Memory and Thought

Section 1: Taking in and Storing Information

What would life without memory be like? Can you even imagine it? Consider all the
material stored in your memory: your Social Security number, the capital of England, your first
phone number, the important generals of the Algerian Revolution, your best friend in first grade,
and so on. What kind of incredible filing system allows you to instantly recover a line from your
favorite movie? How does all that information fit in your head?

1.1. The Processes of Memory

The storage and retrieval of what has been learned or experienced is memory. Who sings
your favorite song? Who were your friends in eighth grade? To recall this information, you use
one memory process, assuming two others occurred previously.

The first memory process is encoding, the transforming of information so that the nervous
system can process it. Basically, you use your senses – hearing, sight, touch, taste, temperature,
and others – to encode and establish a memory. You use acoustic codes when you try to remember
something by saying it out loud, or to yourself, repeatedly. When you attempt to keep a mental
picture of something; you are using visual codes.
Another way you might try to remember is by using
semantic codes. For example, you try to remember a set
of letters by making sense of them so if you wanted to
remember the letters “F”, “A”, “C”, “E” you might
remember the word “face”.

After information is encoded, it goes through the

second memory process, storage. This is the process by
which information is maintained over time. How much
information is stored depends on how much effort was
put into encoding the information and its importance.
Information can be stored a few seconds or much
longer.

The third memory process, retrieval, occurs

when information is brought to mind from storage. The
case in which information can be retrieved depends on
how much efficiently it was encoded.
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Recap

Memory: the storage and retrieval of what has been learned or experienced

Encoding: the transforming of information so the nervous system can process it

Storage: the process by which information is maintained over a period of time

Retrieval: the process of obtaining information that has been stored in memory

1.2. Three Stages of Memory

1.2.1. Sensory Memory

In sensory memory, the senses of sight and hearing (among other sense) are able to hold
an input for a fraction of second before it disappears. For example, when you watch a motion
picture, you do not notice the gap between frames. The action seems smooth because each frame
is held in sensory storage until the next frame arrives. The information held momentarily by the
sense has not yet been narrowed down or analyzed. It is short-live, temporary, and fragile.
However, by the time information gets to the next stage – short-term memory – it has been
analyzed, identified, and simplified so that it can be conveniently stored and handled for a longer
time. Sensory memory serves three functions:

1. It prevents you from being overwhelmed. Every second of every day; you are bombarded with
various incoming stimuli. If you had to pay attention to all these stimuli – what you are
immediately seeing; hearing, smelling, and feeling – you might easily feel overwhelmed. Since
the information in sensory memory is short-lived, anything that you don not pay attention to
vanishes in seconds.

2. It gives some decision time. The information in sensory memory is there for only a few seconds
– just long enough for you to decide whether it is worth paying attention to this information. If you
choose to pay attention, the information is automatically transferred to short-term memory.

3. It allows for continuity and stability in your world. For instance, iconic memory makes images
in your world smooth an continuous, whereas echoic memory lets you play back auditory
information, giving you time to recognize sounds as words.

1.2.2. Short-Term Memory

The things you have in your conscious mind at any moment are being held in short-term
memory. Short-term memory does not necessarily involve paying close attention. You have
probably had the experience of listening to someone partially and then having that person accuse
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you of not paying attention. You deny it, and prove your innocence, you repeat, word for word,
the last words he or she said. You can do this because you are holding the words in short-term
memory.

Maintenance Rehearsal: To keep information in short-term memory for more than a few seconds,
you usually have to repeat the information to yourself or out loud. This is what psychologists mean
by maintenance rehearsal. When you look up a telephone number, for example, you can
remember the digits long enough to dial them if you repeat them several times. If you are distracted
or make a mistake in dialing, the chances are you will have to look up the number again. It has
been lost from short-term memory. By using maintenance rehearsal (repeating the telephone
number over and over again), you can keep the information longer in short-term memory.

Chunking: Short-term memory is limited not only in its duration but also in its capacity. It can
hold only about seven unrelated items. Suppose, for example, someone quickly reels off a series
of numbers to you. You will be able to keep only about seven or eight of them in your immediate
memory. Beyond that number, confusion about the numbers will set in. The same limit is there if
the unrelated items are a random set of words. However, if those items (numbers, letters or
anything else) are all packaged into one chunck, then there is still only one item. Thus we can
remember about seven unrelated sets of initials, such as ENS, IP, CCP, even though we could not
remember all the letters separately. This is referred to as chunking because we have connected, or
chunked, them together; in other words, ENS is one item, not three.

One of the tricks of memorizing a lot of information quickly is to chunk together the items as fast
as they come in. If we connect items in groups, we have fewer to remember. For example, we
remember new phone numbers in two
or three chunks (555-6794 or 555-67-
94) rather than a string of seven digits
(5-5-5-6-7-9-4). As the figure
illustrates, we use chunking to
remember visual as well as verbal inputs.

Even with chunking, storage in short-term memory is only temporary. Information is available,
generally, for less than 20 seconds and no more than 30 seconds, assuming no rehearsal has
occurred. After that, it is part of the long-term memory, or it is lost.

The Primacy-Recency Effect: It refers to the fact that we are better to recall information presented
at beginning and end of a list. For instance, after reading a grocery list of 14 items, we are most
likely to remember those presented in the beginning and end of the list.
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Working Memory: Short-term memory is also called working memory. Working memory serves
as a system for processing and working with current information. Working memory includes both
short-term memory (events that just occurred) and information stored in long-term memory now
recalled for current information.

Recap

Short-term memory: memory that is

limited in capacity to about seven items
and in duration by the subject’s active
rehearsal
Maintenance rehearsal: a system for
remembering that involves repeating
information to oneself without attempting
to find meaning in it
Chunking: the process of grouping items
to make them easier to remember

1.2.2. Long-Term Memory

Long-term memory refers to the storage of information over extended periods of time. The
capacity of long-term memory appears to be limitless. It contains representations of countless
facts, experiences, and sensations. You may not have thought of your childhood home for years,
but you can probably still visualize it.

Types of long-term memory

- Endel Tulving (1972) proposed that we have two types of memory. Semantic memory is
our knowledge of language; including its rules, words, and meanings. We share that
knowledge with other speakers of our language. Episodic memory is our memory of our
own life, such as when you woke up this morning. Stored here are personal things where
time of occurrence is important. Everyone’s episodic memory is unique.

- L.R. Squire (1987) proposed a related model of memory. Declarative memory involves
both episodic and semantic memory. This is information you call forth consciously and use
as you need it. Procedural memory does not require conscious recollection to have past
learning or experiences impact our performance. One form of procedural memory involves
skills, learned as we mature – including both complex skills such as swimming or driving
a car and simple skills such as tying a tie. As we gain a skill, we gradually lose the ability
to describe what we are doing. Other types of procedural memory, such as fear of bugs,
include habits and things learned through classical conditioning.
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Recap

Semantic memory: knowledge of language, including its rules, words and meanings

Episodic memory: memory of one’s

life, including time of occurrence

Declarative memory: memory of

knowledge that can be called forth
consciously as needed

Procedural memory: memory of

learned skills that does not require
conscious recollection

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Section 2: Retrieving Information

2.1. Recognition

Human memory is organized in such a way as to make recognition quite easy – people can
say with great accuracy whether or not something is familiar to them. If someone asked you the
name of first-grade teacher, for example, you might not remember it. Chances are, however, that
you will recognize the name if you heard it. Similarly, a multiple-choice test may bring out
knowledge that a student might not be able to show on an essay test. The ability to recognize
suggests that much more information is stored in memory than one might think. The process of
recognition provides insights into how information is stored in memory.

2.2. Recall

Recall is the active reconstruction of information. Just think about the amount of recall
involved in a simple conversation. Each person uses hundreds of words involving all kinds of
information, even though each word and bit of information must be retrieved separately from the
storehouse of memory.

2.3. Relearning

While recognition and recall are measures of declarative memory, relearning is a measure
of both declarative and procedural memory. Suppose you learned a poem as a child but have not
rehearsed it in years. If you can relearn the poem with fewer recitations than someone with ability
similar to yours, you are benefiting from your childhood learning.

2.4. Forgetting

Everyone experiences a failure of memory from time to time. You are sure you have seen
that person before but cannot remember exactly where. You have the word on the tip of you tongue,
but… When information that once entered long-term memory is unable to be retrieved, it is said
to be forgotten. Forgetting may involve decay, interference, or repression.

Decay: some inputs may fade away, or decay, over time. Items quickly decay in sensory storage
and short-term memory, as indicated earlier. It is not certain, however, whether long-term
memories can ever decay. We know that a blow to the head or electrical simulation of certain parts
of the brain can cause loss of memory. The memories lost, however, are the most recent ones;
older memories seem to remain. The fact that apparently forgotten information can be recovered

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through meditation, hypnosis, or brain stimulation suggests that at least some memories never
decay. Rather, interference or repression cause people to lose track of them.

Interference: refers to a memory being blocked or erased by previous or subsequent memories.

This blocking is of two kinds: proactive and retroactive. In proactive interference an earlier
memory blocks you from remembering related new information. In retroactive interference or
later memory or new information blocks you from remembering information learned earlier.
Suppose you move to a new home. You now have to remember a new address and phone number.
At first you may have trouble remembering them because the memory of your old address and
phone number gets in the way (proactive interference). Later, you know the new information but
have trouble remembering the old data (retroactive interference).

Repression: sometimes a person my subconsciously block memories of an embarrassing or

frightening experience. This kind of forgetting is called repression. The material still exists in the
person’s memory, but it has been made inaccessible because it is so disturbing.

Amnesia: some people also forget information due to amnesia. Amnesia is a loss of memory that
may occur after a blow to the head or as a result of brain damage. Amnesia may also be the result
of drug use or severe psychological stress.

Recap

Recognition: memory retrieval in which a person identifies an object, idea, or situation as one he
or she has or has not experienced before

Recall: memory retrieval in which a person reconstructs previously learned material

Decay: fading away of memory overtime

Interference: blockage of a memory by previous or subsequent memories