What makes up a memory:
- multidimensional analysis
- visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, somatic, temporal, emotional, etc
Memory as Process:
starts with encoding/learning of info → storage and maintenance of info → retrieval of info
Memory as Storehouse:
- memory is the place where representations are stored
- not only in the brain, but in conceptual terms
- where we “look” for specific memories
Primary/ short-term memory:
the capacity to store a small amount of information in the mind and keep it readily available for a short period of time
Secondary/long term memory:
the memory process in the brain that takes information from the short-term memory store and creates long lasting memories.
Broadbent’s model
- proposed three main structures
- S-system: sensory info
- P-system; conciousness, limited capacity
- Secondary memory: everything else
- sensory info→s-system→filter →p-system→← secondary memory
stimuli are filtered, or selected to be attended to, at an early stage during processing. A filter can be regarded as the selector of relevant information based on basic features, such as color, pitch, or direction of stimuli.
Important Features of memory (broadbent)
- duel-component view of memory
- limited capacity in short term memory
- info rapidly lost from limited capacity component
- needed to maintain info via rehearsal
- unlimited capacity long-term memory
Capacity limit/span: short term memory
memory span: number of items we can recite back perfectly without error
-4-7 items
Chunking
puts little info bits into big bits and makes it meaningful chunks which helps with memorization and retaining of info
How quickly is info lost from STM after being moved by incoming info?:
- Results: as time increases → performance of recall drops
- duration of STM: is 18-20 seconds
Structural vs. processing components
- Structural components; sensory stores, STM, LTM, none of these changes
- Processing components: control processes that operate on STM
- change depending on task requirements
- rehearsal vs retrieval
Controlled processes in STM
- maintains info in the STM
- rehersal is the main one to try to hold onto in memory → the longer it is kept in your STM → the better you can place it into the LTM
- the longer in STM, the more transfer to LTM
STM
limited capacity store, short duration, 4-7 items can be held, if a item is kicked out it can last between 18-20 seconds, new info bumps out older info, need to reherse items in STM to transfer info to LTM
LTM
unlimited capacity store, durable, includes all memories: knowledge, personal info etc, info never bumped out, info forgotten via interference or search failures, info needs to be retrieved from LTM back into STM for report
Free recall
you’re free to recall in whatever order you want
- series of stimuli
- written or vocal recall
- scored as correct if correct item is recalled regardless of position
- unlike serial recall where correct only if in correct position
Serial position functions:
primacy effect where poeple are really good at remebering the first items presented and well as a recency effect as well, where middle items are not so good
Model Modal account
-sensory input -> attention -> sensory memory -> STM(rehearsal) -> encoding -> LTM
- accounts for both primacy and recency effects
Modal model account of primacy
- primacy effect due to the fact that the first few items get more rehersals than other items
- more rehearsals before bumped out of STM
- leads to better transfer to LTM
- Results: first item gets rehersed the most and then gets transfered to LTM
Modal model account of primacy
- primacy effect due to the fact that the first few items get more rehersals than other items
- more rehearsals before bumped out of STM
- leads to better transfer to LTM
- Results: first item gets rehersed the most and then gets transfered to LTM
Modal model account of recency
- recency effect fure to the fact that items presented at the end of the list are still in the STM at the time of recall
- leads to nearly perfect recall of these items
- this predicts that the last items presented should be the first recalled
- backward first and then foward
- people recall the last item first and then the second to last items
Long term recency
the end-of-list distractor task displaces items from the postulated short-term store, thereby ensuring that all items are retrieved from long-term memory
Amnesia:
- immediate memory is intact
- impairment occurs against a background of intact perceptual and intellectual functioning
Anterograde
inability to learn new info from brain trauma (future memories)
Retrograde
inability to remember info learned prior to brain trauma (past memories)
