Encoding

Attention Review

• Attention = stimuli filter– Where is filter located?: cocktail party effect

• Early during sensory input or later during processing

Sensory Detection

Recognition of meaning

Responseselection

ResponseStimulus

Early-selectionmodels placethe filter here

Late-selectionmodels placethe filter here

• The answer to where the filter is… is both

• Depends on “cognitive load”

• Multi-tasking

Encoding is… getting the info in

1. Automatic – enormous amounts of info encoded without thinking

• Space• Time• Frequency• Well-learned

2. Effortful

• Requires attention, repetition, effort– Boost memory through

rehearsal: conscious repetition

Is it only ever one or the other?

• NO!– Effortful can become automatic through

learning– Ex: learning to read

Principles of Remembering (encoding)

• The more repetition one day, the less required to relearn the next.– The amount of something remembered

depends on the amount of time spent learning

• Overlearning

Ebbinghaus’ Retention Curve

Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve

Principles of Remembering (encoding)

• Info learned just before sleep = poorly remembered

• Spacing effect and cramming– Conclusion?!

• Serial Position Effect (furthers rehearsal)

Serial Position Effect

• Primacy effect

• Recency effect

Effortful Encoding cont’d

“those who learn quickly, forget quickly”

• Spacing effect• Massed practice• Distributed study time• Testing effect

MEMORY GAME

Working memories interact with LTM

• Visual

• Auditory

• Semantic

Levels of Processing Theory

How we encode

• Semantic: we best encode what makes sense– Learning meaningful material requires 1/10th

the effort of meaningless– Both context and principle help us remember

info– Self-reference effect

• Acoustically: next powerful encoding to semantic– empire carpet commercial?

Visual Encoding

• Imagery is important– Rosy retrospection– Imagery is key to

mnemonics

But!!!

• Two codes are better than one– If you can see and understand, you will

remember more easily– Examples?

Mnemonics: organization for better memory

• Peg words

• Method of loci

• Chunking– Mnemonics

• Acronyms

• Hierarchies

• Principle Learning