Memory Loss and Memory Feats Clarity of our memories that are surprising and significant events, called

d flashbulb memories You remember where you were on 9/11 because of this Brain is saying "Capture this!"

Information Processing Analogy: Memory is like computer's information-processing system To remember any event requires that we: Get the information into our brain (encoding) Retain that information (storage) Later get back to it (retrieval) Translates keystrokes (input) into an electronic language (just like brain encodes sensory information into a neural language) The computer permanently stores a lot of information on a desk, which can be retrieved later How it's not like a computer Our memories are less literal and more fragile Brain is slower but does many things at once

Analogy:

Three-stage processing model (Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin) Three stages We first record to-be remembered information as a fleeting sensory memory From which is processed into a short-term memory bin Where we encode it for long-term memory and later retrieval Limited and fallible Bombarded with information, we cannot possibly focus on everything at once We have to focus our attention on certain incoming stimuli - usually important Get displayed on our mental screen as conscious short-term memories Rapidly decay unless used or rehearsed

Problems of memory:

Working memory Focuses more on how we attend to, rehearse and manipulate information in temporary storage Analogy: Like RAM, integrates information coming in from our keyboard with that retrieved from long-term storage on the hard drive Includes a verbal and a visual component We can talk (verbal processing) while driving (visual processing) 1

How We Encode Automatic Processing Unconscious encoding of information (like space, time and frequency) and of well-learned information (like word meanings) Ex: Memory for the route you walked to your last class is handled Occurs effortlessly, difficult to shut off When you hear or read a familiar word in your native language, (insult or compliment) it is virtually impossible not to register its meaning automatically After practice, some effortful processing becomes more automatic (reading from right to left) Effortful Processing Learning of this chapter's concepts requires effortful processing Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort When learning novel information such as names, we can boost our memory through rehearsal (conscious repetition) The amount remembered depends on the time spent learning Even after we learn material, additional rehearsal (overlearning) increases retention Rehearsal will not encode all information equally well, sometimes repeating information isn't enough Point to remember: for novel verbal information, practice (effortful processing) makes perfect Effortful processing helps explain these phenomena: Next-in-line effect: seldom remember what the person said or done if we are next Information before sleep, is seldom remembered Taped information that is played while asleep is registered by ears, but we don't remember Spacing effect is a phenomenon that explains that we retain information better when our rehearsal is distributed over time The longer the space between practice sessions, the better the retention is for up to 5 years later Spreading out learning (over a semester or a year) rather than over short terms should also help Spaced study does beat cramming, those who learn quickly also forget quickly People given a list of words and immediately asked to recall demonstrate the serial 2

position effect They remember the last and first items better than they do those in the middle What We Encode (like typing info into computer) Encoding Meaning Memory is affected by the way you stored it When processing verbal information for storage, we usually encode its meaning (we associate it with what we already know or imagine) We tend not to remember things exactly as they were, but we remember what we encoded We recall not the literal text but the mental model we constructed from it Visual encoding - the encoding of picture images. Acoustic encoding - The encoding of sounds, especially the sound of words Enhances the memorability and seeming truth of rhyming aphorisms Semantic encoding - the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words Compared with learning nonsense material, learning meaningful material required only one-tenth the effort Rephrasing what we read and hear into meaning full terms benefits memory self-reference effect - we remember adjectives (that people tell us) about ourselves better than we remember adjectives about other people Encoding Imagery Imagery is a mental picture, a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding Earliest memories almost always involve visual imagery We remember words that lend themselves to picture images better than we remember abstract, low-imagery words Encoding something visually and semantically is more easily remembered (two codes are better than one) Memories and emotions We recall our experiences with mental snapshots of our best and worst moments rosy retrospection - people tend to recall events such as a camping holiday more positively than they evaluated them at the time Mnemonics are memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices Unusual associations made to aid memory, often not logi/cal Only use if you havent learned it yet 3 We have excellent recall for information we can relate to ourselves

Ex: ROY G. BIV, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

Organization Information for Encoding Meaning and imagery enhance our memory partly by helping us organize information Mnemonic devices help organize material for our late retrieval We more easily recall information when it's organized into meaningful units Remember information best when it's organized into personally meaningful arrangements Aids our recall of unfamiliar materials Hierarchies Hierarchies composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts, we can retrieve information efficiently Principle Learning (learning targets) - overall view of material to be learned is developed so material is better organized Elaboration - the process of attaching a maximum number of associations to an item to be learned so that it can be retrieved more easily - attention grabbers- try to relate to your own life By using the mnemonic technique of acronyms, we recall unfamiliar materials better Chunking - organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occur automatically

Storage: Retaining Information Sensory Memory Sensory memory is the initial recording of sensory information in the memory system Iconic memory is a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second Our eyes register an exact representation of a scene and we can recall any part of it in amazing detail - but only for a few tenths of a second Echoic memory is a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds However, if partially interpreted, the auditory echo disappears more slowly Example: You're in a conversation with someone and your attention veers to the TV, if you conversation partner asks "what did I just say?" you will recover the last few words from your mind's echo chamber Short-Term Memory We only can illuminate some of the information registered by our sensory memory with our attention flashlight We also retrieve information from long-term storage for "on-screen" display 4

Quickly disappears if not rehearsed or meaningfully encoded Typically stores just seven or so bits of information (give or take two)

Short term memory is limited not only in duration but also in capacity Our short-term recall is slightly better for random digits (such as those of a phone number) than for random letters, which sometimes have similar sounds It is slightly better for information we hear than our images we see With information chunks (letters meaningfully grouped as ABC, FBI, BBC, CIA) and without rehearsal, the average person retains only about four chunks in short-term memory

Basic principle: At any given moment, we can consciously process only a very limited amount of information

Long-Term Memory Our capacity for storing long-term memories is essentially limitless The average adult has about a billion bits of information in memory and a storage capacity that is probably a thousand to a million times greater

Storing Memories in the Brain Wilder Penfield studied people that had brain surgery, thought people that said they heard "long-lost memories" Memory researchers Elizabeth and Geoffrey Loftus discovered that these flashback were extremely rare, occurring in only a handful of a thousand patients Content suggested that they were being invented, not relived We don't store most information with the exactness of a tape recorder, forgetting occurs as new experiences interfere with our retrieval and as the physical memory trace gradually decays Cognitive psychologists study our memory "software", neuroscientists explore our memory "hardware" (how and where we physically store information in our brains Karl Lashley said that memories do not reside in single, specific spots Ralph Gerard - even if your brain's electrical activity ceased, when revived, you can still remember memories

Stress Hormones and Memory The hormones that we produce when excited or stressed boost learning and retention By making more glucose energy available to fuel brain activity, the hormone surge signals the brain that something important has happened Amygdala (processes emotions) boosts activity in the brain's memory-forming areas People given a drug that blocks the effects of stress hormones will later have 5

more trouble remembering the details of an upsetting story Explains why we long remember exciting or shocking events (like 9/11) Point to remember is that stronger emotional experiences make for stronger, more reliable memories After traumatic experiences (wartime ambush, house on fire) vivid recollections of the horrific event may intrude again and again Prolonged stress (sustained from abuse or combat) acts like acid, corroding neural connections and shrinking a brain area (hippocampus) that is vital for laying down memories When sudden hormones are flowing, older memories may be blocked Storing Implicit and Explicit Memories Memory-to-be enters the cortex through the senses, then winds its way into the brain's depths, depending on the information it is sent somewhere - people with amnesia are unable to form new memories Although incapable of recalling new facts or anything they have recently done, most people with amnesia can still learn They can be classically conditioned They do all these things with absolutely no awareness of having learned them

Whatever destroyed the conscious recall in individuals with amnesia has not destroyed their unconscious capacity for learning They can learn how to do something - called implicit memory (procedural memory) Retention independent of conscious recollection but they may not know and declare that they know - called explicit memory (declarative memory) Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare They retain their past but do not explicitly recall it Scans of the brains in action reveal that new explicit memories of names, images, and events are laid down in the hippocampus Hippocampus lights up when people recall words (using explicit memory) and when creating a memory (certain areas of the frontal lobes also light up) Hippocampus is like a convergence zone where the brain registers and temporarily stores the elements of a remembered episode (smell, feels, etc) but migrate for storage elsewhere 6

The hippocampus

Example: Calling a number and holding it in working memory activates a region of the left frontal cortex; recalling a party scene would more likely activate a region of the right hemisphere

Many brain areas are active as we encode, store and retrieve different kinds of information Damage to the hippocampus disrupts some types of memory The hippocampus is lateralized People with damage to the left hippocampus have trouble remembering verbal information, but no problem recalling visual designs and locations Damage to the right hippocampus causes trouble recalling visual designs and locations but no problem remembering verbal information

The cerebellum The pathway that connects the brain's reception of a tone with the blink response runs to the brainstem through a part of the cerebellum (back of head) and that if they cut this pathway, the learned response would be lost Like cutting the cords to your stereo speakers Implicit memory in the cerebellum Emotional memories involve the amygdala those with amygdala damage don't learn fear conditioning

Retrieval (getting information out) - finding and opening up the document General Memory is any sign that something learned has been retained Recognizing or more quickly relearning information also indicates memory Our speed at relearning can reveal memory If you learned something and forget it, you will probably relearn it quicker than you originally learned it Tests of recognition and of time spent relearning reveal that we remember more than we can recall Retrieval Cues In recognition tests, retrieval cues (like photographs) provide reminders of information (classmates names after not seeing them for 10 years) we could not otherwise recall Retrieval cues also guide us where to look Think of memory as held in storage by a web of associations, to retrieve a specific memory, you first need to identify one of the strands that leads to it, (called priming) 7

Priming is the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory Seeing or hearing the word rabbit primes associations with hare even though we may not recall having seen or heard rabbit

Priming (aka memoryless memory) - memory without remembering, invisible memory Walking down a hallway and you see a poster of a missing child, you will be primed to interpret an ambiguous adult-child interaction as a possible kidnapping Dont consciously remember the poster, but predisposes your interpretation

Best retrieval cues come from the associations formed at the time we encode a memory, and those cues can be experiences as well as sounds Taste, smells, and sights often evoke our recall of associated episodes

Context Effects (as retrieval cues) Helps to put yourself back in the context where you experienced something Recall more words when tested in the same place Go to hometown after moving, get flooded with retrieval cues and memories

Being in a context similar to one weve been in before may trigger deja vu (Ive been in this exact same situation before) If weve previously been in a similar situation, the current situation may be loaded with cues that unconsciously retrieve the earlier experience

Moods and memories (as retrieval cues) Events in the past may have aroused a specific emotion that later can prime us to recall its associated events Analogy An emotion is like a library room into which we place memory records. We best retrieve those records by returning to that emotional room. When we learn in one emotional state (joyful or sad, drunk or sober) is sometimes more easily recalled when we are again in that state - called state-dependent memory retrieval cues our memories are somewhat mood-congruent Tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with our current mood Currently depressed individuals remember their parents being rejecting, 8 Depression disrupts encoding and alcohol disrupts storage We seem to associate good or bad events with their accompanying emotions, become

punitive and formerly depressed remember their being the same Moods also influence how we interpret other peoples emotions in a bad mood, read someones look as a glare - good mood, someone looks interested (passions exaggerate) When happy, you recall happy events and see the world as a happy place (helps prolong the happy period Forgetting Daniel Schacter seven ways our memories fail us Forgetting Absent-mindedness - our mind is elsewhere as we lay down the car keys Transience - unused information fades Blocking - may be on the tip of our tongue, retrieval failure and cannot get it out Distortion Misattribution - putting words in someone elses mouth Suggestibility - a leading question later becomes a false memory Bias - someones current feelings toward their fiance may color their recalled initial feelings Intrusion Persistence - being haunted by images of sexual assault Depressed, recall sad events- which darkens interpretations of current events

Encoding Failure What causes us to forget? - Never encoded information Never entered long-term memory Much of what we sense we never notice Without effort, many memories never form

Storage Decay Even after encoding something well, we sometimes later forget it The course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time Ex: after taking a Spanish class, first 3 years retention drops dramatically, then for for the rest of the life its about straight One explanation for forgetting curves is a gradual fading of the physical memory trace - memories also fade because of the accumulation of other learning that disrupts our retrieval

Retrieval Failure Ex: forgotten events are like books you cant find in your campus library - some 9

because they were never acquired, others because they were discarded Even if the book is stored and available, it may be inaccesible Perhaps dont have the right information to look it up and retrieve it

Interference (retrieval failures) Learning some times may interfere with retrieving others, especially when the times are similar Proactive (forward-acting) interference occurs when something you learned earlier disrupts your recall of something you experience later Example: If you buy a new combination lock or get a new phone number, the old one may interfere Retroactive (backward-acting) interference occurs when new information makes it harder to recall something you learned earlier Ex: learning new students names typically interferes with a teacher's recall of the names of previous students You can minimize retroactive interference by reducing the number of interfering events - like going for a walk or to sleep shortly after learning new information Forgetting occurs more rapidly after being awake and involved with other activities Forgetting is not so much a matter of decay of old impressions and associations as it is a matter of interference, inhibition, or obliteration of old by the new The hours before a nights sleep (not minutes before) is a good time to commit information to memory Sometimes old information can facilitate our learning of new information (knowing Latin may help us learn French) called positive transfer When old information and new information compete with each other that interference occurs

Motivated Forgetting People unknowingly revise their own histories To remember our past is often to revise it - by recalling events as we wish, we protect and enhance our self-image repression is the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories Sigmund Freud proposed that our memory systems do indeed self-censor painful information More memory researchers think repression rarely occurs, if ever 10

Memory Construction General We often construct our memories as we encode them, and we may also alter our memories as we withdraw them from the memory bank Misinformation and Imagination Effects Elizabeth Loftus showed how eyewitnesses similarly reconstruct their memories when questioned Situation: people see event, received or not received misleading information about it and then take a memory test - result is misinformation effect misinformation effect - after exposure to subtle misinformation, many people misremember As a memory fades with time following an event, the injection of misinformation becomes easier Nearly impossible to discriminate between memories of real and suggested events As we recount an experience, we fill in memory gaps with plausible guesses and assumptions After more retellings, we often recall the guessed details, which have now been absorbed into our memories, as if we observed them Repeatedly imagining nonexistent actions and events can create false memories Imagined events later seem more familiar, and familiar things seem more real Source Amnesia When we encode memories, we distribute different aspects of them to different parts of the brain Among the frailest parts of a memory is its source, thus we may recognize someone but have no idea where we have seen the person Source amnesia is attributing to the wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined (also called source misattribution). Source amnesia and misinformation effect is the reason for many false memories Discerning True and False Memories Cant be sure whether a memory is real by how real it feels Memories are perceptions of the past Memories of imagined experiences are more restricted to the gist of the supposed event - the meaning and feels we associate with it 11 We also cant judge how real a memory is by how persistent it is Thus, the move vividly people can imagine things, the more likely they are to inflate their imagination into memories

Hippocampus equally active in truly or falsely recalling a word Other brain areas responded differently to true and false memories Only when correctly remembering a spoken word did the brain light up in the left temporal lobe area that processes speech sounds Not said word, there was no sensory record to be activated from the temporal lobe

Eyewitness testimony - most confident and consistent eyewitnesses are the most persuasive, they often are not the most accurate Memories of crime are easily able to incorporate errors from the hypnotists leading questions Explains why people who are asked how they felt 10 years ago about an issue recall attitudes closer to their current views rather than what they actually reported a decade earlier

Ex: Psychologist gets called into PD because he matched rape victims sketch/memory, actually she saw him on TV earlier and remembered his face rather than the actual person

Childrens Eyewitness Recall Credible if they dont ask leading questions, and its a neutral person Interviewers who ask leading questions can plant false memories of a story they expect to hear If questioned about their experiences in words they understand, children often accurately recall what happened and who did it Younger the person, more likely to give wrong/influenced memories/answers Traumatic events are sometimes forgotten, perhaps aided by the toxic effects of sustained stress Sometimes recall events that are similar to theirs, but different victims, etc. Jennifer Freyd says that memories may remain vivid for life-threatening traumas such as a hurricane or car accident, yet be dulled or blocked for traumas that involve repeated betrayal Many patients exposed to source amnesia and misinformation effect techniques do form an image of a threatening person Image grows more vivid, leaving the patient thinking its true and wanting to sue, etc. People that study abuse agree on the following Injustice happens, incest happens, forgetting happens Recovered memories are commonplace 12

Repressed or Constructed Memories of Abuse

Memories recovered under hypnosis or the influence of drugs are especially unreliable Memories of things happening before age 3 are unreliable Memories (real or fake) can be emotionally upsettings

Without knowing a persons initial experience, it is difficult to assess the validity of a persons memory Most common response to a traumatic experiencing is not banishment of the experience into an active but inaccessible unconscious, but typically etched on the mind as vivid, persistent, haunting memories

Improving Memory Study repeatedly to boost long-term recall Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the material Make the material personally meaningful To remember a list of unfamiliar items, use mnemonic devices Refresh your memory by activating retrieval cues Recall events while they are fresh, before you encounter possible misinformation Minimize interference Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to help determine what you do not yet know - without self-testing, one can easily become overconfident

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Psychologists: 1. Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin - three-stage processing model of memory 2. Hermann Ebbinghaus - (the Pavlov of memory) 3. Karl Lashley - memories do not reside in single, specific spots 4. Ralph Gerard - even if your brain's electrical activity ceased, when revived, you can still remember memories 5. Elizabeth Loftus - false memories, made children have false memories of stuff that happened to them as kids. Proved Wilder Penfield findings that people were having long lost memories 6. Jennifer Freyd - memories may remain vivid for life-threatening traumas such as a hurricane or car accident, yet be dulled or blocked for traumas that involve repeated betrayal Vocab: Memory - the persistence of learning over time via the storage and retrieval of information Flashbulb memory - unusually vivid memory of an emotionally important moment in one's life Encoding is the first step in memory; information is translated into some form that enables it to enter our memory system Storage is the process by which encoded information is maintained over time Retrieval is the process of bringing to consciousness information from memory storage Sensory memory is the immediate, initial recording of sensory information in the memory system short-term memory is conscious memory, which can hold about seven items for a short time Long-term memory is the relatively permanent and unlimited capacity memory system into which information from short-term memory may pass Automatic processing refers to our unconscious encoding of incidental information such as space, time and frequency and of well-learned information Effortful processing is encoding that requires attention and conscious effort Rehearsal is the conscious, effortful repetition of information that you are trying either to maintain in consciousness or to encode for storage Spacing effect is the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than massed study or practice Serial position effect is the tendency for items at the beginning and end of a list to be more easily retained than those in the middle Visual encoding is the use of imagery to process information into memory Acoustic encoding is the processing of information into memory according to its sound Semantic encoding is the processing of information into memory according to its meaning Imagery refers to mental pictures and can be an important aid to effortful processing Mnemonics are memory aids (the method of loci, acronyms, peg-words, etc.), which often use visual imagery Chunking is the memory technique of organizing material into familiar, meaningful units 14

Iconic memory is the visual sensory memory consisting of a perfect photographic memory, which lasts no more than a few tenths of a second seconds Long-term potentiation (LPT) is an increase in synapse's firing potential following brief, rapid stimulation. LPT is believed to be neural basis for learning and memory Amnesia is the loss of memory Implicit memories are memories of skills, preferences, and dispositions. These memories are evidently processed by (a primitive part of the brain) the cerebellum. They are also called procedural or nondeclarative memories Explicit memories are memories of facts, including names, images and events. They are also called declarative memories. Hippocampus is a neural center located in the limbic system that is important in the processing of explicit memories for storage Recall is a measure of retention in which the person must remember, with few retrieval cues, information learned earlier Recognition is a measure of retention in which one need only identify, rather than recall, previously learned information Relearning is also a measure of retention in that the less time it takes to relearn information the more than information has been retained priming is the activation, often unconscious, of a web of associations in memory in order to retrieve a specific memory Deja vu is the false sense that you have already experiencedd a current situation Mood-congruent memory is the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with our current mood Proactive interference is the disruptive effect of something you already have learned on your efforts to learn or recall new information. Retroactive interference is the disruptive effect of something recently learned on old knowledge Memory aid: Retro means "backward". Retroactive interference is "backward-acting" interference Repression is an example of motivated forgetting in that painful and unacceptable memories are prevented from entering consciousness. In psychoanalytic theory, it is the basic defense mechanism. At the heart of many false memories, source amnesia refers to misattributing an event to the wrong source Memory aid: Icon means "image". iconic memory consists of brief visual images Echoic memory is the momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli, lasting about 3 or 4

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