Transcript General Psychology Chapter 8 – Memory (Part 2)

General Psychology
Chapter 8 – Memory (Part 2)
Sarah Rach
Storage
Sensory Memory
 Working/Short-Term Memory
 Long-Term Memory

Sensory Memory
George Sperling – flashed these letters for
1/20th of a second
 People could recall only about ½ the letters
 If only one row – with near perfect accuracy
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Iconic Memory
Fleeting photographic memory
 Few 10ths of a second

Our eyes can register an exact representation &
can recall amazing detail
 Longer delay (.5 second) less is recalled
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Our visual screen clears quickly
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So we can gather new images
Echoic Memory
Impeccable, though fleeting
– memory of auditory stimuli
 Boyfriend/Girlfriend
example
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Did you hear what I said???
We can recall echos that
linger 3-4 seconds
Short-Term memory

Limited in duration & capacity
7 bits of information
 Without active processing, they won’t last
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At any given moment we can consciously
process only a very limited amount of
information
 **Activity
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Some think our brains are like…
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Computer
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Attic or Box
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Computers store info permanently
(our brains may or may not do this)
Our brains are slower than computers
But…our brains can do more than one thing at a time
Once filled we can only store more if we discard
something else
Horizon

Limitless
“Memory is not like a
container that
gradually fills up;
it is more like a tree
growing hooks onto
which memories are
hung”
~Peter Russell, The Brain Book, 1979
Stored Memories
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Researchers can not find an exact “place”
where memories are stored
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Rat Experiments
Physical basis of memory (memory trace)
Aplysia – much studied
California sea slug
Of what importance is this??
Memory Trace
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Synapes
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Sites where nerve cells communicate with one
another through their neurotransmitter
messengers
More serotonin
When learning occurs
 At certain synapes
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Become more efficient
 LT Potentiation
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Prolonged strengthening of potential nerve firing
LTP
Drugs that block LTP interfere with learning
 Rats given a drug that enhances LTP
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Will learn a maze with ½ the usual # of mistakes
After LTP- Pass a current through the brain
Won’t disrupt old memories
 Will wipe out very recent memories
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 Experiences
of lab animals & depressed people
 Works like a blow to the head
Think about this…
“If
technological advances
would allow it, would you ever
want to intentionally get rid of
memories of some specific
events?”
Stress Hormones & Memory
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When excited or stressed:
Emotion triggers stress hormones
 More glucose energy becomes available to fuel
brain activity
 Signals the brain that something important has
happened
 The amygdala (two emotion-processing clusters
in the limbic system) boost activity in the brain’s
memory forming area

This arousal causes…
Certain events are seared into the brain
 Memory is disrupted for neutral events that
happen around the same time
 Memories may continue to intrude – again
and again…
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Rape, fire, war
Flashbulb memories
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Clear memory of an emotionally significant
moment or event
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Sometimes an error can occur
More on memory
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Amnesia
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Even those that are not able to form new memories
can learn unconsciously
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It seems that we have 2 memory systems operating at
the same time
Implicit (non declarative memory)
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Loss of memory
Learn and recall how to do something without
consciously recalling it
Explicit (declarative memory)
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Memory of facts and experiences that one can
consciously know and “declare”
The Brain
Hippocampus
 Cerebellum
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Hippocampus
A neural center
 Located in the limbic system
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Two of them
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Where new explicit memories (names, images,
events) are processed here for storage
Above each ear and 1 ½ inches straight in
If one is damaged
Left – trouble remembering verbal info, can still
recall visual designs & locations
 Right – vice versa
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Hippocampus Continued…
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Different functions for sub regions
Associating names with faces
 Spatial mnemonics
 Rear spatial memory grows bigger the longer a
cabbie navigates streets
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Active during slow-wave sleep
Memories are processed & filed for later retrieval
 The greater the activity during this time after
learning something – the better the next day
memory is
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More on the hippocampus…
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Acts as a loading dock
Registers & temporarily holds elements of a
remembered episode
 Then memories migrate fro storage elsewhere
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Temporary processing site for explicit
memories
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Could lose it and still be able to lay down
memories for skills & conditioned associations
Cerebellum
Extends out from the rear of the brain stem
 Plays a key role in forming & storing implicit
(non declarative) memories
 We have a dual memory system
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Helps explain infantile amnesia
Infantile Amnesia
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We do not remember anything explicitly, but
we do have implicit memories
Don’t touch the stove, it’s hot
 Pull the dog’s tail, get a bite
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The reason….?
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Partly because children don’t know enough
words to store the explicit memories (to describe
them) & because our hippocampus is one of the
last brain structures to mature
Retrieval
Memory is more than just encoding & storing
 It is also about recall!
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Ability to retrieve information not in conscious
awareness
Memory – as defined by a psychologist
Any sign that something learned has been
retrieved
 Ability to recognize information
 Ability to relearn more quickly the 2nd time
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Retrieval Cues
Tags, hints, identifying marks on the target
information
 Anchor points you can use to access the
target info when you want to retrieve it later
 Mood, surroundings, seating positions, etc.
 Priming – “wakening of associations”
 Context effects
 Deja vu
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Context Effects
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Get up & go into the other room to do
something… and you can’t remember what it
was…. Hmmmmmmmmm
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Go back into the other room…. And you
remember…. WHY?
Deja Vu
French for “already seen”
 An eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this
before”
 Cues from the current situation may
subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier
experience
 Happens most commonly to well-educated,
imaginative, young adults, especially when
tired or stressed
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Moods & Memories
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State-dependent memory
What we learn in one state may be more easily
recalled when we are again in that state
 Depressed – disrupts encoding
 Drunk – alcohol disrupts storage
 But… they recall it slightly better again when…
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Mood-congruent memories
Good mood = Good memories
 Why our moods persist – cycles…
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“If we remember everything
we should on most occasions
be as ill off as if we
remembered nothing”
What if we remembered everything?
Where we parked the car yesterday
 Our old bosses address
 Our ex-boyfriends dog’s name
 What we ate at 9:30 last Thursday
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A good memory is helpful,
but so is the ability to forget.
Seven sins of Forgetting
Three sins of forgetting
 Three sins of distortion
 One sin of Intrusion
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Three sins of forgetting
1. Absent – mindedness
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inattention to details lead to encoding failure
our mind is elsewhere as we set our cell phone down
2. Transience
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Storage decay over time
Math – use it or lose it
3. Blocking
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Inaccessibility of stored info
We hear a song we love, we feel the name of the singer on
the tip of our tongue, but we experience retrieval failure
Three sins of distortion
1. Misattribution
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Confusing the source of info
Putting words in someone else’s mouth
Remembering a dream as actually happening
2. Suggestibility
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Lingering effects of misinformation
A leading question – “Was the speeding driver looking at his
cell phone before he hit your car?”
Later becomes a false memory (& possible testimony)
3. Bias
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Belief colored recollections
Current feelings toward a friend may color a recalled initial
feeling
 Just fought with him - “I never liked him anyway”
One sin of intrusion
1. Persistence
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Unwanted memories
Sexual assault or other traumatic event
Encoding Failure
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What we fail to encode we will never remember
Young adults
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Older adults
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Brain areas jump into action when they encode new info
Brain areas are less responsive
Helps explain age-related memory decline
Tend to recall less than younger adults… but they usually
remember as well as them when given reminders or a
recognition test
Automatic encoding
Things that not meaningful
Encoding Failure Activity
1.What is the color of the top stripe of the American flag? The
bottom stripe? How many red and how many white stripes
does it have?
2. If you have a watch with mechanical hands, cover the face
and try to recall what it looks like. How many numbers does
it have? Are they Arabic or Roman numerals—or does it
have any numbers at all?
3. Most wooden pencils are not round. How many sides do
they typically have?
4. In what hand does the Statue of Liberty hold her torch?
5. The White House is pictured on the back of a $20 bill. What
is on the back of a $10 bill? A $5 bill? A $1 bill?
6. What four words besides “In God We Trust” appear on most
U.S. coins?
Storage Decay
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Forgetting curve
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Can fade for other
reasons
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Forgetting is often not
memories discarded
but memories un-retrieved.
Initially rapid
Levels off with
time
Spanish example
Accumulated
learning disrupts
our retrieval
Interference
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Learning some items may interfere with retrieving
others, especially when they are similar
Proactive
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Forward-acting interference
Something you learned earlier disrupts your recall of
something new
Phone numbers
Retroactive
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Backward-acting interference
Occurs when new info makes it harder to recall
something learned earlier
passwords
Proactive – Retroactive Interference
Other notes about memory
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Hour before sleep
Good time to commit info to memory
 Not seconds before
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Info presented during sleep
Is registered by the ears
 Without rehearsal – most learning doesn’t occur
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Positive transfer
Knowing something can help learn something
new
 Latin  French
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Motivated Forgetting
People knowingly revise their own histories
 Repression?
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Freud thinks we self-censor
 To minimize anxiety and protect our self-concept
 Many believe this
 Researchers… rarely, if ever
 Traumatic experiences – trouble forgetting
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Memory Construction
We construct our memories as we encode
them
 Also alter our memories as we draw them out
 We filter info & fill in missing pieces
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Misinformation & Imagination Effects
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Misinformation Effect
After subtle misinformation, many people
misremember
 As memories fade with time, misinformation
becomes easier to inject
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Creation of False memories
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Repeated imagining – create false memories
Imagination Inflation
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Occurs partly because visualizing something &
actually perceiving it – activate similar brain
areas
What is the leading word?
Source Amnesia
Also called Misattribution
 Attributing the wrong source of an event we
have experienced, heard about, read about,
imagined
 This & the misinformation effect – at the
heart of many false memories
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Source Amnesia
Authors & songwriters sometimes suffer source amnesia. They
think an idea came from their own creative imagination, when in
fact they are unintentionally plagiarizing something they earlier
read or heard.
**Are any of our ideas truly
original??
What do you think??
Children’s Eyewitness Recall
We can’t be sure how real a memory is by
how real it feels
 Leading words & sentences…
 When questioned using neutral words that
children can understand they can offer
accurate info about what happened and who
was involved
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Especially accurate when…
 Have
not talked to an adult prior
 Their disclosure is made in a 1st interview by a neutral
person who asks non-leading questions
What those committed to protecting wrongly
accused adults & those committed to
protecting abused children agree on:
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Injustice happens
Incest and other sexual abuse happen
Forgetting happens
Recovered memories are commonplace
Memories of things happening before age 3 are
unreliable
Memories “recovered” under hypnosis or the
influence of drugs are especially unreliable
Memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally
upsetting
Improving Memory
Study repeatedly
 Spend more time rehearsing or actively
thinking about the material
 Make the material personally meaningful
 Use mnemonic devices
 Activate retrieval cues
 Minimize interference
 Test your knowledge
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