Chapter 7 Flashcards
Define memory
The retention of information or experience over time as the result of three key processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval.
How does memory work?
Take in information (encoding)
Store it or represent it in some manner (storage)
Retrieve it for a later purposes (retrieval)
Define divided attention and sustained attention
Divided: Concentrating on more than one activity at the same time
Sustained: The ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time.
Define levels of processing
A continuum of memory processing from shallow to intermediate to deep, with deeper processing producing better memory.
What happens at each level of processing?
Shallow: Physical and perceptual features are analyzed (lines and angles make up the appearance of a car)
Intermediate: Stimulus is recognized and labelled (Object recognized as a car)
Deep: Meaningful and symbolic characteristics are associated with the car
Define elaboration
The formation of a number of different connections around a stimulus at any given level of memory encoding.
Dual code hypothesis
Memory for pictures is better than memory for words
Atkinson–Shiffrin theory
Theory stating that memory storage involves three separate systems: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory
What is sensory memory
Memory system that involves holding information from the world in its original sensory form for only an instant, not much longer than the brief time it is exposed to the visual, auditory, and other senses.
Echoic memory
Auditory sensory memory
Iconic memory
Visual sensory memory
short-term memory
Limited-capacity memory system in which information is usually retained for only as long as 30 seconds unless the individual uses strategies to retain it longer
Two ways to improve short term memory
Chunking: Grouping or “packing” information into higher order units that can be remembered as single units
Rehearsal: Conscious repetition of information
working memory
A combination of components, including short-term memory and attention, that allow individuals to hold information temporarily as they perform cognitive tasks; a kind of mental workbench on which the brain manipulates and assembles information to guide understanding, decision making, and problem solving
Three components of Baddeley’s model
Phonological loop: Specialized to store speech based information about the sounds of language - contains two separate components (Acoustic cord and rehearsal)
Visuo-spatial sketchpad: Stores visual and spatial information including visual imagery
Central executive: Integrates information not only from the other 2 components but from long term memory
Define long term memory
A relatively permanent type of memory that stores huge amounts of information for a long time.
What is long term memory divided into?
Explicit memory and implicit memory
What is explicit memory (declarative memory) and what is it divided into?
The conscious recollection of information, such as specific facts or events and, at least in humans, information that can be verbally communicated.
Divided into Episodic and semantic memory
What is episodic memory?
The retention of information about the where, when, and what of life’s happenings—that is, how individuals remember life’s episodes
What is semantic memory?
A person’s knowledge about the world, including their areas of expertise; general knowledge, such as of things learned in school, and everyday knowledge.
What is implicit memory and what is it divided into?
Memory in which behaviour is affected by prior experience without a conscious recollection of that experience.
Divided into procedural memory, priming and classical conditioning
What is procedural memory?
Memory for skills
What is priming?
The activation of information that people already have in storage to help them remember new information better and faster.
What is a schema?
A pre-existing mental concept or framework that helps people to organize and interpret information. Schemas from prior encounters with the environment influence the way individuals encode, make inferences about, and retrieve information
connectionism, or parallel distributed processing (PDP)
The theory that memory is stored throughout the brain in connections among neurons, several of which may work together to process a single memory
Parts of the cerebral cortex and what type of memory it functions for?
Frontal lobes: Episodic memory
Amygdala: Emotional memory
Temporal lobes: Explicit memory and priming
Hippocampus: Explicit memory and priming
Cerebellum: Implicit memory
represents that portion of original learning that appears destined to stay with the person virtually forever, even without rehearsal
Permastore memory
Memory retrieval
The memory process that occurs when information that was retained in memory comes out of storage
serial position effect
The tendency to recall the items at the beginning and end of a list more readily than those in the middle.
autobiographical memory
A special form of episodic memory, consisting of a person’s recollections of their life experiences
flashbulb memory
The memory of emotionally significant events that people often recall with more accuracy and vivid imagery than everyday events.
motivated forgetting
Forgetting that occurs when something is so painful or anxiety-laden that remembering it is intolerable.
Encoding specificity principle
Information present at the time of encoding or learning tends to be effective
Context dependent memory
People attempt to recall information in the same context in which they learned it
Encoding failure
Occurs when information never enters long term memory
interference theory
The theory that people forget not because memories are lost from storage but because other information gets in the way of what they want to remember.
proactive interference
Situation in which material that was learned earlier disrupts the recall of material that was learned later.
retroactive interference
Situation in which material that was learned later disrupts the retrieval of information that was learned earlier
decay theory
States that when an individual learns something new a neurochemical memory trace forms, but over time this trace disintegrates; suggests that the passage of time always increases forgetting
tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon
A type of effortful retrieval associated with a person’s feeling that they know something (say, a word or a name) but cannot quite pull it out of memory
retrospective memory
Remembering information from the past.
prospective memory
Remembering information about doing something in the future; includes memory for intentions
anterograde amnesia
A memory disorder that affects the retention of new information and events
retrograde amnesia
Memory loss for a segment of the past but not for new events.
