Storage

How we retain the information we encode

Review the three stage process of Memory

Storage and Sensory Memory

George Sterling’s Experiment:1960

• Flash of screen: 1/20 second• Subjects recalled about ½ of letters• 3 tones: top, middle, bottom: played immediately

after visual• Subjects could identify all three

• What does this help prove?• All nine letters available for recall- only for a

moment

Iconic / Echoic Memory

• Iconic: visual “snapshot of great detail”- a photograph like quality lasts only about a second.

• echoic: If you are not paying attention to someone, you can still recall the last few words said in the past three or four seconds.

Storage and Short-Term Memory

• Lasts usually between 3 to 12 seconds.

• Can store 7 (plus or minus two) chunks of information.

• We recall digits better than letters.

Short-term memory exercise.

Storage and Long-Term Memory• long-term memory: no

known limits• Rajan: recited 31,811

digits of pi.(3hrs. 49 min. / or 3.5/second!)

• How? Rhythmic memory: “melodic or jarring”- taps feet, sways right / left

• At 5 years old, memorized the license plates of parents’ guests (about 75 cars in ten minutes). He still remembers the plates to this day.

• Numbers only: average with names, words

Shereshevskii: 1920’sShereshevskii: 1920’s

Short term memory: 70 itemsShort term memory: 70 items Forward / Backward / 15 yearsForward / Backward / 15 years Journalist / boss furious- never took notesJournalist / boss furious- never took notes Asylum: went mad: 15 minutes / 5 years: Asylum: went mad: 15 minutes / 5 years:

all memories ran togetherall memories ran together

How does our brain store long-term memories?

• Memories do NOT reside in single specific spots of our brain.

•They are not electrical (if the electrical activity were to shut down in your brain, then restart- you would NOT start with a blank slate).

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

• The current theory of how our long-term memory works.

•Nerve cell’s genes produce synapse strengthening proteins /enabling LTM formation

•Synapse / neurotransmission•Neural connections gradually strengthen through rehearsal over time

Stress and Memory

• Stress can lead to the release of hormones that have been shown to assist in LTM.

• Similar to the idea of Flashbulb Memory.

Types of LTM

Explicit / Implicit Memory

• Explicit Memory (Declarative)Semantic memory: “facts about the world”

Tenancy to left frontal cortex

Episodic Memory: events in our lives Tendency to right frontal cortex

• Implicit Memory (nondeclarative)

• Procedural memory- riding a bike / horse

The Hippocampus• Damage to the

hippocampus disrupts our memory.

• Left = Verbal memory• Right = Visual / Locations• hippocampus = librarian • Library = our brain• Stores LTM- shelves

elsewhere in cortex

AmygdalaAmygdala

Emotional memoryEmotional memory Traumatic eventsTraumatic events PTSD (war veterans)PTSD (war veterans)

sounds, smells, sounds, smells, conditions etc.conditions etc.

*Hippocampus and *Hippocampus and Amygdale work Amygdale work together to form LTMtogether to form LTM