7.1 Studying Memory

LOQ LearningObjectiveQuestion

7-1 What is memory, and how do information-processing models help us study memory?

Memory the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Be thankful for memory—your storehouse of accumulated learning. Your memory enables you to recognize family, speak your language, find your way home, and locate food and water. Your memory allows you to enjoy an experience and then mentally replay it and enjoy it again. Without memory, you could not savor past achievements, nor feel guilt or anger over painful past events. You would instead live in an endless present, each moment fresh. Each person would be a stranger, every language foreign, every task—dressing, cooking, biking—a new challenge. You would even be a stranger to yourself, lacking that ongoing sense of self that extends from your distant past to your momentary present.

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EXTREME FORGETTING Alzheimer’s disease severely damages the brain, and in the process strips away memory.
National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health

Earlier, in the Sensation and Perception chapter, we considered one of psychology’s big questions: How does the world out there enter your brain? In this chapter we consider a related question: How does your brain pluck information out of the world around you and store it for a lifetime of use? Said simply, how does your brain construct your memories?

To help clients imagine future buildings, architects create miniature models. Similarly, psychologists create models of memory to help us think about how our brain forms and retrieves memories. An information-processing model compares human memory to a computer’s operation. It assumes that, to remember something, we must

Encoding the process of getting information into the memory system.

Let’s take a closer look.

An Information-Processing Model

LOQ 7-2 What is the three-stage information-processing model, and how has later research updated this model?

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1968) proposed that we form memories in three stages.

sensory memory the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

  1. We first record to-be-remembered information as a fleeting sensory memory.

    short-term memory activated memory that holds a few items briefly (such as the seven digits of a phone number while calling) before the information is stored or forgotten.

  2. From there, we process information into short-term memory, where we encode it through rehearsal.

    long-term memory the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

  3. Finally, information moves into long-term memory for later retrieval.

Other psychologists later updated this model with important newer concepts, including working memory and automatic processing (FIGURE 7.1).

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Figure 7.1: FIGURE 7.1 A modified three-stage processing model of memory Atkinson and Shiffrin’s classic three-step model helps us to think about how memories are processed, but today’s researchers recognize other ways long-term memories form. For example, some information slips into long-term memory via a “back door,” without our consciously attending to it (automatic processing). And so much active processing occurs in the short-term memory stage that many now prefer to call that stage working memory.

Working Memory

working memory a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

So much active processing takes place in the middle stage that psychologists now prefer the term working memory. In Atkinson and Shiffrin’s original model, the second stage appeared to be a temporary shelf for holding recent thoughts and experiences. We now know that this working-memory stage is where your brain actively processes important information, making sense of new input and linking it with long-term memories. It also works in the opposite direction, processing already stored information. When you process verbal information, your active working memory connects new information to what you already know or imagine (Cowan, 2010; Kail & Hall, 2001). If you hear someone say “eye-screem,” you may encode it as “ice cream” or “I scream,” depending on both the context (snack shop or horror film) and your experience.

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For most of you, what you are reading enters your working memory through vision. You may also silently repeat the information using auditory rehearsal. Integrating these memory inputs with your existing long-term memory requires focused attention.

image For a 14-minute explanation and demonstration of our memory systems, visit LaunchPad’s Video: Models of Memory.

Without focused attention, information often fades. If you think you can look something up later, you attend to it less and forget it more quickly. In one experiment, people read and typed new information they would later need, such as “An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.” If they knew the information would be available online, they invested less energy in remembering it, and they remembered it less well (Sparrow et al., 2011; Wegner & Ward, 2013). Online, out of mind.

Retrieve + Remember

Question 7.1

•How does the working memory concept update the classic Atkinson-Shiffrin three-stage information-processing model?

ANSWER: The newer idea of a working memory emphasizes the active processing that we now know takes place in Atkinson-Shiffrin’s short-term memory stage. While the Atkinson-Shiffrin model viewed short-term memory as a temporary holding space, working memory plays a key role in processing new information and connecting it to previously stored information.

Question 7.2

•What are two basic functions of working memory?

ANSWER: (1) Active processing of incoming visual and auditory information, and (2) focusing our spotlight of attention.