Ch. 7 Long-Term Memory Flashcards
For midterm 2
Amnesia
Severely impaired long-term memory capacities, typically due to trauma or brain damage.
Anterograde amnesia
A form of amnesia in which memories formed after the trauma of brain damage are lost.
Consolidation
The process of making memories durable and, in some cases, permanent.
Consolidation & changing memories
Consolidated memories are stable, but when they are recalled, they become de-stable. Cortical connections can be strengthened or modified, altering how it is reconsolidated.
Importance of plastic memory
From various memories, we can form simulations of desired futures (like a collage). This helps us make choices, solve problems.
Context-dependent memory
A memory benefit when the external conditions (such as location or background noise) match between encoding and retrieval.
Elaborative rehearsal
A technique for storing information in long-term memory that involves elaborating on the meaning of the information.
Encoding specificity
A principle in long-term memory retrieval in which a match in condition between encoding and retrieval facilitates recall.
Episodic memory
Memory of events that have happened directly to us that can be recalled in a sequence as they occurred, i.e., “mental time travel.” Active in occipital and temporal lobes
Amnesia (Patient KC)
Affects hippocampus. Amnesia patients piece information together to understand their current situation, but don’t deeply recall any episodic memories. Have semantic un
Explicit (or declarative) memory
Memory for all information that can be verbally reported: includes semantic and episodic memory.
Familiarity effect
A phenomenon in which people will tend to rate something that they have encountered before more favorably than something completely unfamiliar.
Free-recall task
A type of memory task in which the experimental subject must simply remember as many items as they can from a memorized list without and cues or prompts.
Hippocampal replay
A phenomenon in which sequences of brain activity in the hippocampus that occurred during behavioral activity are repeated or “replayed,” in sequence, after the event. It has been proposed as a mechanism in systems consolidation. May be essential to system consolidation
Hippocampus & process of encoding
One proposition: Hippocampus stores and then moves memories to cortex.
Other: Hippocampus does not store memories, but coordinates storage in cortex.
Implicit memory
A form of long-term memory in which the individual does not have explicit awareness of knowing the information but where the information has indirect effects on behavior. (includes prejudice and conditioning) Active in amygdala. Less prone to forgetting than explicit memory
Habits
Routines begin as explicit memories, become implicit memories (i hate my period, it ruins my vacations, i take birth control > I take birth control every day)
Maladaptive, repetitive thoughts and emotions can be habits. stem from OCD.
Forming habits
Reward must be present to form a habit, but not to keep it consistent. Must manually connect a different reward with the initial cue in order to break the first habit (dog eats sock (tasty reward), put shoe near sock, dog eats shoe instead (tastier reward!))
Priming
Prior exposure facilitates information processing without awareness. Pictures of lemonade all over a tour of a building, offer a drink at the end of visit, people want lemonade but not sure why
Deja vu
The feeling that you have encountered an experience before. Actually caused by the trigger of a very similar primed memory.
Level of processing theory
Craik and Tulving (1972) A theory of long-term memory encoding that holds that depth of meaning during processing determines how likely an item is to be recalled.
Depth of memory effect
We learn info better if we elaborate it based on info we already know (Tulving’s findings, this could be a different name for level of processing theory)
Depth of memory increases when we are in the same area/mental state as when we learned something
Encoding specificity hypothesis
Memory retrieval increases when we are in the same area/mental state as when we learned something (state-dependent learning
Transfer-appropriate processing
Overlap between processes during encoding and retrieval determines memory strength. When we learn something shallowly, we remember it better when being asked shallow questions, vise versa (which word was in all caps)
Self-reference effect
Link to identity. If words describe you better, or feel more personal to you, you will remember them better (happy, talkative)
Generation effect
Info is better remembered during active rehearsal. Generate the word K__g-crown, H___e-saddle
Craik and Tulving 1972 experiment
Participants were given three categories of questions: case (upper/lowercase of word), rhyming, or sentence completion. Then given a free-recall task to remember the words. Words they were prompted to think about sound or meaning, they remembered better.
Long-term memory
LTM typically retains the abstracted semantic information, without specific physical details.
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
A form of synaptic consolidation in which a receiving neuron becomes more likely to fire in response to the stimulation of a sending neuron. Either more firing or more releasing
Maintenance rehearsal
A technique for encoding information in long-term memory that involves simply repeating the information.
Patient H.M.
H.M.’s hippocampus was removed. Though intelligence/cognition were intact, he could not make long-term memories. Info remained in his STM for 15 minutes. Similarly, Clive Wearing, musicologist/concert pianist, believed he was waking up from a void of memory.
Proof for different types of memory
double dissociation, in which each function can be shown to be preserved while the other is compromised.
Damage to hippocampus: impaired LTM
Damage to STM processing cortical regions: impaired STM
Alzheimer’s disease
Disease causing loss of LTM, impairs STM in early stages. Affects medial temporal lobe (MTL) first. Causes impulsivity, behavioral issues (addiction)
Modal model on encoding
The longer the information is retained in short-term memory via rehearsal, the likelier it is that it will enter into long-term memory.
Primacy effect
A phenomenon in the serial position effect in which words at the beginning of the list are better remembered. It is attributed to long-term memory.
Procedural memory
A form of implicit memory consisting of knowledge of how to perform a task.
Recency effect
A phenomenon in the serial position effect in which words at the end of the list are better remembered. It is attributed to short-term memory.
Retrograde amnesia
A form of amnesia in which memories formed before the trauma of brain damage are lost.
Temporally graded memory loss: Remote/old memories are less affected than recent memories)
Korsakoff’s syndrome
Chronic alcoholism causes antero- and retrograde amnesia. Changes personality. Causes confabulation: fabrication of memories
Dissociative amnesia
Occurs from trauma, not from brain damage. Retrograde. People change personalities, often are so disoriented they move and change identities.
Semantic memory
A form of explicit/declarative memory in which the information is recalled as a set of facts without mental time travel. Many memories begin as episodic and then transform to semantic memory over time. Active in frontal and parietal lobes
Spreading activation/semantic organization
Semantic memories are stored as a web of interlinked facts. One being triggered can trigger associations to others (Pasta makes me think of italy!)
Semantic dementia
Affects temporal lobes. Episodic memories remain, not semantic memories (cannot name animals in a picture, can remember personal experiences)
Types of dementia (not on exam)
Frontotemporal: affects language function
Lewy body: affects sleep, body function, motion
Vascular: disrupts blood flow in brain, cognitive deficit, delusions
Associative deficit hypothesis
Older adults have trouble creating links between items in their mind (lack of hippocampal function) but can retrieve singular items ok. (I remember you, but from where??)
Adaptive cognitive aging
Young adults use only right PFC to remember/associate things. Older adults who have better memory learn to employ both lobes in order to compensate for deterioration.
Serial position effect
An effect in memory studies using recall of long words lists in which words at the beginning and end of the list are remembered better than those in the middle of the list.
Spacing effect
A benefit in long-term memory when information is repeated over spaced out intervals.
Reappearance hypothesis (reconstructive memory??)
Episodic memory trace is recalled the same way at each retrieval (reproduced, not reconstructed). It does not change when retrieved (unlike flashbulb memories)
State-dependent memory
A memory benefit when the internal conditions (such as mood) match between encoding and retrieval.
Synaptic consolidation
Changes at the synapses between neurons that lead to long-term storage of memories.
Systems consolidation
A process of making long-term memories more durable based on connections between cortical areas; thought to be orchestrated by the hippocampus.
Testing effect
A long-term memory benefit that occurs when people retrieve information on their own rather than observing it passively. (when you are quizzed, you remember better than if you reread)
Transfer-appropriate processing
Morris (1977) An account for which information is remembered in long-term memory that emphasizes a match in form between when the information is initially encoded and when it is retrieved. Can be even more important than depth of initial processing.
Transfer learning
A technique used in training neural networks in which the weights of an ANN trained on one task are re-used in a different network in order to learn a different task. (bakery AI used for brain tumors)
