Memory Chapter 6 Part I

1. MemoryChapter 6Part I William G. Huitt Last revised: May 2005

2. Summary • A human being is inherently • biological • conditioned by the environment • gathering data about the world through the senses and organizing that data • emotional • intelligent

3. The Cognitive System Cognition can be defined as "the act or process of knowing in the broadest sense; specifically, an intellectual process by which knowledge is gained from perception or ideas” (Webster's Dictionary).

4. The Cognitive System Central to the development of psychology as a scientific discipline • Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory (1879) • Dominate approach within psychology today • Can be compared/contrasted with • Behavioral view • Psychoanalytic view • Humanistic view • Social Cognition view

5. Stimulus (S) Organism (O) Response (R) The Cognitive System The cognitive learning theory is represented as an S-O-R paradigm. The organism is treated as an active processor of information.

6. The Cognitive System In the behavioral model, an external stimulus either • elicits a naturally occurring response; • is associated with a response as a result of conditioning; or • changes the probability a voluntary response will occur again.

7. The Cognitive System In the cognitive model, the learning process begins when an external stimulus activates a sensory receptor cell. This model shows an external stimulus activating a sensory receptor cell that results in the generation of a “sensory memory.”

8. Memory • Psychologists think of memory as involving three processes • Encoding • Transforming information into a form that can be stored in short-term or long-term memory • Storage • The act of maintaining information in memory • Consolidation • A physiological change in the brain that must take place for encoded information to be stored in memory • Retrieval • The act of bringing to mind material that has been stored in memory

9. Stages of Memory • Atkinson-Shiffrin model • Consists of three different, interacting memory systems • Sensory memory • Short-term memory • Long-term memory

10. Stages of Memory

11. Stages of Memory

12. Sensory Memory • Sensory memory is affiliated with the transduction of energy. • The memory system that holds information coming in through the senses for a period ranging from a fraction of a second to several seconds • Visual sensory memory--less than ½ second • Auditory sensory memory--lasts 2 to 3 seconds

13. Short-term Memory • Also called working memory--the mental workspace a person uses to keep in mind tasks being thought about at any given moment • Limits • 5 + 2 units (earlier thought to be 7 + 2 • 15-30 seconds without rehearsal • Chunking • Grouping information to make it easier to remember

14. Short-term Memory • Getting information into STM • Attention • Keeping information in STM • Organization (advance organizer) • Repetition (maintenance rehearsal) • An interruption to repetition can cause information to be lost in just a few seconds • Displacement • The event that occurs when short-term memory is holding its maximum and each new item entering short-term memory pushes out an existing item

15. Long-term Memory • The relatively permanent memory system with a virtually unlimited capacity • Elaborative rehearsal • A technique used to encode information into long-term memory by considering its meaning and associating it with other information already stored in long-term memory

16. Methods of Elaboration There are several examples of elaboration that are commonly used in the teaching/ learning process: Imaging Creating a mental picture

17. Methods of Elaboration There are several examples of elaboration that are commonly used in the teaching/ learning process: Ideas or things to be remembered are connected to objects located in a familiar location Method of loci--(locations)

18. Methods of Elaboration There are several examples of elaboration that are commonly used in the teaching/ learning process: Ideas or things to be remembered are connected to specific words (e.g., one-bun, two-shoe, three-tree, etc.) Pegword method

19. Methods of Elaboration There are several examples of elaboration that are commonly used in the teaching/ learning process: Information to be remember is arranged in a rhyme (e.g., 30 days hath September, April, June and November, etc Rhyming (songs, phrases)

20. Methods of Elaboration There are several examples of elaboration that are commonly used in the teaching/ learning process: The first letter of each word in a list is used to make a sentence (the sillier, the better) Initial letter

21. Long-term Memory • Some experts believe that there are two main subsystems within long-term memory • Declarative memory • Nondeclarative (procedural) memory

22. Long-term Memory • Declarative memory • The subsystem within long-term memory that stores facts, information, and personal life experiences • Two types of declarative memory • Semantic memory • The subpart of declarative memory that stores general knowledge; a mental encyclopedia or dictionary • Brain-imaging studies show that the range of activity for semantic memory is larger in the left than in the right hemisphere

23. Long-term Memory • Declarative memory • The subsystem within long-term memory that stores facts, information, and personal life experiences • Two types of declarative memory • Episodic memory • The subpart of declarative memory that contains memories of personally experienced events • Researchers have demonstrated that some people who have suffered selective damage to their long-term semantic memory can still learn and remember using episodic memory

24. Long-term Memory • Nondeclarative memory (also called implicit or procedural memory) • The subsystem within long-term memory that consists of skills acquired through repetitive practice, habits, and simple classically conditioned responses

25. Long-term Memory • Eidetic imagery • The ability to retain the image of a visual stimulus several minutes after it has been removed from view • Some studies show that about 5% of children apparently have something akin to photographic memory • Virtually all children with eidetic imagery lose it before adulthood

26. Long-term Memory • Flashbulb memories • An extremely vivid memory of the conditions surrounding one’s first hearing the news of a surprising, shocking, or highly emotional event • Pillemer • Argues that flashbulb memories do not constitute a different type of memory altogether • Suggests that all memories can vary on the dimensions of emotion, consequentiality, and rehearsal

27. Long-term Memory • Flashbulb memories • Neiser and Harsch • Questioned university freshmen about the Challenger disaster the following morning • When the same students were questioned again 3 years later, one-third gave accounts that differed markedly from those given initially, even though they were extremely confident of their recollections

28. Levels-of-Processing Model • Proposed by Craik and Lockhart • A model of memory as a single system in which retention depends on how deeply information is processed • With the shallowest levels of processing, a person is merely aware of the incoming sensory information • Deeper processing (elaboration) takes place only when the person does something more with the information, such as forming relationships, making associations, attaching meaning to a sensory impression, or otherwise engaging in active elaboration on new material

29. Levels-of-Processing Model • Craik and Tulving • Had participants answer yes or no to questions asked about words just before the words were flashed to them for 1/5 of a second • Participants had to process the words visually, acoustically, or semantically • The test required shallow processing for the first question, deeper processing for the second question, and still deeper processing for the third question • Later retention tests showed that the deeper the level of processing, the higher the accuracy rate of memory

30. Remembering • Three kinds of memory tasks • Recall • A measure of retention that requires a person to remember material with few or no retrieval cues, as in an essay test • Trying to remember someone’s name, recalling items on a shopping list, memorizing a speech or a poem word for word, and remembering • May be made a little easier if cues are provided to jog memory • Sometimes serial recall is required; that is, information must be recalled in a specific order • Research suggests that, in free recall tasks, order associations are more resistant to distractions than meaningful associations

31. Remembering • Three kinds of memory tasks • Recognition • A measure of retention that requires a person to identify material as familiar, or as having been encountered before • Multiple-choice, matching, and true/false questions are examples of recognition test items • The main difference between recall and recognition is that a recognition task does not require you to supply the information but only to recognize it when you see it • Recent brain-imaging studies have discovered that the hippocampus plays an extensive role in memory tasks involving recognition, and the degree of hippocampal activity varies with the exact nature of the task

32. Remembering • Three kinds of memory tasks • Relearning • Measuring retention in terms of the percentage of time or learning trials saved in relearning material compared with the time required to learn it originally; also called the savings method • Savings score • The percentage of time or learning trials saved in relearning material over the amount of time or number of learning trials required for the original learning • College students demonstrate the relearning method each semester when they study for comprehensive final exams

33. Nature of Remembering • Memory as a reconstruction • Elizabeth Loftus • Believes that what a person normally recalls is not an exact replica of an event • Rather, a memory is a reconstruction • Reconstruction • A memory that is not an exact replica of an event but has been pieced together from a few highlights, using information that may or may not be accurate

34. Nature of Remembering • Distortion in memory • Occurs when people alter the memory of an event or an experience in order to fit their beliefs, expectations, logic, or prejudices • The tendency to distort makes the world more understandable and enables people to organize their experiences into their existing systems of beliefs and expectations • Bahrick and others • Found that 89% of college students accurately remember the A’s they earned in high school, but only 29% accurately recall the D’s

35. Nature of Remembering • Sir Frederick Bartlett • Studied memory using rich and meaningful material learned and remembered under more lifelike conditions • Concluded that people systematically distort the facts and the circumstances of experiences • Information already stored in long-term memory exerts a strong influence on how people remember new information and experiences

36. Nature of Remembering • Schemas • The integrated frameworks of knowledge and assumptions a person has about people, objects, and events, which affect how the person encodes and recalls information • Schemas influence what people notice and how they encode and recall information • When we encounter new information or have a new experience related to an existing schema, we try to make it fit or be consistent with that schema • To do this, we may have to distort some aspects of the information and ignore or forget other aspects

37. Nature of Remembering • Memory and culture • Cognitive psychologists found that we more easily remember stories set in our own cultures than those set in others • In one study, researchers told women in the United States and Aboriginal women in Australia a story about a sick child • Participants were randomly assigned to groups for whom story outcomes were varied • Aboriginal participants better recalled the story with the native healer, while U.S. women were more accurate in their recall of the story in which a physician treated the girl