7 - Memory Flashcards
Memory
The ability to store and retrieve information
Amnesia
- deficit in long-term memory
- resulting from disease, injury, psychological trauma
- loses the ability to retrieve vast quantities of information
Retrograde Amnesia
inability to access memories created before brain damage
Anterograde Amnesia
a condition where people lose the ability to form new memories (more common in real life)
Priming
facilitation of a response to a stimulus based on recent experience with that stimulus or related stimulus
What part of the brain is important for storing new memories?
regions within the temporal lobes, specifically the hippocampus
Implicit Memory
- memories expressed without conscious effort or intention (memories we don’t realize that we know)
- expressed through responses, actions, or reactions
- unconscious or automatic memories (ex. knowing you can ride a bike - motor actions to express that memory come naturally)
What brain systems mediate implicit memory?
(3)
Basal Ganglia
Amygdala
Cerebellum (typically motor skills)
Explicit Memory
- memory that is consiously retrieved
- “knowing that” memory (typically what is being tested on exams)
Implicit Memory System
Procedural Memory
involved skills and habits
- ex. daydreaming while driving but you don’t get in a crash
- motor skills, cognitive skills, and habitual behaviours
Q: Practicing a dance routine requires what type of implicit memory?
Procedural memory (skills and habits)
Explicit Memory
Episodic Memory
- person’s memory of past experiences (typically identified by a time and a place)
Explicit Memory
Semantic Memory
Memory for facts that are independent of one’s personal experiences (ex. game show trivia)
Q: Is your memory of what you ate for breakfast yesterday a semantic memory or an episodic memory?
Episodic because it is about personal experience
Encoding
The process where our perception of a stimulus or event gets transformed into a memory
Q: According to the dual-coding hypothesis, would a presentation of the word ‘car’ or the word ‘ride’ be more likely to encode into memory? Why?
‘car’ is a word that can be visualised whereas ‘ride’ can’t really be visualised easily
dual-coding hypothesis: information that can be coded verbally AND visually is more likley to be encoded into memory
Schemas
Cognitive structures in long-term memory that help us perceive, organize, and understand information
- filling gaps in info with existing memories
Ex. paragraph only makes sense once you know that it’s about laundry (laundry schema)
Q: According to the levels of processing model of encoding, does maintenance rehearsal of information encode more deeply, and why?
Elaborative rehearsal because it makes the information more meaningful by attaching it to existing knowledge and beliefs
(maintenance rehearsal is simply repeating the item over and over and memorizing it)
Organization Affects Memory Encoding
Chunking
Organizing information into meaningful units to make it easier to remember
Organization Affects Memory Encoding
Mnemonics
Learning aids or strategies that improve recall through the use of retrieval cues
- organizing incoming info and linking it to existing knowledge
using sayings like “neurons that fire together, wire together” (LTP)
Mnemonics
What is the Method of Loci
Associating items you want to remember with physical locations
- ex. when learning names, imagining people in different areas of your room and then mentally walking through your room next time you need to remember their name
Memory Storage
What is Sensory Memory?
- What is iconic memory?
- What is echoic memory?
- very brief
- unattended information is lost
- when light, sound, odor, taste, etc. leaves a lasting impression on your nervous system for a fraction of a second after the sensory info is gone
Iconic memory = looking at a picture and then still seeing it after you glance away
Echoic memory = being able to repeat the last few words someone said back to them after not actually paying attention at all
What is Working Memory?
How can you retain the information for longer?
- temporary information
- represents what we are consciously focusing on at that time
- 20-30 seconds
need to retain the info by monitoring it - thinking about or rehearsing it
What is a memory span?
memory can only hold a limited amount of info
- suggested that its about 7 (+ or -2) items at a time
- further research says it’s actually around 4 items
Q: How does memory relate to attention?
Information that is held in working memory is held by attention and rehearsal
Long-Term Memory
storage of info that lasts from minutes to forever
- endless capacity
What is the Serial Position Effect?
ability to recall items from a list depends on the order they are presented in
- items at the beginning and end are remembered better than the ones in the middle
Serial Position Effect
What is the Primacy Effect?
What type of memory storage does it reflect?
better memory for items presented at the beginning of a list
- long-term memory because you will likley rehearse them the most (encoding before there’s too many to remember)
Serial Position Effect
What is the Recency Effect?
What type of memory storage does it reflect?
better memory for items presented at the end of a list
- still stored in working memory when asked to list the items (ex. why I listed the last ones first in the lab)
Long-Term Memory
What is Consolidation?
Gradual process of memory storage in the brain
Long-Term Memory
Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)
(potency, to strengthen)
Consolidation
Flashbulb Memories
Vivid *episodic memories for the circumstances in which people first learned of a surprising ad consequential or emotionally arousing event
(ex. “where were you on 9/11)
- feels so vivid it’s like it was taken with a camera flash
*person’s memory of past experiences
Q: Why is slow *consolidation of memories beneficial?
*gradual process of memory storage
It allows for reminders, replay, and emotions after the event to influence the consolidation process
- increases likelihood that more important and consequential events are remembered
Reconsolidation
re-storage of a memory after retrieval (reinforcement?)
- typically used for updating and strengthening memories
Q: What are the 2 proposed functions of reconsolidation?
Updating (modifying) and strengthening memory
Retrieval cue
Any stimulus that promotes memory recall
Retrieval cues
Context-dependent memory
when you are better able to recall things in the same environment/place that you learned them in (ex. learning on land vs. under water)
physical/sitiuational cues
Retrieval cues
Encoding specificity principle
Idea that a stimulus that is encoded along with an experience can later trigger a memory of the experience
Retrieval cues
State-dependent memory
Aspects of our physiological state are stored as part of the original memory
(ex. being under the influence of alcohol)
Retrieval cues
Mood-dependent memory
Aspects of our mood are stored as part of the original memory (ex. when we are sad we typically only remember negative experiences)
Retrieval cues
Prospective Memory
remembering to do something at some future time
Retrieval-induced forgetting
Impairment of the ability ro recall an item in the future after retrieving the memory but only elaborating on some of the details - in the future, the details you forgot to mention may become even harder to remember
forgetting
Proactive interference
old info makes it harder to learn/remember new info
(ex. can’t remember the middle of the serial position effect because of primacy effect)
forgetting
Retroactive interference
when new info interferes with the ability to remember old info
(ex. can’t remember middle of serial position effect because recency effect is taking all your effort in that moment of recall)
Blocking
temporary inability to remember something
tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
Absentmindedness
inattentive or shallow encoding of events
(ex. forgetting where you put your keys because you weren’t really paying attention when you put them down)
Persistence (in memory)
continual recurrence of unwanted memories
(can cause PTSD for traumatic events)
Memory bias
The changing of memories over time so that they become consistent with current beliefs or attitudes
Source Misattribution
Memory distortion that occurs when people misremember the time, place, person, or circumstances involved in a memory
(ex. the sleeper effect: someone learns something but doesn’t trust the source so they aren’t persuaded by it. Over time, they remember the info but have forgotten the source so they are more likely to now believe the info)
Source Amnesia
type of misattribution where people have a memory for an event but can’t remember the source of the information
(ex. believing its a memory but maybe it’s just a story someone told you about when you were young)
Cryptomnesia
type of misattribution where people think they’ve come up with a new idea but they’ve actually just retrieved a stored idea and forgotten the original source
(could lead to some forms of plagiarism)
Suggestibility (in biased memory)
The development of biased memories from misleading information
