Psychology Memory Palace by Lesly Tirado

Elizabeth Loftus and Research on the Misinformation Effect

leslytirado79 — 2025-06-29 15:10:57 UTC

When I walk into the first bedroom in the house, my brother’s toy cars are racing around the walls at full speed. Suddenly, two of them crash! This helps me remember the misinformation effect explaining how memories can be changed or corrupted by misleading information, just like someone might “remember” the cars crashing differently than how it really happened.

George Sperling and Research on the Iconic Memory

leslytirado79 — 2025-06-29 15:26:47 UTC

As I leave my brother’s bedroom, I step into the living room and see five different fruits glowing like flashlights, dancing through the air like balloons. I blink and just like that, they’re gone! I try to remember what fruits I saw, but the image in my head fades quickly. This helps me remember iconic memories (a fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli).

George Miller and the Magical Number 7

leslytirado79 — 2025-06-29 15:37:33 UTC

I quickly leave the living room and head into the kitchen, where I see seven spoons fighting each other on the counter. One or two are already knocked out. I guess they’re battling to see who’s the strongest! This helps me remember George Miller’s magical number 7. He proposed that we can store about seven pieces of information in short-term memory.

The Self-Reference Effect

leslytirado79 — 2025-06-29 15:51:24 UTC

I exit the kitchen and walk into the second bedroom, where I see a dog sitting in front of a huge mirror. As I walk closer, memories start flying out of the mirror like birds. Just as they begin to scatter, one lands gently in my hands and it’s a photo of my childhood dog. This helps me remember the self-reference effect, we remember things better when we connect them to ourselves.

Frontal Lobes and Hippocampus: Explicit Memory

leslytirado79 — 2025-06-29 16:02:55 UTC

I exit bedroom #2 and enter bedroom #3, where I see my little brother’s action figures moving around. As I took a closer look, they look just like my real-life friends! They’re sitting around sorting through pictures I’ve taken with them over the years. This helps me remember that the frontal lobes and hippocampus work like a ‘save button’ for explicit memories.

Cerebellum and Basal Ganglia: Implicit Memory

leslytirado79 — 2025-06-29 16:11:53 UTC

I leave bedroom #3 and head into bathroom. As I walk in, my hairbrush floats up and starts brushing my hair all on its own. Then, my makeup products begin applying themselves, following every step I usually do in the morning. This helps me remember implicit memory, which is the kind of memory for skills and habits we do without thinking. It’s controlled by the cerebellum, which helps form and store these memories, and the basal ganglia, which is involved in motor movement.

Amygdala : Emotion-Related Memory

leslytirado79 — 2025-06-29 16:23:36 UTC

As I leave the bathroom and head into bedroom #4, I see LED lights flashing quickly and loud music blasting. It feels like I just walked into a party! As I step in further, my plush animals are dancing in the corner, having the time of their lives. I don’t know if I should feel happy and join them, or be scared and run out. This helps me remember the amygdala which is the part of the brain responsible for forming emotion-related memories.

Long term Potentiation and the Neurotransmitter Glutamate

leslytirado79 — 2025-06-29 16:36:04 UTC

As I leave bedroom #4, I head toward the basement door. As soon as I open it, I see my old sewing machine hard at work! I walk closer and notice it’s stitching glowing yellow thread between Polaroid photos. With each repeated stitch, the thread glows brighter and pulls tighter. Curious, I followed the thread back to a bucket labeled “Glutamate.” This helps me remember how the brain strengthens memory connections through long-term potentiation (LTP), with glutamate helping tie those memories together.