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Doreen Pang

Mrs. Trainor

AP Psychology

8 September 2016

Module 25: Getting Information In

How We Encode

Sensory memory
Some external stimuli is processed consciously
Coded into working mem.
Some are processed unconsciously
Coded into long-term mem.
Unconscious Processing

Automatic Processing

Automatically process
Info. processed one absorbs with little to no effort
Space
Encode where something is

on a page
Time
Subconsciously encode

sequence of the day


Where your coat

is
Retracing steps
Frequency
Keep track of how many

times something happen


Third time Ive

ran into her today


Parallel process
No attention paid
Happens at the same time
Hard to shut off
Native language on truck cant but read
Some forms requires effort and practice at first
Learning to read
Effortful processing can become automatic

Effortful Process

Lot of info. Is processed auto, but others take time and effort
Content of this chapter
Effortful processing produces durable and and

accessible mem.
Rehearsal
Used when learning new mem
Learning names
Conscious repetition
Hermann Ebbinghaus Experiment
Memory through repetition
Ebb. grew impatient with phil. Speculations
Conduct own scientific experiment
Create nonsense words
A vowel between two

consonants
JIH, BAZ
Randomly selected sample of syllables
Tried to recall
As #rep inc., time taken to relearn dec.
The amount remembered depends on the time spent

learning
Overlearning increases retention

Effortful processing makes perf. For novel verbal info


Other interesting phenomena:
Next-in-line effect
When we are next in line, we

focus on our own performance and often fail to

process the last persons words


Info. presented seconds before our sleep

is seldom remembered
But info presented the hour

before sleep is well-remembered


Taped info played during sleep is

registered but not remembered


W/o rehearsal sleep

learning doesnt occur


Info is better retained when rehearsals

is over time
Spacing effect

Harry Bahrick and family Experiment


Practiced foreign language word translations a

given number of time


Ranging 14-56 days
Longer space between practice sessions, better the

retention
Those who learn quickly also forget quickly
Memorizing phone numbers
Expanding spaced rehearsal
Repeat number
Wait a few seconds
Repeat number again
Wait longer
Etc.
Serial position effect
People remember first and last items better than

middle
Learning coworkers names
First few is good, last few not so much
Sometimes repeating info is not enough to store for recall

What We Encode

We process info in 3 ways


Encoding its meaning
Encoding its image
Mentally organizing it

Encoding Meaning

We encode by associating with what we know/imagine


Eye-screem ice cream or I scream
Figure out through context
We remember things not as what they were but by how we

encode them
Gordon Bower and Daniel Morrow
Minds are similar to theatre directors
Asked to recall a show

The best encoding system?


Visual encoding
Acoustic encoding
Work well with rhyming
What sobriety conceals,

alcohol reveals
If the glove doesnt fit, you

must acquit
Semantic encoding
Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving
Flashed words at people and asked a question that

required the ppl to process the words


Visually
Appearance of letters
Acoustically
The sound of the words
Semantically
The meaning of the words
Semantic encoding yielded better memory than

shallow memory of acoustic, especially visual


John Bransford and Marcia Johnson
Students was asked to remember a raw script
w/o context, they had hard time

remembering it
When told it was about washing clothes,

it was easier to remember


Ebbinghaus concluded that learning sensical material was 90%

easier than learning nonsensical material


Self-reference effect
One profits from finding personal meaning when

studying

Visual Encoding

We struggle to remember formulas, def., and dates but we

remember everything that happens yesterday


Mental pictures
Imagery
We remember concrete words that makes visuals

more than abstract


Plastic surgery twin images
We sometimes recall our experiences in snapshots of their best

and worst moments


Rosy retrospection
People tend to recall events as a camping holiday

more positively than they evaluated them at the time


Disney world
Mnemonic devices
Named after the Greek word for memory
Aids to remembering lengthy passages and speeches
Method of loci
Imagined themselves moving through a

familiar series of locations


Associates each place with a

visual rep. Of the to-be-remembered topic


Speaker would mentally visit each

location to retrieve the associated image


Peg-word system
First memorize a jingle
One is a bun; two is a shoe;

three is a tree
Soon you will be able to count by peg

words instead of numbers


bun , shoe, tree
Then visually associate the peg words

with to-be-remembered words


Carrots stuck in a bun, shoes

fill w/ milk

Organizing Information for Encoding

Chunking
Organizing is very important for memorization
KLCISNE NVESE YNA NI CSTTIH TNDO
Vs. NICKELS SEVEN ANY IN STITCH

DONT
Chunking
When we can organize info into

meaningful units/chunks
Occurs naturally
We all remember information best when

we can organize it into personally meaningful

arrangements
Aids recall of unfamiliar material
Acronyms
ROY G BIV
HOMES
Chunks of number for remembering
I personally think its easier in Chinese
Memorizing all dates of

presidential inauguration as one chain


Hierarchies
When ppl develop expertise in an area, they process

info in hierarchies composed of a few broad concepts divided

and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts


We can retrieve info more efficiently
Gordon Bower
When words were presented in groups,

recall was two to three times better

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