Memory Drafts and Treats Psychology in the News Memory Overview o Elephants were believed to have the longest memory of all animals but scientists recently discovered that it actually dolphins 20 yrs o We think that we remember well but we don t o Did survey with stop and yield signs 79 of people think yield is yellow its actually red Memory o Memory process in which information is encoded stored and retrieved Encoding capture material and see something brain then stores Storing maintain information over periods of time Retrieval retrieve info we have stored and locate and return it to our consciousness does not always work accurately Sensory Memory Capacity Duration o Sensory memory holds sensory info for less than one second after item is perceived Out of cognitive control and an automatic response Participants usually report to see more than they saw 3 types of sensory memories Iconic memory fast decaying of visual info Ex book Echoic memory fast decaying of auditory Ex music Haptic sensory memory that represents touch stimuli Ex fire o Sensory store memory 1st In lecture they flashed letters in 3 rows most remembered top 2nd write down letters they say to write rest vanished from memory He told us which row to write down after info was gone so memory freaked out Suggests that for the split second all the info is there but it s degraded quickly SSM has huge capacity but short duration o Short term memory and links to long term memory Short term memory recall for a period of several seconds to a min w o rehearsal big capacity short duration Dependent on frontal lobe prefrontal cortex parietal lobe o Emotionality effect spikes something you remember that impacts you Primacy effect remember beginning part of it sexuality o The longer the word the less likely you are to remember it Recency effect remember the last thing Rehearsal go over and over something again o Take the words that come in and trying to transfer those into long term memory o Anomic aphasia problems with remembering words or names o People are more likely to remember traumatic events in third person to create emotional distance Capacity of SHORT TERM MEMORY o Magic number 7 plus or minus 2 10 20 seconds o Memory capacity increased through chunking chunk digits into 3 groups Ex phone S Long Term Memory o Long Term Memory large capacity longer duration through repetition Hippocampus long term o Procedural memory for doing things ride a bicycle learn to walk Not something explicitly be talked about o Declarative things we can talk about 2 types Episodic memory episodes events of specific things Ex Birthday parties and weddings Semantic memory what you learn but not from personal experience Ex History more general not specific events Reconstructive Memory Eyewitnesses Spreading activation the first word you hear you then are more prone to remember the words that are related to the first word first word bed snore etc Retroactive interference eyewitness testimony how can what I do now affect my memory for something that happened earlier o Elizabeth Loufner Asked people about those accidents but varied them in crucial ways Reconstructive memory uncanny ability to reconstruct memories that weren t there and we can be so certain about them even though there Is no truth to them sleep Models Types of Memory Atkinson Shiffrin model Memory consolidation Multistore model too simplistic Working memory consists of central exective phonological loop and visuo sketchpad o Explains why it s easier to do 2 different tasks Recognition memory requires people to answer whether they ve encountered a stimulus pic or word before Recall memory requires people to retrieve previously learned info Ex Dates of war Classification by info type o Topographic ability to recognize and orient oneself in familiar places o Flashbulb clear episodic memories of unique highly emotional events o Declarative explicit some conscious process must call back the info Ex History dates o Procedural on implicit learning using motor skills repetition Ex How to tie your shoes Paired associate learning when one learns to associate one specific word with another For example when given a word such as safe one must learn to say another specific word such as green This is stimulus and response 27 28 Free recall during this task a subject would be asked to study a list of words and then later they will be asked to recall or write down as many words that they can remember 29 Earlier items are affected by retroactive interference RI which means the longer the list the greater the interference and the less likelihood that they are recalled On the other hand items that have been presented lastly suffer little RI but suffer a great deal from proactive interference PI which means the longer the delay in recall the more likely that the items will be lost 30 Recognition subjects are asked to remember a list of words or pictures after which point they are asked to identify the previously presented words or pictures from among a list of alternatives that were not presented in the original list 31 Detection paradigm Individuals are shown a number of objects and color samples during a certain period of time They are then tested on their visual ability to remember as much as they can by looking at testers and pointing out whether the testers are similar to the sample or if any change is present Transience memories degrade with the passing of time This occurs in the storage stage of memory after the information has been stored and before it is retrieved This can happen in sensory short term and long term storage It follows a general pattern where the information is rapidly forgotten during the first couple of days or years followed by small losses in later days or years Absentmindedness Memory failure due to the lack of attention Attention plays a key role in storing information into long term memory without proper attention the information might not be stored making it impossible to be retrieved later Disorders Amnesia loss of memory extensive damage of brain Alzheimer s Parkinson s Hyperthymesia affects individual s autobiographical memory cannot forget small details Tip of the tongue phenomenon failure of word from memory Influence of Odors and Emotions to Memory Interference from previous knowledge Amygdala creating the feeling of emotion cortisone adrenaline o Most effective to activate is fear discovery led to treat PTSD Retroactive interference learning new makes it harder to
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