World Scholars Cup The Science of Memory Introductory Questions o o o o o o o o o o
How do we store and retrieve memories? How do our memories and experiences shape who are are? What makes certain memories “stick” more than others? How does memory relate to attachment—such as to other people, or even to inanimate objects, such as stuffed alpacas? Are our memories always reliable? If not, when can they become unreliable? Can our memories lead to distortions of judgment? Can we influence the way people remember us? Even without the help of technology, can we choose to edit our own memories – if so, how? How reliable is your memory? What steps can you take to make it more reliable? What is the evolutionary value of memory? Does answering this question suggest anything about what memories we might be most likely to hold onto
Understanding Memory o
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The Basics of Memory § What are the biological processes behind memory storage and retrieval? § What types of memory are there? § How do memories affect the way we view the world? § Why is memory considered an active reconstructive process? The Biology of Memory § hippocampus | amygdala | cerebellum | acetylcholine § localization of function | neuroplasticity | neurons | nervous system An Introduction to Schemas § What is schema theory? § How do schemas help structure our memories? § What functions do schemas perform – are they necessary? § Are schemas always reliable, or can they lead to distortions? If the latter, when are distortions most likely? § Studies and Researchers to Explore (Examples) § J. Piaget | F. Bartlett | E.F. Loftus & J.C. Palmer § War of Ghosts | Car Crash Study | Weapons Effect Types of Memory § long-term vs. short-term | explicit vs. implicit § declarative vs. procedural | semantic vs. episodic § eidetic | hyperthymesic | reconstructive § muscle | collective | genetic Flashbulb Memory § What are flashbulb memories? How are they formed, and what differentiates them from other memories?
Why do we remember some memories more vividly than others? Does rehearsing a memory make it more likely to be reliable? Are we more likely to forget memories that we don’t share out loud with friends? § Why are some cultures more likely to forget events as a whole? § Terms and Researchers to Explore (Examples) § overt vs. covert rehearsal | individualistic vs. collectivistic | emotional arousal § Neisser & Harsch | Brown & Kulik | Wang & Aydin Memory Aids to Explore (examples) § elaborative encoding | spaced retrieval | mnemonics | mind palace § Simonides | Giordano Bruno | nootropics | transcranial magnetic stimulation Additional Terms to Know § chunking | priming | interference | memory inhibition § Working Memory Model | Multi-Store Model | Levels of Processing § humor effect | generation effect | positivity effect § § §
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When Memory Goes Awry o
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What Memory? § Would it ever be ethical to change or remove someone else’s memories? § Is there any way to know for sure whether our memories are accurate? § How accurate is eyewitness testimony? Can it be misleading, and can it be improved? § Do people from different cultures and societies remember the same things differently in predictable ways? § To what extent can we trust decisions made by those without sound memory? On the Tip of the Tongue § decay theory | motivated forgetting | gaslighting § amnesia | TBI | blackouts | nostalgia § Alzheimer’s | dementia | Korsakoff’s syndrome § flashback | PTSD | dissociation Biases and Fallacies § Seven Sins of Memory | self-serving bias | rosy retrospection § confabulation | repression | memory implantation | the memory wars § memory conformity | telescoping effect | recall bias
Technologies of Remembrance o o o
Can technologies help us to remember things? Can they help us to forget them? Elements of Memory in a Digital Age to Explore (Examples) § Jacquard loom | punch card | stored-program computer | drum memory § digitization | caching | crawler | metadata | emulation | RAM
abandonware | digital dark age | obsolescence | link rot vinyl | GeoCities | Timehop | The Wayback Machine Memory Development to Explore (Examples) § Restoring Active Memory § HDAC inhibition § Optogenetics § Neuroprosthetic implants § Creating false memories § Rewriting existing memories § §
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Additional Questions and Cases o
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Consider the power of first impressions as you plan your outfit for your next debate. Why are they so impactful, and should they be? What does it take to change an impression? Consider the case of highly superior autobiographical memory, a condition in which people are unable to forget even the most mundane details of their daily lives. Is the perspective in this article too critical? Is it always better to have a better memory, or is it better to selectively (or un-selectively) forget? Oxford professor Dr. Viktor Mayer-Schonberger argues that the Internet has made it more difficult for us to leave behind memories—that “the digital realm remembers what is sometimes better forgotten”. Read this review of his work and discuss with your team: how important is it that we be able to erase our pasts? Is there an upside to memories being harder to forget? Watch this TED talk about memory manipulation by one of the world’s foremost psychologists, and consider: how trustworthy is your memory? How much weight should memory hold for determining facts? Imagine that you were walking through a mall and happened to hear a song you loved as a child. Music is extremely powerful as a summoner of past memories because of its emotional connectivity. Are there any songs that would have such an effect on you? Can any other types of stimuli (perhaps based on other senses) also elicit such vivid memories? How different would we be—as people and as societies—if memory were not an active reconstructive process? Various media can be used to connect you with others in the future, or even to a future version of yourself—from diaries and blogs to tombstones and eulogies. If you were to create them, what would you include in them? The word “nostalgia” comes from the Greek words for “home” and “pain”, meaning a painful longing for home. In many cases, this home is imagined or idealized, representing a time and place that never existed in the first place. Discuss with your team: is nostalgia healthy for individuals? How about for cultures and societies? Then, consider this warning by novelist Mohsin Hamid. Is it justified? Deep in the Amazon live the Piraha, a culture that does not venerate or remember its ancestors and whose language, many linguists claim, may have little or no way
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to talk about the future or the past. What does such a culture look like without ancestral memory, or the ability to talk about the past? History depends on archives: records that allow us to tell the story of the past. How will future generations tell the story of the 21st century if all our duck-face selfies vanished? What does its archive look like? Compare the United States’ national museum (Chapter 7)’s digital journey to perhaps the most well-known medium of digital ephemera, Snapchat. Time capsules, such as the Crypt of Civilization, can allow the past to “communicate” with the future. What do the contents of time capsules tell us about how past generations wanted to be remembered? What would you put in a time capsule if you were to make one? Consider this article about how World War II is taught in different European countries (Part 1 | Part 2). How does education reshape our collective memory? Does the way you learn about something significantly influence the way you remember it, and if so, what does that say about our understanding of supposedly unchangeable historical events? On the other hand, some societies have chosen not to remember. Consider the implications of a damnatio memoriae. Are there some memories, personal or social, that are best forgotten? Why do we preserve notable historic artifacts and sites? Consider a monument or memorial familiar to you. How does it connect to individual or collective memories?
Biological Processes Behind Memory Storage And Retrieval
Memory is essentially the capacity for storing and retrieving information. Three processes are involved in memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval. All three of these processes determine whether something is remembered or forgotten. Encoding Processing information into memory is called encoding. People automatically encode some types of information without being aware of it. For example, most people probably can recall where they ate lunch yesterday, even though they didn’t try to remember this information. However, other types of information become encoded only if people pay attention to it. College students will probably not remember all the material in their textbooks unless they pay close attention while they’re reading. There are several different ways of encoding verbal information: • • •
Structural encoding focuses on what words look like. For instance, one might note whether words are long or short, in uppercase or lowercase, or handwritten or typed. Phonemic encoding focuses on how words sound. Semantic encoding focuses on the meaning of words. Semantic encoding requires a deeper level of processing than structural or phonemic encoding and usually results in better memory.
Storage After information enters the brain, it has to be stored or maintained. To describe the process of storage, many psychologists use the three-stage model proposed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin. According to this model, information is stored sequentially in three memory systems: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Sensory Memory Sensory memory stores incoming sensory information in detail but only for an instant. The capacity of sensory memory is very large, but the information in it is unprocessed. If a flashlight moves quickly in a circle inside a dark room, people will see a circle of light rather than the individual points through which the flashlight moved. This happens because sensory memory holds the successive images of the moving flashlight long enough for the brain to see a circle. Visual sensory memory is called iconic memory; auditory sensory memory is called echoic memory. Short-Term Memory Some of the information in sensory memory transfers to short-term memory, which can hold information for approximately twenty seconds. Rehearsing can help keep information in shortterm memory longer. When people repeat a new phone number over and over to themselves, they are rehearsing it and keeping it in short-term memory.
Short-term memory has a limited capacity: it can store about seven pieces of information, plus or minus two pieces. These pieces of information can be small, such as individual numbers or letters, or larger, such as familiar strings of numbers, words, or sentences. A method called chunking can help to increase the capacity of short-term memory. Chunking combines small bits of information into bigger, familiar pieces. Example: A person confronted with this sequence of twelve letters would probably have difficulty remembering it ten seconds later, because short-term memory cannot handle twelve pieces of information: HO TB UT TE RE DP OP CO RN IN AB OW L However, these letters can be easily remembered if they’re grouped into six familiar words, because short-term memory can hold six pieces of information: HOT BUTTERED POPCORN IN A BOWL Working Memory Psychologists today consider short-term memory to be a working memory. Rather than being just a temporary information storage system, working memory is an active system. Information can be kept in working memory while people process or examine it. Working memory allows people to temporarily store and manipulate visual images, store information while trying to make decisions, and remember a phone number long enough to write it down. Long-Term Memory Information can be transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory and from longterm memory back to short-term memory. Long-term memory has an almost infinite capacity, and information in long-term memory usually stays there for the duration of a person’s life. However, this doesn’t mean that people will always be able to remember what’s in their longterm memory—they may not be able to retrieve information that’s there. Organization of Memories Imagine what would happen if a psychology textbook weren’t organized by section, by chapter, or in any other way. Imagine if the textbook didn’t have a table of contents or an index. If the textbook just contained lots of information in a random order, students would have difficulty finding a particular concept, such as “encoding of memory.” They’d know the information was in there somewhere, but they’d have trouble retrieving it. Long-term memory stores much more information than a textbook, and people would never be able to retrieve the information from it if it weren’t organized in some way. Psychologists believe one way the brain organizes information in long-term memory is by category. For example, papaya may be organized within the semantic category fruit. Categories can also be based on how words sound or look. If someone is struggling to remember the word papaya, she may remember first that it’s a three-syllable word, that it begins with the letter p, or that it ends with the letter a.
Long-term memory organizes information not only by categories but also by the information’s familiarity, relevance, or connection to other information. Where Were You When . . . Flashbulb memories are vivid, detailed memories of important events. Older people may have very clear memories of where they were and what they were doing when they heard President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Many people today may have a similar kind of memory of where they were when they heard the Pentagon and the World Trade Center had been attacked by terrorists. Retrieval Retrieval is the process of getting information out of memory. Retrieval cues are stimuli that help the process of retrieval. Retrieval cues include associations, context, and mood. Lost Memories The fact that people can often recall lost memories when hypnotized suggests that information in long-term memory is usually not lost— it may just be difficult to retrieve. Associations Because the brain stores information as networks of associated concepts, recalling a particular word becomes easier if another, related word is recalled first. This process is called priming. Example: If Tim shows his roommate a picture of sunbathers on a nude beach and then asks him to spell the word bear, the roommate may be more likely to spell bare because the picture primed him to recall that form of the word. Context People can often remember an event by placing themselves in the same context they were in when the event happened. Example: If a woman loses her car keys, she may be able to recall where she put them if she recreates in her mind exactly what she did when she last came in from parking her car. Mood If people are in the same mood they were in during an event, they may have an easier time recalling the event.
http://www.human-memory.net/types.html Memory is never a literal recount of past experiences. Rather, it is dependent on the constructive processes present at the time of encoding that are subject to potential errors and distortions. Essentially, the constructive memory process functions by encoding the patterns of physical characteristics that are perceived by the individual, as well as the interpretive conceptual and semantic functions that act in response to the incoming information.[1] By utilizing multiple interdependent cognitive processes there is never a single location in the brain where a given complete memory trace of an experience is stored.[2] In this manner, the various features of the experience must be joined together to form a coherent representation of the episode and if this binding process fails it can result in source memory failure, where later attempted retrieval of the episode results in fragmented recollection and an inability to consolidate the information into a cohesive narrative of a past experience. During the recall of Episodic memory, the information that a person remembers is usually limited in scope, ultimately giving an incomplete recollection of an event. By employing reconstructive processes, individuals supplement other aspects of available personal knowledge into the gaps found in episodic memory in order to provide a fuller and more coherent version, albeit one that is often distorted. Many errors can occur when attempting to retrieve a specific episode. First, the retrieval cues used to initiate the search for a specific episode may be too similar to other experiential memories and the retrieval process may fail if the individual is unable to form a specific description of the unique characteristics of the given memory they would like to retrieve.[3] When there is little available distinctive information for a given episode there will be more overlap across multiple episodes, leading the individual to recall only the general similarities common to these memories. Ultimately proper recall for a desired target memory fails due to the interference of non-target memories that are activated because of their similarity.
Secondly, a large number of errors that occur during memory reconstruction are caused by faults in the criterion-setting and decision making processes used to direct attention towards retrieving a specific target memory. When there are lapses in recall of aspects of an episodic memory, the individual tends to supplement other aspects of knowledge that are unrelated to the actual episode in order to form a more cohesive and well-rounded reconstruction of the memory, regardless of whether or not the individual is aware of such supplemental processing. This process is known as confabulation. All of the supplemental processes occurring during the course of reconstruction rely on the use of schema, information networks that organize and store abstract knowledge in the brain.
The hippocampus is a small organ located within the brain's medial temporal lobe and forms an important part of the limbic system, the region that regulates emotions. The hippocampus is associated mainly with memory, in particular long-term memory. The organ also plays an important role in spatial navigation The brain region most strongly implicated in emotional memory is the amygdala. The amygdala is critically involved in calculating the emotional significance of events, and, through its connection to brain regions dealing with sensory experiences, also appears to be responsible for the influence of emotion on perception - alerting us to notice emotionally significant events even when we're not paying attention. The amygdala appears to be particularly keyed to negative experiences. But it is not only the amygdala that is involved in this complex interaction. The cerebellum, most strongly associated with motor coordination skills, may also be involved in remembering strong emotions, in particular, in the consolidation of long-term memories of fear. Parts of the prefrontal cortex also appear to be involved. One study found that a region of the prefrontal cortex was jointly influenced by a combination of mood state and cognitive task, but not by either one alone. Another study found that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is more active when the participants were surprised by unexpected responses. Function: Responsible for the response and memory of emotions, especially fear When you think of the amygdala, you should think of one word. Fear. The amygdala is the reason we are afraid of things outside our control. It also controls the way we react to certain stimuli, or an event that causes an emotion, that we see as potentially threatening or dangerous. The cerebellum receives information from the sensory systems, the spinal cord, and other parts of the brain and then regulates motor movements. The cerebellum coordinates voluntary movements such as posture, balance, coordination, and speech, resulting in smooth and balanced muscular activity. The cerebellum plays an important role in balance, motor control, but is also involved in some cognitive functions such as attention, language, emotional functions (such as regulating fear and pleasure responses) and in the processing of procedural memories.
Acetylcholine is a brain chemical with a major role in the ability to learn and remember. By suppressing signal transmission in the hippocampus, acetylcholine actually prevents the retrieval of old memories from interfering with the making of new memories. Therefore, acetylcholine serves a very important function by clearly separating the encoding and retrieval of memories. This allows for no interference between memories, and for the separation of memories into clear segments that can be easily retrieved later. Localisation of function is the idea that certain functions (e.g. language, memory, etc.) have certain locations or areas within the brain. Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity or neural plasticity, is an umbrella term that describes lasting change to the brain throughout an individual's life course
In psychology and cognitive science, a schema (plural schemata or schemas) describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.[1] It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information.[2] Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information. Schemata can help in understanding the world and the rapidly changing environment.[3] People can organize new perceptions into schemata quickly as most situations do not require complex thought when using schema, since automatic thought is all that is required
Memory Errors Memories are fallible. They are reconstructions of reality filtered through people’s minds, not perfect snapshots of events. Because memories are reconstructed, they are susceptible to being manipulated with false information. Memory errors occur when memories are recalled incorrectly; a memory gap is the complete loss of a memory. Schemas a)They organize info. in memory b)They can be activated to increase info-processing efficiency c)They enable the generation of expectations about objects, events, and people d)They regulate behavior e)They are relatively stable and usually resistant to change thus ensuring continuity in the ways we process info. and the ways we act. In a 1932 study, Frederic Bartlett Did War of the Ghosts Saying that memory is active and that reconstructive process is NOT passive. ---Exerted high significant influence on modern psychology.
He also demonstrated how telling and retelling a story distorted information recall. He told participants a complicated Native American story and had them repeat it over a series of intervals. With each repetition, the stories were altered. Even when participants recalled accurate information, they filled in gaps with false information. Bartlett attributed this tendency to the use of schemas. A schema is a generalization formed in the mind based on experience. People tend to place past events into existing representations of the world to make memories more coherent. Instead of remembering precise details about commonplace occurrences, people use schemas to create frameworks for typical experiences, which shape their expectations and memories. The common use of schemas suggests that memories are not identical reproductions of experience, but a combination of actual events and already-existing schemas. Likewise, the brain has the tendency to fill in blanks and inconsistencies in a memory by making use of the imagination and similarities with other memories. Leading Questions Much research has shown that the phrasing of questions can also alter memories. A leading question is a question that suggests the answer or contains the information the examiner is looking for. For instance, one study showed that simply changing one word in a question could alter participants’ answers: After viewing video footage of a car accident, participants who were asked how “slow” the car was going gave lower speed estimations than those who were asked how “fast” it was going. Children are particularly suggestible to such leading questions. However, although schemas can improve our memories, they may also lead to cognitive biases. Using schemas may lead us to falsely remember things that never happened to us and to distort or misremember things that did. For one, schemas lead to the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to verify and confirm our existing memories rather than to challenge and disconfirm them. The confirmation bias occurs because once we have schemas, they influence how we seek out and interpret new information. The confirmation bias leads us to remember information that fits our schemas better than we remember information that disconfirms them, [ 1] a process that makes our stereotypes very difficult to change. And we ask questions in ways that confirm our schemas. [ 2] If we think that a person is an extrovert, we might ask her about ways that she likes to have fun, thereby making it more likely that we will confirm our beliefs. In short, once we begin to believe in something—for instance, a stereotype about a group of people—it becomes very difficult to later convince us that these beliefs are not true; the beliefs become selfconfirming. Darley and Gross [ 3] demonstrated how schemas about social class could influence memory. In their research they gave participants a picture and some information about a fourth-grade girl named Hannah. To activate a schema about her social class, Hannah was pictured sitting in front of a nice suburban house for one-half of the participants and pictured in front of an impoverished house in an urban area for the other half. Then the participants watched a video that showed Hannah taking an intelligence test. As the test went on, Hannah got some of the questions right and some of them wrong, but the number of correct and incorrect answers was the same in both conditions. Then the participants were asked to remember how many questions Hannah got right and wrong. Demonstrating that stereotypes had influenced memory, the participants who thought that Hannah had come from an upper-class background remembered that she had gotten more correct answers than those who thought she was from a lower-class background.
Piaget's (1936) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process which occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Piaget provided support for the idea that children think differently than adults and his research identified several important milestones in the mental development of children. His work also generated interest in cognitive and developmental psychology. Piaget's theories are widely studied today by students of both psychology and education. Frederic Bartlett advanced the concept that memories of past events and experiences are actually mental reconstructions that are coloured by cultural attitudes and personal habits, rather than being direct recollections of observations made at the time. In experiments beginning in 1914, Bartlett showed that very little of an event is actually perceived at the time of its occurrence but that, in reconstructing the memory, gaps in observation or perception are filled in with the aid of previous experiences. Frederic Bartlett conducted the WAR OF THE GHOSTS Study Loftus and Palmer (1974) Study Elizabeth Loftus And John Palmer Aim: To test their hypothesis that the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter memory. Thus, they aimed to show that leading questions could distort eyewitness testimony accounts and so have a confabulating effect, as the account would become distorted by cues provided in the question. To test this Loftus and Palmer (1974) asked people to estimate the speed of motor vehicles using different forms of questions. Estimating vehicle speed is something people are generally poor at and so they may be more open to suggestion. Experiment One
Procedure: Forty-five American students formed an opportunity sample. This was a laboratory experiment with five conditions, only one of which was experienced by each participant (an independent measures experimental design). 7 films of traffic accidents, ranging in duration from 5 to 30 seconds, were presented in a random order to each group. After watching the film participants were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses. They were then asked specific questions, including the question “About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted) each other?” Thus, the IV was the wording of the question and the DV was the speed reported by the participants.
Findings: The estimated speed was affected by the verb used. The verb implied information about the speed, which systematically affected the participants’ memory of the accident. Participants who were asked the “smashed” question thought the cars were going faster than those who were asked the “hit” question. The participants in the “smashed” condition reported the highest speed estimate (40.8 mph), followed by “collided” (39.3 mph), “bumped” (38.1 mph), “hit” (34 mph), and “contacted” (31.8 mph) in descending order. Conclusion: The results show that the verb conveyed an impression of the speed the car was travelling and this altered the participants' perceptions. In other words, eyewitness testimony might be biased by the way questions are asked after a crime is committed. Loftus and Palmer offer two possible explanations for this result: 1. Response-bias factors: The misleading information provided may have simply influenced the answer a person gave (a 'response-bias') but didn't actually lead to a false memory of the event. For example, the different speed estimates occur because because the critical word (e.g. 'smash' or 'hit') influences or biases a person's response. 2. The memory representation is altered: The critical verb changes a person's perception of the accident - some critical words would lead someone to have a perception of the accident being more serious. This perception is then stored in a person's memory of the event. If the second explanation is true we would expect participants to remember other details that are not true. Loftus and Palmer tested this in their second experiment. The weapons effect is a phenomenon described and evidenced for in the scientific field of social psychology. It refers to the mere presence of a weapon or a picture of a weapon leading to more aggressive behavior in humans, particularly if these humans are already aroused.[1] This should not be confused with the weapon focus, another social psychology finding. This effect was first
described by Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage in 1967 in their paper "Weapons as Aggressions-Eliciting Stimuli" in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology In 1967, Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage conducted a fascinating study.[1] First, participants were angered by a person pretending to be another participant (called a confederate). Next, participants were seated at a table that had a shotgun and a revolver on it—or, in the control condition, badminton racquets and shuttlecocks. The items on the table were described as part of another experiment that the researcher had supposedly forgotten to put away. The participant was supposed to decide what level of electric shock to deliver to the confederate who had angered them, and the electric shocks were used to measure aggression. The experimenter told participants to ignore the items on the table, but apparently they could not. Participants who saw the guns were more aggressive than were participants who saw the sports items. This effect was dubbed the “weapons effect.” Long-Term Memory A long-term memory is anything you remember that happened more than a few minutes ago. Long-term memories can last for just a few days, or for many years. Long-term memories aren't all of equal strength. Stronger memories enable you to recall an event, procedure, or fact on demand—for example, that Paris is the capital of France. Weaker memories often come to mind only through prompting or reminding. Long-term memory isn't static, either. You do not imprint a memory and leave it as if untouched. Instead, you often revise the memory over time—perhaps by merging it with another memory or incorporating what others tell you about the memory. As a result, your memories are not strictly constant, and are not always reliable. There are many different forms of long-term memories. These memories aren't formed and retained in a single part of the brain; instead, the process of creating and storing long-term memories is spread throughout multiple regions. The two major subdivisions are explicit memory and implicit memory. Explicit memories are those that you consciously remember, such as an event in your life or a particular fact. Implicit memories are those that you do without thinking about, like riding a bike—you once learned how, and you remembered how, but now do it without conscious thought. Although understanding these differences in the type of memory we carry for the long-term is helpful, the divisions are fluid: different forms of memory often mix and mingle. To learn more about the different types of long-term memory, view our explicit (declarative) memory and implicit (nondeclarative) memory pages. Short-Term Memory Short-term memory—closely related to "working memory"—is like a receptionist for the brain. As one of two main memory types, short-term memory is responsible for storing information temporarily and determining if it will be dismissed or transferred on to long-term memory. Although it sounds complicated, this process takes your short-term memory less than a minute to complete. For example, it is helping you right now by storing information from the beginning of
this sentence, so that you can make sense of the end of it. More recently, scientists have begun to dive a little deeper into "short-term" brain functions and have added a separate (but similar) type of memory,"working" memory. Implicit Memory Implicit memory (also called "nondeclarative" memory) is a type of long-term memory that stands in contrast to explicit memory in that it doesn't require conscious thought. It allows you to do things by rote. This memory isn't always easy to verbalize, since it flows effortlessly in our actions. Procedural Memory Procedural memory is the type of implicit memory that enables us to carry out commonly learned tasks without consciously thinking about them. It's our "how to" knowledge. Riding a bike, tying a shoe and washing dishes are all tasks that require procedural memory. Even what we think of as "natural" tasks, such as walking, require procedural memory. Though we can do such tasks fairly easily, it's often hard to verbalize exactly how we do them. Procedural memory likely uses a different part of the brain than episodic memory—with brain injuries, you can lose one ability without losing the other. That's why a person who has experienced amnesia and forgets much about his or her personal life often retains procedural memory: how to use a fork or drive a car, for example. Priming Implicit memory can also come about from priming. You are "primed" by your experiences; if you have heard something very recently, or many more times than another thing, you are primed to recall it more quickly. For instance, if you were asked to name an American city that starts with the letters "Ch," you would most likely answer Chicago, unless you have a close personal connection to or recent experience with another "Ch" city (Charlotte, Cheyenne, Charleston…) because you've heard about Chicago more often. In the brain, the neural pathways representing things we have experienced more often are more salient than those for things with which we have fewer experiences. As with short-term memory, long-term memory can weaken with age or with cognitive conditions. For example, it can be harder to complete a procedure that was previously quite easy for you. You might forget a step to baking a cake you've baked a hundred times, and that you thought you had firmly committed to memory.
Explicit Memory Explicit memory (also called "declarative memory") is one of the two major subdivisions of long-term memory. (The other is implicit memory.) Explicit memory requires conscious thought—such as recalling who came to dinner last night or naming animals that live in the rainforest. It's what most people have in mind when they think of "memory," and whether theirs is good or bad. Explicit memory is often associative; your brain links memories together. For example, when you think of a word or occasion, such as an automobile, your memory can bring up a whole host of associated memories—from carburetors to your commute to a family road trip to a thousand other things. Episodic Memory Episodic memory is one type of explicit memory. Episodic memory is autobiographical: it provides us with a crucial record of our personal experiences. It is our episodic memory that allows us to remember the trip we took to Vegas, what we had for dinner last night, who told us that our friend Maryann was pregnant. Any past event in which we played a part, and which we remember as an "episode" (a scene of events) is episodic. How well we record an episodic memory depends on several factors. For example, things that occur to us in emotionally charged conditions are often stronger memories. Most people remember where they were when they heard about the World Trade Center on 9/11, or the details of a wedding of a loved one, because those were highly emotional moments for them. Another important factor is the strength with which your brain records the memory when you first experience it. If you focus carefully, and your brain is able to process what you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel very quickly and accurately, the memory is recorded with more power, making it easier to recall later. This form of memory appears to be centered in the brain's hippocampus—with considerable help from the cerebral cortex. Read more about this type of autobiographical memory and take a test to see if your episodic memories center in the same time of life as the average person's. Semantic Memory Another type of explicit memory is semantic memory. It accounts for our "textbook learning" or general knowledge about the world. It's what enables us to say, without knowing exactly when and where we learned, that a zebra is a striped animal, or that Paris is the major city in France. Scientists aren't sure where semantic memory happens in the brain; some say in the hippocampus and related areas, while others think it's widely spread throughout the brain. As with episodic memory, semantic memory ranges from strong (recall) to weak (familiarity). Unlike episodic memory, semantic memory is better sustained over time. We are often able to retain a highly functioning semantic memory into our 60's–after which it undergoes a slow decline Eidetic memory (/aɪˈdɛtɪk/; sometimes called photographic memory) is an ability to vividly recall images from memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for a brief time after exposure,[1] without using a mnemonic device.[2] Although the terms eidetic memory and photographic memory are popularly used interchangeably,[1] they are also distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the ability to view memories like photographs for a few minutes,[3] and photographic memory referring to the ability to recall pages of text or numbers,
or similar, in great detail.[4][5] When the concepts are distinguished, eidetic memory is reported to occur in a small number of children and as something generally not found in adults,[2][6] while true photographic memory has never been demonstrated to exist Reconstructive memory refers to the process of assembling information from stored knowledge when a clear or coherent memory of specific events does not exist. For example, an interviewer may work with crime victim to assemble a memory of the traumatic events surrounding a crime. Hyperthymesia is characterized by a state in which person have deep detailed autobiographical memory. Person having such mental state remembers vast number of life events that happened in past. Generally it can be described as state of super memory. It is also called HSAM Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory Muscle Memory is a form of procedural memory that arises from repetition of a physical activity for a period of time. When a movement is repeated over time, a long-term muscle memory is created for that task, eventually allowing it to be performed without conscious effort. This process decreases the need for attention and creates maximum efficiency within the motor and memory systems. Examples of muscle memory are found in many everyday activities that become automatic and improve with practice, such as riding a bicycle, typing on a keyboard, typing in a PIN, playing a musical instrument A flashbulb memory is a detailed and vivid memory that is stored on one occasion and retained for a lifetime. Usually, such memories are associated with important historical or autobiographical events. For example, many people in the US who were adults in the 1960s have flashbulb memories for the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and can recall in elaborate detail when and how they heard the news. (Younger Americans sometimes have flashbulb memories for the explosion of the spaceship Challenger.) By contrast, few people have detailed memories of events which happened the day before or after each assassination. People also may form flashbulb memories of important personal events, such as hearing about the death of a family member or witnessing an unusual trauma such as a disaster. In each case, what makes the memory "special" is the emotional arousal at the moment that the event was registered. Subsequent remembering, discussion -- and even seeing TV footage -- can all also help to sharpen the memory. Flashbulb memories are not necessarily accurate in every respect, but they demonstrate that the emotional content of an event can greatly enhance the strength of the memory formed. Flashbulb memories are thought to require the participation of the amygdala, a brain structure involved in emotional memory, and possibly other brain systems which regulate mood and alertness. I remember as a kid that my parents shared vivid memories of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. They could tell me where they were and who they were with when they found out the president had been shot. In 1977, Roger Brown and James Kulik called memories like this flashbulb memories (link is external). They argued that important traumatic events are stored in a complete and vivid way that captures the context, the event, and the emotional reaction to it. The idea is that when
something very dangerous or emotional happens, there may not be time in the moment to analyze exactly what happened. By storing a vivid memory of the situation, the individual can reexamine it later and learn from it to avoid potentially dangerous situations again in the future. Since this influential paper was published, psychologists have wondered about the accuracy of these memories. Brown and Kulik looked at the characteristics of memories for past events. They looked in detail at the assassination of Martin Luther King, but also gathered data about other assassination attempts and personal unexpected shocks from the past. People are highly confident about their flashbulb memories. They feel as though all of the details have been preserved. But, research on memory suggests that confidence is misleading. These studies did not allow the researchers to assess the accuracy of the memories. Since then, whenever there are unexpected tragedies, psychologists have rushed to get statements from people about their immediate memories for the events and have tried to follow up with them later. A fascinating example of this research was published in a paper in the June, 2015 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (link is external) by 17 authors who include a number of leading memory researchers. These researchers sent our memory surveys immediately after the airplane attacks on 9/11/01. They sent out follow-up surveys to participants after one, three, and ten years. Although they have quite a bit of data from the first few surveys, only about 200 people filled out all four surveys. Still, the results are quite interesting. All survey participants still had memories of how they found out about the event, who they were with, what they were doing, how they felt, the first person they talked to and what they were doing before finding out about the attack. That means that all of the survey participants had memories that would quality as a flashbulb memory. They were generally highly confident in the memory as well. Despite their memory confidence, when the details of their memories were compared to the initial survey taken within10 days of 9/11, there were significant inconsistencies. A year after the event, only about 2/3 of what people remembered was accurate. This accuracy did not dip much lower after that, and by 10 years after 9/11, people were still about 60% accurate. Thus, although flashbulb memories are not like videos of the event, they are probably more accurate than memories for most events that took place 10 years before. People also had reasonably good memory for core events relating to 9/11 such as the number of planes involved and the crash sites. Their memories for more peripheral facts (like where Pres. Bush was during the attacks and the airlines of the planes used) were remembered less well. People often remembered these facts later if they were exposed to media reports and movies that featured this information. One other interesting facet of these memories is that if someone added an incorrect detail into their memory for the event, that misinformation was likely to be repeated in later accounts rather
than corrected. This suggests that one reason why flashbulb memories remain so vivid for people is that they are recalled over time. Extra information that emerges when someone recalls a memory can get incorporated into that memory later. This study fits with a growing body of work suggesting that the experience of flashbulb memories is a real one. It happens both for public events that are shocking (like 9/11) as well as personal events. Although the memories are highly vivid (which leads to a sense of confidence that the memory is accurate), there are significant inconsistencies in most people’s memories. These recollections are called flashbulb memories. In a flashbulb memory, we recall the experience of learning about an event, not the factual details of the event itself. There might be an advantage to recalling the elements of important events that happen to us or to those close to us, but there appears to be little benefit to recalling our experience hearing this kind of news. So why does learning about a big event create such vivid memories? And just how accurate are flashbulb memories? Strong emotions and personal connections Not all historical events lead to flashbulb memories. An event must capture our individual attention and be identified as something significant before the memory is intensified. In order for us to exhibit this enhanced memory phenomenon, it seems critical that we feel a sense of personal or cultural connection to the event that results in a strong emotional reaction.
Imagine that you are studying neuroanatomy one afternoon in the library. You are trying to learn the specific shape and location of the hippocampus. As you stare intently at an image of the brain, you suddenly hear a loud gunshot. You immediately stand and see several confused, shocked people, one of whom catches your eye because she is wearing a vibrant orange dress. The gun is nowhere in sight. After a few moments of commotion you learn that someone just committed suicide in the stacks. Later, as you are packing up your books to leave, you see your notes on emotional memory from a recent psychology class. “Hmm,” you think, “Based on previous research, how should my memory for this afternoon differ from my typical study sessions at the library?” Well, past research shows that you will be more likely to remember this afternoon than most other afternoons in the library, and that you will have a vivid memory for the gunshot itself. But what would you predict about your memory for the information you were studying just before the gunshot, or what you saw immediately after? Will you remember the image of the hippocampus in your textbook any more or less clearly next week than you would have otherwise? Would your memory for people seated around you be better or worse than if you had not heard the gunshot? The challenge of understanding arousal’s selective effects on memory
Researchers have investigated how experiencing an emotionally arousing event such as watching a comedy skit, a video of oral surgery, or a stress induction like immersing one’s hand in ice water might affect memory for what is seen just beforehand. These studies address the question of whether hearing the gunshot will affect your memory for the picture of the brain that you were carefully studying. But the challenge is that findings across studies differ and in some instances appear to contradict one another. In some studies an emotionally arousing event enhances later memory for neutral information presented beforehand (Nielson & Powless, 2007; Nielson & Bryant, 2005). In other studies manipulations of stress or emotional arousal either disrupt or have no effect on memory for neutral stimuli presented beforehand (Buchanan & Lovallo, 2001; Cahill, Gorski, & Le, 2003; Smeets, Otgaar, Candel, & Wolf, 2008). Other experiments find that even just the presentation of an emotional picture or word can affect memory for neutral items shown just beforehand – but again, whether the emotional stimuli enhance or impair memory for information around them depends on the study, with many studies showing impairment (e.g., Detterman & Ellis, 1972; Knight & Mather, 2009; Strange, Hurlemann, & Dolan, 2003) but a couple demonstrating enhancement (Anderson, Wais, & Gabrieli, 2006; Knight & Mather, 2009). Other findings related to the way that emotional arousal leads to selective memory also present some apparently conflicting findings. For instance, there is some evidence that emotional arousal enhances memory for generalized forms of information that lack detail, a type of memory known as ‘gist’ memory (Adolphs, Tranel, & Buchanan, 2005), whereas other studies show that emotional arousal enhances memory for the specific perceptual details of an item (Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton, & Schacter, 2006, 2007a, 2007b; Mather & Nesmith, 2008). How can we account for these seemingly contradictory effects of arousal on memory? Across studies, one theme that emerges is that arousal has selective effects on memory. Whether arousal enhances or impairs memory depends on the experiment, and the type of information that the participant is tested on. But what determines what arousal will enhance in memory and what it will impair? One previous hypothesis is that emotional arousal leads to memory narrowing, in which arousal enhances memory for central details at the cost of peripheral details (Burke, Heuer, & Reisberg, 1992; Christianson, Loftus, Hoffman, & Loftus, 1991). However, this account cannot explain how arousal sometimes enhances and sometimes impairs memory for information that precedes or follows an arousing stimulus, as reviewed above. To address the puzzling discrepancies that have been observed across studies, we outlined a new theory of arousal and memory (Mather & Sutherland, 2011). This arousal-biased competition (ABC) theory builds on the notion that during perception and thought, our active mental representations compete with each other (Beck & Kastner, 2009; Duncan, 2006). Whichever representation becomes dominant tends to suppress the less prominent representations. ABC theory proposes that arousal leads to both “winner-take-more” and “loser-take-less” effects, resulting in stronger biased competition in the brain. Thus, arousal modulates ongoing competitive processes of mental representation. However, the key to understanding arousalbiased competition lies in the concept of ‘priority,’ that determines which mental representations will be enhanced versus suppressed by the process of selective attention.
Two primary factors determine priority—top-down goals and bottom-up perceptual salience (Fecteau & Munoz, 2006). Top-down goals refer to the subjective importance assigned to, and the expectations one has for what is perceived. Bottom-up perceptual salience refers to the degree to which a stimulus attracts attention as a result of its perceptual properties, such as when a brightly lit object attracts more attention than a dimly lit one. Thus if a stimulus in an experiment is relevant to the participant’s task (top-down goal), or it is more perceptually salient (bottom-up perceptual salience) than other stimuli in view, it will have priority. According to ABC theory, perception and memory for high priority stimuli are enhanced by arousal, while low priority stimuli are suppressed. According to Brown and Kulik, FBMs – FLASHBULB MEMORIES often include these features: • • • • • •
the place where the news was heard (Place) the person who supplied the information (Informant) what they were doing at the time of hearing the news (Ongoing event) their emotional state upon receiving the news (Own affect) the emotional state of others (Affect of others) the consequences of the event for the individual (aftermath)
Brown & Kulik (1977) also argued that the special biological memory mechanism of FBM is triggered when an individual usually encounters significant, often unexpected and emotional events or experiences (that has had exceeded levels of surprise and emotion) therefore creating a FBM of the immediate experiences surrounding the highly emotional (happy) experience or traumatic event. FBM theory also have unique features distinguishing/that differ them from other memories in that they are more vivid, detailed, accurate, long-lasting, consistent and easily to remember. This is in contrast to normal memories, which most researchers are believed to be selective, unreliable and malleable (easily changed or distorted). In individualistic cultures such as USA and UK, people are viewed as unique and autonomous with distinctive qualities and individual autonomy. In such societies, one’s emotions are part of his or her uniqueness. Expressing emotions and sharing them with others is acceptable and encouraged (Wang and Aydin, 2008). Conversely, in more collectivistic cultures such as China and Japan, people’s identity is defined more by the characteristics of the collective groups to which one belongs. Individual autonomy and self-expression are inhibited. In some collectivist societies, expressing emotion, especially negative emotion, is usually viewed as dangerous and is not encouraged. Furthermore, collectivist societies do not encourage individuals to focus on their internal states or reflect on their emotional states (Wang and Aydin, 2008). Individualism/collectivism - affect determinants of flashbulb memories Individualistic - people are unique and autonomous with qualities. Emotions - part of uniqueness. Sharing emotions with others is shard Collectivist - identity is characteristic of group. Expression is inhibited, seen as dangerous, not
encouraged. Do not encourage to focus on their internal states or reflect on their emotional states
Comparing individualistic and collectivistic cultures, as people in individualistic cultures are more likely to express their emotions than collectivistic cultures, they are more likely to form and maintain FBMs.
Basabe and Ros (2005) conducted a research with results that is consistent with this. Researchers compared people in individualist societies and collectivist societies. They found that people in collectivist societies report lower levels of emotions, mental ruminations and social sharing of emotion. This study supports that individualistic cultures are more likely to form FBM. Another study that has consistent result was conducted by Wang and Aydin (2008). Researchers discuss studies which have found that when Chinese participants, who are classified as people living in collectivistic cultures, were asked to recall memories public event, they managed to recall fewer FBM details than participants from the USA, UK, Germany and Turkey, who are classified as people in individualistic cultures. Unlike Wang and Aydin’s study, Otaini et al. (2005) focused on a particular public event, which is the nuclear accident and the results show that only a small percentage of Japanese participants formed FBMs in that public event. The three studies clearly demonstrate that culture factors, such as individualistic and collectivistic cultures, are associated with the formation of FBMs since the results indicate that those living in individualist cultures are more likely to form FBMs, or those living in collectivist cultures are unlikely to form FBMs in public events. Neisser and Harsch (1992) Testing the Flashbulb Memory theory Aim: To test the theory of flashbulb memory by investigating the extent to which memory for a shocking event (the Challenger disaster) would be accurate after a period of time. Procedure: •
106 students in an introductory psychology class were given a questionnaire and asked to write a description of how they had heard the news. They also had to answer seven questions related to where they were, what they were doing, etc., and what emotional feelings they experienced at the time of the event.
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Participants answered the questionnaires less than 24 hours after the disaster.
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Two and a half years later, 44 of the original students answered the questionnaire again. This time they were also asked to rate how confident they were of the accuracy of their memory on a scale from 1 to 5. The participants were also asked if they had filled out a questionnaire of the subject before.
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Sometime after the last questionnaires, the researchers performed a semi-structured interview to test whether the participants could remember what they had written previously. Participants then saw their original reports from the first questionnaire.
Results •
Only 11 participants out of the 44 remembered that they had filled out the questionnaire before.
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There were major discrepancies between the original questionnaire and the follow-up two and a half years later. The mean score of correctness of recall of the seven questions was 2.95 out of 7. For 11 participants the score was 0, and 22 scored 2 or less. The average level of confidence in accuracy for the questions was 4.17.
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The results challenge the predictions of the FM theory and also question the reliability of memory in general. Participants were confident that they remembered the event correctly both times and they could not explain the discrepancies between the first and second accounts.
Evaluation •
The study was conducted in a natural environment and it has higher ecological validity than laboratory experiments on memory. The participants were psychology students who participated for course credits and they may not be representative.
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The degree of emotional arousal when witnessing a shocking public event may be different from experiencing a traumatic event in your own personal life, and the importance of the events may be very different. This could influence how well people remember a certain event.
flashbulb memories something like historical markers. History becomes part of our life memory Think about it and relationship to our lives. We know the world is changed from that moment onward Recall its landmark - linger, does not mean it is accurate People remember with clarity details of the context which they first heard news against: 1. Long nature- rehearsed and relayed often. Levels of processing, meaningful to them 2. No accuracy, no different.
Elaborative encoding is a type of mnemonic in which new information is made memorable in order to be able to recall it more easily. It is making information more elaborate and complex in order to be more likely to remember it in the future. This is typically done by relating it and connecting the new information to already existing knowledge. Examples of elaborative encoding include the peg word system and the method of loci ways of recalling information. An easy example would be meeting a person for the first time whose name you need to remember. Let's say their last name is Fisher. A method of elaborate encoding would be envisioning the person wearing a silly fishing hat and holding a reel as you mentally repeat their name a few times. This elaboration of their name with already existing knowledge about 'fishers' make the new information more salient and therefore makes you more likely to remember their name in the future. How To Do Spaced Retrieval Training •
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Step 1: Choose one or more functional targets or goals (eg. remembering facts such a name or room number, remembering to perform a certain action, remembering future activities). Step 2: Ask a question to elicit the target response. If the person answers/performs correctly the first time, choose another target for the session. If the answer is unknown or incorrect, tell or show them the right answer and have them repeat it back. Step 3: Ask again 15 seconds later. If they can’t recall, give the answer and have them repeat it back. Try again in 15 seconds. If it’s still not right, spaced retrieval may not be appropriate. Step 4: When the answer is given correctly, double the time interval (15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 8 minutes, etc.) and ask the question again. Repeat this step each time the answer is correctly given. Step 5: If the answer is incorrect, give the right answer immediately and ask the question again at the last correct time interval.
The Memory Palace The Memory Palace technique is based on the fact that we’re extremely good at remembering places we know. A ‘Memory Palace’ is a metaphor for any well-known place that you’re able to easily visualize. It can be the inside of your home, or maybe the route you take every day to work. That familiar place will be your guide to store and recall any kind of information. Let’s see how it works. 5 Steps to Use the Memory Palace Technique
1. Choose Your Palace First and foremost, you’ll need to pick a place that you’re very familiar with. The effectiveness of the technique relies on your ability to mentally see and walk around in that place with ease. You should be able to ‘be there’ at will using your mind’s eye only. A good first choice could be your own home, for example. Remember that the more vividly you can visualize that place’s details, the more effective your memorization will be. Also, try to define a specific route in your palace instead of just visualize a static scene. So, instead of simply picturing your home, imagine a specific walkthrough in your home. This makes the technique much more powerful, as you’ll be able to recall items in a specific order, as we’ll see in the next step. Here are some additional suggestions that work well as Memory Palaces, along with possible routes: • •
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Familiar streets in your city. Possible routes could be your drive to work, or any other sequence of streets you’re familiar with. A current or former school. You can imagine the pathway from the classroom to the library (or to the bar on the other side of the street, if that’s the route imprinted on your mind). Place of work. Imagine the path from your cubicle to the coffee machine or to your boss’s office (it shouldn’t be hard to choose). Scenery. Imagine walking on your neighborhood or the track you use when jogging in a local park.
2. List Distinctive Features Now you need to pay attention to specific features in the place you chose. If you picked a walkthrough in your home, for example, the first noticeable feature would probably be the front door. Now go on and mentally walk around your Memory Palace. After you go through the door, what’s in the first room? Analyze the room methodically (you may define a standard procedure, such as always looking from left to right, for example). What is the next feature that catches your attention? It may be the central table in the dining room, or a picture on the wall. Continue making mental notes of those features as you go. Each one of them will be a “memory slot” that you’ll later use to store a single piece of information.
3. Imprint the Palace on Your Mind For the technique to work, the most important thing is to have the place or route 100% imprinted on your mind. Do whatever is necessary to really commit it to memory. If you’re a visual kind of person, you probably won’t have trouble with this. Otherwise, here are some tips that help: • • • • •
Physically walk through the route repeating out loud the distinctive features as you see them. Write down the selected features on a piece of paper and mentally walk through them, repeating them out loud. Always look at the features from the same point of view. Be aware that visualization is a just a skill. If you’re still having trouble doing this, you may want to develop your visualization skills first. When you believe you’re done, go over it one more time. It’s really important to “overlearn” your way in your Memory Palace.
Once you’re confident that the route is stamped on your mind, you’re set. Now you have your Palace, which can be used over and over again to memorize just about anything you want. 4. Associate! Now that you’re the master of your palace, it’s time to put it to good use. Like most memory enhancement systems, the Memory Palace technique works with the use of visual associations. The process is simple: you take a known image — called the memory peg — and combine with the element you want to memorize. For us, each memory peg is a distinctive feature of our Memory Palace. The memory pegging technique is the same one described in the article ‘Improve Your Memory by Speaking Your Mind’s Language‘, so if you haven’t read it yet, I highly advise you to do so. As described in that article, there’s a ‘right way’ of doing visual associations: Make it crazy, ridiculous, offensive, unusual, extraordinary, animated, nonsensical — after all, these are the things that get remembered, aren’t they? Make the scene so unique that it could never happen in real life. The only rule is: if it’s boring, it’s wrong. Although we can use the technique to memorize tons of information, let’s start with something very simple: using our ‘Home’ Memory Palace to memorize a groceries list. Let’s suppose the first item in that list is ‘bacon’: Mentally transport yourself to your Memory Palace. The first feature you see in your mind is your home’s front door. Now, in a ludicrous way, visually combine ‘bacon’ with the sight of your front door. How about giant fried bacon strips flowing out from underneath the door
reaching for your legs, just like zombies in those B-movies? Feel the touch of the “bacon hands” on your legs. Feel the smell of darn evil bacon. Is that remarkable enough? Now open the door and keep walking, following the exact same route you defined before. Look at the next distinctive feature, and associate it with the second item to be memorized. Suppose the next item is ‘eggs’ and the second feature is ‘picture of mother-in-law’. Well, at this point you already know what to do… The process is always the same, so just keep mentally associating images until there are no items left to memorize. 5. Visit Your Palace At this point, you are done memorizing the items. If you’re new to the technique, though, you’ll probably need to do a little rehearsal, repeating the journey at least once in your mind. If you start from the same point and follow the same route, the memorized items will come to your mind instantly as you look at the journey’s selected features. Go from the beginning to the end of your route, paying attention to those features and replaying the scenes in your mind. When you get to the end of your route, turn around and walk in the opposite direction until you get to the starting point. In the end, it’s all a matter of developing your visualization skills. The more relaxed you are, the easier it will be and the more effective your memorization will be
Simonides was dining at the house of a wealthy nobleman named Scopas at Crannon in Thessaly, and chanted a lyric poem which he had composed in honor of his host, in which he followed the custom of the poets by including for decorative purposes a long passage referring to Castor and Pollux; whereupon Scopas with excessive meanness told him he would pay him half the fee agreed on for the poem, and if he liked he might apply for the balance to his sons of Tyndaraus, as they had gone halves in the panegyric. The story runs that a little later a message was brought to Simonides to go outside, as two young men were standing at the door who earnestly requested him to come out; so he rose from his seat and went out, and could not see anybody; but in the interval of his absence the roof of the hall where Scopas was giving the banquet fell in, crushing Scopas himself and his relations underneath the ruins and killing them; and when their friends wanted to bury them but were altogether unable to know them apart as they had been completely crushed, the story goes that Simonides was enabled by his recollection of the place in which each of them had been reclining at table to identify them for separate interment; and that this circumstance suggested to him the discovery of the truth that the best aid to clearness of memory consists in orderly arrangement.
He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty must select localities and form mental images of the facts they wish to remember and store those images in the localities, with the result that the arrangement of the localities will preserve the order of the facts, and the images of the facts will designate the facts themselves, and we shall employ the localities and images respectively as a wax writing tablet and the letters written on it.
Giordano Bruno In the first fixed ring the practitioner will assign a mythological or heroic figure to each letter. Bruno provides some examples : A Lycaon; B Deucalion; C Apollo; D Argos … (see De Umbris Idearum [PDF], pp. 107 ff). The letters of the second ring correspond to an action or a scene associated with each figure. The examples provided are: AA Lycaon at a banquet; BB Deucalion and pebbles; CC Apollo and Python; DD Argos and some cattle (ibid, p. 112). Thus rotating the first inner ring operates permutations between the figures and their action. Further permutation occurs when the third wheel is set in motion. It contains attributes or enseignes which can be easily passed from one figure to another. Bruno provides only four examples and leaves the rest to the imagination of his reader. These are : AAA, Lycaon at a banquet with a chain; BBB, Deucalion and pebbles with a headband; CCC, Apollo and Python with a baldric; DDD, Argos and some cattle with a hood. This way the systems makes it possible to create combinations of letters representing words, acronyms or syllables to be remembered by means of animated images mixing the attributes and accustomed actions of familiar mythological figures. BAA: B Deucalion A at a banquet A with a chain MAD: M Perseus A at a banquet D with a hood CAD: C Apollo A at a banquet D with a hood COD: C Apollo O and Proserpina D with a hood Nootropics, also known as smart drugs and cognitive enhancers, are drugs, supplements, and other substances that improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) uses a magnetic field generated by a coil in a paddle that is held against the patient's head to stimulate specific areas of the brain. This form of therapy is also called repetitive TMS or rTMS because the magnet is turned on and off rapidly, creating an effect that feels as though someone is tapping on your head. The magnet emits loud noises as it is turned on and off, which requires people undergoing TMS therapy to wear earplugs during the 40-minute sessions. Side effects are usually limited to headaches and ringing in the ears. In the last few years there have been scores of studies evaluating the effect of TMS on people's ability to perform mental tasks, particularly those that involve discerning visual patterns, recalling lists of unrelated words, or doing math problems. Over all, the results indicate that the techniques are most likely to improve mental function when used in conjunction with other types of training, such as learning new systems for remembering names. A few small studies in people with mild Alzheimer's disease suggest that TMS could be combined with cognitive exercises to improve function.
Priming is a nonconscious form of human memory concerned with perceptual identification of words and objects. It refers to activating particular representations or associations in memory just before carrying out an action or task. For example, a person who sees the word "yellow" will be slightly faster to recognize the word "banana." This happens because yellow and banana are closely associated in memory. Additionally, priming can also refer to a technique in psychology used to train a person's memory in both positive and negative ways. Priming is what we call it when exposure to something influences the behavior of an individual later on, without that individual being aware that the first thing is guiding their behavior to a certain extent. Word Completion Task In the standard variation of this task, participants are given a long list of words to read. The list is long enough that participants would not easily be able to memorize it and they also do not know that the words might be helpful later on. Then, the participants are asked to complete words that have some letters left out. For example _EX_G_ _, which can be completed to HEXAGON. Participants who read hexagon on the list of words earlier are more likely to get this task correct and also complete it more quickly. Another variant of this task asks participants to complete simple words that could be completed in various ways. For example D_ _ K could be complete as DORK or DARK. Participants responses are dependent not only on whether they had read the word earlier, but also by thematic scheme of the words. For example if they had read the words NIGHT, MOON and SLEEP, they would be more likely to complete it as DARK. Chunking involves creating something more meaningful—and therefore memorable—from seemingly random bits of information. One example is if you need to remember a list of things— such as buying figs, lettuce, oranges, apples, and tomatoes—you can create a word out of the first letters (e.g., "FLOAT"), which is easier to remember than the individual items. If you've ever tried to remember a phone number by making a word (or words) out of the letters on the phone's dial pad, you've used chunking. Interference is an explanation for forgetting in long term memory. The basic theory states that interference occurs when information that is similar in format gets in the way of the information that someone is trying to recall. There are two types of interference; retroactive and proactive. Retroactive interference is when more recent information gets in the way of trying to recall older information. An example would be calling your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend by your new boyfriend/girlfriend’s name. The new name retroactively interferes with the old one, which is clearly problematic for recall. Proactive interference is the reverse direction of interference to retroactive interference. This is when old information prevents the recall of newer information. This could, for example, occur with telephone numbers. When trying to recall a new phone number, the old phone number you
have previously had for years could proactively interfere with the recall, to the point when it is very difficult to remember the new number. Memory inhibition is the ability not to remember irrelevant information. The scientific concept of memory inhibition should not be confused with everyday uses of the word "inhibition". Scientifically speaking, memory inhibition is a type of cognitive inhibition, which is the stopping or overriding of a mental process, in whole or in part, with or without intention.[1] Memory inhibition is a critical component of an effective memory system.[2] While some memories are retained for a lifetime, most memories are forgotten. According to evolutionary psychologists, forgetting is adaptive because it facilitates selectivity of rapid, efficient recollection. For example, a person trying to remember where they parked their car would not want to remember every place they have ever parked. In order to remember something, therefore, it is essential not only to activate the relevant information, but also to inhibit irrelevant information The Multi-store model of memory Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) proposed the multi-store model. •
It is a linear model that shows how information flows through the processes of memory.
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There are three main components to the model and it is assumed that information must pass through each of these fixed stages to be remembered.
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There are capacity and duration limitations at each stage.
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It also identifies ways in which information is forgotten
A01 Outline:The multi-store of memory was proposed by Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) it suggests that memory is a flow of information through a system. There are three distinct stages of the system; sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory, information passes through each stage of the system in a linear fashion (or fixed pattern). External stimuli first enter the sensory memory in an uncoded form where they can be registered for very brief periods of time; in order for information to be passed into the short term memory store attention is vital. The short term memory stores approximately 7 +/-2 items in an acoustic code (we remember things by sound) for approximately 15-30 seconds. It is therefore easy to forget things at this stage, as information will be lost within 30 seconds unless it is repeated or rehearsed. Memories from this store are lost either because new information comes along and pushes the old information out (displacement), or because they simply fade away (decay). However, if information is sufficiently well rehearsed, it is able to pass into the long term memory. In the long term memory store, an unlimited amount of information may stay for as long as a lifetime through semantic encoding. However, it may be forgotten because memory
traces can decay, ‘new’ information causes confusion and interferes with the old information or particular cues within the environment are not available causing retrieval failure.
The working memory model was proposed by Baddeley & Hitch (1974) as an alternative to the multi-store model of memory. It has been developed to directly challenge the concept of a single unitary store for short-term memories. The working memory model is based upon the findings of the dual-task study and suggests that there are four separate components to our working memory (STM). The most important component is the central executive; it is involved in problem solving/decision-making. It also controls attention and plays a major role in planning and synthesizing information, not only from the subsidiary systems but also from LTM. It is flexible and can process information from any modality, although it does have a limited storage capacity and so can attend to a limited number if things at one time. Another part of the working memory model is the phonological loop, it stores a limited number of speech-based sounds for brief periods. It is thought to consist of two components - the phonological store (inner ear) that allows acoustically coded items to be stored for a brief period and the articulatory control process (the inner voice) that allows sub-vocal repetition of the items stored in the phonological store. Another important component is the visuo-spatial scratch pad; it stores visual and spatial information and can be thought of as an inner eye. It is responsible for setting up and manipulating mental images. Like the phonological loop, it has limited capacity but the limits of the two systems are independent. In other words, it is possible, for example, to rehearse a set of
digits in the phonological loop while simultaneously making decisions about the spatial layout of a set of letters in the visual spatial scratchpad. Finally in 2000 Baddeley proposed an additional component, the episodic buffer. It is responsible for integrating & manipulating material; it has limited capacity and depends heavily on executive processing. It binds together information from different sources into chunks or episodes, hence the term ‘episodic’. One of its important functions is to recall material from LTM & integrate it into STM when working memory requires it (e.g. imagining an elephant iceskating). The levels of processing model of memory was proposed by Craik and Lockhart. It suggests that it is depth of processing that leads to stronger memories, rather than there being separate memory stores. According to this model, stronger memories occur as a result of a deep memory trace which happens through elaborative rehearsal. Levels of processing suggests that rehearsal of information by merely repeating it does not lead to information being transferred to LTM and that this is a form of maintenance rehearsal. In order for memory to be transferred to LTM using elaborative rehearsal it must have meaning and be understood. Craik and Lockhart stated 3 ways in which verbal information can be processed – structural – which is what the words look like; phonetic – how the words sound; and semantic – what the word means. Semantic leads to a longer lasting memory trace as it uses deeper processing, whereas structural uses only shallow processing leading to a weaker memory trace.
The positivity effect is the ability to constructively analyze a situation where the desired results are not achieved; but still obtain positive feedback that assists our future progression. When a person is considering people they like (including themselves), the person tends to make situational attributions about their negative behaviors and dispositional attributions about their positive behaviors. The reverse may be true for people that the person dislikes. This may well be because of the dissonance between liking a person and seeing them behave negatively. Example: If a friend hits someone, one would tell them the other guy deserved it or that he had to defend himself. The effect is defined as a relative preference among older people for positive over negative stimuli when compared to younger adults. Many studies now suggest that older adults attend to and remember positive information better than negative information. The generation effect is a phenomenon where information is better remembered if it is generated from one's own mind rather than simply read. Researchers have struggled to account for why generated information is better recalled than read information, but no single explanation has been sufficient. The Humor Effect Humor can facilitate recovery from stressful situations, but humor can also provide a kind of “momentary vacation.” In the business world, many successful organizations such as Zappos, Virgin, and Google, deliberately build play areas into their workspaces and
organize fun events with the intent that the humor arising from these events will ameliorate the stressful nature of work, boost morale, and increase productivity. Motivated forgetting is a theorized psychological behavior in which people may forget unwanted memories, either consciously or unconsciously. Decay Theory suggests that memories fade and disappear over the natural passage of time, especially if they are not accessed frequently. Although there are other factors that are suspected to cause memory disappearance, decay theory encompasses the broad loss and decay of memories over time. It affects mostly short term memories and if a memory isn't recalled frequently it is more likely to be lost or lessened in strength. Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Mainly your reality
Amnesia refers to the loss of memories, such as facts, information and experiences. Though forgetting your identity is a common plot device in movies and television, that's not generally the case in real-life amnesia. Instead, people with amnesia — also called amnestic syndrome — usually know who they are. But, they may have trouble learning new information and forming new memories. Amnesia can be caused by damage to areas of the brain that are vital for memory processing. Most people with amnesia have problems with short-term memory — they can't retain new information. Recent memories are most likely to be lost, while more remote or deeply ingrained memories may be spared. Someone may recall experiences from childhood or know the names of past presidents, but not be able to name the current president, know what month it is or remember what was for breakfast. Isolated memory loss doesn't affect a person's intelligence, general knowledge, awareness, attention span, judgment, personality or identity. People with amnesia usually can understand written and spoken words and can learn skills such as bike riding or piano playing. They may understand they have a memory disorder. Amnesia isn't the same as dementia. Dementia often includes memory loss, but it also involves other significant cognitive problems that lead to a decline in daily functioning. Traumatic brain injury usually results from a violent blow or jolt to the head or body. An object that penetrates brain tissue, such as a bullet or shattered piece of skull, also can cause traumatic brain injury. Mild traumatic brain injury may affect your brain cells temporarily. More-serious traumatic brain injury can result in bruising, torn tissues, bleeding and other physical damage to the brain. These injuries can result in long-term complications or death.
Blackout is the complete loss of consciousness which may be accompanied by a memory lapse and loss of cognition upon revival. It may be caused by a sudden drop in oxygen and blood supply to the brain. It can also be due to severe intoxication with drugs or alcohol Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations
The word ‘dementia’ describes a set of symptoms that may include memory loss and difficulties with thinking, problem-solving or language. These changes are often small to start with, but for someone with dementia they have become severe enough to affect daily life. A person with dementia may also experience changes in their mood or behaviour. Dementia is caused when the brain is damaged by diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease or a series of strokes. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, but not the only one. The specific symptoms that someone with dementia experiences will depend on the parts of the brain that are damaged and the disease that is causing the dementia. This factsheet explains what dementia is, including the causes and symptoms, and how it is diagnosed and treated. It also looks at some of the different types of dementia. •
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day-to-day memory – for example, difficulty recalling events that happened recently concentrating, planning or organising – for example, difficulties making decisions, solving problems or carrying out a sequence of tasks (such as cooking a meal) language – for example, difficulties following a conversation or finding the right word for something visuospatial skills – for example, problems judging distances (such as on stairs) and seeing objects in three dimensions orientation – for example, losing track of the day or date, or becoming confused about where they are
Alzheimer's disease (AD), also referred to simply as Alzheimer's, is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and worsens over time.[1][2] It is the cause of 60% to 70% of cases of dementia.[1][2] The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events (short-term memory loss).[1] As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems with language, disorientation (including easily getting lost), mood swings, loss of motivation, not managing self care, and behavioural issues.[1][2] As a person's condition declines, they often withdraw from family and society.[1] Gradually, bodily functions are lost, ultimately leading to death.[10] Although the speed of progression can vary, the average life expectancy following diagnosis is three to nine years.[7][11] The cause of Alzheimer's disease is poorly understood.[1] About 70% of the risk is believed to be genetic with many genes usually involved.[4] Other risk factors include a history of head injuries, depression, or hypertension.[1] The disease process is associated with plaques and tangles in the brain.[4] A probable diagnosis is based on the history of the illness and cognitive testing with
medical imaging and blood tests to rule out other possible causes.[5] Initial symptoms are often mistaken for normal ageing.[1] Examination of brain tissue is needed for a definite diagnosis.[4] Mental and physical exercise, and avoiding obesity may decrease the risk of AD; however, evidence to support these recommendations is not strong.[4][12] There are no medications or supplements that decrease risk. Korsakoff syndrome is most commonly caused by alcohol misuse, but can also be associated with AIDS, chronic infections, poor nutrition and certain other conditions Thiamine (vitamin B-1) helps brain cells produce energy from sugar. When levels fall too low, brain cells cannot generate enough energy to function properly. As a result, Korsakoff syndrome may develop. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. Most people who go through traumatic events may have temporary difficulty adjusting and coping, but with time and good self-care, they usually get better. If the symptoms get worse, last for months or even years, and interfere with your day-to-day functioning, you may have PTSD. A flashback, or involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has a sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of a past experience. These experiences can be happy, sad, exciting, or any other emotion one can consider.The term is used particularly when the memory is recalled involuntarily, and/or when it is so intense that the person "relives" the experience, unable to fully recognize it as memory and not something that is happening in "real time" In psychology, dissociation is any of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experience. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis. Dissociation is commonly displayed on a continuum. In mild cases, dissociation can be regarded as a coping mechanism or defense mechanisms in seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress – including boredom or conflict. In dissociation, your very identity is fragmented. Seven Sins of Memory •
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Transience--the decreasing accessibility of memory over time. While a degree of this is normal with aging, decay of or damage to the hippocampus and temporal lobe can cause extreme forms of it. Schacter cited as a somewhat facetious example former President Bill Clinton's "convenient lapses of memory" during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Clinton claimed in the hearings that he sometimes couldn't remember what had happened the previous week. Absent-mindedness--lapses of attention and forgetting to do things. This sin operates both when a memory is formed (the encoding stage) and when a memory is accessed (the retrieval stage). Examples, said Schacter, are forgetting where you put your keys or
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glasses. He noted a particularly famous instance in which cellist Yo-Yo Ma forgot to retrieve his $2.5 million cello from the trunk of a New York City cab. Blocking--temporary inaccessibility of stored information, such as tip-of-the-tongue syndrome. Schacter recounted the embarrassment of John Prescott, British deputy prime minister, when a reporter asked him how the government was paying for the expensive Millennium Dome. Prescott struggled to find the word "lottery," trying "raffles" instead. Suggestibility--incorporation of misinformation into memory due to leading questions, deception and other causes. Psychologists Elizabeth Loftus, PhD, and Stephen Ceci, PhD, are among those well-known in this research (see sidebar). Bias--retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs. Psychologist Michael Ross, PhD, and others have shown that present knowledge, beliefs and feelings skew our memory for past events, said Schacter. For example, research indicates that people currently displeased with a romantic relationship tend to have a disproportionately negative take on past states of the relationship. Persistence--unwanted recollections that people can't forget, such as the unrelenting, intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder. An example, said Schacter, is the case of Donnie Moore of the California Angels, who threw the pitch that lost his team the 1986 American League Championship against the Boston Red Sox. Moore fixated on the bad play, said Schacter, "became a tragic prisoner of memory," and eventually committed suicide. Misattribution--attribution of memories to incorrect sources or believing that you have seen or heard something you haven't. Prominent researchers in this area include Henry L. Roediger III, PhD, and Kathleen McDermott, PhD. An illustration of it, said Schacter, is the rental shop mechanic who thought that an accomplice, known as "John Doe No. 2," had worked with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing; he thought he'd seen the two of them together in his shop. In fact, the mechanic had encountered John Doe No. 2 alone on a different day.
Rosy retrospection refers to the psychological phenomenon of people sometimes judging the past disproportionately more positively than they judge the present. The Romans occasionally referred to this phenomenon with the Latin phrase "memoria praeteritorum bonorum", which translates into English roughly as "the past is always well remembered".Rosy retrospection is very closely related to the concept of nostalgia. The difference between the terms is that rosy retrospection is a cognitive bias, whereas the broader phenomenon of nostalgia is not necessarily based on a biased perspective. In social psychology, self-serving bias is defined as our tendency to attribute our success to personal characteristics, and attribute our failure to factors beyond our control. Simply put, it is our tendency to take the credit for positive events of our lives, but blame external factors when it comes to negative events. Self-serving bias is closely related to the attribution theory, which revolves around our tendency to attribute a cause to behavior. confabulation (verb: confabulate) is a disturbance of memory, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive.
Repression is the process of forcing thoughts into the unconscious and preventing painful or dangerous thoughts from entering consciousness; seemingly unexplainable naivety, memory lapse or lack of awareness of one's own situation and condition; the emotion is conscious, but the idea behind it is absent. Repression involves placing uncomfortable thoughts in relatively inaccessible areas of the subconscious mind. Thus when things occur that we are unable to cope with now, we push them away, either planning to deal with them at another time or hoping that they will fade away on their own accord. The level of 'forgetting' in repression can vary from a temporary abolition of uncomfortable thoughts to a high level of amnesia, where events that caused the anxiety are buried very deep. Repressed memories do not disappear. They can have an accumulative effect and reappear as unattributable anxiety or dysfunctional behavior. A high level of repression can cause a high level of anxiety or dysfunction, although this may also be caused by the repression of one particularly traumatic incident. Repressed memories may appear through subconscious means and in altered forms, such as dreams or slips of the tongue ('Freudian slips'). Memory implantation is a technique used in cognitive psychology to investigate human memory. In memory implantation studies researchers make people believe that they remember an event that actually never happened. The false memories that have been successfully implanted in people’s memories include remembering being lost in a mall as a child, taking a hot air balloon ride, and putting slime in a teacher’s desk in primary school The “memory wars” of the 1990s refers to the controversy between some clinicians and memory scientists about the reliability of repressed memories. The so-called "memory wars" began in 1990, when Loftus got a call from a lawyer defending George Franklin. Franklin's daughter accused him of murdering her best friend decades earlier, after apparently recovering long-lost memories of the crime during therapy. "There I was," says Loftus, "witnessing the conviction of a man based on nothing more than the claim of a repressed memory." Intrigued, she scoured the scientific literature and, failing to find any convincing evidence for the claim that traumatic memories can be buried and recovered, testified to that effect in the trial. Franklin was convicted nevertheless, and spent 5 years in jail, before doubts over the validity of his daughter's testimony were raised, and his conviction was overturned. Meanwhile, dozens of other people made similar claims, and Loftus became embroiled in an argument between therapists who believed that such claims should be believed, and the psychologists, who said that such memories are likely to be false. The argument continued throughout the 1990s, fuelled by high profile cases such as that of the actress Roseanne Barr, and by people who claimed that their abusers had been set free because of Loftus' testimony. Memory Conformity. When two people see the same event and discuss it, one person’s memory report can influence what the other person subsequently claims to remember.
The telescoping effect (or telescoping bias) refers to the temporal displacement of an event whereby people perceive recent events as being more remote than they are and distant events as being more recent than they are. Recall bias systematic error due to differences in accuracy or completeness of recall to memory of past events or experiences. The Jacquard loom is a device fitted to a power loom that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with such complex patterns as brocade, damask and matelassé. It was invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1804 A punched card or punch card is a piece of stiff paper that can be used to contain digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions A stored-program computer is a computer that stores program instructions in electronic memory. Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria. A magnetic drum, also referred to as drum, is a metal cylinder coated with magnetic iron-oxide material on which data and programs can be stored. Magnetic drums were once used as a primary storage device but have since been implemented as auxiliary storage devices. Digitization, less commonly digitalization, is the process of converting information into a digital format, in which the information is organized into bits A crawler is a program that visits Web sites and reads their pages and other information in order to create entries for a search engine index. The major search engines on the Web all have such a program, which is also known as a "spider" or a "bot." A web crawler (also known as a web spider or web robot) is a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. This process is called Web crawling or spidering. Many legitimate sites, in particular search engines, use spidering as a means of providing up-to-date data. Metadata is "data [information] that provides information about other data". Three distinct types of metadata exist: descriptive metadata, structural metadata, and administrative metadata. An emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system to behave like another computer system. An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peripheral devices designed for the guest system Caching (pronounced “cashing”) is the process of storing data in a cache. A cache is a temporary storage area. For example, the files you automatically request by looking at a Web page are stored on your hard disk in a cache subdirectory under the directory for your browser. Random-access memory is a form of computer data storage that stores data and machine code currently being used
Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no support is available. Although such software is usually still under copyright, the owner may not be tracking copyright violations The digital Dark Age is the perception of a possible future situation where it will be difficult or impossible to read historical electronic documents and multimedia, because they have been recorded in an obsolete and obscure file format. A famous real example is with NASA, whose early space records have suffered from a dark age issue more than once. For over a decade, magnetic tapes from the 1976 Viking Mars landing were unprocessed. When later analyzed, the data was unreadable as it was in an unknown format and the original programmers had either died or left NASA. The images were eventually extracted following many months of puzzling through the data and examining how the recording machines functioned Technological obsolescence generally occurs when a new product has been created to replace an older version i.e. when a technical product or service is no longer needed or wanted even though it could still be in working order. Link rot (or linkrot) is the process by which hyperlinks on individual websites or the Internet in general point to web pages, servers or other resources that have become permanently unavailable. Time hop is an application for smartphones that collects old photos and posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Dropbox photos and distributes the past. The Wayback Machine was created to provide a place to preserve digital artifacts for researchers, historians, etc., but can just as easily be used for entertainment to see what a page used to look like, like Google way back in 2001. Another reason might be to access a page from a website that no longer exists and was shut down. Yahoo! GeoCities is a web hosting service. It was founded in November 1994 by David Bohnett and John Rezner, and was called Beverly Hills Internet (BHI) for a very short time. On January 28, 1999, GeoCities was acquired by Yahoo! at that time it was the third-most visited website on the World Wide Web. In its original form, site users selected a "city" in which to place their web pages. The "cities" were named after real cities or regions according to their content—for example, computer-related sites were placed in "SiliconValley" and those dealing with entertainment were assigned to "Hollywood"—hence the name of the site. Shortly after its acquisition by Yahoo!, this practice was abandoned in favor of using the Yahoo! member names in the URLs.
