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Human

Memory
Encoding,
Storage, Retention, and Retrieval
Memory is retention of information over a period of time. Ebbinghaus
studied memories by teaching himself lists of nonsense words and then
studying his retention of these lists over periods of hours to days. This
was one of the earliest studies of memory in psychology.
Contents:
1. Short Term Memory
2. Working Memory
3. Long Term Memory
4. Spreading Activation Model
5. Practice and Strength
6. Depth of Processing
7. Elaborative Processing and Text
8. Forgetting: Gone or Inaccessible?
9. Forgetting: Decay or Interference?
10.
Retrieval and Inference
11.
Other Facts about Memory

Short Term Memory


While Ebbinghaus studied retention over long intervals, later
experiments studied memory loss over periods of seconds to minutes.
Short term memory was postulated to explain temporary retention of
information as distinct from long term retention of information. Short
term memory acts to also store current sensory information and to
rehearse new information from sensory buffers. It has limited capacity
(Miller's 7 plus or minus 2). The probability of encoding in Long term
memory has been directly related to time in short term memory.
It is now believed that the loss of information stored in short term
memory has the same characteristics as loss of information stored in
long term memory. It happens quicker because it involves information
that is not learned as well. What we call the learning process is
transferring information from short term to long term memory and is a

physiological process. The shape of the memory loss curves are the
same. Hence we don't need to postulate a special type of memory.
Instead, we need a theory of:

Why we can rehearse only a limited amount of information at a


time.
How different memories get different strengths (and so are
forgotten at different rates).

Working Memory
Here we address why we can rehearse only limited information at a time.
Articulatory Loop Rehearsal limitations are due to limits in how long it
takes verbal material to decay, not how many items we can store. Hence,
the faster we can rehearse, the more we can store (Baddeley, 1986).
Experimental support: word length effect. How long it takes to read
words predicts how many words will be remembered. Articulatory loop is
called the phonological loop due to evidence that it involves speech. We
can rehearse about 1.5 seconds of verbal material before it decays. Time
in the loop is not related to probability of coding in long term memory.
Baddeley's model proposes that we have a visual/spatial sketchpad as
well as the phonological loop. These hold information for use by a central
executive. There is evidence that a particular area of the frontal cortex is
involved in working memory.

Long Term Memory


A simple observation: we often need to recall information that we learned
long ago. How quickly and reliably we recall it depends on:

Activation: How long since we last used the information.


Strength: How well we have practiced it.

Experimental Evidence: (Anderson 1976) - Subjects learn some


sentences. Some sentences are studied twice as long as others. Subjects
must discriminate sentences they learned from distracters. They are
tested for each sentence more than once, with varying intervening
sentences. Results: Both amount of study and how recently the

information was accessed affect speed of response. However amount of


study matters only if the information was not recently accessed (an
interaction effect).

Delay (number of intervening


Degree of Study
items)
Less Study
More Study
Short (0-2)
1.11 seconds
1.10 seconds
Long (3 or more)
1.53 seconds
1.38 seconds

Spreading Activation Model


When information becomes easier to access as a result of having been
used recently, we say it is more activated. This activation spreads
between semantically related concepts.
Empirical Evidence:

Subjects are faster at confirming that a pair of words are both


words if the second word is an associate of the first, for example,
bread and butter (Meyer and Schvaneveldt 1971).
Given a word, subjects are asked to give an associated word. Their
response is faster if subjects have responded with an associated
word on a previous trial (Perlmutter and Anderson, figure 6.8).
Speed of activation seems to be about 200ms (as measured by
Ratcliff and McKoon, 1981).

Implication: Text is easier to read if semantically related words are used.

Practice and Strength


We've seen that speed of recall of information from long term memory
depends in part on how recently that information has been activated.
However, what about the fact that speed of recall also depends on
amount of practice? Activation changes quickly over time. The effect of
practice decays much more slowly over time (witness Ebbinghaus, the
alphabet). Thus these are believed to be distinct processes.

Power Law of Learning


A very robust result: the effect of practice in a wide range of different
tasks fits a power law
Reaction Time equals C * Practice Time K where C and K are constants
that depend on the task.
Practice helps a lot at first, then provides decreasing gains as you reach
the limits of your performance ability.
Long-Term Potentiation - There appears to be a neural basis for this law
of learning. Neural pathways in the hippocampus (known to be involved
in learning) become increasingly sensitive when stimulated. The change
in sensitivity follows a power law relationship.

Depth of Processing
Craik and Lockhart (1972) proposed that strength of memory depends on
how deeply information is processed, not on how long it is processed
Experimental support: Memory for words not improved by merely
repeating them for a longer period of time (Glenberg et al. 1977). A large
number of studies support the depth of processing conclusion. It applies
to subject matter learning as well as laboratory situations. Subsequent
work focused on what constitutes deep processing.
Processing Meaning:
Some lab studies compare tasks that require processing meaning of
words versus form (e.g., what letters do they have).

Elaborative Processing and Text


Studies show benefits of connecting the items to be remembered to other
related information (e.g., elaborating on sentences to be remembered, or
rhyming). Intention does not matter. Subjects in deeper processing
conditions do better regardless of whether they know they will need to
remember the processed items.

Implications for study habits and method.


1.
2.
3.
4.

Preview the material


Make up questions
Read, trying to answer the questions
Reflect while you read. think of examples, relate it to what you
know.
5. Recite the information in each section after you've read it. Re-read
what
6. you can't recall.
7. Review the major points and the answers to your questions at the
end.

Question generation is at least as beneficial as question answering.


Questions generated before the material rather than after may be
more beneficial

Forgetting: Gone, or Inaccessible


Do we forget because the information is gone, or do we forget because we
can't access information that is still there? It is difficult to distinguish
the two. However, there is evidence that we retain more than we can
retrieve.
Experiment: (Nelson 1971) - Learn paired associates (numbers to
nouns). Tested 2 weeks later to see which were remembered. Then given
new material to learn that had some of the forgotten numbers, both with
and without their original nouns.
Results: Subjects relearned the original associations faster (in spite of
the fact that they could not recall them). Subjects relearned the original
associations faster (in spite of the fact that they could not recall them).
This suggests that some associative information was retained. One
possible interpretation: strength of memories decay gradually. If these
strengths fall below a certain threshold, we can't recall the information,
but the remaining memory trace is still there to facilitate relearning.

Forgetting: Decay or Interference?

Is forgetting due to decay of unused information, or to interference of new


information with old information? Different kinds of evidence are offered
for each position.
A survey of forgetting research concluded that the rate at which we forget
information usually conforms to a power law: we forget a lot at first, but
over time the rate of forgetting diminishes.
Decrease in long-term potentiation follows a similar power law. These
facts are interpreted by some as evidence for a physiologically determined
decay rate.
Interference Experiments Typical Experiment (A-D C-D paradigm):
1. Subjects all learn A-B association (between items on list A and
items on list B).
2. Experimental subjects learn A-D associations (which use the same
stimuli items as the A-B associations), while control subjects learn
C-D association.
3. Everyone is tested on A-B associations.
Typical Results: Experimental subjects take longer to learn their second
set of associations than controls, and make more errors on the A-B test.
Experimental subjects take longer to learn their second set of
associations than controls, and make more errors on the A-B test. These
results are interpreted as evidence that learning new associations to
stimuli causes forgetting of old associations. However, interference does
not happen with factual material when the additional facts are
redundant with (e.g., causally related to) the original facts.
Fan Effect (a model) - Interference effects can be modeled as weakening
of spreading activation over multiple links in a propositional network.
Stimulus activates concept nodes.- Fixed (limited) amount of activation
spreads from activated nodes over associative links, divided equally
between links. (Hence the more links, the less activation per link.)
Activation converges at propositional nodes (candidate responses) until
one emerges as the answer. Time to identify the response is inversely
related to level of activation.

Decay or Interference? Some claim that interference can produce the


appearance of decay although it appears, both mechanisms are involved
in forgetting or memory loss.

Retrieval and Inference


It is well established that people make inferences during retrieval, and
believe that they saw or heard things that they in fact did not. People are
more likely to erroneously think they read a sentence if it is an
implication of something they read.
Effect of Prior Knowledge - People add other knowledge they have about
the material studied.
Effect of Question Wording - Subjects shown film of automobile
accident. Subjects asked: Did you see a broken headlight? or Did you see
the broken headlight? (There was actually none.) Results: Subjects more
likely to respond yes to the broken headlight. Implications for courtroom
testimony!

Other Facts about Memory


Organization of Material
Retrieval of information is better if the information is organized in some
manner supporting systematic search, such as in hierarchies.
Method of Loci
The ancients remembered things by imagining taking a familiar walk,
and placing the things to be remembered at locations along the way. This
method works because it organizes the material to be remembered and it
encourages elaborative processing and memorable imagery.
Context-Dependent Learning
Physical and emotional context may be inadvertently coded as retrieval
cues, along with the intended cues.

Consistent with this idea, various studies show that recall is better when
tested in the same context (physical or emotional) as in which learning
took place. Some benefit has been found studying for important exams in
the same room as they will be taken. However these results are variable.

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