Chapter 6: Everyday Memory Reading

Question 1

Memory

Answer 1

refers to a family of processes involved in encoding, storing, and retrieving information about our experience of the world

Question 2

Short term memory

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Working memory

Answer 3

holds information briefly so that it can be manipulated in the mind

Question 4

Long term memory

Answer 4

refers to the long-term storage of information, which can stretch back decades

Question 5

To remember something, you first need to _____ it, so:

Answer 5

encode; mentally file that information away where you can later access it

Question 6

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:

Answer 6

sensory memory; a highly detailed but short-lived impression of sensory information

Question 7

Rehearsal

Answer 7

repeated the information to oneself over and over again (there are more effective strategies)

Question 8

Metamemory

Answer 8

Understanding how our memory works

Question 9

Chunking

Answer 9

Organizing smaller bits of information into larger, meaningful combinations

Question 10

Elaboration

Answer 10

making links between learning material and knowledge you already have in long-term memory

Question 11

Self-reference effect

Answer 11

Thinking of ways the material might be relevant to you or your own interest (very good and powerful)

Question 12

Self-imagining

Answer 12

Imagining something from a personal perspective

Question 13

Hierarchical organization

Answer 13

a meaningful network in which items are linked to increasingly global categories

Question 14

Spacing effect

Answer 14

Evidence suggests that people remember material better when they space short study sessions apart

Question 15

Testing effect

Answer 15

Evidence suggests that practice in retrieving information leads to better retention of material than does repeated studying

Question 16

Generation effect

Answer 16

memory is enhanced for a list of items a person has generated vs one that a person was simply asked to memorize

Question 17

Retrieval cues

Answer 17

clues in the environment or in our stored representations of experiences – affects our memory

Question 18

Context-dependent memory

Answer 18

improved memory when the retrieval context is the same as the learning context

Question 19

State-dependent memory

Answer 19

wherein memory is enhanced when people’s internal states at retrieval match their internal states at encoding

Question 20

Mood-dependent memory

Answer 20

same emotional state for testing and learning = better memory for material

Question 21

Autobiographical memory

Answer 21

remembering events in our lives

Question 22

episodic memory

Answer 22

involves remembering the details of an event, bound to the time and place where it occurred

Question 23

Source monitoring

Answer 23

your ability to keep track of where your memory came from

Question 24

Source misattribution

Answer 24

confusion about the sources of our memories

Question 25

external source monitoring

Answer 25

refers to the ability to distinguish between 2 external sources

Question 26

internal source monitoring

Answer 26

refers to the ability to distinguish between internally generated sources

Question 27

Reality monitoring framework

Answer 27

people often have difficultly distinguishing memories of external events from memories of internally generated information, also known as source confusion

Question 28

Memory suggestibility

Answer 28

the altering of memory through leading questions and cues

Question 29

false memory

Answer 29

a memory for an event that never occurred at all

Question 30

schemas

Answer 30

knowledge or expectations about an event - the construct memory

Question 31

Consistency bias

Answer 31

the tendency to remember the impacts of events through the lens of their impact on us today

Question 32

intrusive memories

Answer 32

memories that are unwanted; traumatic memories into daily life

Question 33

retrograde memory enhancement

Answer 33

the effect where learning material just before emotions are triggered can make it easier to remember

Question 34

Deese/Roediger - McDermott Effect

Answer 34

the tendency to “remember” items that didn’t appear but that are meaningfully related to other items in the list

Question 35

7 Causes of Memory Failure

Answer 35

1. Transcience
2. Absentmindedness
3. Blocking
4. Misattribution
5. Suggestibility
6. Bias
7. Persistence

Question 36

Transience

Answer 36

forgetting of information over time

Question 37

Absentmindedness

Answer 37

failure to encode due to inattention

Question 38

Blocking

Answer 38

inability to access memories that are intact and encoded

Question 39

Misattribution

Answer 39

failure to remember the source of a memory

Question 40

Suggestibility

Answer 40

the tendency to reshape one’s memory according to misleading external information

Question 41

Bias

Answer 41

tendency to reshape memory according to one’s knowledge, beliefs, or feelings

Question 42

Persistence

Answer 42

the intrusion of memories that we wish we could forget

Question 43

forgetting curve

Answer 43

an estimate of the rate at which information fades from memory

Question 44

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Answer 44

wherein people experience the feeling of not being able to bring to mind a word despite being able to recall aspects

Question 45

Retroactive interference

Answer 45

early memory impaired by something that happened later

Question 46

Proactive interference

Answer 46

later memory is impacted by earlier memory

Question 47

Fan effect

Answer 47

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.