A Psychology Report

an activity or process involving various operations that involve handling and transforming information

ENCODING
earliest process of memory

involves putting something into a form that the memory systems can handle
happens without even the persons awareness

Ways of Encoding
visually as an image or picture

acoustically as a sequence of sounds

semantically as units of meaning

STORAGE
second process of memory

involves maintaining the coded information in storage and bringing to awareness or consciousness

Forms of Retrieval
Recall the person deliberately searches through the memory stores looking for a particular piece of information Recognition information in memory is tapped by some stimulus

Failure in remembering can be traced to any or all of these three processes. Being unable to remember a piece of information may be due to:
The fact that the information was not encoded or was not encoded well. The information was lost in storage. The information could not be retrieved from storage. Any combination of the three.

Sensory Register
serves to store information coming from a physical stimulus

holds traces of physical energy for a brief period of time, as brief as a fraction of a second
the definitive evidence for such sensory register comes from the classic experiments published by George Sperling in 1960.

Short Term Memory

lasts a bit longer than the sensory register, holds information from one second to about a minute

also thought of having very limited capacity for storage

known as the working memory

Long Term Memory

seems to have no limitations on capacity and duration known as final storehouse of memories

Procedural Memory
memory for skills and habits such as riding a bike or hitting a baseball

Declarative Memory
memory for factual information (names, facts, dates)

Semantic Memory
memory that stores general knowledge and facts about the world (mathematical and historical data)

Episodic Memory
memory for information relating to the biographical details of a ones life (a persons birthday)

Primacy Effect
the enhanced memory performance for those items in the beginning of a sequence

Regency Effect
the enhanced memory performance for items at the end of a sequence

Maintenance Rehearsal

repeating the information over and over again effective in the short term but may not be effective in the long term

Elaborative Rehearsal

seems to be more effective in the long term involves thinking about the materials in ways that may relate to other information

Level of Processing - determines the level of memory performance

Think about the information more extensively. Think of how the new information relates to the old information you already knew. Organize the information in more meaningful ways or reorganize the information using novel schemes. Evaluate, analyze, question, critique, and reflect on the new information using various techniques.

Forgetting
happens when a piece of information has been stored, but sometimes it does not seem to be so.

Theories about How and Why We Forget Things

Decay Theory
assumes that with the passage of time, the memory trace gradually fades until it disappears completely

Interference Theory

assumes that the memory trace does not decay, rather, there is interference from other information stored in memory that may accumulate a s time passes

Forms of Interference

Retroactive Interference

happens when new information displaces new information

Proactive Interference

happens when old information affects memory for new information

Absence of Adequate Stimulation

we tend to forget when the stimulus is not present

Obliteration of Memory Phase

may be caused by amnesia
retrograde amnesia anterograde amnesia

Repressive Forgetting
also called motivated forgetting

Remembering
associated with the process of retrieving a piece of information that has been stored in memory

Retrieval Cues
an explicit prompt or question to recall a particular information can be anything, even subtle information like words, sounds, smells, or even moods most effective if it is very similar to the cues during encoding

Mnemonics

specifies strategies that have been proposed to help people remember memory lists

Mnemonics Strategies

Verbal Organization

the use if verse, phonological organization of word sequences, fixed rhythm, rhyme and alliteration (epic poems like the Iliad) utilizes imagery as a means of facilitating, encoding, storage and retrieval visualizing each of the items to be remembered in a different spatial location

Method of Loci

Peg Method

creating mental pegs or items that are easy to remember the items to be remembered are then attached or associated with these pegs by forming the images that comprise the peg and the item to be remembered

Keyword Technique

the items to be remembered are associated with words that are easy to recall the association formed between the items and the keyword is likewise not visual but phonological (rhymes) or semantic

Memory Disorders

specific types of damage to the brain showing drastic impairments in memory functioning difficulty forming new memories caused by damage to the hippocampus (structure at the base of the brain) also found among certain alcoholic patients (Korsafoff Syndrome) and among the elderly suffering from senility

Anterograde Amnesia

Retrograde Amnesia

memory loss for events prior to the event that caused the amnesia caused by several head injuries of brain concussions will affect only the short term memory