CH 7 MEMORY

Memory refers to retaining and recalling information over a period of time, depending upon the
nature of cognitive task one is required to perform.
Three stages are:

1. Encoding: first stage

• Information is recorded and registered for the first time.
• Incoming information is received and some meaning is derived. It is then represented in
a way so that it can be processed further.
2. Storage: refers to the process through which information is retained and held over a period of
time.
3. Retrieval: It refers to bringing the stored information to her/his awareness so that it can be used
for performing various cognitive tasks such as problem solving or decision-making.

INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACH: THE STAGE MODEL

Both computer and memory register, store, and manipulate large amount of information and act on the
basis of the outcome of such manipulations.
STAGE MODEL:
• Proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968

Sensory memory
Has a large capacity.
Very short duration, i.e. less than a second
Also known as sensory register: informations from all the senses are registered here as exact replica of
the stimulus.
Types: Iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory)

Short-term Memory
Information that is attended to enter the second memory store called the short-term memory.
Holds small amount of information for a brief period of time (usually for 30 seconds or less)
Information in STM is primarily encoded acoustically, i.e. in terms of sound
Duration: less than 30 seconds.
Capacity: holds small amount of information

Long-term Memory
Information is encoded semantically, i.e. in terms of the meaning that any information carries.
Vast capacity
It is a permanent storehouse of all informations

Control processes which function to monitor the flow of information through various memory stores.
• Selective attention :is the first control process that decides what will travel from sensory
registers to STM.

The STM then sets into motion another control process of

• Maintenance rehearsal these kinds of rehearsals simply maintain information through
repetition and when such repetitions discontinue the information is lost.
• Another control process, which operates in STM to expand its capacity, is Chunking. Through
chunking it is possible to expand the capacity of STM which is otherwise 7+2.
From the STM information enters the long term memory through elaborative rehearsals.
 ➢ This rehearsal attempts to connect the ‘to be retained information’ to the already existing
information in long-term memory.
Shallice and Warrington in the year 1970
• Researched on man known as KF who met with an accident and damaged a portion of
the left side of his cerebral hemisphere.
• Subsequently, it was found that his long-term memory was intact but the short-term
memory was seriously affected
• It led to development of another conceptualization about memory:

LEVELS OF PROCESSING
It was proposed by Craik and Lockhart in 1972
It suggests that the processing of any new information relates to the manner in which it is perceived,
analysed, and understood.
➢ One may analyse it in terms of its physical or structural features.
• one might attend only to the shape of letters in a word say cat - inspite of whether the
word is written in capital or small letters or the colour of the ink in which it is written.
• This is the first and the shallowest level of processing
➢ At an intermediate level one might consider and attend to the phonetic sounds that are attached
to the letters
• therefore the structural features are transformed into at least one meaningful word say, a
word cat that has three specific letters.
➢ there is a third and the deepest level at which information can be processed.
• It should be analysed and understood in terms of its meaning. For instance, you may think of
cat as an animal that has furs, has four legs, a tail, and is a mammal.

TYPES OF LONG TERM MEMORY

One major classification within the LTM is that of

Declarative All information pertaining to facts, names, dates, such as a rickshaw has three wheels or
that India became independent on August 15are part of declarative memory.
Tulving has proposed classification; declarative memory can either be Episodic or Semantic
Episodic memory contains biographical details of our lives. Memories relating to our personal life
experiences constitute the episodic memory and it is for this reason that its contents are generally
emotional in nature.
Semantic memory, on the other hand, is the memory of general awareness and knowledge. All
concepts, ideas and rules of logic are stored in semantic memory.
.
Procedural (sometimes called non declarative) memories: on the other hand, refers to memories
relating to procedures for accomplishing various tasks and skills such as how to ride a bicycle, how to
make tea or play basketball.

KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND ORGANISATION IN MEMORY

Concepts are mental categories for objects and events, which are similar to each other in one or in more
than one way. Concepts once formed get organized in categories — a category itself is a concept but it
also functions to organise similarities among other concepts based on common features.

Concepts may also get organised in schema. They are mental frameworks which represent our
knowledge
and assumptions about the world.
Allan Collins and Ross Quillian (1969)suggested that knowledge in long-term memory is organised
hierarchically and assumes a network structure. Elements of this structure are called nodes.
Nodes are concepts while connections between nodes are labelled relationships, which indicate category
membership or concept attributes.

Cognitive economy means maximum and efficient use of the capacity of long-term memory with
minimum redundancy.

Dual coding hypothesis proposed by Paivio.

According to this hypothesis, concrete nouns and information related to concrete objects are encoded
and stored in the form of images while information related to abstract concepts assume a verbal and a
descriptive code.
Information which has been encoded and stored in the form of images leads to the development of
mental models.
Mental models, therefore, refer to our belief about the manner in which our environment is structured
and such beliefs are formed with the help of concrete images as well as verbal descriptions.

MEMORY AS A CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS

Ebbinghaus believed that memory primarily consists of reproduction of stored materials.
If the reproduced version of the stored material showed any deviation, it was seen as an error and a case
of memory failure. This storage metaphor of memory implied that the memory was a passive occurrence
of learnt material that has been transported to its long-term storehouse.

This position was challenged by Bartlett who contended that memory is an active process and all that
we have stored undergoes continuous change and modification.
Bartlett saw memory as a constructive and not a reproductive process
He conducted simple experiments in which reading of stimulus materials his participants committed a
wide variety of ‘errors’
Bartlett considered these errors useful in understanding the process of memory construction.
His participants altered the texts to make them more consistent with their knowledge, glossed over the
unnecessary details, elaborated the main theme and transformed the material to look more coherent
and rational.

Schema, according to him ‘was an active organization of past reactions and past experiences’.
Schemas refer to an organisation of past experiences and knowledge, which influence the way in which
incoming information is interpreted, stored, and later retrieved.
Memory, therefore, becomes an active process of construction where information is encoded and stored
in
terms of a person’s understanding and within her/his previous knowledge and expectations.

NATURE AND CAUSES OF FORGETTING

Hermann Ebbinghaus, who memorised lists of nonsense syllables and then measured the number of
trials he took to relearn the same list at varying time intervals.
The rate of forgetting is maximum in the first nine hours, particularly during the first hour. After that the
rate slows down and not much is forgotten even after many days.

Forgetting due to Trace Decay

Trace decay (also called disuse theory) is the earliest theory of forgetting.
The assumption is that memory leads to modification in the central nervous system, which is akin to
physical changes in the brain called memory traces. When these memory traces are not used for a long
time, they simply fade away and become unavailable.
This theory has been proved inadequate on several grounds.
If forgetting takes place because memory traces decay due to disuse, then people who go to sleep after
memorising should forget more compared to those who remain awake, simply because there is no way
in which memory traces can be put to use during sleep.
Results, however, show just the opposite. Those who remain awake after memorising (waking
condition) show greater forgetting than those who sleep (sleeping condition).

Forgetting due to Interference

This theory assumes that learning and memorising involve forming of associations between items and
once acquired, these associations remain intact in the memory.
Interference can be proactive (forward moving) which means what one have learnt earlier interferes
with the recall of your subsequent learning or retroactive (backward moving) which refers to difficulty
in recalling what learnt earlier because of learning a new material.
In proactive interference, past learning interferes with the recall of later learning.
In retroactive interference the later learning interferes with the recall of past learning.

Forgetting due to Retrieval Failure

Retrieval cues are aids which help us in recovering information stored in the memory.
Memory may become inaccessible either due to absence or inappropriateness of retrieval cues that are
available /employed at the time of recall.

ENHANCING MEMORY
Mnemonics: strategies for improving memory

Mnemonics using Images

The Keyword Method: if one want to remember the Spanish word for duck which is ‘Pato’, one may
choose ‘pot’ as the keyword and then evoke images of keyword and the target word (the Spanish word
one want to remember) and imagine them as interacting.

The Method of Loci : In order to use the method of loci, items one want to remember are placed as
objects arranged in a physical space in the form of visual images. This method is particularly helpful in
remembering items in a serial order. It requires to first visualise objects/places that one know well in a
specific sequence, imagine the objects to remember and associate them one by one to the physical
locations.

Mnemonics using Organization

Organization refers to imposing certain order on the material.
Chunking: In chunking, several smaller units are combined to form large chunks.
First Letter Technique: In order to employ the first letter technique, you need to pick up the first letter of
each word you want to remember and arrange them to form another word or a sentence. For example,
colours of a rainbow are remembered in this way (VIBGYOR- that stands for Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green,
Yellow, Orange and Red.
Some other strategies:
Engage in Deep Level Processing: Craik and Lockhart have demonstrated that processing information in
terms of meaning that they convey leads to better memory as compared to attending to their surface
features. Deep processing would involve asking as many questions related to the information as
possible, considering its meaning and examining its relationships to the facts.

Minimise Interference :
Give Yourself enough Retrieval Cues

Thomas and Robinson have developed another strategy- PQRST

This acronym stands for Preview, Question, Read, Self-recitation, and Test.
Preview refers to familiarising oneself with its contents.
Question means raising questions and seeking answers from the lesson.
Through reading and look for answers of questions one had raised
.After reading try to rewrite what one have read and
at the end test how much you have been able to understand.