CH. 8: Memory

Question 1

Memory

Answer 1

Ability to store and retrieve information over time

Question 2

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 2

Did the early research on memory studying only one subject, himself, in the late 1800’s

Used nonsense syllables to remove meaning from memory

Best known for the forgetting curve and the spacing effect

Question 3

There are three key functions of memory

Answer 3

Encoding: Process by which we transform what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory

Storage: Process of maintaining information in memory over time

Retrieval: Process of bringing to mind information that has been previously encoded and stored

Question 4

Memories are constructed

Answer 4

Memories are made by combining information we already have with new information coming in

Question 5

There are three major ways to encode

Answer 5

Semantic encoding: Process of actively relating new information in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already in memory

Visual imagery encoding: Process of storing new information by converting it into mental pictures

Organizational encoding: Process of categorizing information according to the relationships among a series of items

Question 6

Memory Storage

Answer 6

1. Sensory memory - a few seconds retention
2. Short-term memory - Non sensory - more than a few seconds but less than a minute

• Working Memory - processing

3. Long-term memory -

Question 7

Types of Sensory Memory

Answer 7

Sensory memory holds sensory information for a few seconds or less

• Iconic memory: Fast-decaying store of visual information
• Echoic memory: Fast-decaying store of auditory information
• Other senses memory: touch, taste, smell, and pain

Question 8

Short-Term Storage and Working Memory

Answer 8

Short-term memory (STM) is storage that holds nonsensory information for more than a few seconds but less than a minute. It can hold about seven items.

• Rehearsal: Process of keeping information in STM by mentally repeating it
• Chunking: Combining small pieces of information into larger clusters/chunks that are more easily held in STM
• Working memory: STM storage that actively maintains information

Question 9

Working Memory

Answer 9

The ability to temporarily hold and manipulate information for cognitive tasks performed in daily life

• Working memory holds information for a few seconds. It is temporary.
• Working memory can hold only five to seven items at a time. It has a small capacity.
• Working memory holds and manipulates information.
• Working memory depends on control of attention and mental effort.

Question 10

The decline in short term memory

Answer 10

A 1959 experiment showed how quickly short-term memory fades without rehearsal.

On a test for memory of three-letter strings, research participants were highly accurate when tested a few seconds after exposure to each string, but if the test was delayed another 15 seconds, people barely recalled the strings at all (Peterson & Peterson, 1959).

Question 11

The Flow of Information Through the Memory System

Answer 11

Model on Slide 11:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1imdcmmoKmUdYY1xPyAa42c1g8upFgZ9y5lx9IoMbopQ/edit#slide=id.g3e212961db_0_226

Question 12

Long-Term memory storage

Answer 12

• Long-term memory (LTM): Storage that holds information for hours, days, weeks, or years; no known capacity
• In contrast with both sensory and short-term memory, long-term memory has no known capacity limits.
• Hippocampus involvement (Filing cabinet?) Not the location of the memory in the brain

Question 13

The hippocampus is critical as an “index” for long-term memory storage.

Answer 13

Case of HM who had his hippocampus (temporal lobe) removed to prevent seizures

• He could remember some things — scenes from his childhood, some facts about his parents, and historical events that occurred before his surgery — but he was unable to form new memories. If he met someone who then left the room, within minutes he had no recollection of the person or their meeting.

Question 14

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 14

Inability to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long-term store

Question 15

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 15

Inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an injury or operation

Question 16

Consolidation

Answer 16

Process by which memories become stable in the brain

Question 17

Reconsolidation

Answer 17

Memories can become vulnerable to disruption when they are recalled, requiring them to become consolidated again.

Question 18

Memory Consolidation

Answer 18

Consolidation: Process by which memories become stable in the brain

Reconsolidation: Memories can become vulnerable to disruption when they are recalled or retrieved, requiring them to become consolidated again.

Interference: 1) Proactive and 2) Retroactive

Question 19

Memory Malleability

Answer 19

Episodic Memory - Autobiographical Memory

Question 20

Sleep on It!

Answer 20

Sleep plays an active role in memory consolidation (not just in the prevention of interference).

In an experiment, groups of people were given a picture-location task after sleeping or remaining awake.

• Both groups spent the same amount of time either sleeping or staying awake.
• The sleep group recalled more.

Sleep contributes to memory consolidation by increasing hippocampal involvement in recall a couple days later, and facilitating interaction of the hippocampus with the frontal lobe, such that the hippocampus is later less centrally involved in recall.

Question 21

External context provides cues

Answer 21

Encoding specificity principle: Idea that a retrieval cue can serve as an effective reminder when it helps re-create the specific way in which information was initially encoded

Question 22

Inner states also provide cues.

Answer 22

State-dependent retrieval: Tendency for information to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval

Question 23

Matching encoding and retrieval contexts improves recall.

Answer 23

Transfer-appropriate processing: Memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when the encoding and retrieval contexts of the situations match.

Context dependent memory

Question 24

Retrieval of Memories

Answer 24

Information is sometimes available in memory, even when it is not accessible.
Retrieval cues: External information associated with stored information that helps bring that information to mind

Question 25

Serial Position Effect

Answer 25

First position and last position most memorable

Information presented at beginning and at the end:
Primacy and Recency effects

Question 26

Forms of Long-Term Memory

Answer 26

Explicit - Intentionally remembered

Implicit- Remembered but not by intention

Question 27

Explicit Memory: Semantic and Episodic

Answer 27

Semantic memory: Network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world
Episodic memory: Collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place

Question 28

Implicit Memory

Answer 28

When past events influence present events without an effort to remember, e.g., ride a bike, tie your shoes, swim etc

Procedural memory is a type of implicit memory, e.g., athletic skills

Priming - An enhanced ability to recall a word or stimulus as a result of a previous exposure to the stimulus though the previous exposure is not remembered by the person. Unconscious memory.

The illusion of truth- What is true?

Question 29

Memory Failures

Answer 29

False memory - Recalling an event that did not happen

Misinformation effect - Details of an event that are added but did not occur (eyewitness)

Bias: Distorting influences of present knowledge, beliefs, and feelings on recollection of previous experiences

• Consistency bias: Tendency to reconstruct the past to fit the present
• Change bias: Tendency to exaggerate differences between what we feel or believe now and what we felt or believed in the past
• Hindsight bias: People overestimate their ability to predict an outcome

Cryptomnesia - a new thought that actually is a memory

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1. Retroactive interference: Situations in which information learned later impairs
   memory for information acquired earlier
2. Proactive interference: Situations in which information learned earlier impairs memory for information acquired later
3. Transience - memory fades with time

Forgetting - It has a purpose!

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Memory misattribution: Assigning a recollection or an idea to the wrong source (Frontal lobe involved) (source amnesia)

Suggestibility misattribution - incorporating misleading information from external sources into a memory

False recognition: Feeling of familiarity about something that hasn’t been encountered before (Deja vu)

• Same brain activation as true recognition (including hippocampus)

Cryptomnesia - Belief a thought is new when it is actually a memory

Question 30

Peak-End Rule

Answer 30

Judge an event on how it felt at peak and how it ended - Judged by snapshots of prototypical moments, not the entirety of an experience.