‫‪Memory‬‬

‫اعداد دكتور عماريوسف‬

In all cognitive operations involving memory 3 different
processes are thought to occur.
 Encoding - It leads to the formation of initial memory traces
and receives information from the outside.
 Storage - Retention of information and maintenance
 Retrieval - Accessing and recovering information from
memory stores
William James divided memory to primary (short term) and
secondary memory (long term). In fact 3 forms of memory are
now recognized.
1. Sensory memory: This is modality specific, has a large
capacity but gets disrupted by the inflow of new
information in the same modality. Each sense has its own
sensory memory e.g. iconic (visual) lasting 0.5 seconds,
echoic (auditory) lasting 2 seconds etc. No processing is
involved in sensory memory. If attention is paid to the
sensory memories during perception, sensory memory
gets consolidated or ‘moves’ into the short-term memory
system.
2. Short term memory: The capacity of STM according to
Miller is 7+/- 2 items. This is evident while testing digit
span (but see below for chunking). Unaided, STM lasts 15
to 30 seconds. By maintenance rehearsal, this duration
can be increased further up to indefinite periods. If
maintenance rehearsals are prevented, then by 15
 seconds the original material is completely forgotten.
Brown Paterson task involves introducing distraction (such
as counting a three-digit number backwards) immediately
after the digit span test in order to prevent rehearsal. STM
uses acoustic coding (mostly) or visual coding. Recall of
information is effortless and usually error-free.
Information is held in STM by the process of rehearsal.
Loss of information from STM occurs mainly through
displacement (newly acquired items entering STM
displaces existing material) and decay (older materials
have a weaker trace strength than the recently acquired
items). In order for memory to move from temporary to
long-term storage, elaborative encoding (Daniel Schacter)
must take place.
NOTE: The term working memory is increasingly used to
describe a large part of what was called as STM in the past.
Working memory allows cognitive processes to be
performed on data that is briefly stored in short-term
memory.
3. Long term memory: This has unlimited capacity and lasts
for an indefinite duration. The coding is largely semantic,
though visual and acoustic coding can occur to some
extent. According to Atkinson & Shiffrin, STM and LTM are
regarded as structural components. Rehearsal is supposed
to be the transient control process that can aid
maintenance of STM and transfer to LTM. Other control
processes include encoding, retrieval strategies and
decision to remember. Rehearsal may be
maintenance/rote rehearsal or elaborative rehearsal
where encoding is semantically elaborated or changed. It
is proposed that rehearsal can take place at 3 levels of
processing. Shallow processing where surface features are
only rehearsed, phonemic processing where sound
features are rehearsed or semantic processing where
deeper encoding and meaning related associations are
made. Higher level of processing depends on time
available and nature of the material processed.
Other classifications:
Recent memory is the ability to remember what has been
experienced within the past few minutes (recall of items
after five minutes), hours (recall of last meal), days (recall
of recent news items).
Remote memory is the ability to remember events in the
distant past (weeks to years). This can be tested by
inquiring about important dates in their lives such as date
of birth, date of marriage, how many siblings they have
etc.
Tulving elaborated multistore model (LTM) to have two
forms - declarative (explicit – includes semantic and
episodic memory) and non-declarative (implicit) memory.
Priming is a form of learning that occurs without conscious
recall of the episode of learning; performance
demonstrates that the information is learnt but conscious
episodic recall is absent.
Baddley & Hitch proposed a working memory model.
Working memory is proposed to have central executive
and 2 arms – phonological loop and visuospatial
sketchpad. The central executive is capacity limited but
modality free, similar to attention system. The
phonological loop consists of auditory rehearsal loops
while visuospatial scratch pad consists of pattern
recognition and movement perception components. It is
proposed that dyslexia may be related to erratic
phonological loop. The 4 th component of WM is
sometimes called episodic buffer. This is a multimodal
store that integrates info from the slave systems onto
LTM. This buffer is important for chunking.
Working memory is important for various processes
including executive functions, decision-making, error
detection and correction, new learning (anterograde
memory formation) and judgement.
Serial position effect: While memorising and recollecting a
list of words both primacy and recency effects are seen.
Regardless of the length of a list, the initial words
(primacy) and last few words
(recency) are remembered better than those at the middle
of the list. Primacy is supposed to be due to LTM as
consolidation has occurred in the sufficient time between
learning the first word and testing recall. Recency effect is
due to STM wherein last heard words are freshly retained.
In those with organic anterograde amnesia, recency is
better preserved than primacy. Here the problem is in
transferring to LTM from STM and/or retrieval from LTM.
In retrograde amnesia, the physical establishment of LTM
memory (called consolidation) fails.

Procedural or Implicit memory: This cannot be consciously

inspected. This is not affected by an organic amnesia of
hippocampal origin. It is made of procedural memory for
skills and habits, priming, classical conditioning and non-
associative learning
Episodic memory is autobiographical, self-focused, spatio-
temporal memory.
Semantic memory includes factual knowledge of the
world. It is proposed to be made of multiple episodic
memory components.

Retrieval:
Modes of retrieval (i.e. moving from LTM----STM) are through
 Recognition (solving MCQs)
 Recall (actively searching and reproducing),
 Reintegration/reconstruction (recollection of past experiences based on
certain cues). An eyewitness testimony is a reconstructive memory, which
is a mode of retrieval from long-term memory. However, reconstructive
memory of events as in eyewitness testimony is affected by the type of
questioning asked to elicit the memory.
Forgetting:
Hermann Ebbinghaus plotted the forgetting curve by plotting the
proportion of words retained in memory against time. The curve
shows a sharp drop over the first nine hours and particularly
during the first hour. After nine hours, the rate of forgetting slows
and declines little thereafter, even after the lapse of 31 days. The
main findings from his and other studies are;

 Forgetting is maximum in the first few hours, and the rate of

forgetting gets less with time.
 Forgetting is never complete, and some information is retained
over longer periods of time, even for life.
 Recalling the material during the test period increases the
probability of remembering items or events.
 Continuous motor skills, such as cycling and swimming, show no
forgetting at all. But discrete motors skills such as typing are lost
more quickly.
Problems with encoding (registration), retention or retrieval, can
all result in forgetting.
Decay theory states that neural engrams breakdown with time.
This means that disuse with time is the cause of forgetting, but no
evidence exists that neurological decay occurs. Also what happens
before and after learning is more important than the mere
passage of time in forgetting.
Displacement theory states that due to capacity limitation new
info replaces old information.
Retrieval failure theory states that due to lack of proper cues to
recall we forget things. According to encoding specificity principle,
anything we encode during learning can be a cue/tag for later
retrieval. Recall improves if same cues are available when
recalling, but this holds true only for recall, not recognition.
Hence, sometimes recall is better than recognition! Such cues can
be the context (place, external state) specific or emotion/ inner
state specific.
According to interference theory forgetting occurs due to
interference. When newly learnt material interferes with recall of
old material, this is called retroactive interference. Proactive
interference refers to the interference of new learning from older
learnt material. There is a low ecological validity for interference
model as most experiments were conducted with memorizing
word lists, a skill that is rarely required in daily life.
Strategies to improve encoding include – order and sorting info,
chunking, mnemonics, using imageries, adding importance and
salience to the info and using primacy-regency effects. Retrieval
can be helped by cueing and reinstatement of learning context.
Chunking is a method of increasing the capacity of short-term
memory by combining units or information (usually numbers) into
chunks. By doing so, impressive feats of memory can result. For
example, the numbers 1,5,2,3,5.2,5,8,5,3,7,8 would normally
overload our short-term memory but if they are arranged into
chunks 152, 352, 585, 378, they become a lot more manageable.
The more similar the retrieval situation is to the encoding
situation, the better retrieval. This is called encoding specificity
principle.
Amnesia refers to a marked impairment in episodic memory,
although other types of memory such as working memory,
semantic memory and procedural memory may remain relatively
intact.
Anterograde Amnesia: The loss of the ability to form or retain
new episodic memories after an injury/lesion/event
-Lack memory for events taking place in immediate future after an
event
-Classic cases often involve hippocampal damage
-The subject cannot learn anything new.
-Nothing can be moved from STM to LTM.
Retrograde Amnesia: The loss of episodic memories that were
stored before brain damage had occurred.
-Lack memory for immediately preceding events.
-Follows head injury
-The subject never consolidates the information that is already in
STM (retrieval failure i.e. fails to move from LTM to STM).

Brain imaging and neuropsychological studies provide strong

evidence that
a. The brain areas mediating performances in STM are principally
the pre-frontal lobes
b. The phonological STM system is mediated by the left
hemisphere regions of Broca's’ area and
prefrontal cortex.
c. The visuospatial STM system is mediated by the parietal and
prefrontal areas of the right
hemisphere.
d. The brain areas responsible for LTM includes the regions of the
limbic system especially the hippocampus and the entorhinal
cortex of the medial temporal lobe