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Memory

This chapter explores how our memories work, from the encoding and storage of memories to their retrieval; how and why we forget; the constructive process of memory; and the brain structures and activities involved with memory.

The guiding metaphor used by most cognitive psychologists today to study the mind is that the mind is a processing system that encodes, stores, and retrieves information. Encoding refers to getting information into the system, storage involves retaining information, and retrieval involves getting the information out of memory. Cognitive psychologists also work with a three-stage model of memory. Sensory memory holds sensory information, including both visual (or iconic) memory and auditory (or echoic) memory. Information that we pay attention to is passed into short-term, or working memory; other information is lost. The capacity of sensory memory is large, and the capacity of working memory is small, though the latter can be increased via chunking. Studies of amnesia patients suggest that long-term and short-term memory are separate functions.

The more effectively we encode information into long-term memory, the greater the likelihood of retrieving it. According to the levels of processing concept, the more deeply we process information, the better it will be remembered. Elaborative rehearsal, including techniques like mnemonic devices, increases the depth of processing. Prior knowledge shapes encoding through the use of schemas, which are organized patterns of thought about some aspect of the world. Mnemonists, people with superlative memories, often use basic memory principles, but experts disagree as to whether they also have exceptional ability.

One prominent theory of memory is that it can be represented by an associative network. The idea is memory consists of associated ideas and concepts. Biologically, memory may occur through the firing of synaptically connected neurons. Long-term memory consists of everything we have learned in our lives. Cognitive psychologists distinguish between different aspects of long-term memory such as declarative, episodic, semantic, and procedural memories.

Memory is typically triggered via retrieval cues. The more retrieval cues we have, the more likely we are to remember information. Research has called into question the concept of "flashbulb memories" of extraordinary events. Context, state, and mood can also influence retrieval. We typically remember information better if we are in the same context and state in which the information was originally encoded.

The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve shows that we rapidly lose much information, but the progress of loss levels off after a short period of time. We forget for a number of reasons. Decay theory argues that we forget things because the memory trace decays. Other theories suggest that encoding failures and interference, both proactive and retroactive, contribute to forgetting. We may also be motivated to forget undesirable experiences through repression of them. Amnesia, the most dramatic form of memory loss, takes several forms, including infantile amnesia. Forgetting to do things is associated with prospective memory.

Schemas influence the memory process by providing expectancies about what one perceives or believes is likely to have happened in the past. As a result, sometimes our memories are shaped to fit our schemas. The misinformation effect says that distortion of memory occurs via misleading postevent information. A major controversy has emerged about the validity of children's memories. Some think that children's memories are particularly susceptible to suggestion and bias. For the same reasons, there is also scientific controversy over "recovered memories" of childhood trauma. Culture and memory have a reciprocal relation: culture helps to shape memories, and without memory culture could not exist.

Scientists rely on both naturally and experimentally induced lesions, as well as brain imaging to study the biology of memory. The hippocampus and its surrounding tissue have been found to play a major role in encoding long-term declarative memories. The cerebral cortex plays a role in encoding by processing information from the sensory registers and also by storing semantic memories. The frontal lobes of the cortex play a central role in working memory. The amygdala seems to encode emotionally arousing and disturbing aspects of events. The cerebellum plays an important role in the formation of procedural memories. Memories in general seem to be formed biologically through physical and chemical changes in the brain's neural circuitry. Long-term potentiation, which is an increase in synaptic strength between neurons, plays a key role in memory consolidation.

To improve your memory, (1) use external aids such as lists, (2) organize and rehearse the information you want to remember, and (3) learn to take advantage of acronyms, the method of loci, and other formal memory techniques.


These objectives are expanded from the Focus Questions found in the margins of your textbook. When you have mastered the material in this chapter, you will be able to:
  1. Define memory and the processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval.
  2. Describe sensory memory and explain how Sperling demonstrated it.
  3. Describe short-term memory in terms of encoding, capacity, and duration.
  4. Contrast the model of working memory with the traditional three-stage model.
  5. Describe long-term memory in terms of its encoding and storage capacity.
  6. Define and recognize examples of the primacy and recency effects and explain the cause of these serial position effects.
  7. Differentiate between effortful and automatic processing.
  8. Differentiate structural, phonological, and semantic encoding and explain how they relate to the levels-of-processing model.
  9. Contrast maintenance and elaborative rehearsal.
  10. Describe how the use of hierarchies, chunking, dual coding with visual imagery, the method of loci, and mnemonic devices assist in encoding.
  11. Define schema and explain how schemas enable encoding among experts and mnemonists.
  12. Contrast theories of associative and neural networks for explaining how memories are stored.
  13. Differentiate declarative memory with procedural memory.
  14. Define and recognize examples of explicit and implicit memories.
  15. Explain how retrieval cues assist in recall and explain how flashbulb memories affect accuracy of memory.
  16. Contrast and recognize examples of context-dependent, state-dependent, and mood congruent memory.
  17. Describe Ebbinghaus's research on forgetting.
  18. Describe reasons for forgetting, including encoding failure, decay theory, and interference theory.
  19. Differentiate retroactive interference and proactive interference.
  20. Recognize the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon and explain the memory processes involved in it.
  21. Describe the memory problems of Alzheimer's disease as well as anterograde, retrograde, and infantile amnesias.
  22. Differentiate between retrospective and prospective memory.
  23. Describe the purpose, methods, and results of the studies on false memories conducted by Roediger and McDermott and Clancy.
  24. Define the misinformation effect and explain how it affects eyewitness testimony in adults and children.
  25. Describe the research examining the recovered memory controversy.
  26. Describe how culture affects memory.
  27. Describe brain structures involved in memory and the process of long-term potentiation.
  28. Describe research-based strategies for enhancing memory.





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