262 CHAPTER 6
Chapter Summary
What Is Memory?
- 1 Identify the three processes of memory.
- Memory can be defined as an active system that receives infor-
mation from the senses, organizes and alters it as it stores it away,
and then retrieves the information from storage. - The three processes are encoding, storage, and retrieval.
- 2 Explain how the different models of memory work.
- In the levels-of-processing model of memory, information that
gets more deeply processed is more likely to be remembered. - In the parallel distributed processing model of memory, infor-
mation is simultaneously stored across an interconnected neural
network that stretches across the brain.
The Information-Processing Model: Three Memory
Systems
- 3 Describe the process of sensory memory.
- Iconic memory is the visual sensory memory, in which an
afterimage or icon will be held in neural form for about one
fourth to one half second. - Echoic memory is the auditory form of sensory memory and
takes the form of an echo that lasts for up to 4 seconds.
- 4 Describe short-term memory and differentiate it
from working memory.
- Short-term memory is where information is held while it is
conscious and being used. It holds about three to five items of
information and lasts about 30 seconds without rehearsal. - STM can be lost through failure to rehearse, decay, interference
by similar information, and the intrusion of new information into
the STM system, which pushes older information out.
- 5 Explain the process of long-term memory, including
nondeclarative and declarative forms.
- Long-term memory is the system in which memories that are to
be kept more or less permanently are stored and is unlimited in
capacity and relatively permanent in duration. - Information that is more deeply processed, or processed accord-
ing to meaning, will be retained and retrieved more efficiently. - Nondeclarative, or implicit, memories are memories for skills,
habits, and conditioned responses. Declarative, or explicit,
memories are memories for general facts and personal experiences
and include both semantic memories and episodic memories. - Implicit memories are difficult to bring into conscious awareness,
whereas explicit memories are those that a person is aware of
possessing. - LTM is organized in the form of semantic networks, or nodes
of related information spreading out from a central piece of
knowledge.
Getting It Out: Retrieval of Long-Term Memories- 6 Identify the effects of cues on memory retrieval.
- Retrieval cues are words, meanings, sounds, and other stimuli
that are encoded at the same time as a new memory. - Encoding specificity occurs when context-dependent informa-
tion becomes encoded as retrieval cues for specific memories. - State-dependent learning occurs when physiological or psycho-
logical states become encoded as retrieval cues for memories
formed while in those states.
- 7 Differentiate the retrieval processes of recall and
recognition.
- Recall is a type of memory retrieval in which the information
to be retrieved must be “pulled” out of memory with few or no
cues, whereas recognition involves matching information with
stored images or facts. - The serial position effect, or primacy or recency effect, occurs
when the first items and the last items in a list of information are
recalled more efficiently than items in the middle of the list. - Loftus and others have found that people constantly update and
revise their memories of events. Part of this revision may include
adding information acquired later to a previous memory. That
later information may also be in error, further contaminating the
earlier memory.
- 8 Describe how some memories are automatically
encoded into long-term memory.
- Automatic encoding of some kinds of information requires very
little effort to place information in long-term memory. - Memory for particularly emotional or traumatic events can lead
to the formation of flashbulb memories, memories that seem as
vivid and detailed as if the person were looking at a snapshot of
the event but that are no more accurate than any other memories.
The Reconstructive Nature of Long-Term Memory
Retrieval: How Reliable Are Memories?- 9 Explain how the constructive processing view of
memory retrieval accounts for forgetting and inaccuracies
in memory.
- Memories are reconstructed from the various bits and pieces of
information that have been stored away in different places at the
time of encoding in a process called constructive processing. - Hindsight bias occurs when people falsely believe that they knew
the outcome of some event because they have included knowledge
of the event’s true outcome in their memories of the event itself. - The misinformation effect refers to the tendency of people who
are asked misleading questions or given misleading informa-
tion to incorporate that information into their memories for a
particular event.