3 Working memory and LTM

• Elaborative rehearsal


  The process by which the subject organises and relates new information to material that is already held in LTM
• Maintenance rehearsal


  Involves no elaboration
• Elaborative rehearsal

  Enhances encoding in LTM
• Depth of processing

  Sound and shape are processed shallowly, while items with meaning are processed deeply and incorporated into the semantic structure
• Elaborative encoding

  Improves comprehension and memory
• Elaborative processing

  Allows prior knowledge to shape encoding
• Schema

  A mental framework or an organized pattern of thought about some aspect of the world that can be used to understand new information
• Semantic network


  Connections between ideas and concepts
• Retrograde amnesia

  Difficulty remembering things prior to trauma
• Anterograde amnesia

  Difficulty forming new memories
• Stability of memories in LTM

  
  

  initially in a labile form, then consolidated over time into a more damage-resistant form.

  Involves the formation of a memory trace which extends over a long period of a time because it may involve alterations in the biological foundations of the trace
• Method of Loci


  Attaching items you want to remember to a sequence of locations that you know very well
• Context dependent memory


  • Memory performance is better in the same environment you learnt it in
  • When the environment is drastically unusual, this can cause more context dependent memory