09. Memory, Attention, and Consciousness Flashcards
Consciousness
In perception, the experiencing of percepts or other mental events in such a manner that one can report on them to others.
Memory stores
In cognitive psychology, hypothetical constructs that are conceived of as places where information is held in the mind.
Control processes
The mental processes that operate on information in the memory stores and move information from one store to another. see attention, encoding, retrieval.
Sensory memory
The memory trace that preserves the original information in a sensory stimulus for a brief period (less than 1 second for sights and up to 3 seconds for sounds) following the termination of the stimulus; it is experienced as if one is still sensing the original stimulus.
Short-term store
Memory store that can hold a limited amount of information for a matter of seconds. Cognitive operations are executed in the short-term store and information can be maintained indefinitely in the short-term store through operations such as rehearsal.
Working memory
The memory store that is considered to be the main workplace of the mind. Among other things, it is the seat of conscious thought and reasoning.
Long-term memory
Information that is retained in the mind for long periods (often throughout life).
Attention
The process that controls the flow of information from the sensory store into working memory. More broadly, any focusing of mental activity along a specific track, whether that track consists purely of inner memories and knowledge or is based on external stimuli.
Encoding
The mental process by which long-term memories are formed.
Retrieval
The mental process by which long-term memories are brought into working memory, where they become part of the flow of thought.
Effortful processes
Cognitive processes that consume some of the information-processing system’s limited capacity and are hypothesized to (1) be available to conscious awareness, (2) interfere with the execution of other processes, (3) improve with practice, and (4) be influenced by individual differences in intelligence, motivation, or education.
Automatic processes
Cognitive processes that require no mental effort (or mental space) for their execution and are hypothesized (1) to occur without intention and without conscious awareness, (2) not to interfere with the execution of other processes, (3) not to improve with practice, and (4) not to be influenced by individual differences in intelligence, motivation, or education.
Stroop interference effect
Named after J. Ridley Stroop, the effect by which a printed color word (such as the word red) interferes with a person’s ability to name the color of ink in which the word is printed if the ink color is not the same as the color named by the word
Dual-processing theories
Cognitive theories that propose that people have two general ways of processing information. Typically such theories propose that one form of thinking is on the automatic end of the information-processing continuum, with processing being fast, automatic, and unconscious, and the second way of thinking is placed on the effortful side of this continuum, with processing being slow, effortful, and conscious.
Echoic memory
Sensory memory for the sense of hearing.
Iconic memory
Sensory memory for the sense of vision
Phonological loop
In Baddeley’s theory, a component of working memory responsible for holding verbal information.
Visuospatial sketchpad
In Baddeley’s theory, a component of working memory responsible for holding visual and spatial information.
Central executive
In Baddeley’s theory, a component of the mind responsible for coordinating all the activities of working memory and for bringing new information into working memory.
Short-term memory span
The number of pronounceable items of information (such as single, randomly chosen digits) that a person can retain in short-term (working) memory at any given time.
Executive functions
The processes involved in regulating attention and in determining what to do with information just gathered or retrieved from long-term memory.
Memory
- The mind’s ability to retain information over time. 2. Information retained in the mind over time.
Explicit memory
The class of memory that can be consciously recalled and used to answer explicit questions about what one knows or remembers.
Implicit memory
Memory that influences one’s behavior or thought but does not itself enter consciousness.
Episodic memory
Explicit memory of past events (episodes) in one’s own life.
Semantic memory
One’s storehouse of explicit general knowledge, that is, of knowledge that can be expressed in words and is not mentally tied to specific experiences in one’s own life. Semantic memory includes, but is not limited to, one’s knowledge of word meanings.
Procedural memory
The class of implicit memory that enables a person to perform specific learned skills or habitual responses.
Temporal-lobe amnesia
The loss in memory abilities that occurs as a result of damage to structures in the limbic system that lie under the temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex.
Infantile amnesia
The inability to remember events from infancy and early childhood.
Chunking
A strategy for improving the ability to remember a set of items by grouping them mentally to form fewer items.
Anterograde amnesia
Loss, due to injury to the brain, in ability to form new long-term memories for events that occur after the injury.
Retrograde amnesia
Loss, due to injury to the brain, of long-term memories that had been formed before the injury.
Associations
Concerning the mind, a link between two memories or mental concepts, such that recall of one tends to promote recall of the other.
Retrieval cue
A word, phrase, or other stimulus that helps one retrieve a specific item of information from long-term memory.
Association by contiguity
Aristotle’s principle that if two environmental events (stimuli) occur at the same time or one right after the other (contiguously), those events will be linked together in the mind.
Association by similarity
Aristotle’s principle that objects, events, or ideas that are similar to one another become linked (associated) in the person’s mind (structure of memory), such that the thought of one tends to elicit the thought of the other.
Schema
The mental representation of a concept; the information stored in long-term memory that allows a person to identify a group of different events or items as members of the same category.
Scripts
A variety of schema that represents in memory the temporal organization of a category of event (such as the sequence of occurrences at a typical birthday party).
Prospective memory
Remembering to do something in the future
