Myers’

PSYCHOLOGY
2nd Edition for AP

Module 31
Studying and Building Memories
pp. 390-395
Sensory Memory (Encoding)
Short Term Memory (STM)
Three Stages of Memory Processing
 Short Term Memory (STM)
Short Term Memory (“Working Memory”)
Activated memory that holds a few items briefly
Limited in duration and capacity
� About 7 (+/- 2) items for 30 Seconds
� For most it is equal to what they can say in two
seconds
� Better for digits than for letters
� Better for what we hear then what we see
� Look up a phone number, then quickly dial before
the information is forgotten

Effectiveness of working memory is a better predictor

of success than an IQ score
 Short Term Memory (STM)
Central Executive – STM integrates
everything that we are currently thinking about
(and attempting to encode) with everything that
we already know
� If you can tie it to something you already
know, it is easier to keep your attention and
process
� This can also impact how you are taking the
information in as well and blind you to
unique stimuli
� Don’t notice the insult because you don’t
think your boyfriend would ever say
anything mean
Study the chessboard below….
Where is the white knight?
Where is the black queen?
 Short Term Memory (STM)
Multi-Tasking: STM was not built for distractions
When we talk on our phone and drive, we are taxing
the ability of our short term memory.
� Very few people efficiently “multi-task”
� We switch our attention between tasks

Lloyd and Margret Peterson first tested this in 1959.

People were asked to learn a random three consonant
group (CHJ) that had no meaning to them – could not
be initials
� Start at 100 and count backwards and then repeat
the letters
� After three seconds, only half remembered
� After 12 seconds, only 10%
 Level of Processing: Impact on
Memory
Maintenance (Shallowly) Processed
Emphasis on the physical structure of the
stimulus
- will be forgotten quickly (cramming)
- Explains why we remember stories
(analogies) better than simple repetition

Elaborately (Deeply) Processed

Focus on the meaning of the stimulus
- Semantic – placing it with something we
already know
 Effortful Processing
Effortful Processing Strategies
Chunking
Organizing items into familiar, manageable units
- horizontal organization
1776149218121941
Often occurs automatically
- Phone Numbers
Acronyms
- HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior
- ROY G BIV – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue,
Indigo, Violet
- Every Good Boy Does Fine – EGBDF
 Effortful Processing
Effortful Processing Strategies
Imagery
Making mental pictures to help
remember (visualize)
- Nouns are easier to remember than
verbs
Powerful aid to effortful processing,
when combined with semantic encoding
- We tend to remember the good
times as better than what they really
were, and the bad times as worse
than reality
 Effortful Processing
Effortful Processing
Mnemonics
Memory aid that ties information to something
familiar to enhance new learning
- Especially those techniques that use vivid
imagery and organizational devices
- You have to remember a list of words, so you
make up a story using the entire list

Hierarchies
Complex information broken down into broad
concepts and further subdivided into categories and
subcategories
 Level of Processing: Impact on
Memory
Self Reference Effect
The more that the event has to do with ourselves
(or our “group”), the more likely we are to
remember it.
- When we say something, we remember it at a
rate of 70%
- When someone else says something we
remember it at a rate of 20%
- Unless it is about us, then it goes much
higher!
- Parallel Processing: As mentioned before, the
more involved we are in the process, and the
more senses we use, the more likely we are to
remember.
 Distributed Practice
Distributed Practice
To review over a period of time
- Yields better long term retention than massed practice
Spacing
The greater the distance between rehearsal, the more
retention
- Bahrick Study (1993) over nine years foreign language
was studied at intervals ranging from 14 to 56 days
- The longer the interval between learning, the
greater the retention
- Restudying material for the AP Test over an extended
time is more effective than cramming the week before
- The name we read once a month for five months is
more likely to be remembered than the one read five
times in one month
 Distributed Practice
Testing Effect
Recalling information in a way/setting that you will be
required to do in the future.
- Practice tests not only give you an idea of what you
know, but also how well you can retrieve it when the
situation calls for it
- Taking a practice AP test (or reading AP Review
Questions) is more effective than simply looking at
flashcards of vocabulary
- A coach will put their players in a “game situation”
to test their memory under stress
- Actors doing a “dress rehearsal”
Three Stages of Memory Processing
 Long Term Memory (LTM)
Long Term Memory (LTM)
The relatively permanent and limitless
storehouse of the memory system
- We don’t lose forget an event as much as we
forget how to get to where that memory is
stored
- Some new memories can get in the way of
finding old ones
- They do not reside in a single spot, but all
over the brain
 Retaining Information in LTM
Location of Long Term Memories
There is no one single storehouse of memory in the
brain.

Karl Lashley (1950)

Trained rats to learn a maze and then systematically
surgically removed (lesion) parts of their cerebral
cortex
- Retested the memory of the rats
- Noticed a correlation in the more of the brain that
was removed, the harder the time they had
- YET no matter what part was removed, the rats
still remembered part of the maze
Proved memories weren’t stored in specific places
- Connections are made all over the brain.
 Explicit Long Term Memory
Explicit (declarative) Memory
Memory of facts and experiences that one can
consciously know and declare
- Semantic: facts and knowledge
- Episodic: Episodes of your life
- Talked about during “encoding”

Hippocampus: neural center in limbic system that helps

process explicit memories for storage
- Helps form new explicit memories (like a “save”
button)
- Damage to it may cause problems with creating new
memories
- NOT WHERE MEMORIES ARE STORED!!!!
- “Hippo-can-save-it”
 Hippocampus Damage Hurts Explicit Memory
Hippocampus
Damage to the hippocampus can cause explicit memories to
never be sent to long term memory
- Never gets encoded into LTM
Clive Wearing has a type of anterograde amnesia where he
cannot make new long term memories due to damage in his
hippocampus
- His implicit memories seem to be intact
- Can talk, walk, play piano, dress himself, feel emotions,
etc….
 Explicit Memory and the Frontal Lobe
The Frontal Lobe of the brain is where the most complex
thinking happens in the brain
- Think hypothetically / Moral Reasoning
- Sense of Identity / Personality
- It is also the last to develop

Damage to the hippocampus causes problems with

sending memories to this lobe to help allow development
- Left side is more Logical
- damage may cause an with verbal information –
remembering what someone said.
- Right side is Spatial / Feeling
- Damage may cause an inability to remember new
visuals and emotions
It is not technically “forgetting” because the memory was
in fact never made.
 Long Term Memory: Declarative/Explicit
Effortful Processing – consciously attempting to
remember something (studying, flashcards, repetition,
etc..)
Explicit (Declarative) Memories
- Facts and experiences we can consciously
recall/recognize
- “Stuff we know…..”
Semantic Memories – facts, names, faces, trivia,
etc.
- Effectiveness based on how often it is used and
the ability to relate it to something we already
know or are familiar with
- Recognizing differences in our own race/cultural
as opposed to others
 Encoding: Effortful Processing
Explicit “Declarative” Memories
Semantic Encoding
- Easier to remember words in a story (connected) than a random list that have
no obvious way to be connected.
 Encoding: Effortful Processing
Explicit (Declarative) Memories
Episodic Memories events (“episodes”) that have
happened in our lives
- Effectiveness based on many factors during
encoding
- Level of Stress
- Mood / Attitude
- Importance to your life
Each time you recall this memory, it becomes a little
tainted
- Then we put the memory back we are encoding
the “telling of the event” rather than the event
itself
- Opened to suggestibility
 Encoding: Effortful Processing
Explicit (Declarative) Memories
Most memory is thought of as “retrospective” in that the focus is
what has already happened.

Prospective Memories planning for future circumstances that have

not occurred yet
- Remembering you have a test next week
- Planning for homecoming/prom
- Picking up something from the store on the way home that your
parents’ asked for
Largely focused in the frontal lobe of the brain
- An area where teens tend to struggle due to later development
- “I forgot that I was suppose to do that”
- “I forgot we had a test today”
- Like with other memories, dependence on the smartphone may
leave this an underdeveloped area due to a lack of use
- Needing “reminders” and “alarms” in phone