Psychology / Unit 6: Memory and Thinking
6.1 The Memory Process and Models
Notes
Memory has three basic jobs: encoding (getting information in), storage (keeping it) and retrieval (getting it out).
- Atkinson-Shiffrin model: information moves from sensory memory (a second or two) to short-term memory to long-term memory.
- Working memory is the active mental workspace used to hold and use information. Short-term memory holds about 7 items (plus or minus 2) for roughly 20 seconds without rehearsal.
- Chunking groups items into larger units to hold more: remembering 1-8-6-5 as "1865."
- Rehearsal repeating information helps keep it in short-term memory.
Practice
Which is the correct order of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model?
Information flows from sensory memory to short-term to long-term memory.
Ruth remembers a phone number as three groups (555, 019, 4402) rather than 10 digits. This strategy is:
Chunking groups items into larger units.
The process of getting information out of memory is called:
Retrieval is accessing stored information.
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