🔷 1. What is Memory?
Definition:
Memory is the ability of the mind to encode, store, and retrieve
information.
Without memory, you wouldn’t remember:
What you learned yesterday
Your name
How to speak or read
Memory helps us:
Learn from experience
Develop relationships
Know who we are (identity)
🔷 2. Processes of Memory
Memory happens in three major steps:
Process Meaning Example
Changing information into a Seeing a dog and
Encoding
form the brain can store remembering its color
Recalling the dog’s color
Storage Keeping the info over time
later
Answering a question about
Retrieval Accessing stored info
the dog’s color
🔷 3. Three Stages of Memory
🧠 1. Sensory Memory
Function: Registers information from your 5 senses
Duration: Very short
0.3 seconds for visual (iconic)
2 seconds for sound (echoic)
Capacity: Very large, but short-lived
Example: You see lightning for a moment. That flash is held
briefly in iconic memory.
🧠 2. Short-Term (Working) Memory
Function: Actively processes info
Duration: About 30 seconds
Capacity: 7 ± 2 items (i.e., 5 to 9 things)
Example:
When you dial a phone number someone just told you, you’re
using short-term memory.
🌀 Maintenance Rehearsal:
Repeating info in your head to keep it active.
Example: Repeating "0701 334 276" over and over to remember it for a
minute.
🌀 Chunking:
Grouping info into bigger pieces.
Example:
Hard: 1-4-9-2-1-7-7-6
Easy: 1492 (Columbus) & 1776 (US independence)
🧠 3. Long-Term Memory
Function: Permanent storage
Capacity: Unlimited
Duration: Possibly permanent
Example: Remembering your childhood home, language, or the
alphabet.
🌀 Encoding = Moving info from short-term to long-term memory
🌀 Retrieval = Bringing long-term memory back into short-term to use it.
🔷 4. Types of Long-Term Memory
A. Explicit (Declarative) Memory
You are aware of these memories — you can talk about them.
📘 Episodic Memory:
Events and personal experiences
Example: Your birthday party last year
Semantic Memory:
Facts and knowledge
Example: Knowing that the heart pumps blood
B. Implicit (Non-Declarative) Memory
Unconscious memory – influences your behavior without awareness.
🔧Procedural Memory:
Skills and habits
Example: Riding a bicycle, tying shoelaces
You do not need to think through the steps consciously.
🔷 5. How Memories Are Organized
🧩 Clustering:
Grouping similar information together
Example: "Banana, Apple, Orange" are all fruits.
🔗 Semantic Network:
Memories are stored in webs of connected ideas.
Example: “Fire truck” is linked to “red,” “sirens,”
“emergency,” “ambulance.”
🔷 6. Why Do We Forget?
A. Retrieval Failure
You know it but can’t access it.
Example: Tip-of-the-tongue moments.
B. Encoding Failure
Info never got into long-term memory.
Example: You see coins every day but can’t describe the correct face on a
Ugandan coin.
C. Interference
When other memories block access.
Type Meaning Example
New info blocks
Retroactive Learning Spanish makes you forget French
old
Old info blocks Your old phone number makes it hard to
Proactive
new remember the new one
D. Motivated Forgetting
E. Suppression = Conscious (You try to forget)
Repression = Unconscious (Buried feelings)
E. Decay Theory
Memory fades if not used over time.
7. Improving Memory
Ways to improve memory:
Pay attention – Focus deeply
Use unique methods – Create associations
Get good sleep – Memory strengthens during sleep
Exercise – Boosts brain health
Avoid alcohol/drugs – They impair memory
Manage stress – Chronic stress affects memory negatively
🔷 8. Flashbulb Memories
Very vivid, emotional memories
Example: You clearly remember where you were when you heard that
someone close passed away
These feel detailed but can still be inaccurate.
🔷 9. Memory Distortion
Schemas: Your brain fills in gaps with expectations
Loftus Experiment:
Group 1: “How fast were the cars going when they smashed?”
Group 2: “...when they hit?”
Group 1 remembered higher speeds & broken glass – even if it wasn’t
there.
🔷 10. Amnesia
Type What is lost? Example
Retrograde Past memories lost Forgetting events before a head injury
Cannot form new Happens in Alzheimer's or after
Anterograde
memories hippocampus damage
🔷 11. Testing Memory
Type Meaning Example
Recall No help Essay questions
Cued Recall With hints “It starts with B...”
Recognition Choose the correct answer Multiple choice questions
🌀 Serial Position Effect:
You remember items at the beginning and end of a list better.
🧠 MEMORY MCQs
1. What are the three main processes of memory?
A) Encoding, Repeating, Storing
B) Storing, Remembering, Reacting
✅ C) Encoding, Storage, Retrieval
D) Storage, Retrieval, Forgetting
2. What type of memory holds information for just a few seconds?
A) Working memory
B) Long-term memory
✅ C) Sensory memory
D) Explicit memory
3. Which of the following best describes working memory?
A) Memory you are unaware of
B) Permanent memory storage
✅ C) Temporary conscious memory for active thinking
D) Memory used during sleep
4. What is the capacity of short-term memory according to Miller’s rule?
A) 3 ± 1 items
✅ B) 7 ± 2 items
C) Unlimited
D) 4 ± 2 items
5. Which process helps retain information in working memory for more
than 30 seconds?
A) Chunking
✅ B) Maintenance rehearsal
C) Retrieval
D) Encoding
6. Grouping digits like 1492 and 1776 into meaningful units is an
example of:
A) Encoding failure
✅ B) Chunking
C) Semantic memory
D) Retrieval
7. What type of memory is responsible for remembering your birthday
party last year?
✅ A) Episodic memory
B) Semantic memory
C) Procedural memory
D) Echoic memory
8. Knowing that Kampala is the capital of Uganda is stored in which
memory type?
A) Episodic
✅ B) Semantic
C) Implicit
D) Sensory
9. What is an example of implicit memory?
A) Recalling a definition
✅ B) Riding a bicycle
C) Naming fruits
D) Listing friends' names
10. Which part of memory allows you to store information permanently?
A) Sensory memory
✅ B) Long-term memory
C) Echoic memory
D) Short-term memory
11. What is the term for a vivid and emotionally intense memory?
✅ A) Flashbulb memory
B) Sensory echo
C) Chunked memory
D) Clustering memory
12. The inability to remember events before a head injury is called:
✅ A) Retrograde amnesia
B) Anterograde amnesia
C) Motivated forgetting
D) Encoding failure
13. The inability to form new memories is called:
A) Retroactive interference
✅ B) Anterograde amnesia
C) Chunking
D) Semantic failure
14. What is retrieval failure?
A) Forgetting due to decay
✅ B) Inability to access info stored in long-term memory
C) Forgetting due to interference
D) Loss of sensory input
15. What is retroactive interference?
✅ A) New info interferes with old info
B) Old info interferes with new info
C) No memory storage occurs
D) You recall everything at once
16. Remembering the first and last items in a list better than the middle
ones is:
A) Encoding specificity
B) Maintenance rehearsal
✅ C) Serial position effect
D) Context recall
17. You remember more when the learning and testing environments are
similar. This is:
✅ A) Encoding specificity
B) Semantic activation
C) Flashbulb memory
D) Procedural reinforcement
18. Which theory suggests memories fade over time if not used?
✅ A) Decay theory
B) Retrieval theory
C) Chunking theory
D) Semantic theory
19. What experiment showed how memory can be distorted by leading
questions?
A) Freud’s repression study
✅ B) Loftus car accident study
C) Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
D) Miller’s memory span study
20. Which of these helps improve memory?
A) Multitasking
✅ B) Restorative sleep
C) Avoiding repetition
D) Suppression of memories