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A. The goal of the chapter is to explain how you usually remember so much, and why you
forget some of what you have known
1. Memory, a type of information processing, is the capacity to store,
encode, and retrieve information
B. Ebbinghaus Quantifies Memory
1. Ebbinghaus made a cogent argument for empirical investigation of
memory and developed a brilliant methodology to study it
a) Ebbinghaus used nonsense syllables and rote learning to study
what he thought was pure memory
b) Non-sense syllables are meaningless three-letter combinations
consisting of a consonant, followed by a vowel, followed by a
consonant. Ebbinghaus felt that these meaningless
combinations were not contaminated by previous learning.
c) Rote learning is memorizing by mechanical repetition, as when
memorizing a list of words
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d) In his methodology, Ebbinghaus learned lists of nonsense
syllable to a criterion performance level, in his case perfect
memory. He would then distract himself for an interval by
studying other lists, and then relearn the original list.
Ebbinghaus called the difference between the time to learn the
list originally and the time to relearn the list as savings.
e) Ebbinghaus, and many psychologists that followed him,
assumed that there was only one type of memory. This
assumption turned out to be incorrect.
C. Types of Memory
1. Implicit and Explicit Memory
a) Implicit memory is that which becomes available without
conscious effort
b) Explicit memory is that in which the individual makes a
conscious effort to recover information
2. Declarative and Procedural Memory
a) Declarative memory involves the recollection of facts and events
b) Procedural memory involves the recollection of how to do
things
c) Knowledge compilation is the ability to carry out sequences of
activity without conscious intervention. Knowledge
compilation makes it difficult to share procedural knowledge.
D. An Overview of Memory Processes
1. All memory requires the operation of three mental processes:
a) Encoding, the initial processing of information that leads to
representation in memory
b) Storage, the retention over time of encoded information
c) Retrieval, the recovery of the stored information at a later time
2. Mental traces are the mental representations of individual memories
II.Sensory Memory
A. Sensory Memory refers to the initial memory processes involved in the momentary
preservation of fleeting impressions of sensory stimuli. Each of your sensory modalities has
a sensory memory or sensory register that extends the availability of information acquired
from the environment
B. Iconic Memory
1. Iconic memory is sensory memory in the visual domain
2. A visual memory, or icon, lasts about half a second
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3. Iconic memory is not the same as eidetic imagery, or photographic memory,
which holds images in memory much longer than iconic memory.
Eidetic imagery is rarely found in adults
C. Echoic Memory
1. Echoic memory is sensory memory for sounds
2. Echoic memories are easily displaced by new information that is similar
to the sensory experience that gave rise to the memory
3. The suffix effect, where a similar sound impedes memory by replacing
a sensory memory in the final digit in echoic memory, is an example of
the displacement of echoic memories
4. Categorization influences echoic memory because what organisms
believe that they are hearing determines the relevance and importance
of the memory
III. Short-Term Memory and Working Memory
A. Definitions
1. Short-term memory is a built-in mechanism for focusing cognitive
resources on a small set of mental representations
2. Working memory is a broader concept of the types of memory processes
that provide a foundation for the moment-by-moment fluidity of
thought and action
B. The Capacity Limitations of Short-Term Memory
1. The limited capacity of short-term memory enforces a sharp focus of
attention
2. George Miller proposed that seven, plus or minus two, was the “magic
number” that characterized the limits of short-term memory
C. Accommodating to Short-Term Memory Capacity
1. Despite the severe limitations of short-term memory, individuals are
able to enhance the functioning of short-term memory in several ways:
a) Rehearsal involves the rapid repetition of information that is
designed to keep it in short-term memory
b) Chunking involves the grouping of information into
meaningful units that can then occupy a single digit of short-
term memory
c) The high speed of the retrieval process from short-term
memory
2. Rehearsal and chunking both relate to the way in which you encode
information to enhance the probability that it will remain or fit in
short-term memory
D. Working Memory
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1. Working memory, which subsumes classic short-term memory and
also allows retrieval of existing memories, is comprised of three
components:
a) A phonological loop, which holds and manipulates speech-
based information
b) A visuospatial sketchpad, which performs the same types of
functions as the phonological loop for visual and spatial
information
c) A central executive, which is responsible for controlling
attention and coordinating information from other
subsystems
2. Incorporating short-term memory under working memory helps
reinforce the idea that short-term memory is a process, not a place
3. Working memory span is a measure of the capacity of working memory
4. Working memory helps maintain your psychological present
IV. Long-term Memory: Encoding and Retrieval
A. Definitions
1. Long-term memory is the storehouse of all the experiences, events,
information, emotions, skills, words, categories, rules, and judgments
that have been acquired from sensory and short-term memories
2. Long-term memory is best when there is a good match between
encoding and retrieval conditions
B. Context and Encoding
1. Encoding specificity suggests that memories emerge most efficiently
when the context of retrieval matches the context of encoding
2. The Serial Position Effect suggests that the first and last items in a series
will be remembered better than items in the middle and is comprised
of two separate effects:
a) The Primacy Effect suggests that the first items learned in a
series will be remembered better than others
b) The Recency Effect suggests that the last items learned in a
series will be remembered better than others
c) Contextual Distinctiveness suggests that the distinctiveness of
an item in a series may explain both the primacy and the
recency effects
C. Retrieval Cues
1. Recall involves the reproduction of information to which you were
previously exposed
2. Recognition refers to the realization that a certain stimulus event is one
you have seen or heard before
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3. Retrieval cues are the stimuli available as you search for a particular
<br /> memory
a) Retrieval cues can be provided externally by the environment,
or generated internally by associations and physical states
b) Retrieval cues are more straightforward and more useful for
recognition dm for recall
4. Episodic and Semantic memory are two types of declarative memory
a) Episodic memories preserve, individually, the specific events
that you have personally experienced
(i) All memories begin as episodic memories
b) Semantic memories are generic, categorical memories, such as
the meanings of words and concepts
5. Interference occurs when retrieval cues do not point effectively to one
specific memory
a) Proactive interference occurs when information acquired in the
past makes it more difficult to acquire new information
b) Retroactive interference occurs when the acquisition of new
information makes it harder to remember older information
D. The Processes of Encoding and Retrieval
1. Memory functions best when encoding and retrieval processes match
2. Levels-of-Processing theory suggests that the deeper the level at which
information is processed, the more likely it is to be committed to
memory
a) A difficulty with levels-of-processing theory is that it is not
always possible to specify exactly what makes certain
processes “shallow” or “deep”
3. Processes and Implicit Memory
a) Transfer-appropriate processing suggests that memory is best
when the type of processing carried out at encoding transfers
to the processes required at retrieval
(i) Implicit memory is assessed using one of four tasks:
(a) Word fragment completion
(b) Word stem completion
(c) Word identification
(d) Anagrams
b) Priming is a process in which the first experience of the word
primes memory for later experiences, and is used to assess the
degree of implicit memory
c) These four implicit memory tests rely on a physical match
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between the original stimulus and the information given at
test
d) Category association relies on meaning or concept rather than
physical match
4. Research suggests that if a specific type of processing is used to
encode information, that information will be retrieved most efficiently
when the retrieval method uses the same type of analysis
E. Improving Memory for Unstructured Information
1. Information that is not meaningful is difficult to remember
2. Strategies for improving encoding include elaborative rehearsal and
mnemonics
a) Elaborative rehearsal refers to elaboration on the material to
enrich encoding, such as inventing a relationship that makes
an association less arbitrary
b) Mnemonics are devices that encode a long series of facts by
associating them with familiar and previously encoded
information
(i) Method of loci associates objects with some sequence
of places with which the individual is familiar
(ii) Acrostic-like mnemonics use the first letter of each word
to cue a response
(iii) Acronym mnemonics are instances in which the letter of
a word stands for a name or other piece of
information
3. The key to learning arbitrary information is to encode information in a
way that provides yourself with efficient retrieval cues
F. Metamemory
1. Metamemory refers to implicit or explicit knowledge about memory
abilities and effective memory strategies
2. Feelings-of-knowing are subjective sensations that the information is
stored somewhere in memory
a) The cue familiarity hypothesis suggests that people base their
feelings of knowing on their familiarity with the retrieval cue
b) The Accessibility Hypothesis suggests that people base their
judgments on accessibility of partial information from
memory
V. Structures in Long-Term Memory
A. Memory Structures
1. An essential function of memory is to draw together similar
experiences to enable you to discover patterns in your interaction with
the environment. This ability to categorize experience is one of the
most basic abilities of thinking organisms.
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2. Concepts are mental representations of the categories formed by the
individual. Concepts may represent objects, activities, properties,
abstract ideas, and relations.
3. Prototypes are averages across the pool of exemplars, shifting slightly
each time a new exemplar is encountered
a) People respond more quickly to typical members of a category
than to more unusual ones
b) People find the average member of a category, even when it is
an average face, most pleasant
4. Concepts do not exist in isolation
a) Basic level refers to a hierarchical level at which people best
categorize and think about objects>
b) Schemas are conceptual frameworks or clusters of knowledge
regarding objects, people, and situations.
(i) These knowledge packages encode complex
generalizations about the individual’s experience of
the structure of the environment.
(ii) Schemas represent the individual’s average
experience of situations in the environment, and shift
with changing life events
B. Remembering as a Reconstructive Process
1. Information that cannot be remembered directly may be reconstructed,
based on more general types of stored knowledge
2. Reconstructive Memory is not 100 percent accurate. The reconstructed
memory is often different from the real occurrence.
3. Distortions in reconstructive memory involve three kinds of
reconstructive processes:
a) Leveling, or simplifying the story
b) Sharpening, or highlighting and overemphasizing certain
details
c) Assimilating, or changing of details to better fit the
individual’s own background or knowledge
4. Eyewitness Memory is quite vulnerable to distortion from post event
information
a) Individuals may be unable to discriminate between original
sources of memory traces
b) Research reinforces the belief that memories are often collages,
reconstructed from different elements of the individual’s past
experiences
c) Post event information can impair eyewitness memories even
when the witnesses are made explicitly aware that the
experimenter has attempted to mislead them
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d) When people are repeatedly exposed to the misleading
postevent information, they become even more likely to report
false memories as real
VI. Biological Aspects of Memory
A. Searching for the Engram
1. Lashley concluded that the elusive engram–a physical memory
representation in the brain –did not exist in any localized regions but
that it was widely distributed throughout the entire brain
2. Four major brain structures are involved in memory:
a) Cerebellum, essential for procedural memory, memories
acquired through repetition, and classically conditioned
responses
b) Striatum, a complex of structures in the forebrain; the likely
basis for habit formation and stimulus-response connections
c) Cerebral cortex, responsible for sensory memories and
associations between sensations
d) Amygdala and hippocampus, largely responsible for declarative
memory of facts, dates, names, and emotionally significant
memories
B. Amnesia
1. Amnesia is the failure of memory over a prolonged period
2. Selective impairment of memory suggests that different regions of the
brain are specialized for two types of knowledge, with hippocampal
damage most often impairing explicit memories
C. Brain Imaging
1. Research shows disproportionately high brain activity in the left
prefrontal cortex for encoding of episodic information and in the right
prefrontal cortex for retrieval of episodic information
2. Functional MRI scans reveal that the more strongly areas in the
prefrontal cortex and parahippocampal cortex light up during scans,
the better participants are later able to recognize scenes or words
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Ask the class to assume that they have short-term memory that lasts only a minute. What
would a day in their life be like?