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Memory
Introduction to Psychology

Memory and Its Processes

• Memory - an active system that receives information from the senses,
organizes and alters it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the
information from storage.

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Memory and Its Processes

• Processes of Memory:
• Encoding - the set of mental operations that people perform on sensory
information to convert that information into a form that is usable in the
brain’s storage systems.
• Storage - holding onto information for some period of time.
• Retrieval - getting information that is in storage into a form that can be used.

Models of Memory
• Information-processing model
• Model of memory that assumes the processing of information for memory
storage is similar to the way a computer processes memory in a series of
three stages.

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Models of Memory
• Levels-of-processing model
• Model of memory that 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, will be remembered more efficiently and
for a longer period of time.

Figure 6.1 Three-Stage Process of Memory

Information enters through the sensory system, briefly registering in sensory memory. Selective attention filters the
information into short-term memory, where it is held while attention (rehearsal) continues. If the information
receives enough rehearsal (maintenance or elaborative), it will enter and be stored in long-term memory.

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Models of Memory
• Parallel distributed processing (PDP) model
• Model of memory in which memory processes are proposed to take place at
the same time over a large network of neural connections.

Sensory Memory
• Sensory memory - the very first stage of memory, the point at which
information enters the nervous system through the sensory systems.

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Figure 6.2 Iconic Memory Test

Sample grid of letters for Sperling’s test of iconic memory. To determine if the entire grid existed in iconic memory,
Sperling sounded a tone associated with each row after the grid’s presentation. Participants were able to recall the
letters in the row for which they heard the tone. The graph shows the decrease in the number of letters recalled as
the delay in presenting the tone increased.

Sensory Memory
• Iconic memory - visual sensory memory, lasting only a fraction of a
second.
• Capacity – everything that can be seen at one time.
• Duration - information that has just entered iconic memory will be pushed
out very quickly by new information, a process called masking.

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Sensory Memory
• Eidetic imagery - the rare ability to access a visual memory for 30
seconds or more.
• Echoic memory - the brief memory of something a person has just
heard.
• Capacity - limited to what can be heard at any one moment and is smaller
than the capacity of iconic memory
• Duration – lasts longer that iconic — about 2 to 4 seconds

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Short-Term Memory
• Short-term memory (STM) (working memory) - the memory system in
which information is held for brief periods of time while being used.
• Selective attention – the ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all
sensory input.

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Short-Term Memory
• Digit-span test – memory test in which a series of numbers is read to
subjects in the experiment who are then asked to recall the numbers
in order.
• Conclusions are that the capacity of STM is about seven items or pieces of
information, plus or minus two items, or from five to nine bits of information.
• "magical number" = 7

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Short-Term Memory
• Chunking – bits of information are combined into meaningful units, or
chunks, so that more information can be held in STM.
• 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 (STMs tend to be encoded in auditory form).

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Figure 6.3 Digit-Span Test

Instructions for the digit-span test: Listen carefully as the instructor reads each string of numbers out
loud. 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.

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Short-Term Memory
• Duration of STM - lasts from about 12 to 30 seconds without
rehearsal.
• STM is susceptible to interference
• (e.g., if counting is interrupted,
• have to start over).

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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.
• Elaborative rehearsal - a method of transferring information from
STM into LTM by making that information meaningful in some way.

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Types of LTM
• Procedural (nondeclarative) memory - type of long-term memory
including memory for skills, procedures, habits, and conditioned
responses. These memories are not conscious but are implied to exist
because they affect conscious behavior.
• Declarative memory – type of long-term memory containing
information that is conscious and known (memory for facts).

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Procedural (Nondeclarative) LTM

• Skills that people know how to do.
• Also include emotional associations, habits, and simple conditioned
reflexes that may or may not be in conscious awareness.

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Figure 6.4 Tower of Hanoi

The Tower of Hanoi is a puzzle that is solved in a series of steps by moving one disk at a time. The goal is to move
all of the disks from peg A to peg C; the rules are that a larger disk can not be moved on top of a smaller one and a
disk can not be moved if there are other disks on top of it. Amnesia patients were able to learn the procedure for
solving the puzzle but could not remember that they knew how to solve it.

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Procedural (Nondeclarative) LTM

• Anterograde amnesia - loss of memory from the point of injury or
trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term memories.
Usually does NOT affect procedural LTM.
• Procedural memory often called implicit memory - memory that is
not easily brought into conscious awareness.

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Declarative LTM
• All the things that people know.
• 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.

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Declarative LTM
• Semantic and episodic memories are forms of explicit memory -
memory that is consciously known.

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Figure 6.5 Types of Long-Term Memories

Long-term memory can be divided into declarative memories, which are factual and typically
conscious (explicit) memories, and nondeclarative memories, which are skills, habits, and conditioned
responses that are typically unconscious (implicit). Declarative memories are further divided into
episodic memories (personal experiences) and semantic memories (general knowledge).

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Organization of Memory
• LTM organized in terms of related meanings and concepts.
• Semantic network model - model of memory organization that
assumes information is stored in the brain in a connected fashion,
with concepts that are related stored physically closer to each other
than retrieval cue a stimulus for remembering.

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Figure 6.6 An Example of a Semantic Network

In the semantic network model of memory, concepts that are related in meaning are thought to be stored physically
near each other in the brain. In this example, canary and ostrich are stored near the concept node for “bird,”
whereas shark and salmon are stored near “fish.” But the fact that a canary is yellow is stored directly with that
concept.

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Cues to Help Remember

• Retrieval cue – a stimulus for remembering.
• 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.

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Figure 6.7 Recall of Target Words in Two Contexts

The retrieval of words learned while underwater was higher when the retrieval also took place underwater. Similarly, words learned
while out of the water (on land) were retrieved at a higher rate out of the water. Reproduced with permission from the British Journal
of Psychology, © The British Psychology Society.

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Cues to Help Remember

• Encoding specificity
• State-dependent learning - memories formed during a particular
physiological or psychological state will be easier to recall while in a similar
state.

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Recall
• Recall - type of memory retrieval in which the information to be
retrieved must be "pulled" from memory with very few external cues.
• Retrieval failure – recall has failed (at least temporarily).
• Tip of the tongue phenomenon.

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Recall
• Serial position effect - tendency of information at the beginning and
end of a body of information to be remembered more accurately than
information in the middle of the body of information.
• Primacy effect - tendency to remember information at the beginning of a
body of information better than the information that follows.

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Figure 6.8 Serial Position Effect

In the serial position effect, information at the beginning of a list will be recalled at a higher rate than information in the middle of the
list (primacy effect), because the beginning information receives more rehearsal and may enter LTM. Information at the end of a list
is also retrieved at a higher rate (recency effect), because the end of the list is still in STM, with no information coming after it to
interfere with retrieval.

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Recall
• Serial position effect - tendency of information at the beginning and
end of a body of information to be remembered more accurately than
information in the middle of the body of information.
• Recency effect - tendency to remember information at the end of a body of
information better than the information ahead of it.

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Recognition
• Recognition - the ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus
to a stored image or fact.
• False positive – error of recognition in which people think that they
recognize some stimulus that is not actually in memory.

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Recognition
• Father Bernard Pagano enters a courthouse during his time as a
suspect in a series of robberies. He was falsely identified for the
crimes committed by another man, who eventually confessed to the
robberies. False positives occur when people mistakenly believe they
have recognized someone or something that they have actually never
seen.

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Eyewitness Testimony
• Elizabeth Loftus study.
• Showed that what people see and hear about an event after the fact can
easily affect the accuracy of their memories of that event.
• Eye witness testimony not always reliable.

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Automatic Encoding and Flashbulb Memories

• Automatic encoding - tendency of certain kinds of information to

enter long-term memory with little or no effortful encoding.
• Flashbulb memories - type of automatic encoding that occurs
because an unexpected event has strong emotional associations for
the person remembering it.

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How LTMs Are Formed

• "...remembering is more like making up a story than it is like reading
one printed in a book."
• Constructive processing - referring to the retrieval of memories in
which those memories are altered, revised, or influenced by newer
information.

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How LTMs Are Formed

• Hindsight bias - the tendency to falsely believe, through revision of
older memories to include newer information, that one could have
correctly predicted the outcome of an event.
• Monday morning quarterbacking – hindsight bias

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Memory Retrieval Problems

• Misinformation effect - the tendency of misleading information
presented after an event to alter the memories of the event itself.

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Reliability of Memory Retrieval

• False memory syndrome - the creation of inaccurate or false
memories through the suggestion of others, often while the person is
under hypnosis.
• Evidence suggests that false memories cannot be created for just any
kind of memory.
• The memories must at least be plausible.

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Forgetting – Ebbinghaus
• 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.
• Distributed practice - will produce better retrieval than massed
practice

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Figure 6.9 Curve of Forgetting

Ebbinghaus found that his recall of words from his memorized word lists was greatest immediately
after learning the list but rapidly decreased within the first hour. After the first hour, forgetting leveled
off.

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Forgetting: Encoding Failure

• Encoding failure - failure to process information into memory.

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Encoding Failure:
Which is the correct penny?

It’s me!

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Figure 6.10 Which Penny Is Real?

Most people do not really look at the face of a penny. Which of these pennies represents an
actual penny? The answer can be found on the next slide.

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Figure 6.10 (continued) Which Penny Is Real?

Most people do not really look at the face of a penny. Which of these
pennies represents an actual penny? The answer is A.

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Forgetting: Memory Trace Theory

• 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.

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Forgetting: Memory Trace Theory

• Memories after many years – not explained by memory trace theory.

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Forgetting: Interference Theory

• Proactive interference - memory retrieval problem that occurs when
older information prevents or interferes with the retrieval of newer
information.

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Forgetting: Memory Trace Theory

• Retroactive interference - memory retrieval problem that occurs
when newer information prevents or interferes with the retrieval of
older information.
• Proactive interference – problem driving in England after learning in
US.

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Figure 6.11 Proactive and Retroactive Interference

If a student were to study for a French exam and then a Spanish exam, interference could occur in two directions. When taking the
Spanish exam, the French information studied first may proactively interfere with the learning of the new Spanish information. But
when taking the French exam, the more recently studied Spanish information may retroactively interfere with the retrieval of the
French information.

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Formation of LTMs
• Consolidation - the changes that take place in the structure and
functioning of neurons when an memory is formed.
• Hippocampus – area of brain responsible for the formation of LTMs.
Case of H.M.

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Amnesia
• Retrograde amnesia - loss of memory from the point of some 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
("senile dementia"). Case of H.M.

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Amnesia
• Infantile amnesia - the inability to retrieve memories from much
before age 3.
• Autobiographical memory - the memory for events and facts related to one’s
personal life story (usually after age 3).

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Alzheimer’s Disease
• The primary memory difficulty in Alzheimer’s is anterograde amnesia,
although retrograde amnesia can also occur as the disease
progresses.
• There are various drugs in use or in development for use in slowing or
stopping the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

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