Memory and Forgetting

Main Topics
• Memory: memory phenomenon and basic
processes (encoding, storage and retrieval)
• Models of memory:
– Parallel Distributed Processing Model
– Level of Processing Model
– Information Processing Model
• Retrieval (cues, recall, recognition,
reconstruction, and automatic encoding
• Forgetting: nature and causes of forgetting,
memory and brain, amnesia and false memories
 Digit-Span Test
As soon as each string is ended (the instructor may say “go”), write down the numbers in the exact
order in which they were given.

•6825
•57214
•359721
•9254638
•28371569
•732496851
•6547893217
 Memory
• Memory is the ability to code, store and
retrieve information
• Memory involves coding the input of the
senses (mostly visual, auditory)
• Memory is rarely perfect
• Forgetting refers to memory failure
 Process of Memory

– Encoding: Transforming information into a form

that can be stored in short-term or long-term
memory..
– Storage: The act of maintaining information in
memory.
– Retrieval: The act of bringing to mind material
that has been stored in memory.
 Models of Memory
• Three Stages Model: focuses on the way information
is processed through three stages- Sensory Memory,
Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory
• Parallel distributed processing (PDP) model: a model
of memory in which memory processes are proposed
to take place at the same time over a large network
of neural connections.
• Levels-of-processing model: assumes information
that is more “deeply processed,” or processed
according to its meaning (rather than just the sound
or physical characteristics of the word or words) and
it will be remembered more efficiently and for a
longer period of time.
 Information Processing Model: Three-Stage Process of Memory
If the information receives enough rehearsal (maintenance or elaborative), it will enter
and be stored in long-term memory.
 Three Stage Model
• Sensory Memory
– Iconic memory
– Echoic memory
• Short Term Memory
– Is working memory a replacement to stm?
– Digit span test
• Long Term Memory
– Declarative memory (Explicit)
– Procedural memory (Implicit)
 Sensory Memory
• The point at which information enters the nervous
system through the sensory organs.
• Information is encoded into sensory memory as
neural messages in the nervous system.
• Two types of sensory memory mostly studied:
– Iconic Memory
– Echoic Memory
 Iconic and Echoic memory
LO 6.2 Sensory Memory

• Iconic memory: visual sensory memory, lasting only

a fraction of a second i.e. less than ½ second.
Information that has just entered iconic memory will
be pushed out very quickly by new information, a
process called masking
• Echoic memory: brief memory of something a
person has just heard i.e. lasts longer than iconic;
about 2-4 seconds. Echoic memory is very useful
when a person wants to have meaningful
conversations with others.
 Short-Term Memory
LO 6.3 Short-Term or Working Memory

• If an incoming sensory message is important enough to

enter consciousness, that message will move from
sensory memory to the next stage of memory, called
short-term memory (STM)
• It is done through the process of selective attention
which is the ability to focus on only one stimulus from
among all sensory input
• Limits: thought to be 7 + 2, 15-30 seconds without
rehearsal
Techniques to hold it little longer in
Short-Term Memory
• Chunking: bits of information are combined
into meaningful units, or chunks
• Maintenance rehearsal: practice of saying
some information to be remembered over and
over in one’s head in order to maintain it in
short-term memory
• Association: Associate new information with
the contents already stored in the LTM
 Working Memory or short term
memory
• Short-term memory has traditionally been
thought of as a thing or a place into which
information is put.
• Working memory is more correctly thought
of as an active system that processes the
information present in short-term memory.
• Think of RAM in computer
 Long-Term Memory
LO 6.4 Long-Term Memory

• Long-term memory (LTM): the system of

memory into which all the information is
placed to be kept more or less permanently
• The memories may be available but not
accessible
• We only store long-lasting memories of events
and concepts that are meaningful to us.
 Elaborative rehearsal: A method to
transfer into LTM
• Making the information meaningful in some
way
• Associations can be formed
• Elaborative rehearsal is a deeper kind of
processing than maintenance rehearsal and so
leads to better long-term storage
Types of Long-Term Memories
 Types of Long-Term Memories
• Explicit Memory: Conscious, intentional
recollection of an event or of an item of
information.
• Implicit Memory: Unconscious retention in
memory, as evidenced by the effect of a previous
experience or previously encountered information
on current thoughts or actions.
 Implicit memory
LO 6.5 Different Types of Long-Term Memory

• Procedural (nondeclarative) memory:

including memory for skills, procedures,
habits, and conditioned responses; these
memories are not conscious
 Declarative LTM
LO 6.5 Different Types of Long-Term Memory

• Semantic memory: type of declarative

memory containing general knowledge, such
as knowledge of language and information
learned in formal education
• Episodic memory: type of declarative memory
containing personal information not readily
available to others, such as daily activities and
events
 Process involved in Retrieval
• Retrieval Cues: encoding specificity, state
dependent learning
• Recall: retrieval failure, tip of the tongue
phenomenon, serial position effect (primacy
and recency effect)
• Recognition: false positive and eye witness
testimony
• Reconstruction of memories
• Automatic encoding i.e. flashbulb memories
 Retrieval Cues
• Encoding specificity: the tendency for memory of
information to be improved if related information
(such as surroundings or physiological state)
available when the memory is first formed is also
available when the memory is being retrieved
• State-dependent learning: memories formed
during a particular physiological or psychological
state will be easier to recall while in a similar
state
 Recall
LO 6.7 How Recall and Recognition Differ

• Recall: type of memory retrieval in which the

information to be retrieved must be “pulled”
from memory with very few external cues i.e.
filling in the blanks on an application form.
• Retrieval failure: recall has failed (at least
temporarily)
• Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon
 Recall- Serial Position Effect
• Serial position effect: tendency of information
at the beginning and end of a body of
information better
• Primacy effect: tendency to remember
information at the beginning of a body of
information better
• Recency effect: tendency to remember
information at the end of a body of
information better
 Recognition
• Recognition involves looking at or hearing
information and matching it to what is already
in memory.
• Multiple-choice, matching, and true/false
questions are examples of recognition test
items
• False positive: error of recognition in which
people think that they recognize some stimulus
that is not actually in memory
 Example of False Positive Father
Bernard Pagano’s Case (See Ciccarelli)
LO 6.7 How Recall and Recognition Differ

• Father Bernard Pagano, a suspect in a series of

robberies
• Word had leaked out that the suspect sought by
police might be a priest
• Police put Father Bernard Pagano in a lineup for
witnesses to identify, he was the only one in the
lineup wearing a priest’s collar
• Eyewitnesses identified him as the man who had
robbed them
• People falsely identified him for the crimes
committed by another man
Example of Recognition through
Eye Witness Testimony
– What people see and hear about an event after
the fact can easily affect the accuracy of their
memories of that event
– Eyewitness testimony is not always reliable
– See the experiment by Elizabeth Loftus on
Ciccarelli’s book
– A film- “Twelve Angry Men” Hindi Version “Ek
Ruka Huwa Faisla”
 Automatic Encoding
• Automatic encoding: tendency of certain kinds
of information to enter long-term memory with
little or no effortful encoding
• A special kind of automatic encoding takes place
when an unexpected event or episode in a
person’s life has strong emotional associations,
such as fear, horror, or joy.
• Remember where were you during the
devastating earthquake in April, 2015
• I still remember the death tolls at Dasarath
Rangshala around 1989
 Flashbulb Memories
• Flashbulb memories: type of automatic encoding
that occurs because an unexpected event has
strong emotional associations for the person
remembering it
• These memories tend to be major emotional
events, such as the first date, an embarrassing
event, or a particularly memorable birthday
party.
Reconstruction of Long Term Memories
• Constructive proces: the retrieval of memories
through which those memories are altered,
revised, or influenced by newer information
• Each time a memory is retrieved, it may be
altered or revised in some way to include new
information, or to exclude details that may be
left out of the new reconstruction.
 Forgetting
• Nature and causes of forgetting
• Memory and the brain
• Amnesia
• False memories
 Forgetting

• Forgetting is the inability to recall previously

learned information
• Forgetting rate is steep just after learning and
then becomes a gradual loss of recall
• The ability to forget seems necessary to one’s
sanity
 Ebbinghaus’s Curve of Forgetting
• Ebbinghaus created
several lists of “nonsense
syllables,” pronounceable
but meaningless (such as
GEX and WOL)
• He memorized a list,
waited a specific amount
of time, and then tried to
retrieve the list, graphing
his results each time
 Ebbinghaus’s Curve of Forgetting
• Curve of forgetting: a graph showing a distinct
pattern in which forgetting is very fast within
the first hour after learning a list and then
tapers off gradually.
• Research has found that spacing out one’s
study sessions, or distributed practice, will
produce far better retrieval of information
studied in this way than does massed
practice, or the attempt to study a body of
material all at once.
 Causes of Forgetting
• Encoding failure: information never being encoded from
STM to LTM and thus forgotten
• Trace Decay : memory trace fades with time
• Interference :
• Proactive interference: old information interferes
with recall of new information
• Retroactive interference: new information interferes
with recall of old information
• Brain related disorders i.e. Amnesia or Alzheimer’s
disease
• Motivated forgetting: involves the loss of painful
memories i.e. repression
• Retrieval failure: the information is still within LTM, but
cannot be recalled because the retrieval cue is absent
 Forgetting as Encoding Failure
LO 6.10 Why Do We Forget?

• Encoding failure: failure to process

information into memory
Attention

Short- Encoding Long-

External Sensory
term term
events memory
memory memory

Encoding
failure leads
to forgetting
 Decay or Memory Trace Decay
• Memory trace: physical change in the brain that
occurs when a memory is formed
• Decay : loss of memory due to the passage of
time, during which the memory trace is not
used.
• Disuse: another name for decay, assuming that
memories that are not used will eventually
decay and disappear.
 Interference in memory
– Interference : memory loss that occurs because
information or associations stored either before or
after a given memory hinder the ability to remember it
• Proactive interference: Occurs when information or
experiences already stored in long-term memory
hinder the ability to remember newer information
• Retroactive interference: Happens when new
learning interferes with the ability to remember
previously learned information
Interference
Interference- problem driving in England
after learning in US
 Retrieval Failure
• Forgetting can result from failure to retrieve
information from long-term memory

Attention
Encoding
External Sensory Short-term Long-term
events memory memory Retrieval memory

Retrieval failure
leads to forgetting
 Amnesia
• Retrograde amnesia: loss of memory from the
point of injury or trauma backwards, or loss of
memory for the past
• Anterograde amnesia: loss of memory from the
point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability
to form new long-term memories
• Infantile amnesia: the inability to retrieve
memories from much before age three
 Consolidation failure and Motivated
forgetting
• Consolidation failure--any disruption in the
consolidation process that prevents a permanent
memory from forming i.e. retrograde amnesia
• Motivated forgetting: Forgetting through
suppression or repression in order to protect oneself
from material that is too painful, anxiety- or guilt-
producing, or otherwise unpleasant
• Repression: Removing from one’s consciousness
disturbing, guilt-provoking, or otherwise unpleasant
memories so that one is no longer aware that a
painful event occurred
 When memory fails
• Misinformation effect: the tendency of
misleading information presented after an event
to alter the memories of the event itself
• False memory syndrome: the creation of
inaccurate or false memories through the
suggestion of others
• Hypnosis also has been found to increase the
confidence people have in their memories,
regardless of whether those memories are real
or false (Bowman, 1996).
 Improving Memory
• Encoding specifically
• Repeat within 24 hours
• Give importance to middle of the content as
according to serial position effect
• Maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal
• State dependent learning
• Forming associations
• Massed practice vs. distributed practice
• Retrieval time and again- in order to prevent from
decay and disuse
 Neuroscience of Memory
• Procedural memories stored in cerebellum
• Short-term memories stored in the prefrontal
cortex (the very front of the frontal lobe) and
the temporal lobe
• hippocampus (a part of the limbic system)
identified as the part of the brain that is
responsible for the formation of new long-
term memories
• Memories of fear stored in the amygdala
 A case of HM
• H.M. had brain surgery in
1953 when he was 27 yrs.
old.
• The surgery involved
removal of part of the brain
known as the hippocampus
to alleviate the severe
symptoms of epilepsy.
• Although the surgery
controlled the epileptic
seizures H.M. suffered
serious and debilitating
memory impairment as a
side effect.
 A case of HM
• His short-term memory was normal but he was
completely unable to transfer any new
information into his long-term memory.
• He showed almost no knowledge of current
affairs because he forgot any news item as soon
as he had read about it; he knew nothing of
recent family events including moving house and
the death of his father.
• Despite being able to remember people he had
known long ago he was never able to store
information about new people he encountered
and they remained forever complete strangers to
him.
 A case of HM
• In many respects H.M. seemed cognitively 'normal' as
he was able to learn and remember perceptual and
motor skills although he needed reminding of what he
was able to do.
• This case and others illustrate the highly selective nature
of the problems of anterograde amnesia following brain
damage.
• There is no general deterioration of memory function
but specific deficits in which some abilities such as
learning new information are severely impaired whilst
others, including language and memory span are quite
normal.