Three Stages of Memory

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Three Stages of Memory

• Chapter 7 Section 3

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Three Stages of Memory

• We cant remember EVERYTHING!!!
• How much CAN we remember?
• Depends.on the 3 stages of memory and how the
  information flows through them.

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Sensory Memory

• First stage of memory
• Consists of immediate, initial recording of
  information that enters through our senses.
• Memory trace impression made on our senses by
  the image
• Only lasts a second
• Mental pictures we form of visual stimuli
  icons held in our iconic memory

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Sensory Memory, contd

• Iconic memories are like snapshots
• Accurate but very brief
• The ability to remember visual stimuli over long
  periods of time eidetic imagery photographic
  memory
• About 5 of children have eidetic imagery
• Ability declines with age, nearly gone by
  adolescence.

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Sensory Memory, contd

• Mental traces of sounds, called echoes, are held
  in a sensory register called echoic memory.
• Echoes can last for several seconds
• Acoustic codes are easier to remember than visual
  codes
• Hearing a list is easier to remember than seeing
  it for a few seconds

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Short-Term Memory

• If you pay attention to iconic and echoic
  memories, you can transfer them to your
  short-term memory.
• also called working memory
• Use STM a lot!!
• Whenever you are thinking, it is in your STM
• Working a math problem, the elements are in your
  STM
• Changed deadline date on an assignment STM
  until you write it down or store it in LTM

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Short-Term Memory, contd

• Information in STM begins to fade rapidly after
  several seconds.
• To remember it longer rehearse, mental images or
  encode it into sounds

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The Primacy and Recency Effects

• Our memories tend to remember the first and last
  items of lists the middle items are fuzzier
• primacy effect remembering the first items
• First impressions are the most important!!!
• Recency effect - remembering the last items in a
  list perceived and rehearsed most recently

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Chunkingnot chucking

• Rehearse info in manageable units
• OTTFFSSENT 10 different chunks if memorized
  separately
• SS s, telephone s
• Businesses want numbers with repeating s or
  numbers that spell something

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Interference

• STM is like a full shelf, if you want to add
  something, you have to take something else off to
  make room.
• Only a limited amount of information at a time
  can be retained in STM
• Interference - occurs when new information
  appears in STM and takes the place of what is
  already there

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Interference, contd

• Lloyd and Margaret Peterson experiment

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Long-Term Memory

• Final stage of memory of information
• Have to take certain steps to keep in LTM
• Mechanical repetition (maintenance rehearsal)
• Relating the info to old info elaborative
  rehearsal

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Capacity of Memory

• Our LTM hold the equivalent of vast numbers of
  videos and films of our life experiences.
• How much room is there for LTMs?
• We dont know!!!
• Although there isnt really a limit, we do not
  store all of our experiences permanently.
• Limited to the amount of attention paid to things

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Capacity of Memory, contd

• More likely to remember stuff that interests us
  or has had a great impact on us.

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Memory as Reconstructive

• Some psychologists once thought that all
  perceptions and ideas were permanently stored.
• Wilder Penfield a brain surgeon
• When electrically stimulated, the brain
  produced memories
• Today psychologists believe that electrical
  stimulation does not retrieve accurate memories.

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Memory as Reconstructive, contd

• Memories are not replayed like movies, but rather
  reconstructed bits and pieces.
• The memories are reconstructed and shaped by the
  way we view the world.
• We remember things according to our beliefs and
  needs.
• Brothers and sisters remembering the same event
  differently

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Schemas

• Mental representations that we form of the world
  by organizing bits of information into knowledge.
  
• Hourglass and eyeglasses draw them according to
  what was printed in section 1- no peeking!!!

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Schemas, contd

• Elizabeth Loftus and J.C. Palmer experiment
• collide, hit, and smashed
• Broken glass?
• Schemas influence both the ways we perceive
  things and the ways our memories store what we
  perceive.

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Section 3 Review pg 166 1-3Psychology in the
World TodayCan We Trust Eyewitness
Testimony?Pg 165Answer question.

• Assignment