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Memory:Activation in a network, Magic number 7, Chunking

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Cognitive Psychology ­ PSY 504
VU
Lesson 25
Memory
Short Term Working Memory
Short term memory and Working Memory are same. Some psychologists distinguish short term
memory and working memory but majority of Psychologist Do not. Another important thing in
memory is Attention. Attention plays an important and critical role in short term memory. Duration
of short term memory is about 20 seconds. Working Memory is a memory that we use to function.
Not the same thing as remembering what happened yesterday as opposed to a long time ago.
The conscious is short term memory. Long Term Memory is an infinite storehouse. After 20
seconds what we can remember is long term memory. So, short Term Memory is limited in
capacity.
Working Memory: an activation model
John Anderson worked a lot on parallel process. He presented this activation model and said
working memory sees short term and Long term memory as qualitatively different. But some
other psychologists see LTM and STM similar but with some differences. There are certain
differences. According to activation model working memory has something which has a certain
level of activation (above threshold). Outside information is also involved in this activation model.
The items in working memory are defined by a high level of activation, which enables reliable and
rapid access to them. Attention is a part and parcel of this activation mechanism off short term
working memory. Attention relies on rehearsal. There is limitation in Short term memory
rehearsal. If unattended the items in working memory will rapidly decay away in their level of
activation. One can maintain items in working memory by rehearsing them and keeping them in a
highly active state. There are limitations on how many items one can rehearse before they decay.
Activation in a network
This is a network of words. We can say this is a semantic network. Different words with links are
presented. Like at bottom there is a word penguin. This word has two direct links swimming and
bird. These two words have other links like shark, flying, animals, fish, and sparrow. This is a
network of long term memory. These networks help in the activation of short term memory.
For example, if there are some concepts related to penguin like sea, atmosphere then we can
recognize this penguin.
If we are seen desert we can remember camels. Because we are used to see camel in desert.
So, these all information is saved in our long term memory, with clues we can remember things
like camel in desert. So the effect of context is also very important even in working memory
because it active other related nodes.
75
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Cognitive Psychology ­ PSY 504
VU
Magic number 7
John Miller was a great cognitive psychologist. He presented model of memory.
He wrote in an article,
"My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer. For seven years this number has
followed me around, has intruded in my most private data, and has assaulted me from the
pages of our most public journals. This number assumes a variety of disguises, being
sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little smaller than usual, but never changing so
much as to be unrecognizable. The persistence with which this number plagues me is far
more than a random accident. There is, to quote a famous senator, a design behind it, some
pattern governing its appearances. Either there really is something unusual about the number
or else I am suffering from delusions of persecution."
This number is 7. He said it is very important. It is limit of items how many items we can keep in
our memory. Plus minus 2 is range of 7.some people can remember 5 numbers and some can
remember 9 numbers. It means 7-2=5, 7+2=9.
We can understand this by an example. We give a list of 7 digits to our friends for remembering. It
is normal if people can recall 5 and 7 digits. But if people can recall less than 5 then there is some
problem with these people. Some people have good memory they can recall 9 digits.
If we look in our religion we have seven days in our week. There are seven seas, seven
continents, and seven skies. So 7 is our limit of our short term memory.
A question arises here, that is people can learn more than 7 words, 7 letters, seven sentences.
These seven letters LJKWNPR are easy to learn. But if this list of cities,
London, Paris, Munich, Berlin, Madrid, Prague, Stockholm, is given to people. People can learn it.
So, how interesting people can learn these 40 digits? So, magic number & is not physical unit it is
semantic unit or meaningful unit.
An example of all this can be, you are in a market and watching shirts, you like 30 shirts but you
can remember only 7 or 8 shirts in short term memory at a same time. Some people collect
samples and then select the best possible from these samples.
In decision-making, need for awareness of limitations of Short Term Memory. Our long term
memory has a long storage capacity but our short term memory is limited. That's why people
need to keep diaries. They note all important things in these diaries. Because our short term
memory does not have capacity.
Chunking
There is another way of remembering things that is chunking.
For example a telephone Number in USA is 6174927861. this number has more than 9 digits. It is
not easy to recall it. So the easy way to remember this number is chunking. Like
617-492-7861
In Pakistan people make chunks in different way than USA like,
617-49-27-861
But some time problem can arise when we tell phone numbers to a person who has different way
of making chunks. Like some recall three by three digits, some recall digits two by two. So other
can face problem in remembering others chunks.
Chunking is a way to increase capacity. Capacity of STM varies with meaningfulness of the
material. A chunk is a memory unit. STM capacity is not limited by a physically defined unit but by
a meaningfulness unit. Through chunking we can learn 21 digits at a time. Words limit is seven.
But the capacity of sentence is much lower than letters and words.
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Table of Contents:
  1. INTRODUCTION:Historical Background
  2. THE INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACH
  3. COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY:Brains of Dead People, The Neuron
  4. COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY (CONTINUED):The Eye, The visual pathway
  5. COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY (CONTINUED):Hubel & Wiesel, Sensory Memory
  6. VISUAL SENSORY MEMORY EXPERIMENTS (CONTINUED):Psychological Time
  7. ATTENTION:Single-mindedness, In Shadowing Paradigm, Attention and meaning
  8. ATTENTION (continued):Implications, Treisman’s Model, Norman’s Model
  9. ATTENTION (continued):Capacity Models, Arousal, Multimode Theory
  10. ATTENTION:Subsidiary Task, Capacity Theory, Reaction Time & Accuracy, Implications
  11. RECAP OF LAST LESSONS:AUTOMATICITY, Automatic Processing
  12. AUTOMATICITY (continued):Experiment, Implications, Task interference
  13. AUTOMATICITY (continued):Predicting flight performance, Thought suppression
  14. PATTERN RECOGNITION:Template Matching Models, Human flexibility
  15. PATTERN RECOGNITION:Implications, Phonemes, Voicing, Place of articulation
  16. PATTERN RECOGNITION (continued):Adaptation paradigm
  17. PATTERN RECOGNITION (continued):Gestalt Theory of Perception
  18. PATTERN RECOGNITION (continued):Queen Elizabeth’s vase, Palmer (1977)
  19. OBJECT PERCEPTION (continued):Segmentation, Recognition of object
  20. ATTENTION & PATTERN RECOGNITION:Word Superiority Effect
  21. PATTERN RECOGNITION (CONTINUED):Neural Networks, Patterns of connections
  22. PATTERN RECOGNITION (CONTINUED):Effects of Sentence Context
  23. MEMORY:Short Term Working Memory, Atkinson & Shiffrin Model
  24. MEMORY:Rate of forgetting, Size of memory set
  25. Memory:Activation in a network, Magic number 7, Chunking
  26. Memory:Chunking, Individual differences in chunking
  27. MEMORY:THE NATURE OF FORGETTING, Release from PI, Central Executive
  28. Memory:Atkinson & Shiffrin Model, Long Term Memory, Different kinds of LTM
  29. Memory:Spread of Activation, Associative Priming, Implications, More Priming
  30. Memory:Interference, The Critical Assumption, Limited capacity
  31. Memory:Interference, Historical Memories, Recall versus Recognition
  32. Memory:Are forgotten memories lost forever?
  33. Memory:Recognition of lost memories, Representation of knowledge
  34. Memory:Benefits of Categorization, Levels of Categories
  35. Memory:Prototype, Rosch and Colleagues, Experiments of Stephen Read
  36. Memory:Schema Theory, A European Solution, Generalization hierarchies
  37. Memory:Superset Schemas, Part hierarchy, Slots Have More Schemas
  38. MEMORY:Representation of knowledge (continued), Memory for stories
  39. Memory:Representation of knowledge, PQ4R Method, Elaboration
  40. Memory:Study Methods, Analyze Story Structure, Use Multiple Modalities
  41. Memory:Mental Imagery, More evidence, Kosslyn yet again, Image Comparison
  42. Mental Imagery:Eidetic Imagery, Eidetic Psychotherapy, Hot and cold imagery
  43. Language and thought:Productivity & Regularity, Linguistic Intuition
  44. Cognitive development:Assimilation, Accommodation, Stage Theory
  45. Cognitive Development:Gender Identity, Learning Mathematics, Sensory Memory