Understanding Memory: Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval
Understanding Memory: Key Concepts
Encoding: The process of organizing and transforming incoming information so that it can be entered into memory, either to be stored or to be compared with previously stored information.
Memory Storage
Storage: The process of retaining information in memory.
Memory Store: A set of neurons that serves to retain information over time.
Memory Retrieval
Retrieval: The process of accessing information stored in memory.
Types of Memory Stores
Modality-Specific Memory Store: Memory store that retains input from a single perceptual system, such as vision, audition, or language.
Types of Memories
Episodic Memories: Memories of events that are associated with a particular time or place.
Semantic Memory: Consists of general facts and knowledge. For example, knowing that football is a sport is an example of semantic memory.
Explicit Memory: The conscious, intentional recollection of previous experiences and information. Example: remembering the time of an appointment or recollecting an event from years ago.
Recall and Recognition
Recall: The act of intentionally bringing explicit information to awareness, which requires transferring the information from long-term memory (LTM) to short-term memory (STM).
Recognition Memory: The ability to recognize previously encountered events, objects, or people.
Factors Affecting Memory
Cues: Thoughts or feelings that trigger or enhance remembering, reminding one of an object or event.
Decay: The loss of memories over time because the relevant connections among neurons are lost.
Interference: Occurs when information disrupts the encoding or retrieval of other information.
Retroactive Interference: Occurs when new learning disrupts memory for something learned earlier. (e.g., a camper’s example).
Proactive Interference: Occurs when information already stored in memory makes it difficult to learn something new.
Memory Classification
Types of Memory:
- Explicit: (Semantic, Episodic)
- Implicit: (Classically Conditioned response, non-associative learning, habits, skills, priming)
Three-Stage Model of Memory
Three-Stage Model:
- Sensory Memory: Memory that holds a large amount of perceptual information for a short brief time (less than one second).
- Short-Term Memory: Information is held for approximately 30 seconds.
- Long-Term Memory: Information is stored for hours and years.
Three-Stage Model Flow: Sensory Memory → Short-Term Memory (Rehearsal) → Long-Term Memory
Teratogens and Maternal Factors
Teratogen: An external agent, such as a chemical, virus, or type of radiation that can cause damage to the zygote, embryo, or fetus.
Maternal Illness: A mother can contract a virus like chickenpox while pregnant, which can affect the fetus’s growth and potentially lead to developmental delays, as can HIV.
Alcohol and Drugs: Can damage the egg before fertilization and affect the growth of the baby. Drinking while pregnant can cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Cocaine can affect the father’s sperm and be transported into the mother’s egg and fetus.
Caffeine and Smoking: Excessive amounts of caffeine can lead to low birth weight or miscarriage. Smoking affects the mother’s lungs, affecting the fetus and potentially leading to miscarriage, smaller head size, and stillbirth. Damage to the fetus’s genes may cause SIDS, affecting the infant’s nervous system.
Diet and Pollution: Poor diet can lead to fewer brain cells in the infant and increase the risk of schizophrenia. Eating fish from polluted waters can cause the infant to be born deaf or with visual problems. Radiation from X-rays can cause cancer.
Maternal Stressors: The fetus is affected by the mother’s stress, which reflects on the infant in the womb directly, altering biological factors such as Maternal Blood Flow (less oxygen and nutrients to the fetus) and Increased Maternal Cortisol Levels, which slows down the operation of genes.
Amnesia
Amnesia: A loss of memory over an entire time span, which is not like normal forgetting.
- Organic Amnesia: Brain damage caused by stroke, loss of blood, cell death, or injury during surgery.
- Functional Amnesia: Psychological trauma or extreme stress.
- Retrograde Amnesia: Disrupts previous memories.
- Anterograde Amnesia: Leaves consolidated memories intact but prevents the storing of new facts.