Course: Experimental Psychology Instructor:

Chapter# 7 Lecture#

Memory
Contents

Definition and nature , Processing of memory Types of memory memory systems,

Forgetting, Reconstruction of memory, Current Research on memory.

Memory

Definition and nature:

Psychologists define memory as “the capacity to record, retain and retrieve information.”

Without memory, learning would be impossible; people could not build on past experience or adapt their
knowledge to new situations.

Memory Process:

How does information get into memory? How is information maintained in memory? How is information
pulled back out of memory?

These three questions correspond to the three key processes involved in memory.

a. Encoding (getting information in)

b. Storage (maintain it)
c. Retrieval (getting it out)

1. Encoding (getting information in)

Encoding involves forming a memory code. For example, when you form a memory code for a
word, you might emphasize how it looks, how it sounds or what it means. Encoding usually
requires attention, which is why you may not be able to recall exactly each and every thing in
your environment. Memory is largely an active process. For the most part, you are unlikely to
remember something unless you make a conscious effort to do so.
 2. Storage (maintaining information)
Storage involves maintaining encoded information in memory over time. Memory specialists
speak of placing information in storage, the location in the memory system in which material is
saved. If the material is not stored adequately in the first place, it cannot later be recalled. When
items of information are placed in the long-term store, they are put into organized categories
where they reside for long time. But information storage is not enough to guarantee that you will
remember something. You need to be able to get information out of storage.
3. Retrieval (getting information out)
Retrieval involves recovering information memory stores. In retrieval, material in memory storage
is located, brought into awareness and used. When we remember something, a copy of the item is
retrieved from the long-term store.
Types/Kinds of Memory:

There are three kinds of memory that vary in terms of their function and length of time
information is retained.

1. Sensory Memory:
The sensory memory preserves information in its original sensory form for a
brief time, usually only a fraction of a second. All of the information that gets stored in our
memories first enters through our senses. For example, to be able to memorize and recall what a
teacher said in the lecture, you first must be in class to hear that lecture. The basic idea of a
sensory memory is that information does not pass directly through our sensory system, instead, it
is held in sensory memory for a brief period of time. The term “sensory memory” encompasses
several types of memories, each related to a different source of sensory information.

There is an iconic memory, which stores information from our visual system.
An echoic memory, which stores information coming from the ears, as well as corresponding
memories for each of the other senses.

2. Short-term Memory:
Short-term memory is a limited capacity store that can maintain
unrehearsed information for up to about 20 seconds. In contrast, information stored in long term
 memory may last weeks, months or years. Actually you can maintain information in your short-
term store for longer than 20 seconds through rehearsal.

Rehearsal _ is the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about information. You surely
have used rehearsal process on many occasions. For instance, when you obtain a phone number
from the information operator, you probably recite it over and over until you can dial the number.

Durability of Storage: without rehearsal, information in short-term memory is lost in less than 20
seconds.

Capacity of storage: short-term memory is limited in the number of items it can hold. The small
capacity of STM was pointed out by George Miller. Miller noticed that people could recall only
about seven items on tasks that required them to remember unfamiliar material. The common
thread in these tasks, Miller argued, was that they required the use of STM. You can increase the
capacity of your short-term memory by combining stimuli into larger, possibly higher-order, units
called Chunks.

A Chunk is a group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit. You can demonstrate the effect of
chunking by asking someone to recall a sequence of 12 letters grouped in the following way:
FB - INB - CC - IAIB – M
As you read the letters loud , pause at the gaps, your subject will probably attempt to remember
each letter separately because there are no obvious groups or chunks. Now, present the same
string of letters to another person, but place the pauses in the following locations:
FBI – NBC – CIA – IAIB - M

As you read the letters now form four familiar chunks that should occupy four slots in short-term
memory, resulting in successful recall. Short-term memory as “working memory”: short-
memory is sometimes referred to as working memory.
3. Long-term Memory:

Long-term memory is an unlimited capacity store that can hold information

over lengthy periods of time. Information stored in long-term memory may last weeks, months or
years. Some information may remain in long-term memory across an entire life time. The way
information enters long-term memory depends partly on the amount of time we rehearsed things.
The longer the rehearsal the more likely is long term storage. One point of view is that all
information stored in long-term memory is stored there permanently. According to this view,
forgetting occurs only because people sometimes cannot retrieve needed information from LTM.
The existence of flashbulb memories is one piece of evidence that has been cited to support the
notion that LTM storage may be permanent. Flashbulb memories, which are unusually vivid and
detailed recollections of momentous events, provide striking examples of seemingly permanent
storage. For example, many of you can remember exactly where they were, what they were doing
and how they felt when they learned that former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had been shot and
dead.

Systems/Models of Memory:
 Many theorists have suggested that people have separate memory systems for different kinds of
information.

1. Declarative Memory System: (deals with factual information) It handles factual

information. It contains recollections of words, definitions, names, dates, faces, events,
concepts and ideas. Declarative memory system further can be sub-divided into semantic and
episodic memory. Both contain factual information, but episodic memory contains personal
facts and semantic memory contains general facts.
a. Semantic memory: contains general knowledge that is not tied to the time when the
information was learned. For example, Independence Day is 14 th August, dogs have four
legs, and Islamabad is the Capital of Pakistan etc.
b. Episodic Memory: the episodic memory system is made up of chronological, temporally
dated, recollections of personal experiences. For example, your date of birth, your last
trip with friends, last family gathering etc.

2. The Procedural Memory system: (Deals with skills and actions)

The procedural memory system handles memories for

actions, skills, and operations. For example, actions as riding a bike, typing, sewing,
swimming, and tying one’s shoes etc.

Forgetting

refers to failure to either recall or retain information

into present consciousness. All experiences leave traces
or after-effects (images) in memory parts of the brain.
Failure to retain these traces from the parts of memory
is called Forgetting.
There are various factors that come into play that leads
to disappearance of information from the brain. Traces
are known to become weaker with the passage of time,
and could even fade away gradually. Interference of
new experiences also causes disruption in memory,
which causes forgetting. Past experiences do not
always remain fresh. We even repress certain memories
of unpleasant experiences voluntarily.

Failure to transfer information from working

memory to long-term memory is one of the most frequent reasons for forgetting. Furthermore, our
inability to recall information from long-term memory also leads to forgetting.
There is variety of theories that explains forgetting. Here are some of the major types and causes of
forgetting.

• The trace decay theory of forgetting states that all memories fade automatically as a function of
time; under this theory, you need to follow a certain path, or trace, to recall a memory.
• Under interference theory, all memories interfere with the ability to recall other memories.
• Proactive interference occurs when memories from someone’s past influence new memories;
• retroactive interference occurs when old memories are changed by new ones, sometimes so
much that the original memory is forgotten.
• Cue-dependent forgetting, also known as retrieval failure, is the failure to recall information in
the absence of memory cues.
• The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon is the failure to retrieve a word from memory, combined
with partial recall and the feeling that retrieval is imminent.

Reconstructive Memory the process of remembering conceived as involving the recreation of an

experience or
event that has been only partially stored in memory. When a memory is retrieved, the process uses general
knowledge and schemas for what typically happens in order to reconstruct the experience or event.

Reconstructive Memory (Bartlett)

Memory does not work like a video recording, meaning that our memories of an event are often
incomplete, as we only recall the important points. Reconstructive memory suggests that in the absence of
all information, we fill in the gaps to make more sense of what happened. According to Bartlett, we do
this using schemas. These are our previous knowledge and experience of a situation and we use this
process to complete the memory. This means that our memories are a combination of specific traces
encoded at the time of the event, along with our knowledge, expectations, beliefs and experiences of such
an event.

Supporting evidence:

Bartlett used a Chinese Whispers technique where English pp’s read an Indian folk story called War of the
Ghosts. This story was unfamiliar to the pp’s and from a different culture, so it did not fit in with their
schemas. When it came to recalling the story, as time went on the story became shorter and shorter, and
the accounts were distorted in a number of ways. He found pp’s left out bits of the story that they did not
understand and changed information and rationalised it using their own culture. This shows that people do
reconstruct memories.

However this study used a story that did not make sense to pp’s and they may have known that they
would be asked to retell it, so were influenced by demand characteristics.

Loftus found use of leading questions can lead to memories being manipulated. When asked how fast a
car was travelling, by changing the verb of the car ‘hitting’ or ‘smashing’ into another, changes the
estimate of speed pp’s give. This is because the words ‘hit’ and ‘smashed’ lead to different memories.
However this was a lab experiment using students. It may have been that not all of them could drive and
so relied on the cue in the word to help them guess a speed.

Opposing evidence:

This theory simply describes that memory is reconstructive rather than explaining how. It says that
memory is active and uses schemas but does not say how memory is active and spread unlike the
spreading activation theory.

Different explanation:

The levels of processing model of memory suggests it is the depth material is learnt that leads to LTM –
information which requires deeper processing will lead to better memory than information that requires
shallow processing.