Physiological Psychology

1. memory

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Declarative learning involves facts and events,
conscious recollection of information which
can be verbally expressed eg facts and
events, conscious recollection.
Non- Declarative memory involves
perceptual, stimulus-response and motor
learning. Usually, there is no conscious
recollection eg learning to ride a bike or
playing an instrument.

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Most psychologists distinguish among 3
major systems of memory as identified by the
Atkinson and Shiffrin Model
Sensory Memory
Short- term Memory
Long-term Memory
They serve different purposes and differ
along two important dimensions
– Span – how much info can be held
– Duration- how long can the info be held

4. •
Sensory memory
– Brief storage of perceptual information before it is
passed to STM
– It buys our brains extra time to process incoming
sensations.
– It also allows us to fill in the blanks in our
perceptions and see the world as an unbroken
stream of events.
– Psychologist believe each sense has its own form of
sensory memory (iconic memory for vision echoic
memory for hearing lasts 5/10secs)

5. •
Short Term Memory /Working Memory
– It is the memory store for the information we are
currently thinking about, attending to or processing
actively which retains info for limited durations.
– Just how brief is STM? About 20 seconds
– Memory loss for STM
• Decay-fading of info from memory
• Interference- loss of information from memory
because of competing additional incoming info
(memories get in the way of each other)
– Retroactive interference
– Proactive interference

6. •
Short Term Memory
– The capacity of STM
• The magic number- the span of STM according to
George Miller: 7 +/- two pieces of info
• According to Miller it applies to more than digits it’s
the universal limit of STM eg. When telephone digits
are more than 7 digits long we begin making mistakes
• Chunking –organizing material into meaningful groups
allowing us to extend the span of STM.
• Rehearsal- repeating info to extend the duration of
retention in STM
– Maintenance and Elaborative rehearsal

7. 
Long Term Memory (LTM)
◦ Sustained (from minutes to years) retention of info
stored regarding our facts, experiences and skills
◦ Differences between long term memory and short
term memory
 Capacity of Long Term Memory is huge
 Information is stored for years vs. 20secs

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Long Term Memory (LTM)
– Primacy effect- seems to be affected by rehearsal
and reflects the operation of LTM
– Recency effect- seems to reflect the workings of
STM
– Types of LTM
• Semantic memory
• Episodic memory
• Implicit memory

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Semantic memory refers to the memory of
meanings, understandings, and other
concept-based knowledge , and underlies the
conscious recollection of factual information
and general knowledge about the world

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Episodic memory is the memory of
autobiographical events times, places,
associated emotions, and other contextual
knowledge) that can be explicitly stated. It is
the collection of past personal experiences
that occurred at a particular time and place.
For example, if you remember the party on
your 6th birthday, this is an episodic memory

11. 
Implicit memory is a type of memory in which
previous experiences aid in the performance
of a task without conscious awareness of
these previous, eg When a skilled typist is typing on a
keyboard, she does not need to look at each key. Instead, she
is able to type without recalling the placement of each key,
Once a person has learned how to ride a bike, repeated riding
is implicit memory. The rider does not need to specifically recall
each motion that needs to be completed.

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Encoding- Process of getting info into our
memory banks
– Many memory failures caused by issues with
encoding. No coding, no memory
– How can we enhance encoding?
• Mnemonic
– Pegword Method
– Method of Loci
– Keyword Method

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Storage- process of keeping information in
memory
◦ How we store information in memory depends on
our interpretation and expectations of events
◦ Schemas –they equip us with frames of reference
for interpreting new situations
◦ However they can lead us to oversimplify causing
memory illusions

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Retrieval- reactivation or reconstruction of
experiences from our memory stores.
Many types of forgetting result from failures
of retrieval
– Retrieval cues- hints that make it easier for us to
recall information
•
Measuring memory
– Recall
– Recognition
– Relearning

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Retrieval (cont’d)
◦ Encoding specificity- phenomenon of remembering
something better when the conditions under which
we retrieve information are similar to the conditions
under which we encoded it
◦ This principle is demonstrated in;
 Context-dependent learning
 State-dependent learning

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Staying active seems to be the key to
stabilizing memory change with age
mental activity educational experiences,
reading, crosswords etc.
physical activity exercise
healthy diet lower fat and lower cholesterol

17. 
Memory disorder is the result of damage to
neuroanatomical structures that hinders the
storage, retention and recollection of
memories. Memory disorders can be
progressive, including Alzheimer's disease, or
they can be immediate including disorders
resulting from head injury.

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Amnesia – is a deficit in memory caused by
brain damage, disease or psychological
trauma. Amnesia can also be caused
temporarily by the use of various sedatives
and hypnotic drug.
Hipocampal function plays a important roll in
learning and memory

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There are two main types of amnesia:
Retrograde amnesia – is the inability to retrieve
information that acquired before a particular date ,
usually the date of an accident or operation.
Anterograde amnesia - is the inability to transfer
new information from the short term store into the
long term store. People with this type of amnesia
cannot remember things for long periods of time