Memory and Consciousness

Chapter 9

An Information-Processing Model of the Mind

MEMORY: the mind’s ability to retain information over time, and information retained in the mind over time

MODAL MODEL OF THE MIND: a depiction of the mind as a set of memory storage compartments and control processes for manipulating and moving information

Memory stores: sensory, short-term, long-term

Control processes: attention, rehearsal, encoding and retrieval

Modal Model of the mind

Types of Memory Stores

Sensory Memory

• The memory trace that preserves the original information in a sensory stimulus for a brief period following the termination of the stimulus

Working Memory

• Memory store that is considered to be the main workplace of the mind; the seat of conscious thought

Long-term Memory

• Information that is retained in the mind for long periods

Types of Control Processes

Attention

• The process that controls the flow of information from the sensory store into the working memory

Encoding

• The mental process by which long-term memories are formed

Retrieval

• The mental processes by which long-term memories are brought into working memory, where they become part of the flow of thought

Selective Listening: The ability to focus attention and ignore the irrelevant.

PREATTENTIVE PROCESSING: the analysis, at an unconscious level, in which the mind determines which stimuli are worth passing into working memory

Also occurs with viewing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

The Ability to Shift Attention to Significant Stimuli

ECHOIC MEMORY: sensory memory for the sense of hearing

ICONIC MEMORY: sensory memory for the sense of vision

Can you train attentional ability?

Video Games

This does not imply that all multi-tasking works!

Unconscious Priming of Mental Concepts

PRIMING: the implicit memory process by which a stimulus (the priming stimulus) activates (makes more retrievable) one or more memories that already exist in a person’s mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUA4Q5aoG74

Brain Mechanisms of Preattentive Processing and Attention

Stimuli that are not attended to nevertheless activate sensory and perceptual areas

Attention magnifies the activity that task-relevant stimuli produce in sensory and perceptual areas of the brain, and it diminishes the activity that task-irrelevant stimuli produce

Areas in the frontal lobe and anterior portions of the temporal and parietal lobes become active during attentional shifts

Components of Working Memory

The Phonological Loop

SPAN OF SHORT-TERM MEMORY: the number of pronounceable items of information that a person can retain in short-term memory at any given time through rote rehearsal

Which is easier to keep in mind: 3 8 0 4 9 7 Disentangle, appropriation,

gossamer, anti-intellectual, preventative, foreclosure, documentation

The Visuospatial Sketchpad

Responsible for holding visual and spatial information

Dual Task Performance

People are much better at doing two mental tasks at once if one task involves the phonological loop and the other involves the visuo-spatial sketchpad than they are if both tasks involve the same working-memory component

Don’t drive and talk on your cell phones!

Brain Areas Involved in Working Memory

Phonological loop = temporal lobe of the left hemisphere

Visuospatial sketchpad = visual areas of the cortex The “what” pathway The “where and how”

pathway

The prefrontal cortex

Encoding Information Into Long-Term Memory

MAINTENANCE REHEARSAL: any active mental process by which a person strives to hold information in short-term memory for a brief period of time Repetition

ENCODING REHEARSAL: any active mental process by which a person strives to encode information into long-term memory

Elaboration Promotes Encoding

ELABORATION: the process of thinking about an item of information in such a way as to tie the item mentally to other information in memory (helps to encode the item into long-term memory)

Don’t seek to memorize, but understand that which you seek to memorize

Using logic to encode memories:

A stalaCtite grows from the Ceiling

A stalaGmite grows from the Ground

Organization Promotes Encoding

CHUNKING: a strategy for improving the ability to remember a set of items by grouping them mentally to form fewer items

Which is easier to memorize and recall? M D P H D R S V P C E O I H O P MD PHD RSVP CEO IHOP

OCEAN Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extroversion Agreeableness Neuroticism

End Part Ito be continued…

Distinctions Among Explicit and Implicit Memory Systems

EXPLICIT MEMORY: the class of memory that can be consciously recalled and used to answer explicit questions about what one knows and remembers Declarative memory

IMPLICIT MEMORY: memory that influences one’s behavior or thought but does not itself enter consciousness Nondeclarative

memory

The Curious Case of H.M.

At age 27 (1953), underwent surgery for epilepsy. The surgery left him unable to encode new long-term memories

He could converse, read and solve problems as long as his attention remained focused on it

HM’s memory impairment made it impossible for him to live independently Right now, I’m wondering, have I done or

said something amiss? You see, at this moment everything looks clear to me, butwhat happened just before?

Brain Mechanisms of Long-Term Memory Encoding

TEMPORAL LOBE AMNESIA: loss in memory abilities that occurs as a result of damage to structures in the limbic system that lie under the temporal lobe

Types of Amnesias ANTEROGRADE

AMNESIA: the loss of capacity to form long-term memories of events that occur after the injury

RETROGRADE AMNESIA: the loss of memories of events that occurred before the injury Su Meck Hollywood Amnesia

CONSOLIDATION: the process by which a new memory becomes solidified in the brain, such that it is not easily forgotten

Factors That Increase Memory Consolidation

Memories that are recalled and used repeatedly are the ones more likely to be consolidated in a stable way

Sleep, shortly after learning, helps to consolidate newly acquired memories

Mental Associations and Memory Retrieval Cues

ASSOCIATIONS

• A link between two memories or mental concepts, such that recall of one tends to promote recall of the other

RETRIEVAL CUE

• A word, phrase, or other stimulus that helps one retrieve a specific item of information from long-term memory

ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY

• If two environmental events (stimuli) occur at the same time or one right after the other (contiguously),those events will be linked together in the mind

ASSOCIATION BY SIMILARITY

• Objects, events or ideas that are similar to one another become linked (associated) in the person’s mind such that the thought of one tends to elicit the thought of the other

Network Models of Memory Organization

False Memory Test

RIPE CITRUS VEGETABLE JUICE COCKTAIL ORANGE BASKETBANANA

BOWL SALAD BERRY PEAR APPLE CHERRYKIWI

Memory Construction As A Source of Distortion

Memory construction is affected not just by preexisting schemas but also by events that occur after the even being remembered was encoded

37 vs 43mph

Effects of Preexisting Beliefs

SCHEMA

• The mental representation of a concept; the information stored in long-term memory that allows a person to identify a group of different events or items as members of the same category

SCRIPT

• A variety of schema that represents in memory the temporal organization of a category of event

Varieties of Explicit Memory

EPISODIC MEMORY•Explicit memory of past events (episodes) in one’s own life•Have personal qualities; the self as participant, witness or learner

SEMANTIC MEMORY•One’s storehouse of explicit general knowledge (knowledge that can be expressed in words and is not mentally tied to specific experiences in one’s own life•Analogous to an encyclopedia; related to the network model of knowledge

Varieties of Implicit Memory

Classical conditioning•Behavioral responses•You can’t really say how you do it, but you demonstrate it easily

Procedural Memory•The class of implicit memory that enables a person to perform specific learned skills or habitual responses

Priming•The activation, by sensory input, of information that is already stored in long-term memory

Types of Long-term MemoryMemory

Explicit Memory (conscious)

Episodic Memory

(one’s own experiences

)

Semantic Memory (words, facts,

general knowledge)

Implicit Memory (unconscious)

Classical

conditioning effects

Procedural

memory

(motor skills,

habits)

Priming

(implicit

activation of

concepts in long-term

memory)