Chapter 7: Memory

Annotations:

• Encoding allows the perceived item of use or interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the brain and recalled later from short term or long term memory.

1. Semantic

   Annotations:

   • Making information personally meaningful.
   1. Flashbulb Memories

      Annotations:

      • A flashbulb memory is a detailed and vivid memory that is stored on one occasion and retained for a lifetime. Usually, such memories are associated with important historical or autobiographical events.
2. Encoding types
   1. Iconic

      Annotations:

      • Images
   2. Ekkonic

      Annotations:

      • Sounds
      1. Phonological Rehearsal Loop

         Annotations:

         • The phonological loop (or "articulatory loop") as a whole deals with sound or phonological information. It consists of two parts: a short-term phonological store with auditory memory traces that are subject to rapid decay and an articulatory rehearsal component (sometimes called the articulatory loop) that can revive the memory traces.
   3. Haptic

      Annotations:

      • Touch
3. Elaboration

   Annotations:

   • Linking stimuli to other information at time of encoding 

Annotations:

• Storage is the more or less passive process of retaining information in the brain, whether in the sensory memory, the short-term memory or the more permanent long-term memory. Each of these different stages of human memory function as a sort of filter that helps to protect us from the flood of information that confront us on a daily basis, avoiding an overload of information and helping to keep us sane.

Annotations:

• Recall or retrieval of memory refers to the subsequent re-accessing of events or information from the past, which have been previously encoded and stored in the brain. In common parlance, it is known as remembering. During recall, the brain "replays" a pattern of neural activity that was originally generated in response to a particular event, echoing the brain's perception of the real event.

1. State Dependant learning

   Annotations:

   • State-dependent memory, or state-dependent learning is the phenomenon through which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as they were when the memory was formed.
2. Recognition

   Annotations:

   • Recognition memory is a particular aspect of memory that provides the ability for an individual to identify a previously encountered stimulus. 
3. Recall

   Annotations:

   • Recall in memory refers to the retrieval of events or information from the past. There are three main types of recall: free recall, cued recall and serial recall.

Annotations:

• 1968 - Stimuli is recorded briefly by sensory memory, if you play close attention to it it is encoded into short term memory.  If rehearsed in short term memory it is transferred to long term memory for retrieval.   

Annotations:

• Sensory memory is the shortest-term element of memory. It is the ability to retain impressions of sensory information after the original stimuli have ended. It acts as a kind of buffer for stimuli received through the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, which are retained accurately, but very briefly.

Annotations:

• Short-term memory acts as a kind of “scratch-pad” for temporary recall of the information which is being processed at any point in time, and has been refered to as "the brain's Post-it note". It can be thought of as the ability to remember and process information at the same time. It holds a small amount of information (typically around 7 items or even less) in mind in an active, readily-available state for a short period of time (typically from 10 to 15 seconds, or sometimes up to a minute).

1. Rehearsal
   1. Maintenance

      Annotations:

      • Maintenance rehearsal is a type of memory rehearsal that is useful in maintaining information in short term memory or working memory. However, it is not an effective way of having information processed and transferred into long term memory.
   2. Elaborative

      Annotations:

      • Elaborative rehearsal is a type of memory rehearsal that is useful in transferring information into long term memory. This type of rehearsal is effective because it involves thinking about the meaning of the information and connecting it to other information already stored in memory.

Annotations:

• Long-term memory is, obviously enough, intended for storage of information over a long period of time. Despite our everyday impressions of forgetting, it seems likely that long-term memory actually decays very little over time, and can store a seemingly unlimited amount of information almost indefinitely.

1. Implicit

   Annotations:

   • Processed in cerebellum, automatic and effortless, bike riding. 
   1. Procedural

      Annotations:

      • Procedural memory (“knowing how”) is the unconscious memory of skills and how to do things, particularly the use of objects or movements of the body, such as tying a shoelace, playing a guitar or riding a bike. These memories are typically acquired through repetition and practice, and are composed of automatic sensorimotor behaviours that are so deeply embedded that we are no longer aware of them.
2. Explicit

   Annotations:

   • Processed in hippocampus, effortful, facts. 
   1. Declaritive

      Annotations:

      • Declarative memory (“knowing what”) is memory of facts and events, and refers to those memories that can be consciously recalled (or "declared").
      1. Semantic

         Annotations:

         • Semantic Memory  is a more structured record of facts, meanings, concepts and knowledge about the external world that we have acquired. It refers to general factual knowledge, shared with others and independent of personal experience and of thespatial/temporal context in which it was acquired. Semantic memories may once have had a personal context, but now stand alone as simple knowledge. It therefore includes such things as types of food, capital cities, social customs, functions of objects, vocabulary, understanding of mathematics, etc.
      2. Episodic

         Annotations:

         • Episodic memory represents our memory of experiences and specific events in time in a serial form, from which we can reconstruct the actual events that took place at any given point in our lives. It is the memory of autobiographical events (times, places, associated emotions and other contextual knowledge) that can be explicitly stated. Individuals tend to see themselves as actors in these events, and the emotional charge and the entire context surrounding an event is usually part of the memory, not just the bare facts of the event itself.

Annotations:

• Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory, and is known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect.

1. Forgetting Curve

   Annotations:

   • The forgetting curve hypotheses the decline of memory retention in time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it. A related concept is the strength of memory that refers to the durability that memory traces in the brain.

Annotations:

• Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

1. Retrograde

   Annotations:

   • Retrograde amnesia (RA) is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred, or information that was learned, before an injury or the onset of a disease.
2. Anterograde

   Annotations:

   • Anterograde amnesia is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact.

1. Transience

   Annotations:

   •  decreasing accessibility of memory over time.
2. Absent-mindedness

   Annotations:

   • lapses of attention and forgetting to do things.
3. Blocking

   Annotations:

   • temporary inaccessibility of stored information, such as tip-of-the-tongue syndrome.
4. Misattribution

   Annotations:

   • attribution of memories to incorrect sources or believing that you have seen or heard something you haven't.
5. Suggestibility

   Annotations:

   • incorporation of misinformation into memory due to leading questions, deception and other causes
6. Bias

   Annotations:

   • retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs
7. Persistence

   Annotations:

   • unwanted recollections that people can't forget, such as the unrelenting, intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Annotations:

• Prospective memory is where the content is to be remembered in the future, and may be defined as “remembering to remember” or remembering to perform an intended action. It may be either event-based or time-based, often triggered by a cue, such as going to the doctor (action) at 4pm (cue), or remembering to post a letter (action) after seeing a mailbox (cue).

Annotations:

• Retrospective memory is where the content to be remembered (people, words, events, etc) is in the past, i.e. the recollection of past episodes. It includes semantic, episodic and autobiographical memory, and declarative memory in general, although it can be either explicit or implicit.