PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Long-Term Memory, Sensory Memory, Working Memory

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Memory is broken down into three components - encoding, storage, and retrieval. Construction: the creation of a new story from an original story. Elaboration: the degree to which information is specified, described, or related to other information in memory. Lead to the idea that memories are not records of events, but rather reconstructions that are guided by common sense knowledge (schema) - reason why we remember bits and pieces of things and make up the rest. Encoding is the process of recording our experiences, thoughts and feelings, however we only usually encode important information that we pay attention to. The more we process information, the more deeply it is encoded and easier to retrieve. The strength of the memory trace (degree to which it is encoded) depends on how extensively the information is processed. Elaborative encoding greatly enhances retention (relating new knowledge to knowledge already stored in memory) Chunking information: categorizing and organizing information by relationship.