Track 4

Unit 5

Cognitive psychology

Memory

Pages 46 and 47

Listen for main ideas and listen for details

As part of our study of the brain’s various functions, we’re going to look at the topic of memory. This is a fascinating topic, really. Now, who remembers what they ate for lunch last Monday? I remember having pizza. That’s memory at work. A simple definition of memory is the ability to store, retain and recall the information. That sounds simple, but if you think about, in many ways we are our memories.

Now, when we think about who we are, we probably think about the events we experienced, the people we’ve known, as well as the opinions and the feelings we have about a great many things. All of this information is stored in a variety of brain systems that handle the different types of memory. So first, let’s look at three types of memory that have been identified by psychologists then I’ll talk about how we can improve our memories.

The first type of memory is sensory memory. Sensory memory is extremely short, generally lasts about 100 to 500 ms. Now, as the name suggests, sensory memory concerns the initial moment that we perceive something with our senses now. For instance consider tactile sensory memory. If you touch a piece of silk, the memory of the smoothness of the silk will continue after you take your hand away. That’s sensory memory at work. Now it’s important for learning and remembering because using more senses means we’ve recorded the experience in more ways in our brain.

The next type of memory is working memory which is extremely important in everyday life. Working memory is a system where we temporarily hold and manipulate information. You think of it as a temporary work space in your mind. For instance if your friend tells you a phone number and you don’t have a pen, you probably repeat the number several times in your mind so that you remember. In that case you’re using working memory. Now it’s actually crucial for performing common mental operations like adding numbers, following directions and understanding logical relationships between ideas.

Finally there’s what’s called long-term memory which is memory that stored for as little as 30 seconds to as long as your entire lifetime. Now psychologists believe that most long-term memories are information and experiences that we’re initially processed in working memory, in meaningful and perhaps in emotional ways. For instance, I clearly remember the first time I saw the Grand Canyon. I was only 15 years old but the size just amazed and impressed me so much that even decades later it’s still very clear in my mind.

Now, there are two subtypes of long-term memory. There’s declarative memory and procedural memory. Declarative memory is all of the facts and ideas and names that are consciously available to you. All of your experiences and conscious memories fall into this category. Procedural memory, concerns your knowledge of moving your body, like when you ride a bicycle or you played a musical instrument. Most of our procedural memories are implicit and unconscious.

Okay, now I’m going to test your memory with this question. Does anyone remember what I said I’d talk about next? How to improve your memory, right? When we think about improving our memory, we’re generally talking about improving our declarative memory the one that stores the facts and the names and so on, alright? This type of memory can be improved if we use certain strategies so I wanna talk about two types of memory strategies that are useful in school. Cognitive strategies and affective strategies.

Now, cognitive strategies tell us how to approach tasks and which methods to use to complete them. Basically they’re concerned with thinking in more effective ways. Okay, let’s take a quick look at one cognitive strategy this one is called verbal elaboration. A verbal elaboration occurs when we talk in a meaningful way about information that we are trying to remember. That means that as you study, you should think about and verbalize information critically.

You can use the strategy by agreeing or disagreeing with the information or by comparing and contrasting the information to ideas you already know or by discussing relationships between ideas. When we make meaningful relationships between what we already know and what we’re trying to learn we’ll remember more and we’ll remember it longer.

Now for the other approach, affective strategies; affective strategies help us control our emotional responses so that we remember better. What do emotions have to do with memories? Well, emotions cause the release of brain chemicals that play a direct role in memory formation. And part of the emotion system in the brain called the limbic system helps transfer information into long-term memory. In other words how you feel about something affects how well you remember it.

So, what affective strategies can use to create positive emotional responses while studying? First study with one or two friends from class. This can make any study session more interesting, more enjoyable. Second, use interesting study tasks like taking turns, making short presentations on the topic that you’re studying. Or come up with questions to test each other on the information.

To the point of trying the affect of strategy is that it will increase not only your memory but also your sense of fun and challenge an interest. And you can do this for any subject. Now are there any questions?