MEMORY

MEMORY

1. EMOTIONS

   • Emotion increases memory for information central to our current goals but reduces it for peripheral or unimportant information
   • Mood congruity = memories are more easily recalled when they fit our mood and physical arousal
   • Higher recall of emotinal events than neutral ones (unless amygdala is damaged)
     • Memory bias: Higher retrieval of negative/unplesant info than positive/neutral (anxious and depressed)

2. EXPERTISE

   • Enlarged memory for topic of expertise
     • Taxi-drivers with increased hippocampus

3. Working memory

   • Visual/iconic memory: holds information 0.5-1 sec.
   • Auditory/echoic memory: holds information 10 sec.
   • 7 +/- 2 slots - items can be chunked

4. Hippocampus = storing of memories

5. Prefrontal regions: creation and retrieval of memories

6. Long-term memory

   • Procedural/implicit: reading, riding a bike etc.
   • Declarative/episodic: episodes, things you can talk about
   • Activation: ACT-theory

7. Loss of memory

   • Selective - remember what we find significant
   • If it's never reactivated
   • Retrograde amnesia: loss of old memories
   • Anterograde amnesia: loss of ability to make new memories

8. ATTENTION

   • Memory for meaning does not need attention
   • Memory for style is better with attention (detail mode)
   • With attention: Visual memory better than verbal