The document discusses the theories and processes of memory, including encoding, storage, and retrieval, emphasizing the importance of rehearsal techniques for transferring information from short-term to long-term memory. It covers various types of memory, neuroanatomical structures involved, and factors affecting memory retention and forgetting. Additionally, strategies for improving memory through organization, imagery, and feedback are outlined.

1. MEMORY
DR HARI RAM SEDAI
1ST
YEAR RESIDENT
PSYCHIATRY/NMCTH

2. Content
INTRODUCTION
THEORIES OF MEMORY
LONG TERM MEMORY
NEUROANATOMY
FORGETTING
IMPROVING MEMORY

3. Introduction
• Memory refers to encoding, storage, and retrieval of information
Ryburn 1956
• “The power that we have to store our experiences, and to bring
them back into the filed of consciousness some time after the
experience have occurred ”

4. Theories of Memory
Theory of General Memory Functions
Information-Processing Theories
Levels of Processing Theory

5. Theory of General Memory Functions
Encoding Storage
Retrieva
l

6.  Encoding:
• Process of receiving sensory input & transformation into a form or
code which can be stored
 Storage:
• Process of actually putting coded information into memory
 Retrieval:
• Process of gaining access to stored, coded information when
needed

7. Information Processing Theory
• Atkinson-shiffrin theory (1968)

8. Sensory Register
• Storage function of sensory channels
• Step that information passes through before reaching STM
• Information can be held for a very brief time
• Most of the information lost
• If we pay attention to and recognize some of information, it is passed to
STM

9. Visual: Holds for 1 second (Sperling), can hold 11 to 16 items
(Averbach and Sperling), in form of faint image called iconic image
Auditory: Holds for 4-5 seconds (Darwin et al)

10. Short-Term Memory (STM)
• Hold information for up to 30 seconds
• Storage capacity about 7 items, plus or minus 2 (Miller)
• Increased by process called chunking
• Combining several items into chunk can retain several of these
chunks of information in STM

11. • Much information stored in STM is lost as it is displaced by
incoming items of information
• Some of information is neither lost nor retrieved but passed into
LTM through rehearsal

12. Rehearsal
• Keeping of information in centre of attention by repeating them
silently or aloud
• Amount of rehearsal given to items is important in the transfer of
information from STM to LTM (Rundus,1971)
• More the item is rehearsed more likely it is to become a part of
long term memory

13. Maintenance
Rehearsal
Does not always
succeed to transfer
information to LTM
Elaborative
Rehearsal
More likely to
succeed
Maintenance rehearsal: Just going over and over what is to be remembered
Elaborative rehearsal: Giving the material organization & meaning as it is being rehearsed

14. Long-Term Memory
• May last for days, months, years or lifetime
• No known limit for storage capacity
• Contains words, sentences, ideas, concepts and life experiences
• Some theorists believe, there is no true forgetting from LTM

15.  Types:
• Semantic: Contains meaning of words, concepts and rules for
using them in language.
• Episodic: Memories of specific things happened to a person

16. Sensory Register Short Term
Memory
Long Term Memory
Approximate
Duration
Vision- 1 sec
Hearing- 5 sec
Up to 30 sec Days, Months, Years
or lifetime
Capacity Large(16 items) Small (7 items) Large( no limit)
Transfer Processes Attention &
recognition
Rehearsal
Type of
information stored
Copy of input Sounds, visual
images, words and
sentences
Primary meaningful
sentences, life
events, concepts a
& concepts
Major reason
information is lost
Decay of trace Displacement of old
information by
incoming
information
Faulty organization
or inappropriate
retrieval,
interference

17. Neuroanatomy
• Short term memory: Hippocampus
• Long term memory: Neo-cortex
• Inter-cortical transfer of memory:
through corpus-callosum
• Explicit memory: Frontal lobes,
medial temporal lobes and
Hippocampus
• Implicit memory: Limbic system,
amygdala, Cerebellum and basal ganglia

19. Levels of Processing Theories
• Incoming information can be worked on at different levels of analysis
• Deeper the analysis, better the memory
 3 Levels:
Level 1: Perception
Level 2: Structural
Level 3: Meaning or semantic

20. • Analysis to deep level of meaning gives best memory
• Many of happenings in our daily routines are not processed
deeply
• Simply repeating information (maintenance rehearsal) not
enough for good memory
• For deeper levels, rehearsal must be at meaning level
(elaborative)

22. LONG TERM MEMORY
 Organization:
Tip of the tongue (TOT) Phenomenon:
• Described by Brown and McNeil (1966)
• Phenomenon of failing to retrieve a word from memory combined
with partial recall

23. • Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) is a retrieval failure phenomenon
Given a cue (e.g. What makes blood cells red?) the subject says
the word begins with an H (hemoglobin)
• Sounded like target word
• Started as same word as target word
• Contain same number of syllables as target word
• Had meaning similar to as target word

25. Types of Long Term Memory
Semantic Memory
Episodic Memory

26. Semantic Memory
• Consists of knowledge about word’s meaning, their relation to one
another and rules for using them in communication and thinking
• Makes our use of language possible
• Stable, little forgetting of words of our language and rules for
using them

27. • Some experiments (Collins and Quillian) indicated that information
is stored in logical hierarchies, from general to specific ones
• Makes it possible to make logical inferences from information
stored in semantic memory

28. Fig: In semantic memory, information may be organized in logical hierarchies

29. Episodic Memory
• Consists of long-term memories of specific things that happened to
us at particular times and places
• Organized according to dates of significant occurrences in our life
• Less organized, more susceptible to be forgotten than semantic
memory

31. Encoding and Storing Long-Term Memories
Requires special attention or strategies
 Role of organization
• Organising input in some logical manner or in a way that makes sense
• Promotes good long term memory
• Subjective organization: Doing own organizational encoding of
incoming information

32.  Role of imagery
• Form in which information is encoded
• Visual images most studied
• Measure of image arousing capabilities of words, asked to rate on a
scale from “very easy” to “very difficult” (Paivio)
• Concrete: Words for which visual images easily formed
• Abstract: Words for which little visual images formed

33.  Paired-associate technique
Lists made up of pairs of words, words and numbers and nonsense
syllables
• First element: Stimulus
• Second element: Response
• Given the stimulus, we learn to make response that was paired
with

34.  Role of constructive processes
• During encoding, the ‘to be remembered’ information is modified,
so that what is encoded and stored is only the gist or meaning of
complex information
• Inferences are used
Example:
“The driver of the car was seen drinking before he was involved in an
accident”

35.  Retrieval from long-term memory
• Information coded and stored in LTM, must be retrieved, if it has to
be used
• Retrieval cues and reconstructive processes
• Retrieval cues: is a stimulus, internal or external, that activates
information stored in LTM

36.  State dependent memory
• Importance of having retrieval cues encoded with to-be-
remembered information
• If people encode and store information in particular emotional or
drugged state, they may not be able to retrieve information when
in another emotional state or no longer under influence of drug
• But when put back into original emotional or drugged state,
memory can be retrieved (Ho el al)

37.  Reconstructive processes
• Modification of already stored input
• Sometime called confabulation in case of people with memory
disorders who stored very little and try to fill in memory gaps
during retrieval

38. Forgetting
• Apparent loss of information already encoded and stored in LTM
• Does not qualify as “forgotten” as it was never encoded and
stored
• Information may not have reached STM due to inattention or to
LTM due to inadequate rehearsal

39. Causes
Interference
Retrieval Problems
Motivated Forgetting

40. Interference
• Proactive interference: Old memories interfere with new learning
• Retroactive interference: New memories interfere with retrieval
of old material

42.  Retrieval Problems/Cue Dependent Forgetting
• Without appropriate retrieval cues, search for items stored in LTM
may not be found and people tend to forget
• We may give up remembering it but may recall it later while we
are doing something else
• New activity, new situations may give set of appropriate
reminders or retrieval cues
• Emotional factors can play role in retrieval failure

43.  Motivated Forgetting
• Difficulties in retrieval of unpleasant, anxiety-provoking information
stored in LTM
• Sigmund Freud stated “The forgetting in all cases is proved to be
founded as a motive of displeasure” in his book ”Psychopathology of
Everyday Life”
• Hinted concept of repression
• Repression: Tendency of people to have difficulty retrieving anxiety-
provoking or threatening information

44. Improving Memory
• Planning a study schedule to stick to.
• Rehearsal –elaborative rehearsal.
• Subjective organization: Making material personally meaningful;
retrieval cues
• Feedback-test
• Reviewing before exam

45. • Mnemonics
• Numbers and letter peg systems
• Remembering names and faces
• Chunking

46. Studying to Remember
Planning
Rehearsal
Organization
Feedback
Review
Overlearning

47. References
• Introduction to psychology C.T Morgan 7th edition
• General psychology 21st edition, S.K Mangal
• Kaplan & Sadock's comprehensive text book of psychiatry
11th edition