Chapter 5: Memory Flashcards
Memory
The ability to store and retrieve information over time.
Sensory memory
A place where sensory information is kept for a few seconds or less.
Short-term memory
A place where nonsensory information is kept for more than a few seconds but less then a minute.
Long-term memory
A place where information can be kept for hours, days, weeks or years.
Iconic memory
A fast decaying store of visual information.
Echoic memory
A fast decaying store of auditory information.
Rehearsal
The process of keeping information in short-term memory by mentally repeating it.
Chunking
Combining small pieces of information into larger clusters or chunks that are more easily held in the short-term memory.
Working memory
Active maintenance and manipulation of information in short-term storage.
Visuospatial sketchpad
Briefly stores visual and spatial information.
Phonological loop
Briefly encodes mental representation of sounds and is made up of a short-term store and an articulatory rehearsal system.
Central executive
An attentional system that coordinates and controls plans of action and output.
Episodic buffer
A temporary storage space where information from long-term memory can be integrated into working memory.
Interference
The drop in accuracy and response time performance when two tasks tap into the same system.
Consolidation
The process whereby information must pass from short-term memory into long-term memory in order to be remembered.
Encoding
The process by which we transform what we perceive, think or feel into an enduring memory.
Storage
The process of maintaining information in memory over time.
Retrieval
The process of bringing to mind information that has been previously encoded and stored.
Schemas
Mental models of the world that contain knowledge that helps us encode new information into a meaningful context.
Elaborative encoding
The process of actively relating new information to knowledge that is already in memory.
Visual imagery encoding
The process of storing new information by converting it into mental pictures.
Method of loci
A memory aid that associates information with mental images of locations.
Organizational encoding
The act of categorizing information by noticing the relationship between a series of items.
Mnemonic
A device for reorganizing information into more meaningful patterns to remember.
Memory storage
The process of maintaining information in memory over time.
Long-term potential (LTP)
Enhanced neural processing that results from the strengthening of synaptic connections.
NMDA receptor
A hippocampal receptor site that influences the flow of information from one neuron to another across the synapse by controlling the initiation of long-term potentiation.
Recall
The capacity to spontaneously retrieve information from memory.
Recognition
The capacity to correctly match information presented with to contents of memory
Retrieval cue
External information that is associated with stored information and helps bring it to mind.
Encoding specificity principle
The 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.
State-dependent retrieval
The tendency for information to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval.
Transfer-appropriate processing
The idea that memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when we process information in a way that is appropriate to the retrieval cues that will be available later.
Explicit memory
The act of consciously or intentionally retrieving past experiences.
Implicit memory
The influence of past experiences on later behavior and performance, even though people are not trying to recollect them and are not aware that they are remembering them.
Procedural memory
The gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice, or ‘knowing how’ to do things.
Priming
An enhanced ability to think of a stimulus, such as a word or object, as a result of a recent exposure to the stimulus.
Semantic memory
A network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world.
Episodic memory
The collection of past personal experience that occured at a particular time and place.
Autobiographical memory
The personal record of significant events of one’s life.
Flashbulb memories
Detailed recollections of when and where we heard about shocking events.
Transience
Forgetting what occurs with the passage of time.
Serial position effect
The enhanced memory for events presented at the beginning and end of a learning episode.
Retroactive interference
Situations in which later learning impairs memory for information acquired earlier.
Proactive interference
Situations in which earlier learning impairs memory for information acquired later.
Tip-of-the-tongue experience
The temporary inability to retrieve information that is stored in memory, accompanied by the feeling that you are on the verge of recovering the information.
Blocking
A failure to retrieve information that is available in memory even though you are trying to produce it.
Absentmindedness
A lapse in attention that results in memory failure.
Divided attention
Situations where individuals have to simultaneously monitor more than one source of information.
Retroprospective memory
Information learned in the past
Prospective memory
Remembering to do things in the future.
Anterograde amnesia
The inability to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long.term store.
Retrograde amnesia
The inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an injury or operation.
Concussion
A loss of consciousness that can range from moments to weeks.
Fugue state
An amnesia of one’s previous life and identity.
Childhood amnesia
An inability to remember events from the early years of life.
Metamemory
The subjective awareness of one’s own memory
Feeling of knowing (FOK)
The subjective awareness of information that cannot be retrieved from memory.
Source monitoring
Recall of when, where and how information was acquired.
Memory misattribution
Assigning a recollection or an idea to the wrong source.
Déjá vu experience
Where you suddenly feel that you have been in a situation before even though you can’t recall any details.
Déjá vu
A confabulated memory where the individual is certain that the new experience is old.
False memories
Recollection of events that never happened.
False recognition
A feeling of familiarity about something that hasn’t been encountered before.
Bias
The distorting influences of present knowledge, beliefs and feelings on recollection of previous experiences.
Suggestibility
The tendency to incorporate misleading information from external sources into personal recollections.
Source memory
Recall of when, where and how information was acquired.
Persistence
The intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget.
