AIM: How are we able to

remember things?
DO NOW: What is your most memorable memory at SHA? What made
it so memorable?
AIM: How are we able to remember things?
Memory
• Persistence of learning overtime through the storage & retrieval of
information
• Continued over time
AIM: How are we able to remember things?
George Miller- Miller’s Law
• Cognitive psychologist
• Magical # 7 +/- 2
• Published in 1956
AIM: How are we able to remember things?
3 Levels of Processing Memories
• Encoding
• Processing of information into the memory system
• Storage
• Retention of encoded information over time
• Retrieval
• Process of getting information out of memory storage
AIM: How are we able to remember things?
Encoding Memories
• Explicit memories
• Memory of facts & experiences that
one can consciously known & declare
• Declarative memory
• Effortful processing
• Requires attention
• Ex. studying→ rehearsal & repetition

• Implicit memories
• Retention→ how to do something
• Independent of conscious
recollection
• Nondeclarative memory
• Automatic processing
• Unconscious encoding; repeated & well
learned activity
AIM: How are we able to remember things?
Storing Memories
• Explicit memories
• Semantic memories
• Facts & general knowledge
• Episodic memories
• Personally experienced
events
• Hippocampus
• Frontal lobe
• Memory consolidation
• Neural storage of a
long-term memory
• Implicit memories
• Procedural memories
• Cerebellum
• Skills- motor & cognitive
• Basal ganglia
• Habits
AIM: How are we able to remember things?
Prospective Memory
• Involves remembering to
perform intended actions
in the future or
remembering events that
will occur in the future
• ex. Calendar of events,
medication, cooking
AIM: How are we able to remember things?
Long-term Potentiation (LTP)
• An increase in a nerve cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid
stimulation
• A neural basis for learning and memory
AIM: How are we able to
remember things?
Make a 10 episode netflix documentary about your life. Include
explicit and implicit memories.
AIM: How do types, structures,
and processes of memory
work?
DO NOW: What is the purpose of a file cabinet?
AIM: How do types, structures, and processes of memory work?
Models of Memory
• Encoding
• Processing of information into the memory system
• Storage
• Retention of encoded information over time
• Retrieval
• Process of getting information out of memory storage
AIM: How do types, structures, and processes of memory work?
Aspects of Memory Models
• Parallel processing
• Processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously
• Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model (1968)/Multi-store
model
• Sensory Memory→ immediate, very brief recording of
sensory information in the memory system
• Short-term memory→ activated memory that holds a
few items briefly before the information is stored or
forgotten; ex. Seven digits of a phone # while dialing
• Long-term memory→ Relatively permanent & limitless
storehouse of the memory system; includes knowledge,
skills & experiences; If you do use it, you lose it!
• Working memory/short-term memory
• A newer understanding of short-term memory
• Conscious, active processing of both incoming sensory
information and information retrieval from long-term
memory
• Automatic processing
AIM: How do types, structures, and processes of memory work?
Sensory memory
• Feeds our active working memory,
recording momentary images,
sounds, and strong scents
• Iconic memory
• A momentary sensory memory of
visual stimuli; a photographic or
picture-image memory lasting no
more than a few tenths of a second
• Echoic memory
• A momentary sensory memory of
auditory stimulus; if attention is
elsewhere, sounds and words can still
be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds
AIM: How do types, structures, and processes of memory work?
Working Memory
• Central executive
• A memory component that coordinates
the activities of phonological loop and
visuospatial sketchpad
• Focused attention
• Phonological loop
• A memory component that briefly holds
auditory information
• ex. Repeating a phone number as you
type it into your phone
• Visuospatial sketchpad
• A memory component that briefly holds
information about an object's
appearance and location in space
• ex. Park your car when you go shopping,
route you take to school
AIM: How do types, structures, and processes of memory work?
Levels of Processing
• Structural level
• Shallow processing
• Encoding on a basic level, based
on the structure or appearance of
words
• Phonemic level
• Shallow processing
• The processing of information
based on the sounds of words
• Semantic level
• Deep processing
• Encoding semantically, based on
the meaning of the words; tends
to yield the best retention
 AIM: How do different
encoding processing work to
get information into memory?
DO NOW: When you are studying for a test how do you retain the
information?
AIM: How do different encoding processing work to get information into memory?
3 Levels of Processing Memories
• Encoding
• Processing of information into the memory system
• Storage
• Retention of encoded information over time
• Retrieval
• Process of getting information out of memory storage
AIM: How do different encoding processing work to get information into memory?
Effortful Processing Strategies for Encoding
• Chunking
• Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs
automatically
• Mnemonics
• Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and
organizational devices
• Hierarchies
• Few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts &
facts
• Method of Loci
• Location
• Memorize layout & attach key items to each place
AIM: How do different encoding processing work to get information into memory?
Distributed Practice
• Memory learning strategy where information is studied in multiple
short sessions spread out over a longer period of time, rather than
cramming it all at once
• Produces better long-term recall
• Spacing effect
• The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term
retention than is achieved through massed study or practice
• Massed practice
• Cramming
• Testing effect (retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning)
• enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading information
• Serial position effect
• Our tendency to recall best the last and first items on a list
• Primacy Effect→ first time on the list
• Recency Effect→ last item on the list
• PE + RE= Working memory
AIM: How do memory storage
processes retain information in
memory and how do memory
retrieval processes get
information out of memory?
DO NOW: When you feel a certain emotion, what type of thoughts
come into your mind?
AIM: How do memory storage processes retain information in memory and how do memory
retrieval processes get information out of memory?

Memory Retention
• Maintenance rehearsal
• Process of repeatedly thinking about or saying information to keep it in
your short-term memory
• Elaborative rehearsal
• A memory technique that involves thinking about the meaning of the
term to be remembers, as opposed to simply repeating the word to
yourself over and over
• Retrieval cues (priming)
• Anchor points you can use to access the target information when you
want to retrieve it later
• Recall
• A measure of memory in which the person must reticence information
learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test
• Recognition
• Personally identifies items previously learned
AIM: How do memory storage processes retain information in memory and how do memory
retrieval processes get information out of memory?

Retrieval Cues
• Anchor points you can use to access the target information when
you want to retrieve it later
• Context-dependent
• Improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context
present at encoding and retrieval are the same
• State-dependent
• What we learn in one state (of mind) may be more easily recalled when
we are again in that state
• Mood-congruent
• The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current
good or bad mood
AIM: How do memory storage processes retain information in memory and how do memory retrieval
processes get information out of memory?

Memory Retention
• Amnesia
• Partial or total loss of memory, typically resulting from brain injury,
trauma, or illness
• Retrograde amnesia
• An inability to remember information from one’s past
• Impacts episodic memories
• Anterograde amnesia
• An inability to form new memories
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Deterioration of ACh (enables muscle action, learning & memory)
• Infantile amnesia
• inability to remember events prior to the age of 3
 AIM: How do memory storage processes retain information in memory and how do memory retrieval
processes get information out of memory?

Memory Retention
• Autobiographical memory recall (highly
superior)
• The process of remembering personal
experiences of events from our own lives
• Includes the ability to retrieve specific details
such as time, place, emotions, and sensory
information associated with those memories
• Flashbulb Memory
• Clear, sustained memory of an emotionally
significant memory or event
• Emotions triggered
• hormonal changes
• Able to remember shocking events of an
emotions, significant moment or event
• Amygdala
AIM: Why does memory
failure or errors occur?
DO NOW: What happened to Spongebob?
AIM: Why does memory failure or errors
occur?
• Hermann Ebbinghaus
• Forgetting curve
• Overtime memory
will decrease
• Encoding is
important
• Cramming doesn’t
worl
 AIM: Why does memory failure or errors occur?
Forgetting
• Encoding failure
• Happens from short to long-term memory…leads to
forgetting
• Age affects encoding efficiency
• Interference
• Proactive interference
• Forward-acting disruptive effect of older
learning on the recall of new information
• Retroactive interference
• Backward-acting disruptive effect of
newer learning on the recall of old
information
• Inadequate retrieval
• The inability to access a memory due to a lack of
sufficient or appropriate retrieval cues
• Can’t remember something because you don’t have
the right riggers to bring it back to mind
• Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
AIM: Why does memory failure or errors occur?
Memory Theories
• Psychodynamic Theory
• Sigmund Freud
• Repression→ basic defense mechanisms that
banishes from consciousness
anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings &
memories
• Elizabeth Loftus
• Misinformation effect
• Memory distortion phenomenon in which a
person's existing memories can be altered if a
person is exposed to misleading information
• Source amnesia
• We resting the memory of the event but not
of the context in which we acquired it;
“rumor mill”
• Deja vu→ cues from current situation may
unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier
experience
• Children’s eyewitness recall
AIM: Why does memory failure or errors occur?
Memory Theories
• Constructive memory
• When we recall a memory, we
actively reconstruct it based on our
current knowledge, beliefs, and
perceptions
• Imagination inflation
• Findings that imagining an event
which never happened can
increase confidence that it actually
occurred
• Children’s eyewitness recall
AIM: Why does memory failure or errors occur?
7 Ways to Improve Memory
• Rehearse repeatedly
• Make the material meaningful
• Activate retrieval cues
• Use mnemonic devices
• Minimize proactive & retroactive interference
• Sleep more
• Test your knowledge, both to rehearse it & to find out what you
don’t know yet