You think it’s good? Well, you’re wrong.

MEMORY

WHICH IS THE REAL PENNY?

DEF: forming a memory code

Requires attention: focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli or events

Attention is selective; acts as a filter

ENCODING

Craik and Lockhart (1972) propose incoming info can be processed at different levels

3 levels for verbal info.:

1: Structural encoding: shallow processing that emphasizes the physical structure of the stimulus

LEVELS OF PROCESSING

Phonemic encoding: emphasizes what a word sounds like

Semantic encoding: emphasizes meaning of verbal input; thinking about the objects and actions the word represents

Levels of Processing Theory: deeper levels of processing result in longer lasting memory codes

LEVELS OF PROCESSING CONTINUED

Elaboration: linking a stimulus to other info at the time of encoding

Helps enhance semantic encoding

Involves thinking of examples to illustrate the idea

ENRICHING ENCODING

Creating visual images to represent words to be remembered

Allan Paivio: easier to form images for concrete words

Dual-coding theory: holds that memory is enhanced by forming semantic and visual codes, since either can lead to recall

VISUAL IMAGERY

DEF: deciding how or whether info is personally relevant

It is easier to remember something if it is meaningful to you

SELF-REFERENT ENCODING

Storage is maintaining info in memory over time

STORAGE: MAINTAINING

INFORMATION IN MEMORY

DEF: preserves info in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second

Gives additional time to recognize stimulus

Visual and auditory memory trace decays after ¼ of a second

SENSORY MEMORY

STM is a limited-capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed info for up to 20 seconds

Rehearsal: process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about the info

SHORT-TERM MEMORY

Ability to recall decays considerably after only 15 seconds

This is due to time-related decay and interference from competing stimuli

DURABILITY OF STORAGE

1956: George Miller publishes “Magical Number 7” paper

Claims you can store 7 items (+ or – 2) in STM

You can increase capacity by Chunking: grouping familiar stimuli and storing as a single unit

CAPACITY OF STORAGE

Alan Baddeley: “Working memory” consists of 3 parts:

1: Phonological rehearsal loop (ex: reciting a phone #)—only 2 seconds of info

2: Visuospatial sketchpad: allows to temporarily hold and manipulate visual images

3: Executive control system: handles info as you engage in reasoning and decision making

STM AS “WORKING MEMORY”

DEF: an unlimited (virtually) capacity store that can hold info over lengthy periods of time

LONG-TERM MEMORY

Flash-bulb memories: unusually vivid and detailed recollections of momentous events

Hypnosis induced memories

ESB triggering long-lost memories

LONG-TERM MEMORY PERMANENT?

Dominant thought today is that STM is a tiny and constantly changing portion of LTM

STM AND LTM SEPARATE

HOW IS KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTED AND

ORGANIZED IN MEMORY?

Clustering: tendency to remember similar or related items in a group

Conceptual hierarchy: multilevel classification system based on common properties among items

CLUSTERING AND CONCEPTUAL HIERARCHIES

Schema: an organized cluster of knowledge about a particular object or event abstracted from previous experience with the object or event

SCHEMAS

Script: organizes what people know about common activities

A kind of schema

SCRIPTS

DEF: consists of nodes representing concepts, joined together by pathways that link related concepts

Spreading activation: naturally thinking of related words

SEMANTIC NETWORKS

PDP models assume that cognitive processes depend on patterns of activation in highly interconnected computational networks that resemble neural networks

PDP models assert that specific memories correspond to particular patterns of activation in these networks

CONNECTIONIST NETWORKS AND PARALLEL DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING

(PDP)

RETRIEVAL: GETTING INFORMATION OUT OF

MEMORY

DEF: temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by the feeling that it’s just out of reach

Similar memories are interfering

TIP-OF-THE-TONGUE PHENOMENON

Context cues facilitate the retrieval of info.

Remembering the origin of the thought

REINSTATING THE CONTEXT OF AN EVENT

Distortions in recall occur b/c subjects reconstruct a story to fit w/ their established schemas

Theories: overwriting, interference, and…

RECONSTRUCTING MEMORIES AND MISINFORMATION EFFECT

Def: process of making attributions about the original memories

Source-monitoring error: when a memory derived from a source is misattributed to another source

Reality monitoring: process of deciding whether memories are based on external or internal sources

SOURCE-MONITORING