Chapter 7: Memory
Instructor's Resource Manual


Chapter Seven

chapter 7
memory

Chapter Outline 2
Learning Objectives 5
Lecture Enhancers
The Case of Mr. M. 6
"Your Name Escapes Me, But Your Face. . ." 7
Memory Under the Knife 7
The Role of Distinctiveness in Memory 8
Why You Don't Remember Your First Birthday Party 8
The Inner Workings of Working Memory 9
Episodic¼ Semantic 9
Déjà Vu 10
Memory Anomalies: Beyond Déjà Vu 10
Culture and Memory 11
Everyday Memory 12
The Mind(s) of Mnemonist(s) 12
Mnemonics in Mind 13
Student Assignments
Improving Memory 15
Memory in Film: Total Recall 15
Demonstrations and Activities
Demonstrating Simple Memory Principles 16
Decay and Interference in Short-term Memory 16
Depth of Processing and Memory 17
Coding in Long-Term Memory 18
Go Fly a Kite: The Effect of Context on Memory 18
Paddle Your Own Canoe 19
Pssst...Have You Heard About This Demonstration? 20
Organization and Memory 21
Schemas and Memory 21
The Self-Reference Effect 22
Attention and Memory: Forgetting vs. Not Getting 22
Debate: Are "Recovered" Memories of Sexual Abuse Real? 23
Video 24
Transparencies 28
Handout
Memory Test Scoring Sheet 29
Coding in Long-Term Memory 30
Memory for Word Lists 32, 33

chapter outline

I. Initial Studies

II. Traditional Models of Memory

III. Other Approaches to Learning and Memory

IV. Techniques for Improving Memory

V. The Physiological Basis of Learning and Memory

learning objectives

Students should be able to:

  1. Define memory and describe the early techniques devised for studying memory.
  2. Explain the significance of the curve of forgetting.
  3. Distinguish between the recognition test and the relearning test, and explain the calculation of the savings score.
  4. Describe the human memory system in terms of an information processing system and distinguish between the encoding, storage, and retrieval stages.
  5. Distinguish between the following components of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
  6. Distinguish between maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal and between proactive and retroactive interference.
  7. Discuss Craik and Lockhart's level of processing model.
  8. Describe the following types of long-term memory: procedural memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, and priming.
  9. Distinguish between the retrieval processes for short-term memory and long-term memory.
  10. Define encoding specificity and discuss its application to eyewitness testimony and state-dependent learning.
  11. Discuss the controversies surrounding repressed memory.
  12. List and explain five factors that help improve memory.
  13. Discuss the following processing strategies for improving memory: imagery, grouping, and coding.
  14. Distinguish between anterograde and retrograde amnesia.
  15. Describe Kandel's research on habituation, sensitization, and classical conditioning in the Aplysia.
  16. Describe the research that focuses on synaptic changes as a basis for learning and memory.

lecture enhancers

The Case of Mr. M.

The case of Mr. M is one of the most well-known in psychology. In his book Memory's Ghost, Philip Hilts (1995) pieces together what happened to Mr. M over the course of a decade-long investigation.

Mr. M was born in 1926 in Hartford; his early life was rather uneventful. At age seven a boy riding a bike downhill hit M, knocking him unconscious and cutting his face and head. In retrospect, this accident may have been a cause of the epilepsy that would lead to his famous surgery. At age 16, Mr. M, his mother and father were riding to Hartford to celebrate his birthday when he experienced a seizure; his limbs stiffened, his head jerked violently, he wet his pants, and bit his tongue until it bled. Up until that time he had noticed only short moments of blankness; small interruptions in the middle of conversations when he would stare blankly for a moment.

He graduated from high school; however, the teachers feared the possibility of a seizure so they would not allow him to march to receive his diploma. As time passed, M experienced more minor seizures (in which he blanked out for a moment several times a day) and major ones (sometimes weekly). Eventually Mr. M experienced about ten minor blackouts each week. Dr. William Scoville, a neurosurgeon who had performed lobotomies, was consulted and recommended a radical surgery.

On an August morning in 1953, Scoville administered a local anesthetic (skull area only) to Mr. M and then used a hand-held rotary drill to bore two holes above the eyes. Scoville then used a lever to lift up the frontal lobes; evidence of the resulting compression of the frontal lobes could be seen in brain scans taken 40 years after the surgery. Mr. M was awake throughout the procedure in which central portions of his brain were sucked out. The neurosurgeon hoped he had removed the source of the epilepsy. Scoville expected Mr. M to exhibit some disorientation and memory loss after the operation, but the results were far worse than expected. Mr. M could not find his way to the bathroom in the hospital. Nurses entered his room, spoke to him, and left. Upon their return, he had no memory of them. He recognized no one, did not know where he was, how he got there, or why. After the operation, Mr. M did have fewer and less severe seizures; however, they did not cease entirely. In fact, he had a full seizure the day after surgery. Upon discharge, Scoville described Mr. M as "improved."

Scoville tried to duplicate the effect of the operation (which we now know is due to removal of the hippocampus) by removing parts of the brains of animals. Scoville described the surgery as "frankly experimental" and urged surgeons not to try such procedures.

Shortly after arriving home after the surgery, Mr. M's mother found she could not let him walk two blocks to the store because he was unable to find his way back. His IQ of 110 to 120 seemed unchanged after the operation. In the 1960s and 1970s Mr. M was sent to a center for retarded children, where he was able to do so some work such as inserting metal clasps into folders. However, he needed to be reminded from time to time of what the task was. When he went to the bathroom he could not find his way back to his workstation even though it had been marked with a flag.

Independent life has been impossible for Mr. M. He lived with his parents until 1980, when at age 95 his mother was too old and too ill to care for him. He moved in with a retired psychiatric nurse and a distant relative of his. Mr. M can read a newspaper or magazine, put it down, pick it up a short time later and read it over as if for the first time. The date on the cover does not offer any help because he doesn't know the day, month, or year.

Hilts, P. J. (1995). Memory's ghost. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Adapted from Davis, S. F., & Palladino, J. J. (1996) Interactions: A newsletter to accompany Psychology, 2(Spr), 1.

"Your Name Escapes Me, But Your Face...
Well, It Escapes Me Too."

Memory disruptions often become increasingly prevalent as we age. Beyond the annoyance of forgetting an acquaintance's name, the groceries we need for a new recipe, or someone's face, is the annoyance of not quite knowing what to do about it. Memory disruptions could be due to faulty encoding of information, faulty retrieval, or both. A recent study suggests that encoding may be particularly important in successful memory among the elderly.

Researchers led by Cheryl L. Grady of the National Institute on Aging used positron emission tomography (PET) to study the brain activity of young and elderly participants as they took part in a memorization task. (PET scans show areas of heightened blood flow in the brain, which is often an indicator of activity in those areas.) Two groups of 10 volunteers each (one averaging 25 years of age and the other 69 years) viewed 32 unfamiliar faces for 4 seconds each, while PET scans recorded their brain activity. After a short break, PET scans were again obtained as the participants looked at faces from the first session, now paired with distracter faces, and identified which ones they had seen before.

The research team found that the group of younger participants recognized significantly more faces than did the elderly group. What's more, the PET scans revealed that among the younger participants, several brain regions (especially the hippocampus) leapt into activity during the memorization task. By comparison, the elderly participants' PET scans showed no heightened activity during the memorization process. These findings suggest support for the encoding deficit hypothesis of aging. The relatively poorer performance by the elderly participants seems to be due to not sufficiently encoding the information in the first place.

Wu, C. (1995). Brain scans hint why elderly forget faces. Science News, 148, 36.

Memory Under the Knife

Most people's script for undergoing surgery runs something like this: You're a little nervous, the anesthesiologist knocks you out, you wake up again in what seems like no time, you don't remember anything about the surgery, and you pay a hefty hospital bill. Most of that is correct, especially the part about the bill. But there's growing evidence that memory during anesthesia can still take place.

The purpose of anesthesia is clear; to reduce the patient's awareness of the events that are about to take place. Under general anesthesia the patient is literally "knocked out;" however, memories may be formed at an implicit, nonconscious level. For example, Goldmann (1986) asked patients who were about to undergo surgery a series of bizarre questions (e.g., "How many teeth does an elk have?"). Under anesthesia half the patients heard the correct answers to these questions and the other half did not. Within a few days of the surgery, patients were retested on these same questions. Those who had heard the answers showed significant improvement on their test scores compared to the other group, although none of the patients could recall hearing anything during surgery.

This possibility of memory formation suggests that statements made during surgery can affect the patient's well-being. This point is illustrated by the "fat lady syndrome" (Bennett, 1988). Several years ago a lawsuit was brought by a rather large woman against her surgeon, who had derisively referred to her during surgery as "a beached whale." The woman suffered postoperative complications for several days and eventually snapped at her nurse, "That bastard called me a beached whale" (Bennett, 1988, p. 204). The matter was settled out of court, although ample anecdotal (and some experimental) evidence attests to this type of "memory without awareness."

Moreover, there is some evidence that positive statements made during surgery can improve recovery rates. For example, Evans and Richardson (1988) played one of two audiotapes for 39 women undergoing hysterectomies. While under anesthesia, some women heard a tape that described normal postoperative procedures, contained direct therapeutic suggestions ("You will not feel any pain"), and presented positive statements ("Everything's going quite well"). During other women's surgeries a blank tape was played. Not only did women in the first group spend less time in the hospital, they also had fewer gastrointestinal problems and were rated by nurses as having a significantly better recovery. Interestingly, although none of the women in either group could recall any events that occurred during the operation, all but one of the women in the positive statement group correctly guessed that they heard the "statement tape," whereas only 50 percent of the "no tape" women correctly guessed their experimental condition.

Bennett, H. L. (1988). Perception and memory for events during adequate general anesthesia for surgical operations. In H. M. Pettinati (Ed.), Hypnosis and memory (pp. 193-231). New York: Guilford Press.

Evans, C., & Richardson, P. H. (1988). Improved recovery and reduced postoperative stay after therapeutic suggestions during general anesthesia. The Lancet, #8609 (II), 491-493.

Goldmann, L. (1986). Awareness under general anesthesia. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

The Role of Distinctiveness in Memory

The use of bizarre imagery is a component of several effective mnemonic techniques. Winograd and Soloway noted that people often report that they are better able to remember information that they have attempted to make distinctive. For example, we often store things in unusual places (such as leaving soccer cleats in the kitchen) in the belief that it will be easier to remember where we put the item at a later time. This is somewhat like using a bizarre image with the method of loci. In order to examine this belief, Winograd and Soloway presented research participants with sentences that described an object stored in a normal location ("The milk is in the refrigerator.") or an unusual location ("The tickets are in the freezer."). Participants were asked to either rate the sentence for the likelihood of using this location to store the item, the memorability of the storage location, or to generate an image of what was described in the sentence and then rate its memorability. Participants were then given a recall test in which they were asked to remember the locations of the objects presented in the sentences. Contrary to what might be expected, items rated low in likelihood (that is, stored in unusual locations) were remembered less often than those rated high, regardless of the rated memorability. Although distinctiveness may be an effective aid for remembering a particular item, Winograd and Soloway concluded that it does not appear to be useful for remembering the association between two items. This is an important point because when we store an object in an unusual place we need to remember the association between the object and the location. This differs from what occurs in the method of loci, in which we start with a location and use an imaginal representation of the location to store and remember an object. In the distinctiveness situation we are doing the opposite; starting with an object and trying to remember a location that was not established with a strong imaginal representation.

Winograd, E., & Soloway, R. (1986). On forgetting the location of things stored in special places. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115, 366-372.

Reprinted from Hill, W. G. (1995). Instructor's resource manual for Psychology by S. F. Davis and J. J. Palladino. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Why You Don't Remember Your First Birthday Party

Humans typically don't remember events in their lives that happened prior to their third or fourth birthday. Explaining why has been somewhat up for grabs. Freudians might suggest that this infantile amnesia is due to some murky unconscious process. However, infantile amnesia has been observed in frogs, mice, rats, dogs, and wolves (Spear, 1979), making it difficult to defend an "amphibian theory of repression" or "canine defense mechanisms." Similarly, the sheer passage of time cannot account for this kind of forgetfulness. Many of us can remember quite clearly and accurately events that happened long ago (such as an 80-year-old remembering her first ride in an automobile), and people with extraordinary memories (such as S., V.P., or S.F.) routinely recount incidents from the distant past. Something different must be at work.

A more promising explanation implicates the retrieval process. It's quite likely that information is encoded and organized by infants in a manner that is very different from what an adult might do. For example, adults routinely rely on language to help store information in memory (e.g., through verbal rehearsal, through mnemonics, through the very process of translating experiences into information that can be communicated). Preverbal infants and children clearly would not have this same strategy, or at least not developed to the same extent as an adult. Consequently, when an adult tries to retrieve memories from childhood, his or her schemas would not likely match the schemas used to encode the information in the first place. Much like the reinstatement of context suggested by the encoding specificity principle, an adult retrieval strategy for child-encoded information isn't going to get very far.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Spear, N. E. (1979). Experimental analysis of infantile amnesia. In J. F. Kihlstrom & F. J. Evans (Eds.), Functional disorders of memory (pp. 75-102). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

The Inner Workings of Working Memory

Area 46 could be anywhere; a loading dock, part of a busy airport, or a sector of a computer chip manufacturing plant. But Area 46 of the frontal lobe refers to a specific location that's revealed a specific function. Scientists are heralding Area 46 as the "scratch pad of the brain."

Most models of memory posit a "working memory" or holding area where information is stored before being consolidated (or lost). Recently, two research teams used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to pinpoint where that activity takes place. Susan Courtney, a researcher at the National Institutes of Mental Health, led a research project that had volunteers view a face on a computer monitor for 3 seconds. The participants kept the image in mind during an 8-second pause, then saw another face on the screen. If the second face matched the first, the participants pressed a button. The fMRI scans taken during this task showed that areas in the back of the brain were active when the faces first appeared, whereas Area 46 of the frontal lobe became and stayed active during the pause. (The distinction wasn't perfect; some rear areas were slightly active during the pause, and some frontal areas were active when the faces were shown.) In a second study, a research team led by Jonathan D. Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh asked participants to recall increasingly long strings of consonants flashed on a screen. As the sequence of letters increased, activity in the frontal lobe increased. Like the previous study, other areas of the brain were also active during these tasks.

Taken together, these results suggest that there is a coordinated effort in brain activity when working memory is activated. The frontal lobe "scratch pad" of Area 46 works in concert with other brain regions to process information and distribute it effectively. Further research, using millisecond-to-millisecond fMRI recording, may reveal with greater accuracy how different types of information get processed.

Bower, B. (1997, April 26). Where in the brain is working memory? Science News, 151, 258.

Boyd, R. S. (1997, November 30). Scientists find "scratch pad" where brain sorts memory. Austin American-Statesman, A22.

Episodic‚ Semantic

The daily lives of Beth, Jon, and Kate sound nightmarish. The 14, 19, and 22-year-olds can't remember where they've been shortly after they've been there, can't recall who've they've seen shortly after they've seen them, and can't recognize familiar buildings shortly after they've walked out of them. Each of these young people suffered from brain seizures at an early age that produced extensive damage to the hippocampus. And if the story ended here we'd shake our heads dejectedly, mumbling about the grace of God and knocking on available wood, as the trio walked away under the constant supervision of their parents.

It turns out, though, that Beth, Jon, and Kate all attended mainstream schools, have good speech and language skills, read and spell as well as their peers, and have acquired lots and lots of factual knowledge. Their abilities in these areas, contrasted with their disabilities in others, highlight the difference between semantic memory and episodic memory. What's more, they suggest that the areas of the brain responsible for these types of memory are different. Researchers led by Faraneh Vargha-Khadem of University College London Medical School studied these unusual individuals and concluded that although the hippocampus regulates recall of personal experiences, it plays only a minor role in the storage and acquisition of factual knowledge. In short, while episodic memory has been tragically disrupted for these three, semantic memory has remained largely intact.

Bower, B. (1997, August 2). Factual brains, uneventful lives. Science News, 152, 75.

Déjà Vu

Students are fascinated by the topic of déjà vu, or the feeling that one is reliving some prior experience. The déjà vu phenomenon has been investigated by psychologists throughout the history of the discipline, and a number of theories - neurological, supernatural, pathological, and otherwise - have been proposed to explain its presumed occurrence.

A team of Dutch researchers, led by Herman Sno, have investigated the topic at length in recent years. Sno and his colleagues argue that the déjà vu experience can be examined using the hologram as a model. In holographic photography, each piece of an image contains the full information necessary to reproduce the image, a property that gives holographic images their three-dimensional qualities. The smaller the fragment, however, the fuzzier the image reproduced. Sno argues that memory may operate in a similar fashion. When a fragment of a current perception is identical to a segment of a previously stored memory, the déjà vu experience will take place. Traced to their original forms the two memories may be quite different, although based on mismatch of fragments from each they seem so similar as to be a relived experience. This idea is in contrast to other explanations, such as that déjà vu results from a micromomentary hesitation in transmitting information across the cerebral hemispheres, or Freud's notions that déjà vu is a manifestation of the unconscious or a type of defense mechanism.

Sno, H. J., & Linszen, D. H. (1990). The déjà vu experience: Remembrance of things past? American Journal of Psychiatry, 147, 1587-1595.

Sno, H. J., Schalken, H. F. A., de Jonghe, F., & Koeter, M. W. J. (1994). The Inventory for Déjà Vu Experiences Assessment: Development, utility, reliability, and validity. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 182, 27-33.

Memory Anomalies: Beyond Déjà Vu

The déjà vu experience is perhaps the best known anomaly of memory, but it is by no means the only one. Like déjà vu, these anomalies are relatively harmless (unless they occur quite frequently) and may occur in most people's lives at some point.

Brown, A. S., & Murphy, D. R. (1989). Cryptomnesia: Delineating inadvertent plagiarism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 432-442.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Culture and Memory

All cultures place certain memory expectations on their members. For example, in Western culture we are expected to remember (through honors, ceremonies, observances) significant dates, persons, or activities. The Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Presidents Day, and, most obviously, Memorial Day, are examples of a kind of culturally-shared memory system. Although often there are no explicit guidelines for activities on these occasions and no particularly dire sanctions for not observing them, we will certainly be looked at askance if we don't remember when they are or what they signify. Other cultures and subcultures have similar occasions, such as religious observances (e.g., first Friday of the month) or anniversaries (e.g., the Tianemen Square demonstration).

Cultures and subcultures also have ritualized reminders for memory events. For example, people in Western cultures automatically know that a string around one's finger or an image of an elephant serve as reminders to do something, just as rosary beads help Catholics remember their prayers or a flag at half-mast helps remind a large group to honor someone's memory. The use and form of these reminders can vary from culture to culture, although like the memory tasks themselves they typically are learned implicitly within a cultural context.

Beyond these aspects of a "general cultural memory," there is also evidence that gender stereotypes play a role in what gets remembered and by whom. As discussed in Chapter 12, the formation of gender stereotypes and gender role expectations are often culture-bound. That cultural learning can in turn inspire certain types of memory. For example, Stephen Ceci and Urie Brofenbrenner (1985) showed that remembering when to terminate an event is better if the event is consistent with gender stereotypes. Boys were better at remembering when to stop charging a motorcycle battery than remembering when to take cupcakes out of the oven, whereas girls showed the opposite pattern. Similarly, Douglas Herrmann and his colleagues (1992) showed that female and male undergraduates had differential memory for an ambiguous paragraph depending on its title. When given a "male-like" title ("How to Make a Workbench"), men remembered more details than did women, although the opposite was true if the ambiguous passage had a "female-like" title ("How to Make a Shirt"). The influence of culture on memory, then, also occurs indirectly through the expectations and stereotypes set up within a cultural context.

Ceci, S. J., & Brofenbrenner, U. (1985). "Don't forget to take the cupcakes out of the oven": Prospective memory, strategic time-monitoring, and context. Child Development, 56, 152-164.

Herrmann, D. J., Crawford, M., & Holdsworth, M. (1992). Gender-linked differences in everyday memory performance. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 221-231.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Everyday Memory

The cognitive revolution heralded a return to investigating topics such as memory, mental imagery, language, and cognition, and doing so in a way that was experimentally rigorous. Unfortunately, the memory situations produced in the lab often did not have real-world counterparts, and the cry went out from several quarters for a more ecological approach to memory, one which would embrace the practicalities of everyday memory.

Alan Baddeley and Arnold Wilkins have summarized some of the pros and cons of taking memory research out of the laboratory. Some advantages of studying memory in real-world situations include:

Some practical considerations in leaving the laboratory include:

Baddeley, A. D., & Wilkins, A. (1984). Taking memory out of the laboratory. In J. E. Harris & P. E. Morris (Eds.), Everyday memory, actions, and absent-mindedness (pp. 1-17). London: Academic Press.

The Mind(s) of Mnemonist(s)

We are often awed, sometimes jealous, and occasionally resentful of those who have prodigious memories. Perhaps it is their smarty-pants attitude that they can remember the details of an event that escape us. Their smugness soon fades, however, in the face of truly extraordinary memory.

S., also known to his mother as S. V. Shereshevskii, was able to recall even the most meaningless drivel with great accuracy and sometimes years after learning it by relying on mnemonics; visualizing the information, forming elaborate associations, capitalizing on synesthetic experiences, and so on. However, S. is not without company. There are several other people who have demonstrated similar abilities.

For example, V. P., a Latvian born in 1934 in a small town coincidentally close to S.'s birthplace, read at age 3_, memorized the street map of a large city at 5, and committed 150 poems to memory at age 10. Both V. P.'s short-term and long-term memory appear impressive. On standard short-term memory tasks, such as recalling three consonants over an 18-second interval while counting backwards by three, V. P. showed virtually no disruption. Similarly, he could remember the War of the Ghosts with the same extraordinary accuracy after 1 hour or after 1 year. The secret to his success, however, appears to be different from that of S. V. P.'s strategy seems to be based on quickly forming verbal associations to information using any of the several languages that he speaks (Latin, English, Estonian, Latvian, Russian, Spanish, Hebrew, French, German). Information that would stump most of us might call up a bawdy Latin verse for V. P., and thus contribute to his memorization.

Rajan Mahadevan's specialty is numbers. Rajan came to the public's attention while a graduate student in psychology, but his memory feats occurred regularly even as a young boy. People in his native Mangalore, India were astounded by his ability to remember anything numerical. So were the folks at the Guinness Book of World Records; in 1981, Rajan was able to recite the first 31,811 digit of pi. Like V. P., Rajan relies on idiosyncratic associations drawn from a vast knowledge base: Like most of us, he remembers "111" because Admiral Nelson had 1 eye, 1 arm, and 1 leg.

Finally, S. F. represents a "manufactured memorist." While an undergraduate at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1978, S. F. embarked on a laboratory project initiated by K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues (e.g., Chase & Ericsson, 1981) that lasted 2 years. The task was simple enough. S. F. would read a sequence of random digits at one per second, then recall them in the correct order. If successful, the next group would be increased by one digit, and if unsuccessful it would be reduced by a digit. By the end of the training session S. F. had mastered a sequence of some 80 digits, compared to most people's typical performance of about 7. The secret was in S. F.'s avocation. As a long-distance runner he formed meaningful chunks from the digits he read, such as 1076 for an important race in October, 1976, or other sets of digits for best times, typical distances, and so on. Sadly, S. F. died in 1981 from a chronic blood disorder, although others (such as D. D., also a long-distance runner, who commands a digit span of 106) have continued this project.

Chase, W. G., & Ericsson, K. A. (1981). Skilled memory. In J. R. Anderson (Ed.), Cognitive skills and their acquisition (pp. 141-189). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Mnemonics in Mind

Chapter 7 mentions some tips for improving one's memory, focusing on the use of mnemonics as one effective strategy. Here is a collection of mnemonics, divided into naive strategies (i.e., those used regularly and easily by most people, without needing formal instruction) and technical mnemonics (i.e., those requiring some training).

Naive Mnemonics

Technical Mnemonics

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

student assignments

Improving Memory

This exercise, like the behavior modification project suggested in the previous chapter, asks students to put what they've learned to practical use. For this assignment, students should target some specific aspect of their memory that they would like to improve and then apply one or more memory principles from the text or lecture to make the improvement. Students might, for example, strive to enhance their performance on exams, to recall important birthdates and anniversaries, to remember people's names following introductions, or to reduce absentminded actions, such as misplacing keys or a wallet. Potential memory strategies include the use of established (e.g., Pegword, method of loci) or home-made mnemonics, eliminating distracters and paying careful attention when studying, meeting new people, or putting keys down, trying to encode material deeply and by multiple methods (e.g., by meaning, by self-referencing, and by encoding visually), making better use of retrieval cues, engaging in active, elaborative rehearsal while reading, applying the SQ3R method, and so on. Students might also be encouraged (but not required) to consult additional sources for ideas. One potential resource for this assignment is an excellent, well-written book by Kenneth Higbee. After implementing their plan, students should write a short paper in which they report on their experiences. Specifically, students should describe (a) the aspect of memory they targeted for improvement (and why), (b) the memory principles or strategies they used (including the rationale behind them), and (c) any results (positive or negative) from applying these techniques. After grading students' papers, you might want to devote some class time to discussion so that students can share their successful experiences with others.

Higbee, K. L (1993). Your memory: How it works and how to improve it. New York: Paragon House.

Memory in Film: Total Recall

Arnold Schwarzennegger and Sharon Stone star in this futurist tale of a construction worker who takes a "fantasy vacation" to Mars courtesy of an implanted memory chip. When other, darker memories begin to haunt him, however, he discovers that he was once a secret service agent and that memories of that time period have been stolen from him. Spectacular special effects highlight this engrossing film (from 1990), which shows how reality can be invented with implanted memories and also illustrates the difficulty of drawing a line between reality and memory (ideas that are touched upon in the repressed memory section of Chapter 7). Ask your students to gather a few recent articles on reconstructed and/or recovered memories and to write a short paper relating ideas from this research and from the text to this provocative film. (Live; 113 min).

demonstrations and activities

Demonstrating Simple Memory Principles

Wertheimer described an activity that can be used to demonstrate a number of principles related to memory and forgetting, including the forgetting curve, the effect of meaningfulness, the effect of distinctiveness (sometimes known as the von Restorff effect), the effect of repetition, and the serial position effect. When you start the class, divide the students into four groups by assigning each person a number from one to four. Explain that you are going to read a list of items to them twice and that they will need to memorize the list. Make sure you tell them not to write the items down. Although you may want to construct your own list, the following list is similar to that suggested by Wertheimer: Clinton, ruj, fet, textbook, nav, Bush, fulfill, GEF, mandate, fet, 47, tal. The items should be read slowly, clearly, and at a uniform rate each time they are read. The nonsense syllables need to be both pronounced and spelled. Finally, shout as loudly as possible the nonsense syllable "GEF." Immediately after completing the second reading of the list, ask Group 1 to write down all of the items that they can remember. Continue with your lecture, but after about 3 min ask Group 2 to write down the items. Then, after another 5 min, ask Group 3 to remember the items. Finally, about 45 min after the initial list presentation, ask Group 4 to write as many items as they can remember. Make sure that during and between each retrieval by a group there is no discussion of the items. Once you have scored and recorded the number of items correctly recalled by each group on the board, you should be able to point out the negatively accelerated forgetting curve. In addition, an examination of performance on particular items across groups will indicate the effects of meaningfulness (recall of presidents should be superior to nonsense syllables), distinctiveness (GEF should show superior recall), repetition (fet should be recalled with a higher frequency), and the serial position effect.

Wertheimer, M. (1981). Memory and forgetting. In L. T. Benjamin, Jr. & K. D. Lowman (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology (pp. 75-76). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Reprinted from Hill, W. G. (1995). Instructor's resource manual for Psychology by S. F. Davis and J. J. Palladino. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Decay and Interference in Short-Term Memory

This simple exercise uses the Brown-Peterson distracter technique to demonstrate the effects of delay and interference on short-term memory. Tell students that you want them to remember a sequence of three consonant letters while counting backwards from a number you provide them. When they're ready, say, "W T K" and then "701." They should then say "701, 698, 695, 692, 689, 686" and so on. After 15 to 18 seconds, say "write" as a signal to students to recall the three letters. According to Peterson and Peterson, students should have a fairly difficult time accomplishing this because the counting task prevents them from rehearsing the letters and thus allows the memory trace to decay. Keppel and Underwood later argued that the forgetting in the Brown-Peterson task was primarily due to the buildup of proactive interference. As evidence, they pointed to the fact that students could often remember the letters during the first trial or two, but had much greater difficulty remembering letters on any subsequent trials, when proactive interference would develop (i.e., they would have trouble distinguishing between letters presented earlier and on the current trial). Verify this effect with your students by conducting several trials. Examples of potential letter/number combinations might include PZX 317, BVQ 421, LFC 991, JHG 187, and SRN 275. Students will be astonished at their atrocious performance, which, if typical of experiments of this type, should yield about 1 in 10 correct recalls after only 18 seconds of the distracter task!

Keppel, G., & Underwood, B. J. (1962). Proactive inhibition in short-term retention of single items. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1, 153-161.

Peterson, L. R., & Peterson, M. J. (1959). Short-term retention of individual verbal items. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 193-198.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Depth of Processing and Memory

This activity, adapted from exercises suggested by James Jenkins and by Donald DeRosa, reliably demonstrates that memory for information depends on the depth at which it is processed. Do this exercise after you have introduced short- and long-term memory but before you have discussed specific encoding strategies (e.g., encoding verbally, by visual images, by meaning, and so on). Have students take out a clean sheet of paper and number it from 1 to 30. Tell students that you are going to read aloud a list of words and that you would like them to make a judgment about each word. (Do not mention that this is a memory experiment or that they will be asked to recall the words later.) Explain that the letter that precedes each word will signal the particular judgment you would like them to make. Specifically, if the letter "A" is presented before the word, you want them to write down the number of syllables that are in the word. If the letter "B" is presented before the word, you want them to judge whether it is pleasant or unpleasant (by writing "P" for pleasant and "U" for unpleasant). You should write this information on the chalkboard as you give it, and you might also encourage students to write it at the top of their papers as a reminder. Stress that they should make their judgments relatively quickly and without hesitation (e.g., for the pleasantness judgment, they choose one or the other, and not something in between).

Then, slowly and clearly read the following list of words at a rate of about 1 word every 4 seconds (you can either count to yourself or use a stopwatch). For example, you would begin by saying, "A" (short pause), "bike" (pause for 4 seconds), "B" (short pause), "month" (pause for 4 seconds), and so on.

1. A bike 11. B fire 21.B trunk
2. B month 12. B trail 22. A coal
3. A magic 13. A soap 23. B pipe
4. B foot 14. B pocket 24. A pitch
5. A monkey 15. A pencil 25. B coin
6. B clock 16. B train 26. A hammer
7. B paint 17. A grass 27. A door
8. B bureau 18. A story 28. B church
9. A bird 19. B belt 29. B travel
10. A lemon 20. A kitchen 30. A fish

Note that this is just one potential word list and one potential order. You can do this exercise with any set of common nouns and you can easily generate a new order (with new judgment pairings) by doing the following. Make notecards for each of the words, shuffle them, and then randomly sort them into two boxes or bins (one for A, the other for B). After writing "A" or "B" on each card next to the word (according to which box it landed in), place all the cards in a stack and then shuffle them thoroughly to get a new order.

After you've read the entire list, ask students to quickly write down as many of the states in the United States that they remember (give them about 2 minutes for this task). Then, ask students to turn their papers over and to write down as many of the words that they can recall from the list you read, in any order that they want. Give them about 3 or 4 minutes for this task, and then have them score their answers by projecting a transparency containing the word list (provided in Handout 7-1). Ask students to write an "A" or a "B" next to each word they recalled according to the scoring sheet (they should cross out any words recalled that were not on the list). Then, they should count the total number of A and B words recalled. You can tally the results by making a frequency distribution on the board (i.e., writing down for each person the number of A and B words remembered) and calculating (or eyeballing) average scores for each condition. If you're pressed for time or have a large class, you can simply ask students to raise their hands if they remembered more A than B words, and compare this to the number of students who remembered more B than A words. Whichever way you score it, students should have recalled many more B than A words.

After scoring, ask students to explain the results. Most will intuitively be able to explain that the B words were more memorable because they had to think more about the words (and their meaning) in order to make the judgment of pleasantness. By contrast, making the A judgment (i.e., number of syllables) required simply saying the word to themselves rather than thinking about what it meant. Thus, this exercise demonstrates the superiority of coding semantically (i.e., by meaning) over coding phonologically (i.e., by sound). That is, the deeper and more elaborate the processing of information, the more likely it is to be recalled. At this point, if students don't already see it, you'll want to highlight the implications of this experiment for their study habits. The importance of studying actively should now be crystal clear, and students will no doubt realize that thinking deeply about--and attaching meaning to (rather than merely rehearsing)--terms and concepts in their courses is the key to effective recall on exams. Also, you might ask students to explain the purpose of the state-listing task (it was a distracter task to prevent any of the words from being held in short-term memory, which lasts for about 20 seconds). Finally, it wouldn't hurt to remind students of the forgetting assignment (if you did it) and how difficult it was for them to forget something that was encoded as meaningful!

DeRosa, D. V. (1987). How to study actively. In V. P. Makosky, L. G. Whittemore, & A. M. Rogers (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology: Vol. 2 (pp. 72-74). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Jenkins, J. (1981). Meaning enhances recall. In L. T. Benjamin & K. D. Lowman (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology (pp. 81-82). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Coding in Long-Term Memory

Searleman and Herrmann suggest a simple exercise (adapted from Sachs, 1967) that demonstrates that information in long-term memory is typically coded by meaning rather than by literal content. Tell your students that they should carefully read the story presented on the overhead (see Handout 7-2) and that they should be prepared to have their memory tested for one of its sentences. After students have had time to read (but not study) the story, present the sentences (students should choose which one was presented in the story) and remove the story. Most students will quickly eliminate choice C (which has a different meaning than the other sentences) but will have difficulty deciding among the other three choices (which differ in form and structure but not meaning). Thus, it appears that people quickly forget verbatim information while retaining its general meaning. In actuality, our coding process is a very flexible and adaptive one. When we absolutely need to (e.g., when we must memorize a poem, riddle, or quotation), we can code verbatim information into long-term memory. Most of the time, however, because it is most important that we remember the meaning of events, we code the gist of information rather than its literal content. (Note: If your class is too large or you don't have access to an overhead machine, this exercise can be conducted orally as well.)

Sachs, J. S. (1967). Memory in reading and listening to discourse. Memory & Cognition, 21, 73-80.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Go Fly a Kite: The Effect of Context on Memory

Marty Klein described an activity that is designed to illustrate the effect of meaningfulness on memory. In his demonstration, meaningfulness is manipulated by presenting the same passage with or without a contextual statement. Prior to reading the passage, give half of the class a piece of paper with the statement, "The context is kite flying." Tell those receiving the contextual statement not to discuss it. Then slowly and clearly read the following passage:

A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill but is easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.

After completing the passage, ask students to take out a piece of paper and to write down as much of the passage as they can. Then ask the students that received the contextual statement to mark their paper so that they can be identified, and collect the papers. You can either immediately compare the responses of both groups by reading selected papers from each group, or you can score the responses after class and bring a data summary to the next class. Obviously, you should find that those students with a context outperform those without. Klein suggested using these results to discuss the importance of context and how it may relate to study strategies.

Another example, used by Bransford and Johnson (1972, p. 722), should work just as well if you follow the same procedures described above. Note that for this story the context is "washing clothes."

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities, that is the next step; otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important, but complications can arise. A mistake can prove expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but one can never tell. After the procedure is completed, one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will all be used once more, and the whole cycle will have to be repeated. However, that is part of life.

Bransford, J. D., & Johnson, M. K. (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 717-726.

Klein, M. (1981). Context and memory. In L. T. Benjamin, Jr. & K. D. Lowman (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology (p. 83). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Paddle Your Own Canoe

Michael Wertheimer suggests an entertaining exercise that, like the kite and laundry stories above, effectively makes the point that context can lead to better retention by enabling us to organize information more effectively and meaningfully. For this exercise, you'll need to enlist the help of some confederates during the class period prior to the one in which you'll conduct the demonstration. End class that day a few minutes early and when about half the class has left, ask the remaining students to stay behind for a few minutes. Tell them that they will be in the experimental group and that at the beginning of the next class you'll display a set of digits and some French words to be memorized. Explain that the digits and French words will look haphazard and hard to memorize, but that as the experimental group they will be given the following clues: The digits are actually the squares of the numbers 1 through 9, and the French phrase sounds very much like the English phrase, "Paddle your own canoe." At the beginning of the next class, write the following sequence of digits on the board (be sure to hold the space constant between digits so the control group doesn't catch on):

1 4 9 1 6 2 5 3 6 4 9 6 4 8 1

Underneath the digits, write the following French phrase:

Pas de l'y a Rhone que nous

Tell your students that they'll have 60 seconds to memorize both pieces of information. After a minute has elapsed, erase both lists completely and continue with class. About 20 minutes before the end of the session, ask all students to write down all digits and all French words they can remember (give them 2 or 3 minutes for this task). Then, write the digit list and French phrase on the board in the same manner as before and have students score their papers by counting the number of digits and French words they correctly recalled. At this point, you can let the whole class in on the secret (e.g., tell them about the contextual cues) and compare recall between the experimental and control groups by making a frequency distribution on the board. Of course, the mean number of items (both digits and French words) should be higher for the experimental group. Once again, this exercise should reinforce for students the importance of striving to attach meaning to new material rather than trying to blindly memorize it.

Wertheimer, M. (1987). Meaningfulness and memory. In V. P. Makosky, L. G. Whittemore, & A. M. Rogers (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology: Vol. 2 (pp. 80-82). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

"Psssst...Have You Heard About This Demonstration?"

Doug Bernstein and Sandra Goss suggest an exercise to demonstrate how encoding and retrieval of information from long-term memory can be disrupted by expectations, prior knowledge, and the application of schemas. The exercise is a variation on the transmission of rumor, a game often played by children and a phenomenon often studied by social psychologists (e.g., Allport & Postman, 1947).

Ask 3 to 5 volunteers to leave the classroom, then read a paragraph-length passage to a remaining volunteer. The passage should be short enough to remember, but detailed enough that the volunteers are unlikely to remember all the elements of it. Bernstein and Goss suggest the following passage as an example:

"A TWA Boeing 747 had just taken off from Miami International Airport for Los Angeles when a passenger near the rear of the aircraft announced that the plane was being taken over by the People's Revolutionary Army for the Liberation of the Oppressed. The hijacker held a .357 magnum to the head of Jack Swanson, a flight attendant, and forced him to open the cockpit door. There, the hijacker confronted the pilot, Jane Randall, and ordered her to change course for Cuba. The pilot radioed the Miami air traffic control center to report the situation but then suddenly hurled the microphone at the hijacker. The hijacker fell backward through the open cockpit door and onto the floor, where angry passengers took over from there. The plane landed in Miami a few minutes later and the hijacker was arrested."

The volunteer's task is to repeat the story to the first newcomer who re-enters the classroom. That person in turn repeats it to the next volunteer, and so on until the last volunteer hears the story and repeats it to the class. Each retelling of the story should be loud enough so that all the remaining students in the class can hear it.

Have students keep track of the errors made in each retelling and use them as a basis for discussing reconstructive memory. The errors should be quite predictable; the story should get shorter as details are omitted, some details (such as the female pilot or caliber of the gun) should remain sharp, and overall the gist of the story should be retained while other details get blurred. Discuss with your students what this exercise reveals about the operation of the memory system.

Allport, G. W., & Postman, L. (1947). The psychology of rumor. New York: Holt.
Bernstein, D. A., & Goss, S. S. (1999). Constructive memory/schemas: The rumor chain. In L. T. Benjamin, B. F. Nodine, R. M. Ernst, and C. B. Broeker (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology (Vol. 4). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Organization and Memory

Several previous exercises have demonstrated the important role that meaning plays in our ability to remember information. Another important factor in memory is organization. George Mandler was an early proponent of the view that the organization of material (i.e., grouping items together based on shared relationships) is crucial to memory because it effectively reduces the amount of material that needs to be processed and stored (Searleman & Herrmann, 1994). Indeed, research shows that subjects will often spontaneously organize items into groups in order to remember them better.

John Fisher suggests a simple exercise that demonstrates the importance of organization in memory. Handouts 7-3a and 7-3b each contain a list of 12 words that students should study briefly and then try to recall. Note that both lists contain the same dozen words but in a different order: The words in list b are arranged so that each word has some natural association with the word that precedes it, whereas the words in list a are arranged randomly. Photocopy an equal number of each handout and randomly distribute them (face down) to students so that half have one version of the word list and half have the other (do not mention that the lists are different). Instruct students to turn the list over and briefly study the words; give them about 30 seconds for this task and then have them put the list away. Then, distract your students for about a minute (e.g., by talking to them or by having them count backwards from 100) and then have them take out a clean sheet of paper and write down all the words they can recall. After about 45 seconds, have them stop writing and score their recall list (by comparing it to the original word list). Explain that there were different versions of the word lists and ask students which group they would expect to have superior recall. Most will immediately state that the group with the organized word list should perform better. Verify that this is the case by creating a frequency distribution on the board (and listing the number of correctly recalled words for each student in group A and in group B). Discuss these results with your students. What implications do they have for improving recall on exams? What techniques do students currently use to take advantage of this principle? Can they think of new ways to increase organization and recall?

Fisher, J. (1979). Body magic. Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein and Day.

Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Schemas and Memory

Schemas (i.e., organized mental frameworks that we rely on to interpret and filter incoming information) greatly influence the retrieval of information stored in long-term memory. To demonstrate this effect in your classroom, replicate an exercise suggested by Drew Appleby. Tell students that you are going to show them a list of 12 words and that they should try to remember them. Then, slowly display (by using index cards or transparencies) the following words one at a time as you read them aloud:

REST, TIRED, AWAKE, DREAM, SNORE, BED, EAT, SLUMBER, SOUND, COMFORT, WAKE, NIGHT.

After you've completed the list, distract your class for 30 seconds or so (to ensure that the words are no longer held in short-term memory) and then give them 2 minutes to write down as many words as they can recall. Ask for a show of hands from all those who recalled the word AARDVARK. Your students, none of whom will have mistakenly recalled AARDVARK, will look at you as if you're crazy. Then ask for a show of hands for those who remembered SLEEP. Appleby reports that 80 to 95 percent of the students typically recall the word SLEEP, and are astonished to discover that SLEEP was not on the list (prove it to them). Asked to explain the effect, most students will intuitively understand that schemas influenced their recall. That is, because all of the words were associated with each other and related to the topic of sleep, their schema for "sleep" was invoked and it seemed only natural that it would be on the list. Thus, this demonstration suggests that schemas can cause us to fabricate false memories that happen to be consistent with our schemas. You might also want to discuss with students the following interesting implication: If people sometimes mistakenly remember information because it is consistent with their schemas, is it possible that they can mistakenly forget information that is inconsistent with their schemas? Ask students to provide examples from their own lives or from cases they've heard about in the media.

Appleby, D. (1987). Producing a deja vu experience. In V. P. Makosky, L. G. Whittemore, & A. M. Rogers (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology: Vol. 2 (pp. 78-79). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

The Self-Reference Effect

An activity described by Forsyth and Wibberly is effective in demonstrating the self-reference effect on memory. They noted that, based upon studies of constructive processes in memory, schema theories propose that information is arranged within a system of cognitive groupings or schemas such as event schemas, which define and provide a structure for social situations, or self-schemas, which reflect one's individual characteristics. The self-reference effect refers to retrieval superiority for information that is related to a person's self-schema. Forsyth and Wibberly described how this effect can be demonstrated using an incidental memory task. Explain to the class that you are gathering data about which adjectives are most commonly used for self-descriptions. Ask the class to number a sheet of paper from 1 to 20. Tell them that you will be reading a list of 20 adjectives and if they feel that an adjective is self-descriptive of themselves, they are to circle the corresponding number of the adjective on their paper. Next, read the following list of adjectives: forceful, quiet, generous, dominant, tender, loyal, independent, compassionate, adaptable, courageous, cheerful, secretive, principled, romantic, responsible, dynamic, forgiving, and careful. After completing the list, talk about some matters related to class for about a minute, then ask the students to write down as many of the adjectives that they can recall. Then read the original list of adjectives and have the students calculate the number of descriptive and non-descriptive adjectives that they recalled. Forsyth and Wibberly reported that the results of this demonstration are usually robust, with students consistently remembering a higher percentage of self-descriptive adjectives. They indicated that the demonstration is effective in generating discussion of schema and depth-of-processing theories of memory by noting that self-referent items tend to be processed at deeper levels.

Forsyth, D. R., & Wibberly, K. H. (1993). The self-reference effect: Demonstrating schematic processing in the classroom. Teaching of Psychology, 20, 237-238.

Reprinted from Hill, W. G. (1995). Instructor's resource manual for Psychology by S. F. Davis and J. J. Palladino. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Attention and Memory: Forgetting vs. Not Getting

Kenneth Higbee cites a quotation by Oliver Wendall Holmes to illustrate the importance of attention in memory. In saying, "A man must get a thing before he can forget it," Holmes implies that when we think we "forgot" something, it may be because we never actually paid attention to it in the first place. Ask your class to answer this series of questions posed by Higbee (answers follow):

  1. Which color is on top of a stoplight? (red)
  2. Whose image is on a penny? (Lincoln) Is he wearing a tie? (yes, a bow tie)
  3. What five words besides "In God We Trust" appear on most U.S. coins? (United States of America and Liberty)
  4. When water goes down the drain, does it swirl clockwise or counterclockwise? (counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere; clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere)
  5. What letters, if any, are missing on a telephone dial? (Q, Z)

For a more elaborate example, ask your students to draw the head of a penny from memory. Interestingly, although we've all seen and handled pennies hundred of times, it is extremely hard to reproduce accurately. For example, did your students orient Lincoln's profile correctly (the right side of his face is showing)? Did they remember "In God We Trust" across the top? Did they remember the word to the left of Lincoln (liberty)? Did they remember the date and the minting place (to the right of Lincoln)? Did they mistakenly remember information from the back of the penny (one cent, E Pluribus Unum, United States of America)?

Higbee suggests several interesting implications of the relationship between attention and memory. For example, because we can only pay attention to one thing at a time, we shouldn't try to study when other distracters are competing for our attention (e.g., television, music, people talking). Also, perhaps the reason we forget other people's names so easily when we first meet them is because we're not really paying attention; instead, we're waiting for our own name to be said or concentrating on what we are going to say. Absentmindedness, suggests Higbee, can also be attributed to not paying attention. We forget where we parked our car because we were not paying attention when we did it; thus, to reduce absentmindedness we should focus our attention on what we are doing (e.g., "Notice that I'm parking my car today on the left side of the front lot"). Encourage your students to provide other examples as well.

Higbee, K. L (1993). Your memory: How it works and how to improve it. New York: Paragon House.

Debate:
Are "Recovered" Memories of Sexual Abuse Always Real?

Chapter 7 highlights the legal and psychological implications of recovered memories. It is hard to imagine another psychological issue in recent memory that has garnered as much public attention as has the validity of repressed memories (e.g., sexual abuse memories that surface many years after the fact). There is no doubt that sexual abuse occurs and is a serious and undeniable trauma; what is in question, however, is whether all recovered memories are in fact accurate or whether at least some memories are unwittingly but falsely shaped by others. This volatile but important issue has been the subject of television shows, symposia, journal issues, conferences, and has even spawned an organization, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. Your students may have already formed opinions on this issue from what they have seen or heard in the media. Encourage them to explore this issue in more depth--and from both sides--by considering the scientific evidence and arguments in a debate format. Assign students to research this issue and to be prepared to defend either side. Issue 8 in Taking Sides presents both pro and con viewpoints on this controversial topic, and students should be encouraged to find more recent sources from journal articles (see, for example, the American Psychologist) and from the popular media. Among other things, this debate should give students insight into the nature of long-term memory, conflict between among psychologists from different perspectives, and the relationship between the media and psychological issues.

Slife, B. (1996). Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial psychological issues (9th ed.). Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing Group.

video

ABC News/Prentice Hall Video Library

A Pill to Improve Failing Memory as We Age (3:43 min, Series III). This clip from ABC's World News Tonight looks at research conducted by Cortex, a California firm. Using animal models, researchers at Cortex have developed a pill that helps information be retained 30 to 40% longer than normal. Human trials are underway in Europe, and work in America with Alzheimer's patients is soon to begin.

Other Sources

The Brain, Part 5: Learning and Memory (1984, 60 min, ANN/CPB). Explores the physiological basis of learning and memory through cases studies of an individual with an exceptional memory and an individual experiencing memory loss.

Discovering Psychology, Part 9: Remembering and Forgetting (1990, 30 min, ANN/CPB). Examines memory formation, forgetting through decay and interference, and methods for improving memory.

Human Memory (1978, 25 min, HBJ). Gordon Bower narrates this look at memory and memory distortions. Tips for improving one's memory are also offered.

Learning and Memory (1984, 55 min, PBS). The focus of this film is on the brain changes that take place as memory is consolidated. Chemical and physical theories of the memory process are discussed.

Memory (1980, 30 min, IM). Presents the results of biological and cognitive research on storage, encoding, and retrieval processes. The program also addresses several memory phenomena including disturbances related to disease or accidents, flashbulb memories, and eyewitness testimony.

Memory: Fabric of the Mind (1988, 28 min, FHS). Examines brain research on the biochemical basis of memory and the locations of memories in the brain. Other topics addressed include causes of forgetting, long-term versus short-term memory, and memory improvement techniques.

Memory: The Past Imperfect (1994, 46 min, IM). A range of topics is considered, such as long- and short-term memory, amnesia, eyewitness accuracy, retrieval, and memory skills of babies.

Memory Skills: Power Learning (1991, 25 min, LS). Memory techniques such as visualization and mental "pegboards" are explored, and tips for improving one's memory are offered using short vignettes and examples. An accompanying booklet includes summaries of the key points on the tape and suggestions for further activities. This video is very well produced, although the pacing and level of presentation may make it more appropriate for use in a high school or community college course.

Memory, Suggestion, and Abuse (1994, 60 min, IM). How reconstruction, rather than reproduction, guides the memory process is the focus of this "applied" look at memory. The pitfalls of some therapeutic techniques are discussed, as is the fragile susceptibility of memory to disruption.

Mind Games (1995, 30 min, IM). The spooky secrets of the mind are explored, such as near-death experiences and hypnosis. Deja vu is also considered. Deja vu is also considered.

Mystery of Memory (1989, 30 min, COR/MTI). This program examines current knowledge of how the brain stores and retrieves information and how this ability decreases over time. A special focus on Alzheimer's disease and the devastating impact on its victims.

The Nature of Memory (26 min, FHS). Describes the use of computer models to mimic memory processes, research on amnesiacs, the role of emotion in memory, and how memories can become altered.

Persistence of Memory (1980, 58 min, PBS). As part of the Cosmos series, Carl Sagan explores the evolution of the brain as an information storage device. External information storage is also focused on as an extension of human memory.

The Study of Memory (74 min, FHS). Diagrams and real-life examples are used to explain basic memory terminology, Examples of everyday memory, forgetting, and eyewitness testimony are also presented.

transparencies series IV

6.1 Model of the Memory System
Information flows from the senses into the sensory registers. Information in the sensory registers that is attended to may then enter short-term memory for further processing, otherwise it is lost from the sensory register due to rapid decay. Information selected for further processing enters short-term memory. Material in short-term memory can be maintained there through rote repetition. Further rehearsal and processing can transfer information into long-term memory, otherwise it is forgotten.
6.2 Experimental Evidence for the Visual Sensory Register
Sperling's experimental method for studying the visual sensory register is illustrated. In his procedure Sperling would flash an array of letters on a screen for 1/20th of a second. When asked to report all of the letters they had seen (whole report), subjects could only remember about four letters. In the partial report procedure, the array would be flashed on the screen and then a tone would be sounded. The pitch of the tone would signal the subjects to report one of the rows, (e.g., a high-pitched tone would signal a request for the report of the top row). Using the partial report technique Sperling's subjects could report three to four letters in each row. Average number of letters available for report are shown in this graph. As the length of time between the visual display and the tone increased from .15 to 1.0 seconds, the number of letters available for report dropped. This demonstrates the very brief storage duration of the sensory register. Subjects could not report more than about four letters in the whole report condition, because the memory in the sensory register was decaying as they made the report.
6.3 Recall from Short-Term Memory After Varying Intervals
This graph presents data from Peterson and Peterson's study of short-term memory. Subjects were exposed to a stimulus consisting of three letters and a three-digit number, (e.g., PSQ 167). During the retention interval they were to count backwards from the number presented. At the end of the retention interval subjects were asked to recall the three letters. The counting backwards task was designed to be a distracter to prevent the subjects from maintaining the letters in short-term memory through simple rote rehearsal. The results demonstrate the rapid decay of this type of material in short-term memory when there is no repetition.
6.4 The Serial Position Effect
The serial position effect is thought to be due to two different memory processes. Words at the beginning of the list can be repetitively rehearsed and, thus, enter long-term memory---the primacy effect. Words early in the list are rehearsed most frequently, and are, therefore, remembered well. At the time of recall, words late in the list can be remembered because they are still being repeated in short-term memory---the recency effect. It is argued that the serial position effect demonstrates the existence of two distinct memory stores, long-term and short-term memory.
6.5 Encoding Processes and Memory
Research has shown that deeper processing results in better retention in long-term memory. This transparency illustrates levels of processing for a memory task.
6.6 Interference and Forgetting from Long-Term Memory
This diagram illustrates experimental procedures used to demonstrate the effects of retroactive and proactive interference.
6.7 What Causes Forgetting?
This graph presents the results of a study on memory (Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924), which examined the processes involved in forgetting. Subjects memorized lists of nonsense syllables and then were asked to recall them after different intervals. Some subjects were awake during the interval, but others slept. Those who slept during the retention interval remembered more. This indicates that forgetting is not just due to passage of time. Interference from the memories for events that happened while awake during the retention interval must account for the differences between the two conditions.
6.8A Conceptual Hierarchy
Conceptual hierarchies are one type of organization in long-term memory. This transparency illustrates a conceptual hierarchy for the category of minerals.
6.9A Portion of Semantic Memory
According to the spreading activation model of Collins and Loftus (1975), concepts are represented in memory by means of an associative network. The shorter the distance between two concepts, the greater the strength of their association. By viewing the semantic memory in this fashion we can see why we can verify statements such as "A canary sings" faster than "A canary breathes."
6.10 Types of Long-Term Memory
Definitions and examples are given for procedural, episodic, and semantic memory.

transparencies series V

  1. An Information-Processing Model of Memory
    The flow of information from the sensory register to short-term memory to long-term memory is depicted.
  2. The Serial Position Effect
    Primacy and recency effects are evident in serial learning. This transparency illustrates these concepts.
  3. Encoding Processes and Memory
    This transparency shows levels of processing for a memory task.
  4. Diagram of Experiments Measuring Retroactive and Proactive Interference
    A diagram of procedures used to measure memory interference is shown in this transparency.
  5. Types of Long-Term Memory
    Procedural, episodic, and semantic memory are illustrated.

Handout 7-1

Memory Test Scoring Sheet

A

bike

bird

coal

door

fish

grass

hammer

kitchen

lemon

magic

monkey

pencil

pitch

soap

story

 B

belt

bureau

church

clock

coin

foot

fire

month

paint

pipe

pocket

trail

train

travel

trunk

Handout 7-2

Coding in Long-term Memory

Instructions: Please read the following story, and be prepared to have your memory tested for one of its sentences.

This is an interesting story about the telescope. In Holland, a man named Lippershey was an eyeglass maker. One day his children were playing with some lenses. They discovered that things seemed very close if two lenses were held about a foot apart. Lippershey began experimenting, and his "spyglass" attracted much attention. He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist. Galileo at once realized the importance of the discovery and set about to build an instrument of his own. He used an old organ pipe with one lens curved out and the other in. On the first clear night he pointed the glass toward the sky. He was amazed to find the empty dark spaces filled with brightly gleaming stars! Night after night Galileo climbed to a high tower sweeping the sky with his telescope. One night he saw Jupiter, and to his great surprise discovered near it three bright stars, two to the east and one to the west.

Instructions: Now, without referring back to the story, decide which one of the following sentences was IN the story.

  1. He sent Galileo, the great Italian scientist, a letter about it.
  2. A letter about it was sent to Galileo, the great Italian scientist.
  3. Galileo, the great Italian scientist, sent him a letter about it.
  4. He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist.

Adapted from Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Handout 7-3 a

Memory for Word Lists

Instructions: Briefly study the following list of words. You will be given approximately 30 seconds for this task, after which time you will be asked to recall as many as you can.

snake

violin

target

terrace

skin

arrow

book

football

worm

nude

goal

bow

Handout 7-3 b

Memory for Word Lists

Instructions: Briefly study the following list of words. You will be given approximately 30 seconds for this task, after which time you will be asked to recall as many as you can.

book

worm

snake

skin

nude

violin

bow

arrow

target

goal

football


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