L5/6 - Memory

Question 1

Memory Ability:

Answer 1

• Memory plays a large role in how we think, solve problems and make decisions
• Many variables can impact on memory (e.g. repetition, word length/frequency, list length, serial position, context)

Question 2

3 Processes of Memory for Remembering/Learning:

Answer 2

1. Encoding: Hippocampus transforms sensory stimuli into a form that can be placed in memory.
   
   • Some spatio-visual information is automatically, unintentionally encoded (e.g. remembering where on a page something you learnt was located)
2. Storage: Effectively retaining information for later use
3. Retrieval: Locating the memory and using it (e.g. recall vs recognition

Question 3

3 Types of Memory Stores:

Answer 3

• Stimuli
• Sensory Register – some lost
• Short term memory – some lost
• Long term memory – some lost

Question 4

Sensory register:

Answer 4

Storage system that registers (and briefly holds) information from the senses

• Iconic Memory: related to visual system, less than ½ second duration, 9 to 10 items (Sperling, 1960)
• Echoic Memory: related to auditory system, around 2 seconds duration, around five items

Question 5

Short-term (working/active) memory (STM):

Answer 5

Intermediate storage system that briefly holds information prior to consolidation

• Lasts about 30 seconds
• Capacity = 5-9+
  • Chunking: Organising information into meaningful groupings (using long term memory), allowing us to extend the capacity of short-term memory

Question 6

Long-term memory (LTM):

Answer 6

Infinite capacity storage system that retains information for a long period of term

• Serial position effect: Larger capacity actually makes it easier to create new memories
• Vulnerable to distortion: Tend to store general concepts for dynamic/changeable processes rather than details
• Free recall: Don’t have to remember order
  
  • Primacy effect: Memory best for things learned first (more breaks = more effective study)
  • Recency effect: Memory also better for things learned last (but mostly this is STM contribution to the task)
  • Context: Memory is better when you are in the context you learned the material in (put yourself mentally in the context which you learnt it)
  • Internal state: Memory is better when your internal state is the same as at the time of learning

I. Declarative (hippocampus)

• Conscious recollection (things you can “declare”)
• (a) Episodic: Memory of specific past events that you’ve seen and done (e.g. what you had for lunch yesterday, what you did on your birthday last year)
• (b) Semantic: Facts and basic knowledge you can recall and declare (e.g. Paris is the capital city of France)

II. Procedural (frontal lobe)

• Without awareness of remembering
• Skills you have learnt (e.g. how to ride a bike, how to sign your name)

Question 7

Cognitive Memory Research:

Answer 7

Abstraction: cognitive process by which we encode and store the essential meaning of a message and not the exact details of learning events

Schema: Set of ideas about objects and events associated with familiar activity

“Eyewitness memory”: Post-event leading questions can distort long term memory (which lacks detail) and overinflate confidence of these memories regardless of actual accuracy

Question 8

Overall:

Answer 8

• Long-term memory has a very large storage capacity and is generally enduring but involves dynamic (changeable) processes which can readily distort memories
• Chunking strategies can increase memory capacity
  • One of several strategies involving use of retrieval cues to improve memory
• Memory is reconstructive
  
  • Not pure retrieval—sometimes we unknowingly “fill in the gaps”
• Memory is heavily influenced by how we encode and arrange information and by its meaning to us
• Consequently, memory plays a large role in how we think, solve problems and make decisions