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Ch. 8 Memory

How Memory Functions

What are the most effective ways to ensure that important memories are well encoded? Sentances in context are way more memorable than those without. Memories are better encoded when they are meaningful. Three tipes of encoding: Semantic, Visual, and Acousic encoding. Semantic encoding encodes words and their meanings. Visual encoding encodes images, while acoustic encoding encodes sounds and words. High-imagery words are easer to remember than low-imagery words. They are ecoded well both visually and semantically, thus building a stronger memory. Acoustic Encoding Imagine you are driving and a song comes on that you haven't heard in 10 years. You can sing the lyrics like you heard the song yesterday. Another example is children in the United States learning the alphabet and days of the month through a song. We do this because of acoustic encoding. Which of these three types of encoding do you think would give you the best memory of verbal information. Psychologists Fergus Craik and Endel Tulbing (1975) sought to find out. In this study, participants were given words with questions. The questions required participants to process the info at one of the three levels. The participants were all given an unexpected recal or recognition task. Words encoded semantically were best remembered. it involves a deeper level of processing than the others. Craik and tulving concluded that we process verbal info best through semantic encoding, especially when apploying the "self-reference" effect. The self-reference effect is the tendency for an individual to have better memory for information that relates to oneself in comparison to material that has less personal relevance (Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977).

Rehearsal moves information from short-term memory to long-term memory. Active rehearsal is a way of attending to information to move it from short-term to long-term memory.

Parts of the Brain Involved with Memory

The amygdala's main job is to regulate emotions (like fear and aggression). The amygdala plays a part in how memories are stored because storage is influenced by stress hormones

The hippocampus is involved in normal recognition memory and spacial memory. Another job of the hippocampus is to project information to cortical regions that give memories meaning and connect them with other memories. It also plays a part in memory
consolidation: the process of transferring new learning into long-term memory. There also are a nunber of neurotransmitters involved in the process of memory such as epinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, and acetylcholine. It is still debated as to what role they play.

Storng emotions trigger the formation of strong memories, this is known as the arousal theory. Strong emotional experiences trigger the release of neurotransmitters and hormones which strangthem the memory; thus an emotional event is a more clear memory. The brain secrents the neurotransmitter glutamate, which helps the brain remember the stressful event. This is clearly evidenced by what is known as the flashbulb memory phenomenon.

A flashbulb memory is an exceptionally clear recollection of an important event.

When something is remembered, these components have to be put back together for the complete memory, which is known as memory reconstruction. Each component creates a chance for an error to occur. False memory is remembering something that did not happen. Research participants have recalled hearing a word, even though they never heard the word (Roediger & McDermott, 2000).

Problems with Memory

• The formulation of new memories is sometimes called construction, and the process of bringing up old memories is called reconstruction.

• Suggestibility describes the effects of misinformation from external sources that leads to the creation of false memories.

• Cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has conducted extensive research on memory. She has studied false memories as well as recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Loftus also developed the misinformation effect paradigm, which holds that after exposure to additional and possibly inaccurate information, a person may misremember the original event.

• Recall of false autobiographical memories is called false memory syndrome.

• They believe that repressed memories (childhood abuse) can be locked away for decades and later recalled intact through hypnosis and guided imagery techniques.

• Forgetting refers to loss of information from long-term memory

• Sometimes memory loss happens before the actual memory process begins, which is encoding failure.

• absentmindedness, which describes lapses in memory caused by breaks in attention or our focus being somewhere else.

• Memories can also be affected by bias, which is the final distortion error.

• Schacter (2001) says that your feelings and view of the world can actually distort your memory of past events. There are several types of bias:

  • Stereotypical bias involves racial and gender biases. For example, when Asian American and European American research participants were presented with a list of names, they more frequently incorrectly remembered typical African American names such as Jamal and Tyrone to be associated with the occupation basketball player, and they more frequently incorrectly remembered typical White names such as Greg and Howard to be associated with the occupation of politician (Payne, Jacoby, & Lambert, 2004).
  • Egocentric bias involves enhancing our memories of the past (Payne et al., 2004). Did you really score the winning goal in that big soccer match, or did you just assist?
  • Hindsight bias happens when we think an outcome was inevitable after the fact. This is the “I knew it all along” phenomenon. The reconstructive nature of memory contributes to hindsight bias (Carli, 1999). We remember untrue events that seem to confirm that we knew the outcome all along.\