Encoding
How do you encode the info you read in our text?
Getting the information in our
heads!!!!
Two ways to encode information
• Automatic Processing
• Effortful Processing
Automatic Processing
• Unconscious encoding of incidental information.
• You encode space, time and word meaning
without effort.
• Things can become automatic with practice.
For example, if I tell you that you are a jerk, you
will encode the meaning of what I am saying to
you without any effort.
Effortful Processing
• Encoding that requires attention and
conscious effort.
• Rehearsal is the most common effortful
processing technique.
• Through enough rehearsal, what was
effortful becomes automatic.
Things to remember about
Encoding
1. The next-In-Line effect: we seldom
remember what the person has just said
or done if we are next.
2. Information minutes before sleep is
seldom remembered; in the hour before
sleep, well remembered.
3. Taped info played while asleep is
registered by ears, but we do not
remember it.
Spacing Effect
• We encode
better when we
study or practice
over time.
• DO NOT
CRAM!!!!!
Take out a piece of paper and….
List the U.S. Presidents
The Presidents
Washington
J.Adams
Jefferson
Madison
Monroe
JQ Adams
Jackson
Van Buren
Harrison
Tyler
Polk
Taylor
Fillmore
Pierce
Buchanan
Lincoln
A.Johnson
Grant
Hayes
Garfield
Arthur
Cleveland
Harrison
Cleveland
McKinley
T.Roosevelt
Taft
Wilson
Harding
Coolidge
Hoover
FD.Roosevelt
Truman
Eisenhower
Kennedy
L.Johnson
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan
Bush
Clinton
Bush Jr.
Dean
Serial Positioning Effect
• Our tendency to recall best the last
and first items in a list.
Presidents
Recalled
If we graph an average person remembers presidential list- it
would probably look something like this.
Encoding exercise
Types of Encoding
• Semantic Encoding: the
encoding of meaning, like the
meaning of words
•Acoustic Encoding: the encoding
of sound, especially the sounds of
words.
•Visual Encoding: the encoding of
picture images.
Which type works best?
Self-Reference Effect
• An example of how
we encode meaning
very well.
• The idea that we
remember things (like
adjectives) when they
are used to describe
ourselves.
Peg-word system
Tricks to Encode
• Use imagery: mental pictures
Mnemonic Devices use imagery. Like my
“peg word” system or….
"Mary Very Easily Makes Jam Saturday Unless No Plums."
Mars, Venus, Earth, Mercury, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
Give me some more examples….
Links to examples of mnemonic devices.
Chunking
• Organizing items
into familiar,
manageable units.
• Often it will occur
automatically.
1-4-9-2-1-7-7-6-1-8-1-2-1-9-4-1
Do these numbers mean anything to you? Chunk- from Goonies
1492, 1776, 1812, 1941 how about now?
Chunking
1,3 and 5 make little sense to us. But when we chunk the
characters differently (2,4,6) they become easy to remember.
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