Psychology of Memory Yasser Abdel Razek Professor of Psychiatry Ain Shams university.

Psychology of Memory

Yasser Abdel RazekProfessor of PsychiatryAin Shams university

Paris is

1. A city in USA2. The Capital of France3. An oasis in Egypt4. All of the above5. None of the Above

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What is your origin?

1. Cairo2. Delta3. Sues Canal and Sinai4. Upper Egypt5. Others

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WHAT IS MEMORY?

1. The ability to store information2. The ability to encode information3. The ability to retrieve information4. All of the above5. None of the above

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Most common type of forgetfulness is due to

1. Dementia2. Use of drugs3. Interference 4. Head injuries5. Ageing

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Memory disturbances may include

1. Decreased remembering2. Increased remembering3. Distorted remembering4. Over-recognition and under-recognition5. All of the above

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The most important neurotransmitter for memory function is

1. Acetyle choline2. Dopamine3. Nor adrenaline4. Serotonin5. Histamine

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An important cause of forgetfulness during exam is

1. Inattention during study2. Mass practice of learning3. Interference4. Anxiety during exam5. Different environment

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Definition

• It is the ability to Encode,Store ,

And retrieve information

Encoding

• It is the process by which information is converted into a form (code) in which it can be placed into memory.

• 4 types of codes appear to represent information in memory:

• 1-Acoustic encoding uses the sounds of words to encode the material.

• 2-Visual encoding uses images, such as the visual image of a word or picture.

• 3-Semantic encoding represents the information in memory in terms of its general meaning.

• 4-Motor encoding involved in coding physical skills like swimming, typing and driving also occur as a type of encoding.

Storage

• It is the retention of memorized material over a period of time .

• Of limited capacity• Forgetting occurs due to decay with time or

Displacement by new information

Retrieval

• It is the process by which previously encoded stored memories are located and brought back for current use.

• Involves a search process (all items stored are examined to get the information).

Retrieval

• Recall:– Free recall: Like essay questions – Cued recall: Give the subject a hint to trigger

memories; e.g. fill in spaces questions.

• Recognition:– MCQ

Classification

• According to duration of retention• According to modality of information input• According to type of information

According to duration of retentionImmediate sensory

Short termRecent

Long termRemote

Duration Seconds minutesYears

Capacity Limited Limited Unlimited

Encoding No (iconic and echoic)Need attentionDepends on meaning (semantic)

Storage Electrical Chemical Structural

Retrieval Aided by cues

Forgetting ---DisplacementDecay

InterferenceRepression

Improvement Training AttentionRehearsalChunking

AssociationElaborationOrganizationMnemonics

Assessment Digit span A storyWell known dates and names

Information in STM either

• lost by time or interference• maintained by rehearsal• transferred to LTM

Rehearsal

• Rehearsal means repetitively practicing or thinking about the information to be remembered. This can keep it in memory for longer periods. There are 2 types of rehearsal:

• Maintenance rehearsal is simple repetition which can serve to keep information active in STM indefinitely.

• Elaborative rehearsal• *The more we can relate the new items to already

present items the more meaningful we can make it• *Making meaningful connections to facilitate retrieval.• Eg. EGBDF can be stored as every good boy does fine

According to modality of sensory information input

• Auditory• Visual• Olfactory• Gustatory• Superficial and deep sensory• NB: The more the modalities used to encode the

more the consolidation: it is better to study through hearing , seeing and writing the information

According to type of information

Implicit Explicit

Episodic Semantic

Motoric skills Events Concepts

Where is the memory area?

• Hippocampus• Mamillary bodies• Thalamus• Temporal cortex

Factors affecting retrieval

• Age• Drugs • Illnesses• Interference• Emotions• retrieval cues• effect of the context (mood and emotions)during

encoding (similarity during retrieval is better).• Amount of encoding practice (over learning).• Scheduling practice (distributed better than mass)

Retrieval

• Forgetting is usually due to loss of access to the information not loss of the information itself so

• Retrieval cues can help• We do better on recognition tests( MCQ)• Relearning takes less effort

• Constructive memory: We memorize only broad lines then we construct a more complete description of the events.

Two classes of theories are explaining forgetting:

• Availability: Information are lost from LTM.• Accessibility: Information are difficult to

retrieve from LTM.

Availability theories

• Trace decay theory: Memory traces decay, weaken and disappear with simple passage of time. Failure of rehearsal allows it to deteriorate.

• Disuse theory: Suggests that the repeated retrieval of similar new information leads to loss of old memories; e.g. You forget your old telephone number and remember the new one.

• Interference theory: Which suggests that some active process must interfere with the learned material causing it to be unlearned. The more similar the competing material the more likely it is that forgetting will occur.

• Encoding failure theories: Suggesting that the original encoding of the information was inadequate. This is called pseudo forgetting because there never really was a memory, probably due to inattention or inadequate encoding.

Interference

• Retroactive: learning of new information lead to forgetting of the old one ( small hard desk)

• Proactive : learning of information number one causes difficulty to learn another recent information

Accessibility Theories:

• a- Retrieval failure theory: Suggests that memories, though stored, cannot be recalled because the appropriate retrieval distinctive cues, words or images that are associated with a memory and elicit it are not present.

• b- Motivational theory: When forgetting is motivated by our needs and desires, we tend to remember positive aspects of our experience better than negative ones.

How to improve memory

• 1-use of large size chunks to enlarge capacity of STM

• 2-Use of imagery and encoding in more than one modality

• 3-Elaborative rehearsal• 4-Hierarchical organization• 5- chunking

Chunking

• Use of LTM to store new information in STM• eg. Can you store these letters

SRUOYYLERECNIS? Yes become sincerely yours.

Information are stored in LTM as the following

• 1-Category clustering (animals, people, vegetables)

• 2-Subjective organization (specific orders)• 3-Hierarchial organization (animals as birds

and fish –fish as Shark and Salomon)

Emotions

• Events with Painful emotions repelled out and lost( repression)

• Events with good emotions , encoded strongly• Mild anxiety help retrieval because of better

attention while severe anxiety impede retrieval.

Disorders of memory

• Disorders of recall– Amnesia ( organic and psychological)– Hypermnesia– Paramnesia ( distorted memories)

• Retrospective falsification• Confabulation

• Disorders of recognition– De ja vu– Jamais vu