and “turn” consecutively. This illustrates that the mind imposes
an organization on new material; it organizes small units, ``toss'' and ``turn,'' by chunking them into one
larger unit: “toss and turn.”
Reconstruction: Many people “remember” hearing “sleep,” although “sleep” is not included in the list of
words. We tend to fill in the gaps in our knowledge with words or ideas that ought to be there according to
our schemas. Thus memory is not a direct sensory readout of previous experience, but in large part an
inference about what the past must have been like.
Visual imagery: Many students try to remember the words by forming a visual image of a bedroom. They
can then use their “mind's eye” to look around the room, locating objects that were on the list. This
process is a very useful mnemonic device.

34
Activity 6.14 - Crossword Puzzle

Copy and distribute Handout Master 6.2 to students as a homework or in-class review assignment.
Answers for the Crossword puzzle:
Across
7. getting information that is in storage into a form that can be used. Retrieval
10. the memory for events and facts related to oneself. Autobiographical Memory
12. the tendency to remember information at the beginning of a body of information better than the
information that follows. Primacy
13. visual sensory memory, lasting only a fraction of a second. Iconic
14. the brief memory of something a person has just heard. Echoic
15. holding onto information for some period of time. Storage
16. the inability to retrieve memories from much before the age of three. Infantile amnesia
17. the system of memory into which all the information is placed to be kept more or less permanently.
LTM
19. an active system that receives information from the senses, organizes and alters it as it stores it away,
and then retrieves the information from storage. Memory
Down
1. loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term
memories. Anterograde amnesia
2. the ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input. Selective attention
3. the set of mental operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that information into
a form that is usable in the brain’s storage systems. Encoding
4. type of automatic encoding that occurs because an unexpected event has strong emotional
associations for the person remembering it. Flashbulb
5. type of declarative memory containing personal information not readily available to others, such as
daily activities and events. Episodic
6. loss of memory due to the passage of time, during which the memory trace is not used. Decay
8. memory that is consciously known, such as declarative memory. Explicit
9. the ability to access a visual memory for 30 seconds or more. Eidetic imagery
11. the ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus to a stored image or fact. Recognition
18. the very first stage of memory, the point at which information enters the nervous system through the
sensory systems. Sensory

Activity 6.15 - Fill-In-The-Blanks

Copy and distribute Handout Master 6.3 to students as a homework or in-class review assignment.
Answers for Fill-in-the-Blanks—Chapter 6
memory
encoding
storage
35
retrieval
sensory memory
iconic memory
eidetic imagery
echoic memory
short-term memory
selective attention
chunking
maintenance rehearsal
long-term memory
declarative memory
anterograde amnesia
semantic memory
episodic memory
retrieval cue
state dependent
recall
serial position
primacy effect
recency effect
recognition
flashbulb memories
false memory
encoding failure
memory trace
proactive interference
retroactive interference
hippocampus
Alzheimer’s disease

36
▼HANDOUT MASTERS
➢ Handout Master 6.1 Depth of Processing Word List
➢ Handout Master 6.2 Crossword Puzzle
➢ Handout Master 6.3 Fill-in-the-Blanks
37
Handout Master 6.1
Depth of Processing Word List
A B
bike belt
bird bureau
coal church
door clock
fish coin
grass foot
hammer fire
kitchen month
lemon paint
magic pipe
monkey pocket
pencil trail
pitch train
soap travel
story trunk
► Return to Activities
◄ Return to complete list of Handout Masters for Chapter 6
38
Handout Master 6.2
Crossword Puzzle
39
Across
7. getting information that is in storage into a form that can be used.
10. the memory for events and facts related to oneself.
12. the tendency to remember information at the beginning of a body of information better than
the information that follows.
13. visual sensory memory, lasting only a fraction of a second.
14. the brief memory of something a person has just heard.
15. holding onto information for some period of time.
16. the inability to retrieve memories from much before the age of three.
17. the system of memory into which all the information is placed to be kept more or less
permanently.
19. an active system that receives information from the senses, organizes and alters it as it
stores it away, and then retrieves the information from storage.
Down
1. loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-
term memories.
2. the ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input.
3. the set of mental operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that
information into a form that is usable in the brain’s storage systems.
4. type of automatic encoding that occurs because an unexpected event has strong emotional
associations for the person remembering it.
5. type of declarative memory containing personal information not readily available to others,
such as daily activities and events.
6. loss of memory due to the passage of time, during which the memory trace is not used.
8. memory that is consciously known, such as declarative memory.
9. the ability to access a visual memory for 30 seconds or more.
11. the ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus to a stored image or fact.
18. the very first stage of memory, the point at which information enters the nervous system
through the sensory systems.
40
Handout Master 6.3
Fill-in-the-Blanks
1. ________________ is an active system that receives information from the senses,

organizes and alters it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from storage.
2. ______________ is the set of mental operations that people perform on sensory information
to convert that information into a form that is usable in the brain’s storage systems.
3. ______________________ is the process of holding onto information for some period of
time.
4. _______________ is getting information that is in storage into a form that can be used by
the individual.
5. The very first stage of memory is called _____________ ______________, and it is the
point at which information enters the nervous system through the sensory systems.
6. The visual sensory memory, lasting only a fraction of a second is called the
___________________ _______________.
7. The rare ability to access a visual memory for 30 seconds or more is called
__________________ ________________.
8. The ____________ ____________ is a brief memory of something a person has just heard.
9. The memory system in which information is held for brief periods of time while being used
and is also called the working memory is known as ______________ ______________.
10. The ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input is called
________________ ___________________.
11. ________________ is when bits of information are combined into meaningful units, or
chunks, so that more information can be held in STM.
12. The practice of saying some information to be remembered over and over in one’s head in
order to maintain it in short-term memory is called _________________________
______________.
13. The system of memory into which all the information is placed to be kept more or less
permanently is called _______________ _______________.
14. The type of long-term memory containing information that is conscious and known is called
______________ ________________.
15. _________________ ___________________ is the loss of memory from the point of injury
or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term memories.
16. ______________ ________________ is the type of declarative memory containing general
knowledge, such as knowledge of language and information learned in formal education.
17. __________________ __________________ is the type of declarative memory containing
personal information not readily available to others
18. A stimulus for remembering information is called a ______________ _____________.
19. _________________ _______________ memories are formed during a particular
physiological or psychological state will be easier to recall while in a similar state.
20. The type of memory retrieval in which the information to be retrieved must be “pulled” from
memory with very few external cues much like on an essay test is called ______________ .
21. ______________ ______________ effect is the tendency of information at the beginning
and end of a body of information to be remembered more accurately than information in the
middle of the body of information.
22. The ______________ ______________ is the tendency to remember information at the
beginning of a body of information better than the information that follows.
41
23. The ________________ _________________ is the tendency to remember information at
the end of a body of information better than the information ahead of it.
24. The ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus to a stored image or fact—much like
the information on a multiple choice test is called ________________.
25. The type of automatic encoding that occurs because an unexpected event has strong
emotional associations for the person remembering it is called ______________
___________________.
26. ________________ ____________________ syndrome is the creation of inaccurate or
false memories through the suggestion of others, often while the person is under hypnosis.
27. The failure to process information into memory is called __________ _________________.
28. The ____________ ______________ is the physical change in the brain that occurs when a
memory is formed.
29. The memory retrieval problem that occurs when older information prevents or interferes with
the retrieval of newer information is called ____________________________________.
30. ________________ _________________ is a memory retrieval problem that occurs when
newer information prevents or interferes with the retrieval of older information.
31. The __________________ is the area of brain responsible for the formation of LTMs.
32. The primary memory difficulty in ____________ ____________ is anterograde amnesia,
although retrograde amnesia can also occur as the disease progresses.
42
Words for Fill-in-the Blanks
Alzheimer’s disease
anterograde amnesia
chunking
declarative memory
echoic memory
eidetic imagery
encoding
encoding failure
episodic memory
false memory
flashbulb memories
hippocampus
iconic memory
long-term memory
maintenance rehearsal
memory
memory trace
primacy effect
proactive interference
recall
recency effect
recognition
retrieval
retrieval cue
retroactive interference
selective attention
semantic memory
sensory memory
serial position
short-term memory
state dependent
storage
43
▼ VIDEO SERIES
The VIDEO SERIES features over 100 original videos covering the most recent research,
science, and applications across the general psychology curriculum, and utilizing the
latest in film and animation technology. Each 4-6 minute video clip has automatically
graded assessment questions tied to it.
Access www.MyPsychLab.com, and select “Videos.”
Chapter 6 Video Content available:

Video: The Basics: Do You Video: Remember When? (7:39)
Learn how the brain is able to receive and retrieve information when we need it.
Video: The Big Picture: The Woman Who Cannot Forget (4:48)
Hear the story of Jill Price, a woman with a phenomenal ability to remember things.
Video: Special Topics: When Memory Fails (6:55)

Learn about the famous case of “H.M.,” the man whose memory only allowed him to live in 20-second-increments.
Video: Thinking Like a Psychologist: Police Line-Up (5:19)

Learn how stress can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
Video: What’s In It For Me? Making It Stick (5:30)

Perform well on tests by learning about study habits and whether “blocking” or “interleaving” is a better method for
remembering information long term.
44
▼ VISUAL BRAIN
THE VISUAL BRAIN is an interactive virtual brain designed to help students better
understand neuroanatomy, physiology, and human behavior. Thirteen virtual brain
modules bring to life many of the most difficult topics typically covered in the
introductory course. This hands-on experience engages students and helps make
course content and terminology relevant. Modules relevant to the current chapter are
highlighted in bold below.
Access www.MyPsychLab.com, and click on the Student Resources tab.
Select among these modules

▪ Brain Damage and Neuroplasticity
▪ Control of Movement
▪ Drug Addiction
▪ Hunger and Eating
▪ Lateralization and Language
▪ Learning and Memory
▪ Nervous System
▪ Neural Conduction
▪ Perception
▪ Psychiatric Disorders
▪ Sleep and Waking
▪ Stress and Health
▪ Visual System
45
▼ SIMULATIONS
EXPERIMENT AND SURVEY SIMULATIONS allow students to participate in online simulations
of virtual versions of classic psychology experiments, surveys, and research-based
inventories, helping to reinforce what they are learning in class and from their textbook.
Access www.MyPsychLab.com, and select “Simulations.”
Chapter 6 Simulations Content available:

Simulation: Digit Span
Use chunking to increase your working memory capacity and recall series of digits and letters.
Simulation: Serial Position Effect

Test the limits of your working memory with lists.
Survey: What Do You Remember?

Participate in a survey to discover how and what you remember and the strategies you use to aid long and short term
memory.
46
▼WRITING SPACE featuring auto-feedback WRITING PRACTICE
WRITING SPACE helps students master concepts and develop critical thinking through writing.
WRITING SPACE provides a single place within your MyLab to create and track your writing
assignments, access writing resources, and exchange meaningful, personalized feedback
quickly and easily. Plus, WRITING SPACE has integrated access to Turnitin, the global leader in
plagiarism prevention.
Access www.MyPsychLab.com, and select “Writing Space” from the left-hand navigation bar.
Auto-feedback Writing Practice accessible from Writing Space
WRITING PRACTICE prompts within WRITING SPACE offer immediate automated feedback. Each
student submission receives detailed feedback based on the following traits: Development of
Ideas, Organization, Conventions, Voice, Focus and Coherence. Instructors can provide
additional feedback and can adjust the auto-generated grade.
WRITING PRACTICE SAMPLE 6.1
You are reading your textbook and studying for an upcoming exam in psychology. Identify and describe
each step in the process required for remembering information from your textbook in order to do well on
the exam. Discuss a strategy for improving memory and provide an example of how it could help you on
the exam.
Instructor-Created Writing Assignments accessible from Writing Space:
Instructors can create their own writing prompts and grading rubrics, or copy and paste from a
library of sample prompts and rubrics available within this Instructor Manual. Instructors can
provide personalized feedback and grades to students.
INSTRUCTOR-CREATED SAMPLE 6.1
As we’ve learned, our memories are often not as accurate as we assume. Think back to an early memory
of an event (such as a childhood vacation) that you shared with friends or family. Write down as many
details of the memory as you can. Now ask those friends or family members to write down their memories
of the event. In what ways do the memories differ? How can you explain the differences given what you
know about memory?
47

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►FULL CHAPTER RESOURCES

CHAPTER 6 ANSWER KEY

Practice Quiz 6.1

Practice Quiz 6.2

Practice Quiz 6.3

Practice Quiz 6.4

Practice Quiz 6.5

1. b; 2. a; 3. b; 4. d; 5. c; 6. c; 7. c; 8. a; 9. b; 10. a; 11. d; 12. d; 13. a;

Video: Special Topics: When Memory Fails

Video: The Big Picture: The Woman Who

Applying Psychology to Everyday Life: Learning Objectives: 6.14

▲ Return to Chapter 6: Table of Contents

 Animation - Depth of Processing

Learning Objective 6.1 - Identify the three processes of memory.

A. Three processes of memory

Practice Quiz 6.1 Answer Key

II. THE INFORMATION-PROCESSING MODEL: THREE MEMORY SYSTEMS

 Video - What’s In It For Me? Making It Stick

Learning Objective 6.3 - Describe the process of sensory memory.

A. Sensory memory: Why do people do double takes?

B. Short-term memory (STM)

3. Working memory: an active system that processes the information in short-term

4. Short-term vs. working memory

C. Long-term memory (LTM)

Practice Quiz 6.2 Answer Key

III. GETTING IT OUT: RETRIEVAL OF LONG-TERM MEMORIES

 Writing Assignment - Studying and Memory

Learning Objective 6.6 - Identify the effects of cues on memory retrieval.

B. Recall and recognition

D. Automatic encoding: Flashbulb memories

Practice Quiz 6.3 Answer Key

IV. WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT? FORGETTING

 Video - Special Topics: When Memory Fails

Learning Objective 6.10 - Describe the "curve of forgetting."

A. Ebbinghaus and the forgetting curve

Practice Quiz 6.4 Answer Key

➢ Video - Kimberley Cuevas: Learning and Memory in Infants

A. The biological bases of memory

Learning Objective 6.13 - Identify the biological causes of amnesia.

B. When memory fails: Organic amnesia

Practice Quiz 6.5 Answer Key

▲ Return to Chapter 6: Table of Contents

VI. APPLYING PSYCHOLOGY TO EVERYDAY LIFE: HEALTH AND MEMORY

▲ Return to Chapter 6: Table of Contents

VII. CHAPTER SUMMARY

1. b; 2. a; 3. b; 4. d; 5. c; 6. c; 7. c; 8. a; 9. b; 10. a; 11. d; 12. d; 13. a;

▲ Return to Chapter 6: Table of Contents

6.2 Explain how the different models of memory work.

6.3 Describe the process of sensory memory.

6.4 Describe short-term memory, and differentiate it from working memory.

6.6 Identify the effects of cues on memory retrieval.

6.7 Differentiate the retrieval processes of recall and recognition.

6.10 Describe the "curve of forgetting."

6.11 Identify some common reasons people forget things.

6.12 Explain the biological bases of memory in the brain.

6.13 Identify the biological causes of amnesia.

6.14 Explain how sleep, exercise, and diet affect memory.

▲ Return to Chapter 6: Table of Contents

▲ Return to Chapter 6: Table of Contents