Unit 2 · 2.3
Introduction to Memory
Unit 2 is 15–25% of the multiple-choice section. Memory items collapse when encoding, storage, and retrieval are treated as one blob, or when the multi-store sketch is treated as a photograph of the skull. · about 5 minutes with the essay beats.
You do not remember what happened. You remember what you encoded — and what later got in the way.
Read the scene first. The term will wait. When it lands, you will be able to use it on a stranger’s story — that is the exam, and that is also why this subject is interesting.
A scene you already lived
Do not hunt the term yet. Let this sit. The exam will hand you a stranger’s version of the same night.
You walk into the kitchen for the charger. By the sink the errand is gone. You stand there like a browser tab that lost its URL. You step back to the doorway and the charger returns, as if the room itself were a password. That is not proof you are flaky. Encoding, storage, and retrieval are three jobs. The errand was encoded, held briefly or poorly, and then a doorway cue retrieved it. A multiple-choice item you ‘know’ when you see the options is a different test from a blank line. This page is the map of jobs and stores. Later pages will tell you how each job fails.
What the paper actually asks
These are the scoring targets. If you can do them on a new story, you are ready — flashcards can wait.
- Keep the Atkinson–Shiffrin stores distinct from working-memory as a workspace.
- Apply encoding, storage, and retrieval as three jobs, not one blob called 'memory.'
- Use a methods stem: what a recall vs recognition test can claim.
The mechanism
Once you can walk this, you will start seeing it at dinner, in a group chat, in your own delay. That is the fun of this course.
Three jobs, not one substance. Encoding: getting information in. Storage: holding it over time. Retrieval: getting it back out. A miss can live in any of the three. Saying ‘I have a bad memory’ is not an exam answer.
The Atkinson–Shiffrin multi-store sketch: sensory memory (brief, near-literal trace of a just-seen or just-heard stimulus), short-term memory (a limited hold you can rehearse), long-term memory (a more durable store of skills, episodes, and facts). It is a teaching model with limits — not three labeled drawers you could find in a dissection, and not a claim that nothing ever skips a box.
Working memory is the workspace, not a synonym for ‘short-term box.’ At AP grain: a central executive that directs attention, a phonological loop for sound-based material, a visuospatial sketchpad for images and layouts. Historical short-term sketches sometimes used 7±2 as a chunk-count for STM; treat that as a historical sketch. Working memory for novel material is often smaller, and chunking changes what ‘an item’ even is. Do not invent a fake capacity number and call it biology.
Tests are not interchangeable. Recall: produce the item (blank line, tell the story). Recognition: pick it out (four options, a face in a lineup). Relearning: how much faster the second time. A recognition hit is not proof of recall. The methods stem will ask what the test can claim.
Atkinson–Shiffrin stores (sensory → short-term → long-term) are a model with limits. Working memory is a workspace, not a dusty shelf.
Words worth owning
A definition is a tool. The confusable is the distractor. Learn both and the clever wrong answer stops working.
Encoding
The process of getting information into memory in the first place.
Confusable. Not retrieval (getting it out) and not storage (holding it). Three jobs, three names.
Storage
Holding encoded information over time.
Confusable. Not a guarantee of later recall. Stored material still needs a cue. Not a video file in one folder.
Retrieval
Getting stored information back out when you need it.
Confusable. A retrieval miss is not automatic proof that encoding never happened (that question lives more fully in 2.7).
Sensory memory
A very brief hold of just-seen or just-heard input, as in the Atkinson–Shiffrin sketch.
Confusable. Not perception (2.1 organization) and not long-term memory of a smell from childhood.
Short-term memory
A limited, temporary hold in the multi-store sketch, often maintained by rehearsal.
Confusable. Working memory is the workspace idea (executive plus phonological and visuospatial), not just a smaller box with a famous number.
Working memory
A limited workspace for holding and manipulating information — central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad at AP grain.
Confusable. Not identical to the Atkinson–Shiffrin STM box. Not a capacity number you invent. 7±2 is a historical STM sketch; working memory is often smaller.
Long-term memory
A more durable store of information — skills, episodes, facts — in the multi-store sketch.
Confusable. Not proof of a video recording. Types of long-term store are 2.5’s job.
Recall vs recognition
Recall requires producing an item; recognition requires identifying it among options. They are different tests with different claims.
Confusable. A recognition hit is not proof you could recall. Relearning is a third measure (savings on a later try).
A study you can actually use
Classic or labeled hypothetical. Either way: what was done, what was found, what it cannot claim.
Classic (classroom-common) · 1960 (classroom-common)
Sperling partial-report demonstration (sensory memory)
- What was done
- Classroom-common account: a brief array of letters is flashed. Whole report (say all the letters) yields few; a cue that arrives immediately and points to one row yields a high proportion of that row — suggesting more was available for a moment than a full report can say.
- Finding
- A short-lived sensory trace can hold more than you can dump out in time. That supports a sensory-memory idea in the multi-store sketch.
- Limit — what it cannot claim
- A letter array is not a childhood kitchen. The demonstration is about a brief visual trace, not about working-memory math, and not a claim about a number you should memorize as biology. Classroom summaries skip procedural detail; do not invent a percentage if you cannot stand behind it.
- How AAQ would probe it
- Method: laboratory experiment / timed report procedure. Variable: whole vs partial cue. Application: sensory memory as a brief store. Limit: letters on a screen, that task, not ‘all seeing.’
Labeled hypothetical
Hypothetical recall vs recognition of the same 16 terms (original practice source, not a published paper)
Original practice source, not a published paper.
- What was done
- A teacher randomly assigns a class to study the same 16 geography terms. Next day, half write the terms on a blank page (recall). Half pick each term from four options (recognition).
- Finding
- If recognition scores run higher than recall, a fair claim is that the two tests are not the same operational definition of ‘remembering’ — not that the recall group ‘has worse memory’ as a trait, and not that recognition proves the trace is complete.
- Limit — what it cannot claim
- Labeled hypothetical. One class, one list, one delay. Random assignment to test type tells you about the test, not about who is clever. Do not cite this as a real paper.
- How AAQ would probe it
- Method: experiment on test format (if assignment was random). IV: recall vs recognition test. DV: items correct. Argumentation: a recognition hit is not a recall claim.
Someone’s Tuesday
If it only lives in the textbook, it will not survive a novel stem. This is the idea wearing ordinary clothes.
A phone number lives long enough to tap and then is gone: short-term / working hold without a long-term landing. A childhood bus route still returns: long-term. Repeating a Wi-Fi code under your breath is the phonological loop doing rehearsal. Holding a map in mind while someone talks is visuospatial plus executive, and it collapses when both jobs get heavy — that is a workspace limit, not a moral. You ‘know’ a term on four options and cannot produce it on a blank: recognition is not recall. The doorway that returns the charger is a cue at retrieval, which 2.6 will name more fully. Here, just keep the jobs and stores from melting.
Where clever students go wrong
The trap is usually a neighboring term that almost fits. Name it so it stops feeling smart.
Memory is not one blob and not a video file. ‘I have a photographic memory’ is almost always a story (2.5 and 2.7 will press this again). 7±2 is not a biological constant you should tattoo on a diagram as working-memory fact; it is a historical STM sketch, and working memory for novel bits is often smaller. Do not treat Atkinson–Shiffrin as three rooms in the skull. Do not treat a recognition test and a recall test as the same measurement.
A stem, then the move
Watch me work one. Then you will do four without looking back.
Scenario
Omar glances at a bus-route board, looks away, and can still ‘see’ the last line for a blink. He then repeats a four-digit platform number until he types it. Six months later he still knows which city the line belongs to. He picks that city from four options more easily than he can produce the name on a blank. Map the stores and the tests.
Walkthrough
The blink of the board is sensory memory (Sperling-style brief trace), not long-term. Repeating digits is a short-term / working (phonological) hold. The city after six months is long-term. Four options vs blank is recognition vs recall — different tests. Do not call the blink ‘photographic memory.’ Do not invent a 7±2 claim for four digits.
The move
Sensory, then STM/working, then LTM. Recognition ≠ recall. Three jobs still sit under all of it: encoding the board, storing the city, retrieving on two different tests.
Try tonight · 5 minutes
A living experiment, not a vibe
Do this on your actual Tuesday. The paper will later hand you a stranger’s version of the same five minutes.
Put a six-word errand in mind, walk into another room, and notice whether it survives. Then try to write two class terms from a blank, then check them against options. Log which job or test moved.
Prove it
Four items. No looking back.
One at a time. After each submit I will show the key, why it is right, and why the others felt clever.
Item 1 of 4 · Practice 1 · Concept application
Mateo walks into the kitchen for a charger, loses the errand at the sink, and recovers it at the doorway. Which mapping of jobs is most accurate?
Keys A–D select. Enter checks.
Write it · AAQ
Operationalize the test of memory
Say the move in your own mouth. If you can write it, you own it — rereading is not the same thing.
Original practice source, not a published paper. Researchers randomly assign 28 students to study the same list. One group writes the words from memory; the other circles studied words among unstudied foils. Identify the research method. Then name the memory job being measured at test, and state what a higher circling score would not prove about blank-page recall.
Move: Method: experiment. The test is retrieval, operationalized as recall vs recognition. A recognition advantage is not a recall claim.
Where curiosity goes next
Related rooms. Open the one that still tugs.