Memory

Reading: Chapter 8 pages 291-317

 What is memory?
Memory is the ability to code, store and
retrieve information. 2 main types:
Procedural: Factual:
e.g how to e.g.definition
ride a bike of learning
 What is memory?

Memory involves coding the input of the

senses (e.g. visual, auditory).
 Some definitions:
Encoding or registration
The way that information is changed so it
can be stored in the memory (e.g. visual,
auditory and semantic).
Storage
creation of a permanent record of the
encoded information
Retrieval (can be recall or recollection)
calling back the stored information in
response to some cue for use in a process
or activity
 Some definitions:
Duration: How long information can remain
in the memory.

Capacity: How much can be held in memory.

 Sensory memory
The immediate, initial recording of sensory
information in the memory system
Initial 200-500ms after an item is perceived
(1 sec or less!)

Iconic memory = visual sensory memory

 Iconic sensory memory test
Experimenter flashed items on a
screen for 0.05secs and asked
participants to recall it

Let have a go!...

P R T N

D K Q K

W C A U
Recall?...
 Sperling (1960)
Experiment: Test for a iconic (visual) memory.

Stage one: Asked to recall as many letters as possible.

Results: Pts. could only remember 4-5 letters but
insisted they have seen more

P R T N

D K Q K

W C A U
 Sperling (1960)
Stage two: Sperling then got the pts to recall
single rows of letters when particular tones
were heard AFTER the stimulus (e.g. high
tone=top row, medium tone=middle row, and
low tone=bottom row).
Result: Pts on average recalled 3 items correct
from the single row.
Sperling (1960)
 Sperling (1960)
Conclusion: Since the subject was unable to foretell
what line he would be asked for to report, the
information necessary to recall the letters had to be
available somewhere.
This led Sperling to the hypothesis that a form of the
visual stimulus remains accessible for a short time after
the presentation =iconic memory (visual trace)!
Critique (+and -): Lab exp. therefore high levels of
control, lack of ecological validity as it is artificial, but
easily replicated.
 Sensory memory
Or the Echoic memory = auditory
Unlike visual memory, in which our eyes
can scan the stimuli over and over, the
auditory stimuli cannot be scanned over
and over

Umbrella um - brel - la
 Echoic (auditory) memory
Neisser used similar methods to
Sperling
Neisser (1967) found echoic memory to
have a longer duration: 4-20 secs.
 Sensory memory summary:
fairly accurate
representations of physical features
unaware, the info is not interpreted
or analyzed YET!
function: to hold info long enough so
that it is transferred to STM
ThenShort term memory (STM)
Short-term memory functions to hold
information either
just long enough to use it, e.g.
remembering a phone number from
the directory just long enough to dial
it
just long enough to process it into the
deeper levels of long-term memory
(LTM)
 STM capacity experiment!
I will present you with a number (briefly!), then you will
need to recall it
65
**
963
***
1649
****
81743
*****
038271
******
4871932
*******
19736024
********
641906427
*********
 Short term memory: Capacity
When did you start to struggle?

STM has a limited capacity:

The magical number 7 ( 2)
(Miller, 1956)
 STM: Encoding strategies
However

If only 7 2 how can we write essays etc.?...

 STM: Encoding strategies
Chunking (Miller, 1956)
organizing items into familiar, manageable
units (e.g. phone numbers).
often occurs automatically
use of acronyms
E.g. spelling: ARITHMETIC--A Rat In Toms
House Might Eat Toms Ice Cream
 Numerial example
1 3 5 7 9 2 4 6 8 0
We can remember this string more
easily as we can remember a rule
instead of 10 different numbers.

STM limit, therefore 7 CHUNKS.

 Verbal example
1) Along got was door crept locked slowly he until
passage the he to which

2) He slowly crept along the passage until he got to the

door, which was locked. store IMAGE of this

STM verbal material not measured by no. of

words/syllables/letters but MEANING.
 STM: Encoding strategies
Imagery
mental pictures
a powerful aid to effortful processing,
especially when combined with semantic
encoding
Mnemonics (with a silent M)
memory aids
especially those techniques that use vivid
imagery and organizational devices
 Mnemonics

Knuckle mnemonic for the number of days in

each month of the Gregorian Calendar. Each
projecting knuckle represents a 31-day month.
9 times table. 3 times 9 is.
 STM: Duration
Pearson & Pearson (1959)
90
80
70
Percentage 60
who recalled 50
Consonants 40
(e.g. JPR) 30
20
10
0
3 6 9 12 15 18

Time in seconds between presentation

of contestants and recall request
(no rehearsal allowedcount back in 3s from a given number)
 Short term memory: test
[read words]
butter
arm
corner
letter
queen
ticket
grass
stone
book
stick
amazon
radio
restaurant
sunshine
croissant
shoe
stapler
whistle
market
lamp
tiger
 Recall!
Now try to remember as many words as
you can
 How many did you get?
1. Butter 12. Radio
2. Arm 13. Restaurant
3. Corner 14. Sunshine
4. Letter 15. Croissant
5. Queen 16. Shoe
6. Ticket 17. Stapler
7. Grass 18. Whistle
8. Stone 19. Market
9. Book 20. Lamp
10. Stick 21. Tiger
11. Amazon

Do you notice a pattern to the order in which you

recalled the words?
Atkinson and Shriffin (1968)
The Serial Position Curve

100

80
Proportion Recalled

60

40

20
0
1 5 10 15 20 25 30
LTM: Primacy Effect Position of Words on List STM: Recency Effect

Shows that memory is not random, but instead orderly!

 Long term memory (LTM)
Memories stored from STM
Can last days or even decades!
Different kinds of information are
encoded/stored differently
Long term memory
Episodic memory
Provides a record of life experiences
(autobiographical)
School play?
 LTM
Semantic memory
General knowledge- data, facts
and information
-Capital of France?

Separate? (debatable!)
But some brain imaging support
 Long term memory
Explicit memory
Memories we are aware of learning

Implicit memory
Procedural memory?- knowing how to do things
Memories encoded without conscious awareness
Implicit memory may have evolved earlier than explicit
memory
Types of memory
Rehearsal

Key psychologist: Baddeley

 Remembering
Remembering can be automatic
Recall
Measure of memory in which the person must
retrieve information learned earlier (e.g. a fill-in-
the blank test, or like we did earlier with recalling
number strings and words!).
Recognition
Measure of memory in which the person has only
to identify items previously learned (e.g. a
multiple-choice test).
 Experiment: Stroop test
To do: Do not read the word, instead,
say the colour of the word

Lets try the stroop test!

Blue
Green
Yellow
Black
 Stroop test
Conclusion: Stroop effect shows
automatic retrieval of words and their
meaning.
Hard to ignore the word and only say the
colour of the word as the word is well
learned!
Name the seven dwarfs
 Name the seven dwarfs
How easy/ difficult was the task?
Why?...
Tip of the tongue
Is there any pattern to how you recalled the
names?
Sound
Letter
Meaning
Greater difficulty with recall
versus recognition
 How do we forget?
Forgetting as encoding failure
Information never enters the long-
term memory
Attention

Short- Encoding Long-

External Sensory
term term
events memory Encoding
memory memory

Encoding
failure leads
to forgetting
 How do we forget?
Forgetting as retrieval failure
Information is not retrieved from long-
term memory
Attention
Encoding
External Sensory Short-term Long-term
events memory Encoding memory Retrieval memory

Retrieval failure
leads to forgetting
 How do we forget?
Learning some memories may disrupt
retrieval of othersinterference!
Proactive (forward) interference
(disruptive effect of prior learning on
recall of new information)
Retroactive (backwards) interference
(disruptive effect of new learning on
recall of old information)
How do we forget?
 How do we forget? in STM
Waugh and Norman (1965)
Displacement- STM has limited capacity!

2 6 7 5 1 3 7 2 6 3 9 4 5 8 1 9(tone)

More numbers between the target and

probe, less likely to be remembered. New
info DISPLACES old info!
 Models of memory
So far we have seen this

Rehearsal

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) who proposed this type

of model and they called it the Multi-store model.
 Multi-store model (MSM)
It is a linear model that shows how information flows
through the processes of memory.
There are three main components to the model and
it is assumed that information must pass through
each of these fixed stages to be remembered.
There are capacity and duration limitations at
each stage.
It also identifies ways in which information is
forgotten.
 However, there are other
models!
Critique of MSM:
MSM too simplistic to explain the memory system.
It fails to consider how people use strategies to
remember.
Only focuses on the process of memory. Only
considers the amount of info that can be processed not
the nature (e.g. some things are easier to remember
than others).
Suggests rote rehearsal is the only way to transfer
thoughts from the STM to the LTM.
 Working Memory Model
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
Alternative to MSM. Baddeley and Hitch suggested that
the STM was made up of several subsystems, each
having a specialised function.
 Working Memory Model
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
Baddeley & Hitch suggested the existence of several
subsystems in STM.

But they studied the possibility of two in particular

which were governed by a central controlling
mechanism which they termed the Central Executive.

The central executive decides which information is

attended to and which parts of the working memory to
send that information to be dealt with.
 Working Memory Model
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
The two main subsystems studied were
named the Visuo-spatial Sketchpad
(AKA. inner eye) and the Phonological
(AKA. inner ear)/Articulatory Loop(AKA.
inner voice).
The Visuo-spatial sketchpad deals with
what information looks like and how it is
laid out (visual and spatial info -
hence the name!).
 Working Memory Model
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
The Phonological Loop holds spoken
information for about 1.5 to 2 seconds.
Written words must be converted to
spoken words to enter the phonological
loop.
 Working Memory Model
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
The Articulatory loop rehearses the spoken/acoustic
information from the phonological store and also
converts written material to acoustic material so that
the phonological loop can deal with it.
 Working Memory Model
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
In 2000, Baddeley added a fourth component to the
model, the episodic buffer.

This component is a third slave system, dedicated to

linking information across domains to form integrated
units of visual, spatial, and verbal information with time
sequencing (or chronological ordering), such as the
memory of a story or a movie scene.

The episodic buffer is also assumed to have links to

long-term memory and semantic meaning.
 Working Memory Model
Baddeley & Hitch (1974)
Critique:

+Some brain damaged patients appear to suffer

impairment to some functions of STM and not others
(Shallice & Warrington, 1974) therefore suggesting
existence of several specialised systems within STM.

-There is little empirical evidence to support the

Working memory Model, but the recognition of the
complexity of the STM makes sound theoretical sense.
 Levels of Processing
Craik & Lockhart (1972)
This model of memory concentrates on the LTM and
the semantic processing occurring there.
It presents another alternative to the Multi-store model
which suggests information is transferred to LTM
through rehearsal (repetition).
This model suggests that the depth or level at which
we process information determines its place in LTM
and also how well we recall that information.
So: the greater we think about information for
whatever reason the more likely it will be
remembered for longer.
 Levels of Processing
Craik & Lockhart (1972)
Craik & Lockhart accepted Atkinson & Shiffrins
MSM separate stores but suggested that
encoding and processing of information in LTM
was more complex.
They suggested that information could be
processed or encoded at Shallow, Deeper and
Deepest levels.
The deeper the processing the stronger and
more durable the memory.
 Example:
Is the word FISH in lower case or capital letters?
shallow
Does the word STYLE rhyme with 'pin'?
deep
Is the word PANCAKE a form of transport?
deepest
 Levels of Processing
Craik & Lockhart (1972)
Critique:

It is difficult to asses how deeply a word has been

processed, this makes it difficult to test the theory.

Some psychologists believe the arguments are circular.

Effort rather than depth may be important. Tyler et al
(1979) gave participants easy or difficult anagrams (e.g.
DOCTRO or OCDRTO). Later pts remembered the
difficult anagrams better even though the type of
processing was the same. What had altered was the
effort put in.
 Thanks for your
attention

Next week: we will see how much of this you can remember

AND we will look at Memory in everyday life (more applied!)