INTRODUCTION TO MEMORY

AND ITS PROCESS

BY: SYEDA ZOYA IMRAN

ANNAPORNA B H
 CONTENTS:
 INTRODUCTION
 WHAT IS MEMORY
 DEFINITIONS
 DEFINITIONS ACCORDING
TO APA
 HISTORY OF MEMORY
 TYPES OF MEMORY
 MODELS OF MEMORY
 MEMORY PROCESSING

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 INTRODUCTION:
 Memory is the processes by which information is encoded, stored, and
retrieved.
 It is our ability to encode, store, retain and subsequently recall information
and past experiences in the human brain.
 Encoding: a process of making mental representation of information. It can
also mean transferring from short term to long term.
 Is the more or less passive process of retaining information in the brain,
whether in the sensory memory, the short-term memory or the more
permanent long-term memory.
 CONT’N
 Remembering: the process of retrieving what has been stored in short
term or long term memory. The power or process of reproducing or
recalling what has been learned and retained especially through
associative mechanisms .

 The store of things learned and retained from an organism’s activity or

experience as indicated by modification of structure or behavior or by
recall or behavior.
 “
WHAT IS MEMORY ?
 In general terms one can define memory as the use of past experience
to influence or affect human where memory comes from.
 Memory is not located on one particular part of the brain but instead
there is a brain wide process in which different parts of the brain work
in conjunction with one another(distributing process).
 Memory plays a very important role in our learning and psychological
growth. Through memory of our past experiences, we handle new
situations, it helps us in our relearning, problem
 CONT’N
-solving and thinking.
 Human memory involves the ability to both preserve and recover information.
However, this is not a flawless process. Sometimes people forget or
misremember things.
  Cognition: It is the process through which information coming from sense is
transformed, reduced, elaborated, retrieved and used.
  Information: It is the sensory input from the environment.
 For example: when riding a bicycle, the whole process is reconstructed by the
brain in different areas.
 The memory of how to operate the bike comes from one area, the memory of the
street paths comes from another area, the memory of bike safety rules in another
and the nervous feeling when almost falling or being hit comes from another part
of the brain.
 DEFINITIONS
•
 It is the ability or power of our mind to store the past experiences of learning
and utilizing them
at a later stage is known as “Memory” . Memory consist in remembering what has
previously been learned. -Woodworth & Marquis (1948)

 Ryburn defined, ‘Memory is the power that we have to store our experiences

and bring them into the field of our consciousness sometimes after the experiences
have occurred.’

 According to Woodworth, ‘Memory involves learning, retention, recall &

recognition.’
 CONT’N
 Memory is the process of maintaining information over time.” -Matlin,
(2005)
 “The ideal revival, so far as ideal revival is merely reproductive in which
the objects of past experience are reinstates as far as possible in the order
and manner of their original occurrence is known as memory”. -Stout
 Memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order
to use this information in the present’ -Sternberg, (1999).
 Memory is today defined in psychology as the faculty of encoding,
storing, and retrieving information -Squire, (2009)
 DEFINITIONS
ACCORDING TO
APA :

1. The ability to retain information or a representation of past

experience, based on the mental processes of learning or encoding,
retention across some interval of time, and retrieval or reactivation of
the memory.
2. Specific information or a specific past experience that is recalled.
3. The hypothesized part of the brain where traces of information and
past experiences are stored.
 HISTORY OF
MEMORY
WHO INVENTED MEMORY?

 Hermann Ebbinghaus (24 January 1850 – 26 February 1909) was a German

psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory and is known for
his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect.
 He was also the first person to describe the learning curve.
 He was the father of the neo-Kantian philosopher Julius Ebbinghaus.
 HISTORY OF
MEMORY
 The study of human memory stretches back at least 2,000 years to Aristotle’s early attempts to
understand memory in his treatise “On the Soul”. In this, he compared the human mind to a blank
slate and theorized that all humans are born free of any knowledge and are merely the sum of their
experiences.
Aristotle compared memory to making impressions in wax, sometimes referred to as the "storehouse
metaphor", a theory of memory which held sway for many centuries.

 Proponents of the “tabula rasa” (blank slate) thesis favour the nurture side of the nature versus
nurture debate when it comes to aspects of personality, intelligence and social and emotional
behaviour.

 The idea first surfaced in a treatise of Aristotle, but then lay dormant for over a thousand years
until developed by the 11th Century Persian philosopher Avicenna, and then John Locke’s
classic statement of the theory in the 17th Century.

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 CONT’N
 Sigmund Freud revived the idea in the 20th Century, depicting personality traits as being
formed by family dynamics.
In antiquity, it was generally assumed that there were two sorts of memory: the “natural
memory” (the inborn one that everyone uses every day) and the “artificial memory” (trained
through learning and practice of a variety of mnemonic techniques, resulting in feats of memory
that are quite extraordinary or impossible to carry out using the natural memory alone)

 The 18th Century English philosopher David Hartley was the first to hypothesize that
memories were encoded through hidden motions in the nervous system, although his physical
theory for the process was rudimentary at best.

 William James in America and Wilhelm Wundt in Germany, both considered among the
founding fathers of modern psychology, both carried out some early basic research into how
the human memory functions in the 1870s and 1880s.

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 CONT’N
 In 1881, Théodule-Armand Ribot proposed what became known as Ribot's
Law, which states that amnesia has a time-gradient in that recent memories
are more likely to be lost than the more remote memories.
 However, it was not until the mid-1880s that the young German philosopher
Herman Ebbinghaus developed the first scientific approach to studying
memory. He did experiments using lists of nonsense syllables, and then
associating them with meaningful words, and some of his findings from this
work.
such as : concepts of the learning curve and forgetting curve
his classification of the three distinct types of memory
I. sensory
CONT’N
II. short-term
III. long-term
remain relevant to this day.

 The German evolutionary biologist Richard Semon first proposed in 1904 the idea that
experience leaves a physical trace, which he called an engram, on specific webs of
neurons in the brain.

 The British psychologist Sir Frederick Bartlett is considered one of the founding
fathers of cognitive psychology, and his research in the 1930s into the recall of stories
greatly influenced later ideas on how the brain stores memories.

 The Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield’s work on the stimulation of the brain with
electrical probes in the 1940s and 1950s
 CONT’N
Initially in search of the causes of epilepsy, allowed him to create maps of the sensory and motor
cortices of the brain that are still used today, practically unaltered. He was also able to summon up
memories or flashbacks by probing parts of the temporal lobe of the brain.

 As computer technology developed in the 1950s and 1960s, parallels between computer and
brain processes became apparent, leading to advances in the understanding of the encoding,
storage and retrieval processes of memory.

 The change in the overall study of memory during the 1950s and 1960s has come to be known as
the “cognitive revolution”, and led to several new theories on how to view memory, and yielded
influential books by George Miller, Eugene Galanter, Karl Pribram, George Sperling and
Ulric Neisser. In 1956, George Miller produced his influential paper on short-term memory
and his assessment that our short-term memory is limited to what he called “the magical number
seven, plus or minus two”.
 CONT’N
 In 1968, Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin first described their modal, or multi-
store, a model of memory - consisting of a sensory memory, a short-term memory and a
long-term memory - which became the most popular model for studying memory for many
years.

 Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart offered an alternative model, known as the levels-of-
processing model, in 1972.

 In 1974, Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch proposed their model of working memory,
which consists of the central executive, visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop as a
method of encoding.

 The pioneering research on human memory by Endel Tulving from the 1970s onwards has
likewise been highly influential. He was the first to propose two distinct kinds of long-term
memory, episodic and semantic.
 CONT’N

 During the 1980s and 1990s, several formal models of memory were
developed that can be run as computer simulations, including the Search of Associative
Memory (SAM) model proposed by Jerome Raaijmaker and Richard Shiffrin in 1981.

 Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) model of James McClelland, David

Rumelhart and Geoffrey Hinton's in 1986.

 And various versions of the Adaptive Control of Thought (ACT) model developed by
John Anderson in 1993.

 Nowadays, the study of human memory is considered part of the disciplines of

cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and the interdisciplinary link between the two
which is known as cognitive neuroscience.
TYPES OF
MEMORY
 TYPES OF
MEMORY

The three major classifications of memory that the scientific community deals
with today are as follows:
1. Sensory Memory
2. Short-term Memory
3. &Long-term Memory.
 SENSORY
MEMORY
 Sensory Memory Sensory memory is the earliest stage of memory.
 During this stage, sensory information from the environment is stored for
a very brief period of time, generally for no longer than a half-second for
visual information and 3 or 4 seconds for auditory information.
 We attend to only certain aspects of this sensory memory, allowing some
of this information to pass into the next stage - short-term memory.
 or example, the ability to look at something and remember what it looked
like with just a second of observation is an example of sensory memory.
 SHORT-TERM
MEMORY
 Short-term memory, also known as active memory, is the information we
are currently aware of or thinking about.
 In Freudian psychology, this memory would be referred to as the
conscious mind.
 Paying attention to sensory memories generates the information in short-
term memory.
 Most of the information stored in active memory will be kept for
approximately 20 to 30 seconds.
 While many of our short-term memories are quickly forgotten, attending
to this information allows it to continue on the next stage - long-term
memory.
 CONT’N
 An often cited figure is plus or minus seven items, based on the results
of a famous experiment on short-term memory.
 In an influential paper titled "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or
Minus Two," psychologist George Miller suggested that people can
store between five and nine items in short-term memory.
 More recent research suggests that people are capable of storing
approximately four chunks or pieces of information in short-term
memory
 LONG-TERM
MEMORY.

 Long-Term Memory Long-term memory refers to the continuing

storage of information.
 In Freudian psychology, long-term memory would be called the
preconscious and unconscious.
 This information is largely outside of our awareness, but can be called
into working memory to be used when needed.
 Some of this information is fairly easy to recall, while other memories
are much more difficult to access.
 TYPES OF LONG
TERM MEMORY
Long-term memory is usually divided into two types - declarative (explicit) memory
and procedural (implicit) memory.
1. Declarative includes all of the memories that are available in consciousness.
 Declarative memory can be further divided into episodic memory (specific
events) and semantic memory (knowledge about the world).

2. Procedural memory involves memories of body movement and how to use

objects in the environment.
 How to drive a car or use a computer are examples of procedural memories.
 MODELS
OF
MEMORY
There ae 4 models of memory. Which includes:

1) Levels of Processing (LoP)

2) Transfer Appropriate Processing (TaP)
3) Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)
4) Information Processing Model Stimuli
 LEVELS OF
PROCESSI-
NG (LOP)
 LoP States that the quality of memory is based on the degree that information
is processed.
 Example: examples • Last night’s TV show Quality means that memories are–
Properly stored ,Easily recalled &Not quickly forgotten.
 Rehearsal – Mental techniques used to remember information

 Two Types of Rehearsal

 Maintenance – Repeating information over and over ,No connections, & Rote
memorization of facts.
 Elaborative – Relating new and old information ,Builds connections &More
effective over time
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 Transfer Appropriate
Processing (TaP)

 Transfer-appropriate processing (TAP) is a type of state-dependent memory specifically

showing that memory performance is not only determined by the depth of processing
where associating meaning with information strengthens the memory. but by the
relationship between how information is initially encoded and how it is later retrieved.

 States that memory quality increases if retrieval process matches original encoding
process.

 An example of TAP can be compared to the theory of natural selection presented by

Darwin in the section above. This means that if a certain species is "fitter" than the other
species, then that fitter species is more likely to continue to adapt to future environmental
situations.
 PARALLEL DISTRIBUTED
PROCESSING (PDP)

 PDP Memories exist in a “network.’’

 New experiences alter this network and change one’s knowledge base Robin
Squirrel Roadrunner Flamingo Birds Elephant Mammals Platypus Parrot Lay
Eggs Crocodile.
 The more connections = information stored longer.
 Parallel processing – *Portions of network activate simultaneously.
* Helps draw inferences Robin Squirrel
Roadrunner Flamingo Birds Elephant Mammals Platypus Parrot Lay Eggs
Crocodile.
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 INFORMATION
PROCESSING MODEL
STIMULI
 Information Processing Model Stimuli must pass through sensory memory,
short-term memory, and long-term memory in order to be stored well in
memory Sensory ,STM &LTM Stimuli.
 Stage 1 – Sensory Memory
• Holds large amounts of information very briefly.
 Stage 2 – Short Term Memory (STM)
• 7 +/- 2 item memory span.

 Stage 3 – Long Term Memory (LTM)

• Unlimited capacity (hypothetically) •
• Duration: 18+ seconds to forever
 THANKS!

Any questions?

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 Memory processing

Memory is the processes that is used to

acquire, retain, and later retrieve
information.
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Three domains
1. Encoding
2. Storage
3. Retrieval

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 Encoding

⊡ Encoding is the process of getting information into

memory.
⊡ The information or stimuli never gets encoded, it will
be remembered.
⊡ Encoding requires paying attention to information and
linking it to existing knowledge in order to make the
new information meaningful and thus easier to
remember.

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 Continue

⊡ Encoding is the first stage of the memory process

⊡ Encoding occurs when information is translated into a
form that can be processed mentally.
⊡ Information from the environment is constantly
reaching your senses in the forms of stimuli.
⊡ Encoding allows you to change the stimuli so that you
may put it into your memory.

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 Continue

⊡ It is similar to librarians classifying books before

placing them on a shelf, As librarians encode/label
books so patrons to easily locate them, you
encode/label information before placing the
information into your memory.

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 Ways of encoding

⊡ Simply receiving sensory input is not sufficient to

encode information. You must attend to and process
that input.
⊡ Encoding that information occurs through both
automatic processing and effortful processing.
⊡ Automatic processing occurs without any conscious
awareness.
⊡ It occurs effortlessly, automatically, without you
having to think about it.

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 Continue
⊡ Examples includes details like time, space, frequency,
personal experience, and some motor skills learning.
⊡ You are always encoding the events of your life.
⊡ Every day you encode events and can remember what
happened, at least for a while.

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 Types of Encoding

⊡ There are three types/ways of encoding information

1. Visual (picture)
2. Acoustic (sound)
3. Semantic (meaning)

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 Visual Encoding

⊡ If you were to read over this list of words: house, tree,

truth, book, value.
⊡ Later you were asked to recall the words from this
list, you would probably have an easier time recalling
the words house, tree, and book,
⊡ And a more difficult time recalling the words truth
and value.

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 Continue

⊡ The human brain can recall images (mental pictures) more easily
than words alone.
⊡ When you read the words house, tree, and book you created
images of these things in your mind. 

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 Acoustic encoding

⊡ Acoustic encoding is the processing and encoding of sound,

words, and other auditory input for storage and later retrieval.
⊡ Acoustic encoding is the process of remembering something that
you hear. You may use acoustic by putting a sound to words or
creating a song or rhythm. 

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 Continue

⊡ Learning the alphabet or multiplication tables can be

an example of acoustic. If you say something out loud
or read aloud, you are using acoustic.

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 Semantic Encoding

⊡ Semantic encoding is the processing and encoding of

sensory input that has particular meaning or can be
applied to a context.
⊡ Various strategies can be applied such as chunking
and mnemonics to aid in encoding, and in some cases,
allow deep processing, and optimizing retrieval.

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⊡ For example, "destination" and "last stop" technically
mean the same thing, but people of semantics analyze
their subtle shades of meaning.

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 Storage

• Once the information has been encoded, we somehow

have to retain it.
• Our brains take the encoded information and place it
in storage.
•  Storage is the creation of a permanent record of
information.

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⊡ In order for a memory to go into storage (i.e., long-
term memory), it has to pass through three distinct
stages:
1.  Sensory Memory, 
2. Short-Term Memory,
3.  Long-Term Memory.
These stages were first proposed by Richard Atkinson
and Richard Shiffrin (1968)..

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⊡ Their model of human memory, called Atkinson and
Shiffrin’s model, is based on the belief that we
process memories in the same way that a computer
processes information.

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 Sensory memory

⊡ Sensory memory is the part of memory where any information is

first registered.
⊡ Although sensory memory has a large capacity, it corresponds
approximately to the initial 200-500 milliseconds after an item is
perceived.
⊡ A simple example of sensory memory is to look at an item, and
remember what it looked like with just a second of observation,
or memorization.

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 Characteristics of Sensory Memory [SM]

⊡ Storage of information on SM is irrelevant of attention to the stimulus.

⊡ Information in SM is stored in specific modality. For instance, auditory
information is only stored in the echoic memory, and visual information
are stored in iconic memory.
⊡ Information stored in SM is in high resolution and detail oriented.
⊡ Sensory modality is really brief, and memory is continuously replaced
by new memory once the previous information decays.
⊡ Information once lost from SM is gone for good and there is no way to
recover it.
Different SM store might have different durations.

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Types of Sensory Memory

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⊡ Iconic memory : The type of memory that stores image, visual
information, which has been perceived for a small duration is
called iconic memory. It was the first sensory modality to be
investigated.
⊡ Echoic memory : The type of sensory memory that briefly
stores sounds, auditory information, which has been perceived
for a small duration, is called echoic memory. 
⊡ Haptic Memory : The type of sensory memory that briefly
stores tactile sense of touch is called haptic memory.
Experiencing pressure, itching, and pain throughout the body
follows various pathways, which comprises
the somatosensory system, and is stored in haptic memory.

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 Short term Memory

⊡ Short-term memory (STM) is a temporary storage system that

processes incoming sensory memory.
⊡ The terms short-term and working memory are sometimes used
interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same.
⊡ Short-term memory is more accurately described as a
component of working memory.
⊡ Short-term memory takes information from sensory memory
and sometimes connects that memory to something already in
long-term memory.

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 Continue

⊡ Short-term memory storage lasts 15 to 30 seconds.

Think of it as the information you have displayed on
your computer screen, such as a document,
spreadsheet, or website.
⊡ Then, information in STM goes to long-term memory
(you save it to your hard drive), or it is discarded (you
delete a document or close a web browser).

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 Continue

⊡ Examples of short term memory include where you parked your

car this morning, what you had for lunch yesterday, and
remembering details from a book that you read a few days ago

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 Long-term memory

⊡ Long-term memory (LTM) is the continuous storage of

information. Unlike short-term memory, long-term memory
storage capacity is believed to be unlimited.
⊡ It encompasses all the things you can remember that happened
more than just a few minutes ago.
⊡ One cannot really consider long-term memory without thinking
about the way it is organized. 
⊡ A semantic network consists of concepts, and as you may recall
from what you’ve learned about memory, concepts are categories
or groupings of linguistic information, images, ideas, or
memories, such as life experiences.

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 Types of LTM

⊡ Implicit memory : Its often referred to as nondeclarative

memory, does not require the conscious or explicit recollection
of past events or information, and the individual is unaware that
remembering has occurred. Example  singing a familiar song,
typing on your computer keyboard, and brushing your teeth. 
⊡  Explicit memories: are those we consciously try to
remember, recall, and report. For example, if you are studying
for your chemistry exam, the material you are learning will be
part of your explicit memory.

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61
 Retrieval

⊡ Retrieval is the process of recalling stored information

from memory.
⊡ Basically, it is getting information out of your long-
term memory and returning it to your conscious mind
A classic example of retrieval practice is using flashcards as a study
tool. Sometimes called the “testing effect,” retrieval practice in
teaching is not limited to quizzes or exams, but can include any
exercise where students attempt to retrieve what they have learned
from their memory.

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⊡ There are mainly two main types of memory Retrieval
 Recognition
 Recall
1.Serial recall
2. Free recall
3. Cued call

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 Recognition

⊡ Recognition memory refers to the ability to identify as familiar a

stimulus or a situation that has been encountered previously.
⊡ the ability to identify information as having been encountered
previously. For example, a few days after taking a foreign
language vocabulary test, a student might recognize one of the
test words on a homework assignment yet be unable to recall its
meaning.

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 Recall
⊡ The information must be retrieved from memories. In
recognition, the presentation of a familiar outside
stimulus provides a cue that the information has been
seen before.
⊡ A cue might be an object or a scene—any stimulus
that reminds a person of something related.
⊡ Recall may be assisted when retrieval cues are
presented that enable the subject to quickly access the
information in memory.

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 Patterns of Memory Retrieval

⊡ Memory retrieval can occur in several different ways, and there

are many things that can affect it, such as how long it has been
since the last time you retrieved the memory, what other
information you have learned in the meantime, and many other
variables.
⊡ Some effects relate specifically to certain types of recall. There
are three main types of recall studied in psychology: serial recall,
free recall, and cued recall.

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⊡ Serial Recall : People tend to recall items or events in the order
in which they occurred. This is called serial recall and can be
used to help cue memories.
⊡  Free Recall : Free recall occurs when a person must recall
many items but can recall them in any order. It is another
commonly studied paradigm in memory research.
⊡ Cued Recall : Cues can facilitate recovery of memories that
have been "lost." In research, a process called cued recall is used
to study these effects.

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 Conclusion:

⊡ Memory refers to the psychological processes of

acquiring, storing, retaining, and later retrieving
information.
⊡ There are three major processes involved in memory:
encoding, storage, and retrieval.
⊡ Human memory involves the ability to both preserve
and recover information. However, this is not a
flawless process

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 REFERENCE

 Cognitive Psychology- Pearson

⊡ lumenlearning/waymaker-psychology
⊡ Boundless psychology: “Memory retrieval: Recognition and Recall ”
⊡ Obsidianlearning.
⊡ The Processing of Memories (PLE: Memory): Forgetting and
Retention.
⊡ https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-memory-2795006
⊡ https://dictionary.apa.org/memory
⊡ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02523/full
 Thank you

ANY QUESTIONS?

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