LESSON 5: Memory: Models and Research Methods  Differences between receptive and expressive

knowledge also are observed in areas other than that

Memory of simple memory tasks (e.g., language, intelligence,
 is the means by which we retain and draw on information and cognitive development).
from our past experiences to use in the present
 As a process, memory refers to the dynamic mechanisms Implicit versus Explicit Memory Tasks (Mulligan, 2003)
associated with storing, retaining, and retrieving  EXPLICIT MEMORY - which participants engage in
information about past experience conscious recollection. (For example, they might recall or
recognize words, facts, or pictures from a particular prior
cognitive psychologists have identified three common set of items).
operations of memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval  IMPLICIT MEMORY - we use information from memory but
 In encoding, you transform sensory data into a form of are not consciously aware that we are doing so (you can
mental representation. read the word in the photo on the left without problems
 In storage, you keep encoded information in memory. even though a letter is missing).
 In retrieval, you pull out or use information stored in  Explicit memory changes over the life span; implicit
memory. memory does not show the same changes.
 Specifically, infants and older adults often have
Tasks Used for Measuring Memory relatively poor explicit memory, but implicit memory
Recall versus Recognition Tasks that is comparable to that of young adults
 RECALL  People with certain disorders experience deficiencies
 produce a fact, a word, or other item from memory. in explicit memory with spared implicit memory
 Fill-in-the-blank and most essay tests require that you  In the laboratory, implicit memory is sometimes
recall items from memory. examined by having people perform word-completion
(For example, suppose you want to measure people’s memory tasks that are based on the priming effect.
for late-night talk show hosts. You could ask people to name a
television host).  Thus, cognitive psychologists have developed models that
 RECOGNITION assume that both implicit and explicit memory influence
 select or identify an item as being one that you have almost all responses. One of the first and most widely
been exposed to previously. recognized models in this area is the process-
 Multiple-choice and true–false tests involve some dissociation model
degree of recognition.  The model assumes that implicit and explicit memory both
(For example, you could ask people which of the following is a have a role in virtually every response. Thus, only one task
late night show host: Jennifer Lopez, Jimmy Fallon, Guy Ritchie, is needed to measure both of these processes.
or Cameron Diaz).
Two Contrasting Models of Memory
Three main types of recall tasks Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Multistore Model
1. SERIAL RECALL- you recall items in the exact order in  In the mid-1960s, based on the data available at the time,
which they were presented. (For example, you could ask people researchers proposed a model of memory distinguishing two
to remember the following list of comedians in order: Stephen structures of memory first proposed by William James
Colbert, Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and (1890/1970):
Jimmy Fallon—and ask them then to repeat the list back in that  primary memory, which holds temporary information
order.) currently in use
2. FREE RECALL - in which you recall items in any order you  secondary memory, which holds information
choose (you would ask people to remember the list of permanently or at least for a very long time (Waugh &
comedians above, in any order.) Norman, 1965).
3. CUED RECALL - in which you are first shown items in pairs,  Three years later, Richard Atkinson and Richard
but during recall you are cued with only one member of each Shiffrin (1968) proposed an alternative model that
pair and are asked to recall each mate. Cued recall is also conceptualized memory in terms of three memory
called “paired-associates recall” stores:
(For example, you could ask people to learn the following 1. sensory store: capable of storing relatively limited amounts
pairings: Colbert apple, Stewart–grape, Letterman–lemon, and of information for very brief periods
then ask them to produce the pairing for Stewart (grape). 2. short-term store: capable of storing information for
somewhat longer periods but of relatively limited capacity as
 Psychologists who study memory can also measure well
relearning 3. long-term store: capable of very large capacity and of
 which is the number of trials it takes to learn once storing information for very long periods, perhaps even
again items that were learned in the past. indefinitely
 Relearning has also been referred to as savings and
can be observed in adults, children, and animals  The model differentiates among structures for holding
 The relearning effect was observed in fetal rats information, termed stores, and the information stored in
 Recognition memory is usually much better than recall: the structures, termed memory.
 A study by Standing, Conezio, and Haber (1970)  Atkinson and Shiffrin were not suggesting that the three
demonstrated that participants could recognize close stores are distinct physiological structures.
to 2,000 pictures in a recognition-memory task.  Rather, the stores are hypothetical constructs—concepts
 Some psychologists refer to recognition-memory tasks as that are not themselves directly measurable or observable
tapping receptive knowledge. but that serve as mental models for understanding how a
 Receptive means “responsive to a stimulus.” psychological phenomenon works.
 In a recognition-memory task, you respond to stimuli  The model emphasizes the passive storage areas in which
presented to you and decide whether you have seen memories are stored, but it also alludes to some control
them before or not. processes
 Recall-memory tasks, in which you have to produce an
answer, require expressive knowledge.
 Sensory Store  Penfield (1955, 1969) found that patients sometimes would
 The sensory store (iconic store) is the initial repository of appear to recall memories from their childhoods.
much information that eventually enters the shorthand  These data suggested to Penfield that long-term memories
long-term stores. might be permanent.
 evidence argues in favor of the existence of an iconic  The term permastore refers to the very long-term storage
store. of information, such asknowledge of a foreign language
 The iconic store is a discrete visual sensory register  Schmidt et al. (2000) studied the permastore effect for
that holds information for very short periods. names of streets near one’s childhood homes. Indeed,
 Its name derives from the fact that information is the author just returned to his childhood home of more
stored in the form of icons. than 40 years ago and perfectly remembered the
 These in turn are visual images names of the nearby streets.
(If you have ever “written” your name with a lighted sparkler (or
stick of incense) against a dark background, you have The Levels-of-Processing Model
experienced the persistence of a visual memory. You briefly  The levels-of-processing (LOP) framework is a radical
“see” your name, although the sparkler leaves no physical departure from Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multistore model of
trace). memory.
 The LOP framework suggests that memory does not
1. Sperling’s Discovery. comprise three or even any specific number of separate
a) He addressed the question of how much information stores, but rather it varies along a continuous dimension in
we can encode in a single, brief glance at a set of terms of depth of encoding
stimuli.
b) Sperling found that when participants were asked to
report on what they saw, they remembered only about
four symbols.
c) The procedure used by Brigden and in the first set of
studies by Sperling is a whole-report procedure.
d) In this procedure, participants report every symbol
they have seen. Sperling then introduced a partial-
report procedure. Here, participants need to report  The levels-of-processing framework also can be applied to
only part of what they see. nonverbal stimuli.
2. Subsequent Refinement  People suffering from schizophrenia often suffer from
a) The investigators found that when a stimulus was memory impairments because they do not process words
presented after a target letter in the same position that semantically.
the target letter had occupied, it could erase the visual  An even more powerful inducement to recall has been
icon termed the self-reference
b) This interference is called backward visual masking.  self-reference effect, participants show very high levels of
c) Backward visual masking is mental erasure of a recall when asked to meaningfully relate words to
stimulus caused by the placement of one stimulus themselves by determining whether the words describe
where another one had appeared previously. them.

 Short-Term Store Working Memory: An Integrative Model

 It holds memories for a few seconds and occasionally  The working-memory model is probably the most widely
up to a couple of minutes. used and accepted model today.
 According to the Atkinson Shiffrin model, the short-  Psychologists who use it view short-term and long-term
term store does more than hold onto a few items. memory from a different perspective
 It also has some control processes available that  The key feature of the working-memory model is the role of
regulate the flow of information to and from the long- working memory.
term store, where we may hold information for longer  Working memory holds only the most recently activated, or
periods. conscious, portion of long term memory, and it moves
 remains in the short-term store for about 30 seconds, these activated elements into and out of brief, temporary
unless it is rehearsed to retain it. memory storage
 Information is stored acoustically (by the way it sounds)  Working memory is involved with the manipulation of
rather than visually (by the way it looks). information, whereas short-term memory serves only a
 our immediate (short-term) memory capacity for a storage purpose.
wide range of items appears to be about seven
items, plus or minus two
 our immediate (short-term) memory capacity for a
wide range of items appears to be about seven items,
plus or minus two
 Patients whose perisylvian cortex has been damaged,
however, can perform well on long-term memory tasks
but have trouble keeping information in their short-
term memory

Long-Term Store
 Here we keep memories that stay with us over long
periods, perhaps indefinitely. The Components of Working Memory
 All of us rely heavily on our long-term memory. We  One integrative model of memory, suggested by Alan
hold in it information we need to get us by in our day- Baddeley, combines the working memory model with the
to-day lives LOP framework and provides an integrative model of
 Wilder Penfield addressed this question “What is stored in memory
the brain?” while operating on the brains of conscious  In this model, the LOP frame- work is an extension of,
patients afflicted with epilepsy. rather than a substitute for, the working-memory model.
 Baddeley originally suggested that working memory  The buffer is used to remember information temporarily. It
comprises five elements: the visuospatial sketchpad, the is distinct from long-term memory, which is used to
phonological loop, the central executive, “subsidiary slave remember information for long periods
systems,” and the episodic buffer.  Studies have also shown that certain areas in the inferior
1. Visuospatial sketchpad temporal lobe respond not only preferentially to the
 briefly holds some visual images, as when you picture the presentation of certain object categories
way your best friend looks or when you work on a puzzle.  One such area is the fusiform gyrus (also called
 It contains both spatial and visual information, but some fusiform face area, which is activated to a greater extent
evidence indicates that actually two separate mechanisms when a person looks at faces as opposed to other objects
within the visuospatial sketchpad deal with spatial and such as houses.
visual information.
 Information in the visuospatial sketchpad decays rapidly.
 We somehow rehearse the information to keep it from
fading.
 Logie (1995) suggested that we have a “visual cache”
that passively stores visual information, such as color and Measuring Working Memory
form.  Task a. Retention delay task- simple task, There is then
 He further suggested we have an “inner scribe” that retains a retention interval, which may be filled with other tasks, or
movement information and is responsible for rehearsal of unfilled, in which case time passes without any specifically
the information. designed intervening activity. The participant is then
2. phonological loop presented with a stimulus and must say whether it is old or
 briefly stores mainly verbal information for verbal new. In the figure, the stimulus being tested is new. So
comprehension and for acoustic rehearsal. “new” would be the correct answer
 We use the phonological loop for a number of everyday (present first stimulus then may delay bago tanungin kung ano
tasks, including sounding out new and difficult words and naalala nila)
solving word problems.  Task(b) is a temporally ordered working memory load
loop has two critical components: task. A series of items is presented. After a while, the
a. phonological storage, which holds information in memory. series of asterisks indicates that a test item will be
Because trace decay (i.e., the fading of information in memory) presented. The test item is presented, and the participant
occurs so quickly, we can store only about 2 seconds worth of must say whether the item is old or new
speech-based information. (present item at kailangan maalala din ang order ng bawat item)
b. subvocal rehearsal, which holds information by nonverbally  Task (c) is a temporal order task. A series of items is
practicing it. Information is rehearsed here to prevent its fading presented. Then the asterisks indicate a test item will be
in the phonological store. The subvocal rehearsal mechanism given. The test item shows two previously presented items,
can also verbally label images we see; 3 and 7. The participant must indicate which of the two
 Articulatory suppression. numbers, 3 or 7, appeared more recently. The correct
 When subvocal rehearsal is inhibited, the new answer is 7 because 7 occurred after 3 in the list.
information is not stored.  Task (d) is an n-back task. Stimuli are presented. At
 Articulatory suppression is more pronounced specified points, one is asked to repeat the stimulus that
when the information is presented visually versus occurred n presentations back.
aurally (e.g., by hearing).  Task (e) is a temporally ordered working memory load
 word length effect. task. It can also be referred to simply as a digit-span task
 The amount of information that can be (when digits are used). One is presented with a series of
manipulated within the phonological loop is stimuli. After they are presented, one repeats them back in
limited. the order they were presented. A variant of this task has
 Thus, we can remember fewer longer words the participant repeat them back in the order opposite to
compared with shorter words because it takes us that in which they were presented—from the end to the
longer to rehearse and produce the longer words. beginning.
 Without subvocal rehearsal, acoustic information  Task (f) is a temporally ordered working memory load
decays after about 2 seconds. task. One is given a series of simple arithmetic problems.
3. central executive For each problem, one indicates whether the sum or
 which allocates attention within working memory. difference is correct. At the end, one repeats the results of
 The central executive decides how to divide attention the arithmetic problems in their correct order
between two or more tasks that need to be done at the
same time, or how to switch attention back and forth  Frequently, these tasks are paired with a second task
between multiple tasks. (called, appropriately, a secondary task) so that
 The central executive is critical to working memory researchers can learn more about the central executive.
4. The fourth element is a number of other “subsidiary slave  The central executive is responsible for allocating
systems” that perform other cognitive or perceptual tasks attentional and other resources to ongoing tasks.
5. episodic buffer
 A late addition to the working-memory model, it explains Other Models of Memory
how we integrate information in working memory, long-term Multiple Memory Systems
memory, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the phonological Endel Tulving (1972) proposed a distinction between two kinds
loop. of explicit memory.
 This buffer allows us to solve problems and reevaluate  Semantic memory stores general world knowledge. It is
previous experiences with more recent knowledge. our memory for facts that are not unique to us and that are
 The episodic buffer remains a rough concept, however, not recalled in any particular temporal context.
about which much still remains unknown  Episodic memory stores personally experienced events or
episodes. According to Tulving, we use episodic memory
Neuroscience and Working Memory when we learn lists of words or when we need to recall
 Neuropsychological studies have shown abundant something that occurred to us at a particular time or in a
evidence of a brief memory buffer. particular context.
 A person with semantic memory loss may have trouble Deficient Memory
remembering what date it is or who the current president  Amnesia
is;  Amnesia is severe loss of explicit memory
 a person with episodic memory loss cannot remember  One type is retrograde amnesia, in which individuals
personal events such as where he or she met a spouse lose their purposeful memory for events before
for the first time. These observations indicate that there is a whatever trauma induces memory loss
dissociation between the two kinds of memory.  Mild forms of retrograde amnesia can occur fairly
commonly when someone sustains a concussion.
HERA (hemispheric encoding/retrieval asymmetry) Usually, events immediately before the concussive
 A neuroscientific model episode are not well remembered
 attempts to account for differences in hemispheric  anterograde amnesia, the inability to remember
activation for semantic versus episodic memories. events that occur after a traumatic event.
 According to this model, there is greater activation in the  Another kind of “amnesia” that we all experience is
left prefrontal hemisphere for tasks requiring retrieval from infantile amnesia, the inability to recall events that
semantic memory happened when we were very young

A Connectionist Perspective Amnesia and the Explicit-Implicit Memory Distinction

 cognitive psychologists have used computer models to  Explicit memory is typically impaired in amnesia.
simulate various aspects of information processing.  Implicit memory, such as priming effects on word-
 The three-store model is based on serial (sequential) completion tasks and procedural memory for skill-
processing of information based tasks, is typically not impaired
 Many cognitive psychologists now prefer a parallel-  The first is the ability to reflect consciously on prior
processing model to describe many phenomena of memory experience, which is required for tasks involving
 The network model provides the structural basis for the explicit memory.
connectionist parallel distributed-processing (PDP) model  The second is the ability to demonstrate remembered
 The model is based on a network of interconnected learning in an apparently automatic way, without
neuronlike computational units (nodes). conscious recollection of the learning (implicit memory)
 The PDP model fits nicely with the notion of working  Priming effects can be seen from about 250 to 500
memory as including the activated portion of long-term milliseconds after exposure through positive brain
memory potentials recorded in the frontal region of the brain.
 The priming effect can be explained well with the PDP  Explicit memory retrieval, however, is indicated by
model brain potentials that appear at a later time in the
 A prime is a node that activates a connected node. posterior regions
 A priming effect is the resulting activation of the node.  Likewise, amnesia victims also show paradoxical
The priming effect has been supported by considerable performance in another regard.
evidence Consider two kinds of tasks.
 As previously described, procedural-knowledge tasks
Exceptional Memory and Neuropsychology involve “knowing how.”
Outstanding Memory: Mnemonists  They involve skills such as how to ride a bicycle,
 Mnemonist someone who demonstrates extraordinarily whereas declarative knowledge tasks involve
keen memory ability, usually based on using special “knowing that.”
techniques for memory enhancement. Amnesia and Neuropsychology
 Perhaps the most famous of mnemonists was a man called  In dissociations, normal individuals show the presence
“S.” of a particular function (e.g., explicit memory).
Russian psychologist Alexander Luria  In double dissociations, people with different kinds of
 reported that one day S. appeared in his laboratory and neuropathological conditions show opposite patterns
asked to have his memory tested. of deficits.
 He discovered that the man’s memory appeared to have  A double dissociation can be observed if a lesion in
virtually no limits. brain structure 1 leads to impairment in memory
 Other mnemonists have used different strategies. “V.P.,” a function A but not in memory function B; and a lesion
Russian immigrant, could memorize long strings of material, in brain structure 2 leads to impairment in memory
such as rows and columns of numbers function B but not in memory function A.
 Whereas S. relied primarily on visual imagery, V.P.
apparently relied more on verbal translations.  Alzheimer’s Disease
 Another mnemonist, “S.F.,” remembered long strings of  Alzheimer’s disease is a disease of older adults that
numbers by segmenting them into groups of three or four causes dementia as well as progressive memory loss
digits each. He then encoded them into running times for  Dementia is a loss of intellectual function that is severe
different races enough to impair one’s everyday life.
 The memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease can be seen in
Cognitive psychologists have studied a phenomenon comparative brain scans of individuals with and without
called hypermnesia Alzheimer’s disease.
 which is a process of producing retrieval of memories that  The disease was first identified by Alois Alzheimer in
would seem to have been forgotten 1907.
 Hypermnesia is sometimes loosely referred to as  It is typically recognized on the basis of loss of intellectual
“unforgetting,” although the terminology cannot be correct function in daily life.
because, strictly speaking, the memories that are retrieved
were never unavailable (i.e., forgotten), but rather, they
were inaccessible
 Hypermnesia is usually achieved by trying many and
diverse retrieval cues to unearth a memory