PSYCH 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Long-Term Memory, Pattern Recognition, Memory Span
Document Summary
The capacity to retain and retrieve information. Ability to retrieve information which has been learned earlier. Effort is saved in having learned something before. Easier to look at list of too many names and pick out 8 reindeer names than to come up with all 8 on own. Memory and mind are like a computer. How to put information in, retain, store, and retrieve. Holds limited amounts of information for up to 20-30 seconds. Research indicates it is a working memory . Compares to information already in our long term memory, goes to our long term memory or decays or is lost. Number of items we are able to hold in our short term memory. Historically is 7 + or - 2. Recent research suggests may be closer to 4. A strategy which helps us hold information, cultural. Organized by schemas and semantic networks contents of long term memory: The act of consciously or intentionally retrieving past experiences.
