Chapter 6: Memory

Question 1

Memory

Answer 1

ability to store and retrieve information over time

Question 2

3 key functions of memory

Answer 2

encoding, storage, and retrieval

Question 3

Encoding

Answer 3

process of transforming what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory

Question 4

Storage

Answer 4

process of maintaining information in memory over time

Question 5

Retrieval

Answer 5

process of bringing to mind information that has been previously encoded and stored

Question 6

How do we make memories?

Answer 6

by combining information we already have in our brains with new information that comes in through our senses

Question 7

3 types of encoding

Answer 7

semantic, visual imagery, and organizational

Question 8

Semantic encoding

Answer 8

process of relating new information in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already stored in memory, enhances long-term retention

Question 9

Brain areas activated by semantic encoding

Answer 9

lower left part of the frontal lobe and inner part of the left temporal lobe; more activity=more likely that the person will remember

Question 10

Visual imagery encoding

Answer 10

process of storing new information by converting it into mental pictures: relates incoming information to knowledge already in your memory and uses two mental placeholders (visual and verbal)

Question 11

Brain area activated by visual imagery encoding

Answer 11

visual processing areas in the occipital lobe

Question 12

Organizational encoding

Answer 12

process of categorizing information according to the relationships among a series of items e.g. in a hierarchy and event segmentation

Question 13

Brain area activated by organizational encoding

Answer 13

upper surface of the left frontal lobe

Question 14

Survival encoding

Answer 14

Memory mechanisms that help us survive and reproduce (survival-related information) are preserved by natural selection; draws on all 3 types of encoding, goals, and planning

Question 15

3 major kinds of memory storage

Answer 15

sensory, short-term, and long-term

Question 16

Sensory memory

Answer 16

type of storage that holds sensory information for a 1 second or less, decays very quickly and no capacity limit

Question 17

Types of sensory memory

Answer 17

iconic and echoic

Question 18

Iconic memory

Answer 18

fast-decaying store of visual information, usually decay in about 1 second or less

Question 19

Echoic memory

Answer 19

fast-decaying store of auditory information, usually decay in about 5 seconds

Question 20

Short-term memory

Answer 20

storage that holds non-sensory information for more than a few seconds but less than a minute by paying attention to it, can hold up to 7 items

Question 21

Rehearsal

Answer 21

process of keeping information in short-term memory by mentally repeating it

Question 22

Serial position effect

Answer 22

the first few and last few items in a series are more likely to be recalled than the items in the middle

Question 23

Primacy effect

Answer 23

enhanced recall of the first few items because they receive more rehearsals, thus more likely to be encoded into long-term storage

Question 24

Recency effect

Answer 24

enhanced recall of the last few items, result from rehearsing items that are still in short-term storage

Question 25

How is short-term memory limited?

Answer 25

Limited in how long it can hold information and how much information it can hold (about seven meaningful items at once)

Question 26

Chunking

Answer 26

combining small pieces of information into larger clusters or chunks that are more easily held in short-term memory

Question 27

Working memory

Answer 27

STM storage that actively maintains and manipulates information, can store up to 4 items (without verbal rehearsal)

Question 28

2 subsystems of working memory that store and manipulate

Answer 28

Visuo-spatial sketchpad (for visual images) and phonological loop (for verbal information like remembering letters)

Question 29

Episodic buffer in working memory

Answer 29

integrates visual and verbal information from the subsystems into a multidimensional code (not sensory-specific anymore), a gateway to long-term memory

Question 30

Central executive in working memory

Answer 30

coordinates the subsystems and the episodic buffer, depends on regions within the frontal lobe

Question 31

Long-term memory

Answer 31

type of storage that holds information for hours, days, weeks, or years, has no known capacity limits

Question 32

Part of the brain that acts as an index, critical in making new memories

Answer 32

hippocampus- links together separate elements (initially encoded by distinct regions in the cortex) to remember them as one memory, may become less important as the memory ages, and less involved in less detailed memories

Question 33

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 33

inability to transfer new information from the short-term into the long-term store e.g. patient HM

Question 34

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 34

inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an injury or surgery

Question 35

Consolidation

Answer 35

process by which memories become stable in the brain, boosted by sleep

Question 36

Reconsolidation

Answer 36

consolidated memories can become vulnerable to disruption when they are actively recalled, thus requiring them to be consolidated again; process of replacing or modifying a stored memory with a new version

Question 37

Disrupting reconsolidation

Answer 37

eliminates a fear memory in the amygdala

Question 38

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

Answer 38

process whereby communication across the synapse between neurons, specifically in the hippocampus, strengthens the connection, making further communication easier

Question 39

Properties of LTP that indicate its important role in long-term memory storage

Answer 39

occurs in several pathways within the hippocampus, can be induced rapidly, can last for a long time

Question 40

Retrieval cue

Answer 40

external information that is associated with stored information and helps bring it (inaccessible information) to mind

Question 41

Encoding specificity principle

Answer 41

a retrieval cue can serve as an effective reminder when it helps re-create the specific way in which information was initially encoded

Question 42

State-dependent retrieval (inner state retrieval cues)

Answer 42

process whereby information tends to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval

Question 43

Transfer-appropriate processing

Answer 43

the idea that memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when the encoding and retrieval contexts of the situations match

Question 44

Retrieval-induced forgetting

Answer 44

a process by which retrieving a target item from long-term memory impairs subsequent recall of related items by suppressing (frontal lobe) those unwanted competitors

Question 45

Brain regions activated when people TRY to retrieve information

Answer 45

regions in the left frontal lobe, reflects the mental effort

Question 46

Brain region activated when SUCCESSFULLY remembering a past experience

Answer 46

hippocampal region and parts of the brain that play a role in processing the sensory features of an experience e.g. auditory cortex (upper part of temporal lobe) and visual cortex (occipital)

Question 47

Explicit memory

Answer 47

occurs when people consciously or intentionally retrieve past experiences, tends to fade in the absence of recall, declines with age, varies across individuals

Question 48

Implicit memory

Answer 48

occurs when past experiences influence later behavior and performance, even without an effort to remember them or an awareness of the recollection, preserved in healthy aging, less individual difference

Question 49

Procedural memory

Answer 49

kind of implicit memory that refers to the gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice or “knowing how” to do things, unconscious and automatic, often difficult to explain verbally, does not rely on hippocampus but cerebellum and limbic system

Question 50

Priming

Answer 50

kind of implicit memory that results in an enhanced ability to think of a stimulus as a result of a recent exposure to that stimulus without awareness of the connection, can persist over long periods of time, reduced activity in cortex regions activated during unprimed tasks, saves processing time and effort (top-down processing)

Question 51

Perceptual priming

Answer 51

reflects implicit memory for the sensory features of an item, depends more on regions toward the back of the brain and the right hemisphere e.g. goat and boat (rhyming)

Question 52

Conceptual priming

Answer 52

reflects implicit memory for the meaning of a word or how you would use an object, depends more on regions toward the front of the brain and the left hemisphere e.g. seat and chair

Question 53

Semantic memory

Answer 53

explicit memory for meaning; a network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world, hippocampus is not necessary, similar across individuals

Question 54

Episodic memory

Answer 54

explicit memory for specific events in context; collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place, relied on to envision our personal futures, activates a brain network including the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe, varies across individuals

Question 55

Transience

Answer 55

forgetting what occurs with the passage of time, occurs during the storage phase of memory after an experience has been encoded and before it is retrieved

Question 56

The curve of forgetting - Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 56

Memories fade rapidly soon after the event occurs and slows down as more time passes, and also switches from specific to more general

Question 57

Retroactive interference

Answer 57

situations in which later learning impairs memory for information acquired earlier

Question 58

Proactive interference

Answer 58

situations in which earlier learning impairs memory for information acquired later

Question 59

Childhood amnesia or infantile amnesia

Answer 59

most of us have few or no memories from the first few years of life, may be impacted by culture

Question 60

Absentmindedness

Answer 60

a lapse in attention that results in memory failure when attention is divided or distracted (information doesn’t disappear from memory)

Question 61

What happens when attention is divided?

Answer 61

lower left frontal lobe is prevented from performing its role in semantic encoding and less hippocampal involvement for episodic memory, leading to absentmindedness

Question 62

Prospective memory

Answer 62

remembering to do things in the future, failure of such leads to absentmindedness

Question 63

Blocking

Answer 63

tip-of-the-tongue experience, a failure to retrieve information that is available in memory even though you are trying to produce it, occurs more as we age and especially for names of people and places

Question 64

Memory misattribution

Answer 64

assigning a recollection or an idea to the wrong source, primary cause of eyewitness misidentifications

Question 65

Source memory

Answer 65

recall of when, where, and how information was acquired

Question 66

False recognition

Answer 66

a feeling of familiarity about something that hasn’t been encountered before from a miscombination between source memory and episodic memory, also primary cause of eyewitness misidentification e.g. déjà vu

Question 67

Suggestibility

Answer 67

tendency to incorporate misleading information from external sources into personal recollections due to not storing details and social pressure

Question 68

Bias

Answer 68

the distorting influences of present knowledge, beliefs, and feelings on recollection of previous experiences

Question 69

Consistency bias

Answer 69

bias to reconstruct the past to fit the present, exaggerates the similarity between past and present

Question 70

Change bias

Answer 70

tendency to exaggerate differences between what we feel or believe now and in the past

Question 71

Egocentric bias

Answer 71

tendency to exaggerate change between present and past to make ourselves look good in retrospect

Question 72

Persistence

Answer 72

intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget, often occurs after disturbing or traumatic incidents, consequences of emotional experiences, involves amygdala

Question 73

Flashbulb memories

Answer 73

detailed recollections of when and where we heard about shocking and emotional events, not always accurate

Question 74

Are the seven “sins” vices or virtues?

Answer 74

No, they are the price we pay for the benefits that memory provides

Question 75

What are the seven “sins” (memory failures)?

Answer 75

Transience, absentmindedness, blocking, memory misattribution, suggestibility, bias, persistence

Question 76

Benefit from transcience

Answer 76

an adaptive property of memory, helps you forget unimportant information and enhances our ability to make decisions based on memory

Question 77

Benefits from absentmindedness and blocking

Answer 77

side effects of selectivity of memory, preserving details worthy of attention and recall

Question 78

Benefits from memory misattribution and suggestibility

Answer 78

flexibility of memory, allowing us to recombine elements of past experiences in new ways

Question 79

Benefits from bias

Answer 79

contributes to our overall sense of contentment

Question 80

Benefits from persistence

Answer 80

makes us adaptive, able to remember threatening and traumatic events as they could pose a threat to survival

Question 81

Long-term benefits of retrieval

Answer 81

retrieval can improve subsequent memories, especially LTM e.g. studying (encoding) and testing (retrieval)

Question 82

How can retrieval change memory?

Answer 82

During reactivation or retrieval, new information can be incorporated into your memory that is reconsolidated into one that is totally different from the original memory

Question 83

Factors that affect eyewitness memory

Answer 83

Encoding stage factors: stress, violence, emotion, arousal; Storage stage factors: time, Retrieval stage factors: expectations and reconsolidation