Human Memory

Human Memory

1. Encoding

   • Forming a memory code.
   • Attention
     • It involves focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli or events. Selective attention is critical to everyday functining.
   • Levels of Processing
     • This theory proposes that deeper levels of processing result in longer-lasting memory codes. Structural encoding - shallow processing, emphasizing a structure. Phonemic encoding - intermediate processing, emphasizing a sound Semantic encoding - deep processing, meaning of verbal input.
   • Elaboration
     • Linking a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding.
   • Visual Imagery
     • Dual-coding theory holds that memory is enhanced by forming semantic and visual codes, since either can lead to recall
   • Self-Referent Encoding
     • It involves deciding how or whether information is personally relevant.

2. Storage

   • Maintaining encoded information
   • Sensory Memory
     • It preserves information in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second.
   • Short-Term Memory
     • STM is a limited capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for up to about 20 seconds. Rehearsal - the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about the information.
     • Capacity of storage
       • You can increase you capacity of short-time memory by combining stimuli into larger possibly higher-order units - chunks. Chunks - a group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit.
     • Working memory
       • It is a limited capacity storage system that temporarily maintains and stores information by providing an interface between perception, memory and action.
   • Long-term Memory
     • LTM is an unlimited capacity store that can hold information over lengthly periods of time. Flashbulb memories -  unusally vivid and detailed recollections of momentous events.
   • Clustering
     • Clustering - tendency to remember similar or related items in groups. Conceptual hierarchy - multilevel classification system based on common properties among items.
   • Shemas
     • It is organized cluster of knowledge about a particular object or event abstracted from previous experience with the object or event.
   • Semantic Networks
     • It consists of nodes representing concepts, joined together by pathways that link related concepts.
   • Connectionist Networks and PDP Models
     • Connectionist of parallel distributed processing PDP, models assume that cognitive processes depend on patterns of activation in highly interconnected computational networks that resemble neural networks.

3. Retrieval

   • Using Cues
     • The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon - the temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by feeling that its just out of reach.
   • Reconstructing Memories
     • The misinformation effect occurs when  participants' recall of an event they witnessed is altered by inducing misleading postevent information.
   • Source and Reality Monitoring
     • Reality monitoring refers to the process of deciding whether memories are based on external sources (one's perceptions of actual events) or internal sources (one's thoughts and imaginations). Source monitoring involves making attributions about the origins of memories. A source-monitoring error occurs when a memory derived from one source is misattributed to another source. Destination memory involves recalling to whom one has told what.

4. Forgetting

   • Forgetting Curve
     • It graphs retention and forgetting over time.
   • Measures of Forgetting
     • Retention - the proportion of material retained (remembered). Recall measure of retention - requires subjects to reproduce information on their own without any cues. Recognition measure of retetntion - requires subjects to select previously learned information from an array of options. Relearning measure of retention - requires a subject to memorize information a second time to determine how much time or how many practice trials are saved by having learned it before.
   • Ineffective Encoding
   • Decay
     • Decay theory proposes that forgetting occurs because memory traces fade with time.
   • Interference
     • This theory proposes that people forget information because of competition from other material. Retroactive interference occurs when new information impairs the retention of previously learned information. Proactive interference occurs when previously learned information interferes with the retention of new information.
   • Retrieval Failure
     • The encoding specificity principle states that the value of a retrieval cue depends on how well it corresponds to the memory code. Transfer-appropriate processing occurs when the initial processing of information is similar to the type of processing required by the subsequent measure of retention.
   • Motivated Forgetting
     • Repression refers to keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious.
   • Repressed Memories
     • Repression involves the motivated forgetting of painful or unpleasant memories. There is a controversial surge of reports of recovered memories of sexual abuse in childhood. Those who tend to accept recovered memories of abuse note that child abuse is quite common and argue that repression is a normal response to it. Studies also demonstrated that it is not difficult to create false memories. Memories recovered spontaneously appear more likely to be authentic than memories recovered in therapy.
   • Seven Sins of Memory
     • Daniel Schacter summarized it.
     • Sins of omission (cannot bring memory to mind)
       • transience
         • Weakening of a memory over time
       • absent-mindedness
         • Memory failure is often due to a failure to pay attention.
       • blocking
         • Fail to retrieve an item of information such as someone's name when we meet them
     • Sins of commission
       • misattribution
         • Assign a memory to a wrong source.
       • suggestibility
         • Memory is distorted because of misleading questions for example.
       • bias
         • Inaccuracy  due to the effect of our current knowledge on our reconstruction of the past.
       • persistence
         • Unwanted memories or recollections that you cannot forget - memories that haunt you.

5. Physiology of Memory

   • Neural Circuitry of Memory
     • Thompson's research suggests that memory traces may consist of localized neural circuits. Memories may also depend on long-term potentiation, which is a durable increase in neural excitability at synapses along a specific neural pathway. Memory formation may also stimulate neural growth.
   • Anatomy
     • Retrograde amnesia involves the loss of memories for events that occurred prior to the onset of amnesia. Anterograde amnesia involves the loss of memories for events that occur after the onset of amnesia. Consolidation is a hypothetical process involving the gradual conversion of information into durable memory codes stored in long-term memory.

6. Systems and Types of Memory

   • Implicit vs. Explicit Memory
     • Implicit memory - apparent when retention is exhibited on a task that does not require intentional remembering. Explicit memory - intentional recollection of previous experiences.
   • Declarative vs. Procedural Memory
     • Declarative - handles factual information. Non-declarative - houses memory for actions, skills, operations and conditioned response.
   • Semantic vs. Episodic Memory
     • Episodic memory is made up pf chronological or temporally dated recollections of personal experiences. Semantic memory contains general knowledge that is not tied to the time when the information was learned.
   • Prospective vs. Retrospective Memory
     • Prospective - remembering to perform actions in the future. Retrospective - remembering events from the past or previously learned information.

7. Mnemonics

   • Used to increase the recall of information.
   • Acrostics and Acronyms
     • Acrostics are poems in which the first letter of each word or line functions as a cue to help you recall information.
   • Narrative
     • Create a story that includes the words in the appropriate order
   • Rhymes
   • Link
     • Forming a mental image of items to be remembered in a way that links them together.
   • Loci
     • Imaginary walk along a familiar path where images of items to be remembered are associated with certain locations.
   • Keyword
     • You associate a concrete word with an another abstract word and generate an image to represent the concrete word.

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