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Memory and Thinking

Chapter Preview

· This study guide reviews key concepts from chapter 6 and from section 2 of chapter 7 (the section that covers thinking). It will review:

· The nature of memory

· Memory encoding

· Memory storage

· Memory retrieval

· Forgetting

· Concepts

· Reasoning and problem solving

Memory

· Retention of information or experience over time

· Processes:

· Encoding

· Storage

· Retrieval

Step 1: Memory Encoding

· Process by which information enters memory storage. This can take place either automatically or with deliberate effort

· Whether and how well the memory is encoded depends on:

· Attention – did you pay attention to something?

· Elaboration – how much did you think about it?

· Use of mental imagery – did you think about it in visual terms?

Attention

· To begin memory encoding, must pay attention to information

· Selective attention

· The brain has only limited capacity for conscious attention so it must focus this attention on specific aspects of any given situation. This leads to some other aspects being ignored or overlooked.

· Divided attention

· Attending to several things at once is possible, but difficult

· Sustained attention

· Attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time

Elaboration

· Once we attend to information, it can be processed at different levels, from shallow processing to deep processing

· The deeper processing, the better the memory

· Elaboration facilitates deep processing

· Elaboration involves making a number of different connections between the new information to be memorized and existing networks in the brain

Use of Mental Imagery

· Mental imagery is a powerful encoding tool, in which you think about the information to be processed using both verbal and visual coding

· Paivio’s Dual-code hypothesis

· Memory for pictures better than memory for words

· Pictures benefit from being stored as both image codes and verbal codes (a word or a label)

Step 2: Memory Storage

· How information is:

· Retained over time

· Represented in memory

· Atkinson-Shiffrin theory divides memory into three structures:

· Sensory memory

· Short-term memory

· Long-term memory

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Theory of Memory

Sensory Memory

· Holds information in sensory form for an instant

· Echoic memory

· Auditory sensory memory, retained for up to several seconds

· Ever had this experience? Someone is talking and you’re daydreaming, not paying attention. Then the person asks you a question, and you’ve been able to quickly remember the last few things she said. That’s tapping into echoic sensory memory.

· Iconic memory

· Visual sensory memory, retained for only about ¼ second

Short-Term Memory

· Limited-capacity (7±2 items)

· Information retained for up to 30 seconds, without strategies to retain it longer

· Chunking

· Grouping information into higher-order units

· So, which of these two is easier to remember? DVD USA CIA or VSADIACUD

· The first is easier because it’s chunked into three units

Short-Term Memory

· Rehearsal

· Conscious repetition of information

· Maintenance rehearsal involves repetition without additional elaboration

· This can be useful, but is easily disrupted

· You might find yourself repeating a phone number as you reach for a phone, but if someone else starts saying random numbers this will interfere with your memory

Working Memory

· Alternative approach to explaining short-term memory

· Three-part system to hold information temporarily

· Phonological loop

· Briefly stores speech-based information

· Visuo-spatial working memory

· Stores visual and spatial information

· (Ever found yourself looking up to do math in your head?)

· Central executive

· Integrates information

Baddeley’s View of Working Memory

Long-Term Memory

· Relatively permanent memory

· Stores huge amounts of information for long time

· Includes two broad systems:

· Explicit memory

· Implicit memory

Explicit (Declarative) Memory

· Conscious recollection of information that can be verbally communicated

· Includes permastore content – that which endures for a very long time

· Episodic memory

· Autobiographical information, or memories of moments from our own life (“I remember when…”)

· Semantic memory

· Knowledge about the world (“I know that…”)

Some Differences Between Episodic and Semantic Memory

Implicit (Nondeclarative) Memory

· Nonconscious recollection of skills and sensory perceptions

· Memories we act on without awareness

· Procedural memory

· Memory for skills, such as driving, riding a bicycle, playing a musical instrument

· Classical conditioning

· Memory for associations between stimuli

· Priming

· Activation of information already in storage

Memory: Organization

· Schemas are used to organize the storage and retrieval of memories

· Preexisting mental concept to organize and interpret information

· Example: restaurant schema is a basic structure of what happens when we go to a restaurant. We use this to guide us in storing a memory for a new restaurant event

· Script: a schema for an event

Memory: Location

· Connectionism (parallel distributed processing)

· Memory is stored throughout the brain in connections among neurons

· Long-term potentiation: Simultaneous activation of neurons strengthens memory

· Memory located in specific circuits of neurons

· Neurotransmitters play a role in forging connections

· Still, little is known about how neuronal networks translate into conscious experience

Memory: Location

· Brain structures

· Explicit memory

· Hippocampus is the brain structure most involved in memory

· Also involved: temporal lobes, limbic system (amygdala)

· Implicit memory

· Cerebellum, temporal lobes, hippocampus

Step 3: Memory Retrieval

· Success in retrieving a memory depends on a number of factors

· Retrieval cues – a cue is something that can trigger a memory. It will often be a part of the neural network in which a memory is stored.

· The type of retrieval task also is important

· Recall

· Memory task to retrieve previously learned information

· Recognition

· Memory task to identify, or recognize, learned items

· E.g. multiple choice test

Memory: Retrieval

· Encoding specificity principle

· Information present at time of learning tends to be effective as retrieval cue

· Context-dependent memory

· Remembering better when attempting to recall information in same context in which it was learned

· Many people who compete on the TV quiz show “Jeopardy!” will rehearse at home by standing at home and holding a buzzer while watching the show – simulating the context

Memory: Retrieval

· Autobiographical memories

· Special form of episodic memory containing recollections of own life experiences

· Flashbulb memory

· Emotionally significant events

· Recalled with vivid imagery, but accuracy can be very varied

· Memory for traumatic events

· Also may contain inaccuracies, as emotion and act of retelling constructs new memories to replace the real ones

Memory: Retrieval

· Repressed memories

· Defense mechanism by which person, traumatized by an event, forgets it – and then forgets act of forgetting

· May be special case of motivated forgetting

· However, this is primarily a Freudian concept, and the science behind it is weak; indeed, most research shows that strong emotions for an event make it more memorable, rather than less.

Eyewitness Testimony

· May contain errors

· Memory for emotional events

· Focus on:

· Distortion

· Bias

· Inaccuracy

Reconstructing Memories

· Elizabeth Loftus showed a group of participants, footage of the same car wreck, then asked “How fast were the cars going when they ______ each other?”

· Five different groups each had one of the following phrases filling the blank:

· Contacted

· Hit

· Bumped into

· Collided with

· Smashed into

Reconstructing Memories

· Result – even though they all saw the same video, people guessed different speeds depending on the wording of the question:

· Contacted – 31.8 mph

· Hit – 34.0 mph

· Bumped into – 38.1 mph

· Collided with – 39.3 mph

· Smashed into – 40.8 mph

Forgetting

· Forgetting can take place at all levels of the process

· Encoding failure

· Not ‘forgotten’, but never encoded, or insufficiently encoded

· Information never entered into long-term memory

· Retrieval failure

· Forgotten information

· May not have correct cues to trigger retrieval

Forgetting: Interference

· Forgetting because other information gets in way of remembering

· Proactive interference

· Material learned earlier disrupts retrieval of material learned later

· Retroactive interference

· Material learned later disrupts retrieval of material learned earlier

Figure 6.18 - Proactive and Retroactive Interference

Forgetting

· Decay

· Neurochemical memory ‘trace’ disintegrates over time

· Makes some intuitive sense, but cannot, alone, explain forgetting

· Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT state)

· Confident of knowing something but unable to retrieve it from memory

· Reflects difference between memory and metamemory, the latter of which tells us what we know about what we know

Amnesia

· Loss of memory

· Anterograde amnesia

· Disorder that affects retention of new information; person struggles to form new memories

· Retrograde amnesia

· Memory loss for a segment of past, but not for new events; person struggles to recall past memories

· Retrograde is more common in movies, but anterograde is more common in real life