As you can see in Table 8.1 “Memory Conceptualized in Terms of Types, Stages, and Processes”, psychologists conceptualize memory in terms of types, in terms of stages, and in terms of processes. When we assess memory by asking a person to consciously remember things, we are measuring explicit memory.
A stored memory starts as a sensory memory, moves to short-term memory and then transfers into long-term memory. However, some experiences and information do not progress through each stage and are abandoned without being stored in short- or long-term memory.
-memory demonstrated by time saved when learning material a second time. -learning something more quickly when you learn it a second or later time. Example: Reviewing the first weeks of course work to prepare for your final exam, you will relearn the material more easily than you did originally.
Memory is the mental function that enables you to acquire, retain, and recall sensations, impressions, information, and thoughts you have experienced. To help understand memory as a whole, you can think of memory in terms of stages.
Stages of Memory: Sensory, Short-Term, and Long-Term Memory According to this approach (see Figure 9.4, “Memory Duration”), information begins in sensory memory, moves to short-term memory, and eventually moves to long-term memory.
The brain has three types of memory processes: sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
The three stages of memory are: Sensory memory. Short-term memory. Long-term memory.
Kids begin forming explicit childhood memories around the 2-year mark, but the majority are still implicit memories until they're about 7. It's what researchers, like Carole Peterson, PhD from Canada's Memorial University of Newfoundland, call “childhood amnesia.”
The three-stage memory system that involves sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
The stage theory of memory assumes that humans have three-stage memory that needs our need to store information for different lengths of time. According to this stage theory, one memory holds information for brief intervals, a secondary system for less than 30 seconds, and the third is of a permanent nature.
The first stage of memory is encoding. In this stage, we process information in visual, acoustic, or semantic forms. This lays the groundwork for memory. The second stage is storing information so it can be recalled at a later point.
retrievalThe final stage is retrieval and that is when we access the encoded memory in order to recall the information.
-First stage of the memory system is to get sensory information (sight, sound, ect.) into a form that the brain can use.
Current research indicates that people's earliest memories date from around 3 to 3.5 years of age.
Kids can remember events before the age of 3 when they're small, but by the time they're a bit older, those early autobiographical memories are lost. New research has put the starting point for amnesia at age 7.
Children can form memories at younger ages than adults can recall. While the efficiency of encoding and storage processes allows older children to remember more, younger children also have great memory capacity.
The researchers found that this simple writing task increased short-term memory capacity after five weeks, but only for the participants who wrote about traumatic experiences.
To help make sure information goes from short-term memory to long-term memory, you can use memory-enhancing strategies. One strategy is rehearsal, or the conscious repetition of information to be remembered (Craik & Watkins, 1973). Think about how you learned your multiplication tables as a child.
Some common strategies that can be used in everyday situations include mnemonic devices, rehearsal, self-referencing, and adequate sleep. These same strategies also can help you to study more effectively.
Mnemonic devices are memory aids that help us organize information for encoding. They are especially useful when we want to recall larger bits of information such as steps, stages, phases, and parts of a system (Bellezza, 1981).
Overlearning can help prevent storage decay. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse: Review the material over time, in spaced and organized study sessions. Organize and study your notes, and take practice quizzes/exams. Link the new information to other information you already know well.
levels of processing: information that is thought of more deeply becomes more meaningful and thus better committed to memory. memory-enhancing strategy: technique to help make sure information goes from short-term memory to long-term memory. mnemonic device: memory aids that help organize information for encoding.
During sleep the brain organizes and consolidates information to be stored in long-term memory (Abel & Bäuml, 2013). Make use of mnemonic devices: As you learned earlier in this chapter, mnemonic devices often help us to remember and recall information. There are different types of mnemonic devices, such as the acronym.
Another way of understanding memory is to think about it in terms of stages that describe the length of time that information remains available to us. According to this approach (see Figure 8.4 “Memory Duration” ), information begins in sensory memory, moves to short-term memory, and eventually moves to long-term memory. But not all information makes it through all three stages; most of it is forgotten. Whether the information moves from shorter-duration memory into longer-duration memory or whether it is lost from memory entirely depends on how the information is attended to and processed.
If information makes it past short term-memory it may enter long-term memory (LTM), memory storage that can hold information for days, months, and years. The capacity of long-term memory is large, and there is no known limit to what we can remember (Wang, Liu, & Wang, 2003).
Relearning can be a more sensitive measure of memory than either recall or recognition because it allows assessing memory in terms of “how much” or “how fast” rather than simply “correct” versus “incorrect” response s.
The “short enough” is the length of iconic memory, which turns out to be about 250 milliseconds (¼ of a second). Auditory sensory memory is known as echoic memory. In contrast to iconic memories, which decay very rapidly, echoic memories can last as long as 4 seconds (Cowan, Lichty, & Grove, 1990).
Short-term memory (STM) is the place where small amounts of information can be temporarily kept for more than a few seconds but usually for less than one minute (Baddeley, Vallar, & Shallice, 1990). Information in short-term memory is not stored permanently but rather becomes available for us to process, and the processes that we use to make sense of, modify, interpret, and store information in STM are known as working memory.
The purpose of sensory memory is to give the brain some time to process the incoming sensations, and to allow us to see the world as an unbroken stream of events rather than as individual pieces . Visual sensory memory is known as iconic memory. Iconic memory was first studied by the psychologist George Sperling (1960).
The idea of implicit memory helps explain how infants are able to learn. The ability to crawl, walk, and talk are procedures, and these skills are easily and efficiently developed while we are children despite the fact that as adults we have no conscious memory of having learned them.
In the late 1960’s, cognitive scientists Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin proposed a linear model (often called “the multi-store model ”) of human memory with three sequential stages. A stored memory starts as a sensory memory, moves to short-term memory and then transfers into long-term memory.
Encoding a memory in the human brain is a biological chain of events that gathers information from our senses through the primary sensory cortex (primary visual cortex, primary auditory cortex, etc.), then blends them in the brain’s hippocampus.
But, as the first step in storing information for a longer term, sensory memory allows us to selectively perceive and process sensory information to initiate the memory encoding process in short-term memory.
Speech and Communication. Echoic (sound) memory lasts for about 3 to 4 seconds and is important in speech and communication. Initially, when we hear a sound, we “replay” the sound briefly in sensory memory which helps us determine what the sounds (or words) are.
Memory recall is quite efficient. Most of human memory is retrieved directly, meaning that our brain doesn’t sort sequentially through the volumes of stored information before finding the correct information. Hierarchical inferences, such as groups or subsets of information, also help the efficiency of memory recall.
The hippocampus then “categorizes” this new information by comparing it to what’s already stored in memory. In popular psychology theory, information is processed in the hippocampus and other parts of the brain and stored in long-term memory as an engram.
The two main methods of memory access are recognition and recall : Recognition is the ability to compare a current event or object with something that previously experienced. (For example, noticing that a squirrel is in your garden.) Recall is the ability to remember a concept about something that isn’t physically present.
The determination of what information makes its way through the different stages depends on what you pay attention to and process. Information that you pay attention to and process will move to the next stage of memory. However, any information you to do not pay attention to never makes it way to the next stage.
There are three memory stages: sensory, short-term, and long-term. Information processing begins in sensory memory, moves to short-term memory, and eventually moves into long-term memory. Information that you come across on a daily basis may move through the three stages of memory. However, not all information makes its way through all three stages.
Types of Sensory memory. Iconic memory is the visual sensory memory that holds the mental representation of your visual stimuli. Echoic memory is the auditory sensory memory that hold information that you hear. Haptic memory is the tactile sensory memory that holds information from your sense of feeling.
It never makes its way into the second stage of memory because it was never attended to. To get information into short-term memory, you need to attend to it – meaning consciously paying attention to it.
Explicit memory are those experiences that can be intentionally and consciously remembered. It is knowledge or experiences that can be consciously remembered such as facts, data, episodes, or events. Explicit memory can be further sub-categorized as either episodic or semantic memories.
The reason is because if you focuses on the first few items, your STM becomes saturated, and you cannot concentrate on and recall the last series of items. People are able to retain more information using memory techniques such as chunking or rehearsal.
The information can last in your long-term memory for hours, days, months, or even years. Although you may forget some information after you learn it, other things will stay with you forever. Some information retained in STM is processed or encoded into long-term memory.
Childhood. Despite increasing recognition of the entire life course, childhood (including infancy) certainly remains the most important stage of most people’s lives for socialization and for the cognitive, emotional, and physiological development that is so crucial during the early years of anyone’s life.
The four stages of the life course are childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Socialization continues throughout all these stages. What happens during childhood may have lifelong consequences. Traumatic experiences and other negative events during childhood may impair psychological well-being in adolescence and beyond ...
However, socialization continues throughout the several stages of the life course, most commonly categorized as childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age . Within each of these categories, scholars further recognize subcategories, such as early adolescence and late adolescence, early adulthood and middle adulthood, and so forth.
Because their influence “rubs off,” early maturers get into trouble more often and are again more likely to also become victims of violence. Romantic relationships, including the desire to be in such a relationship, also matter greatly during adolescence. Wishful thinking, unrequited love, and broken hearts are common.
Adulthood is usually defined as the 18–64 age span. Obviously, 18-year-olds are very different from 64-year-olds, which is why scholars often distinguish young adults from middle-age adults. In a way, many young adults, including most readers of this book, delay entrance into “full” adulthood by going to college after high school and, for some, then continuing to be a student in graduate or professional school. By the time the latter obtain their advanced degree, many are well into their 30s, and they finally enter the labor force full time perhaps a dozen years after people who graduate high school but do not go on to college. These latter individuals may well marry, have children, or both by the time they are 18 or 19, while those who go to college and especially those who get an advanced degree may wait until their late 20s or early to mid-30s to take these significant steps.
Old Age. This stage of the life course unofficially begins at age 65. Once again, scholars make finer distinctions—such as “young-old” and “old-old”—because of the many differences between people who are 65 or 66 and those who are 85, 86, or even older.
Here we will just indicate that old age can be a fulfilling time of life for some people but one filled with anxiety and problems for other people, with social location (social class, race and ethnicity, and gender) once again often making a considerable difference.
The parts of the brain involved in explicit memory processing may have sustained damage in the accident, while the parts involved in implicit memory processing appear to have escaped harm. Frontal lobes and hippocampus: explicit memory formation. Cerebellum and basal ganglia: implicit memory formation. Amygdala:
short-term memory. activated memory that holds a few items briefly (such as the seven digits of a phone number while calling) before the information is stored or forgotten. long-term memory. the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.
unconscious encoding of everyday information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings. explicit memories/declarative memory. -retention of facts and personal events you can consciously retrieve. (people and events) -stored in hippocampus. effortful processing.
retrieval cue: any stimulus (event, feeling, place, and so on) linked to a specific memory. priming: -the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory. -happens without your conscious awareness, it can influence your attitudes and your behavior. mood-congruent memory:
relearning: -memory demonstrated by time saved when learning material a second time. -learning something more quickly when you learn it a second or later time. Example: Reviewing the first weeks of course work to prepare for your final exam, you will relearn the material more easily than you did originally.
According to the discussion of infants' memory, a there is no evidence of long-term memory until infants are about 6 months of age. b. the major problem in studying infants' memory is that babies cannot accurately see visual stimuli until they are 3-4 months old.
a. infants do not have measurable memory skills until 6 months of age, so we cannot assess other cognitive abilities that depend on memory. b. infants under the age of 3 months are too young to participate in research.
b. because infants' vision is so primitive, they cannot visually recognize their mothers until they are about 6 weeks of age.
The levels-of-processing approach#N#a. states that we remember material better if we encode it in terms of sensory characteristics.#N#b. states that deeper processing of material usually leads to more permanent retention.#N#c. emphasizes the difference between short-term memory and long-term memory.#N#d. emphasizes that the best way to learn something is to repeat it over and over.
Chapter 5 discussed research about anxiety disorders and memory accuracy for words related to anxiety. According to this research, a. no matter how memory is measured, there are no significant differences between low-anxious and high-anxious people with respect to memory for words related to anxiety.