Chapter 6: Everyday Memory Reading Flashcards
Memory
refers to a family of processes involved in encoding, storing, and retrieving information about our experience of the world
Short term memory
refers to information stored for a short duration, which fades after several seconds if it isn’t actively attended to or transferred into long-term memory
Working memory
holds information briefly so that it can be manipulated in the mind
Long term memory
refers to the long-term storage of information, which can stretch back decades
To remember something, you first need to _____ it, so:
encode; mentally file that information away where you can later access it
After a stimulus is briefly presented, a detailed representation of it appears to persist in your mind for a fraction of second. This is known as _____ ______, which is:
sensory memory; a highly detailed but short-lived impression of sensory information
Rehearsal
repeated the information to oneself over and over again (there are more effective strategies)
Metamemory
Understanding how our memory works
Chunking
Organizing smaller bits of information into larger, meaningful combinations
Elaboration
making links between learning material and knowledge you already have in long-term memory
Self-reference effect
Thinking of ways the material might be relevant to you or your own interest (very good and powerful)
Self-imagining
Imagining something from a personal perspective
Hierarchical organization
a meaningful network in which items are linked to increasingly global categories
Spacing effect
Evidence suggests that people remember material better when they space short study sessions apart
Testing effect
Evidence suggests that practice in retrieving information leads to better retention of material than does repeated studying
Generation effect
memory is enhanced for a list of items a person has generated vs one that a person was simply asked to memorize
Retrieval cues
clues in the environment or in our stored representations of experiences – affects our memory
Context-dependent memory
improved memory when the retrieval context is the same as the learning context
State-dependent memory
wherein memory is enhanced when people’s internal states at retrieval match their internal states at encoding
Mood-dependent memory
same emotional state for testing and learning = better memory for material
Autobiographical memory
remembering events in our lives
episodic memory
involves remembering the details of an event, bound to the time and place where it occurred
Source monitoring
your ability to keep track of where your memory came from
Source misattribution
confusion about the sources of our memories
external source monitoring
refers to the ability to distinguish between 2 external sources
internal source monitoring
refers to the ability to distinguish between internally generated sources
Reality monitoring framework
people often have difficultly distinguishing memories of external events from memories of internally generated information, also known as source confusion
Memory suggestibility
the altering of memory through leading questions and cues
false memory
a memory for an event that never occurred at all
schemas
knowledge or expectations about an event - the construct memory
Consistency bias
the tendency to remember the impacts of events through the lens of their impact on us today
intrusive memories
memories that are unwanted; traumatic memories into daily life
retrograde memory enhancement
the effect where learning material just before emotions are triggered can make it easier to remember
Deese/Roediger - McDermott Effect
the tendency to “remember” items that didn’t appear but that are meaningfully related to other items in the list
7 Causes of Memory Failure
- Transcience
- Absentmindedness
- Blocking
- Misattribution
- Suggestibility
- Bias
- Persistence
Transience
forgetting of information over time
Absentmindedness
failure to encode due to inattention
Blocking
inability to access memories that are intact and encoded
Misattribution
failure to remember the source of a memory
Suggestibility
the tendency to reshape one’s memory according to misleading external information
Bias
tendency to reshape memory according to one’s knowledge, beliefs, or feelings
Persistence
the intrusion of memories that we wish we could forget
forgetting curve
an estimate of the rate at which information fades from memory
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
wherein people experience the feeling of not being able to bring to mind a word despite being able to recall aspects
Retroactive interference
early memory impaired by something that happened later
Proactive interference
later memory is impacted by earlier memory
Fan effect
another way to measure retrieval interference is to compare the time it takes to recognize various statements that have overlapping elements; the more examples that get associated this way, the slower people are to recognize the statements from memory. The fan effect shows that memory retrieval is dependent on the number of elements associated with the same fact - the more associations, the greater the interference.
