Memory Flashcards
(43 cards)
Sensory memory
Very brief memories involving the senses
Encoding
The process by which information enters our memory, sometimes fairly active, sometimes passive
Storage
Process by which information is kept in the memory, connecting one’s pre-existing knowledge is important as information is stored with related concepts
Retrieval
Pulling the pieces of memory back together, can be intentional or unintentional
Specific brain areas are associated with this such as the hippocampus
Modal model of memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
Memories classed on duration
Sensory memories - very brief
Short-term memories - fairly brief
Long-term memories - longer held memories
Attention required to pass sensory memory to STM
Processed to LTM if information is processed in connection with prior knowledge
Working memory
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
Visuospatial sketchpad - storage of visual information in working memory
Phonological loop - storage of audio information in working memory
Episodic buffer - handles the brief storage of episodic memories when the visuospatial sketchpad or the phonological loop are engaged
Central executive - the manager of the working-memory system, controls the flow of information between the three storage subsystems, the flow of information between the episodic buffer and LTM, and which part of the system is the current focus of attention
Clive Wearing
Clive suffered extensive damage to the hippocampus
He lost the ability to know what was going on around him for more than about a minute
He retained his ability to play the piano
He can hold memories in his STM for a short time, but loses them when his attention moves on
Cannot retrieve episodic and semantic memories
Miller (1956)
Magic number 7 +/- 2
People could on average remember 7 +/- 2 things
Episodic memory
Like an episode of your life, remembering what you did last thursday
Semantic memory
General knowledge but no information about time and place we learned the knowledge, we just know
Procedural memory
Memory for skills and tasks
Recall tasks
Can be cued or free recall
Free-recall - asked to retrieve information without any cues
Cued-recall - cues aid the retrieval of the information
Recognition task
Asked to verify if the information has been experienced before
Implicit memory tasks
Designed to measure memory without intentional retrieval
Prospective memory
Remembering to perform a task at some point in the future
Tulving (1985)
LTM is split into episodic, semantic and procedural memory
Squire (1992)
LTM is declarative or non-declarative
Declarative memory
Episodic or semantic
Non-declarative
Procedural, perceptual, classical conditioning, non-associative learning (reflexes)
McClelland et al. (1995)
Events are stored in the hippocampal systems and transferred to the neocortex over time
Talk to each other using thalamo-cortical spindles to cause consolidation
Catastrophic interference
Trying to introduce new information too quickly overwrites other information, introducing it more slowly produces more stable long-term memory
Electrodes in rodents’ brains found that activation of neurons (the neurons activated when learning something) is replayed …
At high speed during sleep, believed to be how the consolidation of information happens
Nadel & Moscovitch (1997)
Hippocampal complex encodes all information with is attended to
The facts are extracted and stored in the neocortex
There is always a level of contextual information even in semantic memory
Atienza & Cantero (2008)
Asked participants in encoding phase if pictures were neutral, positive or negative and the intensity of this feeling
Asked 1 week later if the pictures were old or new, and if old, were they known or remembered
Half were stopped from going to sleep after encoding phase
Those whose sleep was prevented remembered less than those who slept
Memory consolidation was prevented due to lack of sleep
Semantic memory wasn’t affected as information is already there (known images were the same)
