Chapter 6 Flashcards
Mystic writing pad model
A model of memory based on a toy writing tablet (LeapFrog) that retains fragments of old messages even after they have been “erased”. In time, these fragments accumulate and begin to overlap, so that they become increasingly hard to read.
Reappearance hypothesis
Neisser’s term for the now rejected idea that the same memory can reappear, unchanged, again and again.
Trace theory
Memory traces were assumed to be permanent and complete copies of past events and remembering was thought to be like experiencing the past; like a video recording that can preserved indefinitely and replayed over and over.
Flashbulb memories
Vivid, detailed memories of significant events, like 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination. Studies have shown that flashbulb memories are no more accurate than ordinary memories, and are susceptible to the same common errors, although people’s confidence in these flashbulb memories are much higher.
Now Print! theory
The theory that especially significant experiences are immediately “photocopied”, preserved in long-term memory, and resistant to change.
Model of flashbulb memories
The stimulus event is first tested for suprisingness. If it’s completely ordinary, no attention will be paid to it and it will be forgotten. If it is extraordinary and surprising, then it is tested for consequentiality. If it is important enough as well to us then a flashbulb memory will be formed. Then it is rehearsed as we think about it and develop verbal accounts about the event. Finally we tell and retell the accounts to other people and that is how we form flashbulb memories.
Consolidation theory
The classic theory that memory traces of an event are not fully formed immediately after that event, but take some time to consolidate. The hippocampus plays a big role in this. Trying to learn new things right after original learning can draw on limited resources otherwise used to consolidate the original learning and the original learning suffers. This explains how we can form false memories or incorporate things we have been told into our memories even though they didn’t happen.
Retroactive interference
A decline in recall of one event as a result of a later event interfering with its consolidation in our memory.
Reconsolidation
The hypothetical process whereby a memory trace is revised and reconsolidated. When we remember a memory, the memory trace is available to be revised and then the revised trace is reconsolidated. This can be an indefinite cycle.
Method of repeated reproduction
One participant is given multiple opportunities to recall a story over time. (Bartlett)
Method of serial reproduction
One participant, A, writes down what he or she can recall of a previously read story. A’s version is given to a second participant, B, who reads it and then tries to reproduce it. B’s version in turn is given to C, and so on. (Bartlett)
Rationalization
The attempt to make memory as coherent and sensible as possible.
Schema (Bartlett)
An active mass of organized past reactions that provides a setting that guides our behaviour. Schema theories have four main processes: selection, abstraction, interpretation, and integration.
Selection
The hypothesis that we select information both as we receive it and as we recall it.
Abstraction
The hypothesis that we tend to remember only the gist, not the specifics, of what we experience.
Interpretation
The hypothesis that we interpret information by making inferences, and then remember the inferences as part of the original information.
Integration
The hypothesis that we abstract the meaning of an event and then put that meaning together with the rest of our knowledge to form a coherent, consistent whole.
Reconstruction
A fifth process in schema theories whereby the act of recall blends general knowledge and individual experiences in order to “imaginatively reconstruct” the past.
Effort after meaning
The phenomenon in which we remember things much better when we try to understand them, or to find the meaning behind them. Connected to levels of processing.
Misinformation effect
The hypothesis that misleading post-event information can become integrated with the original memory of the event. Elizabeth Loftus is key to this, and she showed that is quite possible to plant an entirely false memory into the mind and it’s effects in the real world, especially with eyewitness testimony and wrongful accusations and convictions.
Source monitoring framework
The theory that some errors of memory are caused by mistaken identification of the memory’s source. False memories can be formed as we fail to recognize the source of certain information, whether we actually saw it happen or if it was imagined or told to us.
Principle of encoding specificity
The way an item is retrieved from memory depends on the way it was stored in memory. Participants recalled target words better with weaker cues if they were shown the target words before with the weaker cues. They were given stronger cues and asked to free-associate words with them, but came up with far less target words. Even though the stronger cues were stronger, because the weaker cues were encoded with the target words, they elicited more accurate responses.
Mood-dependent recall
The hypothesis that mood congruence between learning and recall sessions should facilitate recall.
Mood congruence
The idea that mood might cause selective learning of affective material. When sad, we remember sad material better than happy material in a story.
Scripts
A set of expectations concerning the actions and events that are appropriate in a particular situation, like going to a restaurant. Scripts are more about a particular sequence of events or actions rather than one setting (schema). Scripts are essentially a schema for events that happen across time.
Autobiographical memory
Episodic memories of events recalled in terms of the time in our life when they occurred.
Galton’s number
224; The number of autobiographical episodes available to participants from the preceding 20 years, as calculated by Crovitz, Schiffman, and Apter.
Childhood amnesia
The general inability to retrieve episodic memories from before the age of about 3.
Memory bump
An increase in the number of memories between 10 and 3o years of age over what would expected if memories decayed smoothly over time. Theories of the memory bump include autobiographically consequential experiences (ACEs), life scripts, and distinctiveness.
Proust effect
The power of odours as autobiographical memory cues.
Autobiographically consequential experiences (ACEs)
Theory of the memory bump; Pivotal experiences in a person’s life, typically occurring between the ages of 18 and 35. 80% of these ACEs occur between 18 and 35 and so we remember them better because of their importance in the formation of a person’s identity.
Life script
Theory of the memory bump; A cultural narrative that prescribes the age norms for important events in an individuals’ life. Life scripts tell us that most of the most important life events will or should happen between 10 and 30 and so we remember them more.
Distinctiveness
The precision with which an item is encoded. Relatively novel events are remembered better than similar events, and between 10 and 30 people have many novel events occurring, and so they remember them better.
Elaboration
Adding to or enriching information by relating it to other information.
Levels of processing
A continuum that ranges from registering an event purely in terms of its physical characteristics to analyzing it in terms of its relationship to other things that you know. As you work with information and think about its meaning, you process it and remember it better.
Specific and general levels of representation
As people age they tend to forget specific details but tend to remember deeper, more general meanings.
Lab-based approach to memory research
An approach that emphasized controlled laboratory (as opposed to real-world) research in the search for general principles.
Nonsense syllables
Nonsense “words” consisting of a consonant followed by a vowel followed by a consonant, like “pib” or “wol”.
Forgetting curve
Ebbinghaus’ finding that the rate at which information is forgotten is greatest immediately after the information has been acquired, and declines more gradually over time.
Jost’s law of forgetting
Of two memory traces of equal strength, the younger trace will decay faster than the older one.
Ribot’s law of retrograde amnesia
Older memories are less likely to be lost as a result of brain damage than are newer memories.
Law of progressions and pathologies
A “last in, first out” principle referring to the possibility that the last system to emerge is the first to show the effects of degeneration. Prefrontal cortex is fully developed at 25 and degenerates first.
Ecological approach to the study of memory
An approach that emphasizes real-world complexities in its investigations to discover general principles.
Permastore
Bahrick’s term for the state of relative permanence in which he found that some kinds of memory can be retained over very long periods of time.
Elizabeth Loftus on False Memories
Elizabeth Loftus Ted Talk - Steve Titus who was falsely accused of rape and it ruined his life. The woman had a false memory and thought it was him when he was totally innocent.
She argues our memories are constructive and reconstructive - more like Wikipedia - we can change them and so can others. When people are fed misinformation about what has
happened you can contaminate their memories. Psychotherapy was creating crazy false memories for people and people were coming out with insane memories of ritualistic abuse and issues they have that never happened.
Two big factors in memory
Distinctiveness and match:
We remember things if they are more distinctive or unique
and if they stick out (duckbilled platypus).
Also if there is a match in the way
we encode something and in the way we retrieve it, we
are more likely to remember it.
