5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition (36 page)

This chapter looks at how you make memories, remember and forget them, solve problems, and use thinking in your use of language.

Key Ideas

Models of memory

Encoding new memories

Organization of memories in LTM

Retrieving stored memories

Forgetting

Thinking

Problem solving

Creativity

Language

Different models are used to explain memory. No model accounts for all memory phenomena.

The general
information processing model
compares our mind to a computer. According to this model, input is information. First input is
encoded
when our sensory receptors send impulses that are registered by neurons in our brain, similar to getting electronic information into our computer’s CPU (central processing unit) by keyboarding. We must
store
and retain the information in our brain for some period of time, ranging from a moment to a lifetime, similar to saving information into our computer’s hard drive. Finally, information must be
retrieved
upon demand when it is needed, similar to opening up a document or application from the hard drive.

Because we are unable to process all incoming sensory stimulation that is available, we start seeking out, focusing on and selecting aspects of the available information. Donald Broadbent modeled human memory and thought processes using a flowchart that showed competing information filtered out early, as it is received by the senses and analyzed in the stages of memory. Attention is the mechanism by which we restrict information. Trying to attend to one task over another requires selective or
focused attention
. We have great difficulty when we try to attend to two complex tasks at once requiring
divided attentention
, such as listening to different conversations or driving and texting. In dichotic listening experiments, participants heard different messages through left and right headphones simultaneously. They were directed to attend to one of the messages and repeat back the words (shadow it). Very little about the unattended message was processed, unless the participant’s name was said, which was noticed (
the cocktail party effect
). When the cocktail party effect occurred, information was lost from the attended ear. According to Anne Treisman’s feature integration theory, you must focus attention on complex incoming auditory or visual information in order to synthesize it into a meaningful pattern.

According to Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart’s
levels of processing model,
how long and how well we remember information depends on how deeply we process the information when it is encoded. With
shallow processing,
we use structural encoding of superficial sensory information that emphasizes the physical characteristics, such as lines and curves, of the stimulus as it first comes in. We assign no relevance to shallow processed information. For example, once traffic passes and no more traffic is coming, we cross the street. We notice that vehicles pass, but don’t pay attention to whether cars, bikes, or trucks make up the traffic and don’t remember any of them.
Semantic encoding,
associated with deep processing, emphasizes the meaning of verbal input.
Deep processing
occurs when we attach meaning to information, and create associations between the new memory and existing memories (
elaboration
). Most of the information we remember over long periods is semantically encoded. For example, if you noticed a new red sports car, just like the one you dream about owning, zoom past you with the license plate, “FASTEST1,” and with your English teacher in the driver’s seat, you would probably remember it. One of the best ways to facilitate later recall is to relate the new information to ourselves (
self-referent encoding
).

A more specific information processing model, the
Atkinson–Shiffrin three-stage model of memory,
describes three different memory systems characterized by time frames: sensory
memory, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM) (see
Figure 11.1
). External events from our senses are held in our
sensory memory
just long enough to be perceived. In sensory memory, visual or
iconic memory
that completely represents a visual stimulus lasts for less than a second, just long enough to ensure that we don’t see gaps between frames in a motion picture. Auditory or
echoic memory
lasts for about 4 seconds, just long enough for us to hear a flow of information. Most information in sensory memory is lost. Our
selective attention,
focusing of awareness on a specific stimulus in sensory memory, determines which very small fraction of information perceived in sensory memory is encoded into short-term memory. Encoding can be processed automatically or require our effort.
Automatic processing
is unconscious encoding of information about space, time, and frequency that occurs without interfering with our thinking about other things. This is an example of
parallel processing,
a natural mode of information processing that involves several information streams simultaneously.
Effortful processing
is encoding that requires our focused attention and conscious effort.