How memory functions.

Summary: 10 pages. 8 sources. APA format.

This paper will examine several different processes of how memory functions. We will examine the nature of short term and long term memory, as well as the process in which short term memories become long term memories. We will also look at the way both short term and long term memories are retrieved and stored, and possible reasons why our memory fails

Process of Memory

Introduction

What is Memory?

Memory is the retention and retrieval of past experiences. For example, we remember our telephone number for many reasons. In part, we learn to remember our telephone number by repetition, or rehearsal (Atkinson and Shiffrin: 1968). This will likely happen through the process of giving it out to our friends and family. In part, we also learn to remember our telephone number by meaning we derive from patterns embedded in it; perhaps there is an easily retainable sequence in the numbering, or in the way the numbers are arranged on the phone. Perhaps they make an X or Z pattern.

Though we will not explore the way memory intersects intelligence, or the acquisition of knowledge, it is important to point out that, in general, memory facilitates learning. How could we acquire and develop knowledge without an efficient ability to store information and retrieve it on command?

Short Term Memory

Short-Term Memory, also known as “working memory”, is an immediate memory of an experience that we have just perceived. Our short term memory seems to be limited to about seven “chunks” of information, and its duration seems to be limited to a short amount of time.

“Let me summarize the situation in this way. There is a clear and definite limit to the accuracy with which we can identify absolutely the magnitude of a unidimensional stimulus variable. I would propose to call this limit the span of absolute judgment, and I maintain that for unidimensional judgments this span is usually somewhere in the neighborhood of seven” (Miller: 1956)

So, it is then possible to look up a phone number in the phone book, and to start dialing, and forget the number before we finish placing the call. So how do we remember that ten chunk telephone number for long enough to place a call?

Encoding

Encoding is the process of information being stored in either your short term or long term memory. There are many ways in which coding takes place. For the short term memory there are three main possibilities:

Acoustic coding (Phonemic) is through sub-vocal sounds being repeated over and over again. This is similar to repeating out loud a new phone number in order to remember it. Please see (Baddeley, 1966) for evidence of laboratory experimentation supporting this.
Visual coding is storing information as pictures. Nonverbal items that are difficult to describe using words are often coded this way. There are a few cases of what is popularly know as a "photographic memory", but for most people, the visual code is much less successful. (Posner and Keele: 1967).
Semantic coding is assigning meaning to ...

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Acoustic coding (Phonemic) is through sub-vocal sounds being repeated over and over again. This is similar to repeating out loud a new phone number in order to remember it. Please see (Baddeley, 1966) for evidence of laboratory experimentation supporting this.
Visual coding is storing information as pictures. Nonverbal items that are difficult to describe using words are often coded this way. There are a few cases of what is popularly know as a "photographic memory", but for most people, the visual code is much less successful. (Posner and Keele: 1967).
Semantic coding is assigning meaning to information, or in other words relating something abstract to a ”real” experience.

For long term memory it is widely accepted that encoding is done semantically. In other words, it is based on the meanings of memories that are already retained. For example, when you are watching a movie, you do not remember every sound or every frame, but you do remember the story (Baddeley: 1966). Though this is the main way in which coding takes place for long term memory, acoustic and visual coding is also possible. For example, we may recognize a person by their voice.

Long Term Memory

It is widely accepted that once information is stored in long term memory, it stays there forever (Barnyard and Grayson: 1996). If we have a problem retrieve information that is in our long term memory, it is most likely not because the material has faded from our long term memory, but because we don't have enough mental signposts to be able to find it. Here is a demonstration.

What did you have for lunch yesterday? If you remembered what you had for lunch yesterday, this information must have been in your long term memory (because you had lunch more than 30 seconds ago, and you still have the ability to remember what you ate). Most likely, we have information about every lunch we ever ate somewhere in our long term memories. However, it is likely impossible to retrieve that information, but there may be a way to try and retrieve some of it. For example:

What did you eat for lunch a week ago? That information would not be easily retrievable for most people. But there is a good chance it is still in your long term memory, which in theory is limitless. Perhaps some cues will help you find it. What are some of the activities you did throughout the last week? Look at your personal planner. Perhaps you can figure out with whom you ate or where. Is it possible to remember now?

Often we have a problem remembering. What was that friend of my girlfriend’s name? What year was Jung born? Retrieval is the process of bringing information stored in the long term memory back into the working memory. Often our problems with memory are not that the information does not exist in our long-term memory anymore, but that we are having a hard time finding it. Since long term memory seems to be organized chiefly according to meaning (Baddeley, 1966), information will be easiest to retrieve if we pay attention to meaning and context as we are learning.

Transfer from Short Term to Long Term Memory

Focusing on meaning not only aides in chunking, it also helps you to move information into and out of long term memory in the most effective way. While rote rehearsal does work, is not a very efficient way to move information from short term to long term memory. A type of rehearsal called elaborative rehearsal is much more efficient.

Elaborative rehearsal focuses on the meaning of information to be learned and relates it to data that already resides in your long term memory. This seems to help newly acquired information make its way to a permanent place in the long term memory. Since long term memory seems to "file" data according to meaning, this will also help in finding that information when it needs to be called upon in day to day situations.

In just about every moment of our life, we must retrieve information from our long term memory. The difficulty in retrieving data from our long term memory depends, in part, on how many cues, or sign posts, we are given that would enable us to find the information. It seems like a simple formula: the more detailed the map which leads to the information is, the more of a chance there is we will make it to the information to retrieve it.

One of the most challenging types of tasks for our memory involves remembering data with very few cues. In tasks with this type of recall nature, such as short-answer and fill-in-the-blank questions on exams, a simple question is asked, and we are required to produce the information, without much context.

Another type of task for our memory is when we are asked to identify information, out of a pool of possible answers, that is the correct answer to the question. This type of quiz is called recognition. Multiple choice and matching questions are simple examples of recognition tasks. People, in general, do better on recognition quizzes than on recall quizzes. This is probably due to the fact that recognition tasks offer many more cues to find the correct data in long term memory. They offer a more detailed map.

Memory Failure, or “forgetting”

As stated before, retrieval failure is one main reason why we "forget" information stored in our long term memory (see Tulving, 1968). Interference of older information with new information, or when older information somehow changes new information, is another chief cause of "forgetting" (see Anderson, 1983). When older data interferes with newer data, the interference is said to be "proactive", which means it goes forward in time. When new data changes older data, the interference is said to be "retroactive", which means it goes backward in time. Memories that are similar to one another are most likely the ones to be altered by interference.

Here is an example. In your freshman year, you learn Spanish and in your sophomore year you learn Algebra. These two subjects, Algebra and Spanish are not that similar, so there is little chance they will interfere with each other. Now lets say you study French in your junior year. Since French and Spanish have many things in common, there is a high likelihood that they will interfere with each other. When you make French mistakes while you are attempting to learn Spanish, that is an example of old data interfering with new data, which is an example of proactive interference. When you make Spanish mistakes while attempting to learn French words, which is an example of new data interfering with old data, which is an example of retroactive interference.

Types of Long Term Memory

Research has shown that within long term memory there are several types of memory. One way to subdivide long term memory is into two halves: implicit memory and explicit memory. Explicit memories are memories that can be remembered consciously. Most of our "memories" that we consider memories are explicit. For example, the answers that are provided on an exam are part of the explicit memory. Everything we are sure we remember is explicit memory.

Explicit memory can be further broken down into declarative memories and episodic memories. Declarative memories concern general factual information, such as the fact that George W. Bush was the governor of Texas. Episodic memories deal more with personal events, such what you junior prom was like, or how you felt on your first day in another country.

Implicit memories are memories that are not consciously remembered, but still can be shown to influence how we act. This is similar to Freud's idea of the "unconscious thought." The difficulty with implicit memories is they are difficult to demonstrate that they exist because we are not consciously aware of them. Though, cognitive psychologists have been able to show that these unconscious memories do influence our behavior. Here is an example. Suppose that we show a test subject 50 photographs today. Then we wait a week, and then the same test 100 photographs, which contain the 50 from the week before, and ask our test subject two questions:

Which ones do you likes best?
Which ones have you seen before?

Our test subject will probably not be able to tell us which one he/she has seen before, but there is a good possibility that our test subject will "like" the photos seen a week earlier more than those the ones that are new.

Implicit memory can further be divided into procedural memory and conditioning effects. Procedural memories are memories for how to do physical things, such as walking or throwing a baseball. Conditioning effects are memories that are created, for the most part, automatically through the processes of classical and operant conditioning. We have reason to believe that implicit memories and explicit memories are stored in different parts of the brain. The cerebellum seems to be the area that stores implicit memories, while the hippocampus, which is located deep in the temporal lobe of the brain, seams to be the area that stores explicit memories.

How accurate is Long Term Memory?

The accuracy of long term memory is one of the biggest controversies in research concerning memory, and should be touched upon briefly in this paper. Some researchers believe that memories are very accurate, while others believe that memories are often accurate, though, there is also a strong possibility that distortion of the memory could take place. Most research today supports the latter. This distortion of memory has strong implications in the area of repressed memories, especially those concerning young children who all of a sudden remember they have been abused or sexually molested by an adult.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can see that stimuli first enter our brain through the short term memory, which can only hold a very limited amount of information. If we want to help the potential long term memory last our entire life time, there are actions we can take. Elaborative rehearsal, which focuses on the meaning and context of the data, can greatly increase the chances of a memory being stored in the long term memory. We have also learned that there are several different types of long term memories (implicit and explicit), and that there are acoustic, visual and semantic coding of short term memories.

Bibliography

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ATKINSON, R.L., and SHIFFRIN, R.M., (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In K.W. SPENCE and J.T. SPENCE (eds.), The psychology of learning and motivation. Vol.2. London: Academic Press.

BADDELEY, A.D. (1997). Human Memory: Theory and Practice Psychology Press

BADDELEY, A.D. (1966). The influence of acoustic and semantic similarity on long term memory for word sequences. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 302-309.

BARNYARD, P., and GRAYSON, A. (1996). Introducing psychological research. London: MacMillan Press.

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POSNER, M.I., and KEELE, S.W. (1967). Decay of visual information from a single letter. Science, 158, 137-139.

TULVING, E. (1968). Theoretical issues in free recall. In T. DIXON and D. HORTON, eds., Verbal behaviour and general behaviour theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall