COGPSY230 | PRELIM Notes #4

Unit 4: MEMORY 02. Storage

● As a result of encoding, Information is
CONTENTS stored within the memory system.
01. What Is Memory? ● Second Stage
02. Learning, Memory, 02 & Forgetting
03. Recall versus Recognition Tasks 03. Retrieval
04. Relearning ● Involves recovering information from the
05. Implicit vs. Explicit Memory memory system
06. The Traditional Model of Memory ● Third Stage
07. Outstanding Memory: Mnemonists
08. Deficient Memory
09. Memory Process Recall versus Recognition Tasks
10. Forms of Encoding
11. Transfer of Information You produce a fact, a word, or other item from
12. Processes of Forgetting and Memory memory.
Distortion
13. The Constructive Nature of Memory You select or otherwise identify an Item as being
one that you have been exposed to previously.
What is Memory?
● The means by which we retain and draw on
our past experiences to use that TYPES OF RECALL
information in the present.
● As a process, memory refers to the 01. SERIAL RECALL
dynamic mechanisms associated with ● You recall items in the exact order in which
storing, retaining, and retrieving information they were presented.
about past experience.
02. FREE RECALL
THREE COMMON OPERATIONS OF MEMORY: ● Recall items in any order you choose
1. Encoding
2. Storage 03. CUED RECALL
3. Retrieval ● You are first shown items in pairs, but
during recall you are cued with only one
member of each pair and are asked to
Learning, Memory, & Forgetting recall each mate.
Learning and memory involve several stages of ● Paired-associates Recall
processing.

THREE COMMON OPERATIONS OF MEMORY: RELEARNING

Learn, Unlearn, Relearn

01. Encoding
Psychologists also can measure relearning, which
● It involves transforming presented
is the number of trials it takes to learn once again
information Into a representation that can
items that were learned in the past. Relearning has
subsequently be stored.
also been referred to as savings and can be
● First Stage
observed in adults, children, and animals.

MARK ZALDAVE H. GABIASON | BS PSYCHOLOGY - A46

COGPSY230 | PRELIM Notes #4

IMPLICIT vs. EXPLICIT MEMORY Short-term Store

● Capable of storing Information for
Memory theorists distinguish between explicit somewhat longer periods but of relatively
memory and implicit memory. Explicit memory, limited capacity as well.
in which participants engage in conscious
recollection. Long-term Store
● A very large capacity, capable of storing
A related phenomenon is implicit memory, in Information for very long periods, perhaps
which we use information from memory but are not even Indefinitely.
consciously aware that we are doing so.

Outstanding Memory: Mnemonists

2 Kinds of Explicit Memory
● Based on such findings, Endel Tulving Mnemonists
(1972) proposed a distinction between two ● Someone who demonstrates extraordinarily
kinds of explicit memory. keen memory ability, usually based on
1. Semantic memory using special techniques for memory
● stores general world enhancement.
knowledge. It Is our memory
for facts that are not unique Russian psychologist Alexander Luria (1988) reported
to us and that are not that one day S. appeared in his laboratory and asked to
recalled in any particular have his memory tested. Luria tested him. Ho
temporal context. discovered that the man's memory appeared to have
virtually no limits. S. could reproduco extremely long
2. Episodic memory
strings of words, regardless of how much time had
● stores personally
passed since the words had been presented to him.
experienced events or Luria studied S. for over 30 years. He found that even
episodes. when S.'s retention was measured 15 or 16 years after
a session in which S. had learned words, S. still could
reproduce the words. S. eventually became a
The Traditional Model of Memory professional entertainer. He dazzled audiences with his
ability to recall whatever was asked of him.
William James
a. Primary Memory
b. Secondary Memory Deficient Memory

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin Amnesia

a. Sensory store ● Severe loss of explicit memory.
b. Short-term Store
c. Long-term Store a. Retrograde Amnesia
- Individuals lose their purposeful
Sensory store memory for events prior to whatever
● Capable of storing relatively limited trauma induces memory loss.
amounts of Information for very brief
periods. b. Anterograde AAmnesia
- The inability to remember events
that occur after a traumatic event
MARK ZALDAVE H. GABIASON | BS PSYCHOLOGY - A46
COGPSY230 | PRELIM Notes #4

c. Infantile Amnesia STORAGE

- The inability to recall events that ● Refers to how you retain encoded
happened when we were very information in memory.
young.
RETRIEVAL
Amnesia ● Refers to how you gain access to
● Severe loss of explicit memory. information stored in memory.

Alzheimer's disease
● A disease of older adults that causes Forms of Encoding
dementia as well as progressive memory
loss. Short-Term vs. Long-Term Storage
● While long-term memory has a seemingly
Dementia unlimited capacity that lasts years,
● A loss of intellectual function that is severe short-term memory is relatively brief and
enough to impair one's everyday life. limited. Short-term memory is limited in
both capacity and duration. In order for a
memory to be retained, it needs to be
transferred from short-term stores into long-
term memory.
● The classic model, known as the Atkinson-
Shiffrin model or multi-modal model,
suggested that all short-term memories
were automatically placed in long-term
memory after a certain amount of time.

Transfer of information: Short to Long

Two key problems when we transfer information

from short-term memory to long-term memory:
Memory Process
INTERFERENCE
ENCODING ● When competing information Interferes with
● Refers to how you transform a physical, our storing Information.
sensory input into a kind of representation
that can be placed Into memory. DECAY
● When we forget facts just because time
passes

MARK ZALDAVE H. GABIASON | BS PSYCHOLOGY - A46

COGPSY230 | PRELIM Notes #4

Transfer of information: Short to Long At least two kinds of interference figure :

The means of moving information depends on a. Proactive interference (or proactive
whether the information involves.. inhibition)
- occurs when material that was
01. DECLARATIVE MEMORY learned in the past impedes the
● Entrance into long-term declarative memory learning of new material.
may occur through a variety of processes. b. Retroactive interference (or retroactive
One method of accomplishing this goal is inhibition)
by deliberately attending to Information to - occurs when newly acquired
comprehend it. Another is by making knowledge impedes the recall of
connections or associations between the older material.
new information and what we already know
and understand. 02. Decay Theory
● Information is forgotten because of the
02. NONDECLARATIVE MEMORY gradual disappearance, rather than
● Some forms of nondeclarative memory are displacement, of the memory trace
highly volatile and decay quickly.
● Other nondeclarative forms are maintained
more readily, particularly as a result of The Constructive Nature of Memory
repeated practice (of procedures) or
repeated conditioning (of responses). An important lesson about memory is that memory
retrieval is not just reconstructive, involving the use
of various strategies (e.g., searching for cues,
CONSOLIDATION drawing inferences) for retrieving the original
● This process of integrating new information memory traces of our experiences and then
into stored information is called rebuilding the original experiences as a basis for
consolidation. retrieval.

REHEARSAL Rather, in real-life situations, memory is also

● The repeated recitation of an item. The constructive, in that prior experience affects how
effects of such rehearsal are termed we recall things and what we actually recall from
practice effects. memory

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY
Processes of Forgetting and Memory Distortion ● Autobiographical memory refers to the
memory of an individual’s history.
01. Interference Theory ● Autobiographical memory is constructive.
● Refers to the view that forgetting occurs One does not remember exactly what has
because recall of certain words Interferes happened. Rather, one remembers one’s
with recall of other words. construction or reconstruction of what
happened. People’s autobiographical
memories are generally quite good.

MARK ZALDAVE H. GABIASON | BS PSYCHOLOGY - A46

COGPSY230 | PRELIM Notes #4

MEMORY DISTORTIONS

(Schacter, 2001)
“Seven Sins of Memory”
1. Transience
● Memory fades quickly
2. Absent-mindedness
● Looking for something only to
discover that they have forgotten
what they were seeking.
3. Blocking
● People sometimes have something
that they know they should
remember, but they can’t. It’s as
though the information is on the tip
of their tongue, but they cannot
retrieve it
4. Misattribution
● People often cannot remember
where they heard what they heard
or read what they read. Sometimes
people think they saw things they
did not see or heard things they did
not hear.
5. Suggestibility
- People are susceptible to
suggestion, so if it is suggested to
them that they saw something, they
may think they remember seeing it.
6. Bias
- People often are biased in their
recall.
7. Persistence
- People sometimes remember things
as consequential that, in a broad
context, are inconsequential.

REPRESSED MEMORY
● Repressed memories are memories that
are alleged to have been pushed down into
unconsciousness because of the distress
they cause. Such memories, according to
the view of psychologists who believe in
their existence, are very inaccessible, but
they can be dredged out.

MARK ZALDAVE H. GABIASON | BS PSYCHOLOGY - A46