Chapter 6 - Memory Flashcards
Why is memory far from perfect?
We cross contaminate or even rewrite our own memories
What makes eyewitness accounts not necessarily reliable?
Witness maybe suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder or have received some kind of a head injury
What’s the difference between passing out or blacking out?
Blacking out because individual not to remember critical details of events. It’s extremely rare, the brain stops writing memories and just shuts off
What field of psychology is the study of memory recognized in?
Cognitive psychology
What is the process by which information is in coded, stored, and retrieved in the future?
Memory
How can the process of memory be compared to how a computer works?
- entering information (via a keyboard) is similar to the encoding a memory
- saving enter information on the keyboard is similar to the storage of memory
- pulling up saved files would be akin to the retrieval process in memory
What are the three processes of memory?
Encoding, storage, retrieval
What is the first stage of transforming information into a form that can be stored in short term or long term memory?
Encoding
What increases the chances that we will remember something?
Careful Encoding
What needs to happen to ensure we are encoding?
We need to focus our attention so that it can be placed into memory
What is the second stage of information processing that involves the act of keeping or maintaining information in memory?
Storage
In order to store memories what is the change that takes place in the brain, involving the hippocampus?
Consolidation
What’s the act of bringing to mind material that has been stored in memory?
Retrieval
What must be done effectively in order to retrieve information?
Encoded and stored
What is focusing on one piece of information and ignoring others, allowing us to eliminate interference from the other relevant background information?
Selective attention
What three categories does the storage of information involve?
1) Maintenance rehearsal
2) elaborative rehearsal
3) metamemory
What is a mental repetition of information to store it in memory?
Maintenance rehearsal
What is the kind of coding in which new information is related to information that is already known as a way to store it in memory?
Elaborative rehearsal
What is self awareness of the ways in which memory functions, allowing the person to encode, store, and retrieve information effectively?
Meta-memory
According to the Atkinson-Shiffrin model, what are the three interactive memory systems?
1) Sensory memory
2) short term memory
3) long-term memory
What is the memory system that hold information coming through the senses for a period of time?
Sensory memory
Which sensory memory lasts the longest?
Olfactory
What involves breaking down a memory to better remember it?
Chunking
What is encoding a stimulus or group of stimuli is a distinct piece of information, grouping stimuli together?
Chunking
What is a strategy to increase the amount of information retained in short term memory?
Chunking
What is the process that keeps information in short term memory?
Rehearsal
What requires retrieving information from memory without the help of retrieval cues in memory?
Recall
What are nonsense syllables presented in tasks that measure recall?
Paired Associates
What uses currently presented information to retrieve identical information from memory?
Recognition
How do psychologists measure recognition?
Using nonsense syllables
What is the tendency to learn information faster the second time it is presented as compared to the first time you learned it, even though you may not recall it or recognize it?
Relearning
What is the difference between the number of repetitions originally required to learn list to relearn the list is calculated
Method of savings
What is the difference between the number of repetitions originally required to learn a list and the number of repetitions required to relearn the list?
Savings
What is the percentage of time or learning trial saved and re-learning material over the amount of time or number of learning trials taken in the original learning?
Relearning saving score
What does the relearning saving score say about our memory?
Even things we made on immediately understand, we are somehow capable of and coding, storage and retrieval when necessary
What is the stage of memory first and countered by a stimulus?
Sensory memory
What is an assumed change in the nervous system that reflects the impression made by stimulus?
Memory trace
What’s a mental representation of a visual stimulus referred to as an icon?
Iconic memory
What is the ability to retain the image of a visual stimulus for several minutes, and very rare in most people?
Eidetic imagery
What is a mental representation of sound referred to as echoes?
Echoic memory
Do memory traces of echoes or icons last longer?
Echoes
What is the stage of memory the holes information briefly after the trace of the stimulus decays?
Short term memory
What is another more recent an accurate term to describe short term memory?
Working memory
How many pieces of information can be held in short term memory one time?
Seven, plus or minus 2
What is the third memory system with a capacity for relatively permanent storage that is unlimited?
Long term memory
Which stage of memory is reconstruction and can easily be distorted?
Long term memory
How does information get into long-term memory?
Rehearsal
What are the two sub systems of long-term memory?
Declarative and non-declarative memory
What is the subsystem of within long-term memory the store specific information and facts or general knowledge about her personal life experience?
Declarative memory
Which subsystem of long-term memory is also known as explicit memory?
Declarative memory
What is memory that you suggested but not plainly expressed, as illustrated in the things that people do but do not state clearly?
Implicit memory
What is the activation of specific associations in our memory?
Priming
What is a part of declarative memory the stores the memory of the events of your life?
Episodic memory
What is the part of declarative memory that stores general knowledge and information or objective facts we know about?
Semantic memory
What is the subsystem within long-term memory that consists of skills required to repetitive practice, habits, and simple classically conditioned responses?
Non-declarative memory
Which subsystem of long-term memory is also known as implicit memory?
Non-declarative memory
What is the tendency to recall the first and last items in a series more accurately than items in the middle?
Serial-position effect
What is recalling first items or stimuli?
Primacy effect
What is recalling last items or stimuli?
Recency effect
Why is information at the beginning of a sequence more likely to be recalled, known as primacy effect?
It has already been placed in the long term memory
Why does information at the end of the sequence have a higher probability of being recalled, known as recency effect?
It is still in short term memory
What does State-Dependent memories say about the retrieval of information?
Retrieval of information is easier when a person is in the same biological or emotional context or state is one originally acquiring the memory
The prevention of _________ can interfere with short term memory
Rehearsal
What is a theory of forgetting that holds that the memory trace, if not used, disappears with the passage of time?
Decay theory
What is the cause of memory loss that occurs when information or associations store to either before or after a given memory hinder our ability to remember it?
Interference
What are the two subtypes of interference?
1) Proactive interference - before 2) retroactive interference - after
What is a way of mentally representing the world (belief or expectation) that can influence our perceptions of persons, objects and situations?
Schema
What is the single memory system model in which retention depends on how deeply information is processed?
Level of processing model
What did Lockhart and Craik suggest about remembering things for a moment versus a lifetime?
Depends on how deeply we process the information
What are seven reasons for memory failure?
1) Encoding failure
2) consolidation failure
3) decay Theory
4) interference Theory
5) motivated forgetting
6) retrieval theory
7) prospective forgetting
What is forgetting resulting from material never have been put in to long-term memory?
Encoding Failure
What is any disruption in the consolidation process that prevents a permanent memory from forming?
Consolidation Failure
What is a theory of forgetting that holds the memory trace, if not used, disappears with the passage of time?
Decay theory
What is the cause of memory loss of the current information or association store either before or after given memory hinder our ability to remember it?
Interference
What occurs when information or experiences already stored in long-term memory hinder our ability to remember newer information?
Proactive interference
What occurs my new learning or experience interferes with our ability to remember information previously stored?
Retroactive interference
What happens when one’s ability to remember or to perform an act in the future is interfered with at a certain time or when a certain event occurs
Prospective interference
What is memory for past events, activities, and learning experiences?
Retrospective interference
What includes for getting through either repression or through dissociative amnesia (suppression) in order to protect oneself from material that is too painful, anxiety or guilt producing, or otherwise unpleasant?
Motivated forgetting
What is automatic injection of disturbing, guilt provoking, or otherwise unpleasant memories from unconsciousness so they are no longer aware that a painful event ever occurred?
Repression
What is a partial or complete dissociative amnesia thought to stem from a brain trauma or a psychological trauma?
Dissociative amnesia
What does retrieval of information from long-term memory involve?
Reconstruction
What is memory reconstruction influenced by?
Logic, reasoning, and the addition of new information
What can memory reconstruction cause?
Distortions such as schema distortion
What is a memory that is not exactly a replica of an event but has been pieced together from a few highlights, with information that may or may not be accurate?
Reconstruction
When studying memory, which psychologist concluded that people systematically distort and confuse the facts of circumstances and experiences?
Bartlett
What is the reconstruction of information based on, called confabulation?
1) Recalled key elements
2) information inferred from one thing to another
3) other existing knowledge
4) retrieval cues
5) biases, presumptions, assumptions
6) source amnesia/source missattribution
What is likely to occur when an event is imagined?
Errors in confabulation
Why are eyewitness testimonies often unreliable?
errors in confabulation, misinformation, cross-contamination and peripheral details and stress
Why does recovering repressed memories have a lot of controversy in the psychological community?
It isn’t clear if they are real memories or not, they may be nothing more than false memories
What’s the tendency to remember events with extreme vivid detail that is distinctive and emotionally strong?
Flashbulb memory
What is the feeling of knowing that certain information is in memory but not being able to retrieve it?
Tip of the tongue phenomenon
What is the loss of memory as a result of brain injury, such as damage to the hippocampus?
Amnesia
What might you have when you’re unable to remember events that occur after physical trauma because of the effects of the trauma?
Anterograde amnesia
What might you have when you’re unable to remember events that occur before the physical trauma because of the effects of the trauma?
Retrograde amnesia
What is a way that people remember material better and longer?
Over learning it
Which studying has been found more effective?
1) over several different sessions (spaced practice)
2) cramming (massed practice)
Spaced practice
