PSY 102 Module 6

• Subjective Organization


  Our individually determined ways of organizing memories
• Mnemonic Devices

  • Categorical Clustering
  • Interactive Images
  • Pegword System
  • Method of Loci
  • Acronym
  • Acrostic
  • Keyword System
• Interference Theory


  Forgetting occurs because recall of certain words interferes with recall of other words
• Types of Interference


  • Retroactive Interference
  • Proactive Interference
• Retroactive Interference


  • Caused by activity occurring after a person learns something but before they were asked to recall that thing
• Proactive Interference


  • Occurs when the interfering material occurs before the learning of the to be-remembered material
• Memory Effects


  • Recency Effect
  • Primacy Effect
  • Serial-Position Curve
• Decay Theory


  Information is forgotten because of the gradual disappearance rather than displacement of the memory trace
• Autobiographical Memory


  Memory of an individual's history, subject to distortions, linked to self-esteem
• Schacter's Seven Sins of Memory

  • Transience
  • Absent-mindedness
  • Blocking
  • Misattribution
  • Suggestibility
  • Bias
  • Persistence
• Eyewitness Testimony Paradigm


  • People construct a memory that is different from what really happened, accuracy declines with increased stress
• Eyewitness Testimony Considerations


  • Assumption that perpetrator is in lineup
  • Distractor selection is important
  • Police behavior may influence
• Children's Eyewitness Testimony


  • Be wary of repeated questioning, leading questions may distort memory, younger children are more suggestible
• Repressed Memories


  Memories alleged to have been pushed down into unconsciousness because of the distress they cause
• Memory


  The mechanism that we use to create, maintain, and retrieve info about the past
• Processes in Memory


  • Encoding - processes used to store information in memory
  • Storage - processes used to maintain info in memory
  • Retrieval - processes used to get info back out of memory
• Recall


  Retrieving previously learned information without the aid of or with very few external cues
• Recognition


  Identifying previously learned information with the help of more external cues
• Types of Tasks Used for Measuring Memory

  • Explicit-memory tasks
  • Declarative–knowledge tasks
  • Recall tasks
  • Serial recall tasks
  • Free recall tasks
  • Cued recall tasks
  • Recognition tasks
  • Implicit-memory tasks

  
• Traditional Model of Memory: William James "Two-Structure Model"


  • PRIMARY MEMORY: Holds temporary information currently in use
  • SECONDARY MEMORY: Holds information permanently or at least for a very long time

  
• Traditional Model of Memory: Atkinson and Shiffrin's Multistore Model

  • SENSORY STORES: Storing relatively limited amounts of information for very brief periods
  • SHORT-TERM STORE: Capable of storing information for somewhat longer periods but of relatively limited capacity
  • LONG-TERM MEMORY STORE: Capable of storing information for very long periods, perhaps independently

  
• Levels-of-Processing Model: Craik and Lockhart


  • Emphasis on processing as the key to storage, the deeper the level of processing, the higher the probability that an item may be retrieved
  • Levels of Processing, Verbal Stimuli: Physical, Phonological, Semantic
• The Working Memory Model: Allan Baddeley & Graham Hitch

  • CENTRAL EXECUTIVE: Coordinate both attentional activities and governs responses
  • VISUOSPATIAL SKETCHPAD: visual images
  • PHONOLOGICAL LOOP: inner speech for verbal comprehension and for acoustic rehearsal
  • EPISODIC BUFFER: limited capacity system that is capable of binding information from the subsidiary systems and from long-term memory into a unitary episodic representation

  
• Multiple Memory Systems Model: Endel Tulving

  • Procedural knowledge: knowledge about steps and processes
  • Declarative knowledge: facts or memories of past events that can be 'declared' rather than performed
  • Episodic: unique recollection of experiences, events, and situations
  • Semantic: facts about the world that are not linked to particular events or contexts

  
• Connectionist Model: McClelland & Rumelhart


  • Connectionist model argue that our brain handles many operations and processes at once
• MNEMONISTS


  Individuals who demonstrates extraordinarily keen memory ability, usually based in using special techniques for memory enhancement

  
• HYPERMNESIA


  The process of producing retrieval of memories that would have been forgotten
• AMNESIA


  • Severe loss of explicit memory
  • Retrograde Amnesia: Loss of purposeful memory for events prior to trauma
  • Infantile Amnesia: Inability to recall events that happened during childhood
  • Anterograde Amnesia: Inability to remember events that occur after a traumatic event
• ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE


  • Causes dementia (loss of intellectual function) as well as progressive memory loss
  • There are plaques (dense deposits) and tangles outside the nerve cells
  • Diagnosis is made when memory is impaired and there is at least one other area of dysfunction