Invitation to Psychology

ChaPteR 8 Memory 281

focusing it on the information we need for the

task at hand and warding off distracting informa-

tion (Baddeley, 1992, 2007; Engle, 2002). In our

math problem, your working memory must con-

tain the numbers and instructions for operating

on them, and also carry out those operations and

retain the intermediate results from each step.

People who do well on tests of working mem-

ory tend to do well on intelligence tests and on

tasks requiring complex cognition and the control

of attention, such as understanding what you

read, following directions, taking notes, playing

bridge, learning new words, estimating how much

time has elapsed, and many other real-life tasks

(Broadway & Engle, 2011). When they are en-

grossed in challenging activities that require their

concentration and effort, they stay on task longer,

and their minds are less likely than other people’s

to wander (Kane et al., 2007).

The ability to bring information from long-

term memory into short-term memory or to use

working memory is not disrupted in patients like

H. M. They can do arithmetic, relate events that

occurred before their injury, and do anything else

that requires retrieval of information from long-

term into short-term memory. Their problem is

with the flow of information in the other direc-

tion, from short-term to long-term memory.

Long-Term Memory: Final

Destination LO 8.10, LO 8.11, LO 8.12

The third box in the three-box model of memory

is long-term memory (LTM). The capacity of LTM

seems to have no practical limits. The vast amount

of information stored there enables us to learn,

get around in the environment, and build a sense

of identity and a personal history.

Organization in Long-Term Memory. Because

long-term memory contains so much information,

it must be organized in some way so that we can

find the particular items we are looking for. One

way to organize words is by the semantic categories to

which they belong. Chair, for example, belongs to

the category furniture. In a study done many years

ago, people had to memorize 60 words that came

from four semantic categories: animals, vegetables,

names, and professions. The words were presented

in random order, but when people were allowed

to recall the items in any order they wished, they

tended to recall them in clusters corresponding to

the four categories (Bousfield, 1953). This finding

has been replicated many times.

Evidence on the storage of information by

semantic category also comes from cases of people

with brain damage. In one such case, a patient

long-term memory

(LTM) In the three-box

model of memory, the

memory system involved

in the long-term storage

of information.

number 1776 is one chunk, not four, and the ac-
ronym FBI is one chunk, not three. In contrast,
the number 7167 is four chunks and IBF is three,
unless 7167 is your address (or PIN) or your ini-
tials are IBF. Some chunks are visual: If you know
football, when you see a play unfolding you may
see a single chunk of information—say, a wish-
bone formation—and be able to remember it. If
you do not know football, you will see only a field
full of players, and you probably won’t be able to
remember their positions when you look away.
But even chunking cannot keep short-term
memory from eventually filling up. Information
that will be needed for longer periods must there-
fore be transferred to long-term memory or it will
be displaced by new information and spill out of the
“bucket.” Particularly meaningful items may trans-
fer quickly, but other information will usually re-
quire processing—unless we do something to keep
it in STM for a while, as we will discuss shortly.

Simulate the Experiment Memory Experiment

at MyPsychLab

Working Memory. In the original three-box
model, short-term memory functioned basically
as a container for temporarily holding on to new
information or information retrieved from long-
term memory. But this view did not account for
the sense of effort we feel when trying to solve
a problem. Does 2 × (3 + 5)/4 = 4? Solving
that problem requires that we not simply hold
on to information but also work with it, which is
why psychologists today think that STM is part
of a working memory system. STM keeps its job
as a temporary holding bin, but another more
active part—an “executive”—controls attention,

working memory In

many models of memory,

a cognitively complex

form of short-term

memory; it involves active

mental processes that

control retrieval of infor-

mation from long-term

memory and interpret

that information appropri-

ately for a given task.

If you do not play chess, you probably will not be able
to recall the positions of these chess pieces after look-
ing away from the board for a while. But experienced
chess players can remember the position of every piece
after glancing only briefly at the board. They are able
to “chunk” the pieces into a few standard configura-
tions instead of trying to memorize where each piece is
located.