Memory

Memory Chapter Nine

What is Memory? 

Maintenance of learning over time  

What good is remembering if you can’t recall it? Declarative, Procedural, Episodic 

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Flashbulb Memories

Information Processing 

Encoding  Storage  Retrieval

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Sensory Memory  Short-Term Memory  Long-Term Memory

Encoding 

Automatic (Implicit) vs. Effortful (Explicit) Processing 

Rehearsal Effects 

Maintenance Rehearsal  Interference

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Elaborative Rehearsal Ebbinghaus  Forgetting Curve

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How we encode 

Distributed Rehearsal 

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Spacing Effect

Serial Position Effect 

Primacy and Recency Effect  Graph

What we encode 

Semantic Encoding 

Organizing  

Chunking Hierarchies

Acoustic Encoding  Visual Encoding 

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Mnemonics 

Peg Word Mnemonic

Storage 

Sensory Memory 

Iconic Memory 

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Echoic Memory

Short-Term Memory 

Miller’s Magic Number 7+2 

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Eidetic Memory

Maintenance Rehearsal

Long-Term Memory 

Effectively Limitless

Retrieval 

Recognition vs. Recall 

Retrieval cues  

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Context Effects 

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Tip-of-the-Tongue Semantic priming Context Dependent Memory

State Effects 

State Dependent Memory  Mood Congruent Memories

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Stroop Effect

Biology of Memory 

“Memory is Reconstructive Not Reproductive”  Lashley (1950) 

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Penfield (1969) 

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Motor Cortex stimulation

Doty (1998) 

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Removed cortex of rat’s who had learned a maze

Memory “defies comprehension”

Synaptic Changes  

Aplysia – release of serotonin Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) 

more receptors more NT

More Bio 

Stress Hormones 

Release of these hormones improves memory  Flashbulb memory

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Implicit (Procedural) & Explicit (Declarative) Memories 

Oliver Sacks  Jimmie & Anterograde Amnesia  These people can learn procedures, but not recall learning them!!  Yes, this is Memento!  Retrograde Amnesia

Brain Structures and Memory 

Hippocampus 

Lateralized like the Hemispheres!!

Amygdala  Frontal Lobes 

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Coordinate various structures

Cerebellum 

Thompson et al  Found path from Cerebellum to brainstem for creating an association

Forgetting 

Schacter’s Seven Principles 

Forgetting  Absent-Mindedness (Inattention)  Transience (Decay)  Blocking (Tip of the Tongue)

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Distortion  Misattribution  Suggestibility (Loftus)  Bias

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Intrusion  Persistence (NOT being able to block out a painful memory)

Forgetting 

Encoding Failure 

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Storage Decay 

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Pennies, Letters on the Phone etc. .. Ebbinghaus (1885)

Retrieval Failure  

Proactive vs. Retroactive Interference Repression?

Memory Construction 

Memory Is Reconstructive NOT Reproductive   

Misinformation Effect Imagination Effect False Memory Syndrome (FMS) 

False Memories actually “light up” different parts of the brain!!  Hippocampus lights up equally – actual memories light up the left temporal lobe, but false memories did not!!

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Eileen Franklin

Children and Memory Accuracy