Chapter 6: Human Memory: Encoding and Storage Flashcards
Activation
Book definition: “A state of memory traces that determines both the speed and the probability of access to a memory trace. (p. 133)”
Adaptive control of thought (ACT)
Book definition: “Anderson’s theory of how declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge interact in complex cognitive processes. (p. 133)”
Anterograde amnesia
Book definition: “Loss of the ability to learn new things after an injury. Contrast with retrograde amnesia. (p. 124, 173)”
Anterograde amnesia involves a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact. This is in contrast to retrograde amnesia, where memories created prior to the injury are lost, but new memories can still be created.
Causes include damage to the hippocampus or surrounding cortices, but is also known to result from ingestion of benzodiazepines (also known as “date rape drugs”) or the so-called “black-out” that can follow alcohol intoxication.
Articulatory loop
Book definition: “Part of Baddeley’s proposed system for rehearsing verbal information. (p. 130)”
Associative spreading
Book definition: “Facilitation in access to information when closely related items are presented. (p. 136)”
Auditory sensory store
Book definition: “A memory system that effectively holds all the information heard for a brief period of time. Also called echoic memory. (p. 126)”
Central executive
Book definition: “Baddeley’s proposed system for controlling various slave rehearsal systems, such as the articulatory loop and the visuospatial sketchpad. (p. 129)”
Depth of processing
Book definition: “The theory that memory for information is improved if the information is processed at deeper levels of analysis. (p. 128)”
Echoic memory
Book definition: “Another term for auditory sensory store: a memory system that effectively holds all the information heard for a brief period of time. (p. 126)”
Elaborative processing
Book definition: “The embellishment of a to-be-remembered item with additional information. (p. 141)”
Flashbulb memory
Book definition: “Particularly good memory for an event that is very important and traumatic. (p. 145)”.
Iconic memory
Book definition: “Another term for visual sensory store: a memory system that effectively holds all the information in a visual array for a very brief period of time (about a second). (p. 63)”
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
Book definition: “The increase in responsiveness of a neuron as a function of past stimulation. (p. 139)”.
Memory span
Book definition: “The amount of information that can be perfectly retained in an immediate test of memory (p. 127)”.
Method of loci
Book definition: “A mnemonic technique used to associate items to be remembered with locations along a well-known path. (p. 145)”.
Partial-report procedure
Book definition: “An experimental procedure in which participants are cued to report only some of the items in a display. Contrast with whole-report procedure. (p. 126)”
Phonological loop
Book definition: “Part of Baddeley’s proposed system for rehearsing verbal information. Compare visuospatial sketchpad. (p. 129)”
Power function
Book definition: “A function in which the independent variable X is raised to a power to obtain the dependent variable Y, as in ‘Y = AXb.’ (p. 138)”
Power law of learning
Book definition: “The phenomenon that memory performance improves as a power function of practice. (p. 138)”
Short-term memory
Book definition: “A proposed intermediate memory system that holds information as it travels from sensory memory to long-term memory. (p. 127)”
Long-term memory
Book definition: “ – “
Spreading activation
Book definition: “The proposal that activation spreads from items currently or recently processed to other parts of the memory network, activating the memory traces that reside there. (p. 135)”
Strength
Book definition: “The property of a memory trace that determines how active the trace can become. Strength increases with practice and decays with time. (p. 137)”
Visual sensory store
Book definition: “A memory system that effectively holds all the information in a visual array for a very brief period of time (about a second). Also called iconic memory. (p. 126)”
Visuospatial sketchpad
Book definition: “Part of Baddeley’s proposed system for rehearsing visual information. Compare phonological loop. (p. 129)”
Whole-report procedure
Book definition: “A procedure in which participants are asked to report all the items of a display. Contrast with partial-report procedure. (p. 126)”
Working memory
Book definition: “The information that is currently available in memory for working on a problem. (p. 129)”
