Chapter 6 - Memory Processes

Question 1

Consolidation

Answer 1

Making associations between new information and old information.

Question 2

Metamemory strategies

Answer 2

Reflecting on our own memory processes to improve our memory. Especially important when practicing information for long-term storage.

Question 3

Massed practice

Answer 3

Lots of learning in short amounts of time.

Question 4

Distributed practice

Answer 4

Learning in various sessions spaced out over time, preferably months, leads to better retaining than massed practice - the spacing effect.

Question 5

Elaborative rehearsal

Answer 5

Elaborating on the items to be remembered, making the items more meaningfully connected or integrated to past knowledge.

Question 6

Maintenance rehearsal

Answer 6

Simply repeating the items to be remembered.

Question 7

Retrospective memory

Answer 7

Memory for things in the past.

Question 8

Prospective memory

Answer 8

Memory for things in the future (that we need to do or remember).

Question 9

Reconsolidation

Answer 9

Consolidation of previously encoded material.

Question 10

Parallel processing

Answer 10

The simultaneous handling of multiple operations - all items stored in short-term memory retrieved all at once. Retrieval times would be the same regardless of how many items are presented.

Question 11

Serial processing

Answer 11

Operations being done after another - items are retrieved in succession. The more items presented, the longer it should take to retrieve them.

Question 12

Exhaustive serial processing

Answer 12

The person always checks the test item against all items in the set presented, even if a match was found partway through the list. Positive responses would take the same amount of time, no matter were the test item was in the original list.

Question 13

Self-terminating serial processing

Answer 13

The person checks the test item only against the items needed to make a response, and once the test item is located, the process is terminated. The later the serial position, the longer the response time.

Question 14

Interference theory

Answer 14

Forgetting that occurs because recall of certain words interferes with recall of other words.

Question 15

Retroactive interference

Answer 15

When newly acquired knowledge impedes the recall of older material. Caused by activity occurring after we learn something, but before we are asked to recall that thing.

Question 16

Proactive interference

Answer 16

When material learned in the past impedes the learning of new material. The interfering material occurs before, rather than after, learning of the new material.

Question 17

Release from proactive interference

Answer 17

When remembering something, if the stimuli shifts to a different kind, performance will rebound.

Question 18

The serial-position curve

Answer 18

Curve that represents the probability of recall of a given word, given its serial position in a list. Recall is typically better for the last presented words, and the first presented words (recency and primacy effects). Words at the end of the list are subject to proactive, not retroactive interference, and vice versa with words at the beginning of the list. Words in the middle are subject to both, so recall of these words are poorest.

Question 19

Decay theory:

Answer 19

Information is forgotten because of the gradual disappearance, rather than displacement, of the memory trace. The information is gradually disappearing unless something is done to keep it intact.

Question 20

Flashbulb memories

Answer 20

Vivid memories of an extremely powerful (negative or positive) event, as if it were captured on film.

Question 21

Source-monitoring error

Answer 21

Attributing a memory derived from one source to another source.

Question 22

Encoding specificity

Answer 22

What is recalled depends on what is encoded. The LOP principle can be overridden by encoding specificity, as shallow level memories can easily be recalled in that same context.

Question 23

Mnemonic devices

Answer 23

Devices to improve memory retention, including categorical clustering, interactive images, pegword system, method of loci, acronyms, acrostics, and keyword system.

Question 24

Schacter’s seven sins of memory

Answer 24

1. Transience - memory fades quickly.
2. Absent-mindedness.
3. Blocking - inability to retrieve information “at the tip of the tongue”.
4. Misattribution - people cannot remember where they heard/saw/read something, or think they saw or heard things that they did not really see or hear.
5. Suggestibility - people are susceptible to suggestion, and if it is suggested to them that something happened, they may believe it actually did.
6. Bias - people remember events important to them more than other events.
7. Persistence - people remember things as consequential, when they were not actually.