MEMORY

Scenario
Where is Dead Sea Located and What is
it famous for?
 Never exposed to the information

 Even if exposed to the information, not

registered in a meaningful manner.

 Originally knew the location or reason, you

may still be unable to recall it because of a

failure to retain it.
 Failure might also be related to inability to

retrieve information learned earlier.

Memory
 The process by which we encode, store, and retrieve information

 Encoding (Putting in): Initial process of recording information in a

form usable to memory.
 Storage (Retaining): Maintenance of material saved in memory.
 Retrieval (Recovering): Material in memory storage has to be
located and brought into awareness to be useful.
 How memory Functions?
Three system Approach to Memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin)

 There are different memory storage systems or stages through

which information must travel if it is to be remembered.
 There are three separate memory stores each system has a
different function. Memories entre the various systems in a
specific order.
Sensory Memory
Sensory memory (brief impressions of sensory stimuli)
 The first storehouse of the information the world presents to us. The initial,

momentary storage of information, lasting only for an instant.

 Information consists of representation of raw sensory stimuli.

 A momentary flash of lightning and the sting of a pinprick are stimulation of

exceedingly brief duration, but they may nonetheless provide important

information that can require a response.
Iconic memory reflects information from the visual system.
Echoic memory stores auditory information coming from the ears.
 Sensory memory can store information for only a very short time (last for few

seconds only). If information does not pass into short-term memory, it is lost.
 Iconic memory seems to last less than a second, and echoic memory typically

fades within two or three seconds.

 Despite the brief duration of sensory memory, its precision is high.

 Sensory memory can store an almost exact replica of each stimulus to which

it is exposed.
Sensory Memory
Sensory memory operates as a kind of
snapshot that stores information— of a
visual, auditory, or other sensory nature
—for a brief moment in time. Each
snapshot, immediately after being taken,
is destroyed and replaced with a new
one. Unless the information in the
snapshot is transferred to some other
type of memory, it is lost.
 Short Term Memory
Short-term memory (link between rapidly changing sensory
memory and long standing long term memory)
 The information we attend to goes from sensory memory to short
term memory where we focus on meaning of information.
 The specific process by which sensory memories are transformed
into short-term memories is not clear.
 Some theorists suggest that the information is first translated into
graphical representations or images, and others hypothesize that
the transfer occurs when the sensory stimuli are changed to
words.
 Unlike sensory memory, which holds a relatively full and detailed,
short-lived representation of the world, short-term memory has
incomplete representational capabilities.
 Here the maximum length of retention is relatively short (holds
information for 15 to 25 seconds when nothing is done; unless it is
transferred to long-term memory).
 Short Term Memory
George Miller’s “Magical Number Seven”(1956)
Capacity: Information that can be held in short-term memory has
been identified as seven items, or “chunks,” of information, with
variations up to plus or minus two chunks
Chunk
A meaningful unit of information that can be stored in short-term
memory.
 A chunk can be individual letters or numbers, permitting us to hold
a seven-digit phone number (such as 226-4610) in short-term
memory.
 But a chunk also may consist of larger categories, such as words
or other meaningful units.
 Chunks can vary in size from single letters or numbers to
categories that are far more complicated.
For example, consider the following list of 21 letters:
PBSFOXCNNABCCBSMTVNBC
 List exceeds seven chunks, it is difficult to recall the letters after
Transfer of Material from Short to Long Term
Memory

Rehearsal
 The repetition of information that has entered short-term memory.
Rehearsal accomplishes two things
1. As long as the information is repeated, it is maintained in short-term
memory.
2. Rehearsal allows us to transfer the information into long-term memory.

 Transfer of material from short to long term memory depends upon the type of
rehearsal.
 Repetitive/Maintenance Rehearsal
 Simple rehearsal of numbers or words like phone numbers by just repeating
them over and over, while looking for some number, will make them current
in short-term memory but it will not necessarily be placed in long-term
memory.
 As soon as we stop punching in the phone numbers, the number is likely to be
replaced by other information and will be completely forgotten.
 Transfer of Material from Short to
Long Term Memory
Elaborative rehearsal
 By this method information is more likely to be transferred into long term memory

 Elaborative rehearsal occurs when the information is organized and

associated in some fashion with information already in the long-term

memory.
 The organization might include expanding the information to make it fit into a

logical framework, linking it to another memory, turning it into an image, or

transforming it in some other way.
For example, a list of vegetables to be purchased at a store could be woven together
in memory as items being used to prepare an elaborate salad, could be linked to
the items bought on an earlier shopping trip, or could be thought of in terms of the
image of a farm with rows of each item.
 By using organizational strategies such as these—called mnemonics —we can

vastly improve our retention of information.

Mnemonics (pronounced “neh MON ix”) are formal techniques for organizing
information in a way that makes it more likely to be remembered.
For example
when we learn the rhyme “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and
November . .,”
Arithmetic: A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream
Working Memory
 STM is also referred to as working memory and defined as a set of temporary
memory stores that actively manipulate and rehearse information.
 WM is not an independent way station into which memories arrive, either to
fade or to be passed on to long-term memory, it is an active relay station.
 WM is like an information-processing system that manages both new
material gathered from sensory memory and older material that has
been pulled from long-term storage.
 WM help to keep information in an active state briefly so that we can do
something with the information.
Examples
When we’re doing a multistep arithmetic problem in our heads, storing the
result of one calculation while getting ready to move to the next stage.
figure a 20% tip in a restaurant by first calculating 10% of the total bill and
then doubling it
 Working memory contain a central executive processor that is involved
in reasoning and decision making.
 Central executive processor coordinates three distinct storage-and-
rehearsal systems: the visual store, the verbal store, and the episodic
buffer.
Working Memory
 Working memory aids in the recall of information, it uses a
significant amount of cognitive resources during its operation.
 Stress can reduce the effectiveness of working memory by
reducing its capacity.
 This can make individual less aware of surrounding, e.g using cell
phone while driving. If a phone conversation requires thinking, it
will burden working memory and leave drivers less aware of their
surroundings (Sifrit, 2006; Strayer & Drews, 2007).
Long Term Memory
Long-term memory ( a permanent store house of memories)
 Stores information on a relatively permanent basis, although it
may be difficult to retrieve.
 Storehouse of almost unlimited capacity
 Like hard drive, information in long-term memory is filed and
coded so that it can be retrieved when needed.
For example, people with certain kinds of brain damage have no
lasting recall of new information received after the damage
occurred, although people and events stored in memory before
the injury remain intact (Milner, 1966).
Short and Long Term Memory is Separate

Serial Position Effect

 In which the ability to recall information

in a list depends on where in the list an

item appears.
Primacy effect - In which items presented
early in a list are remembered better.
Recency effect - In which items presented
late in a list are remembered best
 Explicit and Implicit Memory
Explicit Memory
Intentional or conscious recollection of information, e.g remembering
a name or date we have learned or encountered previously.
Implicit Memory
Memories of which people are not consciously aware but that can
affect subsequent performance and behavior.
e.g jumping out of the path of an automobile coming toward us as we
walk down the side of a road. A feeling of vague dislike for an
acquaintance, without knowing why we have that feeling, may be
a reflection of implicit memories.
 Components
or Modules of
LTM

Declarative Memory
Procedural Memory
Factual information: names, faces,
(non-declarative memory)
dates, and facts, such as “a bike has
two wheels.” Skills and habits, such as
riding a bike.
Information about things
Information about how to
do things
Semantic Memory
General knowledge and facts about the
world, as well as the rules of logic that
are used to deduce other facts.
Such as telephone dialing codes of
different areas, Memoree as incorrect
spelling of memory

Episodic Memory
Events that occur in a particular time,
place, or context, personal knowledge
Such as recall of learning to ride a bike,
first ever adventure of life.
Semantic Networks
 Mental representations of clusters of interconnected
information.
 Key organizational tool that allows us to recall detailed
information from LTM, is the associations that we build
between different pieces of information.
 Activating one memory triggers the activation of related
memories in a process known as spreading activation
For example, seeing a fire engine may activate our
recollections of other kinds of emergency vehicles, such as
an ambulance, which in turn may activate recall of the
related concept of a vehicle. And thinking of a vehicle may
lead us to think about a bus that we’ve seen in the past
 Levels of Processing
 The theory of memory that emphasizes the degree to which new material is
mentally analyzed.
 The amount of information processing that occurs when material is initially
encountered is central in determining how much of the information is
ultimately remembered.
 The greater the intensity of its initial processing, the more likely we are to
remember it.
 At shallow levels, information is processed merely in terms of its physical
and sensory aspects (appearance, size, shape of information). For
example, we may pay attention only to the shapes that make up the letters
in the word dog .
 At an intermediate level of processing, the shapes are translated into
meaningful units, in this case, individual letters a viewed. Those letters are
considered in the context of words, and specific phonetic sounds may be
attached to the letters. So we focus on sound combinations that words
have.
 At the deepest level of processing, information is analyzed in terms of its
meaning. We may see it in a wider context and draw associations between
the meaning of the information and broader networks of knowledge. For
Why we Forgot?
 May not have paid attention to the material in the first place—a
failure of encoding, e.g draw coin of five
 Non-use of information i.e Decay. If the information in memory is
not used or rehearsed, it will, eventually be forgotten. Memory
fades due to the mere passage of time. Information is therefore
less available for later retrieval as time passes and memory, as
well as memory strength, wears away. When we learn something
new, a neurochemical “memory trace” is created.
 Interference -The phenomenon by which information in memory
disrupts the recall of other information.
 Cue-dependent forgetting- when there are insufficient retrieval
cues to reawaken information that is in memory. For example, you
may not be able to remember where you lost a set of keys until
you mentally walk through your day, thinking of each place you
visited.