CHAPTER 4: MEMORY

 “The process by which we encode, store, and retrieve information.” (Feldman, 2009)
 “The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of
information.” (Myers & Dewall, 2015)
 The initial process of recording information in a form usable to memory, called encoding,
is the first stage in remembering something.
For this, you generally need to pay attention to information if you intend to remember it.
Attention (also called selective attention) involves focusing awareness on a narrowed
range of stimuli or events.
 Then comes storage, the maintenance of material saved in memory.
 Memory also depends on one last process—retrieval: Material in memory storage has to
be located and brought into awareness to be useful.
Each of the three parts of this definition— encoding, storage, and retrieval—
represents a different process. You can think of these processes as being analogous to a
computer’s keyboard (encoding), hard drive (storage), and software that accesses the
information for display on the screen (retrieval). Only if all three processes have operated
will you experience success later.

Information-Processing Theories / Models

Many theories of memory formulated at the dawn of the computer age drew an
analogy between information storage by computers and information storage in human
memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968, 1971; Broadbent, 1958; Waugh & Norman, 1965). The
main contribution of these information-processing theories was to subdivide memory into
three separate memory stores.
ATKINSON & SHIFFRIN MODEL / STAGES OF MEMORY MODEL
The model devised by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin has proved to be the
most influential of the information-processing theories. According to this three-system
approach to memory, there are three different memory storage systems or stages through
which information must travel if it is to be remembered (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968, 1971).
Out of these, two systems are temporary storage buffers—the sensory store and short-term
store – through which incoming information passes before it is transferred into a long-term
store.

FIGURE: The Atkinson and Shiffrin three-stage model of memory storage. Atkinson and Shiffrin
(1968, 1971) proposed that memory is made up of three separate information stores. Information
initially recorded by the person’s sensory system enters sensory memory which can hold a large
amount of information just long enough (a fraction of a second) for a small portion of it to be selected
for longer storage. The information then moves to short-term memory that has a limited capacity, and
unless aided by rehearsal, its storage duration is brief (15-25 secs.). Finally, the information can move
into long-term memory which is relatively permanent and can store an apparently unlimited amount of
information.

1. Sensory Memory
 “Sensory memory: The initial, momentary storage of information, lasting only an
instant.” (Feldman, 2009)
A momentary flash of lightning and the sting of a pinprick represent stimulation of
exceedingly brief duration. The sensory memory preserves information in its original
sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second.
 Sensory memory allows the sensation of a visual pattern, sound, or touch to linger for
a brief moment after the sensory stimulation is over. There are several types of sensory
memories, each related to a different source of sensory information.
 Iconic memory reflects information from the visual system. It seems to last less than a
second.
 Echoic memory stores auditory information coming from the ears. It typically fades
within two or three seconds.
 In addition, there are corresponding memories for each of the other senses.
Despite the brief duration of sensory memory, its precision is high: Sensory memory
can store an almost exact replica of each stimulus to which it is exposed.
In sum, sensory memory operates as a kind of snapshot that stores information—
which may be of a visual, auditory, or other sensory nature—for a brief moment in time. But
it is as if each snapshot, immediately after being taken, is destroyed and replaced with a new
one. Unless the information in the snapshot is transferred to some other type of memory, it is
lost.
2. Short-Term Memory (STM)
 “Short-term memory: Memory that holds information for 15 to 25 seconds.”
(Feldman, 2009)
If we want to make the information meaningful that is stored in sensory memory and
retain it then it must be transferred to the next stage of memory: short-term memory.
However, unlike sensory memory, which holds a relatively full and detailed—if short-
lived—representation of the world, short-term memory has incomplete representational
capabilities.
The specific process by which sensory memories are transformed into short-term
memories is not clear. Some theorists suggest that the information is first translated into
graphical representations or images, and others hypothesize that the transfer occurs when the
sensory stimuli are changed to words (Baddeley & Wilson, 1985).
 Durability/Duration of Storage
Most psychologists believe that short-term memory is the memory store that can
hold/maintain unrehearsed information for 15 to 25 seconds—unless it is transferred to long-
term memory. STM stores information according to its meaning rather than as mere sensory
stimulation.
 Capacity of Storage
 Short-term memory is also limited in the number of items it can hold. The small
capacity of STM was pointed out by George A. Miller (1956), a psychology professor, in a
famous paper titled: “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our
Capacity for Processing Information.” Miller noticed that people could recall only about
seven items on tasks that required them to remember unfamiliar material using STM.
The specific amount of information that can be held in short-term memory has been
identified as seven items of information, with variations up to plus or minus two items (7±2).
When short-term memory is filled to capacity, the insertion of new information often
displaces some of the information currently in STM.
 Chunking
However, the capacity of STM can be increased by combining stimuli into larger,
possibly higher-order, units called chunks.
 A chunk is a meaningful/familiar grouping of stimuli that can be stored as a single
unit in short-term memory.
According to George Miller (1956), a chunk can be individual letters or numbers,
permitting us to hold a seven-digit phone number (like 226-4610) in short-term memory. But
a chunk also may consist of larger categories, such as words or other meaningful units. For
example, consider the following list of 21 letters:
PBSFOXCNNABCCBSMTVNBC
Because the list exceeds seven items, it is difficult to recall the letters after one
exposure. But suppose they were presented as follows:
PBS FOX CNN ABC CBS MTV NBC
In this case, even though there are still 21 letters, you’d be able to store them in STM,
since they represent only seven chunks.
 Rehearsal
 “Rehearsal—the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about information.”
 “Rehearsal: The repetition of information that has entered short-term memory.”
Rehearsal accomplishes two things.
i. First, as long as the information is repeated, it is maintained in short-term memory.
ii. Secondly, and more importantly, the transfer of material from short- to long-term
memory proceeds largely on the basis of rehearsal.
Whether the transfer is made from short- to long-term memory seems to depend
largely on the kind of rehearsal that is carried out. If the information is simply repeated over
and over again—as we might do with a telephone number while we rush from the phone book
to the phone—it is kept current in short-term memory, but it will not necessarily be placed in
long-term memory.
In contrast, if the information in short-term memory is rehearsed using a process
called elaborative rehearsal, it is much more likely to be transferred into long-term memory.
Elaborative rehearsal occurs when the information is considered and organized in some
fashion. The organization might include:
 expanding the information to make it fit into a logical framework,
 linking it to another memory,
 turning it into an image, or
 transforming it in some other way.
By using organizational strategies such as these—called mnemonics—we can vastly
improve our retention of information. Mnemonics are formal techniques for organizing
information in a way that makes it more likely to be remembered.
 Working Memory
Many contemporary memory theorists, especially Alan Baddeley (1989, 1992, 2001)
conceive of short-term memory as far more active than previously thought. In this view,
short-term memory is referred to as working memory and defined as a set of temporary
memory stores that actively manipulate and rehearse information. It is like an information
processing system that manages both new material gathered from sensory memory and older
material that has been pulled from long-term storage
Working memory is thought to contain a central executive processor that is involved
in reasoning and decision making through the deployment of attention, switching the focus of
attention and dividing attention as needed. The central executive coordinates three distinct
storage-and-rehearsal systems:
i. the visual store which specializes in visual and spatial information;
ii. the verbal store that holds and manipulates material relating to speech, words, and
numbers;
 iii. the episodic buffer which contains information that represents episodes or events that
are encountered.

Working memory permits us to keep information in an active state briefly so that we

can do something with the information. For instance, we use working memory when we’re
doing a multistep arithmetic problem in our heads, storing the result of one calculation while
getting ready to move to the next stage.
3. Long-Term Memory (LTM)
 “Long-term memory: Memory that stores information on a relatively permanent
basis, although it may be difficult to retrieve.” (Feldman, 2009)
 “Long-term memory (LTM) is an unlimited capacity store that can hold information
over lengthy periods of time.” (Weiten, 2008)
Unlike sensory and short-term memory, which decay rapidly, LTM can store
information indefinitely. Long-term memories are durable. Some information may remain in
LTM across an entire lifetime.
One point of view is that all information stored in long-term memory is stored there
permanently. According to this view, forgetting occurs only because people sometimes
cannot retrieve needed information from LTM. An alternative point of view assumes that
some memories stored in LTM do vanish forever.
Evidence of the existence of long-term memory, as distinct from short-term memory,
comes from a number of sources. For example, people with certain kinds of brain damage
have no lasting recall of new information received after the damage occurred, although
people and events stored in memory before the injury remain intact (Milner, 1966).
 Types of Long-Term Memory
Many contemporary researchers now regard long-term memory as having several
different components, or memory modules. Each of these modules represents a separate
memory system in the brain. One major distinction within long-term memory is that between
declarative memory and procedural memory.
 i. Declarative memory is memory for factual information: names, faces, dates, and
facts, such as “a bike has two wheels.”
ii. In contrast, procedural memory (or non-declarative memory) refers to memory for
skills and habits, such as how to ride a bike or hit a baseball.
Information about things is stored in declarative memory; information about how to
do things is stored in procedural memory. Declarative memory can be subdivided into:
a. Semantic memory is memory for general knowledge and facts about the world, as
well as memory for the rules of logic that are used to deduce other facts.
Because of semantic memory, we remember that the ZIP code for Lahore is
54000, that Mumbai is on the Arabian Sea, and that memoree is the incorrect spelling
of memory. (Nyberg & Tulving, 1996; Tulving, 2002).
b. In contrast, episodic memory is memory for events that occur in a particular time,
place, or context.
For example,
recall of learning to ride
a bike, or arranging a
surprise birthday party
for our friend is based on
episodic memories.
Episodic memories can
be surprisingly detailed. They can provide information about events that happened
long in the past.
 Semantic Networks
According to some memory researchers, one key organizational tool that allows us to
recall detailed information from long-term memory is the associations that we build between
different pieces of information. In this view,
knowledge is stored in semantic networks.
 Semantic Networks are mental
representations of clusters of
interconnected information (Collins &
Loftus, 1975; Cummings et al., 2006).