Grommersoft

Notetaker: Victor Law
Advanced Placement Psychology
Chapter 9: Memory
( http://www.ApPsychology.net )
•  Memory: persistence of learning over time via the storage and retrieval of info
•  Flashbulb memory: a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event; San Francisco residence
recalling 1989 Earthquake
•  Human memory like a computer
1.  Get info into our brain –encoding: processing of info into memory system
2.  Retain info –storage: retention of encoded info over time
3.  Get it back later –retrieval: process of getting into out of memory storage
•  Humans store vast amounts of info in long-term memory: relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the
memory syst em
•  Short-term memory: activated memory that holds few items briefly; phone number just dial
Encoding: Getting Information In
•  Automatic processing: unconscious encoding of incidental info; occurs with little or no effort, without our
awareness, and without interfering with our thinking of other things; space, time, frequency, well-learned info
•  Effortful processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort; memorizing these notes for the AP
Psychology exam
•  After practice, effort processing becomes more automatic; reading from right to left for students of Hebrew
•  Can boost memory through rehearsal: conscious repetition of info, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode
it for storage
•  Next-in-line effect: when people go around circle saying names/words, poorest memories are for name/word person
before them said
•  Info received before sleep is hardly ever remembered are consciousness fade before processing able
•  Retain info better when rehearsal distributed over time –phenomenon called spacing effect: tendency for distributed
study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through cramming
•  When given a list of items and ask to recall, people often demonstrate serial  position effect: tendency to recall best
the last and first items in a list
•  Rehearsal will not encode all info equally well because processing of info is in 3 ways
1.  Semantic encoding: encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words
2.  Acoustic encoding: encoding of sound, especially the sound of words
3.  Visual encoding: encoding of picture images
•  Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving flashed a word to people, asking question that required processing either visually,
acoustically, or semantically; semantic encoding was found to yield much better memory
•  Imagery: mental pictures; powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding;
can easily picture where we were yesterday, where we sat, and what we wore
•  Mnemonic: memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices
•  Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically
•  Able remember info best when able to organize it into personal meaningful arrangements
Forgetting as Encoding Failure
•  Failure to encode info –never entered memory system
•  Much of what we sense, we never notice
•  Raymond Nickerson and Marilyn Adams discover most people cannot pick the real American penny from different
ones; (See pg. 280)

Storage: Retaining Information
•  Sensory memory: immediate, initial recording of sensory info in memory system
•  we have short temporary photographic memory called iconic memory:  momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli;
photographic/picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a sec; visual = eye, which sounds like “I” in
iconic
•  also fleeting memory for auditory sensory images called echoic memory: momentary sensory memory of auditory
stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 sec; auditory = ear, which starts
with “e” like echoic
•  Short-Term Memory
•  without active processing, short-term memories have limited life
•  short-term memory limited in capacity –about 7 chunks of info; at any given moment, can consciously process
only very limited amount of info
•  Long-Term Memory
•  capacity for storing long-term memories is practically limitless
•  though forgetting occurs as new experiences interfere with retrieval and as physical memory trace gradually
decays
•  Karl Lashley removed pieces of rat’s cortex as it ran through maze; found that no matter what part removed, partial
memory of solving maze stayed; concluded memories don’t reside in single specific spot
•  Psychologists then focus on neurons
•  Long-term potential (LTP): increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; believed to be
neural basis for learning and memory
•  After long-term potential occurs, passing electric current through brain won’t disrupt old memories, but wipe up
recent experiences; football player with blow to head won’t recall name of play before the blow
•  Drugs that block neurotransmitters also disrupt info storage; drunk people hardly remembers previous evening
•  Stimulating hormones affect memory as more glucose available to fuel brain activity, indicating important event –
sears events onto brain; remembering first kiss, earthquake
•  Amnesia: loss of memory
•  Found that people who don’t have memories can still learn, indicating 2 memory systems operating in order
•  Implicit memory: retention without conscious recollection (of skills and dispositions); how to do something
•  Explicit memory: memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”; remember it was
done before
•  Through scans, found that Hippocampus, neural center located in limbic system, helps process explicit memories for
storage
•  Damage to left side of hippocampus produce difficulty in remembering verbal info, but no trouble recalling visual
designs and locations
•  Damage to right side produce difficulty in remembering visual designs and locations, but no trouble recalling verbal
info
•  When hippocampus removed from monkeys, lose recent memories, but old memories intact, suggesting hippocampus
not permanent storage
•  Long-term memories scattered across various parts of frontal and temporal lobes
Retrieval: Getting Information Out
•  Recall: measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier; fill-in-the-blank test
•  Once learned and forgotten, relearning something becomes quicker than when originally first learned
•  Recognition: measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned; multiple-choice
test
•  Relearning: memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when relearning previously learned info
•  Through tests on recognition and relearning, found one remember more than can recall
•  To retrieve specific memory, need to identify one of the strands that leads to it, process called priming: activation,
often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory
•  Retrieval cues (reminders of info) such as photographs, often prime one’s memories for earlier experiences
•  Best retrieval cues comes from associations formed at time when one encodes memory
•  By being in similar context (surrounding), can cause flood of retrieval cues and memories

•  Being in similar context as before, may trigger experience déjà vu: eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.”
Cues from current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience
•  Things we learn in one state (joyful, sad, drunk, sober, etc) are more easily recalled when in same state –phenomenon
called state-dependent memory
•  Moods also associated with memory; easily recall memory when mood of that incident same as present
•  Mood-congruent memory: tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood
Forgetting as Retrieval Failure
•  Learning some items ma y interfere with retrieving others
•  Proactive interference (forward-acting): disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new info; old combination
lock numbers may interfere with recalling of new numbers; “pro”(after = new) interference = interference on new
info
•  Retroactive interference (backward-acting): disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old info; teachers who
just learn students’ names from present class have trouble recalling previous class’ students’ names; retro (before =
old) interference = interference on old info
•  Repression: in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defence mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings,
and memories from consciousness
•  Increasing memory researchers think repression occurs rarely
Memory Construction
•  Misinformation effect: incorporating misleading info into one’s memory of an event; miscalling a stop sign when
asked about car crash
•  Source amnesia: attributing to the wrong source an event that we experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined
Bibliography
Myers, David G., Psychology Fifth Edition. Worth Publishers, Inc. New York, NY ©1998