10 26 2014 Chapter 6 Memory o Define memory Memory is an active system that receives information organizes and alters that information and retrieves information from storage o What are the three main divisions of memory The 3 main divisions of memory of memory are the sensory memory short term memory and long term memory descriptions below o What is sensory memory Who studied it Does it have a large or a small capacity How long is the information available Sensory memory is the first stage of memory the point at which information enters the nervous system through the sensory systems eyes ears so on o Think of it as a door that is open for a long time you can see many things from an open door but only some things will make it through the door Information is encoded into sensory memory as neural messages in the nervous system As long as these messages are traveling through the system it can be said that people have a memory for that information Sensory memory can be broken down into iconic and echoic sensory memories o Iconic memory is visual sensory memory and only lasts a fraction of a second Iconic memory was studied by George Sperling He found that if he presented a grid of letters people could only remember about four or five letters so Sperling became convinced that his method was an inaccurate measure of the capacity of iconic memory because the human tendency to read from top to bottom took long enough that the letters on the bottom of the grid may have faded from memory by the time you read the letters on the top Sperling developed the partial report method in which he showed a grid of letters but immediately sounded a high medium or low tone just after the grid was shown Sperling found that subjects could accurately report any of the three rows meaning that the entire grid was available to iconic memory Iconic Memory s capacity is everything that can be seen at one time Very short most information will be pushed out quickly by new info masking Eidetic imagery Ability to access a visual sensory memory over a long period of time photographic memory o Echoic memory brief memory of what you have heard Duration is only about 4 seconds capacity is limited to what can be heard at any one moment smaller than iconic memory 2 to 4 seconds o What is short term memory How does it differ from Working Memory Can you compare and contrast these two concepts What role does selective attention play in the processing of information Be sure to read p 273 276 Short term memory is the next stage of memory after sensory memory where memories are held for up to 30 seconds Selective attention is the ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input this is how info enters our STM o cocktail party effect you are having a conversation but you can still notice when someone says your name in the background Selective attention operates in a 2 stage process incoming stimuli in sensory memory are filtered on the basis of physical characteristics instead of being lost there is a lessening of signal strength of unselected stimuli compared with selected stimuli In the second stage only stimuli that meet a certain threshold of importance are processed Short term memory tends to be encoded primarily in sound form people tend to talk in their own heads Working memory is more thought of as an active system that processes information present in the STM o Short term memory simple storage working memory storage and manipulation of information Working memory is thought to consist of 4 systems a central executive controls and coordinates the other 2 systems interprets both visual and auditory info the visual sketchpad of sorts images and a auditory action recorder plays dialogue episodic buffer storage of multi modal info George Miller wanted to know how much info humans can hold in STM found the capacity to be about 7 items of information plus or minus two o Chunking fools the STM to hold onto more information STM lasts from 12 to 30 seconds without rehearsal o Maintenance rehearsal saying something over and over to help remember it o What is long term memory Does it have a large or a small capacity How long is the information available LTM is the 3rd system of memory where all the information is placed to be kept more or less permanently The capacity seems to be unlimited There is a relatively permanent physical change in the brain itself when a memory is formed That does not mean you can always retrieve those memories All memories are not stored forever we only store things that are meaningful and important to us Information that is rehearsed long enough may find a way into LTM o But maintenance rehearsal is not the best way to learn information and put it into LTM because to get the information out one has to remember it almost exactly how it went in Best way to remember put things into LTM is through elaborative rehearsal making information meaningful in some way by connecting new info to something already well known o What are the sub divisions of long term memory Non declarative or Implicit Memory o Memories for things that people know how to do tying shoes o Procedural memory skills and habitats awareness Declarative or Explicit Memory o Priming improvement in identifying or processing concepts words or objects after having prior experiences with them Amygdala is responsible for emotional associations and cerebellum is responsible for storage of memories of conditioned responses skills and habits o Evidence that separate areas of the brain control nondeclarative memory comes from studies of people with damage to the hippocampus anterograde amnesia no new long term declarative memories can be formed o These memories are not easily brought into conscious o Declarative memory is all the things that people know the facts and info that make up knowledge o Declarative is divided into semantic and episodic Semantic Memory Episodic Memory General knowledge that anyone has the ability to know awareness of the meanings of words concepts and terms as well as names of objects math skills and so on Memories of what happened to people each day childhood events representation of episodes from your life Updated often but memories that are very meaningful stay o Long term Memory is organized well for retrieval to be so quick Research suggests that it is organized in terms of related meanings and concepts Information exists in a kind of network with focal points of related info linked to each other in a
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