Memory

Week 8

Prepared by Ayesha Zafar

Lecturer
Department of Psychology, IU Karachi.
 LEARNING OUTCOME
Understand the Memory.

Understanding of different
Memory stages and
process.

•Understanding the theories

of forgetting.
 MEMORY
• Memory is the process in which information is encoded, stored,
and retrieved.
From an Information Processing perspective there are three main
stages in the formation and retrieval of memory:
• Encoding: or registration: receiving, processing and combining
of received information
• Storage: creation of a permanent record of the encoded
information
• Retrieval: recall or recollection: calling back the stored
information in response to some cue for use in a process or
activity
 SENSORY MEMORY
• Sensory memory holds sensory information for a few
seconds or less after an item is perceived
• Iconic Memory is a fast decaying store of visual
information, a type of sensory memory that briefly
stores an image which has been perceived for a small
duration.
• Echoic Memory is a fast decaying store of auditory
information, another type of sensory memory that
briefly stores sounds that have been perceived for short
durations.
• Haptic Memory is a type of sensory memory that
represents a database for touch stimuli.
 Short-term memory
Short-term memory allows recall for a period of several
seconds to a minute without rehearsal. Its capacity is
also very limited George A. Miller (1956)conducted
experiments showing that the store of short-term
memory was 7±2 items (the title of his famous paper
The magical number 7±2 Some Limits on our
Capacity for Processing Information
 Long-term memory
• long-term memory can store much larger quantities of
information for potentially unlimited duration (sometimes
a whole life span). Its capacity is immeasurably large.
 Long term memory
• Declarative
Declarative memory refers to memories which can be
consciously recalled such as facts and knowledge.
Declarative memory can be divided into two categories:
episodic memory, which stores specific personal
experiences, and semantic memory, which stores factual
information.
• Non declarative
refers to unconscious memories such as skills (e.g.
learning to ride a bicycle)
 Types of long term memory
• Long term memory is commonly broken down into
Episodic Memory
• refers to memory for specific events in time for e.g.
remembering someone's name and what happened at
your last interaction with each other.
Semantic memory
• refers to knowledge about factual information, such as
the meaning of word
 Cont.
Procedural memory
• Procedural memory reflects our knowledge of how to
perform certain skills and actions. For example how to
ride a bicycle, drive a car, play the guitar, swim, use a
pen, and play basketball.
 Examples:

• The name of your pet bird growing up

• Your sister’s wedding
• The name of your fifth-grade teacher
• Driving a motorcycle
• Ice skating
• Riding a bicycle
• Shooting an arrow
• Tragic Accident you had
• Names of flowers
 Hippocampus
The hippocampus appear to be most important in
declarative memory specifically. The ability to
retain and recall episodic memories is highly
dependent on the hippocampus.
Memory Organizational Chart
 Comparison of Three Stages of Memory
Short Term Long Term
Sensory
1.Large 1.Limited 1.Unlimited
capacity capacity capacity
2.Contains 2.Acoustically 2.Semantically
sensory encoded encoded
information 3.Brief storage
3.Storage
3.Very brief (up to 30
presumed
retention (1/2 seconds w/o
permanent
sec for rehearsal)
4.Conscious 4.Information
visual; 2 secs
processing highly
for auditory)
of organized
 Ebbinghaus and Memory

• Systematic and
controlled study
of memory in
laboratory

H. Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)
Ebbinghaus and Memory
• Ebbinghaus
– Used nonsense syllables:
TUV ZOF GEK MONUL WAV
FALEM
– the more times practiced on
Day 1, the fewer repetitions to
relearn on Day 2
 Ebbinghaus’ Retention Curve
Time in
minutes 20
taken to
relearn
15
list on
day 2

10

0
8 16 24 32 42 53 64
Number of repetitions of list on day 1
 Retroactive Inhibition
The Tendency for the retention of learned material or skills to
be impaired by subsequent learning, esp. by learning of a similar kin
d.
Hermann Ebbinghaus Theory (Memory Drum)
Hermann Ebbinghaus who pioneered the experimental study
of Memory and is known for his discovery of the Forgetting Curve.
He assumed that the process of committing something to memory
involved the formation of new associations and that these
associations would be strengthened through repetition. To observe
this process, he memorized list of 20 nonsense syllables and then
recalled them.
It turned out that his ability to recall the items improved as the
number of repetitions went up, rapidly at first and then more
slowly, until finally the list was mastered. This was the world's
first learning curve
He then waited varying lengths of time before testing himself
again. Forgetting turned out to occur most rapidly soon after the
end of practice, but the rate of forgetting slowed as time went on
and fewer items could be recalled. This curve represented the
first forgetting curve.
According to Ebbinghaus, the level at which we retain information
depends on a couple of things:
• The strength of your memory
• The amount of time that has passed since learning
There are two primary factors that affect our level of retention for
items in our long term memory:
• Repetition
• Quality of memory representation
(If you learn something, and it is important to you, and you can connect
it with many things you already know, your memory retention will be
very high. If you learn something, and it is not important to you, and
you do not connect it with anything you already know, you will have
poor retention and require regular repetition)
 Rules for Making Nonsense Syllables
by Glaze and Hull

• The syllable should be equated according to

association value for each list when the list are
compared to each other and also so that each
pair of syllables with in one list has approximately
the same association values.
• No vowel should be repeated in any consecutive
4 syllable.
• No four consecutive syllable shall have any letter
either vowel or consonant in common.
• Alphabetical progressions of initial and final
consonants should be avoided.
 Serial Position Effect:
The recency effect describes the increased recall
of the most recent information because it is still in
the short-term memory.
The primacy effect better memory of the first items
in a list due to increased rehearsal and
commitment to long-term memory.
 Cocktail Party Phenomenon

• Studied in labs using the dichotic listening

technique
– Two different messages presented, one in
each ear
– Participants later asked to recall information,
or sometimes have to “shadow” the words
presented to one ear
 Cocktail party effect
This was carried out by Colin
Cherry in 1953
In a room where several
conversations are taking
place one can focus on
one of them and ignore
the rest: the cocktail
party effect.
 Experiment
• This was dichotic listening
experiment. Participants listen to a
headset with 2 different channels; one
in each ear. They are asked to
shadow (i.e. repeat back) the
message reaching one ear and report
it while ignoring the other. Dichotic
listening experiments were used to
demonstrate that people can only do
one thing at a time, even when they
appear to be doing two.
 Cont.
• He found that we use the physical characteristics of the
stimuli, e.g. the intensity, pitch, loudness and source of
message to separate the wanted and unwanted messages.
• For example, we typically have no trouble when told "only
listen to the female voice/the low pitched voice/quieter
voice".
• However when the different messages played in each ear
were spoken by the same voice (they had the same physical
characteristics), participants found it almost impossible to
distinguish between the two.
 Theories of forgetting
• Forgetting (retention loss) refers to apparent loss of
information already encoded and stored in an
individual's long term memory.
• Encoding failure
• Memory decay/disuse theory
• Wishful forgetting
• Interference theory
✔ Proactive interference
✔ Retroactive interference
1. Encoding failure
A theory that proposes that forgetting is due to the failure to encode
the information into long-term Memory.
2. Memory decay theory
A theory that proposes that forgetting is due to the decay of physical
traces of the information in the brain; periodically using the
information helps t maintain it in the brain.
3. Wishful Forgetting
Wishfully pushing memory away. not remembering/ recalling it i.e.
painful memories.
4. Interference theory:
a theory that proposes that forgetting is due to other
information in memory interfering
a. Proactive interference: old information interferes with
the retrieval of newly-stored information
b. Retroactive Interference: newly-stored information
interferes with the retrieval of previously-stored information
Retroactive vs. Proactive Interference
Interference and Forgetting
Common Measuring Procedures to check learning

• Recall
Direct retrieval of facts or information
• Recognition
A measure of long-term memory retrieval that only requires the identification of the
information in the presence of retrieval cues
• Relearning
The savings method of measuring long-term memory retrieval, in which the measure is
the amount of time saved when learning information for the second time.
• Association
Learning by pairing up/ Associations
 Example:
Recall and Recognition
Example of Recall:
The process of storing information in
memory is called ______________.

Example of Recognition:
The process of storing information in
memory is called:
a. rehearsal b. deep processing
c. encoding d. retrieval
 Serial Position Effect:
Recall (Direct retrieval of facts or information)
• Hardest to recall items in the middle of a list
• Primacy effect: easier to remember items first in a list than
items in the middle, because first items are studied the most
• Recency effect: easier to remember items last in a list than
items in the middle, because the last items were last studied
 Memory loss
Retrograde Amnesia
• Loss of memory for past.
• It is loss of memory-access to events that occurred, or
information that was learned, before an injury or the onset of
a disease.
Antrograde Amnesia
• Inability to form new long term memory.
• It is a loss of the ability to create new Memories after the
event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or
complete inability to recall the recent past, while long term
memories from before the event remain intact