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PSY100 > Chapter 7 > Flashcards

Chapter 7 Flashcards

1
Q

What is memory and its 3 important processes?

A

The retention of information or experience over time. Encoding, storage and retrieval.

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2
Q

What is encoding?

A

The process by which information gets into memory storage.

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3
Q

What are 2 ways attention may be distributed?

A

Divided attention: involves concentrating on more than one activity at a time
Sustained attention (vigilance): the ability to maintain attention to a certain stimulus for a long period of time.

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4
Q

What are the effects of Divided attention on encoding?

A

Divided attention is detrimental to encoding. Negative consequences for learning and memory

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5
Q

What are the levels of processing

A

They are continuums of memory processing.
Shallow processing: noting physical features of a stimulus. (observing the shapes of letters making up “mom”)
Intermediate processing: involves giving the stimulus a label (reading the word mom)
Deepest level: entails thinking about the meaning of the stimulus. (thinking of your mom and her features)

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6
Q

What is Elaboration? Its effects on memory?

A

It refers to the formation of different pathways around a stimulus. It is kind of like creating a huge spider web of links between some new information and everything that is already known.
The more elaborate the processing, the better the memory.

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7
Q

What are some things that happen in the background when we elaborate on a topic during encoding?

A

We are laying a pathway to help us retrieve the information. the more paths, the more likely it is we will remember the information.
Greater elaboration of information is linked with neural activity, especially in the left frontal lobe. Hippocampus is also activated.

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8
Q

Mental imagery?

A

means that a person makes up pictures that are related with each thing that needs to be remembered.

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9
Q

Allan Pavio argues that memory is stored in 2 ways. What are they? What is his dual code hypothesis?

A

He argues that memories are either stored as a verbal or an image code.
His dual code hypothesis claims that memory for pictures is better than memory for words because pictures are stored as both image and verbal codes. Thus we have 2 potential avenues in which we can retrieve the memory through.

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10
Q

What is memory storage?

A

The retention of information over time and how its represented in memory

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11
Q

Atkinson-Shiffrin theory?

A

states that memory storage involves 3 separate systems:
Sensory memory (fraction of a second to several seconds)
Short-term memory (up to 30 seconds)
Long-term memory (up to a lifetime)

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12
Q

What is sensory memory?

A

a system of memory that holds information from the world in its original sensory form for just a small amount of time.
It is very rich and detailed, but we lose the information quickly unless it is transferred to short or long term memory

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13
Q

What is Echoic memory?

A

refers to auditory sensory memory which is retained up to several seconds. (when you weren’t paying attention to what your friend is saying, but when they stop talking you can tell them what their last couple of words were)

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14
Q

What is Iconic memory?

A

Refers to visual sensory memory that is retained for about 1/4 of a second. It’s how you can write letters with light.
Residual iconic memory is what makes a moving point of light appear to be a line.

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15
Q

What is Short-term memory?

A

It is a limited capacity memory system in which information is usually retained for only up to 30 secs unless strategies.

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16
Q

What is the limit of how much information an average individual can keep track of without external aids?

A

7+-2

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17
Q

What does Memory span refer to?

A

It refers to the number of digits someone can report back in order after a single presentation of them.

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18
Q

What is Chunking?

A

It is a way to improve short-term memory. It involves grouping information that exceeds the 7+-2 memory span into single units.

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19
Q

What is Rehearsal? Why does it often not work?

A

It is the conscious repetition of information. It is because it involves mechanical repeating the information without imparting meaning to it. (shows the importance of elaborate processing)

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20
Q

What does the Atkinson-Shiffrin theory fail to capture?

A

It fails to capture the dynamic way short-term memory functions. You do not simply store information, rather you attend to it, manipulate it and use it to solve problems

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21
Q

What is Working Memory?

A

It refers to the combination of components (include short-term memory and attention) that allow us to hold information temporarily as we perform cognitive tasks.

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22
Q

What is something that distinguishes short-term memory and working memory? What is the average working memory’s capacity limit?

A

Short-term memory is a passive storehouse with shelves to store memory in until it moves to long-term memory. Working memory is an active memory system. The brain manipulates information to help us understand, make decisions and solve problems.
4+-1 Complex Chunks

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23
Q

Alan Baddeley proposed a 3 part model of working memory. What are the 3 parts?

A

Phonological loop: specialized to briefly store speech-based info about sounds and language. Consists of an Acoustic Code (sounds we heard) and Rehearsal which allows us to repeat the words in phonological order.
Visuo-spatial sketchpad: stores visual and spatial info. The phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad function independently.
Central Executive: Combines info from the previous 2 functions and also from long-term memory. It plays important role in attention, planning and organizing. It monitors what needs to be ignored/not. Also selects strategies to process information and solve problems.
ALL 3 HAVE LIMITED CAPACITIES

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24
Q

What is Long-term memory?

A

Almost permanent type of memory system that stores huge amounts of information for a long time.

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25
Q

What are the substructures of Long-term memory?

A

Explicit memory which can be further divided into episodic and semantic memory
Implicit memory which can be further divided into procedural memory, classical conditioning and priming.
You can think of explicit memory as the memories of past events while implicit memory is the memory of how to do things.

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26
Q

What is Explicit (declarative) memory?

A

It is the conscious recollection of information such as specific facts and events

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27
Q

What is Permastore memory?

A

It is the portion of original learning that appears destined to stay with the person virtually forever, even without rehearsal.

28
Q

What is Episodic memory? Which part of the brain activates when

A

It is the retention of information about the where, when, and what of life’s happenings (how we remember life’s episodes)
For example, it includes the details of where you were when your younger siblings were born, what happened on your first date or what you ate for morning.
When we think about past experiences, activation in hippocampus restores activity associated with those memories.

29
Q

What is Semantic memory?

A

It is a type of explicit memory pertaining to a person’s knowledge about the world.
An important aspect is that it appears to be independent of an individual’s personal identity with the past. You can remember a fact while not knowing when you learned it.

30
Q

What is Implicit (nondeclarative) memory?

A

It is memory in which behavior is affected by prior experience without a conscious recollection of that experience. (When you have heard something so many time you gave memorized it without trying)

31
Q

What is Procedural memory?

A

An implicit memory process that involves memory for skills.

32
Q

What is Classical conditioning in the context of implicit memory?

A

Classical conditioning associations in memory involve non-conscious implicit memory. You evoke the same response for 2 associated stimuli. For example you might like the person who sits next to you cuz she is around you while having fun.

33
Q

What is Priming?

A

It is the activation of information that people already have stored to help them remember new information better and faster.

34
Q

What is a Schema?

A

It is a preexisting mental concept that helps people to organize and interpret information.

35
Q

What is a Script?

A

It is a schema for an event. They often have info about physical features, people and typical occurrences. For example if you’re eating out, you know that when a man in a black tuxedo hands you a paper, its the waiter giving you the cheque.

36
Q

What is Connectionism (parallel distributed processing)

A

It is the theory that memory is stored throughout the brain in connection among neurons, several of which work together to process a single memory.

37
Q

How does the Connectionist process work?

A

A neural activity involving memory is spread across the cerebral cortex. The locations of neural activity (nodes) are interconnected. When a node reaches a critical level of activation, it can affect another node across synapses.

38
Q

What does the neuroscience of memory suggest?

A

It suggests that rather than being stored in one place in the brain, memories are processes: they are represented as connection throughout the brain, states of brain activity, recreating the brain’s function when experience first took place.

39
Q

Can neurotransmitters be involved in memory? If so, state a study that has been done to prove that

A

Yes. Researchers took a sea slug and shocked its gill. They determined that the neurotransmitter serotonin was released at the synapses of its nervous system. It provides a reminder that the gill was shocked.

40
Q

What is long term potentiation?

A

It is a concept used to explain how memory functions at the neuron level. It states that if 2 neurons are activated at the same time, the connection between them, and thus the memory, is strengthened.

41
Q

What brain parts are involved in explicit memory?

A

The hippocampus, the temporal lobes and other areas of limbic.

42
Q

What is retrospective memory? Prospective? Which parts are involved in both? Which part is involved in emotional memories?

A

Retrospective memory is remembering things from the past.
Prospective memory is remembering things that need to be done in the future. Information transmitted from hippocampus to frontal lobes are involved in both.
Left frontal lobe is especially active when encoding new information into memory while right frontal lobe is more active when we retrieve that info.
Amygdala.

43
Q

What is Memory Retrieval? What impacts memory retrieval?

A

A process that takes place when information that was retained in memory comes out of storage.
It depends heavily on the circumstances under which the memory was encoded and the way it was retained.

44
Q

What is the serial position effect? Primacy and recency effects?

A

It is the tendency to recall items at the beginning and end of a list more readily than those in the middle.
Primacy effect refers to better recall for items at the beginning of a list.
Recency refers to better recall for items at the end of a list.

45
Q

Explain why primacy and recency effects occur.

A

The first few items are easily remembered because they are rehearsed more OR because they receive more elaborative processing than other words that come after.
The last few items might still be in working memory AND the fact that they were just encounters make them easier to recall.

46
Q

What 2 factors are involved in retrieval?

A

The nature of the cues that can prompt your memory and the retrieval task that you set for yourself. (For example remembering you saw someone vs remembering their details is harder)

47
Q

What is Recall? Recognition?

A

It is a memory task in which the individual has to retrieve previously learned information.
Memory task in which the individual only has to identify learned items.

48
Q

What does the Encoding Specificity Principle state?

A

It states that information present at the time of encoding acts as an effective retrieval cue. (You know your prof cuz you seem them in the classroom but if you encounter them in public you might struggle to remember them)

49
Q

What is context-dependent memory?

A

It is when people remember better when they attempt to recall information in the same context in which they learned it. (A study was done with scuba divers learning on land and in water. Their recall was much better when the encoding and retrieval environments were the same)

50
Q

What is autobiographical memory?
Its 3 levels?

A

It is a special form of episodic memory. It is a person’s recollection of his or her life experiences.
Life-time periods: the most abstract level. (something abt your life in high school)
General events: is the middle level (trip you took in high school)
Event-specific knowledge: the most concrete level (The fun experience when you jet-skied in high school)

51
Q

What is reminiscence bump?

A

It is the effect that adults remember more events from the second and third decades of life more than other decades. This may be because we forge a sense of identity in our 20s or that they are the times in our lived where the most important life events happen.

52
Q

What is flashbulb memory? Does the proximity in which these events where encounter affect that accuracy of the memory?

A

the memory of emotionally significant events that people often recall with more accuracy and vivid imagery than everyday events.
Yes, research on memories for 9/11 attacks showed that physical proximity affected the accuracy of the memory positively. Some aspects of the memory change over time.
We are more likely to remember our own personal experiences of the event rather than the event itself.

53
Q

What accounts for vividness and durability of traumatic events?

A

The release of stress-related hormones signaled by the amygdala.

54
Q

What is repression?

A

It is a defense mechanism by which a person is so traumatized by an event that they forgets it, then forgets the act of forgetting.

55
Q

What is repression a special case of?

A

It is a special case of motivated regretting: occurs when individuals forget something because remembering it is intolerable.

56
Q

Why are eye-witness testimonies very unreliable?
What us a way to minimize error of eye-witness testimonies?

A

It is faulty due to memory fading or racial bias.
The use of doubled-blind procedures. Meaning the police do not have any knowledge of the case or of which individual is suspected.
And presenting suspects one by one is less likely to produce errors than presenting them all at once.

57
Q

What is encoding failure?

A

When someone forgets something, they never encoded the information in the first place. encoding failure occurs when the information was never entered into long-term memory.

58
Q

What are some causes of retrieval failure?

A

Problems with information in storage, effects of time, personal reasons for remembering or forgetting, and the brain’s condition.

59
Q

What is inference and inference theory?

A

Inference is one reason that people forget. The theory states that people forget not because memories are lost from storage but because other information gets in the way of what they want to remember.

60
Q

What are 2 kinds of inference?

A

Proactive inference: occurs when material that was learned earlier disrupts the recall of “pro material”, material presents forward in time.
Retroactive interference: Occurs when material learned later disrupts the recall of information learned earlier.

61
Q

What is decay theory?

A

A theory that explains a a possible reason of forgetting. When we learn something new, a neurochemical memory trace forms, but it decays over time.

62
Q

What is the tip-of-the tongue phenomenon?

A

It is a type of effortful retrieval that occurs when we are confident that we know something but cannot pull it out of memory.
It arises when we can retrieve some of the desired information but not all of it. Research showed that the sound of words are linked in memory, even if the meanings are not (bandage and bandana example)

63
Q

What is prospective memory and what does it include?

A

It involved remembering information about doing something in the future. Includes both timing (the time we gotta do something) and content (what we have to do).

64
Q

What is time/event based prospective memory?
Which is more reliable?

A

Time-based prospective memory: our intention to engage in a given behavior after a specific amount of time.
Event-based prospective memory: we engage in the intended behavior when some external event or cue elicits it.
The cues in event-based makes it more reliable. Failures in prospective memory is “absentmindedness”

65
Q

What is Anterograde and Retrograde amnesia?

A

Anterograde: memory disorder that affects the retention of new information.
Retrograde: involves memory loss for a segment of past events.

66
Q

What are some study tips from the science of memory?

A
  1. Organize: organized information is easier to remember
  2. Encode: use chunking and imagery. NO DIVIDED ATTENTION
  3. Rehearse: Talk to people about what you have learnt. While reading, ask yourself questions.
  4. Retrieve: use retrieval cues. Stay calm.
67
Q

What are redemptive and contamination stories?

A

They are stories formed from autobiographical memories.
Redemptive stories describe important life experiences that go from bad to good. Contamination stories are the opp.

PSY100 (11 decks)

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