Ch. 5 Flashcards
What is memory?
An information-processing system that works constructively to encode, store, and retrieve information.
What are memory’s three basic tasks?
- Encoding
- Storage
- Access/retrieval
How do we form memories?
Each of the three memory stages encodes and stores memories in a different way, but all three work together to transform sensory experience into a lasting record that has a pattern or meaning.
What are the three stages of memory?
- Sensory memory
- Working memory
- Long-term memory
What is the capacity of sensory memory?
Storage capacity is 12+, but we typically encode only 3-4 items there.
What is chunking?
Organizing pieces of information into smaller numbers of meaningful units; increases memory mileage
Information is repeated or reviewed to keep it from fading
Maintenance Rehearsal
Information is actively reviewed and related to information already in long term memory
Elaborating Rehearsal
What makes you more likely to remember something?
Deeper level processing (like associating a picture with a thought)
What are schemas?
Clusters of knowledge in semantic memory that give us a context for understanding events; make new events meaningful; speeds up processing
Inability to form new memories
Anterograde Amnesia
Inability to remember information previously stored in memory
Retrograde Amnesia
What are the brain parts associated with long term memory?
Hippocampus, amygdala, cerebral cortex, cerebellum
Process by which short-term memories become long-term memories over a period of time
Consolidation
How do we retrieve memories?
Whether memories are implicit or explicit, successful retrieval depends on how they were encoded and how they are cued.
Implicit means…
Learning something without the intent to
Explicit memory requires…
Attention and awareness!
Providing cues that stimulate memories without awareness of the connection between the cue and the retrieved memory
Priming
Gist-the sense of meaning as contrasted with exact details
Meaningful organization
Retrieval method in which one must reproduce previously presented information (like a test)
Recall
Retrieval method in which one must identify present stimuli as having been previously presented
Recognition
Memories are encoded with specific cues related to the context in which they were formed
Encoding Specificity Principle
A memory process that selectively retrieves memories that match one’s mood
Mood-Congruent Memory
Aspect of memory that enables one to remember to take some action in the future
Prospective memory
Inability to recall a word known to be in one’s memory
Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon
One item prevents us from forming a robust memory for another item
Interference
The impermanence of a long-term memory; long-term memories gradually fade in strength over time
Transience
What does Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting curve show?
Savings demonstrated by relearning drops rapidly and reaches a plateau, below which little more is forgotten
Forgetting caused by lapses in attention
Absent-Mindedness
Forgetting that occurs when an item in memory cannot be accessed or retrieved
Blocking
Memory fault that occurs when memories are retrieved, but are associated with the wrong time, place, or person
Misattribution
Process of memory distortion as the result of deliberate or inadvertent suggestion
Suggestibility
An attitude, belief, emotion, or experience that distorts memories
Bias
Memory problem in which unwanted memories cannot be put out of mind
Persistence
What are the seven sins of memory?
Transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, persistence
Techniques for improving memory, especially by making connections between new material and information already present in long-term memory
Mnemonics
