Figure 1. According to the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory, information passes through three distinct stages in order for it to be stored in long-term memory. But A-S is just one model of memory. Others, such as Baddeley and Hitch , have proposed a model where short-term memory itself has different forms.
In this model, storing memories in short-term memory is like opening different files on a computer and adding information. The type of short-term memory or computer file depends on the type of information received. There are memories in visual-spatial form, as well as memories of spoken or written material, and they are stored in three short-term systems: a visuospatial sketchpad, an episodic buffer, and a phonological loop.
According to Baddeley and Hitch, a central executive part of memory supervises or controls the flow of information to and from the three short-term systems. In the Atkinson-Shiffrin model, stimuli from the environment are processed first in sensory memory : storage of brief sensory events, such as sights, sounds, and tastes.
It is very brief storage—up to a couple of seconds. We are constantly bombarded with sensory information. We cannot absorb all of it, or even most of it. And most of it has no impact on our lives. For example, what was your professor wearing the last class period? As long as the professor was dressed appropriately, it does not really matter what she was wearing. Sensory information about sights, sounds, smells, and even textures, which we do not view as valuable information, we discard.
If we view something as valuable, the information will move into our short-term memory system. One study of sensory memory researched the significance of valuable information on short-term memory storage.
Stroop discovered a memory phenomenon in the s: you will name a color more easily if it appears printed in that color, which is called the Stroop effect. Try an experiment: name the colors of the words you are given in Figure 2. Do not read the words, but say the color the word is printed in. Figure 2. The Stroop effect describes why it is difficult for us to name a color when the word and the color of the word are different.
While many of our short-term memories are quickly forgotten, attending to this information allows it to continue to the next stage: long-term memory. Most of the information stored in active memory will be kept for approximately 20 to 30 seconds.
The term "short-term memory" is often used interchangeably with "working memory," which refers to the processes that are used to temporarily store, organize, and manipulate information. Long-term memory refers to the continuing storage of information. In Freudian psychology, long-term memory would be called the preconscious and unconscious. This information is largely outside of our awareness but can be called into working memory to be used when needed. Some of this information is fairly easy to recall, while other memories are much more difficult to access.
Forgetting is a surprisingly common event. Why do we forget information we have learned in the past? There are four basic explanations for why forgetting occurs:. Research has shown that one of the critical factors that influence memory failure is time.
Information is often quickly forgotten, particularly if people do not actively review and rehearse the information. Sometimes information is simply lost from memory and, in other cases, it was never stored correctly in the first place.
Sometimes memories compete with one another, making it difficult to remember certain information. No matter how great your memory is, there are probably a few things you can do to make it even better. Fortunately, cognitive psychologists have discovered a number of techniques that can help improve memory:.
In addition to these techniques, keeping your brain healthy by exercising regularly, maintaining social connections, managing stress, and performing challenging activities like doing crossword puzzles or playing an instrument have been proven to help boost memory.
Human memory is a complex process that researchers are still trying to better understand. Our memories make us who we are, yet the process is not perfect. While we are capable of remembering an astonishing amount of information, we are also susceptible to mistakes and errors.
Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychol Sci. Your Privacy Rights. A visual memory trace is called an icon; an auditory memory trace is called an echo.
Sensory memory extends the duration of the perception of stimuli long enough that they can be recognized, transformed encoded , and relayed to conscious awareness. In his study, George Miller spoke of the magical number of seven, plus or minus two. It is thought that STM can be increased by using a tactic called maintenance rehearsal rote recital of stored information.
For one thing, if information were encoded and stored but could not be retrieved, it would be useless. As discussed previously in this module, we encode and store thousands of events—conversations, sights and sounds—every day, creating memory traces.
Most of our memories will never be used—in the sense of being brought back to mind, consciously. This fact seems so obvious that we rarely reflect on it.
All those events that happened to you in the fourth grade that seemed so important then? Now, many years later, you would struggle to remember even a few. You may wonder if the traces of those memories still exist in some latent form.
Unfortunately, with currently available methods, it is impossible to know. Available information is the information that is stored in memory—but precisely how much and what types are stored cannot be known.
That is, all we can know is what information we can retrieve— accessible information. The assumption is that accessible information represents only a tiny slice of the information available in our brains. Most of us have had the experience of trying to remember some fact or event, giving up, and then—all of a sudden!
Similarly, we all know the experience of failing to recall a fact, but then, if we are given several choices as in a multiple-choice test , we are easily able to recognize it.
What factors determine what information can be retrieved from memory? One critical factor is the type of hints, or cues , in the environment. You may hear a song on the radio that suddenly evokes memories of an earlier time in your life, even if you were not trying to remember it when the song came on.
Nevertheless, the song is closely associated with that time, so it brings the experience to mind. For example, take the song on the radio: perhaps you heard it while you were at a terrific party, having a great, philosophical conversation with a friend.
Thus, the song became part of that whole complex experience. In general, the encoding specificity principle states that, to the extent a retrieval cue the song matches or overlaps the memory trace of an experience the party, the conversation , it will be effective in evoking the memory. A classic experiment on the encoding specificity principle had participants memorize a set of words in a unique setting. Later, the participants were tested on the word sets, either in the same location they learned the words or a different one.
Consider a lab experiment. Suppose you study items; 99 are words, and one is a picture—of a penguin, item 50 in the list. No one would miss it. This outcome shows the power of distinctiveness that we discussed in the section on encoding: one picture is perfectly recalled from among 99 words because it stands out.
Now consider what would happen if the experiment were repeated, but there were 25 pictures distributed within the item list. Watkins referred to this outcome as demonstrating the cue overload principle. That is, to be effective, a retrieval cue cannot be overloaded with too many memories. To sum up how memory cues function: for a retrieval cue to be effective, a match must exist between the cue and the desired target memory; furthermore, to produce the best retrieval, the cue-target relationship should be distinctive.
Next, we will see how the encoding specificity principle can work in practice. Psychologists measure memory performance by using production tests involving recall or recognition tests involving the selection of correct from incorrect information, e. For example, with our list of words, one group of people might be asked to recall the list in any order a free recall test , while a different group might be asked to circle the studied words out of a mix with another , unstudied words a recognition test.
In this situation, the recognition test would likely produce better performance from participants than the recall test. We usually think of recognition tests as being quite easy, because the cue for retrieval is a copy of the actual event that was presented for study. After all, what could be a better cue than the exact target memory the person is trying to access?
In most cases, this line of reasoning is true; nevertheless, recognition tests do not provide perfect indexes of what is stored in memory. For example, suppose you had the task of recognizing the surnames of famous authors.
At first, you might think that being given the actual last name would always be the best cue. However, research has shown this not necessarily to be true Muter, When given names such as Tolstoy, Shaw, Shakespeare, and Lee, subjects might well say that Tolstoy and Shakespeare are famous authors, whereas Shaw and Lee are not.
But, when given a cued recall test using first names, people often recall items produce them that they had failed to recognize before. This strange fact—that recall can sometimes lead to better performance than recognition—can be explained by the encoding specificity principle.
The point is, the cues that work best to evoke retrieval are those that recreate the event or name to be remembered, whereas sometimes even the target itself, such as Shaw in the above example, is not the best cue. Which cue will be most effective depends on how the information has been encoded.
Whenever we think about our past, we engage in the act of retrieval. We usually think that retrieval is an objective act because we tend to imagine that retrieving a memory is like pulling a book from a shelf, and after we are done with it, we return the book to the shelf just as it was. However, research shows this assumption to be false; far from being a static repository of data, the memory is constantly changing.
In fact, every time we retrieve a memory, it is altered. Thus the act of retrieval can be a double-edged sword—strengthening the memory just retrieved usually by a large amount but harming related information though this effect is often relatively small. As discussed earlier, retrieval of distant memories is reconstructive. We weave the concrete bits and pieces of events in with assumptions and preferences to form a coherent story Bartlett, For example, if during your 10th birthday, your dog got to your cake before you did, you would likely tell that story for years afterward.
Say, then, in later years you misremember where the dog actually found the cake, but repeat that error over and over during subsequent retellings of the story. Over time, that inaccuracy would become a basic fact of the event in your mind. Just as retrieval practice repetition enhances accurate memories, so will it strengthen errors or false memories McDermott, Sometimes memories can even be manufactured just from hearing a vivid story.
0コメント