Author: kak6275

People study for tests in different ways. They tend to do whatever works for them. However, it wasn’t until this Psychology class that I realized that everyone stores information in the same way. According to the Three-Stage Model of Memory by Atkinson and Shiffrin, encoding information requires has three stages: sensory memory, short term memory, and long-term memory. In sensory memory, the sensory inputs, such as tastes, touch, and sights, are stored. Short term memory processes sensory memory and allows sensory memory to form connections with long term memory. Short term memory is also called working memory. Long term memory is similar to a hard drive. It stores information from short term memory for seemingly an infinite amount of time. When we are learning or studying for tests, we hop to get all of that information into the long-term memory, so that it can be remembered for the test. However, in order to get to long term memory, the transition between short term memory to long term memory must be made. This transition is called rehearsal or memory consolidation. Rehearsal is the constant repetition of information that allows short term memory to be converted to long term memory. There are two main types of rehearsal, elaborative and maintenance rehearsal. Elaborative rehearsal is when you form connections between new information and existing information, which enhances your ability to remember that new information. Maintenance rehearsal is when you keep repeating the same information to keep it in your working memory in hopes that enough repetition will encode the information into your long-term memory. However, in maintenance rehearsal, once you stop rehearsing the information, it goes away making it ineffective in remembering new information.

How does all of this memory information relate to my life? Well, in the past three days, I have had three midterms, all within one day of each other. While I tried to study by re-reading my notes the days before the exam, I could not remember much of what I read the very next day. Therefore, I used elaborative rehearsal to relate my notes to previous information that I had learned in older classes or back to the lectures themselves. This led me to form stronger connections between new and existing information. Relating new information to old allowed for the formation of retrieval cues, which are memories that are held in storage by a web of associations, which ultimately led me to remember the information more effectively for my tests.

Source:

“Chapter 5 – Memory.” Psychology, by Josh Wede,

https://psu.pb.unizin.org/intropsych/chapter/chapter-5-memory/

The central nervous system consists of one’s brain and spinal and is involved in various tasks, such as controlling reflexes. Reflexes are a prime example of bottom-up processing, where the signal begins with sensory information or stimuli observed from the surrounding environment, such as the heat from the candle, which is then relayed to the spinal cord and the brain. However, one difference between bottom-up processing and reflexes is that even before the signal reaches the brain to be processed, the spinal cord has already sent out a response signal, which in the figure shown below is a stimulation of the motor neuron that causes the person to move their hand away from the candle. While the response signal is being sent from the spinal cord, the sensory signal from the sensory neuron is being passed on from the spinal cord to the brain, where it can be processed. When the brain processes this sensory information, it first reaches the thalamus, which acts as a switchboard mechanism and relays this sensory information to the correct part of the brain to be processed. For instance, in the case below, the sensory information from the skin is sent from the thalamus to the sensory cortex, where the brain can comprehend what has happened. However, the brain doesn’t necessarily need to send a return signal because the spinal cord reflex has already sent out a response signal.

My personal experience with reflexes and bottom-up processing has occurred in many different areas of my life. For instance, when I am working with a Bunsen burner in lab, it is not common for me to touch the flame. During these instances, similar to the figure shown above, my reflexes move my hand away from the Bunsen burner just as I start to feel the pain.

 

Sources

“Chapter 3 – Neuron and the Brain.” Psychology, by Josh Wede,

psu.pb.unizin.org/intropsych/chapter/neuron-and-the-brain/.