Chapter 5 long term memory Flashcards
what is working memory
the brief, immediate memory for material we are currently processing
What is long term memory
the high-capacity storage system that contains your memories for experiences and information that you have accumulated throughout your life
what is episodic memory
your memories for events that happened to you personally; it allows you to travel backwards in subjective time to reminisce about earlier episodes in your life
what is semantic memory
your organized knowledge about the world, including your knowledge about words and other factual information
what is procedural memory
your knowledge about how to do something
what is encoding
when you process information and represent it in your memory
what is retrieval
you locate information in storage, and you access that information
levels-of-processing approach/depth-of-processing approach
Craik and Lockhart 1972
deep, meaningful processing of information leads to more accurate recall than shallow processing
what is distinctiveness
stimulus that is different from previous memory traces
what is elaboration
deep processing that involves the connection of meaning and interrelated concepts
what is the self-reference effect
you remember more information if you try to relate it to yourself
factors responsible for the self-reference effect
the sled provides a set of cues
encourage considering personal traits connections
elaboration
material associated with the self is rehearsed
what is the encoding-specificity principle
Recall is better if the context during retrieval is similar to the context during encoding
Learning something in a classroom will be easer to recall the info in that classroom
Types of tasks on encoding specificity
recall task vs. recognition task
real-life vs. laboratory
short delay vs. long delay
Levels of processing and encoding specificity
Encoding can override level of processing
Bransford and colleagues (1979)
Rhyming tasks
Semantic processing is effective when retrieval is deeper
What is retrieval
The process that allows you to locate information that is stored in long-term memory and to have access to that information
Explicit memory tasks
Recall and recognition
knowing what is happening
Implicitly memory tasks
Assesses memory indirectly
Memory is revealed without conscious effort to remember
- word completion & repetition priming task
what is dissociation
When a variable has large effects on test A, but little or no effects on test B
Or one effect on test A and an opposite effect on test B
Implicit memory illustrates that…
People often know more than they can reveal in actual recall
Contest-specific nature of expertise
A strong positive correlation between knowledge about an area and memory performance in that area
How do experts and novices differ?
Knowledge structure, reorganize new material for recall, vivid visual images, distinctive of each stimulus, strategic, reconstructing missing info, predicting difficulty of a task
What is Own-Ethnicity Bias
More accurate in identifying members of your own ethnic group than members of another
What is amnesia
A severe deficit in episodic memeory
What is retrograde amnesia
Loss of memory for events that occurred prior to brain damage
What is Anterograde amnesia
Loss of the ability to form memories for events that have occurred after brain damage
What is the hippocampus
Structure underneath the cortex that is important in many learning and memory tasks
What is emotion
Is a reaction to a specific stimulus
What is mood
A more general, long-lasting experience
what is the Pollyanna principle
Pleasant items are usually processed more efficiently and more accurately then less pleasant items
How does the emotional nature of the stimuli influence long-term memory
More accurate recall for pleasant items
Pleasant>unpleasant>neutral
Bushman (1998)
More accurate recall for neutral stimuli associated with pleasant stimuli
Anger and violence in program reduce memory accuracy
What is the positivity effect
Where people tend to rate unpleasant more positivity with the passage of time
Walker and Colleagues 1997
Over time, unpleasant memories fade more than pleasant memories
What is autobiographical memory
Memory for events and issues related to yourself
What is schema
Your mental model of general knowledge or expectations based on past experiences
What’s consistency bias
Tendency to exaggerate the consistency between our past feeling and beliefs
What is source monitoring
Trying to identify the origin of a particular memory
What is reality monitoring
Trying to identify whether an event really occurred or was imagined
What is a flashbulb memory
Memory for the circumstance in which you first learned about a very surprising and emotionally arousing event
Flashbulb Memories 9/11
Talarico and Rubin 2003
Recall testing after 1, 6, or 32 weeks
Consistent vs inconsistent details
Confidence
What is proactive interference
Trouble recalling new material because previously learned material interferes with new memories
What is retroactive interference
Trouble recalling old material because some recently learned material keeps interfering with old
The post-event misinformation effect
View an event with misleading information
Later on mistakenly recall the misleading information rather then what they saw
What is constructivist approach
Emphasizes that we construct knowledge by integrating new information with what me know
Recovered memory perspective
Memory for traumatic events may be forgotten for years then come folding back into consciousness
False memory prespective
Most recovered memories are actually incorrect memories, constructed stores about events that never occurred
