PSYCHOLOGY 42501 Cognitive Psychology

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PSYCHOLOGY 425-01Cognitive Psychology

• University of Southern Mississippi
• Department of Psychology
• Dr. David J. Echevarria, PhD
• Spring 2007
• david.echevarria_at_usm.edu
• www.usm.edu/neurolab

Ch 6 and 7 Memory
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What is MEMORY?

• Memory internal record of some prior event or
  experience a set of mental processes that
  receives, encodes, stores, organizes, alters, and
  retrieves information over time

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Three Stages of Memory

• Stage 1 - Sensory Memory is a brief
  representation of a stimulus while being
  processed in the sensory system

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Three Stages of Memory

• Stage 2 - Short-Term Memory (STM) is working
  memory
• Limited capacity (7 items)
• Duration is about 30 seconds

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Three Stages of Memory

• Stage 3 - Long-Term Memory (LTM) is large
  capacity and long duration

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Overview of Memory Model
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Integrated Model Concepts(encoding storage and
retrieval)

• Encoding process of translating info into
  neural codes (language) that will be retained in
  memory

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Integrated Model Concepts(encoding storage and
retrieval)

• Storage the process of retaining neural coded
  info over time

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Integrated Model Concepts(encoding storage and
retrieval)

• Retrieval the process of recovering info from
  memory storage

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Integrated Model of Memory
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Overview of LTM
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Varieties of LTM

• Two types of LTM
• Semantic memory refers to factual information
• Episodic memory refers to autobiographical
  information as to where and when an event happened

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Organization of LTM

• Retrieval Cue a clue or prompt that helps
  stimulate recall and retrieval of a stored piece
  of information from long-term memory

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Long-term Memory (LTM)

• Long-term Memory is relatively permanent memory,
  gives us continuity of consciousness. LTM is
  both retrospective and prospective.
• Karsokoff syndrome (Wernicke-Korsakoff
  encephalopathy) example p. 179-181 impairment
  of LTM
• Memento dramatic portrayal of anterograde
  amnesia

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Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome

• Wernicke-Korsakoff encephalopathy. Note
  pigmentation of gray matter around third
  ventricle. Occurs with Vitamin B1 deficiency,
  most often in chronic alcoholics.

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Long-term memory covers a span that stretches
from about 30 seconds ago to your earliest
memories. Thus, all of this students memories,
except the memory I just sat down, would be
classified as long-term memories.
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Tonys STM, which is dealing with the present,
and his LTM, which contains knowledge relevant to
what is happening, work together as Cindy tells
him something.
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Types of LTM

• Declarative memory conscious recollection,
  memories we can put into words.
• Episodic memory autobiographical memory
  associated with a particular time and place.
• Semantic memory general world knowledge.
• Implicit memory not conscious
• Procedural memory memory that is expressed
  through performance rather than recollection
  (e.g., driving a car, writing, shooting lay up
  etc.).

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Memory Measures

• Recognition is when a specific cue (face or name)
  is matched against LTM
• Recall is when a general cue is used to search
  memory
• Relearning - situation where person learns
  material a second time.
• Quicker to learn material 2nd time

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Putting it all together

• Recall Who is this?
• Retrieval Cue He was an English musician. He was
  in a band with 3 other folks
• Recognition
• A) elton john
• B) keith richards
• C) john lennon
• D) pete townsend

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Flashbulb Memories

• Where were you when you first heard
• About the WTC on 9/11?
• That the federal building had been bombed in
  Oklahoma City?
• That Princess Diana had been killed in a car
  wreck?

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Anatomy of Memory
Bilateral damage to the hippocampus results in
anterograde amnesia (Patient H.M.)
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Anatomy of Memory
Hippocampus memory recognition, spatial,
episodic memory, laying down new declarative
long-term memories
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Anatomy of Memory
Amygdala emotional memory and memory
consolidation
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Anatomy of Memory
Basal ganglia cerebellum memory for skills,
habits and reflex responses
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Anatomy of Memory
Thalamus formation of new memories and working
memories Cortical Areas encoding of factual
memories, storage of episodic and semantic
memories, skill learning, priming.
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Forgetting

• Forgetting is the inability to recall previously
  learned information

• Forgetting rate is steep just after learning and
  then becomes a gradual loss of recall

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What was the phone number on Monday?
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Serial Position Effect
Recall immediately after learning
Recall several hours after learning
LTM
Recall from Recall from LTM STM
Primacy effect remembering stuff at beginning
of list better than middle Recency Effect
remembering stuff at the end of list better than
middle
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Study Strategies

• Distributed practice refers to spacing learning
  periods in contrast to massed practice in which
  learning is crammed into a single session
• Distributed practice leads to better retention

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Theories of Forgetting

• Proactive interference old information
  interferes with recall of new information
• Retroactive interference new information
  interferes with recall of old information
• Decay theory memory trace fades with time

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Theories of Forgetting

• Motivated forgetting involves the loss of
  painful memories (protective memory loss)
• Retrieval failure the information is still
  within LTM, but cannot be recalled because the
  retrieval cue is absent

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Organization of LTM

• Tip-of the tongue phenomenon person cant easily
  recall the item, but shows some recall for its
  characteristics (it begins with the letter .)

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Amnesia

• Amnesia is forgetting produced by brain injury or
  by trauma
• Retrograde amnesia refers to problems with recall
  of information prior to a trauma
• Anterograde amnesia refers to problems with
  recall of information after a trauma

Anterograde amnesia
Retrograde amnesia
Point of Trauma
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Issues in Memory

• Reasons for inaccuracy of memory
• Source amnesia attribution of a memory to the
  wrong source (e.g. a dream is recalled as an
  actual event)

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Issues in Memory

• Reasons for inaccuracy of memory
• Sleeper effect a piece of information from an
  unreliable source is initially discounted, but is
  recalled after the source has been forgotten

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Issues in Memory

• Reasons for inaccuracy of memory
• Misinformation effect we incorporate outside
  information into our own memories

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Memory Strategies

• Mnemonic devices are strategies to improve memory
  by organizing information
• Method of Loci ideas are associated with a place
  or part of a building
• Peg-Word system peg words are associated with
  ideas (e.g. one is a bun)
• Word Associations verbal associations are
  created for items to be learned