Consumer Memory

◆ Short-term memory
◆ Long-term memory
◆ The organization principle of long-term
memory
◆ The encoding-specificity principle of
long-term memory
◆ The association principle of long-term
memory

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 Human and Computer Memory
Human Brain Personal Computer
Random Access Memory
Short Term Memory
RAM

Recall for Retrieval for

Thinking Processing

Long Term Memory Hard Disk Storage

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 Human
memory
is best
conceptualized
as an
information
processing
system

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 Properties of long
and short term memory
Capacity Duration Information Coding
Loss

Short term 7+2 18 seconds Rehersal Acoustic

memory failure (sound
related)

Long term unlimited permanent Retrieval Semantic

memory failure (meaning
related)

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 Consumer Memory
The Organization Principle:
Organization is the process of grouping
individual pieces of information into larger
units on the basis of a specific relationship
between pieces.

“:The notes went sour because the

bag was ripped.”
. Appliances Catalogues

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 Memory Performance
Minerals

Metals Stones

Rare Common Alloys Precious Masonry

gold aluminum steel diamond
limestone
silver copper brass ruby slate
platinum lead pewter sapphire marble

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 Memory Performance
100% Organized
List

Random
50% List

0%

1 2 3 4

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 Consumer Memory
The Encoding-Specificity Principle:

Memory is context dependant. Memory

performance is best when the encoding
context and the retrieval context are similar.
Study vs Test conditions
Library vs classroom
Players pics in all communication vehicles by
Pepsi

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 Linking the
concept of
using office
equipment
and saving
energy

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 Consumer Memory
The Association Principle:
Each concept, idea or piece of information
stored in memory is represented as a Node
and each node connected to other node by
links referred to as associations.
Lite Beer from Miller
“tastes great” and “less filling”
Lite  taste great -> beer -> alcohol ->
baverage
McDonald’s case study
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 Worms

McDonalds

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 Consumer Memory
Memory Performance Measurement:
Subliminal Messages (Eat Popcorn… Drink
Coke)

Implicit vs Explicit Memory Tasks:

Memory serves as an object of attention
• Recognition ( MCQs)
• Cued recall (fill in the blanks)
• free recall (essay questions)

Memory serves as a tool for making

Judgment and Decision
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