Working memory
- More dynamic than short term memory
- Limited capacity (stores 7 +/- 2 pieces of memory)
Long term memory
- Rehearsal and elaboration allows the consolidation of working memory to long term memory
- Very large capacity
- Stored for a few mins
- Processes involved:
1) Long term potentiation – neural pathways changed
2) Metabolic activity a few mins-hrs after stimulus presented (subjected to interference)
Procedural memory
-Memory for how to do things or skills
E.g. driving a car
-Often occur in absence of conscious recollection
Declarative memory
-Memory for facts
E.g. Birthdays
-Encompasses semantic and episodic memory
Semantic memory
-Memory for facts, ideas
E.g. what is the capital of France
Episodic memory
- Memory for events centred around you (autobiographical)
- Preferentially stored
3 Key Stages
1) Encoding
2) Storage
3) Retrieval
*Failure to remember/forgetting something is due to failure of any of these 3 stages
Interference
1) Retroactive interference
- New info affects the ability to retain old info
2) Proactive interference
- Old info affects ability to retain new info
Factors affecting the Retrieval process
1) Levels of processing – elaborate/superficial
2) Organisation
3) Context (i.e. state dependent memory)
- Being at the same place/emotional state as encoding facilitates recall
Recognition
- Stimulus has been previously encountered; a sense of familiarity
- Information is encoded in cue
- Recognition can be either from cue directly or mental search of LTM store
Recall
- Reconstruction of stimuli using info from cue and info from LTM
- Greater cognitive demand than Recognition
- Checked by process of Recognition
- Recall can be either from cue directly or arise after problem-solving strategy employed
Forget
- Main causes of forgetting from WM or LTM due to:
1) Passage of time - Rapid decay of info from WM
- Cell death leads to loss of info from LTM
2) Interference - Interferes with ability to store info from WM (retroactive/proactive)
- Neural pathways remoulded over time in LTM
Amnesia
Occurs due to:
1) Damage/trauma
2) Disease (e.g. Alzheimer’s)
3) Chronic alcohol abuse (i.e. Korsakoff’s syndrome)
4) Reversible brain disease (e.g. hydrocephalus)
5) Psychogenic memory loss (e.g. abuse, war)
Anterograde amnesia
-inability to store new info after trauma
Retrograde amnesia:
-inability to recall info prior to trauma
Clinical uses
Factors that aid memory:
1) Higher IQ
2) Greater medical info
3) Higher anxiety levels
Factors that helps patients to remember info:
1) Primacy-recency effect (remember the beginning and end of list, at the expense of the intermediates)
2) Overall length of the information is kept short
3) Information is important and self-relevant
4) Short words and sentences used
5) Organised
6) Repeated
7) Instructions given are concrete and explicit
