Encoding & Storage (College Board AP® Psychology): Revision Note

Encoding strategies

• Encoding is the process by which information is put into memory

  • How information is encoded determines how effectively it can be stored and later retrieved

• Encoding can be:

  • automatic: unconscious and effortless, e.g. encoding the location of where you left your keys or the time you ate lunch

  • effortful: conscious and deliberate, e.g. studying for an exam or memorizing a speech

• Several strategies can improve the effectiveness of encoding

Mnemonic devices

• Mnemonic devices are strategies that aid encoding by linking new information to something already known, making it easier to store and retrieve

  • Method of loci: a mnemonic technique in which items to be remembered are mentally placed at specific locations along a familiar route or in a familiar place

    • To recall the items, you mentally "walk" the route and retrieve each item from its location

      • E.g. to remember a grocery list, you might imagine a carton of orange juice dripping off your front door, broccoli sitting on your sofa, and onions on your kitchen counter - each item is anchored to a specific location

  • Acronyms and acrostics: forming a word or sentence from the first letters of items to be remembered

    • E.g., ROYGBIV to remember the colors of the visible spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)

• Mnemonic devices are most effective when combined with the dual-coding hypothesis

  • Encoding information in both verbal and visual formats creates two memory traces, making recall more likely than if only one format is used

    • E.g. drawing a diagram alongside written notes encodes the same material in two ways, improving retention

Chunking

• Chunking is the process of grouping individual pieces of information into larger, meaningful units to improve encoding

  • Chunking does not increase the number of slots in STM, rather it increases the amount of information held in each slot

    • E.g. the string F-B-I-C-I-A-N-B-A is nine individual letters, but grouped as FBI, CIA, NBA it becomes three meaningful chunks that are much easier to hold in memory

• Information can also be grouped into categories or hierarchies to aid encoding

  • E.g. organizing a shopping list by category (dairy, vegetables, snacks) rather than as a random list makes it easier to encode and recall

The spacing effect

• The spacing effect is the finding that encoding is significantly more effective when study sessions are distributed over time rather than concentrated in a single session

  • Distributed practice: spreading study sessions out over days or weeks, which is more effective for long-term retention

  • Massed practice: concentrating all studying into one session (also known as cramming) produces short-term retention but poor long-term recall

    • E.g. studying AP Psychology for one hour a day for seven days produces significantly better long-term retention than studying for seven hours the day before the exam

• The spacing effect has direct implications for how students should structure their revision

The serial position effect

• The serial position effect is the finding that recall is better for items at the beginning and end of a list than for those in the middle:

  • Primacy effect: items at the beginning are well remembered because they have been rehearsed and transferred to LTM

  • Recency effect: items at the end are well remembered because they are still held in STM at the time of recall

  • Items in the middle are poorly remembered because they have left STM but have not been sufficiently rehearsed to reach LTM

• This pattern supports the multi-store model of memory because if memory were a single system, there would be no reason for recall to differ across serial positions

• The serial position effect is demonstrated by the serial position curve

  • This is a U-shaped graph where the curve rises at the beginning (primacy), dips in the middle, and rises again at the end (recency)

Storage processes

• Storage is the process by which encoded information is retained in memory over time

• The four memory stores differ in their storage duration, capacity, and content

• Storage can be prolonged through rehearsal:

  • Maintenance rehearsal: is simple repetition to keep information in STM

    • E.g. repeating a phone number until you can write it down; effective for short-term retention only

  • Elaborative rehearsal: processing information in a way that promotes meaning and connects it to existing knowledge. This is more effective for transferring information to LTM

    • E.g. when learning that the amygdala is involved in fear responses, connecting it to a memory of feeling afraid makes it easier to recall than simply repeating the word "amygdala"

Autobiographical memory

• Autobiographical memory is a person's memory for events and experiences from their own life, starting from around the age of four

  • Autobiographical memory is a form of episodic memory

  • Memories connected to our own lives and selves tend to be more memorable than unrelated information

    • This is known as the self-reference effect

• Some individuals demonstrate highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM)

  • This is the ability to recall virtually every day of their lives in vivid detail, suggesting there may be biological processes that support superior memory storage beyond what is typical

Storage impairment: amnesia and Alzheimer's disease

• Storage processes can be severely disrupted by physical impairment or neurological disease:

  • Anterograde amnesia: the inability to form new long-term memories following a brain injury or illness, while memories from before the injury remain intact

    • E.g. patient HM could recall events from before his hippocampus was removed but could not form any new long-term memories after the surgery

    • This demonstrates that the hippocampus is critical for encoding new memories into LTM

  • Retrograde amnesia: the inability to recall memories from before a brain injury or trauma, while the ability to form new memories remains intact

    • E.g. a person who suffers a concussion may be unable to remember events immediately preceding the injury

  • Alzheimer's disease is a form of progressive dementia that impairs memory

    • it typically begins with difficulty forming new memories and gradually affects older memories and other cognitive functions

    • Alzheimer's disease progresses into other neurocognitive impairments beyond memory alone

  • Infantile amnesia refers to the inability of adults to recall memories from the first few years of life

    • This is thought to result from the incomplete development of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex in early childhood