Chapter 6 - Memory Flashcards
The set of mental operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that information into a form that is usable in the brain’s storage systems.
Encoding
An active system that receives information from the senses, puts that information into a useable form, and organizes it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from storage.
Memory
Holding onto information for some period of time.
Storage
Getting information that is in storage into a form that can be used.
Retrieval
Model of memory that assumes the processing of information for memory storage is similar to the way a computer processes memory in a series of three stages.
Information-processing model
A model of memory in which memory processes are proposed to take place at the same time over a large network of neural connections.
Parallel distributed processing (PDP) model
Model of memory that assumes information that is more “deeply processed”, or processed according to its meaning rather than just the sound or physical characteristics of the word or words, will be remembered more efficiently and for a longer period of time.
Levels-of-processing model
The very first stage of memory, the point at which information enters the nervous system through the sensory systems.
Sensory memory
Visual sensory memory, lasting only a fraction of a second.
Iconic memory
The ability to access a visual memory for 30 seconds or more.
Eidetic imagery
The memory system in which information is held for brief periods of time while being used.
Short-term memory (STM)
The ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input.
Selective attention
The brief memory of something a person has just heard.
Echoic memory
An active system that processes the information in short-term memory.
Working memory
Practice of saying some information to be remembered over and over in one’s head in order to maintain it in short-term memory.
Maintenance rehearsal
The system of memory into which all the information is placed to be kept more or less permanently.
Long-term memory (LTM)
A method of transferring information from STM into LTM by making that information meaningful in some way.
Elaborative rehearsal
Type of long-term memory including memory for skills, procedures, habits, and conditioned responses. These memories are not conscious but are implied to exist because they affect conscious behavior.
Procedural (nondeclarative) memory
Loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term memories.
Anterograde amnesia
Memory that is not easily brought into conscious awareness, such as procedural memory.
Implicit memory
Type of long-term memory containing information that is conscious and known.
Declarative memory
Type of declarative memory containing general knowledge, such as knowledge of language and information learned in formal education.
Semantic memory
Type of declarative memory containing personal information not readily available to others, such as daily activities and events.
Episodic memory
Memory that is consciously known, such as declarative memory.
Explicit memory
Model of memory organization that assumes information is stored in the brain and a connected fashion, with concepts that are related stored physically closer to each other then concepts that are not highly related.
Semantic network model
A stimulus for remembering.
Retrieval cue
The tendency for memory of information to be improved if related information (such as surroundings or physiological state) that is available when the memory is first formed is also available when the memory is being retrieved.
Encoding specificity
Type of memory retrieval in which the information to be retrieved must be “pulled” from memory with very few external cues.
Recall
The ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus to a stored image or fact.
Recognition
Tendency of information at the beginning and end of a body of information to be remembered more accurately than information in the middle of the body of information.
Serial position effect
Tendency to remember information at the beginning of a body of information better than the information that follows.
Primacy effect
Tendency to remember information at the end of a body of information better then the information at the beginning of it.
Recency effect
Error of recognition in which people think that they recognize some stimulus that is not actually in memory.
False positive
Tendency of certain kinds of information to enter long-term memory with little or no effortful encoding.
Automatic encoding
Type of automatic encoding that occurs because an unexpected event has strong emotional associations for the person remembering it.
Flashbulb memories
Referring to the retrieval of memories in which those memories are altered, revised, or influenced by newer information.
Constructive processing
The tendency to falsely believe, through revision of older memories to include newer information, that one could have correctly predicted the outcome of an event.
Hindsight bias
The tendency of misleading information presented after an event to alter the memories of the event itself.
Misinformation effect
A graph showing a distinct pattern in which forgetting is very fast within the first hour after learning a list and then tapers off gradually.
Curve of forgetting
Spacing the study of material to be remembered by including breaks between study periods.
Distributed practice
Failure to process information into memory.
Encoding failure
Physical change in the brain that occurs when a memory is formed.
Memory trace
Loss of memory due to the passage of time, during which the memory trace is not used.
Decay
Another name for decay, assuming that memories that are not used will eventually decay and disappear.
Disuse
Memory problem that occurs when older information prevents or interferes with the learning or retrieval of newer information.
Proactive interference
Memory problem that occurs when newer information prevents or interferes with the retrieval of older information.
Retroactive interference
The changes that take place in the structure and functioning of neurons when a memory is formed.
Consolidation
Loss of memory from the point of some injury or trauma backwards, or loss of memory for the past.
Retrograde amnesia
The inability to retrieve memories from much before age 3.
Infantile amnesia
He memory for events and facts related to one’s personal life story.
Autobiographical memory
