SOSC1960

Discovering Mind and Behavior

Lecture 3
Memory

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 Do you remember what you ate for dinner
last Thursday? Do you remember what
you did the same day last year?

 Do you remember what happened the first

time you went to school? What did you
wear? What activities did you do? Do you
remember the names of your classmates?

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 Do we remember everything we
experience?
 Memory is selective
 Is our memory an exact, accurate record
of our experience?
 Memory is sometimes false

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 Memory systems
 Sensory memory
 Short-term memory
 Long-term memory
 Recalling and forgetting
 Ineffective encoding
 Storage problem
 Retrieval failure
 False memory
 Memory dysfunctions
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Amemory test
Get ready!

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Memory systems
 Memory processes
 Encoding: the process by which information is
initially recorded
 Storage: the maintenance of material stored in
the memory system
 Retrieval: the process by which material in
memory storage is brought into awareness

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 Memory processes
 Computer information processing as a
metaphor of human memory processes

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 Three-system memory theory
 Sensory memory: the initial, momentary
storage of information, lasting only an instant
 Short-term memory: is the capacity for
holding a small amount of information in mind
in an active, readily available state for a short
period of time
 Long-term memory: memory that stores
information on a relatively permanent basis,
although it may be difficult to retrieve

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Three-system memory theory

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 Sensory memory
 A memory system that accurately but very
briefly registers sensory information before the
information fades or moves into short-term
memory
 The sensory register acts as a holding bin,
retaining information accurately until we select
information for attention

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 Sensory memory
 Iconic memory: visual sensory memory
 Echoic memory: auditory sensory memory
 For how long can sensory memory hold
information?

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Sperling (1970)

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Sperling (1970)

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 Sensory memory
 A snapshot of sensory information which lasts
for less than 1 second

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 Short-term memory (STM)
 Information encoded and attended to in the
sensory memory are recognized, and now
stored in the STM

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 Short-term memory (STM)
 Repetitive rehearsal
 The process of repetitively verbalizing or
thinking about the information (like when
we keeping the phone number of a
restaurant)
 To prevent the information from vanishing
from STM

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 Short-term memory (STM)
 What if the rehearsal is disrupted? How long
can STM hold the information?

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Peterson & Peterson (1959)

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Peterson & Peterson (1959)

 Short-term memory (STM)
 Capacity: seven plus or minus two units
 George Miller (1956). “The magical number
seven plus or minus two: Some limits on our
capacity for processing information”

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 Digital span test
 Alphabet test

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 Short-term memory (STM)
 Chunking: a meaningful grouping of stimuli
that can be stored as a unit in STM

“Mary had a little lamb”

1 unit of information / 5 units of information / 18 units of information

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 Game positions
Number of
chesses
correctly
memorized

Random positions

Chess player class

Researchers have found evidence that chess grandmasters rely on a vast
store of knowledge of game positions. Some scientists have theorized that
grandmasters organize the information in chunks, which can be quickly
retrieved from long-term memory and manipulated in working memory. It is
estimated that chess grandmasters have approximately 50000 to 100000 24

chunks available.
 Long-term memory (LTM)
 A seemingly unlimited capacity store that can
hold information over lengthy periods of time
 Information being maintained in STM through
elaborative rehearsal is gradually absorbed
into LTM

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 Elaborative rehearsal
 Deep semantic processing of a to-be-
remembered item resulting in the
production of durable memories
 E.g. Expanding the information, linking it to other
memory, turning it into an image

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Memory modules
Mark down the thing that comes to your mind most instantly
when you see the word red.

Red

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Semantic network: mental representation of clusters of
interconnected information 29
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 Does each of these words appear in the
list shown at the beginning of the lecture?
 taste
 point
 sweet

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Recalling and forgetting
 Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
 The inability to recall information that one
realizes one knows

 Why do we fail to recall? Why do we forget?

Ineffective Storage Retrieval 32

Encoding Problem Failure
 Ineffective encoding
 Levels of processing: the degree to which new
information is mentally analyzed
 The greater the intensity of initial processing is
(i.e. more elaborative rehearsal), the more
likely we are able to retrieve the information

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Use of examples
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Paivio et al. (1968)

Visual imagery and dual coding

 Juggler-dress
 Letter-effort
 Duty-Hotel
 Quality-necessity

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 Levels of processing
 Attention
 Can you draw the HK one-dollar coin?

 What are on the two sides of the HSBC $100

bank note?

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 Video: Change Blindness

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 Mnemonics: some formal elaborative
rehearsal strategies for organizing
information in order to facilitate
memory of it

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 A visual mnemonics for days of the months

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http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/index.htm
 Every Good Boy Does Fine

FACE

A verbal mnemonics for notes on the musical staff

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http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/index.htm
 FARM B.

Fish - Amphibians - Reptiles - Mammals - Birds

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http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/index.htm
Narrative methods
Bower & Clark (1969)
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Narrative methods 43

Bower & Clark (1969)

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 7 July, 2007
Tai Kung Pao

The creation of stories

- A HK teenager
championed in an
international memory
contest

香港記憶學總會
http://www.hkmsa.org/index_3.htm 45

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHfb0MH3Gc
 Storage problem
 Decay
 Information in memory eventually
disappears if it is not accessed
 The loss of information through nonuse

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 Ebbinghaus (1885)

TPR RIY
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 Storage problem
 Interference
 similar items of information interfere with
one another in storage or retrieval

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 Retrieval failure
 Cue-dependent forgetting
 Forgetting that occurs when there are insufficient
retrieval cues to rekindle information that is in
memory
 Retrieval cue: a stimulus that allows us to retrieve
information more easily
 When cues are not present, we may fail to retrieve
the information
 This may explain why effort to retrieve something fail
on one occasion but succeed on another

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Back to the crime scene
Remembering is often easier when you are in the same physical 51

environment as you were when the event occurred

State-dependent memory: the tendency to have better retrieval
when the person is in the same physical or mental state as during
the encoding
Keleman & Creeley (2003)

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 False memory
 Inaccurate memories
 Video: Eyewitness testimony
 Study: Loftus & Palmer (1974)
 Memories are subject to influence by others
 Participants were shown a video of two cars crashing
into each others. They were then asked questions
about the incident one week later.

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Loftus & Palmer (1974)

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Loftus & Palmer (1974)

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 Memory dysfunctions
 Amnesia
 Memory loss that occurs without other mental
difficulties
 Biological causes (e.g., damage to the brain, use of
certain drugs)
 Psychological causes (e.g., repression)

 Anterograde amnesia: amnesia in which memory is

lost for events that follow an injury
 Information cannot be transferred from STM to LTM

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 Retrograde amnesia:
amnesia in which
memory is lost for
occurrences prior to a
certain event

 Doug Bruce
 “If you lost your past,
would you want it
back?”

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 Memory dysfunctions
 Alzheimer’s disease
 In early stages, symptoms are not apparent
 Subtle memory difficulties
 Memory for recent events begins to go
 Memories for long-ago events and well-rehearsed
procedures are last to go

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 Alzheimer’s disease
 In advanced stages, symptoms are more
apparent
 No recognition of others
 Forget identity
 Language breakdowns
 Confusion about everyday tasks, time
and places
 Irritability, aggression, and mood swings
 Unable to move around unassisted
 Inability to live independently
Charles Kuen Kao
Father of Fiber Optic
Communications59
On autopsy,

 Inflammation and
deterioration of nerve cells in
the brain

 Shrinkage is especially severe

in the hippocampus, an area
of the cortex that plays a key
role in formation of new
memories

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Alzheimer’s disease HBO
http://www.hbo.com/alzheimers/

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 Required readings
 Chapter 7

 Next Topic
 Learning

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