Have you ever felt embarrassed because

you could not remember the name of a

known person you were talking to?
 Or felt excited because you can now
flawlessly recite lines of a famous poem you
had learnt as a child?
 Or anxious and helpless because
everything you memorised well the
previous day before taking your
examination has suddenly become
unavailable?
 Imagine what will happen if you get up
one morning and could not remember
anything? Not even your name or who you
are? What it would be like?
HUMAN MEMORY
 It functions to preserve our sense of
who we are, maintains our
interpersonal relationships and helps
us in solving problems and taking
decisions.
 We have an amazing capacity for memory, but
how, exactly, do we process and store
information?
How, exactly, do we retrieve our memories? And
why do we forget?
Are there any ways to enhance memory?
We will explore these questions as we learn
about memory.
 Memory
Memory is the set of processes used to encode,
store, and retrieve information over time.
Memory: Encoding, Storage,
Retrieval
Our memory has three basic functions:
• Encoding is the act of getting information into
our memory system through automatic or
effortful processing
• Storage is the retention of the encoded
information
• Retrieval is getting the information out of
memory and back into awareness
 Encoding information occurs through
automatic processing and effortful
processing.
When you first learn new
skills such as driving a car,
you have to put forth
effort and attention to
encode information
about how to start a car,
how to brake, how to
handle a turn, and so on.
Once you know how to
drive, you can encode
additional information
about this skill
automatically.
WHICH KIND OF PROCESSING IS THIS?
1. MEMORIZING YOUR NOTES FOR YOUR
UPCOMING INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
EXAMS

2. WHAT DID YOU EAT FOR LUNCH TODAY?

 3. YOU KNOW THE MEANING OF WORDS
YOU ARE LISTENING. ARE YOU ACTIVELY
TRYING TO PROCESS THE DEFINITION
OF THE WORDS?

4. REPEATING A PHONE NUMBER IN YOUR

HEAD UNTIL THE TASK IS DONE
It may be interesting to note that memory
failure can occur at any of these stages.
You may fail to recall an information
because you did not encode it properly, or
the storage was weak so you could not
access or retrieve it when required.
 According to the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of
memory (1968), information passes through
three distinct stages in order for it to be stored
in long-term memory.
 Short-term Memory: Information that is
attended to enters the second memory store
called the short-term memory (abbreviated as
STM), which holds small amount of information
for a brief period of time (usually for 30 seconds
or less).
 LTM is a permanent storehouse of all information
that may be as recent as what you ate for
breakfast yesterday to as distant as how you
celebrated your sixth birthday. It has been shown
that once any information enters the long-term
memory store it is never forgotten because it gets
encoded semantically, i.e. in terms of the meaning
that any information carries.
 How does information travel from one
store to another?

• Atkinson and Shiffrin propose the notion of control

processes which function to monitor the flow of information
through various memory stores.
• Sense impressions, which do not receive attention, fade
away quickly.
• The STM then sets into motion another control process of
maintenance rehearsal through repetition to retain the
information for as much time as required. When such
repetitions discontinue the information is lost.
• Another control process, which operates in STM to expand its
capacity, is Chunking.
Ready for a challenge?
 Remember
194719492004
1947, 1949, and 2004
 How does information travel from one
store to another?

• From the STM, information enters the long-term memory

through elaborative rehearsals. As against maintenance
rehearsals, which are carried through silent or vocal
repetition, this rehearsal attempts to connect the ‘to be
retained information’ to the already existing information
in long-term memory.
Types of Long-term Memory
Which kind of memory are these?

• How did you feel when you stood first in your

class?
• How to make Pasta?
• How to ride a bicycle?
• The STD code of New Delhi is 011
• Or how angry was your friend and what did s/he
say when you did not fulfil a promise?
• When was the first Independence day
celebrated in India?
• Your memory of winning the first prize in
school?
 Which type of LTM are these?

• Memory of 18th birthday?

• How many colors are their in a Rainbow?
• What are these?
• How to play badminton?
• Memory of your favorite song?
• How to make tea?
• How many states are there in India?
• How to knot a tie?
• How to plant sampling?
• Memory of favorite class teacher
READY FOR A CHALLENGE?
CAPACITY OF STM :
LEVELS OF PROCESSING
 CAT

1. Is the word written in capital letters or lower-

case?
2. What does the word sound like?
3. Use the word in a sentence?
WHY DOES FORGETTING OCCUR?
 As the figure indicates, the rate of forgetting is maximum in the first nine
hours, particularly during the first hour. After that the rate slows down and
not much is forgotten even after many days.
Why We Forget?
Forgetting: Interference

Forgetting may be caused by failure to retrieve information

This can be due to interference, either retroactive or proactive
 Are you Ready?
• 1. Moving from India to US, where people
drive on the right instead of the left side
of the road – is an example of ………..
Interference.

• 2. Rahul took Sociology last semester

and now is taking Psychology. Some of
the concepts are similar. Rahul
sometimes has trouble recalling major
sociology theorists. She keeps getting
them confused with Psychology theorists.
This is an example of?
 Are you Ready?

3. John is having difficulty the playing the violin

because he recently learned how to play cello. It
is an example of which type of interference?

4. Singers sometimes find it difficult to recall old

song lyrics because of all the new songs they
have learned. Which type of interference is this?
 RETRIEVAL CUES

Retrieval cues are aids which help

us in recovering information
stored in the memory.

Suppose you have memorised a list of meaningful words like

hut, wasp, cottage, gold, bronze, ant, etc. in which words
belonged to six categories (like places of living, names of
insects, types of metal, etc.).
If after a while you are asked to recall those you may recall a
couple of them but if during the second recall attempt, you are
also provided with category names, then you may find that
your recall is near total. Category names in this example
act as retrieval cues.
 Forgetting due to Retrieval Failure

Retrieval cues are aids which help us in recovering

information stored in the memory. This view was advanced by
Tulving and his associates who carried out several experiments to
show that contents of memory may become inaccessible either
due to absence or inappropriateness of retrieval cues that
are available/employed at the time of recall.
 ENHANCING MEMORY

There are a number of strategies for improving memory called

mnemonics (pronounced ni-mo-nicks) to help you improve your
memory.
Techniques to help make sure information goes from short-
term memory to long-term memory.
 Mnemonics

1. Mnemonics using Images:

Mnemonics using images require that you create
vivid and interacting images of and around
the material you wish to remember. The two
prominent mnemonic devices, which make
interesting use of images are:

a.The Keyword Method

b. The Method of Loci
 The Keyword Method
• Suppose you want to learn
words of any foreign language.
The English word will function
as the keyword.
• For example, if you want to
remember the Spanish word for
duck which is ‘Pato’, you may
choose ‘pot’ as the keyword and
then evoke images of keyword and
the target word and imagine them
as interacting.
• You might, in this case, imagine
a duck in a pot full of water.

• This method of learning words

of a foreign language is much
superior compared to any kind
of rote memorisation.
 Method of Loci

• For example, suppose you want to

remember bread, eggs, tomatoes, and
soap on your way to the market, you may
visualise a loaf of bread and eggs
placed in your kitchen, tomatoes kept
on a table and soap in the bathroom.
• When you enter the market all you need to
do is to take a mental walk along the
route from your kitchen to the
bathroom recalling all the items of
your shopping list in a sequence.
 Mnemonics using Organisation

• Organisation refers to imposing certain order on

the material you want to remember which makes
the retrieval task fairly easy.
a.Chunking
First Letter Technique
Let us examine some of these suggestions.
It is suggested that one must :

• Engage in Deep Level Processing :

Deep processing would involve asking as many
questions related to the information as possible,
considering its meaning and examining its
relationships to the facts you already know.
In this way, the new information will become a
part of your existing knowledge framework and
the chances that it will be remembered are
increased.

Example: Share a real-life example of procedural

memory and episodic memory
Let us examine some of these suggestions.
It is suggested that one must :

• Minimise Interference :
You know that maximum interference is caused
when very similar materials are learned in a
sequence.
Avoid this.
Arrange your study in such a way that you do not
learn similar subjects one after the other.
Instead, pick up some other subject unrelated to the
previous one.

If that is not possible, distribute your

learning/practice. This means giving yourself
intermittent rest periods while studying to minimise
interference.
 PQRST METHOD
• Thomas and Robinson have developed another strategy to help students
in remembering more which they called the methods of PQRST. This
acronym stands for Preview, Question, Read, Summary, and Test.

• Preview refers to giving a cursory look at the chapter and familiarising

oneself with its contents.
• Question means raising questions and seeking answers from the lesson.
• Now start reading and look for answers of questions you had raised.
• After reading try to rewrite summary what you have read and
• at the end test how much you have been able to understand.
 In order to improve your memory, you need to attend to a wide
variety of factors which affect your memory such as your health
status, your interest and motivation, your familiarity with
the subject matter and so on.