Chap 5: Long-term Memory Flashcards
Long-term memory
Has a large capacity; contains memory for experiences that you have accumulated throughout your lifetime and can retain material for many decades
Episodic memory
Memories for personal events
Semantic memory
Knowledge about factual information
Procedural memory
Knowledge about how to do something
Encoding
Process information and represent it in your memory
Retrieval
Locate information in storage, and you access that information
Levels of processing approach
Argues that deep, meaningful processing of information leads to more accurate recall than shallow sensory kinds of processing
Distinctiveness
A stimulus is different from other memory traces
Elaboration
Requires rich processing in terms of meaning and interconnected concepts
Self-reference effect
You will remember more information if you try to relate that information to yourself
Encoding specificity
Recall is better if the context during retrieval is similar to the context during encoding
Recall task
The participants must reproduce the items they learned earlier (short answer)
Recognition task
The participants must judge whether they saw a particular item at an earlier time (multiple choice questions)
Emotion
A reaction to a specific stimulus
Mood
A more general, long lasting experience
What are two ways in which emotion and mood can effect memory
- We typically remember pleasant stimuli more accurately than other stimuli
- We typically recall material more accurately if our mood matches the emotional nature of the material (mood congruence)
Pollyanna principle
States that pleasant items are usually processes more efficiently and more accurately than less pleasant items
Positivity effect
People tend to rate unpleasant past events more positively over time
Mood congruence
You recall more material more accurately if it is congruent with your current mood
Explicit memory task
A researcher directly asks you to remember some information; you realize that your memory is being tested, and the test requires you to intentionally retrieve some information that you previously learned
Implicit memory task
You see the material (usually a series of words or pictures); later, during a test phase, you are instructed to complete a cognitive task that does not directly ask you for either recall or recognition
Repetition priming task
Recent exposure to a word increases the likelihood that you’ll think of this particular word, when you are given a cue that could evoke many different words
Dissociation
Occurs when a variable has large effects on test A, but little or no or opposite effects on test B
Own-ethnicity bias
People are generally more accurate in identifying members of their own ethnic group than members of other ethnic groups
Autobiographical memory
Memory for events and issues related to yourself
-shapes your personal history and your self-concept
Schema
Consists of your general knowledge or expectation, which is distilled from your past experiences with someone or something
Consistency bias
We tend to exaggerate the consistency between our past feelings and beliefs and our current viewpoint
Source monitoring
Trying to identify the origin of a particular memory
Reality monitoring
Try to identify whether an event really occurred, or whether you actually imagined this event
Flashbulb memory
Refers to your memory for the circumstances in which you first learned about a very surprising and emotionally arousing event
Post-event misinformation effect
People first view an event; then they are given misleading information about the event; later on, they mistakenly recall misleading information, rather than the event they actually saw
Proactive interference
People have trouble recalling new material because previously learned, old material keeps interfering with new memories
Retroactive interference
People have trouble recalling old material because some recently learned, new material keeps interfering with old memories
Constructivist approach
Emphasizes that we construct knowledge by integrating what we know; as a result, our understanding of an event or a topic is coherent and it makes sense
Recovered memory perspective
Some individuals who experienced sexual abuse during childhood managed to forget that memory for many years and it comes flooding back into consciousness at a later time
False memory perspective
Proposes that most of these recovered memories are actually incorrect memories (constructed stories about events that never occurred)
Betrayal trauma
Describes how a child may respond adaptively when a trusted adult betrays them by sexual abuse
